ACC: Duke @ NC State (Saturday 12:00 –
ESPN), North Carolina @ Florida State (Saturday 2:00 – ESPN), Maryland @ Miami
(Sunday 8:00 – ESPNU), NC State @ Maryland (Wednesday 7:00 – ESPN2), Georgia
Tech @ Duke (Thursday 9:00 – ESPN)
If you can only watch one: I’ve been looking forward to
the Duke/NC State game since before the season started. As you’ve heard a
million times, the Wolfpack were supposed to be one of the ten best teams in
the nation – call me crazy, but that just might still be the case. They had a
rough three game stretch at the end of November, but aside from that, they’ve
been a great offensive team that doesn’t play a whole lot of defense. However,
there’s a fine line between beating Stanford or Western Michigan and playing
against the #1 team in the nation, so this might be the first time they’ve
really been put to the test in over a month. If they’re going to pull off the
upset, Scott Wood will need to hit half a dozen triples, and Richard Howell
will need to stay out of foul trouble while holding Mason Plumlee in check; the
latter of which is substantially less likely to occur, given his history of
getting Dairy Queened (4 already this season, including a scoreless 12 minute
game against St. Bonaventure).
On the other side of the court, the 16th game is
the first true road game of Duke’s undefeated campaign, and thus potentially
their first blemish in a season where home-court advantage is more prevalent
than I can ever recall. Three years ago, I never would have dreamt I’d be
saying this, but Duke’s chances of winning decrease significantly if Ryan Kelly
is unable to go. The four-year three-point shooting forward willing to take a
charge has been the key to Duke’s success since they painted that arc on the
courts. From Laettner to Battier to Singler, Duke has been at its best when its
“power forward” had some range, and at its worst when it didn’t (Lee Melchionni
immediately comes to mind). If there’s a bright side to Kelly missing the game,
Krzyzewski might have to finally give us an extended look at whether Alex
Murphy can fill that role over the next three seasons. Whether or not Kelly
plays, I think Duke is good enough defensively to subdue NC State while taking
advantage of its sub-par defense, to the tune of a 76-71 win. And yes, I’m
officially nervous about this game.
Rounding out the week of play in the ACC, we may have a
repeat of last year’s Dulkys game when UNC visits Florida State to add to its
horrendous start to the season; the perception of Maryland will turn on a dime after losses to Miami and NC State; and if Duke happens to lose to NC State on Saturday,
they’ll get back on the winning track when the Yellow Jackets come to town.
Big 12: Kansas State @ West Virginia
(Saturday 1:30 – ESPN3), Texas @ Iowa State (Saturday 2:00 – ESPNU), Oklahoma
State @ Oklahoma (Saturday 3:00 – ESPN2), Baylor @ Kansas (Monday 9:00 – ESPN),
West Virginia @ Iowa State (Wednesday 9:00 – ESPN2)
If you can only watch one: Iowa State has quietly been a good
team – there’s no shame in losing road/neutral games against ranked teams or
rivals, which is exactly what all of their losses have been – but I’d love to
see them beat someone better than BYU before I start believing. A heartbreaking loss at Kansas is the ultimate moral victory, but it's still a loss.
At best, it’s
debatable whether Texas is actually any better than BYU, but I’m hoping this
will be a statement game for both teams. For Iowa State, that statement should
be “We’re doing just fine without Royce White,” and for Texas, it should be
“What more do we need to do to get a new coach?” The best hope for Texas is
that Javan Felix goes above and beyond his great play over the past six games
(13 points and 7.7 assists per game), but I think Iowa State’s balanced attack
will be more than enough to score a 79-67 win, which would start raising
legitimate questions over whether Texas will make the tournament this year.
Elsewhere in the Big 12, West Virginia gets two chances
to secure its second conference win, but will more than likely fall to 1-3;
State will win a road game over University in the Bedlam Series; and the only
thing we can safely predict about Baylor’s season is that they will lose at
Kansas, though I couldn’t tell you if it’ll be by 4 or 40 points.
Big East: Georgetown @ St. John’s (Saturday
11:00 – ESPN2), Marquette @ Pittsburgh (Saturday 12:00 – ESPNU), Louisville @
Connecticut (Monday 7:00 – ESPN), Cincinnati @ Depaul (Tuesday 8:30 – ESPN3),
Seton Hall @ Marquette (Wednesday 9:00 – ESPN3)
If you can only watch one: This is almost assuredly the
worst week of games the Big East will offer all season, but I’m intrigued by
the L’Ville/UConn game. Given that they’re ineligible for the tournament and
that they’re playing for a new head coach, Connecticut’s season has been quite
impressive; but Louisville might have the most complete team in the land. If I
had to make Final Four predictions today, Louisville and Michigan would be my only
confident picks (the others would be Indiana and UCLA). The Cardinals are
built the way I try to build my fantasy baseball and basketball teams – get as
many multiple tool athletes as possible. Having one guy excel at each major
statistic can work for a while, but you leave yourself susceptible to slumps,
injuries, and foul trouble. Louisville has an 8 man rotation of guys who play
at least 15 minutes, and they all bring something similar but different to the
table. Russ Smith is clearly their linchpin, though, and should be in the
running for national player of the year. I like Louisville to win by a score of
86-69.
In the less interesting Big East games, Georgetown needs
to start a 3 game winning streak by holding D’Angelo Harrison under 20 points; Pitt will ride
last week’s blowout win over Georgetown for at least another 2 weeks; if
Cincinnati can’t beat Rutgers and DePaul, it might be time to give up on them
after their hot start; and Seton Hall could realistically be taking a 16-4
record into their January 30th matchup with Georgetown if they can
get by Marquette on Wednesday.
Big Ten: Minnesota @ Indiana (Saturday 12:00
– Big Ten Network), Illinois @ Wisconsin (Saturday 2:15 – Big Ten Network),
Michigan @ Ohio State (Sunday 1:30 – CBS), Iowa @ Northwestern (Sunday 5:30 –
ESPNU), Michigan @ Minnesota (Thursday 7:00 – ESPN)
If you can only watch one: Invent a three-sided coin,
flip it, and be overjoyed with the result. Any of the three games involving
Michigan or Minnesota would be well worth watching, but let’s focus on the one
where they play each other, because it could be the game of the year.
Despite Duke’s wins over Louisville, Minnesota, Ohio
State, Temple, Kentucky, and VCU, it’s hard for me to accept that Michigan isn’t
the top dog. At the end of the day, college basketball polls only exist to
spark debate and to inspire interest in televised games, but I bring it up just
to point out how good Michigan has been (as opposed to Arizona who
might not even be ranked had they lost even 2 of their 4 last minute
miracles). The quartet of Nik Stauskas, Glenn Robinson III, Tim Hardaway Jr.,
and (particularly) Trey Burke has been nothing short of fantastic in leading
the Wolverines to the 2nd best FG% in the country. A rare poor shooting
night made them struggle to ever pull away in Wednesday’s win over Nebraska,
but they relied on stingy defense, solid rebounding, and ball handling (only 4
turnovers) to grind out a 15 point win. That’s what the best teams do.
The best teams also go on the road to beat ranked teams,
which is exactly what Minnesota did in convincing fashion on Wednesday. In
fact, Minnesota has had an awful lot of convincing wins as of late. The Golden
Gophers have won each of their past 8 games by at least 13 points, and they
haven’t exactly been doing it against the Washington Generals. If the season
ended today (thank heavens it doesn’t), Minnesota would be worthy of
consideration as a 1 seed. How many people had that projected in the
pre-season? My guess – which ties into my guessed outcomes from their earlier
games in the week – is that Minnesota will rebound from the road loss to
Indiana by handing Michigan its first loss of the season by a very retro Big
Ten type of score: 62-56. In the other two highlighted games, I like Illinois
to start a three game winning streak when they visit Wisconsin,
and I would take Iowa to finally pick up a Big Ten win when they visit Northwestern.
PAC-12: UCLA @ Colorado (Saturday 2:00 –
PACN), Arizona @ Oregon State (Saturday 8:00 – ESPNU), Arizona State @ Oregon
(Sunday 9:00 – PACN), Oregon State @ UCLA (Thursday 9:00 – ESPNU), Oregon @ USC
(Thursday 11:00 – ESPNU)
Before I recommend the game to watch, let it be known
that the Pac-12 will be the bane of my existence. The majority of their games
are played on Saturdays and late Thursday nights, the latter of which makes it
difficult to have this thing ready to go on Friday mornings. But here at SIIJ,
we may make a lot of predictions, assumptions, and giant leaps of faith, but we
don’t make excuses. It’s going to be tough to stay up for the conclusion of the
Pac-12 games, especially early in the season before we can definitively write
off half the league, but I’m willing to do it for the sake of your bracket.
Without further ado…
If you can only watch one: Arizona State visits Oregon on
Sunday night in a showdown between the conference’s biggest surprises. Both the
Ducks and the Sun Devils became nationally relevant in mini-tournaments in Las
Vegas over Thanksgiving weekend – Oregon beating UNLV before falling to
Cincinnati, and Arizona State beating Arkansas before giving Creighton more of
a battle than the final score indicates – and have been impressive ever since.
ASU’s 1-2 punch of Jahii Carson and Carrick Felix has
given teams fits all season, and it’s only going to get worse if and when
Carson develops a jump shot. Jahii really strikes me as a less polished version
of Rajon Rondo. He can get to the rim whenever he wants, has great court
awareness, but he turns the ball over a bit too often. At 5’10” he’s probably too
short to make it at the next level, so you might have another three and a half
years to see him do his thing at Arizona State. At the other end of the college
spectrum, Felix has been putting a nice cap on his college career, averaging
15.8 points and 10 rebounds over the past 5 games.
Oregon offers the much more balanced attack – which, if
you’ll recall, is what I love about Louisville – with 6 guys averaging 20-28
minutes and 8-12 points per game. Aside from Kazemi being their primary
rebounding presence, there’s no one guy that does any one thing particularly,
but they mesh together perfectly as a team, which should put Ernie Kent in the
discussion for coach of the year. The Ducks have already played and won 2 of
the 3 most challenging games of their conference schedule (with @UCLA looming
next weekend), so I think they’ll be the team to beat in the Pac-12 this year,
which a big win over Arizona State should demonstrate. I like the Ducks to
frustrate Carson into a lot of turnovers and transition buckets on their way to
an 82-71 victory.
For the rest of the week in the Pac-12, Oregon State will
drop to 0-4 in conference play after having to deal with an Arizona team coming
off its first loss of the season, and traveling to UCLA; Colorado will score
enough against the Bruins to make it interesting, but Shabazz Muhammad will
bounce back from Thursday’s rough shooting night to carry his team to another road
win; and Oregon improves to 4-0 after handing USC its 12th loss of
the season.
SEC: Tennessee @ Alabama (Saturday 1:00 –
ESPN2), Texas A&M @ Kentucky (Saturday 4:00 – ESPN3), Missouri @ Ole Miss
(Saturday 8:00 – ESPN3), Ole Miss @ Vanderbilt (Tuesday 9:00 – ESPNU), Florida
@ Texas A&M (Thursday 7:00 – ESPN2)
If you can only watch one: It’s been 11 years since Ole
Miss has been to the NCAA Tournament, but Marshall Henderson could be shooting
them to a berth this season. The transfer junior is taking and making more
threes than any other player in a major conference, which has the Rebels at 4th
in the nation in scoring. However, they’ve done it against a fairly weak
non-conference schedule, and I have serious doubts over whether they’ll be able
to hang with Missouri this weekend. The road game against Vanderbilt, on the
other hand, should be a good barometer for the rest of their season. To say the
least, the Commodores have not shown much promise this season, but that weird
raised court has been a perennial home-court advantage. As such, it might be
the 5th or 6th most difficult game left on Mississippi’s
schedule, which isn’t saying much for the SEC. If Ole Miss can beat Vandy, I
think 23-8 (12-6 in conference play) is a conservative estimate for their
record at the end of the regular season. Whether that’s good enough to get into
the tournament is yet to be determined, but I’ll like their chances after they
win 67-59.
The other SEC team we’ll learn a lot more about this week
is Texas A&M. The Aggies don’t necessarily need to beat either Kentucky or
Florida to make a positive statement. Though, it would be great to find out whether
they’re the team that beat Louisiana Tech and Houston, or whether they’re the
team that lost at home to Southern University. It seems there’s one of these
teams in each major conference: double digits wins and an overall resume that
just looks a whole lot better if you remove one game – you’ve got Marquette and
their loss to Green Bay, Oregon State’s home loss to Towson, Baylor’s loss to
Charleston, and Florida State’s losses to Mercer and South Alabama. What would
it take at this point for us to believe in any of those teams? Florida State just
got back to back road wins in conference, but it’s still hard to overlook those
eyesores. Would wins over Kentucky and Florida be enough for Texas A&M, or
would it just make us question how good those teams actually are? I sincerely
doubt we need to worry about answering that, but either Texas A&M
or Ole Miss (or possibly both?) is going to represent the SEC in the tournament,
and this weekend should help you decide whether you’re going to pick them to
advance in their 7 vs. 10 game.
Upper Mid-Major: BYU @ Santa Clara (Saturday
4:30), Saint Louis @ Temple (Saturday 6:00 – ESPNU), New Mexico @ Boise State
(Wednesday 9:00 – ROOT), UNLV @ San Diego State (Wednesday 10:00), Saint Mary’s
@ BYU (Wednesday 11:00 – ESPNU), Saint Joseph’s @ VCU (Thursday 9:00)
If you can only watch one: Pick whichever BYU game best
fits into your schedule. There are three West Coast Conference teams vying for
anywhere from 0-2 at-large bids (assuming Gonzaga gets the automatic berth). Saint
Mary’s and BYU are the more household friendly names, but Santa Clara is
arguably the best of the bunch – although the home loss to UC Santa Barbara
will not find them much favor with the selection committee. One thing to keep
an eye on throughout the season: when playing at home, BYU is 10-0 with an
average margin of victory of 22.2 points; when playing away from home, BYU is
2-4 with all 4 losses coming by double digits. Granted, the best team they’ve
beaten at home (either Virginia Tech or Utah) isn’t as good as the worst team
they’ve lost to on the road (Florida State), so these results aren’t particularly
surprising, but the committee won’t be interested in extending an invite to a
team that has a track record of coming out flat in road/neutral games that
they’re expected to lose. A home win against Saint Mary’s would be nice, but
they had better at least show up at Santa Clara on Saturday, because they’re
quickly running out of chances to prove they can win on the road. Tyler Haws
has been lighting it up all season (20.9 ppg), and if he can channel his inner
Jimmer Fredette like he did against Virginia Tech (42 points), the Cougars can
win any game. I think they’ll ride their recent hot streak to two big
conference wins, but don’t sleep on Santa Clara’s Kevin Foster.
If you can watch another one: The New Mexico @ Boise
State game will only completely formulate our collective opinion of those teams
for the foreseeable future, so I would tune in. Let’s assume that there are
three possible outcomes (because there are). In outcome A, New Mexico travels
to Idaho and beats up on the Broncos, asserting itself as one of the 15 best
teams in the nation, and making us overlook Boise’s early season successes and
label those Creighton and Wyoming wins as flukes. In outcome B, Boise State
beats up on New Mexico, becoming everyone’s new favorite “sleeper” team for the
NCAA tournament, and casting serious doubts on whether New Mexico is capable of
playing away from The Pit. In outcome C, the game is decided by less than 6
points and we get the best of both worlds (whispers that Boise State might
actually be pretty good, and tentative beliefs that New Mexico is the team to
beat in the Mountain West). My guess is outcome B – Boise State rides the
momentum of the emotional road win over Wyoming (despite their 1st,
5th, and 6th leading scorers being suspended for the
game!) into a comfortable home win over a Lobo team that hasn’t shown much of
anything on the road this year. Give me the Broncos by a score of 73-58.
In the other mid-major games to watch, Saint Louis and Temple
are mortal locks to finish in the top 4 of the A-10 with Butler and VCU, but I
think Temple wins this home game by double digits, as Kwamain Mitchell still
isn’t quite at 100% for the Billikens; UNLV travels to San Diego State in what
should be the Rebels’ final loss of the regular season; and Saint Joseph’s
travels to VCU to find out if the Rams have any intentions of losing an A-10
game in their inaugural season.
Lower Mid-Major: Wright State @ Loyola (IL)
(Friday 9:00 – ESPNU), Houston @ Southern Miss (Saturday 3:00), Canisius @ Iona
(Sunday 2:00), Eastern Kentucky @ Belmont (Thursday 8:00), South Dakota State @
Western Illinois (Thursday 8:00)
If you can only watch one: The Ohio Valley title was
supposed to be a 2 horse race; Belmont is holding its own, but Murray State has
drifted back to the pack while Eastern Kentucky makes a charge fueled by a 12
point road win over those same Racers. EKY and Belmont square off twice before
the end of January to potentially determine a front-runner for the remainder of
the season, and my money is on Belmont pulling off the sweep. With wins over
Stanford, Middle Tennessee State, and South Dakota State, the Bruins have shown
more promise than EKY, who hadn’t beaten a team with a winning record until
that game against Murray State. Also, Eastern Kentucky is almost the worst
rebounding team in the nation, which is pretty pathetic given the caliber of
teams they’ve played against to date – if you can’t tally 30 rebounds in a game
against Eastern Illinois (also in the bottom 3% in RPG), who can you rebound
against?
Also taking place on stations you won’t be able to find
more often than not, the Horizon League is completely up for grabs without
Butler, and Wright State visits Loyola Illinois to start a 7 game stretch
against the other 5 teams with a reasonable chance of winning the conference,
which will almost certainly cause Wright State to drop from that list; Southern
Miss will beat Houston en route to becoming the annual “That Team In Memphis’
Conference That Might Be Good Enough To Beat Them In Their Conference
Tournament;” Canisius and Iona don’t have great records after scheduling a
rather challenging non-conference slate, but will square off this weekend to
determine who will be the team to beat in the MAAC; and Western Illinois plays
the first of two consecutive home games against the Dakota States to determine
whether they’ll have any staying power atop the Summit League (don’t count on
it).
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