In Year three of the NIL Era, a few things are starting to rear their ugly heads. Teams are sacrificing team chemistry to load their teams with as much talent as possible. There may not be a fit with culture or style, the thought is the individual talent will win out but what is happening is those teams are suddenly having their worst seasons in a long time.
Two of those teams with a high priced roster are the subject of last weeks Bad Beats. Those two teams were teams that entered the year with high expectations but have fallen flat on their face through the first week of December. If only those were the only bad beats for the week. There are talks of another pay for play NIL tournament in Dubai. That should be all that needs to be said about that but there a lot more I have to say about it.
Finally there are two coaches who are not doing a great job and should find themselves on the hot seat. So much for the vagueness let’s get into a little more detail on each of these. Here are this weeks Bad Beats.
No. 5 Kentucky Wildcats
Any one who has been paying attention would know that the above heading needs no other descriptor and they all know what I am talking about. However, for the sake of detail lets go ahead and relive the car wreck that is the 2025-2026 Kentucky Wildcats. Head coach Mark Pope has a 20 million dollar basketball roster with a ton of individual talent but that talent has led Kentucky to a 5-4 record and an 0-4 record against the Power conference schools.
It was the last time out against Gonzaga when the effort issues started to show. The Wildcats had a lot of quit in them that night, especially from their star Otega Oweh. Oweh is one of the best players in the SEC but it is starting to get tainted by his penchant for quitting. The Wildcats look lost right now and given that conference play in looming it may get worse.
To make matters worse head coach Mark Pope keeps making witty quips about how he is the coach and everything is directed at him. It sounds like coach Pope is hoping the quips turn this into a funny thing and will deflect some blame off of him and let the fanbase reset, what is actually happening is that the Big Blue Nation is getting more and more impatient with each passing day. Kentucky better start winning or its going to be an extra-long year especially with their fanbase breathing down their neck. Oh, yeah Coach Pope, quit with the quips they don’t help.
No. 4 Kansas State gets blown out at home by Bowling Green.
Kansas State has an excellent roster on paper and as I have said many times before the roster closely resembles the roster of the Elite Eight team. They have scoring with PJ Haggerty, shooting with Abdi Bashir and David Castillo. The problem is that the team can’t get out of their own way. They don’t run great offense and the defense is questionable. Those are things that all led to Bowling Green blow out Kansas State at the Octagon of Doom.
The Falcons have not made the NCAA Tournament in over 50 years, are not usually a threat to win the MAC, and had not won a game against a power five opponent in over 20 years. One of those streaks have ended. The Falcons lost the game immediately after beating the Wildcats but they have a prolific offense and a great coach in Todd Simon. Bowling Green may actually be a factor in the MAC this year.
Circling back to Kansas State here, the Wildcats can’t get out of their own way because they are poorly coached. Head coach Jerome Tang doesn’t put his team in situations that lead to winning; his rotations are questionable. The offense operates with too much isolation and not nearly enough set plays. The defense has far too many breakdowns to be consistent. All of those things are fixed with coaching, but Kansas State just ended a four-game losing streak and looked worse each night. I would not be surprised if Coach Tang is not the coach next year.
No. 3 Creighton Bluejays team chemistry
The Big East will always have a leg up in the NIL era, especially since it does not have football programs to pay for. Creighton has been one of the biggest benefactors of tons of NIL money. Revenue sharing aside, when the majority of your alumni are doctors, lawyers, and other well-off individuals, the money can roll in. Head coach Greg McDermott used that money to buy a ton of talent, and the Bluejays looked like they would once again be a top-tier Big East team.
Then the season arrived, and it was evident that the Bluejays were not going to be good. The talent looks out of place and doesn’t mesh well together at all. Creighton isn’t shooting from deep, and, most importantly, the players in this class aren't performing. Josh Dix was one of the better portal entrants, but he isn’t aggressive enough, which leads him to disappear a lot of the time and not take his own shots. Then there is Owen Freeman, who just looks like he got his paycheck and then mentally checked out.
Coach McDermott is at his wits' end and has said that the opponent is the least of his concerns right now. Creighton has to work on themselves. Watching the team during their 21-point loss to Nebraska in Lincoln, they looked lost and lacked chemistry. They don’t like each other, and that isn’t fixable. Creighton is going to be just like Kansas was last year. A team that makes the tournament but horribly underachieves given the amount of talent they have. NIL is starting to show one of its many downfalls.
No. 2: Shaka Smart's approach to the transfer portal.
Marquette is bad and, right now, projects to be one of the worst teams in the Big East and, subsequently, one of the worst power-conference teams in the country, and it could all have been avoided. The Golden Eagles had a loaded roster last season that won a ton of games under head coach Shaka Smart; the only problem was that those players were seniors and out of eligibility. Well, coach Smart did what every other coach did: adapted to the rules and used the transfer portal with NIL to build a roster, right?
No, in fact, Coach Smart has made it clear how much he thinks the transfer portal is killing the game and how much he loathes it. If that were not enough, Coach Smart flat-out refuses to talk to any agents. I understand that agents can be frustrating to deal with, especially when trying to get the most money for their players, but that is the way of the college basketball world, especially for players that Marquette is going to be after.
As a result of the refusal of both of these key roster-building principles in the age of NIL, this Marquette team. It is one thing to stand on your principles, but when everyone else is playing within the rules and building a roster through the transfer portal, it's going to be either adapt or lose your job. If coach Smart doesn’t start using the portal, Marquette might turn into DePaul, and then coach Smart will be out of a job, like it or not. This is how the game is building rosters.
No. 1 Pay for Play tournament in Dubai
I have no idea how many of you have been paying attention to anything other than football or the actual basketball games at this point, but this announcement touched a nerve with me. Jon Rothstein announced that a tournament will start in 2026 in Dubai. Yes, you read that correctly, that is Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and it will be just like the Players Era. The teams participating will be paid NIL dollars to compete.
These tournaments are taking over the game and killing it. How exactly are the teams going to make this work logistically? Do they understand where Dubai is? Do they know that the general public won't be able to watch these games? There is a 10-hour time difference, so the games would likely be overnight. The fans didn’t go to the games in Vegas, and most assuredly would not go to the games in Dubai.
The Players Era tournament is already a black mark because it's freezing out teams, mainly mid-majors, which we don’t need to explain why that is bad for the game. But this tournament is only going to further the gap between the haves and have-nots in college basketball. It is a terrible idea, and I am genuinely curious which teams will head over to the UAE to play in this tournament just for some NIL dollars.