Sporting News college basketball columnist Mike DeCourcy addresses five topics currently in his sport’s headlines.
1. We’re nearly one month in: Who has been the most disappointing team?
DeCourcy: As I look through our preseason top 25, most of the teams we ranked either have performed well or acceptably, and those that have not have legitimate reasons. Mississippi State was ranked No. 10 under the presumption Renardo Sidney would be eligible and participating; he hasn’t even gotten a ruling yet, one way or the other.
California was ranked No. 16 but has lost its three most difficult games, all without key forward Theo Robertson.
The one ranked team that clearly has underperformed is Michigan. We only ranked the Wolverines No. 24, but some of our competitors had them among the top 15. I didn’t understand then how they would play to that level of a ranking, and I think that has been evident in how they’ve performed to this point.
But the only choice for “most disappointing” to this point has to be UCLA. It was fairly obvious Jrue Holiday’s premature departure was going to have an impact, which is why the Bruins were mostly being picked third in the league and expected to be a fringe NCAA team. But it’s been worse than anyone might have imagined.
Finishing last at the 76 Classic was stunning. The Bruins lost to three good teams: Portland, Butler and Long Beach State. Any one of those defeats in another year might have generated a slight overreaction but would have had little lasting impact. But all three in the space of four days? That’s devastating.
2. Who’s the most pleasant surprise?
<img src=”http://www.sportingnews.com/images/159042/article.jpeg” alt=”Wesley Johnson is a big reason Syracuse has been better than expected.” title=”Wesley Johnson is a big reason Syracuse has been better than …
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