Ranked teams only played nine games last week, and not one of them was close. The annual Braggin’ Rights game between Illinois and Missouri is supposed to be a rivalry, but the Illini made a mockery of the proceedings with a 91-48 win. Needless to say, there was no movement in my Top 25, so I’ll use this week’s AP ballot to look ahead to conference play.
As usual, I relied in a cross section of three rankings: KenPom, a predictive metric which includes data from last season; BartTorvik, which I filtered to include games from this season only; and BartTorvik’s Wins Above Bubble, which is a results-based metric. Those rankings are listed in order beside each team. The number in parentheses reflects where that team was ranked in my Top 25 last week.
Here, then is the (correct) order of the top 25 teams in men’s college basketball, as filed to the Associated Press on Sunday night.
DROPPED OUT: None
ALMOST FAMOUS: Iowa (18-14-32), Utah State (30-27-22), Villanova (25-33-21), Saint Mary’s (33-30-24), LSU (39-36-29), USC (38-40-16), Indiana (31-17-62), Clemson (36-31-39), Baylor (29-41-38)
Notes on the Votes
• There are six remaining undefeated teams, and all but Miami (Ohio) are in my top 25. The group includes my top two teams, Arizona and Michigan. A third is my No. 4 team, Iowa State. I am going to go out on a very safe limb and say none of those teams will enter the NCAA Tournament undefeated. They may look like world beaters right now, but as I often say, these are not robots, they’re college kids. And all of those teams will have to run a tough gauntlet as we turn to conference play.
The math agrees. According to KenPom, Arizona has a 1.6 percent chance of going undefeated, Michigan has a 3.3 percent chance, and Iowa State has a 1.1 percent chance. (Miami of Ohio, if you’re curious, has a .05 percent chance.) So it’s pretty evident the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers’ reign as the last perfect NCAA champ will remain intact some 50 years later.
• The calendar is about to turn, and once again Gonzaga is among the nation’s top teams. Yes, it’s hard to unsee that 40-point drubbing by Michigan, but that is this team’s only blemish. Now we come to the time of the season when Gonzaga dips on the national radar while it goes up against the competition in the West Coast Conference. In past years, Mark Few has been able to schedule tough nonconference games late in the season, but that won’t be the case this year. Gonzaga is best known for its formidable frontcourt tandem of Graham Ike and Braden Huff, but (the other) Braeden Smith has been playing the best ball of his career. Ditto for 6-foot-7 senior wing Steele Venters, who missed the previous two seasons with injuries. This is a veteran well-rounded team that is excelling at both ends of the floor. Doubt them at your own risk.
• The race in the Big 12 is going to be fascinating. Arizona, Iowa State and Houston have separated themselves, but the big question facing the league —and one of the biggest questions facing the entire country heading into the second half of the season – is when (or whether?) Kansas freshman guard Darryn Peterson will be healthy and active again. While Peterson has missed nine games with a tender hamstring, the Jayhawks have quietly been playing championship-level defense. They are currently ranked No. 7 in adjusted deficiency on KenPom, but they are lagging behind at No. 54 in offensive efficiency. Peterson would obviously juice that up. I don’t think anyone knows when (whether?) he’ll be back, but I promise you this: His timetable has zero to do with the NBA Draft. Short of having one of his legs amputated, Peterson is going to be a top-five pick. You don’t go to Kansas because you are trying to coast your way into the draft. Peterson went to Lawrence to try to win a national championship, and if he ever gets back to full strength, I believe Kansas will have every chance to pull that off.
• One of the big storylines of the second half will be whether Nebraska can win its first-ever NCAA Tournament game. There’s no doubt Fred Hoiberg has his best team in Lincoln, and the best defensive team he has ever coached in college. Getting Rienk Mast healthy again has obviously been the bigget key, but don’t underestimate the contributions of Hoiberg’s son, Sam, a 6-foot senior who is one of the top two-way point guards in the country. Nebraska has one of the best fan bases in all of college sports. They fill Pinnacle Bank Arena even in the worst of times. They deserve to see this ignominious streak broken once and for all.
• If you look at the metrics for Florida and Kentucky, you see two teams poised for significant improvements. Their WAB rankings are low, but their predictive metrics are high. For the Gators, it has been a matter of integrating guards Boogie Fland and Xaivian Lee, who transferred from Arkansas and Princeton, respectively. They’ll never be equal replacements for the guards who departed (especially at the defensive end), but they are getting better. Three of Florida’s four losses came against teams ranked in my top five, and the four defeats came by a total of 15 points. With a little more maturity, and a little more luck, the Gators will be a factor in the SEC.
As for Kentucky, we’ve been wondering for several weeks what this team would look like when fully healthy. We found that out last Saturday in their win over St. John’s in Atlanta. The return of sophomore forward Jayden Quaintance from the ACL he suffered at Arizona State last February has the potential to totally change the Wildcats’ season. I am concerned that junior point guard Jaland Lowe’s shoulder will be an ongoing issue, but at full strength, the Wildcats have the ability to win the SEC. They have a huge test on Saturday when they play at Alabama.
• I’m also anxious to see how Vanderbilt performs in league play. I’ve been noting since the start of the season that the Commodores were this season’s metrics darlings. They certainly looked the part of a top-10 team when they throttled Wake Forest by 31 points. Needless to say, things are going to be a lot tougher in the weeks ahead.
• I didn’t move Villanova into my top 25, but the Wildcats did stake claim to the elusive title of second-best-team-in-the-Big-East when they won 64-56 at Seton Hall on Tuesday in the only significant game played during Christmas week. The Wildcats will play St. John’s at home on Jan. 17 and UConn in Hartford a week later. If Kevin Willard can get this group to the NCAA Tournament in his first season, it will be a remarkable achievement.
• Elsewhere on my Almost Famous list, keep your eye on Utah State, which has risen to No. 30 on KenPom after dismantling what was supposed to be a good Colorado State team 100-58 on Dec. 20. This remarkable program seems to win no matter who is coaching, and second-year coach Jerrod Calhoun appears to have this team positioned as the team to beat in the Mountain West Conference. The league is actually pretty solid, with eight teams ranked in KenPom’s top 100.
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