A question a colleague asked me this week, that I haven’t been able to get out of my head:
“Which teams do you actually think could win the national championship this year?”
Right off the dome, three: Auburn, Duke and Iowa State. Throw Marquette, Alabama and Houston in the mix, too. Maybe Florida? Tennessee? But you can count the true contenders on two hands.
As for abject disasters, though? More than enough of those to go around — but let’s start with one of the most notable, and a fan base ripe with buyer’s remorse:
1. Arkansas, John Calipari and the inevitable
If you’re unfamiliar with the popular X account Message Board Geniuses, boy, do I have a treat for you. It’s exactly what it sounds like: screenshots from some of the deepest recesses of various college message boards, where pain and misery (and usually, booze) meet in a heinous Venn diagram. But why bring this up?
Oh, you know. No particular reason. Definitely not because Arkansas lost at LSU — one of the few beatable teams in the SEC — earlier this week to drop to 0-4 in the conference and 11-6 overall. With the loss, at least for the time being, Arkansas is firmly out of the NCAA Tournament picture. Hogs fans took those developments, well, exactly how you’d expect:
Tough times at #Arkansas. pic.twitter.com/8wo2oOGcRc
— Message Board Geniuses (@BoardGeniuses) January 16, 2025
It’s almost like Calipari has a recent penchant for underperformance. Simply put, Arkansas did not hire the coach who took Kentucky to seven Elite Eights, four Final Fours and one national championship in his first 10 seasons in Lexington. Instead, it hired the one who failed to make the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament his last four seasons with the Cats — whose inability or unwillingness to change his ways ran in direct contrast to college basketball’s on-court evolution. Kentucky was actually, seriously considering firing Calipari — and paying him an unthinkable $33 million buyout — just to avoid another ride on his Titanic.
GO DEEPER
Tucker: John Calipari had Kentucky by the basketballs. Then came Arkansas
That is the guy Arkansas couldn’t wait to throw chicken money at.
Kentucky fans were rightfully overjoyed to cash in their washed-up Calipari chip for an actual basketball coach. Voila: Mark Pope’s first team is not only incredibly fun to watch, but at 14-3 with six Quad 1 wins, UK is trending toward a top-four seed come March. Salt, meet wound.
But at the risk of dunking on Cal for the rest of this column, I’ll take a step back and consider: Why is Arkansas struggling as badly as it is?
First, from both a basketball and process standpoint, little seems to have changed from Calipari’s late-Kentucky tenure. The Athletic’s Brendan Quinn wrote a fantastic piece this preseason on that exact topic, in which Cal basically spoke his own postmortem into existence: “I’m not changing at this point. I don’t think I can if I wanted to.” Calipari could have used this move as a chance to start over, to focus more on roster fit than sheer talent compilation, but he doubled down on his old tactics instead.
GO DEEPER
Will anything change in John Calipari’s final fight?
His first Arkansas roster isn’t nearly as freshman-dependent as many of his Kentucky teams, with point guard Boogie Fland, arguably the best player, the only one earning 20-plus minutes per game. But the pieces are as ill-fitting as ever. The Hogs have a surplus of drivers and bigs, and in classic Calipari fashion, little 3-point shooting to actually create room for them. Former Florida Atlantic star Johnell Davis — who shot 41.4 percent from 3 last season — should seemingly provide that spacing, but Calipari has somehow turned the one-time Final Four front man into a complete non-factor.
Making matters worse is that Arkansas — based on conversations with other high-major coaches, collective leaders and agents — has one of the most-expensive rosters in the sport this season, at easily over $5 million. And for what? A 7-11 SEC finish? Another imaginary high school recruiting banner? I’m sure that’s what John Tyson, Tyson Foods CEO, aka the man footing the bill, had in mind when he stole national headlines last April.
So, where does Arkansas go from here?
An optimist would say that the Hogs’ upcoming schedule at least offers some shot at getting back on track. At Missouri, then home vs. Georgia and Oklahoma, is about as generous a three-game slate as you’ll find in the SEC this season. And there is talent here, if Calipari can get out of its way. Fland is one of the best freshmen in the country. Adou Thiero — one of three Kentucky imports — has blossomed into a potential first-round pick, and the 6-foot-8 specimen is a menace in transition and cutting to the cup. Davis has the tools to be an all-SEC guard if Calipari finally sets him free.
But the pessimist would say that if Arkansas can’t beat LSU, which has the second-worst adjusted defensive efficiency in the league, per KenPom, then who can it beat?
There’s still enough talent here to make the NCAA Tournament if the Hogs can catch fire, but maybe those message board posters aren’t entirely wrong.
2. This is Tom Izzo’s best Michigan State team since …
2020? That’s the last time the Spartans finished the season with a top-25 adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency, per KenPom, and MSU is one of just 12 programs that can currently claim such status. But that isn’t a super fun comparison, since there was no NCAA Tournament that season. Perhaps 2019, then, when MSU last had an offensive rating this high?
Regardless, the larger point is the same: Izzo has himself a squad. Since the Spartans returned from Maui, Bart Torvik ranks them as the sixth-best team in America, behind only Houston, Auburn, Duke, Arizona and Iowa State. So, four national title contenders, and arguably the hottest team in the country. Yeah, good company for Sparty to keep.
What’s incredible is that Michigan State has rattled off 10 straight wins — four of them against top-50 opponents, including this week’s five-point win over Penn State — without meaningfully improving its biggest offensive weakness: 3-point shooting. As of this writing, the Spartans are 340th nationally in 3-point percentage at just 28.7 percent, with only one player (junior guard Tre Holloman) having made at least 15 3s at better than a 30 percent clip.
So how is Sparty overcoming that complete dearth of shooting offensively? By playing some of the most selfless basketball in the country, which naturally befits a roster lacking a singular legitimate star. Case in point: Michigan State has nine players who have earned at least one KenPom game MVP, more than any other team in the top 20.
Additionally, Michigan State is sixth nationally in assist rate — and leading that charge is freshman guard Jeremy Fears Jr., who is third nationally in assist rate only a year after he was shot in the leg. (The injuries he sustained in Dec. 2023 ended his true freshman season after just 12 games and ultimately led to him being granted a medical redshirt.) It’s an incredible story of resilience by an incredible player. Fears has been good all year, as evidenced as the timing on this alley-oop pass against Kansas. The ball’s right at the rim, over Hunter Dickinson, as Fears is falling down, with defensive stalwart Dajuan Harris Jr. trailing from behind:
But he’s really been good of late. Specifically, he is torching teams in the pick-and-roll, where he seems to always make the right read. Here, Northwestern hedges the ball screen, forcing Fears all the way to the logo — yet he delivers a pinpoint pass right into Jaden Akins’ shooting pocket:
If Michigan State is this good without making 3s, imagine what it could look like canning a few more per game. The lack of a star makes me wary this is a Final Four team, but it’s absolutely a Big Ten contender, and all alone in first place after Minnesota beat Michigan on Thursday night.
3. Iowa State wasn’t just better than Kansas. It was tougher, too
No better example of that than the game-determining sequence Wednesday with just over four minutes to play. Joshua Jefferson missed a free throw, and both Iowa State’s Dishon Jackson and Kansas’ Dickinson had a shot at the rebound. Dickinson, of course, is a multiple time All-American and one of the most famous (and highly compensated) players in America. Jackson is a Charlotte transfer. Look which one lays all the way out for the game-deciding rebound:
Yes, Iowa State was playing at home, but down starter Milan Momcilovic, who is out indefinitely with a hand injury, which is worth monitoring as March approaches. The Cyclones’ culture and identity still carried them to the win. They forced 17 turnovers and converted them into 23 points, which should be no surprise, since TJ Otzelberger’s team has the seventh-best turnover margin in all of Division I.
4. The ‘Wait, they’re good this year?’ Midseason Awards
Because, duh, you know by now which teams rock (Auburn, Duke, yada yada). But it’s easy for solid teams to slip through the cracks of national attention. Teams like:
Missouri: The Tigers scored maybe the biggest win this week, knocking off Florida on the road on Tuesday, dealing the Gators their second loss all season. Dennis Gates’ team has lost only three times this season — all to ranked foes away from home — and has emerged as one of the surprise offenses of the season. How? By absolutely living at the free-throw line. Missouri averages 28.6 free-throw attempts per game, with Duke castoff Mark Mitchell and sophomore Anthony Robinson both ranking in the top-75 nationally in fouls drawn, per KenPom. Mitchell played the last eight and a half minutes with four personal fouls, but was still driving this aggressively with under two minutes to play:
Caleb Grill scored a game-high 22, including the game-winning free throws with five seconds left. It’s entirely feasible the Tigers go from 0-18 in SEC play last season to back to the NCAA Tournament.
Wake Forest: Ty-Laur Johnson may have saved the Demon Deacons’ season. Since the Louisville transfer entered the starting lineup four games ago, Wake Forest is undefeated and averaging 81.5 points per game. Most importantly, though, Johnson’s table-setting ability as a point guard has allowed All-ACC guard Hunter Sallis to move off the ball, and he’s taken off as a result. Over the past four games, Sallis is averaging 23.8 points per game while shooting 44.4 percent from 3 and 94.4 percent from the charity stripe. Small sample, yes, but Johnson’s emergence has solved Wake’s primary problem — and may lead to the Demon Deacons making the Big Dance for the first time under Steve Forbes.
St. John’s: Rick Pitino’s team was ranked earlier this season, so it’s not like the Red Storm are flying completely under the radar. But we’re also probably not talking about the Johnnies enough as a Big East contender. Pitino’s team has the eighth-best adjusted defensive efficiency in the country, per KenPom, and is notably fifth amongst all high-majors in block rate. The offense is a work in progress — can somebody, anybody, please make some shots? — but the defense is stout enough to mostly compensate. Marquette is still the clear Big East front-runner, but would you want to play a defensive-oriented Pitino team in March?
5. It’s time, Indiana
TLDR on the Hoosiers: They got smacked twice in a row this week, losing by 25 points apiece to Iowa and Illinois. The loss to the Illini, at Assembly Hall, was particularly grim for Mike Woodson’s future. Listen for yourself:
“Fire Woodson” chant coming from the Indiana student section.
An embarrassing start from Indiana in the first half. #iubb pic.twitter.com/C6GbVBfwvL
— Dylan Traeger (@dylan_traeger) January 15, 2025
It’s hard to blame students — most of whom left at halftime, after Indiana allowed a staggering 60 points — for being so frustrated. Indiana was among the top spenders in the transfer portal this offseason, yet the on-court product looks as bad as it ever has under Woodson. The head coach is toeing the dangerous line between anger and apathy from IU’s fan base — and once you hit the latter, there’s no coming back.
All of which is a long way of saying, we’re about done here.
(Photo: Luke Hales / Getty Images)
