I hinted earlier in the week that it’s time to start paying attention to college basketball thinking this week was going to continue the trend of upsets we’ve been seeing the last few weeks. Unfortunately, There was a lot of chalk and the games were meh at best, but there are still a few things I noticed after diving into college hoops this week.
The Big 12 is the gift that keeps giving
There weren’t many games to get excited about this week, but anytime the Big 21 is on TV, it’s must watch. From top to bottom, this conference is loaded with teams who could make a final four run in a year with a ton of parity. Texas beat the brakes off Oklahoma on the road earlier this week, and lowly West Virginia upset Kansas last week. I’m probably evaluating the conference wrong. It’s probably a bunch of mid teams who will all be out of the tournament by the 2nd weekend, but the regular season has been incredible.
The Mid-Majors are less mid
Mountain West basketball is BACK. There are 5 teams currently in Joe Lunardi’s bracketology and I would put 6 in the Flushotology from the Mountain West. When it’s all said and done, we might have more teams than the ACC and Pac12 COMBINED in the dance. I’m sure we’ll get hosed by the selection committee, but it’s fun to think about.
The Missouri Valley conference is loaded as well. Historic MVC teams like Drake, Indiana State, and Bradley all would provide tough outs in the tournament, but there are a couple new blood dark horses like Belmont and Murray State who could win the conference tourney and sneak into the dance.
Whoever comes out of the Horizon league will be battle tested and could be a sneaky 15 over 2 upset in the tournament. Green Bay (shoutout Sundance Wicks) is currently leading the conference, but there are 8 contenders who could legitimately punch their ticket to the big dance.
Half the “Power” conferences are Mid
We already talked about the woeful Pac12/ACC. I do think there’s more hope for some of the middle of the pack teams in the PAC12. Stanford has come on strong the last month, but their non-conference losses to Michigan and a beatdown to Northern Iowa stick out like a turd in the punchbowl. They’ll need a big February push and some help to get in without winning the PAC12 tourney. Utah has hit the skids a bit, but they have solid wins against Wake Forest and BYU to bolster their resume if they can get back on track. The ACC has UNC, Duke, Clemson, and 8-9 mid teams who could all get hot and steal some bids from more deserving teams. To hell with those conferences.
It’s a damn shame the B1G is probably going to take up 6 to 7 bids this year because this conference is ass. I’m happy for Wisconsin fans and Purdue is a legit title contender, but Illinois got exposed by Northwestern and I don’t see another team in this conference getting past the second weekend. It sucks that teams like Michigan and Iowa are down this year that usually help legitimize this conference, but give more bids to the little guys.
We’ll have to choose a couple of non-ass conferences a week and go more in-depth, but I’m tired of talking about these terrible “power” conferences. As much as the NIL/transfer portal has helped the rich get richer in football, it seems to have created more parity in basketball.
The Morning Flush 