The penultimate weekend of the college basketball regular season gave #1 Kentucky, #2 Virginia, #4 Villanova, #5 Arizona, #6 Wisconsin, and #9 Wichita State an opportunity to either a guaranteed a share of a conference title or the outright crown. Kentucky moved its record to 29-0 and earned the SEC regular season title on Saturday with a dominating 17-point home victory over #21 Arkansas. Virginia guaranteed itself at least a share of the ACC title with a Saturday matinee victory over Virginia Tech in Charlottesville. The Cavaliers will attempt to win the title outright for the second straight year, hitting the road this week for games at both Syracuse and #16 Louisville. Villanova rebounded from a seven-point halftime deficit at Xavier to earn its 10th consecutive win and clinch the outright Big East title for the second consecutive year. Arizona earned itself at least a share of the Pac-12 crown with one of the most impressive road victories of the season. The Wildcats went to #10 Utah and scored a thrilling 63-57 triumph on Saturday evening. Wisconsin wrapped up a share of the Big Ten title Sunday — aided tremendously by National Player of the Year candidate Frank Kaminsky’s season-high 31 points — with a home victory over Michigan State. Finally, Wichita State showed Saturday afternoon that it is still the class of the Missouri Valley with a 74-60 home win over #13 Northern Iowa. With just one week to go in the regular season, it will be intriguing to see if Virginia, Arizona, and Wisconsin can become the outright champions of their leagues as well as what will happen in the crazy Big 12 race.

This week’s Quick N’ Dirty after the jump…

Quick N’Dirty Analysis.

• Kentucky remains the unanimous #1 for the 15th consecutive week. The Wildcats moved their record to 29-0 this past week with comfortable wins over Mississippi State and Arkansas. John Calipari’s squad will look to finish the regular season with an unscathed mark with games this week at Georgia and home against Florida. Tuesday evening’s game in Athens will likely be the tougher test, as Georgia has won three straight and is looking to pick up a marquee win to enhance its NCAA Tournament résumé. If the Wildcats are able to get by both, they will be just the second team since 2004 to finish the regular season with an unbeaten record (Wichita State, 2014).
• Things are interesting in the Big 12. It appeared that #8 Kansas’s incredibly impressive streak of consecutive Big 12 regular season titles was in serious peril after the Jayhawks lost a week ago at Kansas State. Following the loss, Kansas was tied with #17 Iowa State in the loss column and it seemed as if the Jayhawks had the more arduous stretch to finish the season. The Big 12 has been unpredictable all season, so it should not be surprising that the Cyclones responded by losing Wednesday at home to #15 Baylor and then again Saturday at Kansas State. Kansas, on the other hand, rebounded nicely from Monday’s loss with a home victory over Texas on Saturday. The Jayhawks are once again all alone in first place with a 12-4 mark, as #11 Oklahoma sits a game back at 11-5 and Iowa State, Baylor, and #18 West Virginia two games behind. Even though it is in first place, Kansas has some serious work ahead of it, as it hosts West Virginia on Tuesday before traveling to Norman to take on Oklahoma on Saturday afternoon. It will be very intriguing to see if Bill Self’s squad is able to weather the storm and pick up its 11th consecutive regular season conference crown.
• St. John’s debuts in the RTC25. After starting Big East play at 2-5, the Red Storm have won seven of their last nine games and appear to be headed to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2011. A one-point escape over Xavier on Monday and an 11-point triumph over Georgetown on Saturday has Steve Lavin’s squad in the RTC25 for the first time this season. St. John’s has an opportunity to further boost its résumé this week, as it hits the road for games at Marquette on Wednesday and at St. John’s on Saturday.

Game of the Week. #3 Duke vs. #19 North Carolina. If the first Duke/North Carolina game of the season serves as any indication – Duke won that contest 92-90 in overtime — we are in store for another good one from Chapel Hill on Saturday night. The Blue Devils look to be in solid shape to receive a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, while the Tar Heels are facing lingering questions following last week’s surprising home loss to NC State.  In a rivalry as historic as this one, though, you have to pretty much throw the records out the window. If the Tar Heels want to win this time around, they are going to need a better performance from junior guard Marcus Paige, who totaled just five points on 2-of-11 shooting during the February 18 contest.

Keep Tabs On. #11 Oklahoma vs. #17 Iowa State; #20 Butler vs. #22 Georgetown; #8 Kansas vs. #18 West Virginia; #1 Kentucky vs. Georgia; #13 Notre Dame vs. #16 Louisville; #4 Villanova vs. #25 St. John’s; #20 Butler vs. #24 Providence; #8 Kansas vs. #11 Oklahoma; #2 Virginia vs. #16 Louisville; #6 Wisconsin vs. Ohio State.

Conference Call. Big 12 (5), ACC (5), Big East (5), Big Ten (3), Pac-12 (2), SEC (2), Missouri Valley (2), WCC (1).

WCarey (318 Posts)

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2015 at 12:31 pm by Walker Carey and is filed under blogpoll, Regular Features. Tagged: arizona, baylor, feature, iowa state, kansas, kentucky, north carolina, oklahoma, rtc25, st johns, villanova, virginia, west virginia, wichita state, wisconsin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.