Earlier this season after spending nearly two months atop the national polls, Kansas was toppled by Tennessee for their first loss of the season. At the time, Jayhawk coach Bill Self made the statement that anybody who thought they were going to go undefeated, was kidding themselves.
One week after taking over the top spot, unbeaten Texas had two losses under there belt and had turned the number one position over to Kentucky and their new head coach John Calipari. Kentucky was 19-0 for the first time since the 1960’s and a day after celebrating their return to the top of the polls, the Wildcats were watching South Carolina fans storm the court following an upset win.
And suddenly there were no more undefeated teams. The days of a major college team going unbeaten and winning the title seem to be long gone. Yes, St. Joe’s finished the regular season with a perfect record six years ago, but they weren’t playing in a major conference and they didn’t make it through their own conference tournament unbeaten.
Today there are just too many good players at too many schools. Example, the Gamecocks may have beaten Kentucky, but they’ve also lost to Wofford. With so many of the power conference teams unable to keep top flight upperclassmen from moving on to the NBA, coaches are too often left with teams that don’t have the experience to battle through a full season unbeaten.
When you’ve got a senior laden lineup, they can often times find ways to battle through a night when they should have lost and pull out a close win instead. Problem is, coaches don’t have that anymore. Will we ever see another unbeaten season? It’s unlikely given today’s circumstances.
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