More than two months into the college basketball season and with exactly two months to go until Selection Sunday on March 16, we now have a robust amount of data on which to evaluate players, coaches, teams and conferences across college basketball. Some have clearly over-performed relative to expectations, such as Ole Miss, Florida and Illinois.
Others like Arkansas, Rutgers and Indiana began the year ranked but have plummeted amid rocky starts that have put their NCAA Tournament chances on rocky footing. Things got so dicey during Indiana’s 94-69 home loss to Illinois on Tuesday that chants of “fire Woodson” rang out through Assembly Hall as the Hoosiers fell behind by 30 in the first half.
Arkansas is off to an 0-4 start in SEC play during coach John Calipari’s first season after a 78-74 loss at LSU. Then, there’s Rutgers, which still has a long way to go in order to revive its chances of dancing after a 9-8 (2-4 Big Ten) start.
But the disappointment isn’t limited just to teams. Some highly-paid players and coaches have struggled to meet the expectations that come along with their compensation. And some conferences have struggled on the whole.
For this week’s edition of the Dribble Handoff, our writers are declaring …
Who has been the biggest disappointment so far?
Arkansas
The highest-ranked team in my preseason Top 25 And 1 that isn’t in Jerry Palm’s latest projected bracket for the 2025 NCAA Tournament is Arkansas. So I I have to go with John Calipari’s Razorbacks.
What a mess.
After Kentucky fans used social media to beg Arkansas to please take their coach last April, the fellow SEC program obliged by handing Calipari one of the biggest contracts in the sport. Then they gave him one of the biggest NIL packages in the sport to build a roster. Then he bought enough players to where, on paper, in the preseason, it looked like a top-15 team to me and a top-20 team to Associated Press voters.
We were all wrong, though.
The Razorbacks are 11-6 overall, including 1-6 in the first two quadrants — meaning Arkansas, right now, with one of the most expensive rosters in the sport, has fewer victories inside the first two quadrants than Central Michigan, UIC, Arkansas State and three schools from the 10-school University of California system (UC Irvine, UC San Diego, UC Riverside).
According to KenPom, Arkansas is expected to enter the SEC Tournament with a 17-14 record featuring a 6-12 mark in the SEC. Simply put, hat won’t be good enough for Calipari to avoid entering next season with just one win in the NCAA Tournament since 2019. In that same span, he’s already missed the NCAA Tournament once (2021) and been eliminated in the first round twice by mid-majors (2022, 2024) — and now he’s probably about to miss the NCAA Tournament again in Year 1 at Arkansas.
Making things worse is the fact that the man who replaced Calipari at Kentucky, Mark Pope, had to more or less build a roster the same way, just with reportedly less NIL money, and Pope has the Wildcats sitting at 14-3 and No. 6 in the Top 25 And 1. Arkansas is 0-4 in the SEC under Calipari. Kentucky is 5-0 against ranked teams under Pope. These are two programs headed in different directions — one filled with new ideas and fresh approaches, the other with something else. Barring a surprise, things won’t get turned around at Arkansas this season. So, after this season, it’ll be interesting to see whether Calipari, who turns 66 next month, decides to pivot and surround himself with staff members who can help him or continue to employ some folks who don’t seem to be helping much at all. — Gary Parrish
The buck stops with Calipari
Media picked Arkansas to finish fourth in the league’s preseason poll. At this point, 14th seems more likely after the Razorbacks fell to 0-4 in league play with a 78-74 loss at LSU this week. While picking “Arkansas” as a whole or “Johnell Davis” as what’s been most disappointing would also be valid, Calipari is my response. The 65-year old former national-title winner at Kentucky said twice in his postgame press conference on Tuesday that “I got to do a better job,” and he does.
Calipari’s offensive schematics — or lack thereof — are making the Razorbacks a brutal team to watch. There are no easy buckets and very few clean looks for a team that has such talented individual pieces. And that’s showing up in league play. Arkansas’ 36.1% shooting percentage through four SEC games ranks 15th in the 16-team conference, it’s 26.1% 3-point mark ranks 13th, and its 63.8 points per game ranks 15th. The juxtaposition with Kentucky is particularly painful for Calipari. His former team is humming offensively during a 3-1 start to conference play, and UK’s success shines an even brighter light on how unimaginative Calipari has become as a tactician. — David Cobb
Kansas State
Tempting as it is to pick Indiana on the heels of back-to-back 25-point defeats, I’m going with the highest-ranked team from my preseason rankings that has subsequently flopped in the biggest way: 7-9 Kansas State. I had the Wildcats 24th back in October. Here’s what I wrote then about Coleman Hawkins, who K-State landed in the portal: “The price? North of $2 million. The longtime Illinois stretch 4 will need to be one of the 20-or-so best players in America to both validate his NIL tag and lift K-State to top-25 status. I believe he will, and that’s why I have the Wildcats ranked accordingly.”
Yeah, wrong. Good job, ya dope. Hawkins (10.6 ppg, 6.9 rpg, 3.9 apg, 2.2 spg) hasn’t been a bust but he also hasn’t been what Jerome Tang thought he was getting. But then, that’s true of most of the players he acquired. No team that didn’t undergo a coaching change had more roster turnover at the high-major level than these Wildcats. And it’s about to get worse: four of the next six are on the road.
In Year 1, Tang got Kansas State to a 3-seed and the Elite Eight. He’s 26-24 since. The wonder of it all: Tang turned down Arkansas last March. — Matt Norlander
Kansas
After a 2023-24 season that began as the preseason No. 1-ranked team ended with seven losses in its final 12 games and a first-round NCAA Tournament exit, Bill Self and his staff pounded the recruiting trail and transfer portal to ensure depth — particularly in the backcourt — would not be a problem in 2024-25. Now the problem is that despite all the newly-added depth, KU’s complementary guards it planned to rely heavily on have not been consistent enough, leading to a 12-4 start for the 2024-25 preseason No. 1 Jayhawks.
A 12-4 record that includes wins over Duke, North Carolina and Michigan is of course nothing to turn your nose up at, but it’s far short of lofty expectations for a team that was ranked No. 1 to start the year.
Hunter Dickinson, Harris and KJ Adams — all the key returning pieces — have performed as expected. But aside from newcomer Zeke Mayo and occasional sparks from Rylan Griffen, the transfer class headlined by AJ Storr, who seems to be playing his way out of favor, has not been up to the task.
Ultimately, Kansas will be judged by how it performs in the postseason, not by the regular season. But even ranked inside the top 10 in Week 11, it’s impossible to feel like the KU we’ve seen thus far is a far cry from the KU we all expected when the season began. — Kyle Boone
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David Cobb
Indiana
Norlander didn’t pick Indiana for his submission, so I will. Don’t let the 13-5 record fool you. This has been a disastrous start for Indiana under Mike Woodson. I picked Indiana to win the Big Ten because of the incoming transfer portal talent Woodson assembled during the offseason.
Indiana’s record in conference play (4-3) isn’t terrible, but the way Woodson’s team has played is concerning. Indiana lost to Iowa by 25 on the road and followed it up with another 25-point loss at home to Illinois. Indiana has plenty of time to get it together because the Big Ten is still wide open.
If things don’t change fast, Indiana might be looking for Woodson’s replacement in about three months. — Cameron Salerno
Rutgers
The preseason takes on Rutgers were fascinating and all over the map. You could find whatever your heart desired. You believe Rutgers is a Final Four threat with superchargers like Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey leading the way? That noise was out there. Maybe Final Four was too high a standard, but surely Rutgers had enough talent to be a good, top-25ish club? Yep, that was closer to the industry standard. Maybe you’re a pessimist who is locked into the analytics/portal and you didn’t like the supporting cast and wondered if it capped the ceiling and believed there was a world where Rutgers could be closer to a top-60 team nationally that flirted with a bubble bid? Sure, you could find that, too.
Turns out, it was all too bullish.
Rutgers sits 9-8 and 2-4 in the Big Ten ahead of Thursday’s road tilt against Nebraska. The Scarlet Knights have flirted with dropping outside of the top-100 at kenpom.com.
The worst part is that Harper and Bailey have produced 90th-percentile outcomes when healthy, at minimum. Harper is certainly in the conversation as the best lead guard in the country. His blend of power, speed and dexterity is a nightmare for opposing defenses. Harper knifes into the paint literally whenever he wants, and he’s been a terrific decision-maker while making 3s. He’s firmly in the discussion to go No. 2 in the NBA Draft and hasn’t hurt his draft stock in the slightest by going to Rutgers. Bailey’s shot diet and overall decision-making leave a little to be desired, but the talent is undeniable. His 39-point showing against Indiana was one of the top individual performances of the season, and he chipped in a hard-hat, 20-point, 10-rebound, three-block night in Monday’s win over UCLA.
Harper has been brilliant and anything but the problem. Bailey isn’t perfect — no one is — but for the most part, Steve Pikiell probably would’ve taken 19 and 7 on 35% shooting from downtown and 50% on 2s.
It’s the supporting cast that has not been up to par. It wasn’t ever going to be a strength after big man Cliff Omoruyi transferred to Alabama, but it’s been a massive disappointment.
Rutgers’ defense has disintegrated because Bailey is the only legit rim protector. Portal additions like Jordan Derkack, PJ Hayes and Zach Martini have all been generally underwhelming and have been removed from the rotation at times. Jeremiah Williams, one of the main returners, has struggled after moving to an off-ball role to accommodate the mesmerizing Harper. Rutgers doesn’t have enough shooting. It doesn’t have enough bite defensively and it’s gotten chewed up and spit out by a brutal non-conference schedule.
Rutgers’ Big Dance dreams aren’t quite dead yet, but the margin for error in the chase for an at-large bid is quite thin.
It’s just a major bummer that Rutgers might get a phenomenal freshman season from Harper, a pretty-darn-good season from Bailey and be 15-16 with no glimmer of hope on Selection Sunday. The most-hyped season in Rutgers’ history has fallen flat, so far. — Isaac Trotter
Court Report: Rutgers could be first team to miss NCAA Tournament despite having two top-five NBA Draft picks
Matt Norlander
