Underachieving 2025-26 Preseason Contenders Still Capable of March Madness Runs
Most of the preseason favorites to win the 2026 men's NCAA tournament—Houston, Florida, Connecticut, etc.—are still looking like excellent candidates to do just that.
Some, however, have fallen by the wayside, failing to even remotely live up to their potential.
But which ones are candidates to bounce back?
To identify the set of teams for this discussion, we looked at all 29 teams that were top 25 heading into the season, either on KenPom or in the AP poll.
From that group, we eliminated the 19 teams from consideration whose current projected overall seed is either better than or fewer than 13 spots (i.e., three seed lines or less), worse than the better of their two preseason rankings. We also removed the two teams (Creighton and Ole Miss) who have no realistic hope of making the dance without a miracle run to their league's auto bid, leaving us with eight underachievers who maybe could still do some damage.
Those teams are presented in alphabetical order.
Auburn Tigers
1 of 8
Preseason: No. 20 in AP poll; No. 31 on KenPom
Current Projection: No. 33 overall (No. 9 seed)
What Went Wrong?
The funny thing about Auburn being on this list is that the Tigers are exactly the team that Pomeroy's metrics believed them to be, currently ranked 31st in those tempo-free metrics. But the No. 1 overall seed in last year's dance got maybe a little too much love from the AP voters.
Really, though, what went wrong was that Bruce Pearl scheduled a bit too aggressively before bequeathing the team to his son, Steven.
Just in nonconference play, Auburn played (and lost) games away from home against Arizona, Michigan, Houston, and Purdue. The Tigers also won a neutral game against St. John's and a home game against NC State before embarking on an SEC gauntlet that has caused their loss total to balloon to 10.
With Johni Broome, Dylan Cardwell, and every key player except for Tahaad Pettiford out of the picture, they simply haven't had the defense they had last year.
Reason to Believe?
I mean, Auburn won a true road game against Florida a couple of weeks ago. That's pretty darn impressive. The defending national champions are otherwise 40-2 at home over the past three seasons, and that's pretty much the only misstep the Gators have had in a couple of months.
The Tigers also draw fouls and crash the offensive glass as well as any team in the nation, and they certainly won't be pushed around by anyone.
We'll see if they can get stops, though. They seemed to catch Florida on an afternoon where Thomas Haugh was the only player allowed to make a bucket, but they've often struggled to hold opponents below 80 points.
Baylor Bears
2 of 8
Preseason: Unranked in AP poll; No. 17 on KenPom
Current Projection: Nowhere close, but not entirely out of the conversation
What Went Wrong?
Not only did Baylor lose every single player who appeared in a game last season, but it also lost one of its most important acquisitions before he had a chance to play.
Big man Juslin Bodo Bodo was supposed to be a major presence in the paint for the Bears, similar to Josh Ojianwuna last year, or in a dream world, even as impactful as Yves Missi was in 2023-24. But he suffered an arm injury over the summer and will miss the entire season.
This is largely why Scott Drew threw up a Hail Mary in controversially bringing James Nnaji in from the G League before conference play began, but he has been a complete non-factor for a team with a major frontcourt depth problem.
Reason to Believe?
If Baylor makes the tournament—which is questionable, at best—the dynamic duo of Cameron Carr and Tounde Yessoufou could put on a show. They combined for 35 points in the early win over San Diego State, 40 in the road win over Oklahoma State, and racked up 46 points, 15 rebounds, and seven assists in the recent rout of Colorado.
Who else will show up is anyone's guess, and an imposing big man could have a field day against this frontcourt. (See: Flory Bidunga going for 23 points, 11 rebounds, and five blocks last month.) But Drew is a darn good coach who won a title five years ago and maybe can guide the Bears to a bit of a run.
BYU Cougars
3 of 8
Preseason: No. 8 in AP poll; No. 18 on KenPom
Current Projection: No. 25 overall (No. 7 seed)
What Went Wrong?
For a good while, not much went wrong for BYU.
It did establish a bad habit of digging itself into big first-half holes, but it rallied time and again from those deficits en route to a 16-1 start in which the only loss was a two-point game at UConn—in which they almost came all the way back from 20 points down.
All of a sudden, though, those comeback attempts started falling short, and the Cougars were instead the ones getting outplayed down the stretch in losses to Texas Tech, Houston, and Oklahoma State amid dropping five of six games.
They plummeted from a projected No. 2 seed to a No. 7 seed, thanks to a lack of marquee wins during that 16-1 start.
Reason to Believe?
Having a player like AJ Dybantsa sure is a fantastic starting point. Flanking him with Rob Wright III and Richie Saunders is even better. And Keba Keita is one heck of a force in the paint as an accomplice to that big three.
The problem as of late has been the defense, and getting anyone outside of that quartet to make any sort of impact.
But BYU sure does look the part of a team that could go on a deep run, even though it has yet to score a single win over a particularly noteworthy foe.
Kentucky Wildcats
4 of 8
Preseason: No. 9 in AP poll; No. 4 on KenPom
Current Projection: No. 20 overall (No. 5 seed)
What Went Wrong?
Injuries played a huge role in Kentucky's disappointing 9-6 start.
In a perfect world, Jaland Lowe, Jayden Quaintance, and Mouhamed Dioubate would've started every game for the Wildcats, and this team would be a freight train at this point. Instead, the first two barely got on the court because of injuries, while the third missed five games early in the year as Kentucky was still finding its footing.
A few other minor injuries have resulted in 11 different players tallying at least one start while Big Blue Nation went through the ringer for the first 10 weeks of the campaign.
Reason to Believe?
For a while there, Kentucky was on the bubble, and arguably on the wrong side of it.
But the Wildcats have turned a corner, sweeping Tennessee, winning at Arkansas, and scoring what has become a key neutral-site victory over St. John's—when the Wildcats were at their healthiest point of the entire season.
They're still nowhere near the ceiling we thought they'd hit when the season began, but they've adjusted to life after Lowe and Quaintance and are figuring out how to win games. They are in drastically better shape for a protected seed than they were two months ago.
Let's see about those two remaining games against Florida, though. Those performances could really clue us in on whether this team is gearing up for its first Final Four run since 2015.
St. John's Red Storm
5 of 8
Preseason: No. 5 in AP poll; No. 16 on KenPom
Current Projection: No. 18 overall (No. 5 seed)
What Went Wrong?
More than anything, what went wrong here was the AP voters taking a "Yeah, there's no point guard on the roster, but Rick Pitino is still the coach" approach with those preseason ballots, but not having a natural lead guard for early games against the likes of Alabama, Iowa State, Auburn and Kentucky was always liable to be a problem.
The Johnnies failed all four of those tests and also lost a home game to Providence in early January. Along the way, their best win came against a Baylor team that probably won't make the tournament. So there were serious questions about this team at roughly the midpoint of the regular season.
They finally flipped a switch, though, cutting down on the turnovers that plagued them early in the year—Who would have guessed that turnovers might be a problem without a designated point guard?—and winning 10 in a row (and counting).
Reason to Believe?
They've been hot for a while, they have one of the most brilliant coaching minds in the business, and this Frankenstein's Monster of a roster of position-less players has really come together in a tantalizing way.
Putting Dillon Mitchell back into the starting lineup was the big turning point. The 5-star recruit from all the way back in the 2022 class has averaged 10.2 points, 9.0 rebounds, and 3.3 assists during the 10-game winning streak, and he was huge with 15 points in the marquee win over Connecticut.
If Pitino can also get former 5-star recruit Ian Jackson to lock in before the NCAA tournament begins, giddy up.
UCLA Bruins
6 of 8
Preseason: No. 12 in AP poll; No. 10 on KenPom
Current Projection: No. 42 overall (No. 11 seed)
What Went Wrong?
Donovan Dent was one of the most coveted transfers in the entire country last offseason, but going from New Mexico's break-neck pace to UCLA's snail-like tempo took some getting used to.
Dent was also injured early in the season and was particularly not himself for that resume-damaging loss to California in November. (UCLA's leading scorer, Tyler Bilodeau, missed that game, too.)
Over the past six games, though, Dent is at 17.5 PPG, 9.0 APG, and 1.3 TO for a Bruins team that might be rounding into form just in time for the preposterous seven-game gauntlet to close out the regular season—at Michigan, at Michigan State, vs. Illinois, vs. USC, at Minnesota, vs. Nebraska, at USC.
Reason to Believe?
We'll find out pretty soon, won't we?
Thus far, UCLA has one great home win over Purdue and not much else, which is why the seven-loss Bruins find themselves on the bubble.
But they have looked different in recent weeks, and not just because of Dent. Both Trent Perry and Eric Dailey have been much more consistent, stepping up their collective game since Skyy Clark landed on the shelf in early January.
The downside is that depth has become a major problem with Clark out, and we'll see if fatigue does them in at any point during this brutal closing stretch.
As long as they make the tournament—and the selection committee doesn't send Mick Cronin's guys anywhere near the Statue of Liberty—they just might put together another run to the Final Four as a No. 11 seed, like they did in 2021.
USC Trojans
7 of 8
Preseason: Not ranked in AP poll; No. 22 on KenPom
Current Projection: No. 36 overall (No. 9 seed)
What Went Wrong?
Aside from all of the injuries? Oh, not much.
Alijah Arenas made his collegiate debut a few weeks ago, but the 5-star freshman wasn't expected to play at all this season after sustaining major injuries in a car accident in April.
Maryland transfer Rodney Rice was averaging better than 20 points per game when he suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in late November. The Trojans lost Amarion Dickerson to a likely season-ending hip injury two games after losing Rice. And there have been enough bumps, bruises, and illnesses elsewhere throughout the roster that only two players have appeared in every game.
Reason to Believe?
They were able to add Kam Woods as a midseason portal acquisition, which has been huge. He almost single-handedly carried USC to a road win over Iowa, scoring 33 in that one-point loss. And after a slow start through his first few games, Arenas has begun to make a major impact.
They need to get Chad Baker-Mazara back from the knee injury that he suffered last week, but the Trojans are on the brink of having quite the collection of players who can take over a game in a hurry.
If USC can get Arenas and CBM to co-exist as a real one-two scoring punch while Ezra Ausar and Jacob Cofie keep putting in work down low, that could be a fun show in the dance.
Wisconsin Badgers
8 of 8
Preseason: No. 24 in AP poll; No. 20 on KenPom
Current Projection: No. 38 overall (No. 10 seed)
What Went Wrong?
(It should be reminded from the outset here that the "current" projection comes from our Tuesday morning bracket, which was published about 14 hours before Wisconsin's marquee road win over Illinois. The Badgers are probably looking at something more like the No. 30 overall seed at this point. But let's just roll with it.)
Through the first two months, when Wisconsin lost, it lost badly.
We're talking a 9-5 start in which the five losses were by an average margin of 19.0 points.
Both BYU and Nebraska destroyed the Badgers. And Purdue beat them by 16 points at the Kohl Center, which is a margin of defeat Wisconsin hadn't endured at home since the woebegone 2017-18 campaign with a 15-18 record.
Along the way, the Badgers failed to pick up any wins worth writing home about, either, unless a neutral-site victory over this year's Providence team gets you excited for some reason.
Reason to Believe?
While Wisconsin was suffering all those blowout losses, Michigan was blowing out everything in its path. Yet, by some miracle, the Badgers went into Ann Arbor and stole the most impressive road win of the season.
Then on Tuesday night, they won at Illinois to secure another one of the five or so best wins in the nation.
Well, if you can beat both Michigan and Illinois on their home floors, what can't you do?
Wisconsin's somewhat extreme reliance on three-point shooting is concerning, in part because they only shoot 35 percent as a team. But draining 15 triples at Michigan and 16 at Illinois is what enabled the Badgers to pull off those stunners. And when they do shoot better than 25 percent from distance, they've been almost unbeatable at 16-2 with both losses coming in overtime.
