Have you been so consumed by football for the last five months that you’re woefully behind on what’s been happening in the world of men’s college basketball? Would you like to change that so you sound like you know what you’re talking about once March Madness rolls around in a month?
Once again, we here at SB Nation have you, the diehard football fan who is finally ready to start paying attention to college hoops now that the Super Bowl is over, covered.
Let’s hear your questions.
So who’s good?
Diving right in. All right.
It’s been a wild few months in college basketball. For proof, check out how well unranked teams playing at home against top 10 teams are faring this season in comparison with years past:
I don’t do numbers.
The unranked teams are winning a lot more games this year than in years past.
Dope. So who’s good?
Despite all the upsets, two teams have pretty clearly separated themselves from the rest of the pack as we head into the final few weeks of the regular season.
The first is reigning national champion Connecticut, which is No. 1 in both major top 25 polls right now. The Huskies lost a decent amount from last year’s championship team, but Tristen Newton has stepped into a bigger role and played like an All-American, Alex Karaban and Donovan Klingan are also thriving in larger roles, freshman Stephon Castle looks like a lottery pick, and Rutgers transfer Cam Spencer is the team’s new lethal outside threat.
UConn currently sits at 22-2 overall and 12-1 in the Big East, and they haven’t lost since Dec. 20. College basketball hasn’t had a repeat national champion since Florida did it in 2006 and 2007, but Danny Hurley’s team certainly looks like they have a shot.
The other standout is Purdue, which is also 22-2 and hasn’t lost since Jan. 9. The Boilermakers ended last season on the other end of the spectrum, becoming just the second No. 1 seed ever to lose to a 16-seed. But if you’re looking for a silver lining, the only other team to suffer that fate — Virginia in 2018 — went on to win the national championship the next year.
Who drafted that really tall guy they had?
That’s Zach Edey, and he actually still plays for Purdue.
Any good?
Very!
Edey, who stands 7’4 by the way, is averaging a whopping 23.3 points and 11.7 rebounds per game while shooting 62.3 percent from the field. He is the runaway favorite to win every national Player of the Year award. If he wins at least two of them, he’ll be the first player to do that in back-to-back years since Virginia’s Ralph Sampson did it in 1981 and 1982.
Who else is very good? Is Zion still playing?
No.
I’m just messing with you, man. I knew that.
Oh, ok. I have to admit, you had me for a second. That was actually pretty fun—
Yeahh, played his one year at Duke, got that national title, and then bounced.
Sure.
Once again, there isn’t a Zion-like one-and-done sensation in college basketball this year. Veterans like Edey, Newton, North Carolina’s R.J. Davis and Kevin McCullar and Hunter Dickinson from Kansas are the types of players who are dominating the sport.
Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht — who went from JuCo to Northern Colorado to Tennessee and now seems to be on the verge of becoming a lottery pick after a year of lighting it up for the Volunteers — is also a very cool story.
What other potential lottery picks are playing college hoops this year?
While most draft experts have declared this to be one of the weaker classes in recent years, there’s still plenty of next-level talent floating around the college game at the moment.
Kentucky has its usual slew of young talent with Rob Dillingham, Reed Sheppard and Justin Edwards all seeming like safe bets to hear their names called fairly early. Colorado’s Cody Williams is a trendy choice to be a top five pick. Duke sophomore big man Kyle Filipowski surprised a lot of people by returning for one more year, but seems to have improved his draft status. Baylor freshman Ja’Kobe Walter and USC’s Isaiah Collier also have tantalizing professional skills.
Show me some cool dunks.
Here are four cool dunks:
I like crazy March Madness upsets. Who is going to pull off a crazy March Madness upset?
I can give you some mid-major teams that look like legitimate top 30-50 teams, but as far as trying to forecast the 14, 15 or 16 seed that’s going to pull off a first round stunner this year, that’s a virtually impossible task at this point in the season.
Case in point, that Fairleigh Dickinson team that shocked top-seeded Purdue last year didn’t even win its conference regular season or tournament championship.
Well then how did they even make it into the big tournament?
Well … you see … when programs are making the jump from a lower level to Division-I, there’s this transition per … do you really want to know?
Not really.
Thank God.
Is it a dumb NCAA rule thing?
It’s a dumb NCAA rule thing.
Ok, back to the good mid-majors.
If we’re talking strictly about teams from conferences other than the big six, there are plenty.
The Mountain West — which produced last year’s national runner-up in San Diego State — could wind up sending as many as six teams to the NCAA tournament and seems certain to get at least four. SDSU, New Mexico, Colorado State, Utah State, Nevada and Boise State could all hear their names called on Selection Sunday.
Florida Atlantic, which lost to San Diego State at the buzzer in the Final Four last year, hasn’t been top 10 good like many were predicting before the start of the season, but they’re certainly capable of making another run from a similar starting spot (7-11 seed range) next month.
Dayton out of the Atlantic 10 is fielding its strongest team since it was poised to be a No. 1 seed before COVID canceled the 2020 tournament. The Flyers have an All-American candidate in DaRon Holmes and could be as high as a 3 or a 4-seed if they finish the season strongly.
But if we’re talking true mid-majors, we have to go to the Missouri Valley and talk about Indiana State.
Larry Bird went there!
He did!
Also Jimmy Chitwood from Hoosiers!
1-for-2.
Indiana State is nationally ranked this week for the first time since Bird was a Sycamore. They haven’t been to the NCAA tournament since 2011 and they haven’t won an MVC regular season title since 2000. At 22-3 overall and 13-1 in conference play, both of those things seem likely to change in the weeks ahead.
Josh Schertz’s team plays at a lightning fast pace and is one of the most efficient offensive teams in the country. Their star player, sophomore big man Robbie Avila, is a guy I can almost guarantee the entire country is going to fall in love with if the Sycamores make noise in March.
Why are they going to fall in love with him?
Well, he’s awesome, and his team is very good and very capable of winning multiple games in the NCAA tournament.
…. Why are they going to fall in love with him?
Ok …
Ohhhhh
Yeah.
I think I already love him.
We all do.
I noticed you didn’t mention Gonzaga. Is that because it’s a crime punishable by death West of the Mississippi to refer to them as a “mid-major?”
Actually, no.
Gonzaga’s streak of 24 consecutive made NCAA tournaments is very much in jeopardy at the moment. The Zags are a respectable 17-6, but just 1-5 in Quadrant 1 opportunities. That lone victory came this past weekend at Kentucky, an effort which kept the team’s at-large bid hopes on life support.
In order to guarantee that Mark Few doesn’t miss the Big Dance for the first time in his head coaching career, Gonzaga will need to win the West Coast Conference tournament in Las Vegas. In order to make that happen, they’ll likely need to defeat rival Saint Mary’s, who is currently unbeaten in conference play and who beat the Zags on their home floor two weeks ago.
Are any other lengthy NCAA tournament streaks in jeopardy?
What a pointed, appropriate question.
The answer is yes.
Michigan State has been to 25 consecutive NCAA tournaments — one of just two streaks longer than Gonzaga’s (Kansas owns the longest active streak at 33 and is in no danger of missing this year’s tournament). The Spartans lost five of their first nine games this season and quickly fell out of the national polls. They’ve hit their stride a bit after the calendar flipped to 2024, but at 15-9 overall and 7-6 in the Big Ten, they’re still far from a lock to make the field of 68.
Hasn’t it been like a billion years since a Big Ten team won it all?
Yes. The last Big Ten team to win the national championship was Michigan State in 2000.
And hasn’t it been even longer since a West Coast team won it all?
Yes. The last “West Coast” team to cut down the nets was Arizona in 1997.
Which streak is more likely to end this year?
Purdue, despite their long history of NCAA tournament struggles, has looked like the best or second-best team in the sport for pretty much the entirety of the last three months. Illinois and Wisconsin have also been good, but seem like much, much longer shots to be able to win six games in three weeks.
As far as West Coast teams are considered, Arizona seems like the only legitimate threat. The Pac-12 is way down this year, and while Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga are both fine enough basketball teams, they aren’t national title caliber.
The debate essentially boils down to Purdue vs. Arizona, and while we love Tommy Lloyd and the Wildcats, we’re giving the slight edge to the Boilermakers right now.
Show me some cool buzzer-beaters. I want to really get into the March mindset.
Let’s do it.
We’ll start with Johnell Davis, one of last March’s heroes, hitting a game-winner for Florida Atlantic in the closing seconds against North Texas.
Not a true buzzer-beater.
Point taken. I’ll do better.
Here’s Jacobi Wood from Murray State beating Evansville at the horn from earlier this week.
How about a little Big West buzzer-beating?
And lastly, here’s what would have probably been the best buzzer-beater of the year had it not come a millisecond after the final horn.
Kansas is pretty good, right?
They are. Despite battling some injuries, the Jayhawks are currently ranked No. 6 in the AP poll.
Duke is pretty good, right?
They are. While they haven’t quite lived up to their preseason billing, the Blue Devils are still 19-5 and a legitimate top 10 team.
North Carolina is pretty good, right?
They are. The Tar Heels have bounced back from last season’s disastrous campaign and are currently leading the ACC and ranked No. 7 in the country.
Kentucky is pretty good, right?
Well.
The Wildcats are certainly fun. They score more points per game than any team in college basketball, but they also rank 124th in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency. They just lost a third straight home game for the first time since 1966 and for the first time in the history of Rupp Arena. There might not be a more difficult team in the country to forecast than John Calipari’s Cats.
Holy shit, Calipari is still there?
He is.
I thought he went out with K, Roy, Jay and the rest of the boys.
He did not.
Which conference is the best?
In terms of overall quality, the Big 12 appears to be the class of the sport.
There’s a very real chance that the conference is going to send double-digit teams to the NCAA tournament. West Virginia and Oklahoma State are the only two teams in the league with losing records, and probably the only two teams with zero shot at the Big Dance outside of winning the Big 12 tournament.
The conference also likely has the largest crop of legitimate national title contenders, with Houston, Kansas and Iowa State all checking a lot of boxes. You could also make lesser cases for teams like Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Baylor, BYU and TCU.
The SEC and the Big East both have cases for the runner-up spot.
The former has quality at the top, with Auburn, Alabama and Tennessee all ranking in the top 10 on Ken Pom. It also has the high-scoring Kentucky team previously mentioned, a Florida squad which may be the hottest in the country at the moment, and solid depth in the middle of the league thanks to Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Mississippi State and South Carolina.
The Big East has a pair of top tier title contenders in UConn and Marquette, as well as a Creighton squad that has the pieces necessary to make a second straight regional final. The middle of the conference is solid, but doesn’t feature as many clear-cut NCAA tournament teams as it has in years past.
Does that mean DePaul is solid?
It does not.
The Blue Demons are 3-20 overall, 0-12 in the Big East, and fired head coach Tony Stubblefield last month.
Heh.
Yeah.
Give me your Final Four.
I don’t really like to do that before we get the actual bracket.
Why?
It’s a totally pointless exercise to pick a Final Four when so much of who makes up the Final Four is based on tournament draw. If you pick four teams right now, two or three of them might end up being in the same region on Selection Sunday.
Well I’d stay away from Purdue. I always forget what happens a few months after March, but the one thing I ALWAYS remember is that Purdue chokes.
This all feels like it may have been a massive waste of time.
Gonzaga too.
Sure. Feel free to stay away from picking Gonzaga to win the national title next month. You’re probably safe.
That’s all I needed to hear. Much appreciated.
Anytime.
