Dave Preston is an AP Top 25 voter. Read his ballots here.
Hey, is that March in the distance? The final month of the regular season comes at you fast.
Conference Tournaments tip off in less than three weeks (Atlantic Sun gets the fun underway March 4), which means it’s catch-up time for those of us obsessed with the NFL Playoffs, Super Bowl, and Emmys/Grammys.So much to cover, and so little time to do so.
Spoiler alert: We’re likely not going to see multiple teams from the area in the NCAA’s. Georgetown’s in year one of a major reboot and Maryland needs to run a rather rocky table to return to the Field of 68.
Virginia’s prospects are looking good even with Tuesday’s home loss to Pitt, but Virginia Tech is simply trying to avoid playing in the ACC Tournament’s “Dreaded First Round.” That tripleheader of non-anticipation comes to Capital One Arena Tuesday March 12.
George Mason and George Washington?Starts that took us back to 1984 in Fairfax and 2016 in Foggy Bottom have largely fizzled out. Thankfully we get to extend the Atlantic 10 net into the Commonwealth’s capital as VCU and Richmond each will have chances to make noise (hey, we made the Spiders “local” in 2022). American and Howard? Anything can happen in the Patriot League and MEAC, and each school is in third place at this time. James Madison and Towson? I know they’re no longer in the same conference, but old habits die hard. And one can’t count them out of the Sun Belt and CAA Tournaments until they prove us otherwise.
As we get closer to “Closing Month,” here’s a quick primer of what’s going on nationally:
Team to beat: Defending national champion UConn has looked every bit as good as they did last year when they tore through the bracket, and after dropping their Big East opener to Seton Hall have run off a 13-game winning streak where the margin has been nine or more points nine times. Coach Dan Hurley’s team goes eight deep with different players stepping up each night.
Player to watch: Purdue center Zach Edey ranks third in the nation in scoring and rebounding while leading the Boilermakers to the best record in the Big Ten. He dropped with 23 points and 12 rebounds last month against Maryland in College Park, and the seven-foot-four tower of power has posted double-doubles in eight straight games.
Top Conference race: I was partial to the Big 12 last year because they played a full round-robin, and even with the addition of four schools (they add four more but lose two this next offseason) it’s still the schedule to be locked into if you have to choose one league to follow. Two games separate first place from seventh place, while six schools are currently in the Top 25 (four others have been ranked at times this winter).
Bubble, bubble, toil & trouble: Perennial contender Gonzaga is in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time this century (naturally all is moot if they win the WCC Tournament) while recent national champ Villanova (could 2016 and 2018 be that long ago) is also facing an uphill battle to make the field.
Coaching carousel: DePaul disposed of the Tony Stubblefield regime last month, and this past week Ohio State set some major offseason dominoes in motion by firing Chris Holtmann after six and a half seasons that yielded four NCAA appearances (they likely would have made the field during the 2020 COVID year) but is on the downward trend of a 16-19 mark last year and a 4-10 Big Ten start this winter. OSU is a big-time job and will likely draw plenty of interesting candidates, one of whom will create a vacancy at his current position.
Cooking with Gus: FOX has always been far from shy when broadcasting sports, and their Saturday night hoops package (that even included a Women’s Basketball stop in College Park for Maryland-Iowa) has brought one of the best announcers back to the big basketball stage. Gus Johnson isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the Howard University graduate and his production staff have turned a regular season package if not into must-see at least must-glance. It’s a shame Turner has no regular season presence as we’ll learn next month when they hitch a ride with CBS for the Tournament.
This Week’s Starting Five:
Up top: UConn and Purdue remain the top two teams on my ballot and in this week’s AP Poll. It’s been musical chairs below them as the next tier of teams has found ways to lose games (Kansas, North Carolina, Illinois) while some Top 25 fixtures have collapsed (four straight losses for Wisconsin dropping the Badgers from No. 6 to No. 20 the last two weeks). The biggest variances on this week’s ballot from the full poll? I have No. 8 Tennessee 14th and No. 21 Virginia 13th, while No. 15 Alabama just missed my ballot. Other difficult omissions: BYU, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Grand Canyon.
Going inside: Georgetown (8-16, 1-12 Big East) returns home for a Friday night home game with Villanova. This year’s Hoyas haven’t found home the least bit hospitable, dropping games at Capital One Arena by 25, 34, and 24 points (the losing streak began with a four-point defeat at home to Seton Hall) that include consecutive Saturday matinee massacres at the hands of top ten teams Marquette and UConn. ”We gotta find a way to play better at home,” Coach Ed Cooley said after the defeat to the now-No. 4 Golden Eagles Feb. 3. “It’s not a good look, and that’s not what we want. Once again: very disappointed in our energy, our effort, our connectedness, and we’ve got to figure that out.” Unfortunately as the losses have mounted, so have the questions without any answers. “Let’s call this what it is: you’ve got the number one team in the country in your building. On national television,” Cooley said after the defeat to the top-ranked Huskies. ”So we all gotta kind of look at ourselves here, right? I’m not saying we have to be the most talented team but I’ll be damned if you can’t be the most hungry team and you can’t have effort, energy, and enthusiasm.”
Perimeter play: George Mason (17-8, 6-6 Atlantic 10) has now enjoyed three two-game winning streaks and two three-game losing streaks in conference play. Tuesday’s 90-67 win over George Washington saw the Patriots play perhaps their best 20 minutes of the season, shooting 61% with only three turnovers in the first half while taking a 27-point lead into the locker room. “The ball got side to side, we made some great decisions,” Coach Tony Skinn said. “Our energy was there, our pop was there, the decision making was there. It’s encouraging to just know that guys are trying to find each other this late, and the ball’s not sticking as much.” Tuesday’s win was a complete reversal of the January meeting where GW scored the game’s first eight points and never trailed. ”Give those guys credit, they played like they were shot out of the cannon,” Revolutionaries Coach Chris Caputo said. “It was obviously not our night, and I thought they had a great night.” Things don’t get any easier for GW as you’ll read below, while Mason gets the weekend off to give guard Darius Maddux (who didn’t play Tuesday) time to rest up his sprained ankle before hosting No. 16 Dayton next Wednesday.
Who’s open: James Madison (22-3, 9-3 Sun Belt) might not be currently in the mix for an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament despite being ranked in the first eight regular season polls and boasting a signature win at Michigan State, but the Dukes are on the threshold of matching their most wins in a season (24 in 1981-82 during the heady days of the Lou Campanelli era). JMU leads the conference in scoring and shooting as well as turnover margin, while ranking second in points allowed and field goal defense. But getting out of third place will be a challenge, as they’ve been swept by second place Appalachian State and don’t face first place Troy (who holds the tiebreaker with App. State) during the regular season. The at-large route remains less than optimistic as the Sun Belt last sent two schools to the field of 68 in 2013. Another cause for concern: after this weekend JMU finishes the regular season with four straight road games.
Last shot: Saturday delivers a doubleheader with George Washington (14-10, 3-8 Atlantic 10) facing Richmond (17-7, 9-2)at 12:30 p.m. Both the Revolutionaries and Spiders were picked to finish in the lower half of the A-10, and both got off to solid starts. But while GW has lost seven straight, UR remains in the mix for at least a double-bye if not the conference regular season championship. The Revolutionaries also have a major question mark in Darren Buchanan: the freshman missed Tuesday’s game at George Mason with injury and his absence was felt on both ends of the floor. The nightcap has Maryland (14-11, 5-8 Big Ten) hosting No. 14 Illinois (18-6, 9-4) at 5:30 p.m. The Terps have enjoyed a 10-3 edge in the series since joining the two teams became conference foes, with Xfinity Center remaining the lone building in the league where Illini Coach Brad Underwood has not won. Prepare for a shootout between guards Terrence Shannon Jr. (26 points per game this month) and the Terps’ Jahmir Young (28 points in a January win over the Illini in Champaign).
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