More Than a Top Spot

Before this past weekend, it was difficult to pinpoint which team within the top four was the best in college basketball. As the weekend elapsed, making that decision became tougher than a trigonometry final. With conference championship tournaments looming, the top spots are more jumbled than ever, making for what could possibly become one of the most intriguing March Madness seasons in recent memory.

The weekend began with a significant yet not-so-surprising upset of Georgetown by the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. The significant: Notre Dame is now making its case for an NCAA tournament bid with a 19-10 record and key regular season wins over #8 West Virginia, #16 Pittsburgh, and the #13 Hoyas, despite the recent injury to All-American Luke Harangody.

The not-so-surprising: Georgetown has been suffering these types of losses all season, losing to the likes of Notre Dame, Rutgers, Marquette and Old Dominion. However, the Hoyas have displayed a tendency of playing to the level of their competition. The reason they’ve sustained a reputable ranking throughout the season is because of their quality wins over the likes of Pittsburgh, Villanova and Duke.

Even though this team has been a tad schizophrenic, it has the pieces to make a deep run throughout March and possibly April. Greg Monroe is the perennial finesse big-man of college basketball, but Georgetown has encountered predicaments within its offense when he’s not getting touches, failing to reach double-digits in shot attempts, and failing to rack up assist numbers with his exceptional passing ability out of the post.

Although Monroe may be Georgetown’s best player, guard Austin Freeman is the cog who will determine whether the Hoyas make a deep run. He averages 17 points per game, shoots 47% from the three-point line, but was limited to only 5 shot attempts and 5 points in only 23 minutes of play in Saturday’s game due to a stomach flu. He missed Monday’s game against West Virginia, an 81-68 loss in which the Hoyas desperately needed their star guard.

With Freeman playing at a high level, Georgetown could be one of the most dangerous yet overlooked teams in college basketball due to its overall record and a possibly lower seeding in the NCAA Tournament than their talent would indicate.

Subsequent this game, both #1 Kansas and #2 Kentucky took defeats in only their second losses of the season. Maintaining the #1 spot as been difficult for teams to do this season, and road games against opponents playing inspired basketball has been one common denominator. In this case, both Oklahoma State and Tennessee elevated play on their home-courts and took leads that Kansas and Kentucky were able to come back from, but not quite overcome.

Of these two powerhouse teams, one conveyed flashes of championship-caliber resiliency despite defeat.

Kentucky is undoubtedly the most talented team in the country. Between phenomenal freshmen DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall, the Wildcats obtain two top-5 NBA lottery picks and a sure-fire, foregone, nearly irrefutable NBA superstar in Wall. However, what Kentucky showcased beyond pure talent in defeat this Saturday is what makes this team so distinctive.

Kentucky hasn’t found itself in many situations this season in which it's been in tight games or down by a significant margin early. Because of this, John Wall hasn’t been the assertive guard most of us are accustomed to seeing from a heralded NBA prospect. He possesses the intangibles to carry a team throughout a game without padding stats, and makes more of an impact than any other player in the country by merely being a presence on the court and racking up minutes.

In the three contests prior to Saturday’s game versus Tennessee, Wall had struggled mightily from the floor, shooting only 13-of-42 in victories. However, the aggressive awareness of John Wall had manifested in this particular contest.

Kentucky found itself down early and was having problems with the Volunteers’ high-powered transition offense, sloppily failing to get back on defense on multiple occasions. Going into halftime, the Wildcats were outscored 21-6 in fastbreak points.

However, just before half, Wall portrayed an impeccable form of awareness, taking initiative and putting the game in his hands, rejuvenating his teammates. Multiple explosions to the basket – including a beautiful pirouetting finish at the bucket – set the tone and reminded us who the best player in college basketball is, albeit Kentucky was still down by a double-digit deficit.

Although the Wildcats ultimately lost the contest, they nearly surmounted a 40-29 halftime deficit with a second half surge at the helm of the fabulous freshman.

Wall has shown us nearly everything we as fans need to see from a future prominent figure. The unmatchable speed, high basketball IQ, clutch components, the silently electrifying aura, and the ability to take over games with his implicit yet gravitating leadership all coalesce to make for a promising young superstar. As the season has progressed, his teammates have followed and galvanized behind him. Before long, so will we.

To end the weekend, #3 Purdue took a devastating loss to Michigan State, scoring a meager 44 points and suffering a 7-27 shooting performance from its prolific JaJuan Johnson/E’Twaun Moore tandem. This left three of the top four teams receiving defeats in the same weekend. Naturally, the team to claim victory as the dust settled just so happened to be playing in one of the biggest games in regular season college basketball history.

The Syracuse Orange hosted the Villanova Wildcats in front of the largest on-campus crowd in college basketball history Saturday night. That in itself was huge. The fact that Syracuse routed its #8-ranked Big East rival 95-77 in this game was even bigger. However, the most significant facets of this game can’t be explained in elaborate enormity or pure numbers.

Syracuse not only earned the #1 ranking in the polls after the victory, but also proved that they’re quite possibly the best team in the country. With teams like Kentucky and Kansas stealing the prodigious limelight this season, Syracuse has been the quiet powerhouse all season long. With a 27-2 overall record and a 14-2 record within the renowned Big East, outlooks on the Orange may have been positively altered.
Led by the craftiness of Andy Rautins, ‘Cuse took a solid lead early against Villanova and didn’t look back. You could say the record-setting crowd had something to do with the added spark, but Syracuse had been displaying flashes of brilliance all season. In this instance, they delivered the full package.

The perpetually consistent 2-3 zone swarmed and suffocated Scottie Reynolds and the guard-heavy Villanova offense all night, and created flawless transition baskets out of it. The 2-3 zone is widely known as Syracuse’s defensive staple, and is extraordinarily fascinating to watch from a pure fan’s standpoint. The rotations are perfect on nearly every pass, the incredible length and athleticism of the back three players in the formation (Wesley Johnson, Rick Jackson, and Arinze Onuaku) smothers teams that try to drive baseline or swing the ball to deep shots in the corners, the court perceivably becomes 10 feet narrower, Rautins and Brandon Triche run an efficient transition offense following inevitable steal opportunities within the zone, and teams become visibly frustrated when they realize that easy three-point shots don’t open up as easily against the Orange as they do against traditional 2-3 zones.

And that’s not all. Again, the voluminously decorative crowd of 34,616 attendees may have assisted in augmenting the energy, but Syracuse has carried an admirable form of quiet energy all season long. You see it in the zone defense, the transition offense, even the half-court offense and exceptional bench play. All in all, Syracuse obtains a level of chemistry other teams in college basketball don’t have right now. Combine their veteran swagger (Rautins, Onuaku) with young guns (Triche, Kris Joseph) and NBA talent (Wesley Johsnon), and you’re looking at a team that has the tools to win a championship.

Sometimes you can’t measure teams by raw talent, hype or quality wins. Sometimes teams have the championship mentality that comes with building chemistry and finding ways to win games. Sometimes teams have that abstract quality that comes with being successful in the ultimate team game known as basketball. So far, Syracuse is hoisting that quality at its apex while other teams aren’t quite there or may be on the verge. Are they deserving of the “Best Team in College Basketball” label? They more than make the case. Just don’t eradicate those who ruled the spotlight beforehand.