After spotlighting all 14 Big Ten Teams this season we now turn our focus on the regular season title races in most of the major conferences. Who’s going to win the ACC? Did Marquette lock it down this week? Can Arizona steal the Pac-12 from UCLA? We will cover all that and more including of course The Big Ten Title race.
Big Ten
Purdue had an opportunity to make a statement this weekend and wrap up the Big Ten Title with a win over rival IU in West Lafayette. Instead, the Boilermakers lost 71-79 in Mackey to the Hoosiers. Coach Painter schemed up a way to take away Trayce Jackson-Davis (which worked), but that scheme did not take away Jalen Hood-Schifino who had a career high 35 points. If JHS leaves early Purdue fans will not miss him.
The Boilers have lost 4 of their last 6 including both games to Indiana who complete the season sweep. Mike Woodson improves to 3-1 in his tenure against Purdue. A far cry from the Archie Miller era.
Still Purdue entered Sunday just needing Northwestern to lose one game or to win one themselves to clinch a share of the title. Northwestern ended the drama prematurely with a loss to Maryland on Sunday. The Boilers backdoor their way into their league leading 25th Big Ten Title. Purdue plays at Wisconsin and hosts Illinois to end the season where a win in either they will clinch the Championship outright.
Big East
The Big East entered the week with Marquette (13-3) a game up on three teams Xavier, Providence and Creighton (12-4).
Tuesday was the big day for the Big East race. Xavier took on Villanova and lost in the Cintas Center 63-64. This opened the door for Marquette in the late slate. Despite being down 8 at half, Marquette battled back in the second half to beat Creighton 73-71 in Omaha. The game against Creighton was the last game against a ranked opponent for Marquette so it was huge for the Blue Jays to win just to keep the race alive. They didn’t and then Marquette clinched a share of the Big East Title with a win over Depaul at home on Saturday.
Congratulations to Shaka Smart and the entire Golden Eagles team. Picked to be in the lower half of the Big East, Marquette surprised everybody with a rebuilt roster that quickly developed enough chemistry to be one of the best offenses in the country. It seems like Smart leaving Texas was best for both parties.
Marquette can win the title outright with one win at Butler or home against St. John’s in their final two games.
Final thought: Villanova beat Xavier on the road and dominated Creighton this week. There are not enough games left for them to build a resume for an at large bid. So that means the Big East tournament will mean more to Nova than any other team.
SEC
The SEC was supposed to be a race between Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama. Instead the Crimson Tide entered this week with only one challenger for the SEC championship: Texas A&M?
Yes, the Aggies were the only team left to be able catch Bama. Not only could Texas A&M catch them, they could win the title outright (if things fell right) with a win at home over Alabama on the final game of the season next Saturday. But things did not fall right for the Aggies.
Ignoring all the controversy in Tuscaloosa this week, Alabama still had a dramatic week. The Tide escaped in overtime at South Carolina and survived a comeback from Arkansas to improve to 15-1 in conference.
Texas A&M couldn’t keep pace. The Aggies lost 62-69 to Mississippi State on Saturday to fall two games back of Bama.
The title race is simple. Alabama needs to win one of their next two to win an outright title. They host rival Auburn on Wednesday and play in College Station on Saturday. Texas A&M needs to win at Ole Miss and have Alabama lose to Auburn for them to be able to play for a share of the title in that game against Alabama.
ACC
The ACC is easily the wildest of the major conferences coming down the stretch.
Virginia entered the week in pole position to take the title as they were atop the standings at 13-3. The Cavaliers then lost two road games to Boston College 48-63 and North Carolina 63-71. Tony Bennett’s team now needs help to win the league. UVA hosts Clemson and Louisville in must win games to end the season.
After UVA blew their opportunity, Miami was in terrific position to win the ACC. The Hurricanes then blew a 20+ point lead against lowly Florida State. Matthew Cleveland hit a buzzer beating three and put Miami a half game behind Pittsburgh. Miami’s lone remaining game this season is against the first place Panthers.
Pittsburgh took care of business this week with wins against Georgia Tech and Syracuse. Jeff Capel has Pittsburgh in tremendous position. With a win at Notre Dame, Pittsburgh will clinch a share of the ACC title. The Panthers could then win the title outright with a win at Miami.
Clemson is hanging around too at 13-5 one game behind Pitt. Their game on Tuesday at 13-5 UVA will eliminate the loser from a shot at the title. If they win that game, the Tigers need to beat Notre Dame at home. Clemson cannot win the title outright. Either Pitt or Miami would share it with them.
The same is true of UVA as Clemson and the Wahoos can only share the title with one of Pitt or Miami. We could also see a three way title scenario if Pitt beats Notre Dame and loses to Miami. In that scenario Miami, Pitt and the winner of Clemson/UVA could all tie at 15-5. Everything is still up in the air, but Duke has been eliminated as one of Pitt or Miami will have 15 wins (one more than Duke can have).
Big 12
In this year’s edition of, “Can we convince ourselves that someone besides Kansas will win the Big 12?” Our top challenger is Texas. The Longhorns entered the week tied with the Jayhawks at 10-4 tied a top the Big 12 standings.
Kansas did Kansas things and escaped with two close victories by less than 5 points at TCU and at home against West Virginia.
Texas did not Kansas things and lost down the stretch. Texas blew out Iowa State and then got blown out at Baylor. Texas falls to 11-5 and one game back of Kansas.
Kansas plays Texas Tech next while Texas plays at TCU. The Jayhawks can clinch a share of the Big 12 Championship by winning in Lawrence against the 8th place Red Raiders. If somehow they drop that game and Texas wins in Fort Worth, then the two teams will meet in Austin next Saturday to decide the Champion. If they both win we can have the same situation we had in the WCC where Texas can win a home game to share the title. Selfishly, I hope Kansas drops the game to Tech and we get a win or go home game.
WCC
The WCC had it’s title game of sorts on Saturday night. St. Mary’s went to the Kennel with a one game lead in conference to play Gonzaga. Since it was the last game in conference season, if the Gaels won they would have an outright WCC title. If Gonzaga won the two teams would share the title.
Gonzaga proved to be too much for the Gaels this time. The Gonzaga frontcourt dominated with a great night from Anton Watson (17 and 8) coupled with Drew Timme’s 19 points. Logan Johnson scored 27 for St. Mary’s but it wasn’t enough as Gonzaga lead for most of the game.
It’s Gonzaga’s 26th WCC title and 11th straight time winning (at least a share of) the WCC title. Saint Mary’s gets their 8th WCC title but fails to get their first outright title since 2011-12. You have to go back to the 1999-2000 season for the last time St. Mary’s or Gonzaga did not win a share of the WCC championship.
PAC 12
The PAC 12 was a two man race this year between UCLA and Arizona. Arizona entered the week with trailing UCLA by two games in conference standings with a final game matchup looming.
Potential drama on the last day of the season was taken away by the highest of end of game dramas as Arizona lost on a 3/4 court buzzer beater to Arizona State.
The loss eliminated the Wildcats from winning an outright title but if UCLA still stumbled and lost their final three games, Arizona could maybe share a title.
UCLA did not stumble and beat Colorado 60-56 on Sunday to clinch an outright Pac-12 conference championship.
Surprisingly, this is the first Pac-12 title regular season or otherwise for the Bruins under Mick Cronin. They have made the Elite 8 multiple times, took undefeated Gonzaga to the buzzer in the Final Four but had yet to win the Pac-12. Congrats to Mick Cronin, Tyger Campbell, Jaime Jacquez and all the UCLA players!
Champ Week Games to watch
Here are all the potentially critical games to watch for the conference races left. Even if the games don’t end up deciding conference championships, this is a great watchlist as we are only 13 days from Selection Sunday!
- Clemson at Virginia // Tuesday 7pm // ACC Network
- Auburn at Alabama // Wednesday 7pm // ESPN
- Texas at TCU // Wednesday 9pm // ESPN2
- Alabama at Texas A&M // Saturday 12pm
- Kansas at Texas // Saturday 4pm // ESPN
- Pitt at Miami // Saturday 6pm // ACC Network
- Arizona at UCLA // Saturday 10pm // ESPN