Sweet, sweet conference play. We’ve been waiting for you.
Especially from a certain league, whose cannibalism may be the only thing keeping it from setting the NCAA Tournament’s all-time bids record. About that:
1. The SEC’s superiority also ensures something else: carnage!
What more can we say about the SEC, which has 14 teams in KenPom’s top 50, and none outside of the top 100? (Every other power conference has at least two cellar dwellers, by the way, led by the ACC’s seven.) Here’s the thing, though: While the SEC earned that lofty reputation by kicking butt and taking names in nonconference, now the call is coming from inside the house. When two good teams play one another — spoiler alert — one of them has to lose.
This is how you wind up with the wreckage we’ve seen a week and change into league play.
There’s no better example of that than Arkansas: a fine-but-nothing-special team that might be in for a rude awakening the next two months. The Razorbacks have a Hall of Fame coach in John Calipari, maybe the breakout player of this season in Adou Thiero, a potential first-round pick in freshman point guard Boogie Fland … and they’re 0-2 in the SEC after Wednesday’s 7-point home loss to Ole Miss. It’s the first time in Calipari’s career that he has ever started 0-2 in SEC play — and that includes Kentucky’s disastrous 2020-21 season when the Cats went 9-16 and missed the NCAA Tournament. Despite shooting 75.5 percent at the rim, per CBB Analytics — 13 percent better than the DI average — Arkansas is taking under 30 percent of its shots from in close, which is below the DI average. Plus, outside of a neutral-court win over Michigan, the Hogs’ resume is mighty thin. Things don’t get easier with Florida coming to town Saturday. Starting 0-3 in this SEC isn’t necessarily fatal, but it isn’t good.
Or how about Tennessee, the last undefeated team in America that got smacked at Florida on Tuesday? The Vols’ 30-point loss was the most by an AP No. 1 team since 1968. The Gators challenged Tennessee’s physicality early, and the Vols were surprisingly content not to force the issue inside; their first six shots were all 3s or midrange jumpers — four of them by Chaz Lanier, who had his first rough game all season — and they didn’t score a field goal until Felix Okpara’s alley-oop more than seven minutes in. It was already 12-2 by that point, and the tone had been set for the entire game. Tennessee’s defense is still elite, but if Lanier isn’t hitting offensively, I wonder if the trio of Zakai Zeigler, Jordan Gainey and Igor Milicic is potent enough offensively to keep the Vols afloat. UT’s shot chart, per CBB Analytics, is … curious, to say the least:
That Florida win is still probably the best in the SEC this week, but Texas A&M winning at Oklahoma on Wednesday night — after trailing by as many as 18 in the second half and without star guard Wade Taylor IV (who missed only his second college game in four seasons) — is right there with it. Despite journeyman Brycen Goodine’s career-high nine 3s, the Sooners went almost seven second-half minutes without a basket, allowing the Aggies to creep back in. Zhuric Phelps was the star of the night, finishing with a career-high 34 points — the most by any Texas A&M player ever in a ranked victory — and what proved to be the game-winning 3.
ZHURIC PHELPS!
Texas A&M comes back from an 18-point deficit to stun Oklahoma and improve to 13-2. pic.twitter.com/Si8s2q4b2Y
— Heat Check CBB (@HeatCheckCBB) January 9, 2025
The list goes on. Georgia beat Kentucky for its first top-10 win since Jan. 2020 and is on track to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade. Auburn narrowly beat Texas to make Bruce Pearl the program’s all-time wins leader and should regain its No. 1 ranking next week barring a collapse at South Carolina. Mississippi State is the best team nobody is talking about, amid an eight-game winning streak with victories over Memphis and Pitt.
At this rate, the SEC will produce a handful of challenging postseason resumes: squads good enough — via the nonconference and computer metrics — to be in, but who might only have six or seven league wins. How the selection committee sifts through that will be fascinating.
2. Don’t let the Auburn and Duke lovefest make you forget this season’s third elite team this season
Which is *drumroll please*… Iowa State.
Auburn and Duke — the two best teams in the country, for my money — are both verging on historic seasons in terms of efficiency.
There’s never been a season where two college basketball teams finish the year having a KenPom AdjEM over +35.00.
Auburn and Duke are both currently tracking to be two of the top 5 highest rated teams of all time. pic.twitter.com/fTUPaZ13ZP
— AI Bracketology 🏀 (@AI_Bracketology) January 8, 2025
Shameless plug alert. I wrote about both earlier this week: specifically, about Auburn’s 30-year-old “offensive coordinator” who helped build the best offense in KenPom’s 29-year database; and how Duke’s top-ranked defense is still adding new wrinkles. I would be surprised if both didn’t wind up as No. 1 seeds, and I’d gladly take a rematch in San Antonio in April.
But for as good as the Tigers and Blue Devils are, Iowa State is right there with both of them. T.J. Otzelberger’s Cyclones are one of just two teams (the other being Duke) with a top-10 adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency ranking, per KenPom. ISU is 13-1, with double-digit wins over Marquette and Baylor. Its lone loss came to — who else — but Auburn, in maybe the best opening-round Maui Invitational game ever. The Cyclones wound up losing by two off Johni Broome’s offensive putback, but they led by 16 at halftime and had the ball in a tie game with under 30 seconds left. If that final possession goes differently, we’re talking about ISU as the unanimous top team in America.
Otzelberger’s Iowa State teams have always been good defensively — his first three have finished top-10 in adjusted defensive efficiency, including last season’s No. 1 rating — but this season’s Cyclones are easily Otzelberger’s best offensively. Iowa State isn’t a great 3-point shooting team, but it rarely turns it over, regularly gets to the free-throw line and is top-20 nationally in 2-point percentage. Per Synergy, ISU is in the 90th percentile or better nationally in spot-up shooting, post-ups, transition and offensive putbacks.
Oddly, the only offensive action the Cyclones aren’t elite in? Pick-and-roll ballhandlers. Per Synergy, despite having one of the best backcourts in the country — Tamin Lipsey, Keshon Gilbert, Curtis Jones and Milan Momcilovic combine for 54 points per game, or about 62.6 percent of the team’s total scoring — Iowa State only averages 0.774 points per possession (PPP) using pick-and-roll ballhandlers, which rates as “average” and in the 41st percentile nationally.
But after watching all 159 of those possessions this season, the reality isn’t nearly so stark. Take Gilbert, for example. He’s 3-for-12 from 3 in such actions, but of those nine misses, only three are what I’d deem makeable shots; the other six either came off contested stepbacks or with the game/shot clock expiring when he was forced to get it up. (Also, four of the nine came in ISU’s 23-point win over Utah on Tuesday; 3-for-8 sounds a lot different from 3-for-12.) I know what the raw data says … but I also saw Gilbert do this in Maui:
Gilbert can drive it in those scenarios, too, like when he took advantage of a drag screen early on versus Auburn:
All of that is a long way of saying Iowa State more than deserves to be mentioned alongside Duke and Auburn in the top tier nationally. Those three teams are a clear level above everyone else, and Final Four front-runners.
3. Back from the dead, and coming to a bubble near you
Conference play taketh … but it also giveth, especially for some teams we had written off earlier this season. A few who have played their way back to relevancy, if not more:
Louisville: Winners of five straight, the Cards have already won as many conference games since New Year’s Day (three) as they did all of last season. That’s impressive for a few reasons. Seven of Pat Kelsey’s 13 teams as a head coach, Louisville included this season, have been top-75 nationally in 3-point rate — but none have shot the ball as poorly as these Cards, who make 29.8 percent of their 3s despite leading all high-major teams in 3-point rate. But over the last five games, Louisville has started to come around from deep; UL is making 34.3 percent of its triples amid this five-game winning streak, with Charleston transfer Reyne Smith — one of three players Kelsey brought with him this offseason — accounting for 40.4 percent of the makes over that stretch. That’s enough of a bump to make a difference and to validate the Cards’ play style.
Combine that with Louisville’s improved defense, and you’ve got something. UL has been much more aggressive defensively in the last five games, and it showed again Tuesday against Clemson, one of the ACC’s best teams. Watch how the 6-foot-6, 215-pound J’Vonne Hadley seals 6-foot-8, 240-pound Ian Schieffelin in the paint, forcing a turnover:
Louisville’s help defense has also been much improved. That’s both on post-ups, like below, where Terrence Edwards’ stunt stops Viktor Lakhin from backing down any further and forces a shot before he intended:
And in ball screens. Here, Chucky Hepburn — who is having an All-ACC season — pressures Schieffelin to pick up his dribble before he intended, forcing Schieffelin into an early and contested layup in traffic:
For Louisville to be doing this without Kasean Pryor and Koren Johnson, who are both out for the season, is a testament to Kelsey’s coaching. Considering all five of Louisville’s losses are to ranked teams, there’s absolutely a path for UL to make its first NCAA Tournament since 2018-19.
Villanova: If Alex Karaban doesn’t miss consecutive free throws for the first time in his college career, maybe we’re not talking about Villanova like this. My colleague CJ Moore did a full dive on the Wildcats and their turnaround after this week’s win over UConn — definitely check that out — but most importantly, the Wildcats have forced their way back onto the bubble after a lackluster nonconference performance. Kyle Neptune might not be done yet.
Arizona: Is this a typical Tommy Lloyd team in terms of offensive polish and connectivity? Absolutely not. But during its five-game winning streak — including consecutive road wins over ranked Cincinnati and West Virginia — Arizona has looked much more like its standard self. Bart Torvik rates the Wildcats as the eighth-best team in the country since their winning streak began, with the third-best offense.
So, how did that happen?
Mostly by Lloyd finding a rotation he likes. Earlier this season, he was struggling to find minutes for all his players — especially in the frontcourt — but Motiejus Krivas’ season-ending injury has made it a tidy eight for Lloyd. That includes Tobe Awaka — who leads the country in offensive rebounding percentage, per KenPom — and Henri Veesaar mostly dividing up the center minutes. At the four, Trey Townsend still starts and has a role, but he’s ceded time to five-star freshman Carter Bryant, who has impressed as a stretch-four in limited minutes.
Jaden Bradley, Caleb Love, and KJ Lewis are still the headliners on the perimeter — but the real difference the last five games, and the guy who makes all these lineup permutations click, is Campbell transfer Anthony Dell’Orso. The Wildcats are undefeated since he joined the starting lineup. And while Dell’Orso — Arizona’s best 3-point shooter, at 42.6 percent — has only averaged 7.6 points, 2 rebounds, and 1.6 assists per game as a starter, his floor-spacing gravity and willingness to move the ball has been essential to the Wildcats’ recent success. Per CBB Analytics, Arizona’s offense scores 6.9 more points per 100 possessions with Dell’Orso on the floor than with him sitting, not to mention shooting 4.9 percent better as a team from 3. He’s especially unlocked Arizona’s transition offense, the Wildcats’ most efficient offensive action, per Synergy.
Here he was Tuesday at West Virginia, helping Arizona reestablish momentum shortly after halftime with a 1 versus 2 transition layup:
And about that willingness to share the ball:
Lastly, to the point about Dell’Orso’s gravity: Once Love (No. 1) drives left, Dell’Orso floats to the corner to free up space for the drive — and Dell’Orso’s defender never turns his head or tries to stunt because he’s focused on the 3-point threat ahead of him. (His last peek at Love is right before the drive.) Between that and Veesaar sealing inside, Love has (barely) enough room to get off a tough midrange 2. Dell’Orso’s defender is right behind Love when he shoots … but completely unaware:
Dell’Orso isn’t Arizona’s best player, or maybe even in its top five. But he’s the embodiment of the importance of role and fit — something Arizona has figured out over the last month and which has positioned it to be a factor in the Big 12 race.
(Photo of Zhuric Phelps: Maria Lysaker / Imagn Images)
