The elite teams in college basketball this season have played hot potato with the No. 1 ranking — it’s changed hands five times in the past nine weeks.
Even Indiana, the current No. 1, lost its early hold on the top spot by losing to mid-major Butler on a buzzer-beating shot by a walk-on player. Miami, for all its unprecedented No. 2 glory and one of the great storylines this season, has a loss to Florida Gulf Coast.
And the Associated Press’ new No. 3 team this week? That would be Gonzaga, poster boys for the possibilities laid out this season for the little guy.
Powerhouses such as Kentucky and North Carolina are down, hit heavy by NBA exoduses, leaving the door open for a team such as Gonzaga. The Bulldogs (25-2) are making a case to become the first mid-major since St. Joseph’s in 2004 to earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Mid-majors usually are all the rage come March, when they emerge as darlings of the NCAA tournament. But three weeks into February, is it already evident this might be the year when one of those teams breaks through and makes a run at winning the whole thing?
“My initial reaction to that is that’s what happened two out of the last three years,” Butler coach Brad Stevens said.
He would know. Stevens coached the Butler Bulldogs to back-to-back national championship games in 2010 and 2011 and came within a half-court heave off the side of the rim by Gordon Hayward from achieving NCAA tournament lore.
From Stevens’ vantage point, there’s not that much separation between the have-big budgets and the have-nots. To him, last year — when Ohio University was the only mid-major to make the Sweet 16 — was the anomaly.
“As a coach and a guy who studies the film every single day and tries to figure out the nuances of what other teams are doing and realizes how much preparation and work goes into every single game — whether they’re first in the country or 347th in the country — you quickly realize that there really aren’t many upsets in your eyes,” Stevens said. “It’s who plays well that given night.
“There are some teams that are clearly more talented than others. But for the most part, there’s not that much difference in talent every single game, no matter if a team is 25-2 or 2-25. There’s just not that much difference in winning and losing.”
He doesn’t have to explain that to Bill Self, who saw his Kansas Jayhawks rise to No. 2 in the AP poll in late January only to lose to their next three games, including to TCU, which had been 0-8 in the Big 12.
“There may be three or four or five teams that have separated themselves from the pack from a consistency standpoint,” Self said. “And then you’ve got a slew of teams that can beat those four or five teams if they catch them on the right day.”
So what could that mean for the NCAA tournament?
“I really believe it could be crazy,” Self said. “There will still be favorites, but there will not be major upsets in the NCAA tournament this year. There may be some mild ones, but I do believe that you could have a team in the top 25, a team in the top 35, whatever, get hot at the right time and make a strong push and have a great chance to get to Atlanta.”
Some of the candidates in the mid-major ranks among that top 35 or so, if you ask ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, include Gonzaga and Virginia Commonwealth, Butler and Wichita State. But his favorite sleeper choice? Akron.
The Zips, who got 16 votes in the “also receiving votes” category of the AP poll this week, have the nation’s longest winning streak at 17 games. They’ve also got the “Zeke factor,” as in 7-foot shot-blocker Zeke Marshall.
“Everybody talks about guards, guards, guards; you have to have guards, but you have to have big guys, too,” said Bilas, a former big man for Duke in the mid-1980s. “If you can’t score and defend in the post, you can’t win in the tournament. You can pull an upset, but you can’t win consistently.”
That’s a big reason why Bilas is among those who thinks Gonzaga deserves a No. 1 seed. Not only have the Bulldogs beaten the likes of Kansas State and Oklahoma State, they have two dominant big men.
Junior Kelly Olynyk, a 7-0 footer, leads Gonzaga with 18 points per game and 6.9 rebounds. Senior Elias Harris, his 6-foot-8 complement, ranks second on the team with 14.5 points and 7.5 rebounds.
Gonzaga has made 14 consecutive trips to the NCAA tournament, but this may be coach Mark Few’s best chance to get to his first Final Four. VCU and George Mason made look all that much more possible, in 2006 and 2011 respectively.
“People sometimes think of mid majors as being guard (oriented), and they do have really good guards,” Bilas said. “Kevin Pangos can really shoot it. Gary Bell Jr. is really good. I think where they’re different this year is they’ve got NBA size up front.
“Kelly Olynyk, the kid from Canada, is as good a big guy as there is in the country. He’s really talented, very efficient. He was a perimeter big when he first got there, and now he goes down to the low post to play with his back to the basket. He’s been phenomenal.”
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