Ranking College Basketball Teams Most Likely to Finish Unbeaten in Conference

Eleven college basketball teams entered Monday night without a loss in conference play during the 2015-16 season. Only nine finished the evening without a blemish in league play.

Second-ranked North Carolina dropped its first ACC game of the season, losing 71-65 at second-place Louisville. Meanwhile, Atlantic Sun leader North Florida was upset at home by Stetson 86-82 to snap a 12-game conference win streak.

Going unbeaten in league play is very uncommon in college basketball, as only three teams accomplished this feat in each of the previous three seasons. We're guaranteed to have no more than seven such perfect conference records in 2015-16, as two leagues (Ivy and Southland) have a pair of unbeaten teams.

Which schools have the best shot to run the table? We've ranked them in order of their chances, factoring in who they've played to this point and what's left to come before the regular season ends.

Houston Baptist (Southland)

Tony Ding/Associated Press

Record: 14-7, 8-0

Key league wins: vs. Sam Houston State

Game that could end perfection: Feb. 6 vs. Stephen F. Austin

Houston Baptist is having its best season since moving to the Division I level in 2007-08, with its 14 overall wins already matching the most in any year and the eight victories in Southland Conference play being one better than last season. But look closer at those results, and you'll see that the Huskies have loaded up on the weakest teams in the league and face a much tougher second half of the schedule.

The Huskies still have nine games left against teams in the top six of the 13-team conference and one more against the bottom seven. That includes two matchups with Stephen F. Austin, the three-time defending league champion, and two against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

At 216th in the latest KenPom.com rankings, Houston Baptist is rated as the fourth-best team in the Southland despite being tied for first place. 

It's been a great start for this rising program, but going unbeaten isn't in the cards.

Columbia or Yale (Ivy League)

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Record: 15-6, 4-0 (Columbia); 13-5, 4-0 (Yale)

Key league wins: at Harvard (Columbia); vs. Princeton (Yale)

Game that could end perfection: Columbia at Yale (Feb. 5); Yale at Princeton (Feb. 19); Yale at Columbia (March 5)

Just like the Southland Conference, the Ivy League has two teams that have yet to lose in league play. We're pairing Columbia and Yale up, however, since running the table in this conference is rare—Cornell was the last to do so in 2007-08.

With each team still having 10 conference games left, their identical 4-0 starts aren't particularly impressive, and only one will remain perfect after they meet Friday in New Haven, Connecticut.

Yale is 8-0 at home but 4-5 on the road, with its only Ivy road game so far against 6-12 Brown. Columbia has won three of four Ivy games away from home as part of a 11-1 stretch this season, but there are also the trips to Penn and Princeton in late February to get past.

VCU (Atlantic 10)

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Record: 16-5, 8-0

Key league wins: at St. Joseph's

Game that could end perfection: March 5 at Dayton

The Atlantic 10 isn't as strong overall as it was a year ago, but it's still quite top-heavy. That's why for as good as VCU's start to league play looks, it's unlikely to continue to the point that the Rams will go unbeaten.

VCU has won 11 straight games overall, with only three decided by fewer than 10 points, but there are still three more games remaining against A-10 opponents that currently have winning league records. The Rams play George Washington twice and visit Dayton, the only ranked A-10 team, to end the regular season.

The Rams will also have to avoid complacency with four more matchups against the bottom quarter of the league, a group that has jumped up and pulled a few upsets despite their poor overall records. Dayton's only league loss was against 1-7 La Salle, while George Washington fell to 1-7 Saint Louis.

San Diego State (Mountain West)

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Record: 16-6, 9-0

Key league wins: at Boise State, at UNLV

Game that could end perfection: March 1 at New Mexico

At 7-6 after completing its nonconference schedule, San Diego State wasn't looking too good. The Aztecs entered Mountain West play needing to dominate to ensure they'd make the NCAA tournament for a seventh year in a row.

And that's just what they have done, but in their own way.

SDSU's nine Mountain West wins have come by a combined 79 points, including three by three points apiece. It's done this despite shooting only 41.2 percent from the field, which is eighth out of 11 teams, according to Sports-Reference.com. However, the Aztecs hold league opponents to 36.3 percent shooting and 58.6 points per game, tops in the conference for both marks.

The Aztecs still have to play second-place New Mexico twice, with the trip to Albuquerque coming during the final week of the regular season.

Stony Brook (America East)

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Record: 17-4, 8-0

Key league wins: vs. Albany, at New Hampshire, at Vermont

Game that could end perfection: Feb. 17 at Albany

Stony Brook is still searching for its first NCAA tournament bid, falling to Albany in the last two America East Conference tournament finals. That's that Seawolves' ultimate goal, though doing so while also running the table in the league would make for an extra bonus.

The Seawolves take a 13-game winning streak into Wednesday's contest against Binghamton, which they beat by 10 on the road to open the conference slate. Their next four league games are against the bottom four teams in the America East, but then comes a tough final stretch.

Three of Stony Brook's final four games are against the other teams in the league with winning overall records.

Stephen F. Austin (Southland)

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

Record: 15-5, 8-0

Key league wins: at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi

Game that could end perfection: Feb. 6 at Houston Baptist

Stephen F. Austin is the three-time defending regular-season champion in the Southland Conference, a run that has seen it go 64-4 against league opponents since 2012-13. The Lumberjacks have won 17 in a row in the Southland, including conference tourney games, since falling at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi last Valentine's Day, and they avenged that loss Saturday with a five-point road victory.

Despite this dominance, SFA is only tied for the conference lead because upstart Houston Baptist is also 8-0 in league play. Those teams meet Saturday in Houston.

Assuming the Lumberjacks can get past that one, they host Texas A&M-CC on Feb. 13 and have upcoming road games against only two more teams from the upper half of the conference.

Winning at home shouldn't be a problem, as SFA hasn't lost to a Southland foe in Nacogdoches, Texas, since February 2012.

Texas Southern (SWAC)

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Record: 10-11, 9-0 

Key league wins: vs. Alcorn State, at Jackson State, vs. Southern

Game that could end perfection: March 3 at Southern

Don't let the record fool you, Texas Southern might be the best team in the country with a losing record. The Tigers are forced to play a hellacious nonconference schedule in order to fund their athletic program, with all 12 pre-SWAC games coming on the road or at neutral sites, including at Baylor, Clemson and Syracuse.

But since they've moved into the league, it's been a lot of what we saw from Texas Southern a year ago, when it went 16-2 in the conference and then won the SWAC tournament en route to earning an NCAA tourney bid.

Through Monday's games, only two of the SWAC's 10 schools have winning records: Southern (15-7) and Jackson State (12-10), but each has lost twice in the league. Southern's losses were by 22 to Texas Southern and six to Prairie View A&M, which is 1-20 on the season.

Wichita State (Missouri Valley)

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Record: 16-5, 10-0

Key league wins: at Evansville, at Northern Iowa, at Southern Illinois

Game that could end perfection: Feb. 21 at Indiana State

Wichita State hasn't officially clinched its fourth Missouri Valley Conference regular-season title in the past five years, but it's almost a foregone conclusion. Sunday's win at Evansville leaves the Shockers three games clear of the Purple Aces and Southern Illinois in the standings, and they've already beat each on the road.

In fact, every one of Wichita State's road wins in league play has come by at least 13 points, with an average margin of 20 points.

Left for dead back in November after a 2-4 start, which had as much to do with an injury to senior guard Fred VanVleet as anything else, Wichita State appears to be headed for a second perfect MVC regular season in three years.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.