How angsty should Kansas fans be at this point? Will the ACC prove to be as down as it seems during the tournament, and the SEC that elite? March is coming, and you need answers.
(Submitted questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.)
What’s the next step for Kansas? Is it panic time or just serious reevaluation? — James S.
In the short term, it’s to continue to play the way Kansas has played the past two games against Oklahoma State and Colorado. However you feel about Hunter Dickinson, this team was built for him and around him. When he plays with energy and is efficient, usually the Jayhawks get positive results. When Dickinson isn’t efficient and just doesn’t seem to give max effort defensively, it all falls apart. He has been really good the past two games, and KU has won. Obviously the competition has helped, and the next three games — against No. 10 Texas Tech, No. 4 Houston and No. 22 Arizona — will be pretty telling.
As for the long term, Kansas needs to do a better job in the portal and also get back to finding high school prospects who can develop in the program. One issue with the current team is there’s not one homegrown sophomore or junior in the rotation. I do wonder if this season would look different with Elmarko Jackson, but even if Jackson were healthy, there’d still probably be a talent issue. Kansas is used to having multiple pros, and this team doesn’t have that. The whiffs in the transfer portal have really hurt, and KU’s staff needs to do a better job of finding players in the portal who fit the system, but where Bill Self has always thrived is developing players in his own program. There are high school recruits Self once had — Zuby Ejiofor (now at St. John’s) and Labaron Philon (a de-commit who is a freshman at Alabama) — who could have been great at KU. Not holding onto both in favor of immediate production from the portal was a mistake. It makes sense to continue to recruit the portal, but it should be more of a blend than it has been the past couple of years.
The good news is that KU has a promising three-man class coming in with one player (Darryn Peterson) who is expected to be a lottery pick and two four-stars (Bryson Tiller and Samis Calderon) who could be good long-term fits because it’s the four-stars who Self has had the best success with in his career. — CJ Moore, national college basketball writer
Is MSU really an elite team? What are some reasons for believing it could go far? — Kaiden B.
All the data says to believe in Michigan State. For starters, Tom Izzo’s team is one of just eight nationally with a top-25 adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency ranking, per KenPom. The others? Duke, Auburn, Houston, Florida, Iowa State, Arizona and Maryland. So, some strong company. Sparty’s resume is just as impressive with eight Quad-1 wins, tied for the third-most behind Auburn and Alabama. Plus, in Izzo, MSU has one of the six active coaches who has actually won the Big Dance before. Put that all together, and it should surprise absolutely no one if the Spartans — who face the Terps on Wednesday — make their first Final Four run since 2019.
But if you’re looking for more specific reasons to believe, take Michigan State’s rebounding. MSU is top-25 nationally in both offensive and defensive rebounding percentage, with the former being especially pertinent. By gobbling up offensive boards on 36.8 percent of their possessions — the 13th-best rate nationally, per KenPom, in the same ballpark as conference champions St. John’s and Houston — the Spartans help mitigate their dire 3-point shooting. Per CBB Analytics, MSU averages 13.2 second-chance points per game, which ranks 34th in all of Division I; that’s a direct byproduct of the team’s glass work.
Beyond that, Michigan State has team-wide balance, with nine different players leading the team in scoring in a game this season. To that point, the Spartans are second nationally in bench scoring with 35.7 points per game and eighth in assists with 17.4. They share the ball as well as any team in America, perhaps an unintended byproduct of not having a singular star. That also shows up in the transition offense, which is elite; MSU is second nationally (behind only potential No. 1 seed Florida) in fast-break points per game with 16.9.
That’s without even mentioning Michigan State’s stout, physical defense, which has the fifth-best 3-point defense in the country, as well as a top-25 block percentage. Now, are there still reasons not to believe in MSU? Obviously. The 3-point shooting oscillates between awful and just fine, the lack of a true star could prove problematic in a late-game “need a basket” situation, and the Spartans rarely turn their opponents over. None of those things is ideal. But the overall composition of the team is as Izzo-like as we’ve seen in years, and it’s proven to be a winning formula against some of the nation’s best teams already this season. More than good enough in my book. — Brendan Marks, national college basketball writer
Which conference will flip the narrative at the tournament? ACC is terrible and the SEC is historic, do those beliefs survive in March? — Luke M.
I’ve been thinking about this myself lately, mostly because, if Duke wins it all, do we still get to trash the ACC? If the SEC and Big Ten each send two teams to the Final Four, is the SEC actually better than the Big Ten and everyone else?
The bottom line is, you can manipulate data and numbers to argue pretty much whatever you want (within reason). If the SEC doesn’t have a team in the Elite Eight, people will argue that the conference wasn’t as strong as many predicted, and others will defend the SEC by pointing to particularly bad matchups, a tougher path, etc.
Let’s say Duke wins the title. Fast forward 10 years and no one will remember just how weak the ACC was overall. They’ll see a list of all-time champs, read Duke’s name, shrug and chalk it up to the ACC historically being great. Play the same scenario out with Alabama winning the title. In 10 years people will see the Crimson Tide’s name and be shocked because they’ll always associate Alabama with football, even if the SEC was, to use your word, “historic” this season.
All of that being said, I’m not entirely sure what the Big East’s narrative is, but I am confident we’re not talking enough about that league. — Lindsay Schnell, national college basketball writer
Which of the old guard (Kelvin Sampson, Rick Pitino, Izzo) will fizzle and star in the tournament? — Luke M.
This season looks like a big one for the old guard. It is possible Sampson’s Houston, Pitino’s St. John’s and Izzo’s Michigan State all win their respective regular-season titles, using their bludgeoning, physical styles, to set up solid paths in the Big Dance with high seeds. Score one for the AARP brain trust!
I would be shocked if any of the three you mentioned truly fizzled (first-round upset for MSU or SJU, a second-round upset for Houston). From a structural sense, they all have an incredibly high floor built around tremendous defense and relentless effort on the offensive glass. Those two aspects are sustainable from game to game, and they prevent volatility and off nights against inferior competition.
Case in point: of that trio’s 13 total losses, 12 have come against Quad-1 competition. The only exception is Michigan State’s surprising home loss to Indiana. It would be shocking to see either team drop a game to a mid-major that cannot measure up physically and athletically against these imposing squads.
All three teams pass what I call the “get off the bus” test, looking every bit of a high-level basketball team thanks to their size and sheer physical strength.
Houston has the highest upside of this group because, unlike MSU and St. John’s, the Cougars can actually shoot the ball. The Cougars rank third in the country in 3-point percentage, and all three starting guards — L.J. Cryer, Milos Uzan and Emanuel Sharp — are above 41 percent on solid volume. This is the best perimeter attack Sampson has had at Houston.
Because of their consistent, repeatable identities, I expect all three teams to be in the Sweet 16. At that point, we could theoretically see Houston face either St. John’s or Michigan State. The Cougars, however, probably need to reach the Elite Eight to avoid the “fizzled out” label. With the most efficient offense of Sampson’s tenure, I think they reach that round — at least. — Jim Root, contributor
Which star freshman do you think will stay in school another year? Will it be Cooper Flagg? — Michael H.
Say it with me now: Cooper Flagg is not coming back to school. Zero percent chance, not happening, end of story. Can we please let this made-up narrative go?
But while Flagg won’t be back, other stud freshmen will be. Of the top-20 recruits in the 2024 recruiting class, per 247Sports, I count seven who could possibly return for their sophomore seasons: Miami guard Jalil Bethea (No. 7 overall), Arizona State big Jayden Quaintance (No. 9), North Carolina wing Drake Powell (No. 11), Duke guard Isaiah Evans (No. 13), Kansas big Flory Bidunga (No. 14), Syracuse forward Donnie Freeman (No. 15) and Alabama forward Derrion Reid (No. 17). Now, I don’t know how many of those you’d call “stars” given their current production, but all had the recruiting pedigree. The most interesting stay-or-go decisions are with Powell and Evans, both of whom could conceivably still be first-round picks this summer despite limited roles this season. Evans, especially, seems to be playing his way out of college, courtesy of three consecutive double-digit scoring efforts and shooting 13-for-19 from 3 during that stretch. Quaintance, meanwhile, has to be back; since he reclassified, he’s not old enough to enter the draft this summer, per NBA rules.
Outside of the top 20, there are a handful of other productive freshmen who have interesting stay-or-go choices. Among them? Arizona forward Carter Bryant (No. 28), Michigan State guard Jase Richardson (No. 37), Georgetown center Thomas Sorber (No. 46) and Oklahoma guard Jeremiah Fears (No. 65). Sorber — who is out for the rest of the season to a foot injury — seems like the most likely of those four to return, with Fears the most likely to jump to the NBA. Ever since I saw Michigan State in Maui, I assumed Richardson would eventually emerge as the Spartans’ best player this season, and that transformation is well underway. Getting him back would be a coup for Izzo, and it’s absolutely on the table given the Richardson family’s ties to the program — that is, unless Richardson’s freshman season ends the same way his dad’s did. — Marks
Should UConn replace Samson Johnson (3 rebounds per game) with Tarris Reed Jr. (7 RPG)?
After getting bullied by St. John’s, and losing to Seton Hall when Johnson played almost all of the center minutes, I don’t see why UConn wouldn’t make this switch. — Phil T.
I’ll admit that Reed has looked like the better player when I’ve watched UConn this season. His per game averages are superior, and he’s obviously more of a scoring threat because of his post-up abilities. But the on-off numbers tell a different story about which player is more valuable. UConn is plus-24.4 points per 100 possessions with Johnson on the floor, and a plus-13.1 net rating with Reed, per CBB Analytics. I also filtered the numbers to just include only Big East games, and again, Johnson (plus-13.1) is better than Reed (minus-2.4). Plus-minus statistics can be noisy, and sometimes it matters who you’re playing with, but if you just include UConn’s best four (Hassan Diarra, Solo Ball, Liam McNeely and Alex Karaban) with each center, the Johnson lineups are better there, too.
I’m not sure it matters who starts. It feels like a situation where Dan Hurley gives more minutes to the one who is playing better or is the better fit against an opponent. I’m with you that I would usually lean Reed, but the data is on the side of Johnson. — Moore
Will both UC Irvine and UC San Diego be in if they finish 1-2 in the conference and meet in the Big West tournament title game? — Mike B.
Fans of fun mid-majors everywhere should hope so! It is going to be close, though. Both have fringe-y resume metrics, and they lack major opportunities to improve those numbers before possibly squaring off in a rubber match in the Big West final (each team won on the other’s home court in the regular season).
The best-case scenario for the league is probably a UC Irvine win over UC San Diego in the title game. The Tritons’ incredible run of blowouts over the past month has bolstered their quality metrics (KenPom, Bart Torvik, BPI), and their headlining road win at Utah State in the nonconference should carry a lot of weight for the committee. They look like the better overall candidate for an at-large.
Both teams should be rooting for the favorites in other conference tournaments. Last year’s high volume of bid stealers led directly to Indiana State’s exclusion — and the Sycamores had a case somewhat similar to UC San Diego’s. If UCSD does, in fact, get an at-large bid, it would be an incredible accomplishment for Eric Olen’s team, as this is the first year the Tritons are eligible for the NCAA Tournament after elevating from Division II for the 2020-21 season. — Root
(Photo of Kansas’ Hunter Dickinson (1), Zeke Mayo (5), Flory Bidunga (40), Rylan Griffen (6) and David Coit (8): Chris Gardner / Getty Images)
