Four top-10 teams played at home Thursday night as key favorites and all four emerged victorious as the regular season slowed and drew our attention to the evolving NCAA Tournament forecasts and Selection Sunday.
Nr. 2, Michigan, has left no doubt with a rival that tastes even sweeter, as the beat of Michigan State also comes with the crowning of the Big Ten regular season championship. After Michigan fell for its second loss of the season in an Ayo-less Illinois, Michigan needed a solid setback, and it was more than the goal to center the Wolverines again before the end of the season. Next is the return match with the Spartans, who will serve as his own challenge to maintain the league level with a clear goal.
Nr. 3 Baylor also did well in continuing his comeback with an 81-70 win over Cade Cunningham and Oklahoma State, no. 17. The Bears followed up their first loss of the season with an overtime win in West Virginia, and now a second consecutive win over the Cowboys. Nr. 6 in West Virginia had its own rebound, as well as TCU, and jumped over the Horned Frogs early with a 14-point lead that defended them en route to a 76-67 victory. The Big 12 excitement did not stop there, with no. 13 Kansas who also scared UTEP, but more on that later.
Nr. 5 Iowa certainly left Nebraska without a doubt, with Jordan Bohannon getting hot from deep and the bench getting a lot of runs in the second half of a 102-64 victory. Luka Garza had just 14 points but played only 24 minutes in the game, which made it a good win for Iowa in light of the national season and also an below-average night for a national player of the year.
Winner: First Big Ten Championship for Juwan Howard
In just his second year as head coach of his alma mater, Howard in Michigan has the position to reach a No. 1 series and enter the NCAA Tournament with the expectation of a long stay in Indiana. Michigan outscored Michigan State 69-50 to win the Big Ten Championship in the regular season, with Franz Wagner and Hunter Dickinson taking the lead. Given the early returns, it’s easy to extrapolate the small sample size and assume it’s the first of the Big Ten regular season crowns for Howard, especially given the combination of veterans, transfers and young talent all here on the Wolverines in 2021. We watched much of the season through a Gonzaga-Baylor prism, but Michigan has returned from a COVID-19 break with only one miss so far and is still one of the top picks to win the national championship. .
The National Player of the Year discussion has started with Luka Garza since the season, but when voters decide on it and other awards in the coming weeks, it will be interesting to see how Jared Butler against his peers at the top of the sport stand. . He leads Baylor on the floor and in the greatest moments of the season, as we saw against West Virginia, and he was the team leader on Thursday night with 22 points left, five times, three rebounds and three poles. The time Baylor spent on a break provided tranquility for the university’s basketball audience (and many award voters) to spend time watching Butler and the Bears take care of the business in an efficient manner that they did the start of the 20-1 season. . Butler may have struggled in the loss in Kansas, but he has played at an All-American level all season and it will be interesting to see if he, as the star player, gets a late push at this national championship. for the best honor in the sport.
Loser: All, possible (due to Cade Cunningham’s injury)
Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton had no update on Cunningham’s injury or status following the Cowboys’ loss to Waco. Cunningham were elite again, carrying the weight for the offense and leading by 24 points on 10-of-19 shooting in 39 minutes of action. In the final moments of the game, he stepped on the foot of Baylor’s Davion Mitchell and walked ginger off the track when it was finished. Boynton’s remarks contain a reference to the bigger picture with Cunningham, who was a potential No. 1 pick in the 2021 NBA draft.
“I’m always worried about his future first,” Boynton told 247Sports. “As much as winning and representing, my commitment to these children is always first. I want to make sure he is good. If he is good, he will continue to work with us, if it is something more serious than that. it feels right now we will plan and evaluate how we feel moving forward. ‘
Cunningham is an electric talent and Oklahoma State has been one of the most popular teams in the country for nearly a month, and when the Cowboys’ NCAA Tournament came into play and controversy became clearer, the buzz for his role in March Madness built up. The hope is that the ankle injury is minor, but this comment from Boynton indicates the resistance to risk further injuries.
Winner: Pat Kelsey
Winthrop is 22-1 on the season, at No. 105 in KenPom and plays Sunday for a spot in the NCAA Tournament, thanks to an 82-61 victory over Longwood Thursday night in the Big South semifinals. Before the 21-point victory, the Eagles beat Tubby Smith’s High Point team by 29 and now the Eagles only need to beat Campbell in the championship game to get a big opponent at the conference. That night, Jerry Palm had Winthrop as a 13-seeded in his latest Bracketology, and you can bet a 23-1 team will get attention as a potential Cinderella from that spot in the bracket. Kelsey last led Winthrop to the NCAA Tournament in 2017 and fell to No. 4-seeded Butler in the first round.
Loser: Jayhawks now just avoid losing Quad 3
Maybe no. 13 in Kansas learned a lesson from North Carolina and avoided adding a non-conference game in the late season that could do nothing to help resume it. But last Thursday, the day after the Tar Heels suffered a Quad 3 loss at home to Marquette, the Jayhawks announced they would pick up a Quad 3 match with UTEP. The bill on the ruling took place in an almost catastrophic manner when the Jayhawks had a 67-62 victory over a miners team that led 34-20 at halftime. UTEP (12-11) extended its lead early in the second half to 48-33 before Kansas finally woke up for a late rally to avoid its first loss outside of Quad 1. David McCormack scored 16 of his 18 points in the second half to help KU avoid the disaster.
The Texas senior missed the first game against Oklahoma, but he compensated for his absence in the one-point loss on Jan. 26 as the biggest difference for the Longhorns in a 69-65 revenge game Thursday night. Sims led the team in points (16) and rebounds (12) while adding three blocks, avoiding mistakes on the way to an impressive 8-for-10 performance off the field. As for the team’s post-season luck, Texas will be defined by its waiting game, but Sims’ performance was the difference in this game against another big 12 enemy.