Rush The Court

The bubble is everywhere. You can’t escape it. Pick any site that covers college basketball, and one word inevitably appears when you visit it: “bubble.” Blind résumés are all the rage; Joey Brackets has taken over our TV screens; coaches inevitably plead with the Selection Committee in postgame press conferences. The bubble consumes us all. But as we hit the home stretch of the regular season, it’s important to not lose sight of what’s going on outside of those 15-20 teams that comprise the globule of uncertainty. Sure, it’s nice to make the NCAA Tournament, but just getting there only to get blown out doesn’t compare to winning championships. Winning the NCAA Tournament is the ultimate goal for any Division I program. Reaching a Final Four is a close second. The third and most attainable in the hierarchy of goals, though, is to win a regular season conference championship.

Regular season championships have become criminally devalued. Conference tournaments get all the buzz and corresponding attention because it is through those that teams punch their tickets to the Big Dance. But anybody can get hot and make a three- or four-game run next week. True champions are crowned over the course of a couple of months of games. This year we enter the final week of the regular season already with three outright champions among the power leagues: Kentucky has locked up the SEC; Virginia clinched an outright ACC title on Monday night; and Villanova is your Big East champion. Kansas has already clinched at least a tie in the Big 12, and barring something unforeseen, Wisconsin and Arizona are on track to win their respective conferences too. There are a few others, however, that should garner some of your attention.

• AAC. The watered-down AAC has been pretty poor this year but it could end up with as many as four NCAA Tournament teams. Two of that group — Tulsa and SMU — are in contention for an outright conference title. The Golden Hurricane have been the surprise package, sitting atop the standings at 14-2. SMU, the preseason favorite, sits a half-game back at 14-3. Tulsa hosts Cincinnati on Wednesday before the perfect scenario could play out in Dallas on Sunday: Tulsa at SMU. The winner will be the top seed in the AAC Tournament in Hartford, and if Tulsa falls to the Bearcats in the midweek, this weekend’s game will be for an outright title.

• Atlantic 10. The A-10 may be the most under-appreciated league in the country and its final week of action will do that statement some justice. Three teams could still win the conference outright, and a fourth could claim a share of the title. Dayton, Davidson and Rhode Island are all knotted at 12-4, with VCU one game back at 11-5. And to heighten the excitement, all four match up with one another over the next five days, as Dayton hosts Rhode Island tonight and Davidson hosts VCU on Thursday. Davidson and Dayton are the two favorites, but the Flyers face a tough weekend game at La Salle in addition to their midweek clash with the newcomers from just north of Charlotte.
• Mountain West. Technically, four teams are still within shouting distance of the title in the Mountain West, but it’s realistically a two-horse race. Both San Diego State and Boise State are 12-4 and have two games remaining, one each on the road and at home. The Broncos travel to San Jose State (winless against Division I opposition this season) on Wednesday before hosting UNLV Saturday. San Diego State will go to UNLV on Wednesday and welcome Nevada to Viejas Arena on Saturday. Should both slip up, Colorado State and Utah State, both at 11-5, are waiting to pounce on the opportunity.

The most important conference championship that will be decided this week isn’t any of those three, nor is it among the power six conferences. It’s the crown of the lone conference that still does things justly. That’s right, the Ivy League. The fact that the Ancient Eight still awards its automatic bid to its regular season champion is simply wonderful. And the drama couldn’t have played out any better this season. The stage is already set for Friday night. Harvard. Yale. Identical 10-2 records. An NCAA Tournament berth essentially on the line. It’s not winner-take-all because both schools will have subsequent tricky games on Saturday night to finish their regular seasons, but if you’re looking for a way to get into early NCAA Tournament mode — the passion, the desperation, the drama — I can’t think of a better game to start with.

NCAA Tournament Upsets

Unfortunately, not everybody does it like the Ivy League. That fact was especially detrimental last year. Because the difference between the best mid-major teams and their middle-of-the-road minnows is large, upsets in conference tournaments mean that a league’s best team won’t represent it in the NCAA Tournament. As a result, the first round of the Big Dance suffers a bit. The neutral observer therefore has some rooting interest in the conference tournaments that get under way this week.

• Atlantic Sun – North Florida is good. The Ospreys gave Northwestern and Iowa runs for their money earlier this year, and they won at Purdue. They also took down Florida Gulf Coast, the conference’s second-best team, twice in league play.
• Big South – There’s a cluster of teams at the top here so no upset would really be too unjust.
• CAA – Similar to the Big South, the only wish here is that none of the bottom three teams make a run.
• Horizon – Outside of the Missouri Valley and WCC, Valparaiso is arguably the best true mid-major. The Crusaders aren’t your typical plucky underdog; they aren’t a great offensive team, but they have the size and length to match up with many major conference teams. Valpo hosts the conference tournament and should have a good shot, butGreen Bay and Keifer Sikes would be acceptable party crashers.
• MAAC – Iona is fun. The Gaels are a run-and-gun group that often plays two 5’10”-and-under guards together in the backcourt. Iona has some serious Cinderella potential.
• Missouri Valley – It doesn’t have do-or-die NCAA Tournament implications, but everybody is hoping for a Northern Iowa-Wichita State rubber match in Arch Madness.
• Ohio Valley – Murray State hasn’t lost since November and is now ranked in both polls… so yeah, Murray State is the team to root for here.
• Southern – Wofford won at NC State earlier in the year and is clearly the best team in the Southern.
• West Coast – If Gonzaga doesn’t win this tournament, it’s a disaster for bubblers.

Time to Study up

As I wrote last week, this is the time of season when teams start making moves and streaks that will extend well into March take shape. Yes, most squads are still playing for seeding, but more than anything, this week is about finding — or for some, fine-tuning — that winning formula. Much like last week, there will be a number of telling performances. Here’s what’s on tap:

Tuesday

• Georgetown at Butler – The Hoyas fell to a hot St. John’s team on Saturday but are still one of my candidates to make a surprise Elite Eight run. Butler is intriguing too.
• Rhode Island at Dayton – See above.
• Iowa at Indiana – The winner here is likely safe, but the loser might be in some trouble. Iowa is in a better spot entering the game, though.
• West Virginia at Kansas – The Jayhawks will clinch another outright Big 12 title with a win. With a loss, they may have to win at Oklahoma over the weekend. West Virginia has been playing some good basketball, but might the Mountaineers have peaked too soon?
• Kentucky at Georgia – As of Monday night, Kentucky was only a 9.5-point favorite and Georgia is just the type of team that could randomly catch fire. I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but…

Wednesday

• Notre Dame at Louisville – The Cardinals desperately needs this game to prove to themselves that they’re not doomed for an early NCAA Tournament exit this season. And Notre Dame inexplicably lost to Syracuse at home its last time out. Could the Fighting Irish and their shaky defense be a candidate to be on the wrong end of a #3/#14 or #4/#13 upset?
• Purdue at Michigan State – The Boilermakers just missed a big win at Ohio State Sunday night. They will get another opportunity to all but lock up a Tourney berth against a Michigan State team that has been up and down all year.
• Cincinnati at Tulsa –Cincinnati needs this one. But hmm… do we really want to see a Bearcats team that only eclipsed 65 points once in February in the Tournament? Also, see above.
• San Diego State at UNLV – See above.

Thursday

• Wisconsin at Minnesota – The Badgers can secure an outright Big Ten title with a win here.
• VCU at Davidson – See above. This game is not only big for A-10 purposes; it’s massive for Davidson’s Tourney hopes.

Friday 

• Yale at Harvard – See above. Enough said.

Saturday

• Butler at Providence – Providence is going to end up as a top-five seed, and nobody filling out a bracket is going to pick the Friars into the Sweet Sixteen. And what’s more, I have no idea whether that’s a mistake and you probably don’t either.
• Michigan State at Indiana – This will be Indiana’s second home game of the week against a likely NCAA Tournament team. As discussed last week, this is the perfect spot for the Hoosiers to make a run, but if they play like they did against Northwestern last Wednesday, they could also slide out of the Tournament field entirely.
• Oklahoma State at West Virginia – Oklahoma State is reeling. The Cowboys should make the Dance, but anything beyond that isn’t looking too likely right now. Time for the Pokes to turn things around.
• Florida at Kentucky – The Gators played Kentucky close in Gainesville. Could they do it again at Rupp, potentially with a perfect regular season on the line for the Wildcats?
• LSU at Arkansas – It seems like LSU is another team that most people don’t really have a good read on.
• Kansas at Oklahoma – This could be an absolute classic. As demonstrated in Monday night crazy game at Iowa State, Oklahoma is one of the streakiest teams in the nation.
• Kansas State at Texas – Two bizarre, quirky résumés, but teams that could do some damage in March if they find themselves in the field of 68. A win here could potentially give Kansas State its 10th KenPom top-50 win of the season. Could the Committee really leave them out?
• Stanford at Arizona – Could the Cardinal catch the Wildcats napping and pick up a season-defining road win? I think it’s a possibility.
• Virginia at Louisville – Another big occasion for Rick Pitino’s team, but I can’t see the Cardinals winning this one. Virginia is just too sound.
• Duke at North Carolina – Not sure anything else really needs to be said here; the first game between these two squads spoke pretty loudly and clearly.

Sunday

• Tulsa at SMU – See above.
• Wisconsin at Ohio State – Ohio State is KenPom’s 16th-best team in the nation, but the Buckeyes haven’t played like a top-20 team in a single game since January. They have to show something here or in the Big Ten Tournament in order to make believers out of us.