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NCAA Basketball: Buy or Sell preseason top 25 teams of 2021-22 after a month

By Tristan Freeman

Dec 11, 2021; South Bend, Indiana, USA; Kentucky Wildcats guard Sahvir Wheeler (2) celebrates with his teammates after being fouled in the second half against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at the Purcell Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 11, 2021; South Bend, Indiana, USA; Kentucky Wildcats guard Sahvir Wheeler (2) celebrates with his teammates after being fouled in the second half against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at the Purcell Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports /
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NCAA Basketball Virginia Cavaliers Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports /

After this past weekend’s slate of games, the 2021-22 NCAA Basketball season has officially crossed the one-month mark. And a ton has happened as well, with several different teams being ranked No. 1 and eventually losing, with Gonzaga, Duke, Purdue, and now Baylor all being at the top.

The carnage hasn’t just occurred at the very top, as there have been a number of teams coming in and out of the top-25 rankings so far. That’s to be expected with so much parity overall in NCAA Basketball thanks to the extra year of eligibility and transfers galore.

So now that a month has passed since the start of the season, there’s a fair amount of games watched where we have a better look at the teams in contention to make an NCAA Tournament appearance. We also know which teams were over and under-hyped as well.

For this piece, I’ll be taking a look at the AP preseason top-25 and giving my views on each of them, whether or not to “buy or sell” them based on preseason expectations. So teams in the top-10 (national title contender) and top-25 overall (NCAA Tournament/Second Weekend Team).

25. Virginia Cavaliers

The Cavaliers lost three starters (Jay Huff, Sam Hauser, Trey Murphy) from this past season but I would argue that the loss of three underclassmen to the transfer portal (Justin McKoy, Casey Morsell, Jabri Abdur-Rahim) were even bigger because they were supposed to be next in line to be featured in the rotation.

Instead, it has put a ton of pressure on incoming transfers, Jayden Gardner and Armaan Franklin. To their credit, they’ve both been solid overall, leading Virginia’s offense with a combined production of 25.2 ppg and 11.7 rpg. The problem is that along with Kihei Clark (10.7 ppg and 4. apg), these are the only players on the roster with more than 7.0 ppg, with the team overall averaging just 61.0 ppg.

Combine with another anemic offense, the defense has been good but not great. And that recipe leads them to be vulnerable to losing a number of games, including upset losses to Navy and James Madison, as well as nearly falling to Pittsburgh at home. Unless players such as Taine Murray, Reece Beekman, and Kadin Shedrick emerge as a legit double-digit scoring threat anytime soon, this team won’t be re-entering the top 25 for the rest of the season.

Sell

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