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If you embrace the fact that nobody will ever be perfect, preseason expectations are a great part of college basketball.
Sometimes, we—both fans and media—are far from correct. That might mean a projected top team falters and maybe even misses the men’s NCAA tournament. Conversely, several teams with low expectations demand a place in the national conversation and could be headed to March Madness.
As the 2021-22 regular season comes to a close, the latter point is worthy of our attention—and accountability.
More specifically, our focus is the major outliers. While the Auburn Tigers and Arizona Wildcats ascended, both programs landed top-five projections in the preseason media polls. While surprising, it wasn’t downright shocking for Auburn or Arizona to have a strong year.
On the other hand, however, you have the Wisconsin Badgers.
Although the Big Ten doesn’t formally conduct a poll, Adam Jardy of the Columbus Dispatch and Brendan Quinn of The Athletic compile an evenly distributed 28-person panel. Wisconsin checked in 10th, an unsurprising spot for a roster that needed to replace four key players and a top backup.
“A bright spot here is sophomore Jonathan Davis,” Quinn’s projected noted. That proved to be an incredible understatement.
Johnny Davis has since become a National Player of the Year front-runner, scoring 20.3 points per game and carrying the Badgers to the brink of a regular-season title. Wisconsin can clinch the outright Big Ten crown with a victory over Nebraska.
The 10th-place finish implied the Badgers would miss the NCAA tournament for only the second time since 1998. Instead, UW is a projected No. 2 seed in the latest BracketMatrix update.
One spot ahead of 10th-ranked Wisconsin in the latest AP poll are the Providence Friars, who arrived with similarly low expectations. Big East coaches voted Providence seventh out of 11 teams, but the Friars have clinched the regular-season title.
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It’s been a remarkable turnaround for the program, considering Providence managed a 13-13 record last season and had never topped 11 league victories as a member of the Big East.
Safe to say that Atlantic 10 voters saw things going differently, too
The league’s preseason poll pegged the Davidson Wildcats as the sixth-best program. Yet, the Wildcats are a single win over Dayton from sealing the outright A-10 regular-season title.
Armed with four 12-point scorers and the nation’s 14th-best perimeter clip, Davidson has already recorded the program’s first 25-win season in nine years. Even without an A-10 tourney championship, Davidson could be headed to March Madness anyway. Right now, the Wildcats are a projected No. 9 seed.
While each of Wisconsin, Providence and Davidson made unexpected title runs, the next group is full of March Madness teams.
Not only did Big 12 coaches have low expectations for Iowa State, but the math is damning. ISU received nine total voting points, meaning all nine other coaches—nobody voted for their own team—picked the Cyclones to finish last in the conference.
Fast-forward to March, and Iowa State holds a 20-10 record with an extremely high likelihood of an NCAA bid in T.J. Otzelberger’s debut season as head coach in Ames. If the Cyclones aren’t already a lock, they’re certainly close to it.
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Iowa State shares a No. 8 seed projection with the Marquette Golden Eagles, who like the Creighton Blue Jays (No. 10) have cruised past Big East coaches’ predictions. In that poll, Creighton landed at eighth with Marquette in ninth.
Creighton, meanwhile, is listed alongside Wyoming in the No. 10 range. After landing in a tie for eighth in the 12-team Mountain West, the Cowboys have soared to a 23-7 record.
Similar to ISU, all three programs are close to effectively guaranteeing a ticket to the Big Dance. At worst, they’ll be soundly in the conversation on Selection Sunday.
The same should be true for the Miami Hurricanes and Wake Forest Deacons, which have annihilated ACC projections.
Pegged as the No. 12 team, Miami has already clinched a top-four seed in the conference tournament. Wake Forest has enjoyed a similar surge, ascending from 13th to a locked-in fifth. Both programs have surpassed the 20-win mark, which Wake Forest hadn’t accomplished in 12 years.
Entering the initial round of the postseason, the ‘Canes and Deacs are squarely on the bubble. They’re headed for a dicey Selection Sunday without another win or two, although both are on the proper side of the BracketMatrix compilation so far.
But there’s no doubt their fans, nervous as they may be, will take it.
Few anticipated Miami or Wake Forest would be relevant in March. Along with the others, however, they’re on the verge of taking an unanticipated spot in the NCAA tournament.
And if the bracket breaks kindly or a fortunate bounce helps, perhaps one of them—particularly Wisconsin or Providence—can even rise from a place of minimal expectations to a program making a run toward the national championship.
Statistics courtesy of KenPom.com or Sports-Reference.com, unless otherwise noted. Follow Bleacher Report writer David Kenyon on Twitter @Kenyon19_BR.
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