There’s something largely unique about the universe of NCAA Basketball. While only a few teams are really elite contenders for the national title, it’s a sport with nearly 400 different programs that all compete in the same window. With such a large number of competing teams, clearly, things don’t go according to plan for every program across the nation.
Disappointing seasons happen every single year. Preseason predictions come out and some teams simply fail to live up to expectations in one way or another. Sometimes it’s a result of injuries or inconsistent play while sometimes a team just doesn’t gel or come together in an expected way. The bottom line is that with 363 programs, not everyone can live up to those expectations: someone has to lose every single game after all.
There seemed to be a large number of disappointments last season, even among teams that had a successful season overall. Last year’s NCAA Tournament truly was a topsy-turvy event, but these aren’t exactly the disappointments we had in mind. Today’s focus isn’t on teams upset in the Big Dance; it’s about those who weren’t anywhere close to making the Big Dance anyway.
We’re highlighting a few teams that had rough years and looking at why they should be in better shape for this upcoming season. Obviously, we’re making more preseason predictions and a lot of them will not come true. That being said, we’re looking at ten teams coming off said disappointing campaigns and identifying a few reasons why things could look better this upcoming year. We’ll proceed alphabetically with the teams.