You don’t have to search far and
wide to find most of the “most disappointing” teams of the November and December
portion of the college basketball season.
All you need to do is take quick
glances up and down the rosters of the Big 12 and Pacific 10
conferences.
But they don’t hold a monopoly on
teams that haven’t quite lived up to preseason expectations.
Alabama and LSU (Southeastern
Conference), Louisville (Big East) and Charlotte (Atlantic 10) have all done
enough (or, not enough, actually), to be filed under the “disappointing”
heading.
Let’s dispense with the ones in the
Big 12 and Pac 10 first, though:
Big
12:
When is it right to call a team
with a 9-2 record disappointing?
When it’s the University of Texas
Longhorns you’re talking about.
Coach Rick Barnes’ team was
a consensus preseason Top Five selection and, in the minds of some, an even
better choice to win the national championship than was Duke or
Connecticut.
And, with a starting lineup that
includes four of the elite players (Daniel Gibson, Brad Buckman, LaMarcus
Aldridge and P.J. Tucker) in the conference, the Longhorns’ hype was
understandable.
An 8-0 start that included only two
competitive games (vs. the only two quality squads the Longhorns faced in that
stretch, West Virginia and Iowa, in Kansas City) and No. 2 rating led to the
team’s Dec. 10 game with top-ranked Duke in East Rutherford, N.J., being the
most anticipated matchup of the still-young season.
First the Blue Devils (during a
97-66 shellacking in which Duke looked a lot better than it is right now) and
then, seven days later, Tennessee (smacking the Longhorns, in Austin, 95-78),
exposed Texas as a team with a lot of shortcomings – especially on the defensive
end of the floor.
The Longhorns beat up on Texas
State Thursday night and will cruise against Prairie View A&M on Dec. 30
before a game at the University of Memphis three days later that will give us a
real opportunity to see how much progress the Longhorns have made since the Duke
and Tennessee blowouts.
Oklahoma was a consensus Top 10
team and the squad considered Texas’ biggest threat to a Big 12
title.
But the Sooners have lost to the
only two quality teams they’ve faced, Villanova (85-74, in Philadelphia), and
West Virginia (92-68, Thursday night in Oklahoma City).
And, although Texas Tech wasn’t a
preseason Top 25 selection, the Red Raiders – with three starters returning from
a Sweet 16 finish – were looked upon as being fully capable of returning to the
NCAA Tournament.
That trip to the tournament may yet
still happen but Coach Bob Knight’s team hasn’t looked of that caliber
yet while splitting its first 12 games. Five of those losses were by margins of
11 or more points.
Pac
10:
Arizona and Stanford were
considered, in some circles, as the co-favorites to win the conference’s
regular-season championship.
The Wildcats (7-3) have a
respectable record but, like the Cardinal, haven’t played nearly as well as had
been anticipated.
Arizona, which should see its
offense get a boost with the anticipated return of sophomore Jawann McClellan next month, has won five games in a row. But three of those games
(vs. Northern Arizona. Saint Mary’s and Western Kentucky) were struggles in
Tucson.
Stanford won back to back games
with Denver and Princeton but that’s hardly enough to think that the Cardinal,
with three of the best players in the conference in Chris Hernandez, Matt Haryasz and Dan Grunfeld, are approaching the level of play that was
expected.
Losses to two UC schools – Irvine
and Davis – not located in Los Angeles or Berkeley are particularly indicative
of the team’s November/December struggles.
Oregon (6-5) has dropped five of
its past seven games despite having a starting perimeter – Aaron Brooks,
Malik Hairston and Bryce Taylor – that most Pac 10 coaches feel is as
talented as any in the conference.
Other disappointments
include:
*Southeastern Conference teams
Alabama (5-4) and LSU (7-2).
The Crimson Tide has beaten just
one quality team (Winthrop) and three of the losses (to Memphis, Notre Dame and
North Carolina State) came at home.
Coach Mark Gottfried’s squad
has one more non-conference opportunity (Dec. 31 against Oklahoma) to bulk up
its NCAA Tournament at-large resume. Even then, it will need 10 or 11 SEC wins
to put itself into position to receiving a bid.
LSU has an impressive road victory
(against West Virginia) but was beaten – at home – by the only other two at
least reasonably good teams (Houston and Northern Iowa) it has
faced.
*Louisville (8-1). Disappointing
with that kind of record? Absolutely, although, the preseason injuries (and
ensuing recovering time) of Juan Palacios and David Padgett have
to be taken into account.
Less than overwhelming performances
against the likes of Middle Tennessee State and Richmond (at home), as well as a
loss at Kentucky in a game that wasn’t as competitive as the score (73-61) might
indicate, lead the Cardinals to being deemed “disappointing” thus
far.
*Charlotte (6-5). The 49ers scored
a nice road victory (85-82 against Rutgers) Thursday night but have lost three
times at home. Shot selection is an issue, to say the least, for the team that
some expected to challenge George Washington for a conference title in its first
season in the Atlantic 10.
An April inductee into the USBWA
Hall of Fame, Frank Burlison is Scout.com’s National Basketball Expert
and is also a columnist for the Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram. He can be
reached at frank.burlison@presstelegram.com. Read more of Burlison’s pieces at
www.FrankHoops.com