College basketball teams are experiencing more year-by-year turnover than ever before due to graduation, players leaving early for the NBA Draft (click here for a list of 2015 NBA Draft early entries), and transfers galore (click here for an up-to-date list of college basketball transfers so far this off-season.) Here are five teams who made the 2015 NCAA Tournament this season but will likely take a step back next year.
Here are five teams who missed the tourney this year but should be dancing in 2015-16. Also, check out my insanely early 2015-16 preseason Top 25 rankings.
Northern Iowa
Coming off their 31-win season, Ben Jacobsen loses three of his top four leading scorers including Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year, Seth Tuttle. UNI won’t carry a lot of size on their roster and with Wichita State the clear-cut favorites in the MVC next season, the chances of the Panthers earning an at large bid into the tourney are slim.
Oklahoma State
Despite finishing with a below five hundred conference record, the Cowboys earned another trip to the Big Dance. However, Travis Ford must replace LeBryan Nash and two other starters who combined to average nearly half of the team’s offensive output. OK State was not a very deep team this past season so the chances of them seamlessly filling that void in what should be another competitive Big 12 Conference doesn’t seem likely.
Providence
LeDontae Henton and Carson Desrosiers graduate, Kris Dunn is likely leaving for the NBA, and Tyler Harris has already announced his intentions to transfer. That means Ed Cooley only returns one player who averaged more than four points per game this past season. The Friars figure to take a major step back in the Big East as they will be in rebuilding mode.
St. John’s
With Steve Lavin and the Red Storm parting ways, the program is totally up in the air for next season. St. John’s primarily used a six-man rotation this past season and four of those guys graduate leaving only Rysheed Jordan and Chris Opekba as returning players, and they could end up transferring or turning pro. Their top recruit, Brandon Sampson, reopened his recruitment shortly after the Lavin news came out, so just finding enough bodies to field a competitive roster is going to be a task for the new head coach, let alone trying to return to the Big Dance.
Wisconsin
Assuming Sam Dekker leaves for the NBA, Nigel Hayes and Bronson Koenig are the only Badgers returning who saw significant minutes this past season. Look, Bo Ryan’s team will always be near the top of the Big Ten standings and they will certainly make the NCAA Tournament again. However, there is no chance Wisconsin is a top ten team and a number one seed come March; especially with how competitive the top of the Big Ten is going to be next season.
David Kay is a senior feature NBA Draft, NBA, and college basketball writer for the Sports Bank. He also heads up the NBA and college basketball material at Walter Football.com and is a former contributor at The Washington Times Communities. David has appeared on numerous national radio programs spanning from Cleveland to New Orleans to Milwaukee to Honolulu. He also had the most accurate 2011 NBA Mock Draft and the most accurate 2012 NBA Mock Draft on the internet (Yup, repeat champ… #humblebrag), and finished with the second most accurate 2013 NBA Mock Draft (nearly a three-peat.)
You can follow him on Twitter at David_Kmiecik.