Where does this year’s Dayton team rank among the saddest disappointments in CBB history?

Note that teams like UNC and Louisville were unquestionably bigger disappointments this season looking at this season purely in a vacuum, but when you take everything into context, it’s hard to think of a sadder disappointment in recent memory than this year’s Dayton team.

Most people agree that Dayton was the program most screwed over by the 2020 tournament cancellation. They were 29-2 and led by NPOY Obi Toppin, in line for a 1 seed and seemingly poised for a Final Four run if not a national championship. Such a run could've changed their program forever, and that team is the lifeblood of the city, so it could've changed the university and city forever as well.

There was a bright spot, however. They were able to sign their best recruiting class ever thanks to the publicity from that regular season, although one not nearly as good as what they would've had had the tournament been played. Nevertheless, they beat eventual national champion Kansas in the ESPN Events Invitational, but fell just short of the NCAA tournament thanks to some early-season Q4 losses that came before the team really started to gel. As a result, they were ranked by both major polls in the preseason and predicted to run away with the Atlantic 10 while cruising to an upper seed, with several even pegging them as a Final Four contender and DaRon Holmes as a NPOY contender. Most importantly, they were supposed to avenge the 2020 team.

Instead, they failed to win the A-10, likely a 1-bid conference. Did the pressure of living up to 2020 get to them? Was the hype just wishful thinking that came as a result of people hoping they could make up for 2020? The fact that they didn’t live up to preseason expectations is bad enough, but I think the 2020 aspect makes them one of the saddest disappointments in college basketball if not sports history.