1. Indiana’s Tuesday night loss to Iowa marks another defeat in the Hoosiers’ recent skid, where they’ve only won four times in their last eleven games. After the latest loss, fans could be heard heckling Tom Crean. This prompted Indiana athletic director, Fred Glass, to come out and give a statement of support, “He has my full support. I have a great deal of confidence in Tom’s body of work. This team overachieved early and then hit a tough patch”. Glass has a point. Crean is a victim of his early success this season, but the Hoosiers are still in a much better position than many thought they would be at the start of the season. This season — unlike other Crean campaigns in Bloomington — Indiana has overachieved.
2. Illinois eeked out a win in its final home game of the season against Nebraska on Wednesday. It was also senior night where both Rayvonte Rice and Nnanna Egwu were honored. Egwu was recruited by Bruce Weber to play for Illinois, but the head coach he thought he would be playing for was fired after his freshman year. But the native-born Nigerian quickly won over the new coaching staff with his work ethic and model behavior off the court. Egwu may have not have fully developed on offense like Illini fans had hoped, but he’s proven himself to be a well-rounded student-athlete — something fans should be proud of.
3. On Thursday, Wisconsin defeated Minnesota 76-63 in Minneapolis to claim its first Big Ten championship since 2008. Like seven years ago, it was an outright title and guarantees the Badgers the #1 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. The win caps off what’s been an amazing season that’s met the lofty expectations placed upon the Badgers in the preseason. With Frank Kaminsky as the slight favorite for National Player of the Year, this season is one for the ages for both Wisconsin and Bo Ryan . And it should be recognized as such no matter what happens in the NCAA Tournament.
4. The regular season is coming to an end, which means soon all the end-of-the-year accolades by different media sites will start being published. BTN kicked it off with a poll of Big Ten beat writers asking “Which teams were the most surprising and disappointing this season?” Purdue was the hands-down winner for most surprising team as they turned their season around after going 8-5 in the non-conference with two bad losses. Both Minnesota and Nebraska were chosen as the most disappointing teams. I described earlier this week what a disappointment the Cornhuskers have been, but the Gophers have also suffered a severe setback this season. After barely missing the NCAA Tournament and winning the NIT championship last season, Minnesota is now fighting just to stay out of the bottom four in the league.
5. With Selection Sunday only nine days away, the bracketologists have been out in full force with their predictions. And the most popular one, Joe Lundari, just put out his most recent projections. Wisconsin (#2 seed), Maryland (#3), Iowa (#7), Michigan State (#7), and Ohio State (#8) all seem to be safely in the field. Illinois, Indiana, and Purdue, however, are squarely on the bubble. The Boilermakers and Hoosiers are currently in the field, while the Illini have some work to do.

1. As we predicted, none of Kentucky’s freshmen have been in the running for major national awards because their time is so split up. You can see this play out in CBSSports.com’s Freshman of the Year watch, where Karl-Anthony Towns was just now the first Kentucky player to crack the top five with the regular season winding down. It certainly makes sense, even if his numbers are bottled up by only getting 20.2 minutes per game, Towns has been the driving force behind Kentucky’s offense at times this season. He scored seven of the Wildcats last ten points in closing out their win over Georgia, overpowering the Bulldogs at the rim for two late layups. Judging by outward appearances, the lack of individual awards-attention hasn’t been an issue. Besides, statistics won’t mean a thing when the NBA draft rolls around in June.
2.  Is there a team out there that can actually finish the job against Kentucky? Rob Dauster wrote about the keys to beating the Wildcats, which he said include avoiding paint domination, forcing long jumpers over the top of the defense and scoring early or late in the shot clock. He thinks six teams have what it takes to knock Kentucky off if certain things go their way: Virginia, Wisconsin, Duke, Arizona, Gonzaga and Villanova. A matchup with any of the six would be a dream for the college basketball fan, but most compelling could be either Wisconsin (rematch of last year’s national semifinal) or Gonzaga (Kyle Wiltjer’s redemption).
3. Near the end of a Knoxville News Sentinel’s article on the Kevin Stallings controversy is the following line about Donnie Tyndall’s opinion of the 30-second shot clock that will be used in the NIT and CBI: “He said he feels the shorter shot clock will force bad shots and increase the advantage of team’s with elite players.” This is an interesting thought, regardless of what you think of the merits of the shorter shot clock, because it comes from the head coach of a major program in a talent-rich state. Based on his logic, he would seem to benefit more than most. Either he still has the Morehead State/Southern Miss mindset, or John Calipari is that frightening to opposing SEC coaches.
4. LSU did not make life easy on itself. The Tigers had taken care business the last few weeks, but got outscored by 15 points in the second half en route to a 78-63 loss to Tennessee in Baton Rouge. The Vols sit at #91 in the RPI, making this unequivocally a bad loss on LSU’s resume. Despite overall solid play lately, there are some red flags for the Tigers. Jordan Mickey has averaged just 11 points and five rebounds per game over the last five games. While this is a good line for the majority of players, a thin LSU team needs its star to shine to reach their ceiling. To make things worse, the sophomore got hurt late in the game and could be limited against Arkansas. Josh Gray also continued to struggle against the Vols (11 minutes, three points, one turnover) and it’s asking a lot for freshman Jalyn Patterson to completely replace his minutes.
5. The Vols may have picked up the win and snapped a five-game losing streak because Tyndall returned to intense, “old school” practices. No matter how they did it, the victory was fairly significant. The Vols were just 3-9 over the 12 games going into the LSU game, and could have folded on the road against a team in desperate need of a win. Instead, Josh Richardson and Armani Moore turned in great offensive performances and led a blistering Vols’ attack (52.4 field goal percentage). The win keeps Tennessee in the hunt for an NIT bid (15-14, 7-10), and is another part of the over-achieving culture Tyndall has begun to establish this season.

1. The Daily Tar Heel: I’m not sure how this story isn’t getting much play, but the North Carolina student newspaper didn’t want to be outdone by the Duke Chronicle. They point out a major discrepancy between the Wainstein report and the document sent to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (the group responsible for North Carolina’s accreditation). The Wainstein report pinpointed 1993. The SACS report said they may have gone back until 1989. Dean Smith’s second national championship was in 1993. The school spokesperson said it was just semantics (the SACS report only points out the potentially “irregular” classes). History professor Jay Smith doesn’t think it’s just a difference in words though. Suffice to say we still haven’t heard the end of this case.
2. Hampton Roads Daily Press: More bad news for Justin Anderson. From all accounts, he was set to come back against Louisville this weekend, but had to get an appendectomy Thursday. While the surgery shouldn’t keep him out in the ACC Tournament, that extra game would have likely helped Anderson get back into the swing of things for when it counts (the NCAA Tournament). Now, as an ACC die-hard it pains me to say this, but the Cavaliers don’t have anything to prove against the ACC–though a revenge win against Duke to win a second straight would be quite the statement–but Tony Bennett and his team need a Final Four this year to cement its legacy beyond the conference.
3. New York Times: Fun story on a Syracuse fan named Geoff Herbert. Herbert was born mostly deaf, and has made a Twitter following by lipreading Jim Boeheim during games. Personally I think Herbert should monetize his skills. He drops the (mostly PG) knowledge on Twitter for free. But an uncensored account? I’d probably pay for that. Herbert’s translation adds a fun side to watching a game.
4. Syracuse Post Standard: Chris McCullough is planning to stay at Syracuse a second year. Coming into the season a lot of people thought he’d have a chance to leave for greener pastures, but tearing his ACL changed that. McCullough is taking his recovery pretty slowly (he doesn’t plan on trying to play until December). His return also gives him a chance to see a lot more possessions, since he won’t be sharing the lane with Rakeem Christmas. He’s also a reason to be more optimistic about the Orange next year.
5. Washington Post: John Feinstein has an interesting thesis (this sounds sarcastic, but hang with me). He writes that the reason teams are struggling to score is they can’t shoot. That’s too simple. The main reason teams can’t score is they are playing slower than ever before. That’s not to say Clemson is a team of sharpshooters. Brad Brownell usually isn’t in the running for great defenders who can also shoot. While he jokes about recruiting guys who can’t shoot, I’m sure he recruits the best players for his system. You can run offense to get easier shots. You can’t really hide a below average athlete on defense. I think it might be true that players are worse at shooting now than 20 years ago, but evidence goes against that idea. Free throw shooting has been essentially flat for 20 years. I think the difference is defenses are getting better, and players are playing faster.

1. There had been hope that Justin Anderson would return this weekend from a broken finger and help make Virginia a legitimate national title threat again (well as much as you can be with Kentucky this year). The Cavaliers still could end up making a run in the NCAA Tournament, but that task just got tougher as Anderson will be out for an undetermined period of time following an appendectomy on Thursday. Anderson, who had been averaging 13.4 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 2 assists per game prior to his injury, will probably miss at least part of the ACC Tournament with Virginia, but it is possible he could return for the NCAA Tournament particularly if Virginia makes it to the second weekend. The question for Virginia is what kind of shape Anderson will be in when he returns if they even make it that far.
2. Last week we linked to Luke Winn’s Power Rankings analyzing how the top teams stack up defensively. This week, Luke took a look at how they compare on offense. By this point in the year you know a decent amount about how these teams perform on offense and certainly to a much greater degree than you do about their defensive abilities, but there are still certain aspects of the offenses that Luke takes a look at that you probably missed. One example of this is for Virginia where he looks at where Anderson is most effective (ok, that might not be as relevant any more–see above) as well as how effective they are at getting put-backs ranking first in the nation in tempo-adjusted put-back scoring (still relevant even with Anderson out).
3. For years people have speculated about which teams were the “first four out”, but this year for the first time ever the NCAA will actually tell us by giving those teams #1 seeds in the NIT. We had assumed that this was usually the case but this is the first time that the NCAA will do so explicitly. The benefit for teams getting these #1 seeds is primarily that they get at least one more home game although we assume that they would have been highly seeded in the NIT under any seeding format.
4. The coaching carousel started on Wednesday with Liberty firing Dale Layer after an 8-24 season. Layer, who was 82-113 in six seasons at Liberty, led the Flames to the NCAA Tournament in 2013 with an automatic bid despite going 6-10 in the Big South regular season. Prior to his time at Liberty, he had served as the coach at Colorado State from 2000 to 2007. Given the relative anonymity of the position we suspect that this will probably be filled by a mid-major assistant or a retread since we can’t see a high-major assistant going here for his first job.
5. Indiana fans hoping for Brad Stevens a step in to save their failing program received some bad news yesterday and it wasn’t just that Stevens will never be coming to Bloomington. Athletic Director Fred Glass issued a statement in support of Tom Crean, which would seem to indicate that Crean’s job is safe for the time being. We are not going to call for Crean’s job like some columnists who don’t follow the sport and just write to get attention, but we do think that the coach of a top 10 program should be doing more than what Crean has done thus far. So although Glass may have voiced his support for Crean we wouldn’t be shocked if he looked at other big names if those names are put out there.

Four more conference tournaments got under way yesterday, resulting in 14 more eliminations (listed below) from the 2015 Circle of March. That leaves us with 306 eligible teams on the CoM, noting that it’s our standard that we do not remove teams until their seasons are over — therefore many Ivy League squads and several other teams that will not qualify for next week’s conference tournaments will remain with us through the weekend. Two more tournaments get started today — the Missouri Valley‘s Arch Madness in St. Louis and the MAAC in Albany — while the Patriot League, Atlantic Sun and OVC pick back up with their second days of tournament action.

Eliminations (03.04.15)

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We’re in the midst of Championship Fortnight, so let’s gear up for the continuing action by breaking down each of the Other 26’s conference tournaments as they get under way.

Missouri Valley Tournament

Dates: March 5-8

Site: Scottrade Center (St. Louis, MO)

(cbssports.com)

What to expect: Northern Iowa versus Wichita State: Round Three. After they split a pair of games in the regular season, Arch Madness now serves as the backdrop for what should be an epic title game between the Missouri Valley’s two most dominant teams. Any other match-up would be a surprise. The Shockers probably have the slight edge because of their considerable experience in pressure-packed, neutral-court games, but look for both clubs to receive single-digit seeds on Selection Sunday. Evansville is the only other conference opponent to beat one of them – narrowly edging the Panthers on New Year’s Day – while the advanced metrics like Illinois State as the third-best team. Still, neither the Aces nor the Redbirds are likely to threaten here.

Favorite: Wichita State. Could go either way here considering the regular season split, but let’s call Wichita State the favorite since it’s been in this position before.

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The wonderful idea of ESPNU turns 10 years old this week. The reason I mention it as an idea is because it hasn’t exactly been what it was originally designed to be — you know, a network dedicated solely to the world of college sports. Now, while it is mostly revolved around everything college athletic competition related, the programming on it sometimes goes off the beaten trail.

ESPNU

All of that did make to do some pondering, though, which is an incredibly dangerous thing. What if ESPNU was scheduled the way it should be booked for a network designed to cover all things in amateur athletics? Don’t get me wrong either. I get why they do some of the things they do. As much as I dislike Colin Cowherd, he is put on that network to generate ratings, attention and other things that something like Katz Korner unlikely provides. I would argue that — if the network truly dedicated itself in a more proper way — that more broadcasts of college-only related material would work. In my opinion, and it may very will be only mine, is is ESPN’s lack of dedicating ESPNU in the correct areas that makes it the non-blood relative of the ESPN family of networks. ESPN is obviously the patriarch, with ESPN2 the spouse. I suppose it also makes ESPN Classic (I honestly don’t even know if that’s still a thing) a distant cousin. ESPN3 and Watch ESPN are like the cool in-laws — you really like them, but that has as much to do with consuming them whenever you want and never being over saturated with their presence. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Here is how we are going to go about booking ESPNU. I am going to go through a random day’s lineup. After each show I will say if it works, why it works, how it can be tweaked and some other nonsense. Now, with that being said, I should also mention that one of my true dislikes is ESPNU’s constant rerun approach, mostly because of its lack of original programming. There might be instances when I will like a program on the network, but when we book a day’s lineup to my suiting later, it will appear less in the day’s programming. For your information and reference I am using an actual 24-hour window of the channel’s broadcast lineup — as pulled from ESPN’s own TV listing section — for the reference of listings. Let’s start at 9:oo AM ET and take a look at their lineup.

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We’re in the midst of Championship Fortnight, so let’s gear up for the continuing action by breaking down each of the Other 26’s conference tournaments as they get under way.

MAAC Tournament

Dates: March 5, 7-9

Site: Times Union Center (Albany, NY)

What to expect: Iona will be heavy favorites in the MAAC Tournament this week after going 24-7 and controlling the regular season from start to finish. The uptempo Gaels are an exceptionally efficient offensive unit, led by one of the country’s best scoring duos – guard A.J. English and big man David Laury – who account for nearly 40 points per game. But beware: Monmouth, Canisius and crosstown rival Manhattan each gave Iona trouble this winter and the top seed has not won the event since 2010. Rider, the second-place finisher, would be more of a threat if seven-footer Matt Lopez hadn’t torn his ACL in late February. Count on the regular season champs to clinch another NCAA Tournament appearance – its third since 2011 – but don’t expect a cakewalk.

Favorite: Iona. Along with its stellar inside-out duo, Iona boasts the conference’s premier freshman in 5’10” guard Schadrac Casimir. His shooting prowess (44% 3FG on 203 attempts) combined with English, Laury, wing Isaiah Williams (45% 3FG) and athletic transfer Kelvin Amayo makes the Gaels incredibly difficult to stop.

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1. Syracuse Post-Standard: Whatever the Post-Standard is paying Patrick Stevens, it isn’t enough because here’s his exhaustive list of ACC Tournament seeding scenarios. Some of those are simple (notably, the bottom four teams). Pittsburgh has the most to prove in its last two games with a possibility of a seed anywhere from sixth to tenth depending on what happens around the league. The most important battle, though, is for the last double-bye. Notre Dame, Duke and Virginia are already locked in, but Louisville and North Carolina are battling for the final spot. The Cardinals control their own destiny (North Carolina’s only remaining game is home against Duke), but they also have to beat Virginia this weekend or get some help from around the league.
2. Fox Sports: Of course I ran an article on Wake Forest’s Danny Manning yesterday and a better one shows up today. Assistant coach Randolph Childress gives Lauren Brownlow some gems for quotes on Manning’s move to a folding chair if he doesn’t like the effort he’s seeing from his team. Childress is the side of the story that Brownlow really brings to her profile. Manning wanted to keep the Deacon legend on staff because of his connections to the school and the area. None of the Wake Forest players or Childress have anything bad to say about Jeff Bzdelik, which suggests that the biggest problem with Bzdelik was his ability to associate with fans. This is worth a read.
3. Boston Herald: Olivier Hanlan has been really flying under the radar this season, and of course it helps that Boston College is abysmal. Through eight games in February he averaged over 27 points per game and he’s at the top of the league in minutes per game as well (tied with Jerian Grant). Hanlan hasn’t quite put up Erick Green’s efficiency from Virginia Tech a couple of years ago, and I think Green’s recency will bias voters against the Eagles’ star. But Hanlan has to be first team All-ACC and he really should be in the conversation for ACC Player of the Year too. I think it’s reasonable to say that Grant’s and Jahlil Okafor’s raw totals were held back by being surrounded by so many weapons (give me Grant right now just because he’s so versatile), but not considering Hanlan shows that the voter didn’t watch him play at all this season.
4. Syracuse Post-Standard: In light of Syracuse‘s self-imposed postseason ban, Derrick Coleman won’t be going to Greensboro to be a part of this year’s ACC Legends class. This just highlights how dumb postseason bans are because they punish the current team for issues with former players. It’s weird that we haven’t heard anything from the NCAA on Syracuse yet, but hopefully it gets resolved quickly and it doesn’t also hold next year’s team accountable for past grievances.
5. Miami Herald: Jim Larranaga is optimistic about Miami‘s chances at making the NCAA Tournament, but it’s clear the Hurricanes still have a lot of work to do. They’ve got a great win (at Duke) and took Virginia to double-overtime (that’s the game that may end up hurting them more than their losses). In addition to a strong finish to the regular season (the game at Pittsburgh was probably an elimination game), Miami is going to need at least one upset in the ACC Tournament to have a shot at celebrating Selection Sunday. And who knows, if Angel Rodriguez gets hot for a few games, maybe Miami walks away with a trophy in Greensboro.

EXTRA (via Washington Post): It wasn’t much of a mystery anyway, but apparently Duke’s Jahlil Okafor is the only player listed on the ballot the ACC media were sent for rookie of the year.

I sat down to write a post about Norman Powell and had no idea what to say. After 10 minutes of staring at a blank Word document, I started to think about taking the easy way out and just throwing a bunch of links to videos and Vines of Powell attacking the rim and finishing in a variety of spellbinding ways. But that would be taking the easy way out, something Powell never did in his four years at UCLA. So instead of getting to spend a few minutes geeking out on dunks and twisting, merry-go-round finishes, you’ve got to read my blather for a few hundred words. And you’ve got Powell to thank for that.

Norman Powell Has Been UCLA’s Heart and Soul For Four Years. (Associated Press)

Think back on your favorite Bruins in the past decade or so, whether you count yourself as a UCLA fan or just a fan of college basketball. Guys like Kyle Anderson, Jordan Adams, Darren Collison, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love, Arron Afflalo, Jordan Farmar, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute are the names that likely come to mind. One thing all those players have in common is that none ever saw their own Senior Day. Now, let’s be clear; I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. But there is something special about a senior’s growth that occurs over four years — about the dedication and drive you need to begin something as difficult as being a student-athlete and seeing it through to the very end. And there is something special about seeing a guy like Powell come down the stretch and lift his game to a higher level in pursuit of righteously closing out that career.

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