It didn’t take a month for North Carolina to become the sixth preseason No. 1 to fall out of the AP rankings, joining 1963-64 Loyola Chicago (two unranked weeks), 1965-66 UCLA (eight), 1979-80 Indiana (one), 2013-14 Kentucky (two) and 2019-20 Michigan State (two).
And the Tar Heels have largely remained on the outside looking in. This week’s poll marked the ninth unranked week for North Carolina to set the record for a preseason No. 1. And second-place 1965-66 UCLA had the excuse the AP poll only included 10 teams from 1960-61 to 1967-68.
Back-to-back losses last week to Pittsburgh and Duke dropped the Tar Heels out of the top tier of the ACC, and Tuesday’s 92-85 stumble at Wake Forest left North Carolina (15-9, 7-6) with as many as losses as it had going into the NCAA tournament last season.
One thing missing is stretch four Brady Manek, who helped the Tar Heels surge to 11 victories in 12 games before a last-night-of-the-season loss to Kansas. His replacement, former Northwestern forward Pete Nance, is a capable option who is averaging 10.6 points. But he’s just a 31.1 percent outside shooter, whereas Manek solved a lot of spacing issues while making 40.3 percent of his threes last season.
Yet Manek’s absence is far too easy to point to. Guards RJ Davis and Caleb Love have slipped as outside shooters, and Love’s production as a facilitator has dipped as well. Center Armando Bacot’s numbers aren’t dramatically different from last year (16.3 points per game, 13.1 rebounds per game, .569 field goal percentage) to this season (17.5 ppg, 11.3 rpg, .557 FG percentage), but he’s still dependent on the backcourt to set up many of his chances.
And as for potential options off the bench? They haven’t materialized. Factoring out the production of Puff Johnson and Seth Trimble in their respective starts, Tar Heels reserves have averaged 12 points per game on the season. And according to KenPom.com, North Carolina’s share of bench minutes has slipped from 19.8 percent last season to 19.4 percent this year.
North Carolina is the sort of cautionary tale coaches desperately try to avoid. Think of all the times the mantra of “It’s a new year” is repeated, even when the bulk of a team’s roster remains intact. That often prompts more than a few eye rolls, but the reality is teams don’t start off exactly where they finished.
It’s also a reminder to outsiders not to overrate a small sample size of games. At this time last season, it was uncertain North Carolina would be an NCAA tournament team. They were on the wrong end of plenty of lopsided losses, and did not look like Final Four material … at least until they spoiled former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final home game.
The Tar Heels again look like a borderline postseason team, and they again have about a month to figure things out before the NCAA tournament. Maybe they do, but if their first two dozen games illustrate anything, there’s an entirely different team in Chapel Hill even if many of the faces are familiar.
Getting higher on the Hogs
Arkansas looks like it is running the same playbook as last year, which probably bodes well for its postseason prospects.
The Razorbacks had a three-week wobble at the start of SEC play, losing five of six to fall to 12-6 overall. It was not what was expected of Eric Musselman’s team, which was stitched together largely with transfers and freshmen and remained a metrics darling even as the losses piled up against league foes.
Arkansas has since won five of six, including Tuesday’s triumph at Kentucky. It is one of only two Quadrant 1 victories for the Razorbacks, who beat San Diego State in the third-place game of the Maui Invitational in November.
If this sounds familiar, it should. Arkansas was 2-4 in the SEC in 2020-21, then proceeded to win 12 of 13 before an SEC semifinal loss. The Razorbacks went on to reach the Elite Eight before falling to eventual national champion Baylor.
Last season unfolded similarly. After losing its first three SEC games, Arkansas won 15 of 17, lost in the SEC semifinals (again) and reached the Elite Eight (again).
It isn’t difficult to trace the Razorbacks’ problems to the absence of forward Trevon Brazile (lost for the year with a knee injury in early December) and heralded freshman guard Nick Smith Jr. (out since Dec. 17 with a knee injury, though he recently returned to practice). Meanwhile, Wichita State transfer Ricky Council IV has emerged as the team’s top option, averaging 17.1 points.
Arkansas isn’t perfect. It shoots 31.3 percent from three-point range, a flaw it shares with its immediate predecessor (though the Hogs were ultimately bounced by Duke mostly because it couldn’t stop the Blue Devils down the stretch). But things are otherwise trending well, and another multi-weekend March run seems plenty attainable.
Mid-major spotlight: Eastern Washington
All things being equal, David Riley would rather forget how his Eastern Washington team saw a 23-point lead slip away in the final nine minutes of a Dec. 10 loss at South Dakota State. Of course, he also distinctly remembers the reaction his players had in the day or two afterward.
“I was telling the coaches ‘We have a really special team, we’re turning this around, it seems like the guys are having fun, the guys are still learning, no one has their head down,’” Riley said this week. “It was really at that moment after that really tough loss that I knew this team was going to be able to do something really special once we got in conference.”
Eastern Washington went out and fell at Texas Tech the next game. It hasn’t lost since.
The Eagles (18-7, 12-0 Big Sky) own the longest winning streak in Division I (14 games) entering Saturday’s trip to Idaho. They’re one of three undefeated teams in conference play, along with Alabama (SEC) and Oral Roberts (Summit). And they play a ruthlessly efficient offense predicated on the sort of size usually only seen in high-major leagues.
According to KenPom.com, Eastern Washington ranks ninth in the country in average height, second among nonpower conference teams to Dayton. Its starting lineup includes 6-6 Jacksonville transfer Tyreese Davis, 6-6 sophomore Casey Jones, 6-7 leading scorer Steele Venters (15.2 ppg), 6-7 fifth-year player Angelo Allegri (13.2 ppg) and 6-10 center Ethan Price.
“I think it’s definitely something we tried to do by design,” Riley said. “When you have a big man as skilled and who can shoot it like Ethan Price, it gives you the ability to post up guards and kind of invert your offense at times based on what mismatches you might have. Our guys have gotten really good at that and just being positionless.”
The result is the Eagles are back to where they’ve been for much of the last decade: Contending for a Big Sky title. Eastern Washington earned NCAA tournament berths in 2015 and 2021, and was the league’s top seed when its 2020 conference tournament was wiped out by the pandemic.
Coach Shantay Legans left for Portland in the spring of 2021, and the team’s top seven scorers departed. Riley, who joined Eastern Washington’s staff in 2011, was elevated to head coach and had six players back as the Eagles went 18-16 in his first year.
“It was kind of on the seven of us and a couple guys who were GAs to keep the winning culture intact,” Riley said. “That was the main focus last year.”
And this season? It’s about finishing games, something Eastern Washington has done well over the last eight weeks as its versatility has confounded opponents.
“Our goal in June — we talked about it in our first meeting — was to be the most cohesive team in the country because that should precede winning,” Riley said. “You don’t want to become close because you won. You want to become close and that’s going to propel you to winning.”
No. 3 Alabama at Auburn (2 p.m. Saturday, ESPN): It’s the first of two meetings for the Yellowhammer State rivals as star freshman Brandon Miller and the Crimson Tide (21-3, 11-0 SEC) make the trip to the Plains to meet the Tigers (17-7, 7-4). Auburn is in no danger of falling out of the tournament just yet, but it has lost four of five.
No. 24 Rutgers at Illinois (2 p.m. Saturday, Fox Sports 1): Maybe this will help answer who the second-best team in the Big Ten is. The Scarlet Knights (16-8, 8-5) haven’t lost consecutive league games all season but fell at Indiana on Tuesday. The Illini (16-7, 7-5) haven’t played since Saturday’s loss at Iowa, and Matthew Mayer has averaged 18.8 points in his last four outings.
No. 21 Connecticut at No. 23 Creighton (2 p.m. Saturday, Fox): The visiting Huskies (19-6, 8-6 Big East) took the first meeting in Storrs on Jan. 7, which probably feels like an eternity for both teams. Connecticut lost four of its next five, though it finally looks to have stabilized things with Tuesday’s defeat of Marquette. Creighton (16-8, 10-3) brings a seven-game winning streak in and can create even more separation from UConn with a victory.
No. 14 Baylor at No. 17 TCU (4 p.m. Saturday, ESPN2): The Bears (18-6, 7-4 Big 12) will look to pay back a Jan. 4 one-point loss to TCU at home. If that wasn’t high tide for the Horned Frogs (17-7, 6-5), it was close. They’re just 4-6 since that triumph, though only one of the losses in that stretch came at home.
Duke at No. 8 Virginia (4 p.m. Saturday, ESPN): If the Blue Devils (17-7, 8-5) are to stay in the ACC title hunt in the wake of Monday’s drubbing at Miami, they’re probably going to have to defeat conference co-leader Virginia (18-4, 10-3) in Charlottesville. It’s not an easy task, but Duke should be better than earlier in the week.
No. 7 UCLA at Oregon (10 p.m. Saturday, ESPN): Jaime Jaquez Jr. and the Bruins (20-4, 11-2 Pac-12) wrap up their Oregon swing with a visit to Eugene. The Ducks (15-10, 9-5) have won six of eight after Thursday’s 78-60 thumping of Southern California, and this is easily the most valuable game left on their regular season schedule. Dana Altman’s bunch is worth keeping an eye on, especially if it can earn a season split with UCLA.
