NCAA Weekly, Vol. 6.1: The undefeateds and the defeateds

outwit, outplay, outlast, out-probability your opponents

Just 36 days ago, the 2022-23 Division I men’s basketball season began. A lot of pretty wild things have happened in that time, and to boot, the wildest is that the preseason #1 team currently sits unranked while a preseason unranked team currently sits at #1. I think that’s a pretty unusual way to begin a new basketball season.

There are two things we are discussing today. One is normal; one is not. There are, at the time of writing, seven undefeated teams left. That’s about average for a non-COVID year. Seven is the same number we had last year on December 13, too.

There are also two defeated teams left: teams that have yet to win a game. This is also normal. What is decidedly not normal is that both teams are members of Big Six conferences, one of which is named the Dadgummed Louisville Cardinals.

It’s not unusual for teams from one-bid conferences to still be winless on December 13. It frequently happens to SWAC/MEAC/etc. teams who spend most/all of their Novembers and Decembers on the road, far away from their homes. It very rarely happens to a Big Six school; it even more rarely happens twice in the same season. In fact, no Big Six team had started 0-7 from 1983 to 2021. We’ve got two of them in the same season.

So: in this article, we’re discussing the good and bad of college basketball. The front is an analysis of which team is most likely to be the Last Undefeated Team in America, along with who’s got the best shot at making it to February 1, March 1, the end of the regular season etc. undefeated. The back, and blissfully shorter, half is about which team among Louisville and California are most likely to win first, along with which team in college basketball is most likely to lead the country in losses this year.

BELOW THE LINE: got swept away in the gray ($)