Here’s your weekly dive into what we took away from the last seven days of college hoops.
College basketball’s championship week brings with it the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Conference tournament upsets send unexpected teams to the NCAA Tournament and crush the dreams of some of the nation’s potential Cinderellas. It’s a week that also teaches us plenty about the college basketball landscape ahead of March.
Here’s a look at what we learned.
Duke back?
Buried in Sunday discussions about the Blue Devils’ rightful place in the field of 68 was the obvious question, is Duke back?! That’s obviously a bit of a joke as it’s a question that has consumed a significant amount of time and resources in college basketball media this season. The fact that the Blue Devils became the first team in ACC history to win four games in four days en route to the tournament trophy only intensified the inquiry.
The truth is that Duke is wha\t we always thought it was. The Blue Devils are the most talented team in the country and a favorite to win it all in Phoenix if everything comes together. Their roster is loaded from with experienced veterans like Amile Jefferson and Grayson Allen alongside a bevy of five-star recruits. Jayson Tatum’s game is continually developing in a good way. He looks better finishing at the rim and moving than ball now than he did back when he debuted in December. Harry Giles, the former top-rated recruit who has been hobbled by injuries, is also more consistently showing flashes of his potential.
The ACC tournament gave us a glimpse of what Duke is capable of. In the span of four days, they beat four KenPom top 40 teams, including Louisville, North Carolina and Notre Dame. The Blue Devils never left. They just need things to gel like they did in Brooklyn.
Arizona’s peaking at the right time
Arizona’s Sean Miller is one of the best head coaches in the country without a Final Four on his resume, but that could be set to change this season. After losing at home to UCLA in the penultimate game of the regular season, the Wildcats seem to be peaking at the right time heading into the NCAA Tournament.
Allonzo Trier, the sophomore guard who didn’t play in two of the team’s four losses this season, was named the Pac-12 conference tournament’s Most Outstanding Player after averaging 20.7 points per game in wins over Colorado, UCLA and Oregon. Trier has improved nearly across the board this season as he’s raise his rebounding and assist numbers while becoming a better outside shooter.
Freshman forward Lauri Markkanen also seems to have found his way out of a slump that lasted the entire month of February. Markkanen is Arizona’s best floor spacer and although he didn’t hit a 3-pointer in the final, he did managed to go 8-for-17 from deep over the course of the tournament.
With Trier and Markkanen picking up steam at the same time and an always stingy defense, the Wildcats may be poised to break through the ceiling (which is the roof, right?) and earn Miller his first Final Four.
Plenty of dangerous teams from one-bid leagues made the field
Outside of the first two days of the NCAA Tournament, perhaps no set of games is as unpredictable as one-bid conference tournaments. Every year, there are casualties — upset hopefuls who bow out before even making the Big Dance. This season, there were plenty of those. UT Arlington got trounced by Texas State in the Sun Belt, for example, and Belmont got ousted in the Ohio Valley Conference tournament. Don’t worry, though, a slew of dangerous teams from one-bid leagues will be in the field. Here are a few of them:
- Vermont made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2012 after beating Albany in the America East final on Saturday. The Catamounts giant-killer resume is bolstered by their experience, depth and scoring inside the arc.
- UNC Wilmington is headed back to the dance after falling in the opening round to Duke last season. The Seahawks are led by one of coaching’s rising stars, Kevin Keatts. They spread the floor with with shooters and have one of the best 20 offenses in the country based on adjusted efficiency. They’ll be a popular upset pick when filling out brackets.
- Middle Tennessee is also back in the field one year after upsetting No. 2 seed Michigan State in the opening round. Names like Giddy Potts and Reggie Upshaw will be familiar to hoops fans who watched the Blue Raiders pull off the unthinkable in 2016. They’ll look to do something similar this season.
The ACC bubble teams came up short
The two ACC teams with the most to do in the conference tournament — Clemson and Syracuse — both failed to make up ground in Brooklyn and it cost them on Selection Sunday as neither made the field.
Clemson had the better argument based solely on efficiency metrics. The Tigers ranked No. 35 on KenPom, but failed to put together the necessary quality wins to find their way into the field. That lack of wins is ultimately what kept them on the wrong side of the bubble when it came to the field of 68.
Syracuse, on the other hand, had a much better argument based on the traditional metrics used by the Selection Committee. The Orange have six RPI top 50 wins on their resume, but a loss to Miami in their opening game of the ACC tournament didn’t give them the opportunity to find anymore and sway the Committee’s decision.
The Orange’s predicament poses an interesting problem that relates to what should ultimately matter. On ESPN’s bracketology show, head coach Jim Boeheim argued that it should simply be about who you’ve beaten. That measurement is flawed, though. It prejudices mid-major teams who don’t have the same opportunities of the programs in major conferences. Five of Syracuse’s six RPI wins came during ACC play and the one that didn’t came in the non-conference against the No. 50 ranked team, Monmouth.
Losing Chris Boucher hurts for Oregon
Prior to the Pac-12 tournament final, word trickled out that Oregon’s Chris Boucher had suffered a torn ACL, taking him out of action for the remainder of the season. The injury to the Oregon senior will force the Ducks to make significant adjustments to their rotations going forward.
The most likely replacement for Boucher’s minutes is junior Kavell Bigby-Williams. The 6-foot-11 forward played 14 minutes in the Pac-12 final, scoring three points, grabbing three rebounds and blocking two shots. As a like-for-like replacement, Bigby-Williams can directly replace Boucher’s rebounding and rim protection without much of a drop off for the Ducks, but there are other things he won’t be able to replicate.
Boucher is a unique player. As a 34.7 percent 3-point shooter, he allows a team to spread the floor without sacrificing much in the way of size. He also has a paltry 11.3 percent turnover rate, which helped Oregon value its offensive possessions. Finding a player who can replicate his unique set of skills — rebounding, shot blocking and shooting — simply isn’t possible with the Ducks’ current roster, but Bigby-WIlliams will have to do.
Oregon will also likely play small for more minutes in March with Dillon Brooks at power forward and Jordan Bell at center. That lineup has the same potential to spread the floor that Boucher provides and allows Brooks to create significant mismatches at the four.