my-server
← Wiki Redirected from 2014-15 NCAA Division I men's basketball season

2014–15 NCAA Division I men's basketball season

The 2014–15 NCAA Division I men's basketball season began in November 2014 and ended in Indianapolis, Indiana, with the 2015 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament Final Four on April 4, 2015, and the national championship game on April 6. Practices officially began on October 3, 2014.

Season headlines

  • May 14 – The NCAA announces its Academic Progress Rate (APR) sanctions for the 2014–15 school year. A total of 36 programs in 11 sports are declared ineligible for postseason play due to failure to meet the required APR benchmark, including the following eight Division I men's basketball teams:
  • Alabama State
  • Appalachian State
  • Central Arkansas
  • Florida A&M
  • Houston Baptist
  • Lamar
  • Milwaukee
  • San Jose State
  • In addition to the above teams, the entire athletic program at Southern University, including the men's basketball team, is ineligible for postseason play due to failure to supply usable academic data to the NCAA.
  • May 16 – The ACC and the SEC will use a 30-second shot clock during exhibition games on an experimental basis for the upcoming season.
  • June 10 – Georgetown and Syracuse announce that their men's basketball rivalry, on hold since 2013 due to the Big East realignment, will resume in 2015–16. The initial contract will run for four seasons.
  • November 3 – The AP preseason All-American team is named. North Carolina junior guard Marcus Paige is the leading vote-getter with 57 of 65 possible votes. Joining him on the team were Louisville junior forward Montrezl Harrell (56 votes), Wisconsin senior center Frank Kaminsky, Wichita State junior guard Fred VanVleet and Duke freshman center Jahlil Okafor. Okafor was also the preseason Player of the Year.
  • November 13 – The NCAA announced five future Final Four sites which include Glendale, Arizona (2017), San Antonio (2018), Minneapolis (2019), Atlanta (2020), and Indianapolis (2021).
  • December 6 – NJIT, the lone Independent in Division 1 basketball, upsets 17th-ranked Michigan.
  • January 2 – Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin was placed in an advisory role to the team for the remainder of the season while dealing with a non-life-threatening vascular condition known as arterial dissection.
  • February 3 – Turner Sports and CBS Sports announced that Bill Raftery and Grant Hill will replace Greg Anthony to call the 2015 NCAA tournament with the team of Jim Nantz and reporter Tracy Wolfson.
  • February 4 – Syracuse announces that it has self-imposed a postseason ban in response to an ongoing NCAA investigation into infractions that occurred over much of the early 21st century.
  • February 7 – Former North Carolina coach Dean Smith dies at his home in Chapel Hill at the age of 83.
  • February 11 – Former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian died at the age of 84.
  • March 6 – The NCAA announced the results of its investigation of the Syracuse men's basketball and football programs, levying the following penalties on the basketball program:
  • A total of 108 wins in the 2004–05, 2005–06, 2006–07, 2010–11, and 2011–12 seasons were ordered vacated. This was the most wins ever taken away from a Division I men's program, and dropped Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim from second on the all-time Division I wins list to sixth.
  • Boeheim was initially suspended for the first nine games of the 2015–16 ACC season, which was later modified to the first 9 games immediately following the ruling of the NCAA Board of Appeals, beginning with the renewed rivalry game against The Georgetown University Hoyas
  • The program initially lost three scholarships for each of the following four seasons (through 2018–19), later reduced to two per season following an appeal by the University to the NCAA.
  • Recruiting was restricted for two seasons, and the program was placed on probation for five years.
  • March 18 – In the wake of the Syracuse sanctions, Boeheim announces that he will retire at the end of the 2017–18 season, with top assistant Mike Hopkins his planned successor. Syracuse athletic director Daryl Gross announces his resignation, effective immediately.

Milestones and records

Conference membership changes

The 2014–15 season saw the final wave of membership changes resulting from a major realignment of NCAA Division I conferences. The cycle began in 2010 with the Big Ten and the then-Pac-10 publicly announcing their intentions to expand. The fallout from these conferences' moves later affected a majority of NCAA Division I conferences.

This was also the final season for Texas–Pan American (UTPA) under that name. At the start of the 2015–16 school year, UTPA merged with the University of Texas at Brownsville to form the new University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). UTPA's athletic program and WAC membership were inherited by UTRGV.

It was also the final season for Northern Kentucky in the Atlantic Sun Conference (A-Sun) and the final season for NJIT as an independent. On May 11, 2015, it was announced that Northern Kentucky would join the Horizon League effective July 1. The A-Sun soon filled the place left by Northern Kentucky, announcing on June 12 that NJIT would become a member effective on July 1.

Season outlook

Pre-season polls

The top 25 from the AP Poll and USA Today Coaches Poll.

Regular season

Early-season tournaments

*Although these tournaments included more teams, only the number listed played for the championship.

Conferences

Conference winners and tournaments

Thirty-one conference seasons concluded with a single-elimination tournament. The teams in each conference that won their regular-season titles were given the number one seed in their respective conference tournaments. Conference tournament winners received an automatic bid to the 2015 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. The Ivy League was the only NCAA Division I conference that did not hold a conference tournament, instead sending its regular-season champion to the NCAA tournament.

Conference standings

Division I independents

One school played as a Division I independent.

Informal championships

Villanova finished with a 4–0 record in head-to-head competition among the Philadelphia Big 5.

Statistical leaders

Source for additional stats categories

Postseason tournaments

NCAA tournament

Final Four – Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana

Tournament upsets

For this list, a "major upset" is defined as a win by a team seeded 7 or more spots below its defeated opponent.

National Invitation tournament

After the NCAA tournament field is announced, the NCAA invited 32 teams to participate in the National Invitation Tournament. The tournament began on March 17, 2015 with all games prior to the semifinals played on campus sites. The semifinals and final were held on March 31 and April 2 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

College Basketball Invitational

The sixth College Basketball Invitational (CBI) Tournament began on March 17, 2015 and ended with Loyola-Chicago's two-game sweep of Louisiana-Monroe. This tournament featured 16 teams who were left out of the NCAA tournament and NIT.

CollegeInsider.com Postseason tournament

The fifth CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament began on March 16 and ended with that championship game on April 2. The Evansville Purple Aces won their first postseason tournament, defeating Northern Arizona in the final. This tournament places an emphasis on selecting successful teams from "mid-major" conferences who were left out of the NCAA tournament and NIT. 32 teams participated in this tournament.

Award winners

Consensus All-American teams

The following players are recognized as the 2015 Consensus All-Americans:

<br />

Major player of the year awards

Major freshman of the year awards

Major coach of the year awards

Other major awards

Coaching changes

A number of teams changed coaches during and after the season.

See also

Notes

References