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NCAA Basketball: Every conference’s biggest surprise and disappointment for 2018-19

By Joey Loose

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - APRIL 08: Jarrett Culver #23 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders celebrates the play against the Virginia Cavaliers in the second half during the 2019 NCAA men's Final Four National Championship game at U.S. Bank Stadium on April 08, 2019 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - APRIL 08: Jarrett Culver #23 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders celebrates the play against the Virginia Cavaliers in the second half during the 2019 NCAA men's Final Four National Championship game at U.S. Bank Stadium on April 08, 2019 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /
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MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA – APRIL 08: Jarrett Culver #23 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders reacts after his teams 85-77 loss to the Virginia Cavaliers during the 2019 NCAA men’s Final Four National Championship game at U.S. Bank Stadium on April 08, 2019 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA – APRIL 08: Jarrett Culver #23 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders reacts after his teams 85-77 loss to the Virginia Cavaliers during the 2019 NCAA men’s Final Four National Championship game at U.S. Bank Stadium on April 08, 2019 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /

Big 12

Biggest Surprise (Texas Tech)

Four of the five top scorers from last season’s Big 12 team were gone. The Red Raiders were predicted to finish 7th in a very talented Big 12 in Chris Beard’s third season. Jarrett Culver would be back and he’d turn into a solid scorer, but did this team really have enough to be a legitimate contender?

Five months after the season began, these underrated Red Raiders had gone further than any outsider could have imagined, playing in the national championship game having made the program’s first Final Four. Beard built an intense defense while Culver, Davide Morretti and the rest of this talented team embraced the challenge. They helped dethrone Kansas from the Big 12 title, throttled talented teams like Buffalo and Michigan, and upended Gonzaga in the Elite Eight and Michigan State in the Final Four.

What Chris Beard has done in just a few years has been otherworldly for this Red Raiders program. They will graduate Matt Mooney and Tariq Owens and likely lose Jarrett Culver to the Draft, but they’ll return talent and will be back for another crack at a national time. Next time, maybe the Red Raiders won’t surprise us on the national stage.

Biggest Disappointment (West Virginia)

Things just never went right for Bob Huggins and his Mountaineers this season. They lost Jevon Carter and seemed to miss him a lot more than expected. West Virginia started the year as the 13th ranked team in the nation, but an opening season loss to Buffalo was just the beginning of their downfall. Sagaba Konate missed months with injury while Esa Ahmad and Wesley Harris were kicked off the team in February.

With a decimated roster, the team struggled to compete on a consistent basis. They did knock off Kansas at home in January, but a team picked to finish 3rd in the Big 12 was alone in last place at the end of the season. The Mountaineers were strangely the only team to beat Texas Tech in March, beating them in the Big 12 Tournament, perhaps a sign of brighter things to come for this program. This isn’t a long-term concern for the Mountaineers; Huggins will have this team seeing brighter days again; they just greatly underachieved.

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