It has been a season marked by upsets, a rotation of No. 1 teams and seemingly no clear-cut favorites moving forward. But over the past few weeks, we’ve started to get some separation at the top, especially when it comes to sorting teams by résumé.
The 1-seeds, as it stands, are fairly clear-cut: Baylor, Gonzaga, San Diego State and Kansas, with the latter three coming in whichever order you choose. Combined, those four teams have lost one game since the calendar turned to 2020, Kansas’ defeat to Baylor. They’re a combined 36-1 in that span. They’re the top four teams in the NET rankings, four of the top five at KenPom, the top four in ESPN’s Strength of Record metrics — and the top four of the AP poll.
Gonzaga has also lost just once, at the Battle 4 Atlantis the day after Thanksgiving. The Bulldogs have run roughshod over the West Coast Conference, with only two games decided by single digits. One factor moving forward for them is the availability of Killian Tillie.
Then there’s Kansas, which has three losses — but is atop most metric-based rankings. There has been constant discussion about how there’s no dominant team in college basketball this season, but this Jayhawks’ adjusted efficiency margin would rank in the top three in all but two seasons in the KenPom era (since 2001-02). They would be considered the No. 1 team in a couple of those seasons, too. Kansas leads the nation in Quadrant 1 wins, too.
For the Baylor Bears (No. 1), Freddie Gillespie is one of the best stories in college basketball. He’s averaging 10.1 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.4 blocks and has been terrific over his past seven games. During that stretch, Gillespie is averaging 12.7 points, 8.9 rebounds and 2.6 blocks — while shooting 64.3% from the field.
Gonzaga’s (No. 2) past two games — at Santa Clara and at San Francisco — were two of the Bulldogs’ worst offensive outings in several weeks. Not surprisingly, one of them came when Tillie played only nine minutes and the other came with Tillie sidelined. There’s no definitive timetable for Tillie’s return, but the Zags need him healthy for the NCAA tournament. With him out for the San Francisco game, Mark Few went with essentially a six-man rotation and Drew Timme getting most of Tillie’s vacated minutes. In just his second start of the season, Timme answered the call against the Dons, finishing with 19 points, four rebounds and three blocks.
Meanwhile, last week the trip to Albuquerque was a cakewalk, with San Diego State rolling by 28. But Utah State did test the Aztecs. The Aggies went on a 19-3 run late in the first half and stayed in the game until a scoring drought in the final 10 minutes. San Diego State didn’t have trouble scoring against Utah State, but the Aztecs allowed 1.08 points per possession — their most all season. Most of that stemmed from the Aggies shooting 42.9% from 3; no other opponent has reached 40% all season.
Devon Dotson has certainly struggled in Kansas’ three losses, averaging 13.7 points, 3.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 3.7 turnovers and shooting 38.9% from the field. But Dotson has also come up big in some of the Jayhawks’ biggest wins, including 21 points Saturday against Texas Tech and 31 points against Dayton back in November. Dotson is No. 3 in KenPom’s Player of the Year rankings, top-10 in offensive box plus/minus and the only player in the country at least 5.0 adjusted points above replacement on both offense and defense at BartTorvik.com — one of just nine players in the past 12 seasons to hit that mark.
J'Mari's Sports Blog 