College basketball rankings, grades: Tennessee gets 'A+,' UCLA earns 'F' on weekly report card

The Bruins earned our first failing grade of the season, while the Cougars and Vols garnered high marks

What a week it was in college basketball. Coming off a long Christmas break, there was plenty of action as conference play ramped up, giving us plenty to analyze and discuss in this week's report card. Now that class is back in session, I have vowed one thing as a resolution in 2024 for this space: grade more critically. 

In related news, I'm sad to report I've already failed. Houston was fantastic this week in remaining unbeaten, Tennessee and North Carolina looked the part of conference contenders, and Kentucky and Seton Hall both got big wins on Saturday that provided fresh perspective for reset expectations moving forward. I couldn't help but hand out a lot of A grades. That's on me.

I did, however, do my best to recover from such graciousness by handing out my first F of the season. Things are skipping press conference-level bad in Westwood right now after a humiliating home loss to lowly Cal over the weekend. Vibes are bad, offense is bad, everything is ... bad. They were graded accordingly.

Let's hop to the report card. As always, the grades are handed out based on the week that was, running from Monday-Sunday.

College basketball grades: This week's report card

Team		Grade	Analysis
	Houston	A+	Houston is the last undefeated team standing in college basketball, and it improved to 13-0 in style this week by opening its first-ever Big 12 Conference slate with a ho-hum 89-55 beatdown of West Virginia. The Cougars have won their last three games by an average of 36 points.
	Tennessee	A+	After a two-week Christmas break, Tennessee returned to its regularly scheduled programming of kicking booty and taking names -- with Norfolk State and Ole Miss becoming its latest victims by 37 and 36 points, respectively.
	Seton Hall	A	The arrow is pointing up for Seton Hall under first-year coach Shaheen Holloway, who helped guide the Pirates to a crucial road win over Providence to start the week and a home win over No. 7 Marquette to top it off. Time to take this team seriously as Big East contenders.
	North Carolina	A	Don't look now, but Carolina looks to be figuring itself out at just the right time. With wins over Pitt and Clemson this week, it improved to 3-0 in ACC play while doing so with a balanced attack both inside and out.
	Arizona	A	It looked bleak for Arizona only a few weeks ago after three losses in a five-game span to Purdue, FAU and Stanford, but the Wildcats are 2-0 in 2024 and have the second-largest scoring margin in college hoops when playing on their home floor in Tuscon.
	Kentucky	A-	A boneheaded foul by Reed Sheppard late on a Florida 3-point attempt made UK fans sweat a little more than it needed to in its eventual 87-85 win, but let's be honest: that's a good victory. No one else has walked into the O'Dome this season and stolen one from the Gators, but UK has a habit of doing so.
	UConn	B+	Continuing with UConn's propensity of either dominating the competition or playing teams down to the wire, the Huskies dominated DePaul and then played Butler tight before pulling away late. It doesn't even feel like UConn has hit its stride but has nonetheless looked the part a real threat to repeat as champs.
	Purdue	B	Purdue's win over No. 9 Illinois might've been only its second-most impressive victory of the week, just behind a 14-point road win at Maryland.
	Kansas	C+	Kansas very well could have, and maybe should have, lost Saturday at home vs. TCU if not for a questionable flagrant foul called on the Horned Frogs late that resulted in a four-point swing. Hard to be too critical for a team whose lone outing of the week was a W, but after 18 turnovers, the Jayhawks didn't deserve anything higher than a C. (Much like it didn't deserve the win over the Horned Frogs.)
	Ole Miss	D	If you're going to go out, I guess you might as well go out in flames. Ole Miss finally suffered its first loss of the season this week at the hands of Tennessee, doing so with its most lopsided loss since the 2011-12 season.
	UCLA	F	[extreme Lloyd Christmas voice]: UCLA has no fight, it has the worst offense in the Pac-12, ITS COACH IS SKIPPING PRESS CONFERENCES! Things are ugly right now for the Bruins, and it speaks volumes about the state of the season that its 66-57 home loss to Cal on Saturday might not even qualify as its low point of the season.