You don’t need to be a rocket scientist, or even an ex-college coach like myself, to figure out who is the best college basketball conference this season.
It’s the Big 10 without a doubt. Of course, the Big 10 actually has 14 teams, and when the number of teams in contention for the NCAA tournament exceeds your conference’s old membership number, you know your league is a powerhouse. I must admit I’m still puzzled why the Big 10 hasn’t changed to the Big 14? After all, the former Big 8 is now the Big 12.
The NCAA’s Power 5 conferences include the ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12 and the Pac 12. All other conferences are considered mid-major, but for all intents and purposes, the Big East is a power conference in basketball as well.
Among the Big 10’s 14 teams, 12 are serious contenders to make the NCAA tournament. In the college basketball’s NET rankings (the index the NCAA relies on most for its tournament selection), the Big 10 has 12 teams in the Top 50. Granted, the Big 12 is better at the top of the NET, with Baylor No. 1, Kansas No. 4 and West Virginia No. 9. But with only one other Big 12 team (Texas Tech at No. 25) in the Top 50, from top to bottom, it’s clearly a Big 10 blowout.
How about this for conference firepower — almost a quarter of the NET’s Top 50 teams are from the Big 10. Michigan State leads the way in the NET at No. 8, followed by Maryland (15), Rutgers (18), Ohio State (19), Wisconsin (22), Iowa (26), Michigan (29), Penn State (35), Purdue (36), Illinois (40), Minnesota (41) and Indiana (49). Should a brand new Big 10 Commissioner Kevin Warren consider fining Northwestern (133) and Nebraska (170) for such dismal play?
When a team as good as Ohio State is in 12th place with a 2-5 league record, you know your conference is something special. I watched the Buckeyes play a number of times earlier in the season, and I thought they were as good as anybody in the country. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Ohio State makes a deep run in March Madness.
For all of you trivia buffs out there, the conference record for placing the most teams in the NCAA’s was the Big East with 11 in 2011. It looks like the Big 10 has a reasonable chance to top that by one. Of course, it doesn’t hurt your chances to make NCAA history when you have a team like Rutgers exceeding expectations in gigantic proportions. Tied for second in the Big 10 at 5-2 and 14-4 overall, the Scarlet Knights moved into the AP Top 25 (24th) for the first time since 1979 and could be the nation’s most surprising team. Now in his fourth season at Rutgers, Coach Steve Pikiell is becoming a huge hit in the land of Springsteen. With few NBA prospects on his roster, Pikiell definitely has his team playing with a “Hungry Heart.“ If the Scarlet Knights can win a few more games, they will make the NCAA’s for the first time since 1991, by far the longest drought of any team from a power conference. Rutgers received a scare when star junior guard Geo Baker (who is one of Rutgers’ few NBA prospects) injured his thumb in early January. But the Scarlet Knights went 2-1 without him (including a win over Penn State, who was in the AP Top 25 at the time), and Baker’s return for last week’s 59-50 win over Indiana at the Rutgers Athletic Center (the RAC) was punctuated with an eye-opening dunk. Not surprisingly, the sellout crowd at the RAC went nuts. Big 10 opponents are discovering that the RAC, where the Scarlet Knights are 12-0 this season, is one of the toughest places to play in the country.
Meanwhile, last year’s best conference, the ACC, has plummeted and might be the weakest of the power conferences. Granted, Duke (6), Louisville (11), and Florida State (14) are in the Top 20 of the NET rankings but last year’s national champion Virginia and North Carolina might be easier to find on a milk carton. Virginia (which still plays great defense because of the coaching of Tony Bennett) lacks offensive punch and is No. 60 in the NET, and North Carolina is No. 120. The Tar Heels are struggling with an uncharacteristic 8-8 record. You know it’s a down year for the ACC when a perennial power like Carolina is sandwiched in the NET rankings between two mediocre mid-majors, Western Kentucky and College of Charleston. Matters weren’t helped for the Tar Heels when star freshman Cole Anthony underwent arthroscopic knee surgery in mid-December. Anthony will likely to return to action before February, but North Carolina will almost certainly have to win the ACC tournament to avoid being left out of the NCAA’s for the first time since 2010.
Finally, let’s give due to the nation’s most improved conference, the Pac 12, which last season was clearly the worst among the power conferences. A year ago, you could count on just a few fingers how many wins the Pac 12 enjoyed over AP Top 25 teams. Now it’s a different story. The Pac 12’s pre-season No. 1, Oregon, has non-conference neutral floor wins over Memphis and Seton Hall and a victory at Michigan, all teams ranked in the AP Top 15 at the time. Colorado beat 15-2 Dayton (which is No. 5 in the NET and 7th in the AP poll) on a neutral floor, and Utah took down Kentucky on a neutral site when the Wildcats were ranked in the AP Top 20. In the season opener at home, Arizona beat Illinois (now No. 21 in AP poll) by 21 points, handing the Illini their worst loss of the season. And let’s not forget about the Pac 12’s best non-conference triumph, when on a neutral floor Washington beat Baylor (No. 1 in the NET and the AP poll) early in the year to hand the 14-1 Bears their only loss of the season. The Pac 12 sent just three teams to the NCAA’s last season (Arizona State, Oregon, and Washington), but this year that number could easily double. Eight Pac 12 teams are in the NET’s Top 70 and in contention for the NCAA’s — Arizona (11), Stanford (14), Oregon (16), Colorado (20), USC (46), Washington (47), Arizona State (62) and Oregon State (67).
While on the topic of the Pac 12, let’s shift gears and offer some observations on ESPN color commentator Bill Walton, who handles many of the league games. In the movie “What About Bob,” Bill Murray said the world was divided into people who either loved or hated Neil Diamond. And in Walton’s case, it might not be much different, although I have to admit I’m somewhere in between. While listening to Walton, I’m all over the place, usually fluctuating from annoyed, amused and enlightened all in the same broadcast.
It was definitely annoying hearing Walton refer to the Pac 12 as the “Conference of Champions,” all last season when the league was so pathetic, and his bickering back and forth with play by play partner Dave Pasch just isn’t that funny most of the time. But Walton has his moments and can be very funny. When he changed into an Oregon football uniform, helmet and all, during the Ducks game with Arizona last week, I almost spat out my beer, I laughed so hard.
And you usually learn something from Walton. During that same Oregon-Arizona broadcast, ESPN put up a map of Africa and placed the headshots of Oregon’s N’Faly Dante (Mali) and Francis Okoro (Nigeria), and Arizona’s Christian Koloko (Cameroon) on their respective countries. If Walton’s colorful descriptions talking us through this graphic was any indication, he must have been the brainchild behind this adventure. All in all, pretty amusing stuff, although I’m ashamed to admit I thought Bali was in the South Pacific.
Now that we’ve determined Walton is college basketball’s most unconventional color commentator, blatantly defying broadcasting fundamentals, it’s worth noting how ironic that is. Walton, standing 6-11 (imagine his head craning under a football helmet!) was the best college basketball player I ever had the pleasure of watching when my father, Dick Harter, coached at Oregon in the 1970s. What made the former UCLA great so special was his fundamentals. Walton could score and rebound with the best, but what set him apart was his amazing vision and passing ability for a big man. And who will ever forget Walton’s 44 point performance in the 1973 NCAA championship win over Memphis State (now Memphis) when he made 21 of 22 shots from the floor. With memories of such near-perfection, this seems like a good place to blog off. ‘Till next time…