The realization should dawn on you by now: The college basketball regular season is almost over.
This is the final week of regular-season play for many smaller (one-bid) conferences, and there are only two weeks left before the power conferences begin their tournaments. We’re only 20 days away from Selection Sunday, six days away from March.
Yes, we know you want bubble talk, and believe us, you’re going to get plenty of it in the coming days and weeks. However, there’s also a larger story to be told in college basketball — a story of the 2014-2015 season. Part of that story is found in the teams that drove their fan bases absolutely nuts.
These teams might still make the NCAA tournament, but what knits all of them together is that none of them are safely in the field. A few of them are finished as at-large candidates, while a few others are right on the middle of the bubble.
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These teams basically represent what North Carolina State and LSU have been for many years.
Few programs manage to toy with their fans’ emotions the way the Wolfpack and Tigers have. Both N.C. State and LSU will soar against good teams and then fail to polish off a number of teams they should beat with a hand tied behind their backs while blindfolded. Those characteristics have once again been evident this year, so naming NCSU and LSU as part of this list would be redundant. They’re the teams (uhhh….) “honored” by the other five on this list:
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5 – STANFORD
Though not the absolute worst offender on this list, the Cardinal are certainly guilty of uneven effort and uneven results, a combination which leads to insanity in the fan base.
The same team that won at Texas lost at DePaul. The same team that played Arizona close for 33 minutes lost at Colorado. The same team that outplayed UCLA for 32 minutes, only to then wilt down the stretch in Pauley Pavilion in January, should have been supremely motivated to beat the Bruins at home in February. Yet, Stanford was strangely bereft of energy in that home game against UCLA, a team that has shown — time and again — how awful it is on the road. Stanford gave UCLA its one road/neutral win of note this season. The Bruins’ only other wins away from home came against UAB and USC.
Stanford, coming off a taxing but vindicating Sweet 16 season in 2014, was supposed to exhibit the tendencies of a veteran team that had come through a crucible and learned how to deal with adversity. That scenario hasn’t come to pass just yet. We’ll see what Stanford’s made of in upcoming bubble games against Oregon and Arizona in the next two weeks.
At any rate, had Stanford been more responsible here and there, the Cardinal wouldn’t be worrying about life on the bubble. They’d be safely in the field. However, they’re right near the cut line, and with Oregon’s win over Utah, the Cardinal are looking up at the Ducks in the bubble pecking order.
4 – GEORGIA
The Bulldogs aren’t higher on this list because their big non-conference wins over Seton Hall and Kansas State don’t look as shiny as they once did. Nevertheless, winning in Manhattan, Kansas, and the “Octagon of Doom” is never easy. Georgia did so in December, and when this team reeled off five straight SEC wins a month ago, it seemed that the Bulldogs had grown up.
In subsequent weeks, they’ve lost twice to South Carolina and once to Auburn, with that setback against the Tigers coming at home. Georgia might still make the tournament, but without those three horrible losses — and an early-season stumble against a Georgia Tech team whose coach (Brian Gregory) is going to be fired — the Bulldogs would be comfortably in the field.
3 – MIAMI
The Hurricanes’ early-season win at Florida seemed to show just how high a ceiling this team possessed. In the course of time, Florida’s struggles have limited the value of that win, which is why Miami isn’t higher on this list. Nevertheless, the point still stands that the Canes can soar when at their best… but they don’t show their best side nearly as much as they could.
Miami handled Illinois. The Canes very, very nearly beat Virginia before losing to the Cavaliers in double overtime. They crushed Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium, 90-74. They narrowly lost at Notre Dame after controlling that contest for the first 30 minutes. They won in Syracuse. They looked like a near-lock for the NCAAs in late January.
Then… they decided to pay tribute to North Carolina State by following the kind of course the Wolfpack have chosen so many times. The U took a negative U-turn, losing at home to Georgia Tech by a ton of points. Miami followed that clunker with losses to Florida State and Wake Forest. Boston College should have beaten Miami on Feb. 16, but the Eagles missed an uncontested layup at the end of the first overtime period. Miami — based on its recent level of form — should have been no match for Louisville this past Saturday, but the Canes very nearly beat the Cardinals.
This is another ACC version of N.C. State. We’ll see if the Canes — like the recent iterations of the Wolfpack — are able to get into the NCAAs as a double-digit seed.
2 – PEPPERDINE
The Waves might exist under the national radar, but that shouldn’t exclude them from this list.
Pepperdine has played Gonzaga and BYU better than any other team in the West Coast Conference this season. The Waves held Gonzaga to just 56 points on the Zags’ home floor in Spokane. They lost by only two to the Bulldogs in Malibu. As for BYU, Pepperdine has already completed a home-and-home sweep of the Cougars this season. (Gonzaga has not yet done that.) Based on the way Pepperdine played Gonzaga and BYU, you’d think that this was a strong team, one that should be second in the WCC with a chance to make the NCAAs.
That’s not the case.
Pepperdine is 9-8 in the league and firmly in fourth place after a bad home loss to 12-16 San Francisco (which is 6-10 in the WCC) this past Saturday. The Waves exhibited horrible endgame management, too: Down by three, they called timeout with 12.2 seconds left. They took over seven seconds to get a two, with 4.9 seconds to go. They called their final timeout before San Francisco’s final foul shots. As a result, they weren’t able to get anything more than a halfcourt heave on the final play and lost to the Dons by two. This is a team that frankly should have done better — a lot better — this season. The Waves crashed upon themselves, not their opponents.
1 – KANSAS STATE
The Bruce Weber Fade is in full effect in Manhattan.
Weber took Bill Self’s players at Illinois, enjoyed some success with them, and never replicated it with his own recruiting classes in subsequent years. That pattern is very much in evidence at Kansas State.
In 2013, KSU was a 4 seed in Weber’s first season.
In 2014, KSU was an impotent-on-the-road 9 seed, a team whose ceiling was never very high.
In 2015, KSU will miss the NCAAs unless it can win the Big 12 Tournament (good luck with that one).
What’s lamentable about this season is that KSU has still shown glimpses of being a tournament-worthy team. The Wildcats swept Oklahoma and played tougher than the Sooners did on both occasions. Kansas State has beaten Baylor, Oklahoma State, and Purdue as well. The Wildcats narrowly lost to Arizona (by four). All those results are worthy of an NCAA tournament team. Yet, that level of quality has been mysteriously lacking for much of the rest of the season. This group lost at home to both Georgia and Texas Southern. KSU got demolished — not merely beaten, but soundly thumped — at Texas Tech and TCU.
The Kansas State fan base has its pitchforks out. Given where this program was under Frank Martin, you can’t really blame KSU fans for being very upset right now.