With the college football season officially in the books, the attention on campuses across the nation now turns to the hardwood.
Yes, we know basketball season has actually been underway for a couple of months now, but the sport doesn’t really get center stage in terms of fan interest until gridiron matters are concluded. Again to be clear that’s not true of everyone, so if you are a dialed-in hoops fan who knows the current NET ranking of every team from the America East to the Western Athletic Conference – or heck, if you even know who the current members of all the conferences are – then good on ya, as our friends from Down Under might say.
But if you are a casual college basketball follower who needs to catch up on what’s been happening around the game in preparation for March Madness, which is only about 10 weeks away after all, then this is the article for you. Here are a few things we’ve learned up to this point in the season.
Struggling blue bloods
The first year of the post-Mike Krzyzewski era hasn’t always gone smoothly over the first couple of months for Duke, which is 13-4 and 4-2 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Injuries and illnesses haven’t helped, but the youthful Blue Devils did pull out a needed comeback victory Wednesday against Pittsburgh and could grow up a bit more with a win at Clemson.
But the Blue Devils are not the only name-brand program that has struggled through the first half of the season. North Carolina was voted No. 1 in the preseason with nearly all of last year’s national runner-up roster returning. But it should be remembered that the Tar Heels entered last year’s tournament as a No. 8 seed, and a similar position is likely this year as they again find themselves in the middle of the pack.
Kentucky is off to a 1-3 start in the SEC for the first time since the 1986-87 season, and they aren’t likely to receive much sympathy Saturday when they visit Tennessee. Indiana has also dropped three in a row after a promising start to the campaign, and life won’t get any easier in the Big Ten.
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Loaded Big 12
It hasn’t quite reached the level of domination that the SEC has achieved in football in recent years, but the Big 12 is on something of a mini-streak in hoops. The conference has claimed the last two titles, and the conference is poised to send a lot of high seeds into the upcoming Big Dance.
There’s defending national champ Kansas, of course, which has climbed back to No. 2 in the polls with a revamped lineup led by Jalen Wilson (20.0 ppg, 8.8 rpg). But the Jayhawks have plenty of challengers, including Sunflower State rival Kansas State. The Wildcats improved to 15-1 Wednesday with a win against Oklahoma State, and the performance of Keyontae Johnson (18.4 ppg, 7.0 rpg), who has worked his way back from a scary on-court collapse while playing for Florida in 2020, is among the sport’s feel-good stories of the year. Iowa State is also off to a 4-0 start in Big 12 play, and Texas is still a factor under interim coach Rodney Terry.
Those four are all in the top 15 of the NCAA’s NET rankings, and several others aren’t far behind. In fact, all 10 league members are in the top 75 as of the end of Wednesday’s action, meaning just about every conference contest moving forward will present an opportunity for a quality win. Not everyone can stay that high up, of course, but figure on the upper half of the bracket featuring at least six and possibly seven Big 12 squads come Selection Sunday.
Football schools doing well
If you just took a cursory glance at the most recent coaches poll, you might mistake it for a football ranking with Alabama and Tennessee in the top five. But the Crimson Tide are responsible for top-ranked Houston’s lone loss and kept their SEC slate unblemished with a convincing 15-point triumph at Arkansas on Wednesday. The Volunteers, meanwhile, have rebounded from an early setback against Colorado and have a high-value victory against Kansas on their resume in addition to a 4-0 SEC mark.
Elsewhere, one might also be surprised to see Clemson atop the ACC standings. The Tigers, original conference members, are 6-0 in the league for the first time in its 73-year history. They have yet to work their way into the Top 25 thanks in large part to a non-league setback against Loyola-Chicago. That result might not be bad in some years but is less forgivable this season with the Ramblers currently in last place in their new league, the A-10. But a win Saturday at home against Duke would likely get Clemson ranked.
Wide open NCAA Tournament likely
In truth, the most important thing we’ve learned is that there doesn’t appear to be a clear favorite to cut down the nets in Houston at season’s end. Every Division I men’s team has lost at least once, and there are a slew of squads that are talented but inconsistent enough to either go on a deep run or go home early in March.
So will we have a first-time champion, as has happened in two of the last three NCAA tournaments contested, or will one of the sport’s established powers figure things out in time to finish on top?
First-time champion candidates
It’s quite possible, of course, that when all is said and done this season will simply produce another title for one of the sport’s perennial powers. Kansas, as mentioned, will almost certainly have a lofty seed as will UCLA. Connecticut and Arizona could go on a run as well.
But there are also plenty of contenders with the chance to hoist the program’s first banner, as Virginia did in 2019 and Baylor managed two years later. We’ve already mentioned a few from schools more noted for football success, but there are numerous others from basketball hotbeds still seeking that initial crown.
Could it be Houston? The program that came up just a game short twice in the 1980s made it back to the Final Four two seasons ago. The Cougars, led by a finally healthy Marcus Sasser (16.6 ppg), would love to finish the job this year in their home city.
Or how about Purdue? The Boilermakers have been agonizingly close but haven’t reached the Final Four since 1980, and a Big Ten team hasn’t won it all since Michigan State in 2000. But this year they have a strong national player-of-the-year candidate in big man Zach Edey (21.9 ppg, 13.2 rpg, 2.1 bpg), and an experienced supporting cast.
Then once again there’s Gonzaga. This year’s version of the Bulldogs, however, might not be able to build a No. 1 seed resume thanks to some early losses, and a couple of close calls early in West Coast Conference play suggests they might not get through the league unscathed this time.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College basketball storylines two months from March Madness
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