Busting Brackets
Fansided

NCAA Basketball: Biggest winners and losers of 2019 offseason

By Brian Rauf

PORTLAND, OR - NOVEMBER 26: Head coach Dana Altman yells at Payton Pritchard (Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images)
PORTLAND, OR - NOVEMBER 26: Head coach Dana Altman yells at Payton Pritchard (Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 8
Next
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA – APRIL 06: Head coach Tony Bennett of the Virginia Cavaliers looks on in the second half during the 2019 NCAA Final Four semifinal against the Auburn Tigers at U.S. Bank Stadium on April 6, 2019 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA – APRIL 06: Head coach Tony Bennett of the Virginia Cavaliers looks on in the second half during the 2019 NCAA Final Four semifinal against the Auburn Tigers at U.S. Bank Stadium on April 6, 2019 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) /

Which NCAA basketball teams improved the most this offseason? Who got worse? Ranking the sport’s biggest winners and losers of the offseason.

We’ve almost made it, ladies and gentlemen.

The start of a new NCAA basketball season is just a handful of days away when, once again, our televisions (and Twitter) will be full of debate about NET rankings, resume-boosting wins, and why Duke simply won’t play a true non-conference road game (neutral site games mean more this time of year, but that’s another topic for a different day).

In fact, we’ve already had our first taste of drama the sport will provide, courtesy of Michigan State. The Spartans were named the No. 1 team in the preseason AP poll on Monday, only for Tom Izzo to come out on Tuesday and explain that Joshua Langford – a projected starter and the team’s second-leading scorer – will be out until January due to a foot injury that limited him to just 13 games a season ago.

Who doesn’t love this sport?

Before we fully get into the new season, however, it’s time to take a look back at the offseason that was.

Memphis became the first school other than Duke or Kentucky to land the nation’s top recruiting class since 2007 thanks to head coach Penny Hardaway, while Oregon and Virginia also built on last season’s success. On the flip side, the FBI scandal engulfed (and still is engulfing) a handful of programs as others felt the pain of mass departures.

Who would we declare as the biggest winners and losers of the 2019 college basketball offseason? Let’s start with those Memphis Tigers.

Home/NCAA Basketball News