NCAA Basketball: North Carolina the worst preseason No. 1 team of all time
By Joey Loose
Honorable Mentions
2013-14 Kentucky
Preseason favorites after a disappointing 2013 campaign, Kentucky might have had the most disappointing regular season of any preseason #1, but it’s what they did late in the season that saves them from today’s list. John Calipari’s team had just cut down the nets two seasons earlier and had an absolute boatload of talent.
Freshmen Aaron Harrison, Andrew Harrison, Julius Randle, and James Young all averaged double-digit points per game, while sophomore forwards Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress had proficient seasons. A lineup full of underclassmen struggled at times during the regular season, dropping 10 games before the Big Dance, including three of their final four in the regular season.
These Wildcats earned an 8-seed and didn’t feel sorry for themselves. They knocked off four ranked teams, including unbeaten Wichita State in the Round of 32, en route to a trip to the national championship game, falling just short of being the second 8-seed to cut down the nets. While their play in the regular season had been very underwhelming, clearly Calipari’s squad gelled when the games mattered most.
2019-20 Michigan State
Despite the success of Michigan State in recent decades, this was the first (and so far only) season where the Spartans were atop the preseason polls. Spartans star Cassius Winston’s senior season had some great expectations with a roster loaded with younger talent.
Winston averaged 18.6 points and 5.9 assists per game while forwards Aaron Henry and Xavier Tillman (who’d also play in the NBA) were both double-digit scorers as well. Important pieces like Gabe Brown, Malik Hall, and Rocket Watts filled the rest of the rotation, though they didn’t exactly hold onto that top spot in the rankings for long.
Michigan State actually fell out of the national rankings in the back half of the season, but still finished 14-6 to tie for the Big Ten regular season title. The Spartans lost nine games and were barely in the rankings at the end of the regular season, but never played in the Big Ten Tournament, as the season was canceled by the national pandemic. We don’t know what Winston and this team could’ve done in the postseason, thus it’s unfair to include them in this article’s main list.