With another week with some more upsets, as Duke fell to Miami, Louisville lost twice, Butler went down at the hands of La Salle and Villanova added some more Philly flavor to the week upsetting Syracuse on Saturday. After all that here’s where we stand…
Fantastic Four
1.) Michigan: With the Duke loss last week to Miami, the Wolverines jump right up to number one in this week’s poll. They won against Purdue and at Illinois last week and they’ll get Northwestern this week before a big clash in Bloomington on Saturday with Indiana.
2.) Kansas: Real nice road win at the octagon of doom for the Jayhawks taking down in state rival Kansas State last week. They followed that with a win against Oklahoma. They enter their game against West Virginia on a 17-game winning streak and get Oklahoma State later in the week.
3.) Indiana: For now….they play Michigan Saturday so that’s when we’ll really be able to see if they’re for real or not. Jury’s still out on them with both their losses coming to unranked teams at the time in Butler and Wisconsin. At Purdue Wednesday for a tune up for Michigan.
4.) Duke: Florida is 4th in the AP Poll but I don’t view them as the 4th best team in the nation. The SEC isn’t exactly the conference for basketball that it is for football. I’ll stick with Coach K and the Blue Devils for one of my projected number one seeds for the time being. Hard to think they’ll play as poorly as they did against Miami again this year. Two road games this week; Wake and Florida State.
Bubble Watch
La Salle: Well, after one Philadelphia team played their way off the bubble and into the field as of now, that team being Villanova with wins over Louisville and Syracuse last week both top five teams in last week’s poll, another Philly team looks to play its way into the dance. The explorers also beat two ranked teams last week defeating Butler at home and then winning at VCU on Saturday night. The backcourt of Ramon Galloway and Tyreek Duren is a big reason why it’s looking good for La Salle as of now.
Memphis: No John Calipari, which means no Derrick Rose or Tyreke Evans type of player but the Tigers are battling and grinding out wins and that’s what you need to do come March. Survive and advance right? Well right now Memphis doesn’t seem to have much competition in C-USA, but for now it’s survive…and make the dance.
Cinderella Watch
Louisiana Tech: At 18-3 and 9-0 in conference this group of Bulldogs could be more than just one of those non-power conference automatic bids that rounds out the field. There are no ranked teams on their schedule the rest of the way so if they continue to win their seed should put themselves in a winnable first game of the NCAA tournament. They do have one win against an RPI top 50 team, Southern Miss, back in December.
Don’t Sleep on Me
Georgetown: Big win for the Hoyas on Saturday against Louisville. In the Big East it’s easy to make some noise if you can get some key wins and maybe Saturday was the start of good things to come for Georgetown. They play Syracuse twice before the season ends. By the time they’ve played them twice, we’ll see if they’re for real or not. But, they could do some good things in March that’s for sure. John Thompson III has been to the Final Four before, I’m not saying that’s happening again, but experience can help outweigh pressure down the stretch.