Germ of a hypothesis of the odd state of college hoops this year (maybe the dreaded parity?)
High level NBA talent largely absent/injured. Using Sam V’s latest mock, 3 of top 4 not playing college hoops, and 4 of top 6. Only 6 of 10 guys are in college hoops, and of those 6, one hasn’t played at all (Nick Smith) and two were dinged quite a bit (Whitmore and Whitehead). So that leaves 3 of those guys making a big impact on college hoops (Walker from Houston, Wallace from KY, and Miller from Bama). Compare to 2022, where the top 6 guys were all on tourney teams, and 8 of 10 were college guys, all in the tourney. In 2021, it was 3 of the top 4, and 7 of the top 10 playing in college (6 in the tourney). It’s not like 6 of 10 is SO far off from 7 or 8, but the top 3 guys are all elsewhere, and frankly Smith from ARK might just opt out, making it 5 of 10.
Combine that with the fact that the 5th year has become much more common (anyone have numbers on this?) and I think things seem a bit more topsy turvy than they have been.
We’ve reached the point of the season where every Big 12 team is a final 4 contender, because every time they lose, they are losing to another final 4 contender.
K State’s best win was over Nebraska?
and they lost to Butler by 12?
Texas lost to Illinois and went to OT vs Rice and their best win was over Gonzaga who lost to Loyola Marymount at home?
Iowa State lost to UConn by 18 and to Iowa by 19 and their best win was either over Villanova in OT or by 5 over UNC?
TCU lost to Northwestern State and their best win was over Providence (solid) or Utah (lost to UCLA and USC by a combined 34 points) or Iowa? And beat Ark Pine Bluff by 1
Baylor who beat UCLA - solid … but lost to Marquette by 26? And beat Gonzaga by 1 …
Kansas who beat Duke by 5 and NC State by 6 and Wisconsin in OT by 1 and Indiana by 22 and Seton Hall by 26 and Mizzou by 28 and lost to Tennessee by 14
And none of West Virginia, Oklahoma, Ok State or Texas Tech have really beaten anybody out of conference …
Their conference strength comes in the low-end; if you use Torvik’s site and filter by non-conference games only, the worst performing team is Oklahoma at #54. Contrast with SEC, which has South Carolina at #272 in non-con-only games, or B10 with Minnesota at #227. 8 out of 10 teams have more wins in their non-con than a bubble team (by Torvik’s ratings) would be expected to get.
Which conference do you think has a better non-con resume as a whole?
The Big 12 has no bad teams. But hoops analysts get confused/excited and want to say the “Big 12 has multiple great teams!!” and that’s where I quibble…
Is it just me or does it seem like annually the Big East has a team that comes into conference play as a “Top team” and then proceeds to rack L’s in conference play.
