Today, I go looking for the ultimate underachievers, teams that had a lot of RSCI Top 100 recruits, but who struggled on the basketball court in the tempo free era (2003-2011).  PM100= Percentage of Minutes given to RSCI Top 100 recruits. 

10. Michigan St. 2006, Pomeroy Rank=33rd, PM100=78.2%

I was tempted to choose the 2011 Michigan St. team for this list, but the 2006 team had more “elite” talent and seemed to be a bigger disappointment to me.  Shannon Brown (RSCI #3), Paul Davis (#7), Drew Neitzel (#54), Maurice Ager (#54), Matt Trannon (#52), and Marquise Gray (#28) not only lost to George Mason in the NCAA tournament, they were a .500 team in the Big Ten.

9. Connecticut 2010, Pomeroy Rank=56th, PM100=75.0%

Somehow, despite winning the national title in 2011, Connecticut had a losing record in the Big East in 2010, and finished only 18-16 on the year.  It is hard to figure out how Kemba Walker (#15), Stanley Robinson (#18), Jerome Dyson (#36), Alex Oriakhi (#16), Ater Majok (#74), and Jamal Coombs-McDaniel (#50) could only win seven Big East games in 2010, but then again this year’s national title squad went only 9-9 in Big East play. 

8. LSU 2011, Pomeroy Rank=227th, PM100=45.2%

Even with Ralston Turner (#100), Aaron Dotson (#98), Matt Derenbecker (#85), and Storm Warren (#72), LSU finished dead last in a horrible SEC West, and posted one of the worst Pomeroy Rankings of all-time for a BCS team.

7. Villanova 2003, Pomeroy Rank=54th, PM100=87.5%

Jay Wright seems to be such a cool, calm, and collected winner today, that we tend to forget some of his struggles earlier in his tenure.  The 2003 team was basically full of elite high school prospects, but finished with a losing record on the season.  Allan Ray (#39), Randy Foye (#56), Derrick Snowden (#82), Ricky Wright (#75), Andrew Sullivan (#56), Marcus Austin (#94), Curtis Sumpter (#42), and Jason Fraser (#5) were not enough to put together a winning team in the Big East.

6. Georgia Tech 2003, Pomeroy Rank=46th, PM100=86.3%

Paul Hewitt was an incredible recruiter, and so many of his years at Georgia Tech could fall into the disappointing category, but I am going to choose the 2003 team as the most disappointing.  That is because the 2003 team had all the same players as the 2004 NCAA runner-up team (Jarett Jack #46, BJ Elder #97, Marvin Lewis #61, Isma’il Muhammad #74, and Anthony McHenry #72) plus Chris Bosh (#5) and Ed Nelson (#49). Yet somehow that team finished with a losing record in the ACC and missed the NCAA tournament.

5. Rutgers 2009, Pomeroy Rank=141st, PM100=62.1%

Fred Hill finally built up the talent base in 2009, but his team still only won two games in the Big East.  He had Mike Rosario (#31), Gregory Echenique (#94) Hamady Ndiaye (#97), Corey Chandler (#72), and JR Inman (#87), and yet there were no memorable moments. This year with substantially less “talent”, Mike Rice Jr. won five Big East games, but more importantly he had his team competitive in just about every game. Rutgers lost six games by five points or less down the stretch in the Big East in 2011.

4. UCLA 2004, Pomeroy Rank=125th, PM100=71.8%

Ben Howland’s first year in the Pac-10 was downright dreadful and even though people have jumped back on the Steve Lavin bandwagon today, you have to remember how much people were attacking him at the end of his tenure at UCLA. Lavin had a rep for bringing in talented players who did not seem to understand fundamentals, but who would somehow go on a magical run at NCAA tournament time. But it all fell apart in Ben Howland’s first year when UCLA still had a lot of unprepared talent, and the team could not make that magical Lavin run. The 2004 team included Trevor Ariza (#19), Cedrick Bozeman (#19), Dijon Thompson (#28), TJ Cummings (#28), Michael Fey (#100), Brian Morrison (#24), and even Ryan Hollins who was not an RSCI Top 100 recruit, but who got a shot in the NBA. UCLA not only finished with a losing record in the Pac-10, they were blown out in a number of games including 25-point and 34-point losses to Arizona.

3. Wake Forest 2011, Pomeroy Rank=251st, PM100=59.4%

Even with Travis McKie (#49), JT Terrell (#51), and Ari Stewart (#39), Carson Desrosiers (#66), Ty Walker (#37), and Melvin Tabb (#93), Wake Forest had a terrible season. You can blame last year’s performance on youth, but that does not explain how Wake Forest was the worst BCS team in the tempo-free era.

2. Missouri 2006, Pomeroy Rank=160th, PM100=79.9%

Quin Snyder was a fabulous recruiter, but an absolutely terrible coach and his final season summarizes it best. Missouri finished in 11th place in the Big 12 despite the presence of Thomas Gardner (#38), Jimmy McKinney (#35), Jason Horton (#45), Marshall Brown (#47), Kevin Young (#93), and Kalen Grimes (#63) in the rotation.

1. North Carolina 2010, Pomeroy Rank=60th, PM100=96.8%

With the type of high school talent they bring in, North Carolina does not rebuild, they reload.  But something went terribly wrong in 2010.  Despite the presence of John Henson (#5), Ed Davis (#9), Tyler Zeller (#18), Larry Drew (#44), Marcus Ginyard (#29), Deon Thompson (#43), Will Graves (#79), Dexter Strickland (#24), Leslie McDonald (#44) David Wear (#37), and Travis Wear (#38), North Carolina finished 5-11 in the ACC. Injuries played a role, and Larry Drew gets a lot of the blame, but with North Carolina’s talent level, there is no way to label that season as anything other than a colossal failure.