One Takeaway From Each Conference’s Last Week Of Action

Big East: Things Aren’t Getting any Better for Mike Anderson at St. Johns 

When Anderson was hired to replace Chris Mullins at St. Johns, it seemed like a weird fit considering Anderson was a Midwest guy. His prior stops in the coaching ranks were at UAB, Missouri and Arkansas and Anderson didn’t have a ton of connections to the New York City area. With that being said, things started off nicely for Anderson, winning Big East Coach of the Year in 2021, which was only his second season at St. Johns. The issue is when you exceed expectations, the standards rise as a result. St. Johns ended that 2021 season in disappointing fashion, falling to rival Seton Hall in the Quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament with an NCAA Tournament spot on the line and never recovered. The Johnnies had NCAA Tournament expectations last season with the return of All Conference Player Julian Champaignie, but finished 17-15 overall and 8-11 in Big East Conference play, falling way short of that goal. Since the start of the 2022 season, St Johns is 12-18 overall during Big East Conference play, which is disappointing because talent isn’t an issue.  

Anderson added some pretty heralded transfers during the offseason in Andre Curbelo from Illinois and David Jones from DePaul, to go along with guys like Joel Soriano, Posh Alexander and others. St Johns was predicted to finish 6th in the Big East Coaches pull, but instead are in 8th place and nowhere close to an NCAA Tournament team. The last two games have been a disaster for St. Johns, trailing a horrendous Georgetown team for the majority of Sunday’s game before finding a way to win late, thanks to a game winning shot in the final seconds by Freshman AJ Storr. The fact that this game was this close down the stretch, is a bad look and the Johnnies followed it up with an uninspiring performance during Wednesday night’s loss to Seton Hall. If you talk to any Johnnies fan right now, the only two words they’re focused on are Rick Pitino.  

Big 12: Anyone Of The Top 6 Teams, Can make it to Atlanta 

It has been apparent since the season started, that the Big 12 has been the premiere conference in College Basketball. That was proven even further this past weekend when the conference took care of the SEC in the final edition of the Big 12/ SEC Challenge, winning 7-3. What makes the Big 12 so good, is that there are six clear, really good teams at the top, and none of them have really separated themselves from each other. The defending National Champion Kansas Jayhawks, started off the season with a 16-1 record and climbed all the way to the #2 spot in the AP Top 25. They then followed that off, with three consecutive losses at Kansas State, vs TCU and at Baylor. While losing three games in a row is always going to cause concern especially at Kansas, they then followed it up with back to back wins at Kentucky and over Kansas State.  

In addition, Baylor started their Big 12 conference slate with an 0-3 record and followed it up by winning their next six Big 12 games. TCU was short handed in their game on Saturday at Mississippi State, going into the big without big man Eddie Lampkin and things got even worse when star Guard Mike Miles Jr. had to leave early with a knee injury. Despite dropping the game, the Horned Frogs bounced back in a big way beating a West Virginia team that is competing for an NCAA Tournament spot without those two key players. Iowa State and Kansas were both picked to finish in 8th and 10th in the preseason conference poll respectively, and have both spent the majority of the season ranked in the Top 25. Finally, Texas has one of the more talented rosters in the country, that has shown toughness and mental fortitude after losing their Head Coach. This conference has produced each of the last two National Champions, and any of their top six teams can get back to the Final 4.  

Pac 12: Things Continue to Spatter for Oregon 

Dana Altman has established himself as one of the premier coaches in the country, leading Oregon to 13 NCAA Tournament wins, a Final 4, three Pac 12 Tournament Titles and four Pac 12 Regular Season Titles in his first 11 seasons in Eugene. The last two seasons however, have not gone right and not much has gone right in 2023. Following Thursday Night’s loss to Arizona, Oregon is now 13-10 overall and isn’t close to NCAA Tournament contention. In recent years, some of Altman’s assistants were able to help bring in some of the best High School players and transfers in the country, and Dana did a great job coaching them up, while getting the absolute most out of them. That same success hasn’t been there in the last two seasons, despite having plenty of talent.  

Oregon has four big men in N’Faly Dante, Kel’el Ware, Nathan Biddle and Quincy Guerrier, who all at one point were top notch recruits and none of them have been able to establish a clear role with the team. In addition, Oregon added two guards from the Transfer Portal this season in Keeshawn Barthelemy from Colorado and Jermaine Cusinard from South Carolina. Both guys have struggled with injuries, which has hurt any chances to develop on court chemistry with Will Richardson and the rest of the returning Ducks. Oregon has not missed back to back NCAA Tournaments since Altman’s first two seasons in Eugene, but if this continues that will be what the Ducks will be looking at after this season. Altman has done a great job so far during his time at Oregon, but the spotlight is officially on him, considering the talent in the building and not great results.  

ACC: Virginia is the Most Undervalued Team in the Country 

Tony Bennett’s team missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2013 last season, but it won’t continue for long. The Wahoo’s are currently sitting as the #6 ranked team in the country, at 17-3 overall and 9-2 in the ACC. That includes winning each of their last 7 games, following Monday’s road victory over Syracuse. Virginia still has a ton of pieces with legitimate NCAA Tournament experience, starting off with their Point Guard Kihei Clark. Known for the best play in the history of Virginia Basketball, Clark was a Freshman for Virginia’s run all the way to the National Title in 2019 and has used that experience every step of the way during his college career. There isn’t a more experienced leader in the country, and having experienced Guards has been a common formula for teams to win with in the NCAA Tournament. In addition to Clark, Virginia also has Reece Beekman, who is leading the ACC in three-point field goal percentage at 44% and has played in the NCAA Tournament before. With experienced transfers like Armaan Franklin, Jayden Gardiner and Bennett Vander Plass also in the mix, alongside an elite Head Coach in Tony Bennett, Virginia is currently the best team in the ACC and is bound to make a deep run in March.  

The ACC is currently one of the more polarizing conferences in all of College Basketball, considering they’re projected to have 8 teams in the NCAA Tournament right now, but not a ton of them look like legitimate threats to make runs in the NCAA Tournament. Virginia is the one team in this conference that has separated themselves from the rest of the pack and they should definitely be getting more attention on the National Spotlight.  

Big Ten: Don’t Count Tom Izzo and Michigan State out Just Yet 

The Hall of Fame Head Coach turned some heads this offseason, being one of the few teams at the Power 6 level to not be active at all in the Transfer Portal. In addition, there weren’t many teams in the country that had a more difficult non-conference schedule than the Spartans, playing the likes of Gonzaga, Alabama, Kentucky, Villanova, Notre Dame and more, in addition to a very difficult Big Ten Conference Schedule. Michigan State’s record of 14-8 overall, doesn’t stand out by any means, however this Spartans team has the components to be successful in the NCAA Tournament. Primarily, there aren’t many Guard trios in the country better than Tyson Walker, AJ Hoggard and Jaden Akins. Walker, a former transfer from Northeastern, has really embraced the go to scorer role, averaging 13.9 points per game and shooting a very efficient 41% from three-point range. Michigan State also is starting to get healthy at the right time, as we haven’t seen a fully healthy Spartan team a ton this season.  

Senior Forward Malik Hall has been one of the more impactful players for Michigan State this season, and just returned to action last Thursday against Iowa. Hall suffered a foot injury in mid-November, missing an eight-game stretch at the beginning of conference play that saw Michigan State go 5-3 during that stretch. After returning at the start of the new year, Hall suffered a lower leg injury against Illinois and missed the next three games, which Michigan State went 1-2 in. With Hall now back this is the healthiest we’ve seen this Michigan State team be all season and they have been really good with him in the lineup. With Michigan State’s dangerous trio of Guards and wings like Hall and Joey Hauser, who can really shoot the basketball, this Spartans team is not one you want to see in your bracket in March.  

SEC: Dennis Gates was the best hire made out of the 6 new Head Coaches This Offseason 

Missouri has been among one of the best stories in College Basketball so far this season, and bringing in Dennis Gates to be their new Head Coach is a massive reason why. Everyone has their own opinion of the Transfer Portal in College Basketball, but no one can deny it is something that has really helped this Missouri team breakthrough so far this season. Gates was able to identify some players at the mid-major level, and recognize that their skill sets would be good enough to play in the SEC. For example, two of Missouri’s three leading scorers in D’Moi Hodge and DeAndre Gholston played in the Horizon League with Gates last season. Both players have been vital to Missouri’s success this season, alongside Kobe Brown who returned to the program despite the coaching change.  

Being able to bring in players from different backgrounds shows just how versatile of a coach and recruiter Gates is, and this Missouri team looks like they’re about to hit their stride with Missouri State Transfer Isiah Mosely rounding back into form. The Tigers had one of their more impressive victories of the season last Saturday, leaving zero doubt in their victory over a top 20 Iowa State team. This Tigers program has not won an NCAA Tournament game since 2010, and this looks like the year that streak can possibly end. With other programs in the SEC that we expected to be a tad better struggling like Auburn, Florida, Kentucky, Gates and his program have done a great job taking advantage and look to be one of the bigger threats in March in this SEC Conference.