With football season out of the way, catch up on what you might have missed from this college basketball season
As the dust settles on one of the greatest Super Bowls of all time, it’s time to turn your attention to college basketball. To help, we’ve put together our thoughts on the State of College Basketball. It is about time for the State of the Union after all. With March Madness just over a month away, these are the things you should know as you dip your toe into the college basketball waters.
1. The Duke Blue Devils are good, but not what we expected
Let’s start at the top. The Duke Blue Devils were the preseason favorites to win the national title. Head coach Mike Krzyzewski had assembled the next great college hoops team by combining veteran leadership with the country’s top recruiting class. Things haven’t gone as planned.
The Blue Devils have already lost five games. Injuries delayed the arrivals of star freshmen Harry Giles, Jayson Tatum and Marques Bolden. Neither Giles nor Bolden have played to their potential yet, Tatum’s offensive style has spurred questions about how well the pieces fit together and the defense has struggled in conference play. Oh, Grayson Allen also tripped someone again and Coach K had back surgery that took him off the sidelines for a bit.
On the plus side, Luke Kennard and Amile Jefferson have had breakout seasons as the team’s best offensive and defensive player, respectively. Duke is also playing Tatum at power forward more and the scoring margins with those lineups should worry the rest of the country. The Blue Devils have now won three straight games ahead of their rivalry clash with the North Carolina Tar Heels on Thursday. With Krzyzewski back and all of its players available, Duke is finally at full strength in time to prepare for March.
2. The other blue bloods are (mostly) really good, too
There are six traditional college basketball blue bloods: Duke, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and UCLA. Only one of them, the Hoosiers, is not ranked in the top 25.
Indiana started the season with an overtime win over the Jayhawks in the Armed Forces Classic, but stumbled quickly in a road loss at Fort Wayne. Things really started to unravel after Christmas with back-to-back-to-back losses, a season-ending injury to forward OG Anunoby and another injury to leading scorer James Blackmon Jr. that has sidelined him indefinitely. At 5-6 in the Big Ten, the Hoosiers are pretty firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble now.
Kansas, meanwhile, is coming off of just its 10th loss at Allen Fieldhouse under head coach Bill Self, but the Jayhawks remain in the driver’s seat to win at least a share of a13th straight Big 12 regular season conference title. This is a new look Kansas team, though. Self has abandoned his lineups with two big men in favor of playing star freshman Josh Jackson at power forward and this team has struggled on defense unlike his past squads. Jackson has lived up to the hype as one of the likely top three picks in June’s NBA Draft while point guard Frank Mason has helped lead the Jayhawks’ transition to smallball and turned himself into a National Player of the Year candidate. If Kansas makes noise in March, it will be their offense — not their defense — that leads the way.
Kentucky once again has a litany of talented freshmen leading the way, but like always, there have been some growing pains. The Wildcats have won just one of their last four games and it came at home in overtime. Head coach John Calipari continues to encourage his team to dump the ball inside to big man Bam Adebayo. There seem to be more systemic problems than that, though. The Wildcats don’t have much shooting on the roster (despite the awesomeness of Malik Monk) and their defense has stumbled lately. Calipari has earned the benefit of the doubt with his young teams, though, so we’ll just have to keep an eye on how they progress.
North Carolina has played its way to a 21-4 record despite losing Marcus Paige and Brice Johnson from last season’s team. The Tar Heels continue to eschew recent trends by not firing up many 3-pointers, but they are dominant on the offensive glass and still have one of the nation’s best offenses. Junior Justin Jackson has taken a leap in his third season by sorting out his 3-point stroke and the team is still waiting for Theo Pinson to take the court with regularity. Of this group, the Tar Heels seem to be the most under the radar.
Finally, UCLA might simultaneously be the most entertaining and most frustrating team in the country. The Bruins are a highlight reel waiting to happen on offense. Freshman Lonzo Ball has fundamentally transformed the way basketball is being played in Westwood, making the team appointment viewing for most college hoops fans. The problem is that UCLA has been the basketball equivalent of a matador on defense. The Bruins really struggle to get stops and it’s something that might come back to haunt them in the NCAA Tournament.
In recent years, it’s been rare to have nearly all of the blue bloods in a position to compete for a national title This season, it looks like they could all make a run.
3. But, the country’s best team just might be a mid-major
Now, even though the blue bloods have been living up to their standards for the most part, the No.1-ranked team in the country is actually a mid-major program. The Gonzaga Bulldogs are off to a 24-0 start with a better than 50 percent chance to finish the regular season undefeated, according to KenPom.
Don’t be too quick to dismiss the Bulldogs, either. Sure, they have a history of stumbling in March, but the tournament is historically chaotic and high variance. This could be the year that Gonzaga sheds all of its baggage by making it to the Final Four. The Bulldogs aren’t just undefeated because they play in a weaker conference. They’re also also really good. So, what makes this Gonzaga team different?
For starters, the Zags aren’t ranked No. 1 just because of their undefeated record. They can also be found at the top of KenPom’s efficiency margin and the Sagarin Ratings as a team well-balanced between offense and defense. Point guard Nigel Williams-Goss runs the show, leading the team at 15.6 points and 4.8 assists per game. The former Washington guard has played at an All-American level this season. On the interior, Przemek Karnowski dishes out sweet passes and protects the rim. He’s backed up by another 7-footer, freshman Zach Collins, who is a future first round pick. Add in two more transfers, the sharpshooting Jordan Mathews and a versatile scorer in Johnathan Williams, and the Zags have the talent to compete with anybody in the country.
Gonzaga’s NCAA Tournament failings have overridden its successes so far, but the Bulldogs are in a position to change that this season.
4. Injuries have robbed us of too many fun players this season
One of the worst things in sports is when an injury robs a player of his season and it’s a devastating event that’s happened all too often in 2016-17. Creighton’s Maurice Watson, Xavier’s Edmond Sumner and Indiana’s OG Anunoby have all played their final games for their respective teams this year after suffering season-ending knee injuries.
We’ve already talked a bit about Anunoby’s impact earlier, but it’s a bummer that one of the country’s most versatile defenders won’t be on the floor anymore this season. The sophomore broke out in last year’s NCAA Tournament by helping to bottle up Kentucky’s Jamal Murray in Indiana’s win over the Wildcats.
Watson’s injury may have been the most devastating. Not only was this his senior season, but his Creighton team got out to a 17-1 start before he tore his ACL in the Bluejays’ 18th regular season win over Xavier. The team is 2-3 in the games since as it lacked a suitable replacement for Watson at the point guard spot. With the 5-foot-10 senior on the floor, Creighton looked like a potential Final Four contender. Now, they may struggle to advance past the tournament’s first weekend.
Xavier, too, lost its point guard to an ACL injury. Edmond Sumner suffered his just weeks after Watson, but the Musketeers were better equipped to handle the blow. Freshman Quentin Goodin has stepped into Sumner’s point guard position and helped lead the team to three straight wins by averaging 13 points and 4.7 assists per game during that stretch.
5. There will be plenty of Cinderellas to keep an eye on come March
Outside of Gonzaga, there are other mid-major programs to keep an eye on in March. The Saint Mary’s Gaels, Wichita State Shockers and Dayton Flyers are all intriguing candidates to make a run in March, but what about some of the teams from obvious one-bid conferences? Two teams that made the Big Dance last year could make some noise this season assuming things fall right for them in their conference tournaments.
Kermit Davis Jr. one again has his Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders ready to go dancing. You might remember them from their shocking 15-seed over 2-seed upset against the Michigan State Spartans last year. Three starters from last season’s squad are gone, but Giddy Potts and Reggie Upshaw are both back. The Blue Raiders are led in scoring by Arkansas transfer Jacorey Williams. Middle Tennessee is currently 20-4 overall and 10-1 in Conference USA.
The other one to watch is the CAA’s UNC-Wilmington Seahawks. Last year, the Seahawks fell in the first round to Duke. This season, though, they’ll look to win a game with the nation’s 20th best adjusted offensive efficiency. Sophomore C.J. Bryce is in the midst of a breakout season, averaging 16.5 points, 5.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game. The Seahawks also have last season’s leading scorer, Chris Flemmings, back on the perimeter.
Whether or not these teams show up on brackets in March will depend entirely on their performance in their respective conference tournaments, but if your team gets paired up against the Blue Raiders or the Seahawks, watch out.