Unfamiliar Struggles For College Basketball’s Best

In each and every season of College Basketball we witness a ton of things we expect, along with a ton of surprises. One constant however, has been the Blue Bloods and the best programs in the sport being great. Even when things go wrong the programs like Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Duke and others are still really good compared to the rest of the country. While we have seen some signals in recent years that weren’t completely expected, like Coach K and Roy Williams retiring and Kentucky missing the NCAA Tournament, no one would ever expect none of these teams to be at the top of the sport.

That’s how the current state of College Basketball looks though, as each of those classic programs, along with many other consistent good ones have struggled a bit out of the gate. While it is still very early in the season and there is plenty of time to turn it around, many casual fans that don’t start following the sport until around March Madness could be very surprised to see how this season unfolded.

Primarily, Kentucky and John Calipari were facing a ton of pressure heading into the season after each of the last two seasons had ended in disastrous fashion. Despite those endings, Kentucky did return the first reigning National Player of the Year to return to College Basketball since 2008 in Oscar Tschiebwe, alongside other key contributors from last season in Jacob Toppin, Sahvir Wheeler and others. In addition, Kentucky added a star-studded Freshman in Cason Wallace and this Kentucky team expected to have way better shooting compared to last season with CJ Frederick and Antonio Reaves on the floor.

While they’ve looked good against weak competition, in Kentucky’s two games against the best competition they have looked like a different team. In the Champions Classic against Michigan State, Kentucky was in control for the majority of the game and only had to hit their Free Throws with under 30 seconds left to secure the victory over Michigan State. Instead, they couldn’t convert and the game went to Overtime.

This can happen to any basketball team over the course of the season, and while not executing there hurts, the hope is that Kentucky would be able to learn from it. Instead, Kentucky was faced with the exact same situation at the end of Overtime and couldn’t convert at the Free Throw line again. When you give a team like Michigan State so many chances to hang in there, it is eventually going to bite you and that is exactly what happened here. The Spartans ended up winning the game, leading to a ton of Kentucky fans asking themselves familiar questions.

John Calipari has adjusted to the modern version of College Basketball, bringing in some of the best transfers in the country to go along with the usual elite class of Freshman also brought in. While guys like Tschiebwe, Toppin, Davion Mintz and others have really worked out, it hasn’t necessarily translated to a ton of success from a results standpoint. Part of why Kentucky fans are so frustrated is the fact that with a team full of older players, it should really translate to smarter basketball and less mistakes being made. It is reasonable to expect Freshman to learn the game and mess up in certain situations, while growing and learning as the season goes. On. With that being said, Kentucky has had way too many “Deer In The Headlights” moments where they look absolutely lost and make a ton of mistakes that teams of the same caliber just shouldn’t make.

It all came crashing down for the Wildcats in their game against Gonzaga on November 20th, when they lost 8-72 in embarrassing fashion and the game wasn’t even that close. While the game was played in Spokane, this isn’t the same Gonzaga team that was the number one overall seed in each of the last two NCAA Tournaments. Instead, they were very fortunate to get by both Michigan State and Xavier, plus got run off the floor by Texas.

The concerning thing about Kentucky in this game wasn’t only the fact that they lost, but they weren’t ready to play and made way too many mental mistakes. For a team that is experienced with a lot of returning players, this happens way too often and is something that needs to be cleaned up if Kentucky wants to turn this thing around.

The 2022 season was the definition of a roller coaster for the North Carolina Tar Heels. After starting the season 12-6 overall and 4-3 in the ACC. Despite having a first year Head Coach in Hubert Davis, expectations were higher considering the amount of talent North Carolina had. The same Tar Heel team that didn’t register a Quadrant 1 victory until the middle of February showed the importance of playing your best basketball at the most important time and rode that momentum all the way to the National Title game.

Despite falling to Kansas, North Carolina returned four of their five starters from last season and added an All Big Ten Conference player in Pete Nance from the Transfer Portal. The addition of Nance was a big one, considering he would be replacing Brady Manek, who was North Carolina’s most important player during their Final 4 run. While Nance is very good, it was always going to take him some time to adjust to a new role and Manek couldn’t miss in the NCAA Tournament.

The start of the 2022 season has been disastrous for the Tar Heels. Following their loss on Wednesday night to Indiana, UNC became the first team ranked #1 in the preseason, to lose three games before Christmas since Kentucky in 2012. North Carolina simply isn’t getting the production out of their star-studded backcourt that most expected. Caleb Love is very talented; however, his shot selection remains a major issue.

In North Carolina’s loss to Alabama on Sunday at the PK85, Love scored 34 points, but did it on an inefficient 13/36 from the field. There were times last season that North Carolina would be able to survive this, but with RJ Davis also struggling, Armando Bacot banged up and Brady Manek out of the picture, Love needs to be at least close to the player we saw get North Carolina all the way to the National Championship game.

Duke is another classic blue-blood that has struggled at times out of the gate, including getting blown out by Purdue in the PK85 Title Game and losing in the Champions Classic to Kansas. With Jon Scheyer taking over for the legendary Coach K, there is some serious pressure on him to keep the program rolling at a high level and he’s brought in the horses to do that. Scheyer was the primary recruiter that brought in guys like Jayson Tatum, Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett into the Duke program and this Duke team has plenty of future studs that should be joining them in the NBA sooner rather than later.

While Duke’s long-term aspirations are certainly possible with this group, this is a super young team playing primarily Freshman that will have their struggles early on. The Blue Devils didn’t play their best game of the season on Wednesday night against Ohio State, but did enough to come away with the victory. Duke now has a pair of victories over likely tournament teams Xavier and Ohio State, and will have one more opportunity against Iowa in the Jimmy V Classic to keep building that resume.

While Duke should be in the conversation among the better teams in the sport by season’s end, this team doesn’t have the horses that last season’s Final 4 team had with Paolo Banchero, AJ Griffin, Mark Williams and others. That Duke team made the Final 4, won the ACC Regular Season Title and made the ACC Tournament Championship game. While this Duke squad is very talented, achieving just one of those three things would be a great goal in the first year of the Jon Scheyer era.

The defending National Champions Kansas are another team that lost a ton of talent from last season and may not be as good as many expect. Fresh Off their fourth National Championship in program history, Kansas lost three of their five starters from last season including Ochai Agbaji, Christian Braun, David McCormack and their top bench player in Remy Martin. While Jalen Wilson has taken a legitimate leap and Grady Dick being super skilled offensively, this Kansas team isn’t the usual Jayhawks team we’ve seen in years past.

Bill Self has been known to have a dominant big man down low that he can find creative ways to give as many post touches to as possible. From Thomas Robinson to Joel Embiid to Udoka Azuibke to David McCormack, just about every Kansas team of years past has had this to them. Which is why this team is pretty unique, without that consistent five man.

While KJ Adams is a really talented player with great physical traits, he’s only 6’7” and isn’t big enough to be a true Center. Freshman Ernest Udoh can possibly carve out a role for himself by season’s end, it has taken time for most of these Kansas big men to really get going. Neither Azubike or McCormack really peaked until they became upperclassmen and that will likely be the case with Udoh as well.

Dejuan Harris is a winning player at Point Guard that every coach in the country would love to have leading their team. However, that leaves Texas Tech transfer Kevin McCullar to play off the ball and the pieces around Harris just don’t fit as well together. Right now, Kansas’ rotation consists of players 6’8” or shorter which doesn’t give them much size at all.

This was on display during the Battle for Atlantis, as Kansas got blown out in the title game to Tennessee. In addition, the Jayhawks narrowly survived NC State and Wisconsin to get that far in the tournament. While Bill Self is still arguably the best coach in the country, and there is still plenty of talent on this Kansas team to win games, they aren’t the same Kansas team we’ve been used to in recent memory. Right now, Texas, Baylor and TCU are all on the same level as Kansas in the Big 12 and it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see one of those three teams win the Big 12 over the Jayhawks.

While these historically great blue bloods are struggling, there are even some programs that have been consistently great in recent years that aren’t as great as they have been in years past.

Similar to Kansas, Gonzaga lost a ton of talent to the NBA in each of the last two seasons and are simply not the team they’ve been during that time. Although Drew Timme is still one of the best players in the sport, there is no Jalen Suggs, Chet Holmgren or Corey Kispert to surround him with. Nolan Hickman, Julian Strawther and Rahsir Bolton are very good players, but Gonzaga is much closer to being a team outside the Top 10 than the best team in the country.

Villanova is another team that can be put into this category, as they have gotten off to a brutal start in the post Jay Wright era. While Villanova taking a step back without Wright is understandable, they also have lost their star Freshman Cam Whitmore for the beginning of the season with a thumb injury. This also comes after their star player Justin Moore tore his Achilles in the Elite 8 against Houston. Had more been healthy going into the season, he likely would have been named Big East Conference Preseason Player of the Year.

Even with these injuries however, no one expected Villanova to start off their season with a record of 2-5 overall. The Wildcats went 0-3 in their three games during the PK85 in Portland, with losses to Iowa State, Portland and a shorthanded struggling Oregon team. While Villanova has a lot of things going against them, a team with Caleb Daniels, Eric Dixon, Brandon Slater and Jordan Longino on the floor should not be this bad.

Jay Wright was the best teacher of basketball in the coaching industry, and we could see just how big of an impact he had on the Villanova program. While Creighton and UConn look like the clear best two teams in the Big East, the rest of the conference has been pretty subpar to start off the 2022 season and there is still plenty of time for Villanova to get things right. With that being said, no one thought they would get off to this bad of a start.

With the programs used to being great looking like they’re not as good as they’ve been in recent years, there are plenty of teams that can take advantage of it. Right now, teams like Houston, Texas and Creighton are all ranked in the Top 10 of the AP Poll and there will definitely be nontraditional blue bloods that will join them there by seasons end.