Duke Leads Men’s College Basketball’s Biggest Disappointments

It’s still early, but these high-profile teams have not lived up to the preseason hype. Here’s how they can turn things around.

The men’s college basketball season is officially a month old. And after a whirlwind four-plus weeks of hoops that featured high-profile early-season tournaments and huge showdowns across the country, it’s a good time to take stock of the sport’s landscape. While several surprise teams have shined, a few big-name squads are off to sluggish starts that call into question the preseason hype that surrounded them. Here’s a look at five teams that have disappointed early and how likely a turnaround looks for each team.

Michigan State

After an ugly loss Tuesday night at Wisconsin, the Spartans became the first preseason top-five team to start 4–4 or worse in two decades. And while Michigan State has played a grueling schedule to this point, the start has still been incredibly disappointing, given where expectations were for this group in the preseason.

The root of a lot of the Spartans’ early woes has been a perceived lack of trust from Tom Izzo in Michigan State’s loaded recruiting class. Jeremy Fears, Coen Carr and especially big man Xavier Booker haven’t been able to overtake veterans in the rotation, despite the talent gap between them and the older players being evident. That’d be less of an issue if AJ Hoggard and Mady Sissoko were playing well, but they haven’t been so far: Hoggard’s offensive game has regressed, and Sissoko just hasn’t been good enough at the pivot spot defensively to overcome his lack of an offensive repertoire. That leaves the Spartans far too reliant on fifth-year guard Tyson Walker taking and making tough shots to win games, which is why Michigan State has lost the four most difficult games on its schedule to date. This is still likely a tournament team, but the championship-level upside that many believed this group had in the preseason just hasn’t shown up in game action so far.

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Two straight road losses have put a dent into Duke’s early-season performance :: Rob Kinnan/USA TODAY Sports

Duke

Duke did at least beat Michigan State at the Champions Classic, but it otherwise has no notable wins. The Blue Devils dropped a huge showdown with Arizona at Cameron Indoor Stadium during the season’s first week, then lost a pair of road games to Arkansas and Georgia Tech last week. For a team that returned four starters from a season ago, there have been more growing pains than anticipated, and the Blue Devils’ roster construction has also come into question.

One of the primary reasons for excitement about Duke in the preseason was an expected leap from sophomore point guard Tyrese Proctor, joining Kyle Filipowski as one of the sport’s best players. That breakout hasn’t quite happened, and to make matters worse, Proctor suffered a lower leg injury against Georgia Tech and his status moving forward is unknown. Another starter, Mark Mitchell, has also had something of a sophomore slump. His three-point shot has regressed, and his 1-for-13 mark from deep this season has teams sagging heavily off him on the perimeter. That disrupts Duke’s spacing, and there isn’t an easy fix. Freshman TJ Power is a better shooting option but would hurt the Blue Devils defensively compared to Mitchell, and true bigs like Ryan Young and Sean Stewart also won’t solve the spacing problem. This is a big early test in the Jon Scheyer era to see how he adapts with a talented but somewhat flawed lineup.

Maryland

The Terrapins entered Wednesday having played four games against KenPom top-200 opponents and lost all four, including blowout defeats against Indiana and Villanova. They finally broke through with an overtime win against Penn State, but so far the road has been rocky. For Maryland to look this bad is one of the more surprising results of the early-season slate, given that the Terps brought back their three most important players from last year’s team, which made the NCAA tournament. There were reasonable questions about the ceiling after a quiet offseason in the transfer portal, but at minimum, the returning nucleus of Jahmir Young, Julian Reese and Donta Scott should have kept the Terps in the thick of NCAA tournament contention.

The biggest problem so far has been three-point shooting. Maryland’s starting wings—freshman DeShawn Harris-Smith and transfer Jordan Geronimo—are a combined 3-for-35 from three this season. Their two primary backups, Jahari Long and Jamie Kaiser Jr., aren’t much better, at 10-for-54. All told, the Terps are shooting under 23% from three this season, a bottom-five mark nationally. That number almost has to go up, but they’ve dug themselves quite the hole to climb out of early.

Saint Mary’s

This is perhaps the most challenging nonconference schedule Randy Bennett has put together in his long tenure at Saint Mary’s. And with key pieces like Aidan Mahaney, Mitchell Saxen and Alex Ducas back, many believed he had the team to handle it. Instead, the result has been a 4–5 start that has set back the Gaels’ NCAA tournament at-large hopes. An early win over New Mexico should help their case, but Saint Mary’s has missed some opportunities at home and on neutral courts to get résumé-boosting wins. Shooting woes have plagued them thus far, and they’ve also taken a step back defensively from last season after losing elite point-of-attack defender Logan Johnson to the pros. It’s hard to bet against Bennett, so no one would be surprised if the Gaels right the ship quickly. But they’ve got work to do after this middling start.

Villanova

It has been a very strange first month for Villanova. The high of ripping through the Battle 4 Atlantis field was big and means that the Wildcats will leave the nonconference portion of its schedule having accomplished something. But for a team this talented to go 0–3 in Big 5 games is a major disappointment and a bad look for coach Kyle Neptune in his second season at the helm. Neptune has now lost four games against Big 5 opponents, with losses to Pennsylvania, St. Joseph’s and Drexel in the past four weeks. Jay Wright had only one such loss from 2013–14 until the end of his tenure in ’21–22. The quality wins in Atlantis mean the Wildcats’ résumé won’t be too bad entering league play, but this group isn’t looking like the top-25 team it should be based on its roster.