If you had predicted before March Madness that the Pac 12 would have four teams advancing to the Sweet 16 and the Big 10 only one, you might have ended up in a padded cell.
After all, no basketball expert disputed that the Big 10 was college basketball’s best conference this season. Even the NET (the NCAA’s statistical tool for ranking teams and conferences) had the Big 10 first and the Pac 12 last among the power conferences heading into the NCAA’s. The power conferences consist of the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12 and SEC. For all intents and purposes, the Big East is a power conference in basketball as well.
If Pac 12 commissioner Larry Scott could have lasted a few more months beyond mid-January when league presidents pushed him out the door, he might have received a contract extension instead. As the Pac 12 continues its search for a new commissioner, Scott’s 11-year tenure comes to an end in June. Talk about ending on a high note. Meanwhile, Big 10 Commissioner Kevin Warren probably wishes he qualified for FEMA assistance to make up for lost tournament revenue. This year’s dance has definitely been a Category 5 disaster for Warren and the Big 10. I bet former Big 10 Commissioner Jim Delany (who effectively presided over the league from 1989 to 2020) is glad he wasn’t around for this storm.
It’s worth taking a closer look at what might be going on here. Conventional wisdom has always pointed to the best conferences having an advantage in the NCAA’s because of facing stronger competition. But there might be a counterpoint to this theory. I remember talking to then Penn State assistant coach Jim Ferry (who became the interim head coach for the Nittany Lions this past year) after a practice last season and he made an interesting point. Ferry told me he thought the Big 10 (which was ranked by the NET as the best conference in the country last year as well) had at least a half dozen teams that were good enough to make the Final Four but he wasn’t sure any would get there. He was convinced the league members were beating each other up so badly that they would be exhausted by the NCAA tournament. When you look at this year’s non-conference winning percentages, it’s hard to disagree with Ferry’s point. Among the power conferences, the Big 10 was the leader by far at 83%. Next was the Big 12 at 78% while the ACC, Big East, SEC and Pac 12 were all right around 73%.
So other than Michigan’s Juwan Howard, the three other Big 10 coaches whose teams were high seeds and got bounced out of the NCAA’s — Illinois’ Brad Underwood (one seed) and Ohio State’s Chris Holtmann and Iowa’s Fran McCaffery (two seeds) — are now burnt toast. Meanwhile, the Pac 12 coaches who advanced to the Sweet 16 — Oregon’s Dana Altman, Oregon’s State Wayne Tinkle, USC’s Andy Enfield, and UCLA’s Mick Cronin — are surely on sugar highs. Especially considering none of their teams were seeded higher than sixth by the NCAA’s Selection (Guessing) Committee. I remember texting Altman after his Ducks barely squeezed by middle-of-the-pack conference foe Utah earlier in the season and telling him that I thought the Pac 12 was underrated. Ever the perfectionist, Altman refused to buy into that narrative and make any excuses for his team’s narrow win, but I suspect he might have agreed with me. If you look at some of the recruits the Pac 12 has pulled in recently (especially Altman at Oregon and Enfield at USC) the league can certainly match the other power conferences in talent.
In his eight man rotation, Altman has three players who were ESPN Top 100 recruits, Will Richardson (39), Chandler Lawson (85) and Jalen Terry (88), along with 2019 National Junior College Player of the Year, Chris Duarte. If 6-11 sophomore center N’Faly Dante, ESPN’s 29th ranked high school player in 2019, hadn’t blown out his knee earlier in the season, the Ducks would have had four Top 100 recruits in their rotation. Altman’s also has done an outstanding job recruiting on the transfer portal. Competing in power conferences before coming to Oregon, LJ Figueroa averaged 14.5 points on an NCAA team at St. John’s (Big East) and Eugene Omoruyi averaged 13.8 points at Rutgers (Big 10). Eric Williams Jr. competed at a level below Figueroa and Omoruyi at Duquesne (Atlantic 10) but averaged 14.1 points in his two seasons with the Dukes.
At USC, Enfield’s best recruiting move might have been when he hired Eric Mobley as an assistant coach after the 2018 season. It helped Enfield build this year’s NCAA version of the Twin Towers. Mobley’s two sons, Evan (7-0) and Isaiah (6-10), combine to give the Trojans perhaps the best frontline in the country. It’s no big surprise that Evan (3) and Isaiah (16) were ESPN Top 20 recruits. For a player his size, Evan’s skill set is off-the-charts, a big reason he was named Pac 12 Player of the Year and is projected as a Top 5 pick in this year’s NBA draft.
Now that we’ve established that neither Oregon or USC will be shorthanded talent-wise when they face off in the Sweet 16 of the West regional, it’s time for my Final Four predictions. With the Mobley brothers, sixth seeded USC has more elite talent than seventh seeded Oregon but look for the Ducks to capitalize on their 3-point shooting and experienced transfers to advance to the West finals against unbeaten and top ranked Gonzaga. Iowa’s defense looked helpless in a 95-80 second round loss to Oregon, especially when the Ducks put five 3-point shooters — Richardson, Duarte, Figueroa, Williams and Omoruyi — on the court at the same time. All five Ducks average taking more than three treys per game and none shoot below 35 percent. Even as dangerous as Oregon’s offense is when the Ducks are shooting well, it won’t be enough to outscore Gonzaga in the West finals. The Zags will advance to the Final Four behind one of the best offenses in NCAA history. In the Sweet 16, Gonzaga will face a dangerous Creighton team, the region’s fifth seed. I am sure Zags’ Coach Mark Few will have his team watch Creighton’s earlier season smackdown of Villanova to get their full attention. The Bluejays looked like a Top 10 team in their 86-70 win over Villanova, which was impressive considering Jay Wright’s Wildcats rarely get blown out.
In the tournament’s opposite East bracket, look for second seeded Alabama to make its first ever Final Four appearance by beating top seeded Michigan in the regional finals. Michigan showed some real grit in its 86-78 second round win over LSU, especially considering the Wolverines are playing without one of their best players, Isaiah Livers. Michigan will have just enough offense to get past a strong Florida State team (fourth seeded) in the Sweet 16 but not enough firepower to survive against Alabama. UCLA’s Cronin has done an amazing job getting his team to the Sweet 16 (he lost his best player Chris Smith to a knee injury early in January) as an 11 seed but he does not have enough offensive weapons to hang with ‘Bama.
The Midwest appears to be the most competitive region left, with second seeded Houston looking to survive against 11th seeded Syracuse and surprising 12th seeded Oregon State facing eighth seeded Loyola Chicago. Syracuse has been a nice storyline in the tourney, with Jim Boeheim’s son, Buddy, giving us a great Reggie Miller impersonation with his red-hot shooting. Buddy is even the same height (6-6) as the former New York Knicks’ assassin, with both having the ability to drain 3’s over smaller defenders. But Houston will contain Boeheim with a defense that ranks third nationally in Defensive Efficiency (points allowed per possession) and will handle the Syracuse’s patented 2-3 zone with an unsuspected weapon. The Cougars are one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country and second and third opportunities on the glass will help them advance past the Orange. In the other Sweet 16 game, Loyola Chicago will roll past Oregon State, which definitely deserves credit for chalking up double-figure victories over fifth seeded Tennessee (70-56) and fourth seeded Oklahoma State (80-70). Loyola Chicago is a very good team and was severely disrespected as an eight seed. Just ask top seeded Illinois, which was never really in the game in a 71-58 second round loss to the Ramblers. In a close game, I see Loyola Chicago beating Houston in the regional finals for a second trip to the Final Four in four years.
The Ramblers will have way more than 101-year-old superfan Sister Jean for inspiration. They’ve been underrated ever since their last trip to the Final Four and senior center Cameron Krutwig has been overlooked the entire season. Krutwig didn’t even make the Wooden Award’s Midseason 25 Watch List, which bears some discussion here. Did a little googling and discovered that the Wooden Award’s 26 member National Advisory Board takes responsibility for the watch list before coming up with a final ballot right before the NCAA tournament. Granted, my googling skills leave a lot to be desired but after spending several minutes hammering away at the keyboard, I couldn’t find a list of names on the National Advisory Board. Even came up empty-handed when I typed in “Village Idiots Who Left Krutwig Off Wooden Midseason 25.” Upon closer inspection, I discovered that 21 of the 25 players on the midseason list came from power conferences. I suppose the Advisory Board must include some members tied to power conferences. And three of the four non-power conference players who were on the list of 25 were Gonzaga’s Corey Kispert, Drew Timme, and Jalen Suggs (the other was Western Kentucky’s Charles Bassey). Let’s face it, in hoops Gonzaga is treated as a power conference member, too. In a last-ditch effort to find out who shafted Krutwig, I went to the actual Wooden Award website. No National Advisory Board member names to be found. Finally gave up and headed to the kitchen to make a baloney sandwich.
Finally, in the South Region, I expect top seeded Baylor to prevail and stay on course to meet Gonzaga in the NCAA title game. In the Sweet 16, the Bears will face a Villanova team that surprised many surviving past the first weekend. Coach Wright showed why it’s only a matter of time before he’s in the Hall of Fame, as his fifth seeded Wildcats lost star point guard Collin Gillespie to a knee injury late in the season. Still, even with a healthy Gillespie, I would pick Baylor to beat Villanova, and without him, forget about it. In the other Sweet 16 matchup, third seeded Arkansas will end 15th seeded Oral Roberts’ Cinderella dreams before falling to Baylor in the Elite Eight, earning the Bears their first Final Four appearance since 1950.