Kentucky no longer ranked after starting the season in top five. Is there still hope?
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Game day: Kentucky 74, LSU 71
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and LSU in Rupp Arena.
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So far, it’s been a season to forget for the two bluest of college basketball’s blue bloods.
North Carolina started the 2022-23 campaign as the No. 1 team in the AP Top 25 rankings. Kentucky began the season at No. 4 on that list.
When the latest poll was released Monday afternoon, neither UK nor UNC was ranked at all.
It wasn’t a new occurrence for the Tar Heels, who actually fell out of the Top 25 for three consecutive weeks earlier this season following four straight losses over a brutal stretch that began in late November. UNC climbed back into the poll — at No. 25 overall — last week before losing a game at Pittsburgh to lower its record to 9-5. The Heels didn’t receive a single vote in Monday’s poll.
Kentucky’s decline has been more gradual. The Cats (9-4) dropped as low as No. 19 after early losses to Michigan State and Gonzaga, climbed back to No. 13, then fell back to 19th following a loss to UCLA and dropped out of the rankings completely as a result of a 14-point defeat at Missouri last week. UK was 29th in the overall voting for the latest rankings.
The recent misfortune of the two college basketball powerhouses was unforeseen, but their early-season stumbles are not unprecedented. A look back at the previous 10 NCAA seasons shows seven teams that have gone through similar struggles — starting in the top five nationally and falling out of the Top 25 altogether at some point along the way. Two of those teams, like North Carolina, were ranked No. 1 in the preseason. And three of those seven squads were Kentucky teams coached by John Calipari.
The bad news for UK and UNC, according to that data: none of the seven went on to win the national championship. The good news? Nearly all of them recovered to some degree and went into March looking like a legitimate threat to make an NCAA Tournament run.
Here’s a look at what happened to those seven teams that began the season with high hopes and a high national ranking before falling out of favor as the campaign progressed.
Texas (2021-22)
Preseason rank: No. 5
What happened? In their first season under new head coach Chris Beard, the Longhorns started with a 6-1 record — the lone defeat coming at No. 1-ranked Gonzaga — before dropping out of the top 10 following a loss at No. 23 Seton Hall. A few weeks later, Texas lost three times in four games — including a defeat at home against Kansas State — and fell out of the rankings. The Longhorns spent just one week unranked, however, jumping back into the Top 25 and staying there the rest of the season.
NCAA Tournament seed: 6 seed (No. 25 in final AP poll)
Final result: Texas (22-12) defeated 11-seeded Virginia Tech in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before losing, 81-71, to Purdue in the second round. (The 3-seeded Boilermakers lost their next game to Saint Peter’s, which had shocked Kentucky one week earlier).
Michigan State (2019-20)
Preseason rank: No. 1
What happened? The Spartans — coming off a Final Four season and led by returning star Cassius Winston — were No. 1 in the Athlon Sports, Lindy’s and Street and Smith preseason magazines, and they landed that ranking in the preseason AP poll for the first time in program history. No. 2 Kentucky handed Michigan State its first loss in just the second game of the season, with Tyrese Maxey going for 26 points in the Champions Classic in Madison Square Garden. The Spartans later fell out of the top 10 with a loss to unranked Virginia Tech, lost to Duke the following week, then climbed back to No. 8 before a 29-point defeat at unranked Purdue. Three consecutive losses in early February dropped Michigan State from No. 14 to unranked, and the team was absent from the Top 25 for two weeks before finishing the regular season with five consecutive victories.
NCAA Tournament seed: Tournament canceled (No. 16 in final AP poll)
Final result: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Big Ten Tournament and NCAA Tournament were both canceled, and the Spartans finished the season with a 22-9 record. A panel of noted “bracketologists” projected that March that Michigan State would have been a No. 3 seed in the 2020 NCAA Tournament.
Arizona (2017-18)
Preseason rank: No. 3
What happened? After a 32-5 season in which they were a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the Wildcats made it to No. 2 in the AP poll early on before losing three games in three days in the Bahamas in November — two of them to unranked North Carolina State and SMU — to drop out of the Top 25 altogether. Arizona spent just two weeks among the unranked before getting back in amid a nine-game winning streak, and the Wildcats never fell out of the top 20 from there. They won eight of nine — and the Pac 12 Tournament — entering the NCAA Tournament.
NCAA Tournament seed: 4 seed (No. 12 in final AP poll)
Final result: Arizona (27-8) was the victim of a first-round upset in the NCAA Tournament, falling by 21 points to a 13-seeded Buffalo team coached by Nate Oats, who would jump to Alabama after the following season. Before the season began, assistant coach Book Richardson was arrested — and later fired — as a result of the federal investigation into corruption in college basketball. Arizona ultimately had to vacate 18 wins from the season due to an ineligible player. Coach Sean Miller was fired by Arizona in 2021.
Kentucky (2017-18)
Preseason rank: No. 5
What happened? After falling to North Carolina in the Elite Eight the previous season, Kentucky started in the top five despite a roster heavy on freshmen — an eight-player group that included Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Kevin Knox, Hamidou Diallo and PJ Washington, among others. UK’s only loss in its first 10 games came against Kansas in the Champions Classic, but the Cats struggled once league play began and fell out of the Top 25 on three different occasions during the new year. After losing at unranked Florida as the nation’s No. 23 team in the regular-season finale, the Cats fell out of the Top 25 but then won the Southeastern Conference Tournament, beating No. 13 Tennessee in the title game behind Gilgeous-Alexander’s 29 points.
NCAA Tournament seed: 5 seed (No. 18 in final AP poll)
Final result: Kentucky (26-11) defeated 12-seeded Davidson and 13-seeded Buffalo in Boise before heading to the second week of the NCAA Tournament with an enviable path to a Final Four bid. Following a slew of upsets, UK was the top seed remaining in the South Region, with 7-seeded Nevada, 9-seeded Kansas State and 11-seeded Loyola joining them in Atlanta. But the Cats lost to Kansas State in the regional semifinals, a 61-58 defeat that served as an ugly ending to an uneven season. Loyola beat Kansas State two days later to earn a trip to the Final Four.
Duke (2015-16)
Preseason rank: No. 5
What happened? The defending national champions lost the core of their title team but brought in a No. 1-ranked recruiting class that featured Brandon Ingram and Luke Kennard to join returnees like Grayson Allen, Matt Jones and Amile Jefferson. Duke dropped its third game of the season — to No. 2 Kentucky in the Champions Classic — but stayed in the top 10 until a loss to Utah on Dec. 19. The Blue Devils later went from No. 9 nationally to unranked following three straight defeats — and losses in four of five games — during league play in January. Duke spent just two weeks outside of the Top 25 and got as high as No. 15 later in the season.
NCAA Tournament seed: 4 seed (No. 19 in final AP poll)
Final result: Duke (25-11) beat 13-seeded UNC-Wilmington and 12-seeded Yale in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament before losing by 14 points to top-seeded Oregon in the Sweet 16.
Kentucky (2013-14)
Preseason rank: No. 1
What happened? Billed as one of the best recruiting classes of all time, a freshman group led by a record six McDonald’s All-Americans — Julius Randle, Andrew Harrison, Aaron Harrison, James Young, Dakari Johnson and Marcus Lee — attracted 40-0 talk in the preseason before losing the third game they played, to No. 2 Michigan State in the Champions Classic. Those Cats ultimately beat just one ranked opponent over the entire regular season — No. 6 Louisville in Rupp Arena — before wrapping things up with a 22-9 record following an 84-65 loss to No. 1 Florida in the SEC finale. That defeat knocked UK out of the Top 25 for the first time all season, but the Cats looked better in the league tournament, making the title game before losing a close one (61-60) to the Gators there. Still, they went into the NCAA Tournament unranked.
NCAA Tournament seed: 8 seed (28th in final AP voting)
Final result: No UK fan will forget this run. The Cats defeated 9-seeded Kansas State in the first round before knocking off 1-seeded Wichita State, which came into the game with a 35-0 record. The Cats then beat 4-seeded Louisville in the Sweet 16 and defeated 2-seeded Michigan on a three-pointer in the final seconds by Aaron Harrison to advance to the Final Four. There, Harrison nailed another late three to push UK past 2-seeded Wisconsin before the Cats ultimately fell to UConn in the NCAA title game. Kentucky finished with a 29-11 record and is the only team on this list to advance beyond the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
Kentucky (2012-13)
Preseason rank: No. 3
What happened? Kentucky was the defending NCAA champion, and — though the Cats lost nearly everyone from that title team — another No. 1 recruiting class was on the way in, featuring Nerlens Noel, Archie Goodwin, Alex Poythress and Willie Cauley-Stein. Things went south in a hurry, with point guard play lacking and a clear sense that UK’s pieces weren’t going to fit this time around. Kentucky lost its second game to No. 9 Duke in the Champions Classic and had three defeats on its record by Dec. 1. The Cats fell out of the Top 25 two days later — going from No. 8 nationally to 26th in the voting in one week. They returned to the rankings at No. 25 on Feb. 11 following five straight victories, but Noel went down with a season-ending knee injury in a loss at Florida the very next day, and the season was lost from there. Four days later, a shell-shocked Kentucky team was defeated by 30 points at Tennessee, and UK never returned to the Top 25, going 4-4 over its final eight games of the regular season. With a chance to possibly make the NCAA Tournament with a run through the SEC tourney, the Cats instead were defeated, 64-48, by a bad Vanderbilt team in their first postseason game.
NCAA Tournament seed: Not selected (unranked in final AP poll)
Final result: Kentucky actually finished tied for second in the SEC this season with a 12-6 league record, but it was an awful year for the conference. Only Florida was ranked in the final Top 25, and Missouri (9 seed) and Ole Miss (12 seed and SEC Tournament champion) were the only other teams to make the NCAA Tournament field. Kentucky was sent to the NIT, where the Cats got a top seed but were forced to play on the road to start things off because of a scheduling conflict in Lexington. UK (21-12) was defeated 59-57 by Robert Morris University in the first round, the Cats’ season ending in the tiny Charles L. Sewall Center (with a capacity of 3,056) in Calipari’s childhood hometown of Moon, Pa.
This story was originally published January 3, 2023 at 6:30 AM.
