SEASON RESET
The Super Bowl is now over, which means college basketball steps into the spotlight for eight straight weeks!! If you’re just now joining us, here’s what you’ve missed…
-For starters, November was amazing! And if you are just now joining us, I’m sorry you missed it. Top ten match-ups included Kansas v Michigan State, Kentucky v Duke, Gonzaga v Duke, Gonzaga v Tennessee, Tennessee v Kansas, Kansas v Marquette, and there may even be one that I’m missing. Kansas now ranked #11th, but they were clearly top 10 prior to the injuries they suffered, and the vast majority of these games were great!
-The preseason top 5 was Kansas, Kentucky, Duke, Gonzaga, and Virginia. Three of those five are still ranked in the top five, and Kentucky is still ranked in the top 7. Kansas has fallen off a bit after being hit by the injury bug, and while they’re still good, they don’t appear to be #1 seed good.
Tennessee is the #1 team and while they may not be ranked that high at the end, they should hold onto it for the next two weeks.
Michigan, who started off ranked around 20, has also exceeded their preseason expectations and has been ranked as high as #1.
-The Biggest busts of the season are probably Auburn, West Virginia, and Oregon who all started off ranked in the top 15. All three are out of the rankings entirely, and West Virginia and Oregon aren’t even on pace to make the NCAA Tournament. UCLA, as well as the entire Pac 12 minus Washington, is another team that has just fallen flat.
-The most schizophrenic teams are Syracuse and Texas. Syracuse has the single greatest win of the season, which was a road win at Duke. They also have home losses to Old Dominion and Georgia Tech.
-Buffalo is the Under the Radar media darling and has been in the rankings for the entire season since week 2 (even though they have lost two out of their last four games in the MAC). Furman was right there with them for a while, but fell out once conference play began. Wofford and Lipscomb are two teams that should be getting credit, but aren’t.
-Kansas State began the season ranked #2 in the Big 12, then fell out of the rankings after playing horribly, and then climbed their way back into the rankings again, so they’ve had a seesaw type of year.
-We have not had any quadruple overtime games this season.
-Penn is one of the more interesting teams. They went undefeated in Big Five play, which meant beating Villanova and Temple!! The problem is that Penn also lost their first three games in Ivy League play and barely beat Columbia in their last game.
-Indiana began with low expectations, then they strung together some big wins early in the season against the likes of Louisville, Marquette, and Butler and climbed into the rankings!! They then crashed into a mountain with seven straight losses, most of which weren’t even close. They followed up that seven game losing streak with a win at Michigan State, which is perhaps the most stupefying moment in college basketball in years. UMBC beating Virginia was a huge surprise, but it could at least be explained after the fact. This cannot. It was utterly ridiculous. It was also a much needed win for the Hoosiers, who could now become the first team (at least that we know of) to lose seven straight games and still earn an at-large bid.
-Baylor has been the ‘They-Suck-to-They’re-Good’ story of the year. They started things off with a loss to Texas Southern, and also fell to teams like Wichita State and SFA, none of which have a winning div1 record. They’ve now won six in a row, and are in a first place tie in the Big 12. We know that some day Kansas will not finish first in the Big Twelve. What none of us foresaw was that the team who knocks them off had two home buy game losses prior to the start of conference play.
-Ole Miss has been another great story. They started off picked to finish last in the SEC, but have played their way into the rankings and are a probable tournament team.
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-LOUISVILLE AT VIRGINIA TECH (ACC). Louisville is in the midst of a very tough stretch of games and is coming off a home loss to North Carolina. Virginia Tech is trying to strengthen their resume and a win over a solid team like Louisville will help them out.
-WEST VIRGINIA AT TEXAS TECH (Big 12). Texas Tech was blown off the court by Kansas over the weekend. They have a winnable home game tonight to help them rebound.
-IOWA STATE AT OKLAHOMA (Big 12). Oklahoma is in a tailspin which got even worse on Saturday when they lost at West Virginia. They will fall to just 3-7 in conference play if they don’t knock off Iowa State tonight, which won’t be easy despite the fact that they are at home. The Cyclones are looking more and more like a protected seed and they can add another road win to their resume tonight.