That stands to be the lowest average score for the four programs since 1982-83.Ī variety of variables could be responsible for the blue bloods’ struggles, chief among them that the pandemic created an unprecedented number of scheduling obstacles. The mean of those four teams’ SRS ratings is only 13.2 points better than the average Division I team this season. But each also fell out of the AP Top 25 for the first time since 1961, and they have combined to win 53.9 percent of their games this season, the lowest collective percentage since the 1915-16 season. Each is a blue blood in both the figurative and the chromatic. The dropoff is even more pronounced when looking at just the top four schools, which happen to all be college basketball’s usual household names: Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina and Duke. The mean score this season for these 10 schools ranks as the third-lowest of any season since 1981-82, at just 12 points better than an average team. 16 for each of the 10 winningest teams in men’s Division I college basketball entering the 2020-21 season: Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina, Duke, Temple, Syracuse, UCLA, Notre Dame, St. To measure how offbeat it has been, FiveThirtyEight looked at 40 years of Simple Rating System (SRS) scores through games of Feb. Sports have repeatedly proven that even the greats eventually fall, but this has been a uniquely strange season for college basketball institutions.
If the season ended today, six of the top 10 teams with the most all-time wins as of the end of last season would watch the action in Indianapolis from their homes. Last week’s AP poll featured precisely none of the 10 teams with the most all-time AP poll appearances. Of the top 20 teams ranked in the AP preseason poll, four 6 are projected by ESPN’s Bracketology to miss out on the NCAA Tournament. 1 seeds in the past four tournaments, is looking at a potential 5-seed, which would be its lowest since 2000. Indiana, one of five schools to win at least five national championships, is in jeopardy of missing its fourth consecutive tournament and has continued its seemingly annual tradition of considering firing its head coach. 4 Duke and Michigan State 5 will likely need to win conference championships to earn NCAA Tournament bids it’s been almost 40 years since both failed to qualify. Staples of the Top 25 like Kentucky and Notre Dame 3 rank near the bottom of their respective conference standings, with the former experiencing its lowest season win percentage since 1926-27.
Krzyzewski unintentionally described the experience of many of the sport’s eminent powers. “We’re not accustomed to losing, but we are,” said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski - and that was before his team lost freshman star Jalen Johnson, who announced Monday that he was opting out of the rest of the season to focus on the NBA draft. But 2020-21 is shaping up to be a bizarre banner year for blue bloods.
Unexpected power outages for college basketball royalty are neither exclusive to Tobacco Road nor to this season.
6 matchup posted the lowest TV rating and audience for the series in at least 14 years. Not so much this year, 1 with the bitter rivals meeting unranked for the first time since 1960. The biannual regular-season showdown between Duke and North Carolina is typically appointment television for men’s college basketball fans.