After 14 consecutive years at the top of the Big 12, Kansas‘ reign as the conference’s top team finally came to an end. In an era of college basketball where anything is possible, the longevity of the Jayhawks’ streak was beyond remarkable…
What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Matthew Eisenberg (@matteise) is your weekly host.
Saturday marked the initial release of the Selection Committee’s top 16 seeds for the upcoming NCAA Tournament. While the choices lacked much in the way of surprise, the release was followed by five of those teams losing later that day.
Earlier in the week, the college basketball world was reminded of the drama that comes along with NCAA violations, as Arizona decided to place assistant coach Mark Phelps on administrative leave. The Wildcats have struggled both on and off the court this season.
Arizona assistant Mark Phelps has been placed on administrative leave by the school. Source close to situation told @WatchStadium they believe this is school building its case in potentially make a move with head coach Sean Miller as NCAA begins its investigation. pic.twitter.com/pN2066E2ex
After Providence and Marquette earned a pair of wins on Wednesday night, many Big East observers noticed an interesting wrinkle in the conference standings: every team from third to 10th place had four losses. With over one third of conference play already in the books, this level of parity is both astonishing and extremely rare. A clearer hierarchy among those eight teams will likely develop over the next few weeks, but the corollary to the unusual situation is that such parity is extremely concerning for the Big East’s position in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
Marquette is One of Two Big East Teams Riding High (USA Today Images)
Fan bases from those other eight programs optimistically claim that a single win could vault their teams to third place in the Big East. And while this is technically true, those pundits are also failing to recognize how insignificant conference standings are outside of seeding in the Big East Tournament. Their thinking is that teams that finish in the top half of the league always make the NCAA Tournament. This assumption, however, is tenuous given how much non-conference performance matters for teams that struggle in conference play.
At-large NCAA Tournament berths per conference significantly fluctuate from year to year. The Big Ten only received four berths last season, but appears likely to get nine or 10 this season. Nebraska finished with a 13-5 conference record a year ago and was still relegated to the NIT at the end of Selection Sunday. Conversely, the Pac-12 and Atlantic 10 might not receive a single at-large bid this season, which truly shows that performance matters.
As RTC heads into its 12th season covering college hoops, it’s time to begin releasing our annual compendium of YouTube clips that we like to call Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball. These 30 snippets from last season’s action are completely guaranteed to make you wish the games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Tuesday, November 6.You can find all of this year’s released posts here.
As RTC heads into its 12th season covering college hoops, it’s time to begin releasing our annual compendium of YouTube clips that we like to call Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball. These 30 snippets from last season’s action are completely guaranteed to make you wish the games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Tuesday, November 6.You can find all of this year’s released posts here.
As RTC heads into its 12th season covering college hoops, it’s time to begin releasing our annual compendium of YouTube clips that we like to call Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball. These 30 snippets from last season’s action are completely guaranteed to make you wish the games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Tuesday, November 6.You can find all of this year’s released posts here.
As RTC heads into its 12th season covering college hoops, it’s time to begin releasing our annual compendium of YouTube clips that we like to call Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball. These 30 snippets from last season’s action are completely guaranteed to make you wish the games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Tuesday, November 6.You can find all of this year’s released posts here.
As RTC heads into its 12th season covering college hoops, it’s time to begin releasing our annual compendium of YouTube clips that we like to call Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball. These 30 snippets from last season’s action are completely guaranteed to make you wish the games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Tuesday, November 6.You can find all of this year’s released posts here.
As RTC heads into its 12th season covering college hoops, it’s time to begin releasing our annual compendium of YouTube clips that we like to call Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball. These 30 snippets from last season’s action are completely guaranteed to make you wish the games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Tuesday, November 6.You can find all of this year’s released posts here.
#21 – Where The Unlikeliest Elite Eight Saturday Happens.
As RTC heads into its 12th season covering college hoops, it’s time to begin releasing our annual compendium of YouTube clips that we like to call Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball. These 30 snippets from last season’s action are completely guaranteed to make you wish the games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Tuesday, November 6.You can find all of this year’s released posts here.
