What is the story about?
Selection
Sunday is only two Sundays away and there are some interesting national storylines developing. Here are a few to keep track of:
- Danny Hurley has been complaining about UConn’s defense. He was probably pretty happy Wednesday night, as St. John’s missed its LAST 24 SHOTS against UConn. Holy Guacamole, that’s absolutely brutal. It could be a terrible game by St. John’s, or it could be UConn’s defense, or more likely a combination of both. Either way, that’s a freaky stat. We can’t ever remember seeing anything like that before. UConn just totally flushed the Johnnies (sorry).
- BYU is fading. The Cougars feature a future All-Star in AJ Dybantsa, but an injury to Richie Saunders (ACL) hurts. That doesn’t fully explain BYU going 3-6 in the last nine games though. Which leads us to…
- Johnny Dawkins has UCF cooking. The Knights beat the stuffing out of BYU Tuesday night. UCF won 97-84, but was up – this is hard to believe – 64-28. Unless there was some, uh, illegal activity going on, BYU apparently just didn’t bother to guard. At 20-7 and with wins over Kansas and Texas Tech, Central Florida has earned some respect which should translate into a bid.
- Houston, projected as a two-seed, has lost three straight. They’re all solid losses – #6 Iowa State, #4 Arizona and #14 Kansas – but it’s the way Houston lost those games that matters. They were not the toughest team in any of those, and that’s a bad sign for Kelvin Sampson’s team.
- Don’t look now, but Gonzaga is cooking at 28-2. The Zags will be dangerous again in March, and possibly April.
- Purdue, Michigan State and Illinois are still threats, but all three have faded a bit. Don’t write them off, but would you bet on them? Not sure about that.
- Texas Tech suffered a cruel blow when JT Toppin blew out his knee. Here’s hoping he makes a full recovery. The Red Raiders may do some damage, but how often do teams lose their best player and make a deep run? Seems unlikely.
- At 18-10, Kentucky has lost three of the last four games. The one win was against SEC weakling South Carolina. UK closes out with #25 Vandy, at Texas A&M and finally #7 Florida. That’s pretty daunting for this group. ESPN still has Kentucky in the field, but if they fall apart down the stretch, that might change.
- Bracketologists are homing in on the field. ESPN has #6 Saint Louis up against #11 Miami of Ohio. Currently undefeated, Miami has a shot at running the regular season table and possibly the MAC tournament as well. A game against St. Louis, led by Robbie Avila, could be amazing.
