No conference wins are a guarantee in college basketball, but a few are pretty close. Recently, our podcast discussed the worst teams in the country, and this article puts a spin on that, ranking the worst 10 teams in Power-6 basketball. #1 is who we consider the worst team in these rankings.
Dishonorable Mention:
- Boston College
- St. Johns
- Pittsburgh
#10 – Wake Forest Demon Deacons
- The Demon Deacon are saved from the basement of the ACC by North Carolina, but this team is just 4-12 in conference play and 11-15 overall. They’ve been competitive in some games, but they’ve hit some bad lows recently, losing by 17 to a dismal Miami squad and at home to a really bad Georgia Tech team.
#9 – DePaul Blue Demons
- In a competitive Big East, where seemingly every team has a chance in every game, the Blue Demons simply do not. They are a horrific 1-12 in conference games – somehow defeating a ranked Butler team once. After going 12-1 with a weak non-conference schedule, DePaul is now 13-13 and on an 8-game losing streak.
#8 – Washington State Cougars
- The Cougars do have a 5-9 conference record, but that’s not saying much in an exceptionally weak Pac-12. They just lost at home to Cal, one of the worst teams in the conference, which is their second loss to the Golden Bears. They’ve been blown out by USC, Stanford, and their lackluster offense leads them to some really ugly games.
#7 – Kansas State Wildcats
- The Wildcats bring up the rear of the Big 12, which is entirely mediocre outside of Kansas and Baylor. The biggest headlines K-State has made this year has been their postgame brawl with Kansas. They are just 2-11 in conference play and 9-17 overall, with just one decent win over West Virginia saving them from slipping lower on this list.
#6 – Texas A&M Aggies
- This might be a harsher ranking than the Aggies deserve, but they have been so horrifically uncompetitive in so many games that they just played themselves onto this list. They went just 6-6 in a pretty soft no-conference schedule, losing by 11 to Harvard, 23 to Temple, and losing to Fairfield. They hosted Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, currently 10-16 and in 9th in the Southland Conference, and they won by just three. This team is not good, and it’s embarrassing to the SEC that they’ve half a dozen conference games.
#5 – Cal Golden Bears
- That bad Cal team that beat Washington State twice? Yeah, they’re going to make this list too. In compiling just an 11-15 record, including 6-7 outside of the barely relevant Pac-12, Cal has been blown out by the likes of San Francisco, Santa Clara, Saint Mary’s, Stanford, and USC, while also dropping home games to Boston College and Harvard. It’s not exactly a bevy of quadrant one losses, and they haven’t beaten any conference opponent that’s more than a half-game better than them in the standings. Tough look for the Golden Bears.
#4 – Northwestern Wildcats
- You may have thought the Northwestern athletic department hit their low point with a dismal football season, but they actually may be looking back fondly on their season on the gridiron, after seeing their product on the court. They’ve lost ten straight conference games and bring up the rear in the Big 10 with a 1-14 conference record. Their one win is at home versus Nebraska who – not to offer spoilers – will also appear on this list. Embarrassing results include losses to Hartford, Radford, and Merrimack. Wouldn’t surprise me if Northwestern’s ranked field hockey and women’s lacrosse teams start getting more attendance than their basketball team.
#3 – Vanderbilt Commodores
- This team may have been #1 on this list until they somehow manhandled LSU. But at 1-12 in SEC play, that remains their only conference win, as the Commodores sport a measly 9-17 record. They’ve lost to Tulsa and Richmond while also dropping six conference games by at least 15 points, including a 19-point decision to the aforementioned Aggies. At least it’s baseball season for Vandy.
#2 – Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
- I’m avoiding recency bias with this ranking. Georgia Tech has been one of the worst teams all year in Power-6 basketball. Somehow, they’ve won three of four including a stunner of a Top-10 Louisville team. Between November 28 and their recent hot streak, a span of over two months, the Yellow Jackets scored more than 74 points just once in an ACC conference hardly known for its defensive prowess. They’ve lost to Ball State by 18 points at home, and by 34 at home to Syracuse. They hosted Bethune-Cookman and barely defeated them as well. If the Yellow Jackets can keep playing well, maybe they’ll work their way off this list, but their offense remains a gigantic eye-sore that fails to remedy their early season woes.
#1 – Nebraska Cornhuskers
- The only Big 10 team to fall victim to the atrocious Northwestern team, Nebraska’s equally dismal season has them topping off our list of the worst Power-6 teams. The Cornhuskers have also lost ten straight, and they’ve lost home games to North Dakota and George Mason this year, the latter coming by 19 points. They’ve been blown out by UC Riverside and lost to Southern Utah, teams so irrelevant in the national picture, you may not have even heard of them or known they played D1 basketball before this article. Nebraska has a dismal record of success in most of their major sports, and that certainly does not exclude their basketball team, which is an embarrassment to Power-6 basketball.
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