By Aidan Joly
Three key bubble wins, a statement victory for Alabama and St. John’s and Duke’s destruction of two teams in a 16 hour period in the same building highlighted the weekend of college hoops.
Let’s get into what happened around the nation.
Bubble watch
Three teams: Oklahoma, Vanderbilt and Indiana, picked up key wins on Saturday that put them closer to making the tournament.
Oklahoma did so by beating No. 21 Mississippi State 93-87 in Norman, Vanderbilt beat Ole Miss 77-72 in Nashville later in the afternoon, and then Indiana picked up a big one on Sunday, beating Purdue 73-58 in Bloomington.
It gets closer to having close to double digit or 10+ SEC teams in the NCAA tournament, possibly breaking the record for most teams from one league in the tournament. Oklahoma has an eyesore of an SEC record of 4-10, but thanks to those league wins being key and good non-conference results, it has a chance. It also snapped a six-game losing streak. Vanderbilt is now 6-8 in the league and is close to being confident in its chances.
Indiana, after stumbling around all season, somehow now has a good chance of being in. After all of that.
Duke’s domination of Illinois
In a rare late season non-conference neutral site game, Duke put on a show while Illinois had a huge stinker, with the Blue Devils winning 110-67 on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden.
It was a total destruction from beginning to end, with Duke dominating every facet of the game. Seven Blue Devils finished in double figures and the team as a whole shot 55.6% from the field and 52.5% from three, while holding Illinois to 37.7% of the field and an ugly 2-26 from three. The Illini missed 18 straight attempts from deep to start the game.
Cooper Flagg had 16 points in his MSG debut while Kon Knueppel had 15, but Isaiah Evans had 17 to lead the team. He is quickly becoming perhaps the best sixth man in the country
It feels like this Duke team, along with Auburn, is on the fast track to being in the Final Four. It is just that dominant.
St. John’s dominates UConn
Around 15 hours later in the same building Duke dominated Illinois, it was St. John’s turn to put on a show.
The Johnnies beat UConn 89-75 in a game that wasn’t even that close to improve to a Big East-best 15-2 and 24-4 overall. St. John’s has won 13 of 14. The Johnnies also finished up a season sweep of UConn for the first time since 1999-2000.
All five Red Storm starters were in double figures led by 18 each from Kadary Richmond and Zuby Ejiofor, while RJ Luis Jr. had 14 in his return to the lineup after missing the previous game against DePaul.
Rick Pitino, man. He has brought this program back to national relevancy after being just average for so long. Right now, St. John’s is likely to be a 2 or 3 seed in the NCAA tournament. This is a program that has not won a tournament game since 2000. That streak will surely end in a month.
Georgia hangs with Auburn, which is more than what most can say
Georgia only lost to Auburn by 12 on Saturday and hung around most of the way, which is more than what most teams that have played the Tigers this season can say.
The Bulldogs are very talented this year and are still have a chance to make the program’s first NCAA tournament since 2015. Asa Newell has been great, while Silas Demary and Blue Cain have made for a solid trio. Again, a 4-10 league record isn’t pretty, but so be it. It was great in the non-conference and has a win against Kentucky. It has three winnable games in the four to close the regular season.
Johni Broome had 31 for Auburn in the win. Just an unstoppable group.
Michigan State’s good win
After struggling in the first half, Michigan State turned it around in the second half to come back and beat Michigan in Ann Arbor on Friday night 75-62. The Spartans only trailed by four at halftime but it did feel like more.
Tom Izzo made the necessary adjustments and MSU out-scored Michigan 41-24 in the second half. Freshman Jase Richardson had 21 on 7-12 from the field, and Tre Holloman had 18 on 6-10 from the field.
This is one of the best Spartans teams in a handful of years. There had been some questions about Izzo and how much longer he had left at MSU, and maybe if the game had begun to pass him by, but this team proves he still has it.
Oregon’s quality win
Staying in the Big Ten and with teams that had second half turnarounds, Oregon trailed by 12 at the break at Wisconsin, forced overtime, and then did enough in the extra period to grab a 77-73 OT win.
After losing five in a row and six of seven, a streak that really raised eyebrows about how good this team really was as it got into the meat of its first season of Big Ten play, the Ducks have won four in a row and have changed opinions.
Nate Bittle, Keeshawn Barthelemy and Jackson Shelstad, along with TJ Bamba, have made for a very quality group. It’s a group that will have a chance at getting a solid seed and winning a game or two in the tournament. Also important, the win is crucial in staying in the top nine in the league and avoiding playing on the first day of the league tournament in Indianapolis.
The Ducks are now 9-8 in the league and 20-8 overall. Three regular season games to go, getting a week off before playing again on March 1 against USC.
Alabama makes a statement with win
Alabama kept things rolling in a big way, grabbing a 96-83 home win against Kentucky on Saturday.
It was another performance from the Tide like we have seen all year, where they made 52.5% of their field goal attempts and hit 11 from behind the three-point arc. Mark Sears led the way with 30 points and Clifford Omoruyi had 11 points to go along with 15 rebounds.
Alabama plays like a 1 seed and should be a 1 seed. It closes the regular season with four straight ranked games, beginning with a tilt at home against Mississippi State on Tuesday. It has some wiggle room to stay as a 1 seed, but things do indeed get tricky.
Lanier goes off in Tennessee win
Staying in the SEC, Tennessee went on the road and grabbed a 77-69 win against Texas A&M on Saturday.
Chaz Lanier had one of the best games of the season you’ll see anywhere, finishing with 30 points on 10-18 from the field, eight of his field goals coming from three. That’s the type of performance the Vols will need from him in March.
Unfortunately for Tennessee they may not end up on the 1 line despite deserving to. Just too many good teams ahead of them. However, a win in Saturday’s game against Alabama will certainly help their case.
Concerns with Iowa State
Granted, losing to Houston on the road is certainly acceptable, but it is worth noting that Iowa State has not won a game against one of the top teams in the Big 12 since beating Kansas on Jan. 15.
In that time it has lost to West Virginia, Arizona, Kansas State, the second matchup against Kansas and now Houston. It has wins over two wins over UCF and one over Arizona State, TCU, Cincinnati and Colorado.
It’s not something overly concerning, but it’s something to monitor. It plays at Oklahoma State on Tuesday night before two straight games against ranked opponents in Arizona on Saturday and BYU on March 4.
Speaking of BYU…
The Cougars went on the road and got what was perhaps their biggest win of the season, beating Arizona 96-95.
Granted they got help in the final seconds on a questionable call, but it still goes in the books as a great win for Kevin Young. Young has done a fantastic job in his first year in Provo and has the program in a very, very good place.
Richie Saunders had 23 points in the win on 8-10 from the field, one of five Cougars to finish in double figures.
Now sitting at 10-6 in the league and 19-8 overall, BYU is sitting pretty to get a good seed in the tournament. Things are going very well in the program’s first year in the Big 12. Credit to Young and what he has been able to build so quickly.
Time for a Gonzaga conversation?
Gonzaga lost to Saint Mary’s 74-67 in Spokane on Saturday night to drop to 12-4 in the league and 21-8 overall. For the first time since the 2015-16 season, the Gaels sweep the regular season series.
By Gonzaga standards this has been a very pedestrian season. This will be the first time in the Mark Few era (since 1999) that the program will fail to win at least a share of the regular season title in back-to-back seasons.
Furthermore, Gonzaga only has one win against a projected safe at-large team, that being the season opener against Baylor all the way back on Nov. 4. It does have wins against a pair of bubble teams in San Diego State (Nov. 18) and Indiana (Nov. 28).
Right now Gonzaga is in the field, but it doesn’t look as safe as it has in recent years. The Zags have the second longest NCAA tournament streak in the country, having not missed since 1998. With another couple losses, it may be in jeopardy. And if it does make it, the program’s nine straight second weekend appearances, one of the sport’s craziest streaks, would be even more in jeopardy.
UC San Diego deserves an at-large
UC San Diego, a team that is in its first season as a full Division I member after making the four-year transition, is a freight train.
The Tritons under coach Eric Olen are 14-2 in Big West play and 24-4 overall. They dropped an 83-44 beatdown on Hawaii on Saturday to win their ninth game in a row. The win got them all the way up to No. 35 in the KenPom rankings, ahead of the likes of Arkansas and UConn. It is also No. 36 in the NET.
Under the group of Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones, Tyler McGhie, Hayden Gray and Nordin Kapic, this is one of the best mid-major teams in the country and is deserving of an at-large selection should it not win the conference tournament. The top jobber in UC Irvine is also a very, very good team, sitting at 13-3 in the league and 23-5 overall. The two split their regular season matchups.
The last time the Big West was a multi-bid league was in 2005, when both Utah State and Pacific made it before moving on to larger conferences.
AJ Hoops 