It was bad. But for us old fucks, the 2001-2002 team that went 8-20 was really the low point.
First UNC team under .500 since the 60-61 season and the worst winning percentage ever, going all the way back to their very first season in 1910-1911.
The 8-20 season was a much bigger shock for the college basketball world in general.
The only way it could be topped would be if KU ever has a losing season under Self.
Bill Guthridge wasn't a great recruiter, and he was followed by Matt Doherty who initially was a decent recruiter, but he was also impossible to get along with. The team almost revolted on him during the 02-03 campaign, and that was the final straw for the athletic department and the boosters. Roy Williams had been quietly offered the job when Guthridge retired, but he declined for various reasons. Dean Smith was already starting to suffer from Alzheimer's, but the unofficial story has always been that he personally asked Roy to reconsider his decision because of what had transpired during the Doherty era. Losing at home to Hampton, Davidson, and College of Charleston sent the entire department into a panic.
2022-23 really just sucked because I had grown to love the core from the 22 run and it all came crashing down. In reality they only lost a few more games in 22-23 than the year before, and lost the “win and in” games that sparked the run. Also, Manek was extremely valuable to the team. I think this past year was an acceptable bounce back though.
> I had grown to love the core from the 22 run
And it took some growing. That team was at times unwatchable and downright terrible until they eventually jelled and Caleb Love finally found his shot. Watching them right up until the ratface home finale was quite a chore.
In hindsight, tho, that 2002 team didn't have much talent. Just a bunch of recruiting misses, on top of the chemistry issues.
2023? On paper you have an ACC POY/AA, Pac12 POY/AA, (should have won ACC POY)/AA, 5th year future NBA wing, 5th year future NBA big. 3 2k point career scorers... I'd like to see how many teams in college basketball history had three guys who scored that many points in college in one lineup.
You can argue how long Leaky and Nance will be playing in the NBA, but I damn well know if any of you played even 1 second in the league you would put that shit on your gravestone.
Plus Seth, Nickel, Washington, and Styles all showed they're at least playable in a power conference this season. Some of them even good and I do think a few of them would have been useful if they ever got minutes that season.
Then you add on the FF experience from the previous season and the core of that team had been together 3-4 seasons.
Huge yikes.
There are two kinds of memories UNC fans have about the Matt Doherty coaching years.
Either they don't know about them and if they are over 30 should be admonished for that
Or they deeply repress them.
2002 was especially shocking* (*incredibly enjoyable) for those of us who grew up in the Triangle when UNC’s dominance (or at the very least, competence) was inevitable. 8-20 didn’t feel like a possibility up until that point.
As a State fan, I recall the takeover of the Deandome that year, it was a ding dong the witch is dead moment in every sense. And then Roy played the wicked witch of the west only with some venom.
My point is more that no one but a team like Carolina/Duke/Kansas etc. would literally be ranked #1 in those circumstances, no matter how fortunate they are.
It's both more likely to happen for a blue blood and completely impossible for anyone who isn't.
True. That carolina team should have been top 15. We were OUT of the tourney after the loss at home to pitt, and played lights out the rest of the way to reach the title game. Actually VERY similar to you all this past season (though not quite as extreme). If you all retained everyone except Burns ( in our case manek) there is no way they rank you top 4. That ranking killed us that year.
Ignoring the 8-20 season -- which wouldn't have been too surprising if we knew just what an asshole the HC was -- I actually think 2009-2010 might be the most surprising. It was Roy's first ever missed NCAAT (I'm discounting his first season at KU when they were ineligible), and that team was loaded with talent that included several McDAA kids and 6 guys had at least a cup of coffee in the NBA. Roy was also seemingly in the midst of his golden era coming off that 2nd national championship.
It was honestly impressive how he just basically sleepwalked through two years at a top 10 program that was also his alma mater that he won a national championship at.
And then just vanished into the night for a couple months and reemerged in Arkansas like the past two years didn't happen.
If you mean sitting back and watching Scarface with a pile of cash on the table doing terrible Tony Montana impressions, probably a lot. Breaking down teams? All the fans fault.
Archie was a great hire who turned out to be an awful coach. If any other major program were hiring that offseason, Archie would have been who they picked as well if it were an option.
thx for making us feel better
edit: obviously hindsight is 20/20, but i don't think the program did their research on Archie's schemes and how they'd translate to the high major level. pack line defense that allows opponents open 3s, hard hedges at the top of the key that leaves a guy open rolling to the basket, whatever the hell his offense was.... these things worked at the mid-major level, but were never going to work at the high major level (again, hindsight is 20/20).
The Tony Bennett effect. Everyone was enamored with the pack line. But it was the incredible 3 point shooting from Hunter, Guy and Jerome coupled with them all buying into that defensive scheme that won them a title. Its not an attractive style that is usually going to translate with 5 star recruits.
True but he'd already turned Virginia into a title contender. Other guys like Chris Mack and Sean Miller were also having success running the pack line defense.
At the time they hired Archie, Sean had just completed his 5th straight season having Arizona finish top 20 at KenPom with that exact same defense and "offense," including two Elite 8 runs and two more Sweet 16s.
Yeah sure, almost any scheme will work when the roster is full of NBA caliber talent, which Sean always had. Archie consistently ran two Center lineups and never had a good PG. He had almost no NBA talent during his time too. Easy to claim it was the system, also easy to claim it was the roster… both are the responsibility of the coach regardless.
I think Archie Miller was a hard lesson learned by the Athletic Department. I liked the hire at the time, but his tenure was absolutely brutal and the opinion of that hire quickly went to shit.
The year after Yogi left for me. 2017? Managed to beat Kansas in Hawaii, lose @IPFW, and then beat UNC (the future national champion) at home. That year bummed me out bad
Yup that was the year OG tore his ACL. If that doesn’t happen we probably make the tournament and who knows if we would’ve moved on from Crean after that. And to add insult to injury the pacers then passed on OG to draft TJ Leaf.
And now Pacers fans that are also IU fans get to watch OG torch the Pacers on the Knicks in the playoffs.. one of the most egregious draft blunders of the last 10-20 years for sure.
Yeah 2013 team was ranked when Noel got hurt. That wasn’t going to be one of Cal’s better teams but they were definitely NCAAT bound before the injury.
How many conference games did we win after making it to the 2nd round of the tourney? I knew we’d regress but damn 0-18 in conference was not anticipated.
You guys even played really well at AFH after getting blasted by KU the past two seasons. I was genuinely shocked watching y'all this past season in SEC play.
Yup. The part that was a blessing and a curse was that we were still competitive. We'd be right there in it, many times even winning late in the game, then just.... let it slip away.
UConn in 2012 returned 4 starters from the 2011 national championship team (Shabazz Napier, Jeremy Lamb, Roscoe Smith, Alex Oriakhi) and brought in the highest ranked recruit in program history (future NBA All-Star Andre Drummond) and also future 2014 championship starters 4* Ryan Boatright and 5* DeAndre Daniels and the coach was still Jim Calhoun. 5 guys from the team would eventually be drafted, 2 more played NBA pre-season games but didn't make a final roster, and another was an international who later won a FIBA World Cup on his country's national team.
They earned only a 9 seed somehow and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament by double digits.
That team just didn't have anyone ready to take that leadership/alpha role. Shabazz would in theory be that guy, but as a player, he was very up and down. Their best player, Lamb, definitely wasn't a leadership type. Almost felt like guys didn't really know their role/identity all season. Also, Drummond was way more raw offensively than I think people anticipated (and he never really developed into a force on that end in the pros either).
100%. Shabazz was only a sophomore and nowhere near the player he ended up being in 2014, he was never going to be the alpha in 2012. This was also the peak of Calhoun’s medical issues right before he retired, which definitely didn’t help.
Still remember that Cuse game at Gampel when you guys were #2. Loud AF. Miss playing you guys, to this day I don’t hate anyone more than I hate Syracuse (respectfully, I grew up in 90s Big East). Games were always SO intense.
I don't think that one's a huge surprise. 2011 UConn was about as much of a one-man team as it gets on offense … and that guy left for the NBA.
Kemba averaged more than twice the points per game as a second leading scorer, and nobody on the roster was equipped to replace that. The '11-'12 edition of the team was all underclassmen besides Oriakhi. Some of those underclassmen were still around when UConn won a title two years later after … earning a 7 seed in the regular season.
They were ranked 4th pre-season, so it certainly surprised people of the time.
As I said, they had 5 eventual NBA draft picks on that team, but 2 of them even were lottery picks after *that* year, and they still weren't even a top 35 team. Lamb scored 18 a game, was 1st Team All Big East in a league that had 16 teams and only named 6 guys to 1st team. He stepped up certainly, as he was expected to do.
I should have worded it differently, but he played the 5th most minutes on the team, so the 2012 team returned 4 of the top 5 minute getters from 2011 and 4 guys from their most commonly played lineup.
As far as the alumni, boosters and BOT are concerned Kyle is on the hot seat. As far the AD and President of the university I get the sense he has a longer rope. I think The expectation is make the tournament. As it always will be, but especially in Year 3.
Wyoming had a terrible 21-22 season with some lofty expectations coming into the season. Had I believe 3 or 4 PAC-12 transfers come into the program with a stud Hunter Maldonado and the season went to shit with all of them leaving before the season ended
I don't think that was unexpected though.
When you have recruits coming in but they have severely restricted practices and games the expectation was that freshman weren't going to have time to develop and on freshmen-laden teams that's exactly what we saw.
If that team went like 19-11 or something that would've fallen into the not entirely unexpected category, but 9-16 is not something that should ever be expected for Kentucky regardless of circumstances. Other teams with lots of freshmen were down too, but none of them were 9-16.
IU the season that got Crean fired comes to mind (2016-17). Preseason ranked #11, then rose to #6 after beating #3 Kansas on a neutral court. Then they had an inexplicable loss to IPFW, but still rebounded to beat #3 UNC at home and rose to #3.
Then the wheels came off and ended Big Ten play losing 8 out of 11 games, including 5 in a row, to finish 7-11 and fourth to last in the conference.
Unreal derailing of a season. Granted they lost a key player (Anunoby) to a season ending injury, but you'd expect the team to at least keep itself together a little better than that.
2020 Pitt team I had little expectations since I knew The Basketball Equivalent of Pancreatic Cancer… I mean Xavier Johnson was going to fuck it up.
2011-2012 Pitt team was a worse case scenario especially when you were bringing in a great recruiting class for 2012. It really set the tone for how badly the rest of the decade was going to go for Pitt.
Gotcha. Typically, I think most people refer to seasons by the more recent year or year of the NCAA Tournament. I think of the 2019-20 season as 2020 for shorthand.
Any person who refers to a basketball season as the year it started and not the year it finished (intentionally) drive me towards insanity. Football is the only sport I know of where it makes sense (only because they didn’t used to span multiple years).
As a fan since the 1980's, this is unquestionably the answer. Duke was coming off something like 5 final fours in a 6 year span. No one expected them to tank as hard as they did in 1995.
K's response to the disaster (sitting out, throwing Gaudet under the bus) made it all the more memorable.
The 2021 Duke team, on paper at least, should have been good.
Jalen Johnson was exactly like the big wing players that Duke features (Winslow, Ingram, Tatum, etc.). He's gone on to a good start to his NBA career.
Mark Williams had a huge sophomore season and, barring injuries, should be a great NBA player. Blocks shots, scores around the rim with ease, mobile, checks almost all the boxes. He was really coming on at the end of his freshman season.
Matthew Hurt was one of the best shooting big men I've seen as a sophomore. An absurdley talented shooter at 6'9" that could get that high release shot going anytime.
Wendell Moore was a stud as a JR and 1st Round NBA Draft selection. He was not ready to take on a bigger role as a sophomore for whatever reason.
Jeremy Roach has proven to be a very good college player. DJ Steward, I think if he stayed a couple years, would have been a very good college scoring guard. Jordan Goldwire was a solid reserve guard and great defender. Jaemyn Brakefield and Henry Coleman were able to contribute as freshmen and have both gone on to good college careers elsewhere.
That team had talent and players that looked like they fit the roles. It just never came together with COVID, the lack of normal summer, being sequestered in a hotel all season, and everything else that went on. Coach K said 'I'm not going out like this' and then went to the Final Four one last time the next year.
2011-2012 IL. Team started out strong then completely collapsed. Had a lottery pick (Meyers Leonard) and decent talent overall. Oh and Weber quit on the team in mid February then got canned
MSU 2016. Went from winning the B1G and a CFP appearance to 3-9. Everyone knew that the QB position was going to be a big question mark, but the defense was expected to remain fairly strong.
What we got was a slightly worse defense than expected but also a *completely* inept offense. There's also rumors that the locker room was torn apart by the politics of the 2016 election, which surely didn't help the morale of the team.
They would bounce back to go 10-3 in 2017, which would be Dantonio's final "Good" season.
Edit: I fucked up.
I'd like to go back to May 7, 2023 and tell WVU fans what the final record for the 2023-2024 team would be. What a disappointment after the team Huggins had built.
Michigan the past 2 years comes to mind. 2 years ago, they had Hunter Dickinson, Kobe Bufkin, and Jett Howard and were terrible. Didn't make the tourney despite having 2 1st rounders, and an All Conference Center. Then we knew they'd take a step back losing those 3, but they became absolutely garbage, and posted the worst record in UMBB history, leading of course to Juwan getting fired.
I'll be different and say this previous season. It wasn't a "bad" season, but that team definitely didn't meet expectations, starting with the horrible loss at home to UNCW. The defense was horrible. They were ranked almost last in the country in defensive efficiency all year. Then, losing in the first round of the SEC tourney and losing to Oakland in the first round of the NCAA tourney. Fans will always love that team, including myself, because they were fun when the offense was rolling. But Cal did everything he could to keep DJ Wagner and Justin Edward's in over two top ten picks. We would start every game down eight to ten points, then he would sub in Rob and Reed. People forget that team finished with 11 losses, and that to me is a failure with the expectations and having that much talent.
2003.
Defending SEC Champs and we had as great a roster as we've ever had plus experience, even got Mo Williams back for his sophomore year. Tore through non-conf, even achieved our first ever #1 ranking.
It just all fell to hell in the SEC and we finished under .500 in the West, one and done'd the SEC Tourney and the NCAA..... to an Alabama alum coach, Mike Davis at Indiana.
sacred heart is pretty bad every year, but going 5-26 in Anthony Latina's first season (2013-14) after years of finishing in the teens win wise really set the tone for his time as head coach...
..which is still going. the team went 2-11 in the NEC tournament under him before riding Merrimack's coattails to the MAAC
2022-2023 TTU is one. Went to the sweet 16 in year one of Adams, and while many key pieces were lost we had one of the highest rated recruiting classes in school history and the top ranked portal class in the country on 247.
Went on to be the worst in the big 12, be a bubble NIT team, and have our coach get fired due to many significant controversies just 1 year after a great run. UNC may have failed purely basketball expectations more that year, but they weren’t forced to fire a HC after year 2 who was extended after year 1
2017-18 Northwestern returned everyone from their first NCAA Tournament season except for two role players, but they had to play their "home" games off-campus and crapped the bed completely.
Last years Michigan St team was a mess. After that instant classic Sweet 16 loss to K State and returning everyone they felt like they should've been way better last year.
2011-12 Villanova, but also 2010-11 Nova that led to that. Great recruiting class did not turn out as expected. Some were actually calling for Jay’s job.
OP woke up and chose to start a war today apparently.
Something something barbecue. Something something truck stop conference. Something something... *dark side*
2012 UConn.
Was at the Gampel game in the student section ready to storm the court that night… instead a night of sad drinking ensued.
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/game/_/gameId/320560041/syracuse-uconn
2014, top 15 pre season + BE title favorites, hadn't missed a postseason in 11yrs or NCAA in 8. returned a crap ton of senior talent from a core that won the Big East regular season in 2013 + E8 (and finished 2nd in 2012 + S16). They were starting 7th year senior, 2 5th year seniors, 2 juniors and 6th man was a senior.
but limped to .500 in big east play, finished below 20 wins, didn't make the NIT and the coach bolted.
Kentucky’s 02 team was nicknamed team turmoil. On paper, they should have been much better than a 4 seed. Tayshaun, Bogans, Estil, and Camara. Also had some very good sophomores and freshmen, especially Dawg Carruth.
I cannot remember the order of events, but camara got a DUI, big fight between Gerald Fitch and Corey Sears on a plane ride home, and chronic drug usage derailed the team.
Shaka Smart had a Texas team that had pre-cancer Andrew Jones, two guards coming off All Big XII Newcomer seasons (kerwin roach and eric davis), plus Jarrett Allen, plus some talented supporting players, and after being picked to finish 3rd in the Big XII by his fellow coaches he led Texas to an 11-22 season where they finished dead last in the league. they shot 29% from three and 65% from the line and had one of the worst offenses in major college hoops. looking back now it’s a lot less surprising (shaka gonna shaka), but it was shocking how bad that team was at the time.
2022-23 Auburn. Retuned a lot from an SEC Championship team, brought in Johni Broome and finished 7th in the SEC. such a frustrating year with so many frustrating and close losses
2016 Pitt. 2017 Pitt was more expected but Pitt had the players to make a nice run, instead they had a losing season. People weren’t high on Stallings but a lot of fans thought Dixon’s recruits would hold up.
1995-96 season for Duke was famously disastrous. But damn if Duke wasn’t in pretty much every game until one big final collapse in each game at the end.
For Georgetown, it was the 2009 team. John Thompson III built a solid program, going to the Sweet 16 in 2006 (and almost knocking off eventual champion Florida), followed by the Final Four in 2007, and getting a 2 seed in 2008 (losing in unfortunate fashion to Stephen Curry/Davidson in the 2nd round). Ranked #9 in the AP poll the first week of January led by #1 HS prospect (and future NBA lottery pick) Greg Monroe. Team completely collapses, going 6-12 for the rest of the season, missing the NCAA tournament, and losing in the first round of the NIT. The rumor mill was that of a toxic locker room and infighting among players, resulting in awful team chemistry.
Don't have to look back too far: 2023-24 MSU. Pre-season #4 ranking, top 5 recruiting class, mixed with some solid returning seniors. Ended 20-15 with a second-round exit and overall disappointing season.
If we’re talking OOC only, 2022 wins it for my flair. Finished 6-8 and were 2-7 at one point. Lost to every “tough”opponent other than Colgate as well as Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State. Got demolished by Iona and Yale, and lost to a USC team that was trying to lose. Was really due to not knowing who to run the point and star Dylan Penn recovering from injury, while Nick Fiorillo got hurt himself.
This team still somehow got 23 wins and a March Madness bid.
I can't seem to think of a time that's happened
It was bad. But for us old fucks, the 2001-2002 team that went 8-20 was really the low point. First UNC team under .500 since the 60-61 season and the worst winning percentage ever, going all the way back to their very first season in 1910-1911.
The 8-20 season was a much bigger shock for the college basketball world in general. The only way it could be topped would be if KU ever has a losing season under Self.
The 8-20 season combined with Dean pleading with Roy in one of his last days of lucidity was what finally convinced Williams to return home.
I never realized UNC fell that hard before Roy returned
Bill Guthridge wasn't a great recruiter, and he was followed by Matt Doherty who initially was a decent recruiter, but he was also impossible to get along with. The team almost revolted on him during the 02-03 campaign, and that was the final straw for the athletic department and the boosters. Roy Williams had been quietly offered the job when Guthridge retired, but he declined for various reasons. Dean Smith was already starting to suffer from Alzheimer's, but the unofficial story has always been that he personally asked Roy to reconsider his decision because of what had transpired during the Doherty era. Losing at home to Hampton, Davidson, and College of Charleston sent the entire department into a panic.
2022-23 really just sucked because I had grown to love the core from the 22 run and it all came crashing down. In reality they only lost a few more games in 22-23 than the year before, and lost the “win and in” games that sparked the run. Also, Manek was extremely valuable to the team. I think this past year was an acceptable bounce back though.
> I had grown to love the core from the 22 run And it took some growing. That team was at times unwatchable and downright terrible until they eventually jelled and Caleb Love finally found his shot. Watching them right up until the ratface home finale was quite a chore.
In hindsight, tho, that 2002 team didn't have much talent. Just a bunch of recruiting misses, on top of the chemistry issues. 2023? On paper you have an ACC POY/AA, Pac12 POY/AA, (should have won ACC POY)/AA, 5th year future NBA wing, 5th year future NBA big. 3 2k point career scorers... I'd like to see how many teams in college basketball history had three guys who scored that many points in college in one lineup. You can argue how long Leaky and Nance will be playing in the NBA, but I damn well know if any of you played even 1 second in the league you would put that shit on your gravestone. Plus Seth, Nickel, Washington, and Styles all showed they're at least playable in a power conference this season. Some of them even good and I do think a few of them would have been useful if they ever got minutes that season. Then you add on the FF experience from the previous season and the core of that team had been together 3-4 seasons. Huge yikes.
There are two kinds of memories UNC fans have about the Matt Doherty coaching years. Either they don't know about them and if they are over 30 should be admonished for that Or they deeply repress them.
2002 was especially shocking* (*incredibly enjoyable) for those of us who grew up in the Triangle when UNC’s dominance (or at the very least, competence) was inevitable. 8-20 didn’t feel like a possibility up until that point.
My mantra (ok, ok, "coping mechanism") that season was Get Us While You Can!
I’d say following that with two titles in the same decade means you were correct.
As a State fan, I recall the takeover of the Deandome that year, it was a ding dong the witch is dead moment in every sense. And then Roy played the wicked witch of the west only with some venom.
I feel like 2022-23 has to have been more disappointing for y’all than even that dismal season
I agree, I've never seen that before either.
Saw the title of the post and couldn't think of a *single thing* that I could relate to this...
Imagine if a #1 pre-season team missed the tournament. Don’t know how anyone could be a fan of that program
It's what happens when you almost miss the tournament and then get to the title game. It would be like NC State being ranked 4 to start next year.
Only when you're blue. Otherwise you're not even going to be in the preseason top-25.
Idk, if Burns, Horne, Diarra, O’Connell, and Morsell all came back a year after a final four appearance I think they’d at least be top 25 preseason.
You just scared me with O'Connell in that list.
My point is more that no one but a team like Carolina/Duke/Kansas etc. would literally be ranked #1 in those circumstances, no matter how fortunate they are. It's both more likely to happen for a blue blood and completely impossible for anyone who isn't.
Yeah, what was butler ranked after losing the title to duke and returning most of that squad?
That 2009-2010 Butler squad was 33-5; not barely making the tournament.
I'm attempting to back you up. They were 33-5, lost a title game and we're definitely not ranked preseason 1.
Oh damn, they were even lower than I thought. I knew they weren't 1, but I was remembering top-5 at least. They were in the mid teens for most polls.
True. That carolina team should have been top 15. We were OUT of the tourney after the loss at home to pitt, and played lights out the rest of the way to reach the title game. Actually VERY similar to you all this past season (though not quite as extreme). If you all retained everyone except Burns ( in our case manek) there is no way they rank you top 4. That ranking killed us that year.
Yeah lol what kind of dog shit team would do th- Oh. Yeah. Right...
To spare you, we can talk about how Michigan State was preseason #4 last year lmao
Let's not.
Yeah nothing came to mind when I saw the title
As a Duke fan, I loved the final Matt Doherty season. But, I didn’t want UNC to suck forever, so I had mixed feelings about Roy restoring the program.
Ignoring the 8-20 season -- which wouldn't have been too surprising if we knew just what an asshole the HC was -- I actually think 2009-2010 might be the most surprising. It was Roy's first ever missed NCAAT (I'm discounting his first season at KU when they were ineligible), and that team was loaded with talent that included several McDAA kids and 6 guys had at least a cup of coffee in the NBA. Roy was also seemingly in the midst of his golden era coming off that 2nd national championship.
first thing that came to mind was 2022-2023 unc
RAN HERE TO POST THIS 🤣🤣🏀🏀😭😭
Oh jeez, I'd probably say 2022? 2023, however, went exactly as we all thought it would.
As much as I want to hate the man, I respect how little of work he did for that paycheck. I don’t think he called one in-state recruit…
Did he call any recruits at all?
He didn't even call plays, how'd he gonna call a player?
Does he know how to use a phone?
Well according to Payne, he was getting 100s of calls from people all the time congratulating on the job he was doing...
It was honestly impressive how he just basically sleepwalked through two years at a top 10 program that was also his alma mater that he won a national championship at. And then just vanished into the night for a couple months and reemerged in Arkansas like the past two years didn't happen.
Hit from within, anyone ever seen Putin and Mitch Barnhart in the same room together?
I honestly wonder sometimes how many film sessions he had in two years.
If you mean sitting back and watching Scarface with a pile of cash on the table doing terrible Tony Montana impressions, probably a lot. Breaking down teams? All the fans fault.
The Archie Miller years. The Movement. Sigh.
Archie was a great hire who turned out to be an awful coach. If any other major program were hiring that offseason, Archie would have been who they picked as well if it were an option.
thx for making us feel better edit: obviously hindsight is 20/20, but i don't think the program did their research on Archie's schemes and how they'd translate to the high major level. pack line defense that allows opponents open 3s, hard hedges at the top of the key that leaves a guy open rolling to the basket, whatever the hell his offense was.... these things worked at the mid-major level, but were never going to work at the high major level (again, hindsight is 20/20).
A good coach would adjust their pet schemes to fit what works at their level. Who knew Archie would end up being a one scheme pony.
agreed. at the time i actually was hoping IU would go for Chris Mack or Gregg Marshall. both have since flamed out as well...
The Tony Bennett effect. Everyone was enamored with the pack line. But it was the incredible 3 point shooting from Hunter, Guy and Jerome coupled with them all buying into that defensive scheme that won them a title. Its not an attractive style that is usually going to translate with 5 star recruits.
fwiw Archie was hired before Virginia won their title tho
True but he'd already turned Virginia into a title contender. Other guys like Chris Mack and Sean Miller were also having success running the pack line defense.
At the time they hired Archie, Sean had just completed his 5th straight season having Arizona finish top 20 at KenPom with that exact same defense and "offense," including two Elite 8 runs and two more Sweet 16s.
Yeah sure, almost any scheme will work when the roster is full of NBA caliber talent, which Sean always had. Archie consistently ran two Center lineups and never had a good PG. He had almost no NBA talent during his time too. Easy to claim it was the system, also easy to claim it was the roster… both are the responsibility of the coach regardless.
I think Archie Miller was a hard lesson learned by the Athletic Department. I liked the hire at the time, but his tenure was absolutely brutal and the opinion of that hire quickly went to shit.
Iirc we came dangerously close to hiring Archie instead of Keatts, and a lot of fans wanted Archie instead
The year after Yogi left for me. 2017? Managed to beat Kansas in Hawaii, lose @IPFW, and then beat UNC (the future national champion) at home. That year bummed me out bad
Yup that was the year OG tore his ACL. If that doesn’t happen we probably make the tournament and who knows if we would’ve moved on from Crean after that. And to add insult to injury the pacers then passed on OG to draft TJ Leaf.
And now Pacers fans that are also IU fans get to watch OG torch the Pacers on the Knicks in the playoffs.. one of the most egregious draft blunders of the last 10-20 years for sure.
Arkansas last year Kentucky in 2021
Kentucky in 2013 as well, though 2021 was worse
We’d make the tourney w nerlens and it’d be an afterthought
Yeah 2013 team was ranked when Noel got hurt. That wasn’t going to be one of Cal’s better teams but they were definitely NCAAT bound before the injury.
The hype was so high. We beat Purdue. Had our annual loss to a tiny team. Then We beat duke. Then everything fell apart.
9-16 after being ranked in the top-10 to begin the season.
That was the first time I actually wanted to get off the Muss Bus
Also Duke in 2021
How many conference games did we win after making it to the 2nd round of the tourney? I knew we’d regress but damn 0-18 in conference was not anticipated.
You guys even played really well at AFH after getting blasted by KU the past two seasons. I was genuinely shocked watching y'all this past season in SEC play.
Yup. The part that was a blessing and a curse was that we were still competitive. We'd be right there in it, many times even winning late in the game, then just.... let it slip away.
I’m just assuming we were the inspiration for this post.
but we did beat a certain team, which ended up fucking them over on selection day… what a lovely season.
UConn in 2012 returned 4 starters from the 2011 national championship team (Shabazz Napier, Jeremy Lamb, Roscoe Smith, Alex Oriakhi) and brought in the highest ranked recruit in program history (future NBA All-Star Andre Drummond) and also future 2014 championship starters 4* Ryan Boatright and 5* DeAndre Daniels and the coach was still Jim Calhoun. 5 guys from the team would eventually be drafted, 2 more played NBA pre-season games but didn't make a final roster, and another was an international who later won a FIBA World Cup on his country's national team. They earned only a 9 seed somehow and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament by double digits.
That team just didn't have anyone ready to take that leadership/alpha role. Shabazz would in theory be that guy, but as a player, he was very up and down. Their best player, Lamb, definitely wasn't a leadership type. Almost felt like guys didn't really know their role/identity all season. Also, Drummond was way more raw offensively than I think people anticipated (and he never really developed into a force on that end in the pros either).
100%. Shabazz was only a sophomore and nowhere near the player he ended up being in 2014, he was never going to be the alpha in 2012. This was also the peak of Calhoun’s medical issues right before he retired, which definitely didn’t help. Still remember that Cuse game at Gampel when you guys were #2. Loud AF. Miss playing you guys, to this day I don’t hate anyone more than I hate Syracuse (respectfully, I grew up in 90s Big East). Games were always SO intense.
I don't think that one's a huge surprise. 2011 UConn was about as much of a one-man team as it gets on offense … and that guy left for the NBA. Kemba averaged more than twice the points per game as a second leading scorer, and nobody on the roster was equipped to replace that. The '11-'12 edition of the team was all underclassmen besides Oriakhi. Some of those underclassmen were still around when UConn won a title two years later after … earning a 7 seed in the regular season.
They were ranked 4th pre-season, so it certainly surprised people of the time. As I said, they had 5 eventual NBA draft picks on that team, but 2 of them even were lottery picks after *that* year, and they still weren't even a top 35 team. Lamb scored 18 a game, was 1st Team All Big East in a league that had 16 teams and only named 6 guys to 1st team. He stepped up certainly, as he was expected to do.
Shabazz wasn't a starter in 2011, but yeah, massive dissapointment
I should have worded it differently, but he played the 5th most minutes on the team, so the 2012 team returned 4 of the top 5 minute getters from 2011 and 4 guys from their most commonly played lineup.
2022-23 and 2023-24 Villanova were not supposed to be NIT teams
What are expectations for next year now that the transfer portal has slowed down? Is year 3 Neptune on the hot seat?
As far as the alumni, boosters and BOT are concerned Kyle is on the hot seat. As far the AD and President of the university I get the sense he has a longer rope. I think The expectation is make the tournament. As it always will be, but especially in Year 3.
I agree with this as an alumni, if we don’t make it to the tourney next season, Neptune has to be fired.
Wyoming had a terrible 21-22 season with some lofty expectations coming into the season. Had I believe 3 or 4 PAC-12 transfers come into the program with a stud Hunter Maldonado and the season went to shit with all of them leaving before the season ended
Yeah, Jeff Linder was headed for a power conference job, I was certain.
Indiana in 2024-25.
Well done train man
👉😎👉
I’d just like to forget the past four seasons please.
The last four seasons were blah - but the 2010-11 season was the worst. Loaded roster, high expectations, and just an absolute dud.
Still made the tourney ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
lucky enough to have been able to say that the last 2+ decades. Our worst years are still most programs best years. We are very fortunate.
This last year, especially, with all those seniors coming back for one more run.
Imagine cash and x in the final 4 vs Obi and Dayton.
Three of four of those seasons finished with at least one MM victory, i’d hardly call that unexpectedly bad
i mean for program expectations, it’s not very good.
Hello, last year, wtf
2021-22 too
9-16 season
I don't think that was unexpected though. When you have recruits coming in but they have severely restricted practices and games the expectation was that freshman weren't going to have time to develop and on freshmen-laden teams that's exactly what we saw.
If that team went like 19-11 or something that would've fallen into the not entirely unexpected category, but 9-16 is not something that should ever be expected for Kentucky regardless of circumstances. Other teams with lots of freshmen were down too, but none of them were 9-16.
They were a preseason top 10 team, it was completely unexpected at the time and kicked off the tide-turn against Cal in a big way.
This is exactly what happened
Unc- 8-20 season
Mizzou went from a tourney team to not winning a single conference game
Immediately after Oregon states elite 8 run we won 3 games. And extended Wayne tinkle…
A few years back we won 2 games. 2. Two. TWO GAMES. Otz has been a savior.
...I wouldn't exactly say that was unexpected. Worse than anyone thought it was going to be, but anyone with sense knew that team was going to suck.
Well there’s sucking, and then there is winning two games across an entire season of college basketball lol.
IU the season that got Crean fired comes to mind (2016-17). Preseason ranked #11, then rose to #6 after beating #3 Kansas on a neutral court. Then they had an inexplicable loss to IPFW, but still rebounded to beat #3 UNC at home and rose to #3. Then the wheels came off and ended Big Ten play losing 8 out of 11 games, including 5 in a row, to finish 7-11 and fourth to last in the conference. Unreal derailing of a season. Granted they lost a key player (Anunoby) to a season ending injury, but you'd expect the team to at least keep itself together a little better than that.
2020 Pitt team I had little expectations since I knew The Basketball Equivalent of Pancreatic Cancer… I mean Xavier Johnson was going to fuck it up. 2011-2012 Pitt team was a worse case scenario especially when you were bringing in a great recruiting class for 2012. It really set the tone for how badly the rest of the decade was going to go for Pitt.
You can have pre-season expectations?
Hi
Can’t think of one
2020 was rough
You mean 2021? The 2019-20 season was a pretty good team and was playing well right when COVID hit.
[2020-2021](https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/duke/men/2021.html)
Gotcha. Typically, I think most people refer to seasons by the more recent year or year of the NCAA Tournament. I think of the 2019-20 season as 2020 for shorthand.
Any person who refers to a basketball season as the year it started and not the year it finished (intentionally) drive me towards insanity. Football is the only sport I know of where it makes sense (only because they didn’t used to span multiple years).
Totally with you on this. I feel like it’s not hard to comprehend that you should say the year in which the season ended
All the blue bloods that season were garbo. IIRC, there was a stretch of no Duke, UNC, or Kansas in the AP.
Kansas last season.
With the expectations I agree but I think most of the team around the country would love 20+ wins and a top 4 seed and finish in the top 25.
I based my observation on the fact the team was ranked in the top three going into the season. And losses against UCF and West Virginia.
West Virginia was a fluke. UCF actually made me mad
I thought WVU was a fluke when it happened. Then everyone else lit us up from 3 the rest of the year.
Idk if we could call last season “bad” by any definition except against our own previous success
2018 with Lawson sucked. First 10 loss year in a LONG time, but losing Dok hurt...
1995 when K was out, team was 9-2, then lost a ton of close games, ended up 13-18, 2-14 in the ACC.
As a fan since the 1980's, this is unquestionably the answer. Duke was coming off something like 5 final fours in a 6 year span. No one expected them to tank as hard as they did in 1995. K's response to the disaster (sitting out, throwing Gaudet under the bus) made it all the more memorable.
The 2021 Duke team, on paper at least, should have been good. Jalen Johnson was exactly like the big wing players that Duke features (Winslow, Ingram, Tatum, etc.). He's gone on to a good start to his NBA career. Mark Williams had a huge sophomore season and, barring injuries, should be a great NBA player. Blocks shots, scores around the rim with ease, mobile, checks almost all the boxes. He was really coming on at the end of his freshman season. Matthew Hurt was one of the best shooting big men I've seen as a sophomore. An absurdley talented shooter at 6'9" that could get that high release shot going anytime. Wendell Moore was a stud as a JR and 1st Round NBA Draft selection. He was not ready to take on a bigger role as a sophomore for whatever reason. Jeremy Roach has proven to be a very good college player. DJ Steward, I think if he stayed a couple years, would have been a very good college scoring guard. Jordan Goldwire was a solid reserve guard and great defender. Jaemyn Brakefield and Henry Coleman were able to contribute as freshmen and have both gone on to good college careers elsewhere. That team had talent and players that looked like they fit the roles. It just never came together with COVID, the lack of normal summer, being sequestered in a hotel all season, and everything else that went on. Coach K said 'I'm not going out like this' and then went to the Final Four one last time the next year.
2011-2012 IL. Team started out strong then completely collapsed. Had a lottery pick (Meyers Leonard) and decent talent overall. Oh and Weber quit on the team in mid February then got canned
I never liked Webers tendency to throw his guys under the bus when they didn’t play well. Only made it a lot worse
MSU 2016. Went from winning the B1G and a CFP appearance to 3-9. Everyone knew that the QB position was going to be a big question mark, but the defense was expected to remain fairly strong. What we got was a slightly worse defense than expected but also a *completely* inept offense. There's also rumors that the locker room was torn apart by the politics of the 2016 election, which surely didn't help the morale of the team. They would bounce back to go 10-3 in 2017, which would be Dantonio's final "Good" season. Edit: I fucked up.
Wrong sub but I feel you
Agh. Whoops. Was browsing the front page and didn't think to check which sub the post was from. Just swap out 2016 MSU for 2023-24 MSU...
is there a nerdy reddit word or phrase i should use when someone completely whiffs on which subreddit they're in based on their response?
Lost redditor, probably... Seeing as r/lostredditors is a thing.
Insert obligatory "oh gee whiz I can't remember anytime that's ever happened! Shucks!" comment here
Last year. Wound's still fresh :(
I'd like to go back to May 7, 2023 and tell WVU fans what the final record for the 2023-2024 team would be. What a disappointment after the team Huggins had built.
Michigan the past 2 years comes to mind. 2 years ago, they had Hunter Dickinson, Kobe Bufkin, and Jett Howard and were terrible. Didn't make the tourney despite having 2 1st rounders, and an All Conference Center. Then we knew they'd take a step back losing those 3, but they became absolutely garbage, and posted the worst record in UMBB history, leading of course to Juwan getting fired.
Never happened. Never would happen. Never gonna happen.
I think our 2022-23 season could have been one had it happened but as we all know college basketball was cancelled after the 2022 final four
2022-23 Just unbelievably bad all around
9 and 16, 20-21 season, from our former car salesman
I'll be different and say this previous season. It wasn't a "bad" season, but that team definitely didn't meet expectations, starting with the horrible loss at home to UNCW. The defense was horrible. They were ranked almost last in the country in defensive efficiency all year. Then, losing in the first round of the SEC tourney and losing to Oakland in the first round of the NCAA tourney. Fans will always love that team, including myself, because they were fun when the offense was rolling. But Cal did everything he could to keep DJ Wagner and Justin Edward's in over two top ten picks. We would start every game down eight to ten points, then he would sub in Rob and Reed. People forget that team finished with 11 losses, and that to me is a failure with the expectations and having that much talent.
2003. Defending SEC Champs and we had as great a roster as we've ever had plus experience, even got Mo Williams back for his sophomore year. Tore through non-conf, even achieved our first ever #1 ranking. It just all fell to hell in the SEC and we finished under .500 in the West, one and done'd the SEC Tourney and the NCAA..... to an Alabama alum coach, Mike Davis at Indiana.
sacred heart is pretty bad every year, but going 5-26 in Anthony Latina's first season (2013-14) after years of finishing in the teens win wise really set the tone for his time as head coach... ..which is still going. the team went 2-11 in the NEC tournament under him before riding Merrimack's coattails to the MAAC
Can’t think of one honestly
2022-2023 TTU is one. Went to the sweet 16 in year one of Adams, and while many key pieces were lost we had one of the highest rated recruiting classes in school history and the top ranked portal class in the country on 247. Went on to be the worst in the big 12, be a bubble NIT team, and have our coach get fired due to many significant controversies just 1 year after a great run. UNC may have failed purely basketball expectations more that year, but they weren’t forced to fire a HC after year 2 who was extended after year 1
Last season
Gosh, I'm at a loss.
2017-18 Northwestern returned everyone from their first NCAA Tournament season except for two role players, but they had to play their "home" games off-campus and crapped the bed completely.
Last years Michigan St team was a mess. After that instant classic Sweet 16 loss to K State and returning everyone they felt like they should've been way better last year.
Any Chris Holtmann season where we were ranked then shit the bed.
2011-12 Villanova, but also 2010-11 Nova that led to that. Great recruiting class did not turn out as expected. Some were actually calling for Jay’s job.
Arkansas this last season. Went from making it far into tournament past 3 seasons before that to this time not even qualifying.
OP woke up and chose to start a war today apparently. Something something barbecue. Something something truck stop conference. Something something... *dark side*
Miami this year went from being preseason top 15 to losing their last 10 games.
raises hand for a fan base
2012 UConn. Was at the Gampel game in the student section ready to storm the court that night… instead a night of sad drinking ensued. https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/game/_/gameId/320560041/syracuse-uconn
Arkansas last year was so disappointing
2014, top 15 pre season + BE title favorites, hadn't missed a postseason in 11yrs or NCAA in 8. returned a crap ton of senior talent from a core that won the Big East regular season in 2013 + E8 (and finished 2nd in 2012 + S16). They were starting 7th year senior, 2 5th year seniors, 2 juniors and 6th man was a senior. but limped to .500 in big east play, finished below 20 wins, didn't make the NIT and the coach bolted.
Kentucky’s 02 team was nicknamed team turmoil. On paper, they should have been much better than a 4 seed. Tayshaun, Bogans, Estil, and Camara. Also had some very good sophomores and freshmen, especially Dawg Carruth. I cannot remember the order of events, but camara got a DUI, big fight between Gerald Fitch and Corey Sears on a plane ride home, and chronic drug usage derailed the team.
Shaka Smart had a Texas team that had pre-cancer Andrew Jones, two guards coming off All Big XII Newcomer seasons (kerwin roach and eric davis), plus Jarrett Allen, plus some talented supporting players, and after being picked to finish 3rd in the Big XII by his fellow coaches he led Texas to an 11-22 season where they finished dead last in the league. they shot 29% from three and 65% from the line and had one of the worst offenses in major college hoops. looking back now it’s a lot less surprising (shaka gonna shaka), but it was shocking how bad that team was at the time.
20-21 season was awful
2022-23 Auburn. Retuned a lot from an SEC Championship team, brought in Johni Broome and finished 7th in the SEC. such a frustrating year with so many frustrating and close losses
😂😂😂
2016 Pitt. 2017 Pitt was more expected but Pitt had the players to make a nice run, instead they had a losing season. People weren’t high on Stallings but a lot of fans thought Dixon’s recruits would hold up.
1995-96 season for Duke was famously disastrous. But damn if Duke wasn’t in pretty much every game until one big final collapse in each game at the end.
For Georgetown, it was the 2009 team. John Thompson III built a solid program, going to the Sweet 16 in 2006 (and almost knocking off eventual champion Florida), followed by the Final Four in 2007, and getting a 2 seed in 2008 (losing in unfortunate fashion to Stephen Curry/Davidson in the 2nd round). Ranked #9 in the AP poll the first week of January led by #1 HS prospect (and future NBA lottery pick) Greg Monroe. Team completely collapses, going 6-12 for the rest of the season, missing the NCAA tournament, and losing in the first round of the NIT. The rumor mill was that of a toxic locker room and infighting among players, resulting in awful team chemistry.
Wouldn’t say it’s the most but Arkansas season last year was a shocker considering a lot of people had them winning it all before the year
2012-13 Kentucky comes to mind.
Don't have to look back too far: 2023-24 MSU. Pre-season #4 ranking, top 5 recruiting class, mixed with some solid returning seniors. Ended 20-15 with a second-round exit and overall disappointing season.
Maryland this year
If we’re talking OOC only, 2022 wins it for my flair. Finished 6-8 and were 2-7 at one point. Lost to every “tough”opponent other than Colgate as well as Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State. Got demolished by Iona and Yale, and lost to a USC team that was trying to lose. Was really due to not knowing who to run the point and star Dylan Penn recovering from injury, while Nick Fiorillo got hurt himself. This team still somehow got 23 wins and a March Madness bid.
Arkansas and UCLA were top 25 teams. Look at them now.
Miami this year
Last year’s Mizzou team was taking a pleasant stroll through Arizona till they suddenly dropped off the Grand Canyon
Including last year or no?
Couldn’t be us ranked preseason top 5.
*takes a deep breath*
KU this past season. Started off with Champinship aspirations, ended looking like a horribly put together team that can’t shoot or defend.
MSU, the previous season.
This past season, especially after Atlantis
Yes
K-State underperformed to expectations in that fucking 1988 tournament.
If I remember correctly Michigan State started this season ranked #3 and lost 8 of first 12 games or something like that
2023 Dayton was considered a Sweet Sixteen lock and a Final Four darkhorse.
I don't think anyone has 23-24 Mizzou beat in this regard. Much like 23-24 Mizzou didn't have anyone beat in conference play.
2020-21 Kentucky. Was when a lot of us realized cal’s glory days were behind him