B/R CBB Community: Who Is the Most Underrated Team in Men's College Basketball?

Last week, we asked our B/R app users which ranked men's college basketball team you think is most likely to lose in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

This week, we wanted to flip that "overrated" question on its head and find out who you feel is the most underrated team in the country.

Within the first eight hours or so after that question hit the app, no one had even mentioned my pick (Providence), but there were a bunch of great choices.

Let's dive into them by first addressing the most unpredictable team of them all.

Roll Tide

@Fauci: Alabama. Unranked with the second-most Quad 1 wins in the nation. ... This team can beat anyone. And consequently also lose to anyone.

I'll say this much about the Crimson Tide: I have no clue what to do with them in bracketology from one week to the next.

Not only do they have a bunch of Quadrant 1 wins, but they have a bunch of really damn good Quadrant 1 wins. They won what was effectively a road game in Seattle against NET No. 1 Gonzaga. Can't do any better than that. Alabama also has home wins over NET No. 2 Houston, No. 6 Baylor, No. 13 Tennessee and No. 14 LSU.

At the start of play Tuesday, all five of those wins were in Quadrant 1A, which is home games against the top 15, neutral games against the top 25 and road games against the top 40. And the only other teams in the country with at least four Q1A wins are Baylor (five) and Providence (four).

But the Crimson Tide must have made some sort of deal with the devil in which they have to suffer a bad loss for every great win, because they have horrible defeats to Missouri and Georgia, as well as less than stellar losses to Memphis, Mississippi State, Iona and Davidson. That is, of course, the reason they are ranked outside of the AP Top 25.

I agree that they are underrated, though, and pretty much all of the metrics support that stance. Alabama entered Tuesday at No. 22 in the NET and was ranked higher than that in each of KenPom.com (18), BPI (19), Sagarin (19), SOR (21) and KPI (6).

Are they wildly inconsistent? Absolutely.

Do I trust them to win multiple games in the NCAA tournament? No, I don't, and neither do you.

But should they at least be ranked? You betcha.

Is Arkansas (Razor)Back?

Michael Woods/Associated Press

@jrmontgo: Arkansas after its most recent run

While Alabama has been all over the map from one game to the next, Arkansas' season has had three distinct chapters.

The Razorbacks started out 9-0 with decent wins over Kansas State and Cincinnati.

They then lost five of their next six games, including tournament-resume killers at home against Vanderbilt and at a neutral site against Hofstra.

But they've bounced back to win six straight since then, including a great road win over LSU and home wins over bubble teams Texas A&M and West Virginia.

The problem is that when a formerly AP Top 10 team crashes and burns in such spectacular fashion as Arkansas did for the better part of a month, it's going to take more than just one win over a ranked team to be taken seriously again.

In those five losses, the Razorbacks defense was just awful. Those opponents shot a combined 140-of-282 (49.6 percent) from the field and averaged 25.8 free-throw attempts and 83.8 points per game.

In the next six games, though, those numbers were 35.4, 18.2 and 59.3, respectively.

Just an overnight transformation from helpless to impenetrable. And a lot of that has been the play of Jaylin Williams, who has been outstanding on both ends of the floor as of late. If he continues playing like that and the Hogs pick up a few quality wins over the likes of Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and LSU over the next month, people are going to start rebuying all of the stock they sold in December.

But are they underrated?

I don't think so. With two Quadrant 3 losses and just the one win of note (at LSU), they don't deserve to be ranked, and they have "bubble" written all over them. This is a properly rated team that might be hitting its stride.

Hurricane Season

Lynne Sladky/Associated Press

@Sp0rtFanatic04 / @chargers110217 / @A1F : Miami (FL)

If we're focusing exclusively on the AP rankings, no, Miami is not underrated. The Hurricanes were fifth among others receiving votes in Monday's poll, which puts them as the 30th-best team in the country.

If anything, Miami is a bit overrated by the AP voters.

But if we're talking about the predictive metrics—where Miami is 54th on KenPom, 60th in the NET and 61st in both BPI and Sagarin—then, goodness gracious, yes, this team is quite underrated.

I can appreciate why the metrics are low on the 'Canes. They were a borderline top 100 team not even a month ago, thanks to minimal preseason expectations and a pair of blowout losses to Dayton (by 16) and Alabama (by 32) in November. And even though they carried an eight-game winning streak into their marquee road victory over Duke, they won those eight games by an average margin of 7.5 points.

It wasn't until the 28-point win over North Carolina on Jan. 18 that the 'Canes even crept into the top 80 on KenPom for the first time all season.

Take out the preseason expectations and the slow start in November, though, and Miami would be 12-2 with a pair of one-point losses to a large Florida State team that was able to push the smaller Hurricanes around in the paint in both games. Seven of those 12 wins were against top-100 opponents, including dramatic road victories over Duke and Virginia Tech.

Miami is basically the ACC's version of Providence, almost exclusively winning nail-biters and too slowly moving up the ratings as a result. (Which, by the way, where the heck were all the Friars fans for this question? Thought for sure that would be the most popular answer, considering how often I get yelled at for "only" projecting an NCAA tournament No. 4 seed for the team currently ranked 49th on KenPom.)

The No. 1 Team in the Country???

Todd Kirkland/Getty Images

@bmharp: Auburn. Still got that chip on their shoulder.

The first response to this comment was that you can't be underrated if you're No. 1 because that's literally as high as it gets.

A fair observation.

But did you know that—despite ranking No. 1 in the AP poll and sitting at No. 1 overall on any projected NCAA tournament seed list worth a darn—Auburn still only has the fifth-best betting odds of winning the national championship? Or that the Tigers entered play on Tuesday ranked fifth in NET, sixth on KenPom, ninth on Sagarin and 10th in BPI?

In other words, the 21-1 Tigers have earned their spot atop the polls, but they have not yet earned enough respect to be considered a team that should make the Final Four.

And you know why, don't you?

Because it's Auburn.

If Duke, Kansas, Kentucky or North Carolina were 20-1 with six Quadrant 1 wins and the lone loss coming in double overtime in Bahamas against a mighty good UConn squad, that team would be the overwhelming favorite to win it all. But Auburn had never been ranked No. 1 in school history until 10 days ago and has only been to one Final Four (2019), so there's a bit of "We'll believe you can win it all when you actually win it all" treatment.

This Auburn team deserves better than that.

Jabari Smith is an incredible talent. Walker Kessler is stuffing the stat sheet with blocks and rebounds to a ridiculous degree. K.D. Johnson and Wendell Green Jr. are outrageously capable "secondary" options. And as I've pointed out many times in the past few months, they're going to get even better if Allen Flanigan—who missed the first six weeks of the regular season with an Achilles injury—ever regains his 2020-21 form (14.3 PPG).

At worst, Auburn should be co-favorites with Gonzaga. So, yes, the AP No. 1 Tigers are underrated.

Kerry Miller covers men's college basketball and college football for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames. Statistics current through start of play on Tuesday Feb. 1 and are from KenPom.com and Sports Reference unless otherwise noted.