The Achilles' Heel for Men's College Basketball's AP Top 10 Teams

Every team in men's college basketball has a potentially fatal flaw, even the ones atop the AP Top 25.

Most of the top-10 teams have more than enough strengths elsewhere to make up for their biggest shortcomings. But those flaws still exist, just waiting to be exploited.

Several have depth/injury-related concerns. Others have three-point woes. One in particular is just plain bad at playing defense. All are issues that could result in an unexpectedly early exit from the NCAA tournament.

As you start thinking about who you can trust next month, keep these Achilles' heels in mind. Because even top-10 teams can run into matchup nightmares in the first round.

Three of these 10 teams played Tuesday night, but all statistics and data are current through the start of play Tuesday morning.

Achilles' Heel: Health and free throws

This will also come up with Kentucky, but Baylor just about has to be the No. 1 "Imagine If They Could Just Stay Healthy" team.

James Akinjo is finally looking like himself again, but he was in and out of the lineup and playing at less than full strength from mid-January into early February. Jeremy Sochan missed four games in mid-January. LJ Cryer has only played in one game since Sochan returned. Adam Flagler has missed a couple of recent games, and now Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua is surely out for the year following a serious knee injury.

Without "Everyday Jon," we already know Baylor won't have its full nine-man rotation for the NCAA tournament. But will it otherwise get healthy in time for the dance?

Before the injuries piled up, the Bears were 15-0 and felt like the best team in the country. Since then, though, they're 8-5 overall with a 1-4 record against teams likely to receive a No. 8 seed or better in the tournament. If they're still limping into mid-March, it's going to be difficult to trust them to reach the Sweet 16.

One other significant concern even at full strength is free-throw shooting. Akinjo is plenty reliable with an 83 percent stroke, but everyone else is more of an adventure. Baylor shoots 69 percent as a team, and the two primary big men (Sochan and Flo Thamba) are both hovering around 55 percent.

For what it's worth, Baylor was also a slightly below-average free-throw shooting team last year, but winning each of their six tournament games by at least nine points kept that from becoming an issue.

Achilles' Heel: No point guard and poor three-point shooting

Texas Tech is a very good, senior-heavy team that will punch you square in the mouth with its defense. In addition to season sweeps of both Baylor and Texas, the Red Raiders have a neutral-site victory over Tennessee, a home win over Kansas, a double-overtime loss at Kansas and, perhaps most impressive of all, they found a way to hold Gonzaga under 70 points—though they were unable to win that game in Phoenix.

Chris Beard may be gone, but this team feels even more dangerous under first-year head coach Mark Adams.

However, the Red Raiders go through more than their fair share of cold spells on offense, which stems from a combination of not having a true point guard and only having one guy on the roster who shoots 34 percent or better from three-point range (starting center Bryson Williams at 45.2 percent).

In road losses to Iowa State, Kansas State and Oklahoma—all NCAA tournament bubble teams—Texas Tech averaged 51.0 points, 8.7 assists and 14.7 turnovers while shooting a combined 9-of-51 (17.6 percent) from downtown. Because of those far-too-often offensive woes, Texas Tech hasn't had so much as a four-game winning streak since opening the season with six straight Quadrant 4 blowouts.

It's not a question of "if" Texas Tech will have a poor offensive showing in the NCAA tournament, but rather "when" and "will the defense be enough to win the game anyway?" The Red Raiders do have four wins in which they were held to 65 points or fewer, after all.

Achilles' Heel: Lack of size

I will say this is way less of a concern than it was at the start of the season, because Eric Dixon has blossomed into a real force in the paint. Villanova's 6'8" sophomore is one of the better offensive rebounders in the country, and he has averaged 12.0 points over his past 12 games.

Even so, the Wildcats are just OK on the glass as a whole, their two-point percentage ranks well outside the top 100 and they have no shot-blocking presence whatsoever.

Baylor and Purdue each pushed Villanova around, and the Wildcats had no answer for Marquette's Justin Lewis—a very good player, but not at the level of guys like Illinois' Kofi Cockburn or Auburn's Walker Kessler—in either of their two losses to the Golden Eagles.

Anecdotally, it's no big deal, right? This is Villanova we're talking about, a team that won two national championships while living and dying by the deep ball. And the Wildcats are, in fact, shooting it from distance every bit as well and as often as they did during the 2015-16 championship season.

But did you know Villanova ranked top-three in the nation in two-point percentage in each of those championship seasons, as well as the one in between? A lot of that was a testament to Jalen Brunson's ability to always find the open man, but this year's bunch just isn't anywhere near as good at scoring inside.

Achilles' Heel: Inconsistent effort

Peak Duke is the best team in the country, and with all due respect to the other candidates for No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament, I don't think there's much of an argument to the contrary.

The Blue Devils beat both Kentucky and Gonzaga on neutral courts in November. If you'll recall, Paolo Banchero was limited by leg cramps in the second half of each of those games, and A.J. Griffin—who is averaging 12.4 points per game and shooting 50.6 percent from three-point range since the beginning of December—was still working his way back from a preseason knee injury and had a combined line of 17 minutes, two points and two rebounds between those marquee games.

It's well within the realm of possibility that Banchero, Griffin, Wendell Moore Jr., Trevor Keels and Mark Williams will all be first-round draft picks in a few months, so it stands to reason that things can get terrifying for the opposition when everyone is engaged.

But Duke has suffered three losses and had to battle through several other close calls in the past month and a half, and most of those games happened at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Were this a vintage year for the ACC, fine, whatever, off nights happen in a gauntlet. But the Blue Devils are the only KenPom top-30 team in a league that may not produce another single-digit seed in the NCAA tournament. Duke really should be rampaging through this league the same way Gonzaga and Arizona are throttling the WCC and Pac-12, respectively.

Instead, the Blue Devils were content to let Florida State push them around in Tallahassee, failed to push around an undersized Miami team and just generally look sloppy and lethargic for long stretches of games.

Even if you agree that inconsistent effort has been an issue but choose to believe Duke will be fully locked in for the NCAA tournament, Duke's other Achilles' heel is the lack of a true point guard. The Blue Devils have a bunch of guys who can run the offense, but there's certainly not a Tyus Jones or Tre' Jones out there.

Achilles' Heel: Injury luck and frontcourt depth

With limited exceptions (Gonzaga being a big one), just about every team in the country has had to deal with some injury-related absences.

But Kentucky seems to be more frequently snake-bitten by brief absences than most contenders.

Sahvir Wheeler got hurt four minutes into an early January loss to LSU and subsequently missed the next two games. TyTy Washington suffered a similar injury early in a loss to Auburn and missed Kentucky's next game. Washington got hurt again in the Wildcats' recent win over Florida, probably shouldn't have played in the next game against Tennessee and didn't play against Alabama on Saturday. Wheeler also missed the Wildcats' most recent game after hurting his wrist late against Tennessee.

Key reserves Jacob Toppin and Davion Mintz have also missed multiple games because of injury. In fact, the only Wildcats to appear in all 27 games are Oscar Tshiebwe and Kellan Grady.

And for their sake, thank goodness Tshiebwe has been able to stay healthy, because he might be the most indispensable player in the nation. The big man has racked up nine consecutive double-doubles and a total of 21 for the year en route to what might be the greatest rebounding season of the modern era.

For the most part, Tshiebwe has been able to keep out of foul trouble and stay on the floor for more than 30 minutes per night. However, it will be interesting to see what happens when Kentucky's one-man wrecking crew has to go up against a team like Gonzaga, Arizona or Purdue with multiple bona fide frontcourt stars.

In a pinch, could Daimion Collins come off the bench and deliver a "Marcus Lee in the 2014 Elite Eight" type of heroic performance after minimal playing time during the regular season, or would Kentucky fall to pieces if it draws an officiating crew that neutralizes "Big O" with whistles?

Achilles' Heel: David McCormack

As great as Ochai Agbaji and Christian Braun have been, it's the big man who will most likely determine how deep Kansas goes come tournament time.

Because when Good David McCormack shows up, the Jayhawks have been very tough to beat.

And by "Good David McCormack," we're not even talking double-doubles or 20-point performances. When he either scores at least seven points or grabs at least seven rebounds, Kansas is 17-1 with an average scoring margin of 16.3 points. The lone loss was a back-and-forth affair at Texas in which neither side led by more than seven points at any juncture of the game.

When they get next to nothing out of McCormack, though, they're 5-3 with an average scoring margin of 0.75 points. That includes the loss to Dayton, as well as the uncomfortably close home games against Stephen F. Austin, George Mason and Iowa State.

Mitch Lightfoot is fine in short spurts and Jalen Wilson can play the small-ball 5 for a few minutes here and there, but Kansas just doesn't pack anywhere near the same punch in the frontcourt in McCormack's subpar performances.

The good news for Kansas is those off nights have been few and far between as of late. In fact, he is averaging 13.5 points and 9.3 rebounds thus far in February and just committed more than three fouls for the first time in 14 games—while still going for 19 and 11 in the win over West Virginia. If he plays as consistently well in March as he has in February, there's a decent chance Kansas wins the whole kit 'n' caboodle.

If he vanishes at any point, though, better hope it's on one of those nights when Agbaji is doing his Superman thing.

Achilles' Heel: Perimeter defense

It's not often you find a team like Purdue that's in the AP Top 25 but outside the top 100 in adjusted defensive efficiency. It rarely ends well.

In 2018, Wichita State finished fourth on offense and 111th on defense, got a No. 4 seed and lost in the first round to Marshall. In 2013-14, Creighton was second on offense and 124th on defense, got a No. 3 seed and lost by 30 in the second round. And just last year, Ohio State and Iowa both ranked top-five on offense, ranked 75th or worse on defense, both earned No. 2 seeds and both lost before the Sweet 16.

Purdue's interior defense hasn't been awful. Having a 7'4" center protecting the paint for nearly 20 minutes per game helps on that front. But Purdue's perimeter defense has been putrid.

In a recent loss at Michigan, the Wolverines had 21 assists to seven turnovers and shot 12-of-21 from three-point range. In a less-recent loss at Indiana, the Hoosiers committed just two turnovers, neither of which were steals. Rutgers shot 50 percent from downtown in upsetting the Boilermakers in December. And who can forget Johnny Davis doing whatever he pleased en route to 37 points in Wisconsin's win at Mackey Arena?

Those are just the games in which the offense wasn't quite able to pick up the defense's slack, too. There have already been nine contests in which Purdue's opponent finished with more made three-pointers than turnovers, and there's still a road game against Wisconsin coming up next week.

Barring a drastic turn of events, this will be the fourth season under Matt Painter in which Purdue ranks 295th or worse in defensive turnover percentage. In the other three years, the Boilermakers lost in the first round to North Texas (2021), lost in the first round to Arkansas-Little Rock (2016) and missed the dance with a 16-18 record (2013).

Can Jaden Ivey at least help them avoid a first-round upset? Probably. But will the poor defense keep Purdue from reaching a Final Four? That also feels probable.

Achilles' Heel: Three-point shooting and playing on the road

Addressing the latter concern first, playing outside of Auburn Arena was an issue for the Tigers long before Saturday's loss at Florida. The Tigers also lost at Arkansas and narrowly survived their road games against South Florida, Saint Louis, Missouri and Georgia.

Yes, virtually every team in the country plays better at home than it does on the road, but Auburn has an average scoring margin greater than 18 points at home and exactly 3.0 points per game on the road. You don't expect that type of split from a potential No. 1 seed. Something to keep an eye on this coming week at Tennessee and at Mississippi State, as well as in the SEC tournament.

But the three-point shooting is the bigger concern, as Jabari Smith Jr. (43.6 percent) is the only guy Auburn's opponents really need to worry about.

The Tigers have a bunch of players who can shoot threes. Even 7'1" shot-blocking wizard Walker Kessler has made nine triples on the season. But of the eight Tigers who have attempted at least 30 triples this year, only Smith makes at least 33 percent of them.

Between the two recent losses to Arkansas and Florida, Smith shot 7-of-13 (53.8 percent) from long range while the rest of the team shot 6-of-33 (18.2 percent).

In fairness, it hasn't been a death knell. Auburn is actually 5-0 on the season when shooting below 25.0 from distance, and it is 14-1 when shooting 32.0 percent or worse. This team is so good on defense and on the offensive glass that it can often survive a poor shooting night. However, it does feel like a thing that could derail Auburn at any point in the tournament.

Achilles' Heel: Limited experience

I'd like to start out by acknowledging that KenPom's experience calculator is out of whack on account of last season not counting against the eligibility clock. It says Arizona is the fourth-youngest team in the country with an average of 0.52 years of experience, but all eight guys in the primary rotation played college basketball last season. The only true freshmen on the roster are Shane Nowell and Adama Bol, who barely see the floor.

Still, with the exception of sixth-year reserve Justin Kier, this is a pretty young team with next to no NCAA tournament experience* and very little experience in close games this season. They also have a first-year head coach in Tommy Lloyd.

Talk to just about any head coach that has ever been to the NCAA tournament, and they'll tell you that the first career trip to the dance is intimidating, even for them. They have to put on the brave face and act like they've been there before, but it's fair to wonder if the bright lights and high stakes of March Madness might stir up some jitters among what is mostly a cast of second-year players who weren't even eligible for the postseason last year.

If that's not a legitimate concern for Arizona, giving up second-chance points certainly is.

In five games played against teams that rank top-50 in the country in offensive rebound percentage (Illinois, Tennessee, USC, Washington State and Stanford), Arizona allowed 16.8 offensive rebounds per game. Washington State was the only one that didn't get back at least 36 percent of its own misses. A team like Baylor, Connecticut or Kentucky could have a field day on the offensive glass against the Wildcats.

*Oumar Ballo was on last year's Gonzaga team, but he played a grand total of eight minutes in the tourney.

Achilles' Heel: Physicality

Of Gonzaga's 25 games played, 22 have been wins by at least a dozen points. Trying to find a clear flaw with this team is a bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack of butt kickings.

But I do think that—despite ultimately losing—Tarleton State and Texas Tech provided the best possible blueprint for beating Gonzaga: Get physical.

The Zags want a free-flowing, up-tempo game. They play at one of the fastest paces in the country, trying to score in transition whenever possible. And when they get into a rhythm, they can turn a close game into a blowout in the blink of an eye.

Conversely, Tarleton State and Texas Tech are perfectly content with playing a disjointed game full of fouls and turnovers, and they were both able to hold Gonzaga below 70 points in what were notably two of Drew Timme's worst games of the season. There's no question Baylor's physicality was the reason last year's national championship was over pretty much as soon as it started.

One gigantic difference from last year, though, is Chet Holmgren.

Defense as a whole was a clear problem for last year's Zags. Above-average offenses had minimal trouble scoring against Gonzaga in 2020-21, in large part because it had no rim protection. But these Zags lead the nation in effective field-goal percentage on defense with Holmgren averaging better than five blocks per 40 minutes.

For as slender as he is, the big man can more than hold his own in a physical game, and he can step out to the perimeter with a 45 percent three-point stroke, which just isn't fair.