We are officially less than a month away from Selection Sunday, meaning the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is quickly approaching. The bracket is starting to take shape, but when conference tournaments begin, everything can change. There are many storylines and trends throughout the season that will have heavy influence come March.
Wake Forest has had a solid season thus far, and is currently sitting at fourth in the ACC with a 12-7 conference record and 20-10 overall. They have been able to string together wins thanks to their stifling defense and the great offensive play of Hunter Sallis and Cameron Hildreth.
According to ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi, the Demon Deacons are part of the Next Four Out, behind Xavier, Boise State, North Carolina and Georgia and others. If they want to solidify their spot in the March tournament, they will need to finish the regular season strong and get a couple of wins in the ACC tournament. The bubble is super competitive this year, meaning any team could get hot at the right time and snag the last spot instead.
One of the biggest storylines of this season has been the dominance displayed by the SEC conference. The committee recently released their top 16 teams to give a good idea of where teams are projected to fall, and five out of the top six teams were from the SEC. The stacked conference is led by the dominant No. 1 Auburn Tigers, who are 27-3. They are led by National Player of the Year candidate Johni Broome, who is averaging 18 points and 11 rebounds per game.
In addition to Auburn, the Florida Gators, Alabama Crimson Tide, Tennessee Volunteers and Texas A&M Aggies accompany the Tigers in the SEC’s top six. In addition, Joe Lunardi projects the conference to have 13 teams in the tournament, which would beat the record currently held by the 2011 Big East conference. The utter dominance of the SEC has been amazing to watch, and they hope to continue their success in the coming weeks.
Another big storyline from this season has been the success of several first-year head coaches. Possibly the most successful first-year coach thus far has been Mark Pope, the coach of the Kentucky Wildcats. Pope led Kentucky to a National Championship as a player in 1996 and was hired this off-season to attempt to fill the shoes with legendary head coach John Calipari. After bringing in a lot of transfers, it was questioned if Kentucky would reach the same heights it once did with Calipari at the helm.
Thus far, Kentucky is 20-10 with many quality wins throughout the season, including two wins against Tennessee, a win against Duke and a win against Florida. In only his first season, Pope has given Kentucky fans plenty to be excited about.
In addition to Pope, his in-state rival at Louisville, Pat Kelsey, has done an amazing job in his first year. In the previous two years, Louisville had a combined total of 12 wins. So far this season, they have over 20 wins and are one of the top teams in the ACC. He has completely revived a program that had absolutely nothing to be happy about just one year prior.
Other coaches like Mark Byington at Vanderbilt, Dusty May at Michigan, Kevin Young at BYU and more have also had much success in their first years at their respective programs.
Lastly, the rejuvenation of elite freshmen has been exciting to watch. Last year, there was plenty of freshmen talent such as Kentucky’s Rob Dillingham and Connecticut’s Stephon Castle, but not as many talented freshmen as this year. The headliner of this class is Cooper Flagg, a freshman forward at Duke. Flagg is the favorite to win the National Player of the Year, as well as the favorite to be the No. 1 overall pick in this upcoming NBA Draft. Duke’s success this year can largely be attributed to Flagg’s play, as he is one of the best freshmen that this sport has ever seen.
In addition to Flagg, the two freshman phenoms at Rutgers, Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper, have each had amazing seasons and are projected to be the No. 2 and 3 picks of the NBA Draft. Other freshmen like VJ Edgecombe at Baylor, Tre Johnson at Texas, Kasparas Jakucionis at Illinois and Jase Richardson at Michigan State have truly risen to the occasion. They are big parts of why their respective teams are projected to be in the tournament.
There have been many great storylines this year in college basketball. There are so many good teams, and it seems impossible to predict one champion among the pool of excellent players and coaches.
