MBB: Unbeaten Teams in the 2024-2025 Season (Poll)

Which of these 9 undefeated men's basketball teams (as of December 5) will be the last to lose?

  • Total voters
    34
  • Poll closed .
brevity

brevity

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As of Monday morning, there were 17 undefeated teams. Since then, 8 of them have lost their first game: Auburn, Cincinnati, Columbia, DePaul, Kansas, Kentucky, Marquette, and Wisconsin.

It's now December 5 -- we're one month into the regular season -- so it's a good time to look at the last 9 teams with a perfect record, and some of the more challenging games they will face this month.

Drake (7-0, KenPom #76): at #70 Kansas State 12/17
Florida (8-0, KP #8): vs #52 Arizona State in Atlanta 12/14, vs #24 UNC in Charlotte 12/17
Loyola Chicago (7-0, KP #75): vs #61 San Francisco in Milwaukee 12/15
Oklahoma (8-0, KP #39): vs #88 Oklahoma State in OKC 12/14, vs #17 Michigan in Charlotte 12/18
Oregon (8-0, KP #16): hosts #18 UCLA 12/8, vs #90 Stanford in San Jose 12/21
Rhode Island (8-0, KP #87): hosts #77 Providence 12/7, vs #121 Temple in Springfield MA 12/21
Tennessee (8-0, KP #2): vs #94 Miami in NYC 12/10, at #14 Illinois 12/14
UC Irvine (8-0, KP #55): at #73 Oregon State 12/14, at #142 Belmont 12/19
Utah State (8-0, KP #54): at #37 Saint Mary's 12/22, at #36 San Diego State 12/28

I've set up a poll: which of these 9 teams will stay undefeated the longest? Let's define this by the calendar date (and time) they first lose. Once you vote, your choice is locked in. The poll closes in 2 weeks, but some of these teams may lose before then.
 
brevity said:
As of Monday morning, there were 17 undefeated teams. Since then, 8 of them have lost their first game: Auburn, Cincinnati, Columbia, DePaul, Kansas, Kentucky, Marquette, and Wisconsin.

It's now December 5 -- we're one month into the regular season -- so it's a good time to look at the last 9 teams with a perfect record, and some of the more challenging games they will face this month.

Drake (7-0, KenPom #76): at #70 Kansas State 12/17
Florida (8-0, KP #8): vs #52 Arizona State in Atlanta 12/14, vs #24 UNC in Charlotte 12/17
Loyola Chicago (7-0, KP #75): vs #61 San Francisco in Milwaukee 12/15
Oklahoma (8-0, KP #39): vs #88 Oklahoma State in OKC 12/14, vs #17 Michigan in Charlotte 12/18
Oregon (8-0, KP #16): hosts #18 UCLA 12/8, vs #90 Stanford in San Jose 12/21
Rhode Island (8-0, KP #87): hosts #77 Providence 12/7, vs #121 Temple in Springfield MA 12/21
Tennessee (8-0, KP #2): vs #94 Miami in NYC 12/10, at #14 Illinois 12/14
UC Irvine (8-0, KP #55): at #73 Oregon State 12/14, at #142 Belmont 12/19
Utah State (8-0, KP #54): at #37 Saint Mary's 12/22, at #36 San Diego State 12/28

I've set up a poll: which of these 9 teams will stay undefeated the longest? Let's define this by the calendar date (and time) they first lose. Once you vote, your choice is locked in. The poll closes in 2 weeks, but some of these teams may lose before then.
Click to expand...
Drake has moved to 8-0 with an easy one up next against St. Ambrose.
Florida is 9-0 with their next game against ASU on Saturday.
Loyola Chicago is 8-0 with their next game against USF on Sunday.
Oklahoma is 9-0 with their next game against Ok St on Saturday.

Oregon lost to UCLA yesterday.

Rhode Island has moved to 9-0 and plays Brown next, tomorrow night.
Tennessee is 8-0 and has Miami tomorrow night and will be playing as the #1 team in the country.
UC Irvine is 9-0 and travels to Oregon State on Saturday.
Utah State is 9-0 and has South Florida on Saturday.

So: just down one team with Oregon's loss. Eight remaining.
 
I voted for UC Irvine and am rooting for a total chaos NCAA tourney situation.

Irvine's toughest games left on their schedule are the game at Oregon St (#72 in KenPom) and a pair of contests with KenPom #87 UC-San Diego (not to be confused with the much superior San Diego St).

I'm not saying it is at all likely, but Irvine could go unbeaten without playing a single team in the top 70 in KenPom. Entirely possible they will go unbeaten without a single Quad 1 game on their schedule. Heck, they might only play a half dozen Quad 2 games all year!

What would the committee do with such a team? In theory, they would be untested, having never lost a game... but they will not have beaten a single other tournament team. I know the computers/analytics would tell you something about them based on how much they beat everyone by, but that still feels like a pretty incomplete picture. If we got into late January or early February like this, I could see calls for a special game to be organized. Find a power conference team that had an open spot on the schedule that meshed up with UC Irvine and add a game at the last minute, perhaps on a neutral site, just so they could be tested against someone where we knew a bit more about the quality.

What delicious chaos that would be!!
 
tommy said:
So: just down one team with Oregon's loss. Eight remaining.
Click to expand...

JasonEvans said:
I voted for UC Irvine and am rooting for a total chaos NCAA tourney situation.

Irvine's toughest games left on their schedule are the game at Oregon St (#72 in KenPom) and a pair of contests with KenPom #87 UC-San Diego (not to be confused with the much superior San Diego St).

I'm not saying it is at all likely, but Irvine could go unbeaten without playing a single team in the top 70 in KenPom. Entirely possible they will go unbeaten without a single Quad 1 game on their schedule. Heck, they might only play a half dozen Quad 2 games all year!

What would the committee do with such a team? In theory, they would be untested, having never lost a game... but they will not have beaten a single other tournament team. I know the computers/analytics would tell you something about them based on how much they beat everyone by, but that still feels like a pretty incomplete picture. If we got into late January or early February like this, I could see calls for a special game to be organized. Find a power conference team that had an open spot on the schedule that meshed up with UC Irvine and add a game at the last minute, perhaps on a neutral site, just so they could be tested against someone where we knew a bit more about the quality.

What delicious chaos that would be!!
Click to expand...

Your reverse jinx was very effective. UC Irvine lost at Oregon State 67-55 on Saturday.

Rhode Island got its first loss on Tuesday to Brown, 84-80 in 2OT.

There are now six unbeaten teams left: Drake, Florida, Loyola Chicago, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah State. Loyola Chicago plays San Francisco on a neutral court in Milwaukee later today (streaming on ESPN+ for subscribers).
 
brevity said:
Your reverse jinx was very effective. UC Irvine lost at Oregon State 67-55 on Saturday.
Click to expand...
Dying to see what the commmittee does when Irvine goes 31-1 with a loss to the only top 75 team they faced all year. Delicious!

We really need to bring back the ESPN Mid-Major thing they used to have where they matched up some top tier non-P6 teams with each other one random weekend in February. They would customize the matchups just a week or two before the games were played allowing them to pit the most interesting teams against each other. It would allow you to -- for example -- pit UCIrv against Furman (10-1 with the loss to Kansas being the only game they play all year against a top 100 KenPom team).
 
JasonEvans said:
Dying to see what the commmittee does when Irvine goes 31-1 with a loss to the only top 75 team they faced all year. Delicious!

We really need to bring back the ESPN Mid-Major thing they used to have where they matched up some top tier non-P6 teams with each other one random weekend in February. They would customize the matchups just a week or two before the games were played allowing them to pit the most interesting teams against each other. It would allow you to -- for example -- pit UCIrv against Furman (10-1 with the loss to Kansas being the only game they play all year against a top 100 KenPom team).
Click to expand...
Trying to jinx UC Irvine again?
 
JasonEvans said:
Dying to see what the commmittee does when Irvine goes 31-1 with a loss to the only top 75 team they faced all year. Delicious!

We really need to bring back the ESPN Mid-Major thing they used to have where they matched up some top tier non-P6 teams with each other one random weekend in February. They would customize the matchups just a week or two before the games were played allowing them to pit the most interesting teams against each other. It would allow you to -- for example -- pit UCIrv against Furman (10-1 with the loss to Kansas being the only game they play all year against a top 100 KenPom team).
Click to expand...
Go Furman !
 
JasonEvans said:
Dying to see what the commmittee does when Irvine goes 31-1 with a loss to the only top 75 team they faced all year. Delicious!

We really need to bring back the ESPN Mid-Major thing they used to have where they matched up some top tier non-P6 teams with each other one random weekend in February. They would customize the matchups just a week or two before the games were played allowing them to pit the most interesting teams against each other. It would allow you to -- for example -- pit UCIrv against Furman (10-1 with the loss to Kansas being the only game they play all year against a top 100 KenPom team).
Click to expand...
Anteaters are at 60 in KenPom now and how much will they really rise given the rest of their schedule ? I wouldn’t anticipate a very high seed.
 
Utah State goes down in Logan 75-73 to the Tritons of UC San Diego.

UCSD is much better than I thought, so not a horrible loss.
 
FourWins said:
Utah State goes down in Logan 75-73 to the Tritons of UC San Diego.

UCSD is much better than I thought, so not a horrible loss.
Click to expand...
Nice win by UCSD! Folks are now familiar with San Diego State, but UCSD and USD have been making strides locally.
 
Oklahoma dodged a bullet tonight. Michigan outplayed them for most of the night but gave up a 3 pointer plus the foul to a kid named Jeremiah Fears who had 30 and was brilliant. Oklahoma escapes in a terrific game.
 
Just catching up...New Years Day, UIC 74 Drake 70. Three left, all in the SEC.

On Saturday, each of the three remaining undefeated faces a ranked opponent.
#6 Florida at #10 Kentucky
#1 Tennessee hosts #23 Arkansas
#12 Oklahoma at #5 Alabama
 
Neals384 said:
Just catching up...New Years Day, UIC 74 Drake 70. Three left, all in the SEC.

On Saturday, each of the three remaining undefeated faces a ranked opponent.
#6 Florida at #10 Kentucky
#1 Tennessee hosts #23 Arkansas
#12 Oklahoma at #5 Alabama
Click to expand...
Well, three in the SEC should sort itself out in pretty short order
 
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