CONFERENCE SURPRISES ABOUND
Big Ten, ACC teams defying script
When Wisconsin and Duke met to decide a national champion in April, there was little shock that either team was there.
Yes, it was a surprise that Kentucky fell in the semifinals, but Duke and Wisconsin had earned their spots. Each was a top-10 team all season. Wisconsin had won the Big Ten’s regular-season and tournament championships. Duke (along with Virginia) had been a fixture atop the Atlantic Coast Conference all season.
The Big Ten and ACC pretty much went as expected last season, but the same can’t be said for this season.
Less than a month into the 2016 conference season, surprises abound. Preseason favorites are no longer in the race for the regular-season championship, while schools that had been considered afterthoughts are faring well.
It has been a wild January in both conferences.
BIG TEN
Michigan State wasn’t a preseason favorite, but it moved to the forefront with a perfect (13-0) record in non-conference play. Four weeks later, though, the Spartans likely have played their way out of the title chase. Michigan State’s four-week stint atop the national polls ended in a loss at Iowa in late December. Michigan State fell again to the Hawkeyes 16 days later, starting a three-game skid that dropped the Spartans to 3-4 in the Big Ten before they beat Maryland.
Meanwhile, Iowa and Indiana entered this week at 7-0 in league play. Neither was expected to contend for the Big Ten title, but both have been red-hot in January. Iowa has been the hottest team in any league, with five top-50 victories among its seven league wins. Jarrod Uthoff (18.9 points a game, 6.2 rebounds per game, 3.0 blocks a game) has supplanted Michigan State’s Denzel Valentine as the front-runner for Big Ten player of the year and is entering the conversation for national honors, too.
Indiana hasn’t faced the same level of opponent as Iowa has during its winning streak, but it has made up for that with margin of victory. Tom Crean’s team has defeated three of its last four Big Ten opponents by 25 points or more. Yogi Ferrell (17.1 points, 6.1 assists a game) leads one of the nation’s best offenses.
Preseason favorite Maryland (17-3, 6-2) remains a factor in the conference race, but the loss last weekend at Michigan State hurt the Terrapins’ cause. Purdue, Michigan and Ohio State are above .500 in league play. Wisconsin, a traditional power, has struggled early. The Badgers appear unlikely to make the NCAA tournament, let alone make another deep run into the bracket.
ACC
Conference play has not been kind to the defending national champions. Conference favorite Duke’s losses at Clemson and at home to Notre Dame and Syracuse have quickly put the Blue Devils in a hole.
And now they face a brutal four-game, mid-February stretch that includes matchups with Louisville (twice), North Carolina and Virginia.
Virginia also has struggled unexpectedly in January. The Cavaliers lost three of their first five league games, including an embarrassing loss at in-state rival Virginia Tech. Tony Bennett’s team has righted the ship with wins against Miami (Fla.) and Syracuse, but currently sit three games behind North Carolina.
The Tar Heels have won all seven of their ACC contests, five by double digits. Brice Johnson has been a star for Roy Williams, averaging 16.8 points and 10.2 rebounds a game. Johnson had a jaw-dropping 39-point, 23-rebound outing against Florida State.
A few surprise teams join North Carolina near the top of the standings. Clemson was on nobody’s radar entering 2016, but Brad Brownell’s group has engineered five victories in league play, including consecutive wins against Louisville, Duke and Miami.
Pittsburgh was expected to be a bubble team in 2015-16, but Jamie Dixon’s team is 5-2 in conference play, highlighted by wins against Notre Dame and Syracuse. Unheralded Michael Young (16.8 points a game) leads the Panthers in scoring.
The bottom of the league is littered with programs that at one point or another this season had legitimate hopes of breaking out.
Wake Forest has lost six of its first seven conference games after it had encouraging results in November and December.
North Carolina State has the league’s leading scorer in Anthony Barber (22.1 points a game), but little else has gone right.
Florida State and Georgia Tech have struggled to string together enough wins to sneak into the upper half of the conference standings.
Time remains for the ACC and Big Ten to develop teams prepared to make a run this March (i.e. North Carolina and Maryland).
But it’s clear that in a college basketball season with a major shortage of standout teams, the ACC and Big Ten are feeling parity as much as any conference.
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