Preseason Top 5 To...

Much has been made about Kentucky’s perilous drop from preseason number 1 to #25 in this weeks polls, but let’s not pretend like the wildcats are alone.  Not a single preseason top 5 team has had the kind of season their fans were expecting.  Let’s take a look at where they were, where they are, and where they might go.

Kentucky Wildcats

Preseason Ranking:  1
Current Rank: 25
Conference Record: 12-5
Season Outlook:  If you are reading this at 8PM on a Friday night, I don’t need to tell you too much about what Kentucky’s future looks like.  At this point, the preseason expectations have all but vanished, and just seeing the team play well to end the season would likely count as a victory for most fans.  It starts tomorrow with a noon game against Florida, and then next weekend with the SEC tournament.

Michigan State

Preseason Ranking: 2
Current Ranking: 22
Conference Record: 12-5
Season Outlook:  Michigan State was hobbled with injuries, sure.  But they have also dropped 6 of their last 11 in almost reverse Izzo fashion.  Typically the Spartans are rounding in to form later in the season and pose to be a tough out to any team in the tournament… but with recent losses to Georgetown, Illinois and Nebraska, they aren’t striking fear in to too many teams.  Still, Lunardi has them as a 4 seed, which seems a little high.

Louisville

Preseason Ranking: 3
Current Ranking: 11
Conference Record: 14-3
Season Outlook:  What once looked like a major hangover after a title year, is starting to turn around a little bit.  The AAC’s NCAA tournament will be interesting.  Throughout the conference season, a number of teams have appeared to be better than we originally expected, with Memphis, SMU, Cincinnati, Connecticut and Louisville ending up ranked.  Are they as legitimate as they look, or have they been feeding on the weaker dredges of the conference?  It’s tough to say.  Louisville could be poised to go deep in March, but they are still a leap away from being the kind of team you expect to win the title, like they were last year.

Duke

Preseason Ranking: 4
Current Ranking: 4
Conference Record: 12-5
Season Outlook:  Say what you want about ESPN bias towards Duke, but how many other teams have lost games and rose in the polls?  At times they look like title contenders, at times they lose to Wake Forest and UNC.  And I am pretty sure no team has every lost to Wake Forest and gone on to win the title.  The ACC tournament will be telling.  The biggest question with the Blue Devils is – can they beat quality teams back to back to back?  It doesn’t seem like a group that can go without opening themselves up to an unexpected loss.  Also, just for the sake of mentioning it?  Same conference record as Kentucky and Michigan State, for what it’s worth.

Kansas

Preseason Ranking: 5
Current Ranking: 8
Conference Record: 14-3
Season Outlook:  Kansas actually seems to be the most poised of the preseason top 5 to cut down the nets in April.  A lot of it will depend on the availability of Freshman superstar Joel Embiid, who has been having back issues for the latter half of the season.  They are currently projected to be a one seed, and with the dwindling strength of the Big 12, might as well be a shoo-in to a match up with a 16.

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Final takeaway?  It’s not been the season we thought it would.  Last year we knew it was a down year in CBB, but everyone thought this would be one of the best seasons to date.  With all the super star freshman coming in, and a lot of key returnees, it was predicted that there would be a number of legendary teams poised to battle it out.  Instead?  It’s been a grab bag of successes and failures.  Any of the above teams could go on to win the tournament and end at the top of the polls where they started.  Or any could fail to make it out of the first weekend.

Go Cats.