With an exciting incoming freshman class, with perennial contenders up top as well as a few surprise teams, this college basketball season has been one of the best so far in recent memory. With surprises up and down the AP Poll, some march madness favorites have already appeared. Houston is a perennial favorite, with Baylor transfer LJ Cryer leading the way. Zach Edey and Purdue look to move past a disappointing loss last March, while teams like FAU and SDSU look to continue their surprise runs. Other notable teams like USC, have been disappointing so far, with top freshman Isaiah Collier, a returning star in Boogie Ellis, and even Bronny James leading the way for the team. Kansas continues their dominant run while Uconn, Marquette, Duke, and UNC all remain strong.
Purdue reigns supreme again, as Zach Edey and Co look to avenge their huge upset loss in last year’s tournament. Despite taking two disappointing losses, Purdue consistently looks like the best team in the country, with the best player in the country as well. Edey has even begun to garner NBA draft attention, as well as the expected Naismith player of the year.
The surprise teams of last year, FAU and SDSU have both played fairly well to start the season, with FAU winning perhaps the game of the year so far against Arizona, a 97-94 win in double overtime. For SDSU, JaeDon LeDee has taken a massive jump to become the team’s go to scorer and leader, as SDSU is in the top 20 of the AP Poll. Houston was undefeated and ranked second, but took a 4 point loss to a tough Iowa state team in an always tough Big 12 matchup. Other surprise teams include James Madison, who was one of the last remaining undefeated teams. Ole Miss was also undefeated before taking a beating from fifth ranked Tennessee.
As it stands right now, the top ten, from first to last is Purdue, Houston, Kansas, Uconn, Tennessee, Kentucky, UNC, Arizona, and Oklahoma taking the ten spot. Other teams from smaller conferences, but always strong teams taking spots in the AP poll are Colorado State, Memphis, FAU, BYU who has been another surprise team with their strong offense, San Diego State, and Utah State. Princeton and Dayton are two other non power 5 schools that could make deep tournament runs, as Princeton has continued its great play since last year’s tournament run. Other sleepers are teams like GCU, who have put together an impressive start to the season and look to make the tournament for consecutive years.
Some teams have been complete and utter disappointments to start the season. Michigan State was projected to be one of the best teams in the nation, ranked number 4 in the nation in the preseason AP poll. Now, only 9 weeks into the college basketball season they have completely fallen out of the rankings. They returned many of their stars while bringing in fresh talent, but have been unable to compete at the highest level almost halfway through the season. UCLA has also been uncharacteristic, with a losing record so far through the season, and as mentioned earlier, USC has been disappointing too. On top of all that, perennial contenders like Gonzaga and Creighton have fallen in the polls, with Creighton even dropping out of the top 25 at times. The other notable faller is Arkansas. After making a run last year in the tournament and upsetting Kansas, Arkansas has failed to gain any momentum, losing game after game and not appearing in the top 25 recently.
It may not be March yet, but it’s always fun to make predictions for the tournament, no matter how far out it may be. Uconn looks great like always, and is putting itself in place to be the first back to back tournament winner since Florida in 2007-2008. Right now, my three favorites are Houston, Uconn, and Marquette who had some impressive wins earlier in the season. Chances are, none of these teams will even make the elite eight, but where it stands, college basketball is getting ready for one of its best tournaments and most exciting March in years.
