Marquette might be the perfect symbol for this strange men’s college basketball season. Picked to finish ninth in the Big East in the preseason conference coaches poll, the Golden Eagles won the regular-season title by two games over Xavier. They’re 25-6 and a lot of fun to watch, thanks in large part to guard Tyler Kolek, who was named conference player of the year Wednesday. He’s second in the nation in assists.
So that would make them favorites to win the Big East Tournament, correct? A six-game winning streak heading into the postseason should mean something, right?
Not according to ESPN, which recently asked four of its college hoops experts to pick a champion. Three chose Connecticut, and one chose Creighton.
If Marquette’s Shaka Smart doesn’t use that snub for motivational purposes, he’ll have his coaching card revoked, but the ESPN predictions truly aren’t about disrespect. They’re a reflection of a weird truth about this season: College basketball is populated by a bunch of good teams that are good at being good. Those teams don’t have the foggiest idea about being great, even less so than in recent underwhelming seasons.
And that’s OK.
It’s why the NCAA Tournament, always a wild ride, figures to be even crazier this time around. But what would crazy look like? Let’s take our lead from Purdue, which, after three weeks atop the Associated Press poll, proceeded to lose three games in a four-game February stretch. That’s hard to do if you’re a really, really good team.
Crazy, therefore, would not be a No. 15 seed beating a No. 2 seed in this year’s tourney. That’s the sort of thing we’ve come to expect out of the Big Dance.
No, crazy would be the higher seed beating the lower seed in every game of the tournament. That kind of crazy. A special kind of crazy.
To put it another way, if everything figures to be crazy after a crazy regular season, then the craziest thing would be a predictable tournament. No outcome would be surprising. No last-second game-winner would be shocking. You’d expect the expected.
Unless the unexpected happens over and over again.
My head hurts.
Let’s apply this to the Big Ten Tournament, which is taking place this week at the United Center. I won’t be surprised by any outcome. Northwestern has had a remarkably good season, finishing tied for second in conference play after getting Marquette-like treatment in preseason predictions and scouting reports. They’ve earned a double bye into the quarterfinals of the conference tournament as a No. 2 seed, guided by Big Ten Coach of the Year Chris Collins. Good stuff, all of it. But if No. 7 seed Illinois beats Penn State on Thursday, I won’t be a bit surprised if the Illini are favored in a Friday matchup with the Wildcats.
And if the 10th-seeded Nittany Lions beat Illinois, they wouldn’t be a gimme for Northwestern, either. Penn State beat the Cats in overtime earlier this month in Evanston.
That’s this year’s strain of March Madness.
It’s what’s great about college basketball. I have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen before every college football season. Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State are going to have more great players than everybody else. Perhaps NILs will change that down the road, helping wealthy, though not Alabama-wealthy, programs attract enough talented kids to make things more competitive. But for now, the traditional powers take most of the suspense out of the college football playoffs.
Anyone who says they have a pretty good idea which team is going to win the NCAA basketball title in Houston on April 3 is a fool.
If you’re looking for another reminder of crazy, it’s the possibility that Alabama will be a No. 1 seed when the brackets are announced Sunday. In basketball. They play that sport, too, in Tuscaloosa. Few people know this.
Some unkind souls undoubtedly will accuse me of trying too hard to make lemonade out of lemons when it comes to the NCAA Tournament. I don’t argue that the product itself, the basketball, isn’t nearly as good as it was a few decades ago, thanks to the steady march of young talent to the NBA. But it’s suspense and intrigue, not talent and grace, that make the tournament what it is.
A buzzer beater is a buzzer beater at any level, but when the backdrop is a nation of gambling hoops fans holding printed brackets in their hands, it becomes something a lot bigger and a lot better. That’s why a game-winning shot in the NCAA Tournament is remembered long after a game-winning shot in the NBA playoffs is. It’s why the bubble watch heading into the NCAA Tournament is so much more interesting than the daily updates on whether the Lakers can sneak their way into the NBA playoffs.
People who pay no attention to sports during the year join their office tournament pool. It’s a communal thing, a time to celebrate crazy. If this regular season is any indication, this could be one of the craziest tournaments ever.
