After the last four, we have finally caught our collective breath to evaluate the 2024–25 men’s college basketball season.
We will grade each team at top conferences in a series of report cards, we will release every Wednesday every Wednesday: The Big East (below), ACC (7 May), Big Ten (May 14), Big 12 (May 21) and SEC (28 May).
A part of this process is straight: A good team that plays like a good team, will earn a strong grade, and a good team that will be played like a bad team. But this will be complicated for some teams. Some had championship dreams. Others expected to win just one game. In any way, we are judging each squad season based on the presiden expectations, offering grace based on case-case for any unfortunate midseason events.
We have included other remarkable teams – Gonjaga, Memphis and St. Mary – with conferences we will not hit widely with Big East teams in this debut edition. Let’s start.
Note: Teams listed in alphabetical order under each grading tier. Non-bed pre-teams are marked with a beach.
Jump for a team: Butler | Creighton | Depaul | Georgetown | Gonjaga* | Marquette | Memphis* | Providence | Seton Hall | St. Marriage* | St. John | Uconn | Vilnova | Xavier’s
A grade
Category: A
The magnificent effort of Greg McDermot should have paid more attention. A star transfer from the pop eisac, then Texas Tech (and now Houston), faced a season-ending injury in early December. But Creyton still managed to win 25 games, finished second in the Big East behind a strong St. John’s squad and earned the top -50 points in adjusted aggressive and defensive efficiency. And under McDermot, Ryan Kalkbrener joined Patrick Ewing as the only player to win the Big East Defensive Player of the Year four times.
By the time he lost to Obern in the second round of the NCAA tournament, Blues had already kept a excellent season together.
Category: A
Turbulance had a large extent defined the tenure of Penny Hardway at Memphis before the 2024–25 season-NCAA had a series of violations, major departure and deficiency. But Hardway made its best coaching attempt this season, making Tigers a leader for the US Athletic Conference and Tournament Championships.
With Tierace Hunter (All-AC First Team Selection) and PJ Hagrant (second team Associated Press All-American), as their anchor, Tigers won 29 games, the tallest tally under Hardway. Hunter’s foot injury was a devastating development before the NCAA tournament, but the tigers still managed to produce the best overall weather of the Hardway era.
Category: A
Randy Bennett won the regular-season crown of the West Coast Conference on rival Gonjaga in 2024–25, which was in the transfer portal in 2024–25 after selecting an All-WCC first team in the previous season. However, Bennett has made his mark in college basketball with his ability to develop talent. The growth of Michelle Saxen (10.8 PPG, 7.9 RPG) and Augustas Marciulionis (14.2 PPG, 5.9 APG) helped Bennett capture its sixth WCC Championship. Gels also defeated Vendarbette in the NCAA tournament after obtaining 7-seeds.
Category: A
Fuel by one of the country’s top defensive units, St. John won the regular-season and tournament championship. RJ Louis Junior won the Big East Player of the Year and became one of the most attractive stories in the Red Storm game, which proved to be his appearance on “The Tonite Show starring Jimmy Follen”.
The disadvantage of a second round to Arkansas suddenly ended a season for a team, which entered the NCAA tournament as a serious title contender, but was still selected to finish fifth in Presen Poll before giving his first run at the top of Big East Standing in more than 30 years.
Category: A
Promoting Zach Fremantle’s return, Xavier ranked Marquette fourth in the Big East with a record of 13–7. Frimantle, who had not played a full season since 2021-22 due to injuries, had an average of 16.8 points and 6.8 rebounds for a Muscators Squad, which grew ahead 8-1 in his previous conference games and achieved 11-Cds in the NCAA tournament, where it was defeated in Illinois by defeating Texas in the first four.
Sean Miller is now in Texas because the way he molded a jewier team, which created 39.1% of his 3 -point efforts (fourth best in the nation) and finished the top -50 in adjusted aggressive and defensive efficiency.
B grade
Category: B
In his first season, Chris Holdman took a Depall team, who won three games in 2023-24 with a victory without a conference, which was 14 wins with a win of 14 wins with a four conference victory to avoid the approximate final place in the Big East Presence Pol. Blue Demons also took Markvat and Creyon to overtime.
This season was to be better after a disastrous campaign. Depall did this.
Category: B
Prior to Freshman Thomas Sumbber-1 All-Big East Team Selection-Co Section-Ending faced, Georgetown 6-8 was 15–10 teams with in-conference records. But Hoyas, who was also struggling with the Jayden app’s ankle injury, lost five of his next seven matches and left their opportunities to create NCAA tournaments. Nevertheless, they jumped from nine wins in 2023–24, 18 wins in 2024–25 with the program of Koli with the program in the second season.
C grade
Category: C
Graham IK and Ryan Nembhard, with the withdrawal of the first-team changes of the All-West Coast Conference, were prepared with the talent to chase the Gonjaga Mark Fuest National Championship. Instead, Bulldog finished second in WCC for the fourth time only in Kuch’s career.
A program that is owned by WCC under something, did not look like a legitimate national championship claimant for the wholesale of the season. Bulldogs proceeded 1–4 against Balore, Kentaki, Ucon, UCLA and West Virginia, while the league plays Oregon State and Santa Clara (at home). In the second round of the NCAA tournament, a thriller against the national title runner-up Houston was attractive, but Bulldogs were also 8-seeds for a reason.
Category: C
Along with All-Big East Presence First-Team selection work Jones (19.2 PPG, 5.9 APG), Golden Eagles finished fourth in aggressive efficiency and second in protective proficiency in Big East Play. He also finished fourth in the standing, where he was introduced in the Presiden Pol. But the expectations began for the conference program after 9–1, until they stumbled with a stretch of 4–6 in the last 10 regular-season games.
In the NCAA tournament, the first round disadvantage for the 10-seed New Mexico-the third first week out of four sessions for Smart did not punch the end of the first week-the end of a season which seemed more promising once.
Category: C
Yucon demanded John Wooden to make history as the first program to win three consecutive national championships since UCLA Breins, but it was clear early in the season-look at: 0-3 Finnish of Husks in November Maunevitational-It was a separate team that we saw in the last two years.
Haskiz eventually earned 8-seeds in the NCAA tournament, which finished third in the Big East after receiving 10 out of 11 votes, which was a favorite in the Presiden Pol. A healthy Liam McNele (missed eight games) may have changed their luck – and Dan Hurley’s nature -by -demonor – but many players (eg Aiden Mahen) still failed to improve the previous season.
Category: C
After the loss of November to Colombia (the 217th ranked team of Kenpom), Kelly Neptune told the media that Wilnova’s habits “where they need to be,” did not “. Well, the trends led a series of struggles, in which Wildcats recalled their third straight NCAA tournament. He finished second in aggressive efficiency in Big East Play and won over three top teams (St. John’s, Eucon, Markwet) to earn slots in sixth place in Standing after finishing seventh. Nevertheless, with the country’s major scorer, Eric Dixon (23.3 PPG), Wildcats should have been a strong campaign.
D grade
Category: D
In the third season with Tad Matta, Butler seemed to be ready to take the next step – Patrick McCaphy (11.2 ppg, beyond the arc beyond 42%) was transferred from Iowa and Matta returned its top two scorers from the previous season, Pierre Brux II and Jahmile Tafort. The 7–1 began with a significant win over the Northwestern and Mississippi state, only intensified optimism, but Matta’s squad lost 17 of its next 23 matches.
Category: D
After recovering from ACL injury, Star Bryas Hopkins took an average of 17.0 points in three matches before he sidelined the rest of the season with a bone injury. The 6-Foot-7 forward may be selected for an all-bed East First Team for a Providence Team that won 21 games in the first season of Kim English in 2023-24. Instead, the fibers separated.
To finish sixth in the Big East Presence Pol, he scored 12–20 records and 6–14 points in conference play inste
Category: D
Every coach who is struggling to increase his team in national hierarchy, hoping that his team can reach their roof, but tampering with that capacity can also cause chaos. Last year, Shaheen Holowway in his second season did the correct roster as the head coach of her Alma Mater. Those pirates won the NIT, but the program was eventually purified by the portal final offsen, which led to 2–18 finishes in the conference play this season. Seton Hall did not look like a team that was one year in Big East after entering the selection Sunday as a strong bubble candidate.
