by Jordan Beckley
We just had one of the best Saturday Slates in recent memory and I watched all of it.
Almost.
I tapped out at 10:30-11pm or so when the Tennessee Kentucky game finally wrapped up. By that point I had watched approximately 10+ hours of College Basketball straight with somewhere between 15-20 games to touch on.
So here are 10 lessons I learned from 10 straight hours of College Basketball.
To keep true to the premise I will be only hitting on the Saturday slate so I won’t talk about Purdue’s grimy win in Madison in the 4th Top-10 matchup of the weekend or Illinois’ gutsy overtime scrap with Nebraska.
I also won’t hit on Gonzaga maybe missing March Madness after losing to St. Mary’s or UCLA quietly winning 5 of their last 6 PAC-12 games and potentially being back in the Bubble as I had already turned in by the time those games were on.
Instead, I just have to pick from Duke UNC, Houston Kansas, UConn St. John’s, Baylor Iowa State and all the other Madness from Saturday.
1. Michigan State is rounding into form
I didn’t get to write Midweek Madness last week and part of why I didn’t was because I didn’t have anything to say about the ISO team Michigan State.
The Spartans turned in a rivalry win over a pathetic Michigan team and predictably lost at the Kohl Center. The results were expected and I didn’t learn anything from either contest. Now after MSU beat Maryland in a contained 63-54 win in East Lansing, I found my angle.
The Spartans beat Maryland, a team I believe will make March Madness by the end of the year or come close, for the second time on Saturday. In the first matchup in College Park, it was a hotly contested battle with 12 lead changes and Jahmir Young seemingly ran out of time to pull off the win. The 2nd matchup was different. In round 2, it didn’t matter how much time Young (who scored 31 points) had. The Terps weren’t going to win.
Michigan State is finally rounding into form.
Now, it isn’t the AP Poll Top-5, Big Ten Champion level form that was thrust upon them in the preseason, but it’s still pretty good form. Tom Izzo’s team has now won 5 of their last 6 Big Ten games and are tied for 4th in the conference. The Spartans are up to 22 in the NET and are no.17 on KenPom with the 29th ranked offense and the 18th defense. That defense held Maryland to 54 points and only allowed 3 Terps to make a field goal.
Tyson Walker is the star. AJ Hoggard is a defensive stalwart on one side and a playmaker on the other. Malik Hall has found his version of consistency as the 2nd scorer. Jaden Akins has kind of found his shot outside of his 1-7 3pt outing vs Maryland. Tre Holloman has emerged as one of the Big Ten’s best 6th men.
The Big man question hasn’t been answered by Jaxon Kohler returning or a Xavier Booker emergence, but the Mady Sissoko and Carson Cooper minutes are survivable. There are no trades in College Basketball, so as much as Reply guys might think they know the team better than 8-Time Final Four Coach Tom Izzo, I think Izzo has probably pushed all the buttons he can push down low.
Yes, Michigan State is rounding into form. That form is eerily similar to last year’s team that also was 4th in the Big Ten, was a 7 seed and was a few plays away from the Elite Eight.
The preseason National Title hype was wrong, but Michigan State is still a good team that could make a run if things fall right.
2. Indiana is not going to make March Madness
Penn State beat the Hoosiers in Assembly Hall for the first time in a decade with a convincing 18 point Pro-PSU margin in the second half.
Nittany Lions fans should be happy with Ace Baldwin, Mike Rhoades and the direction of their program with two road wins last week, but IU fans should be devastated.
The Hoosiers have had a cluttered, injured, and disappointing season but this is a new low for them. Mike Woodson’s squad is 100% on the outside of the tournament looking in and with an awful 0-7 record in Quad 1 opportunities the Hoosiers could not have a Quad 3 loss at home to Penn State.
As a Purdue fan, it’s fun to see Indiana State pop up first when I search Indiana on KenPom instead of IU, but now Indiana finds themselves stuck between Rutgers at 99 and Michigan at 101 which is just sad. The Hoosier Hangover seems to only be getting worse and if losses like this keep happening the twitter reply guys might get their wish for Mike Woodson’s head.
3. Kentucky’s Defense isn’t good enough to win it all
The Cats lost in Rupp Arena in a steady 103-92 drubbing by rival Tennessee. The Vols lead the entire game and a team famous for it’s defense looked comfortable all night scoring triple digits in Lexington.
The Tennessee loss follows a game where Florida outscored Kentucky 94-91 in Rupp Arena earlier in the week too. Kentucky has lost six games and in all six games they’ve given up 79+ points in each loss.
The 103 points allowed to the Vols essentially matches the KenPom rank of Kentucky’s defense at 102. The 8th ranked KenPom offense is not enough to outscore teams six straight times to win a title.
Teams don’t win the title without a top 40 defense. But beyond National Title hopes Kentucky’s defense will probably prevent it from making a Final Four either. Plus after losing 3 of their last 4 in conference play, it looks like it will prevent them from winning the SEC title too.
4. Virginia is the third Tournament Team in the ACC
A super under-the-radar Saturday game was Virginia visiting Clemson.
The ACC has struggled to build up March Madness resumes for really any team, but Duke and UNC and this was a game that would be a huge opportunity for either team to position themselves to make the tournament.
Virginia walked away with the 66-65 win in a very Tony Bennett fashion and is now in a tremendous spot to make March Madness. The win over the Tigers pulls the Cavs to even at 2-2 in Quad 1 games with somehow games like the win over Texas A&M and the loss at Memphis as Quad 2 games. There still is work needing to be done, but UVA has the schedule to do that work.
UVA’s next 7 games in February are: Miami, at Florida State, Pitt, Wake Forest, at Virginia Tech, and North Carolina.
That is essentially the 7 teams (minus Duke and Clemson) that make up the relevant portion of the ACC. If Virginia can win 4 to 5 of those games, I think they are in and are probably in as like a 9 seed. As of right now, UVA has won 6 straight ACC games and is 2nd place a half game ahead of the Blue Devils. The offense still isn’t good or even average, but it is starting to be passable and passable offense with their top 15 defense can punch their ticket into The Dance.
5. North Carolina is officially going to win the ACC
The more depressing ACC event from the weekend was that the ACC title race is officially over 7 weeks before the season ends.
North Carolina beat Duke leading essentially the entire time and for most of it by double digits in the Dean Dome. Harrison Ingram officially went 5-9 from three but it felt like he went 10-10 and Duke could just never cut into the Tar Heels lead. Armando Bacot dropped 25 points and the Blue Devils’ interior defense was put into question.
In my opinion, we shouldn’t make sweeping opinions about a Top 10 team winning a home game or a Top 10 team losing a road game, because everybody is doing both of those things. The lesson of the weekend wasn’t necessarily “oh, wow UNC is unstoppable” but it was, “UNC will not be caught.”
Duke falls to 7-3 in ACC play and North Carolina even with the loss at Georgia Tech is now 10-1 with a two game lead over Virginia like I mentioned. The Tar Heels are right there with UConn as far as trustworthy teams that I am not worried about dropping games to inferior opponents. UNC has a game at Duke on the last game of the season and that won’t matter if they handle business with a two game lead. Which means that the ACC is all but wrapped up.
So, congratulations to UNC & Hubert Davis for running away with what might be the worst ACC in 30 years.
6. UConn can still get better, (but we knew that?)
A lot of people took UConn’s 77-64 win over St. John’s in Madison Square Garden as an opportunity to declare that the Huskies were the obvious no.1 team.
Listen, it was another nice showing for the reigning champs even without a starter. I get it. Stephon Castle showed out with 21 points on just 12 shots and they still won with Clingan barely playing with foul trouble, but I don’t get why people were so excited for this win.
It was in MSG and it was basically a neutral site game with about 60% being Husky fans. I get that people want Rick Pitino and St. John’s to be relevant for some reason, but they are only no.41 on KenPom and are 43 in NET with a 2-7 Quad 1 record. For some reason the National media believes that the Red Storm are a good program but reality is that they are a13-9 team who would be lucky to be in the tournament.
Purdue after beating Wisconsin has the same Quad 1 record as UConn at 8-2. However, if you dig deeper Purdue has 5 wins (Tennessee, Marquette, Arizona, Illinois, Wisconsin) against teams in the Top 15 and lost 0 games while UConn has won two (North Carolina, Creighton) and a loss at Kansas. The Boilermakers 100% have the better resume.
UConn has room to grow. Clingan hasn’t reached his peak. Castle and fellow freshman Soloman Ball will keep getting better. Chemistry can still improve. I agree that UConn has the highest ceiling of any team in the country, but we knew that already before a win over a middling St. John’s team.
I’m sorry Mr. Rothstein, but it’s UConn, Purdue and then everyone else.
7. Johnny Furphy might be that 5th guy for Kansas
The Jayhawks had a convincing 78-65 win on Saturday over no. 4 Houston in Phog Allen. Kansas jumped out to an early double-digit lead in the first half and never really surrendered it.
The run in the first half was partially powered by Aussie Freshman wing Johnny Furphy. Furphy had 14 points on 5-5 shooting including a dunk that brought the house down.
Furphy is a 6’9 Freshmen from Melbourne, who after averaging 10 minutes a game for the first 10+ games, is now starting for Bill Self. In his past six games, Furphy has had 30+ minutes with double digit scoring in each game for an average of 15.67ppg and 7.5 rpg.
Bill Self had been looking for the 5th starter next to Dajuan Harris, Kevin McCullar, KJ Adams and Hunter Dickinson. After figuring out Nic Timberlake and Elmarko Jackson weren’t it, seems like Self has his man.
8. Elijah Hawkins is the Gophers All-Big Ten Candidate, not Dawson Garcia
Minnesota beat Northwestern 75-66 in overtime at The Barn this weekend. It was a huge win for the Gophers in their 5th Big Ten win of the season and it was a devastating 2nd loss in extra time for the Wildcats in just four days.
Ben Johnson has the Gophers sitting at 5-5 in Big Ten play after winning just 2 games the previous year. One of the major changes from last season to this season has been the man running the offense. Howard transfer Elijah Hawkins has his imprint all over this Gopher team. Hawkins is only the sixth leading scorer for Minnesota, but his Big Ten leading 7.8 apg show the effect he has had.
Minnesota has won by great defense and passable offense, but without Hawkins the Gophers would be a miserable offense and not be winning games. Hawkins has 30 assists in Minnesota’s three best wins over Nebraska, Maryland, and Northwestern where his 13 points, 10 assists and 4 rebounds were essential.
Garcia has been the go-to scorer, but I really hope that Big Ten voters recognize that Hawkins’ orchestration to lift the overall offense has been far more important to success than the steady points from Garcia.
9. The Coach’s Box does still exist
If you haven’t been paying attention the Coach’s box has been taking some lumps with Coaches like Archie Miller and Shaka Smart just ignoring it to go right on to the court and play help defense in games.
Well on Saturday the Coach’s box fought back.
Scott Drew had gotten a technical in the first half for arguing some calls in the post I guess and then here he gets ejected for taking a knee a little bit too far outside his box.
Good on the coach’s box for taking back some respect, although I wish it was for a coach actually going on the floor as I have more of a problem with that then them sneaking up closer to halfcourt while still out of bounds.
Baylor escaped with a win despite Drew getting tossed to avoid what would have been their 2nd straight loss in their new fancy stadium. If Iowa State had .3 more seconds this Milan Momcilovic buzzer beater would have counted.
10. The Mountain West is still wide open
My final lesson from a busy Saturday is that the Mountain West is indeed good and is still anyone’s to win.
And by anyone I mean the 5 teams that will make the tournament in Utah State, Boise State, San Diego State, New Mexico and Colorado State. Yeah, all five of them are getting in ACC fans!
San Diego State beat first-place Utah State in the Viejas Arena 81-67 by answering every run and effort the Aggies had with a score of their own. It cemented that the Aztecs can still repeat as Champions, but it also opened it back up by handing Great Osobor and Utah State their 2nd loss.
All 5 teams have exactly one game against each other to make up 4 of their last 9 conference games. This Mountain West race is going to be sooo tight and it really is up for grabs. I’ve been telling you for over a month. Pay Attention to the Mountain West!
The rest of the Saturday slates won’t be as stacked as this but we are now in the back half of conference play with every game being more crucial to win your league. So make sure you are following The Floor Slap to stay up to date with all the Madness!