From the start of the 2022-23 college basketball season through the end of the 2022 calendar year, UConn rated at BartTorvik.com as the No. 2 team in the sport and entered the New Year with a 14-1 record while ranked No. 2 in the AP Top 25. But in the weeks since, the No. 6 Huskies have performed more like the unranked team it was to begin the season than the one that surged to the near-top of the polls. And with a chance to get back on track Sunday against lowly St. John’s, UConn again could not get out of its own way, falling as a 15-point favorite for its fourth loss in the last five outings.
Let’s just say UConn picked a bad time to reach a low point in its season. And while UConn was not unique this week in its misfortunes — 11 ranked teams lost on Saturday alone (!) and 13 ranked teams in total lost on the weekend if you include UConn and Marquette falling on Sunday to St. John’s and Xavier, respectively — it does fall into its own special category given the way in which it has come crashing back to Earth at a time in the season when we’re giving a closer examination and more scrutiny to teams. Sorry, Dan Hurley.
In this space on a weekly basis, beginning today, I will hand out grades for a bevy of teams in the sport based on recent showings and no punches will be pulled. This is not a power ranking; that duty belongs to the inimitable Matt Norlander. This is also not a season-long rankings; only Gary Parrish is crazy enough to rank 25 (and one) college basketball teams every single day during the season. Rather, this is a scan across the sport at random to assess how teams fared in a cycle that runs Monday-Sunday.
So without further ado, let’s dive into the report card.
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