Tag: lastsecond

The teams that made up last Monday’s AP Top 25 combined for 22 losses over the ensuing week.

Strings of upsets like that are often cited as an indicator of parity, but I actually think college basketball has an elite tier alone at the top this season. Injuries could be bringing Auburn and Iowa State closer to the field, but do not buy into a “There are no great teams” narrative. One thing I am buying: Outside of the ACC, which Duke should run away with, the other high-major conference races should be highly dramatic.

Which brings us to this past weekend. Hope everyone’s blood pressure is back to normal. Here’s a sampling of some of the best finishes.

No. 1 Auburn

Freshman guard Tahaad Pettiford buried what was arguably the biggest bucket of the game late in Saturday’s 70-68 win at Georgia, a right-handed floater over 6-foot-8 RJ Godfrey.

Pettiford is a lefty, but I’ve noticed that he’s shot a few of these floaters with his right hand, so I went back to watch Pettiford’s 12 shots this season that Synergy deems a “runner,” and he’s shot all 12 with his right hand! And after missing three of his first four to start the year, he’s made 6 of 8, and one of the misses immediately followed the one above when he tried to float it over Georgia’s star freshman Asa Newell and had it blocked. Against most lefties, it’s a win to make them move to their right; not Pettiford. Not only is he great knocking down those righty floaters, he’s also dangerous going to his right on stepback 3s.

Pettiford has stepped up in the absence of forward Johni Broome, who suffered an ankle injury on Jan. 11. The Tigers went 2-0 this week without their Wooden Award candidate, and Pettiford was the leading scorer, averaging 18 points in the Broome-less games and leading the Tigers with 24 in Saturday’s win.

No. 3 Iowa State and No. 22 West Virginia

West Virginia took advantage of the absence of Iowa State forward Milan Momcilovic, who leads the Cyclones shooting 44.3 percent from 3 this season, in Saturday’s 64-57 win. As a team, Iowa State has a higher 3-point rate and shoots a better percentage with Momcilovic on the floor:

The Mountaineers had a smart game plan, shrinking the floor by dorking (or, not guarding) guard Tamin Lipsey and forward Joshua Jefferson when they were on the perimeter. West Virginia was also willing to cheat off of Keshon Gilbert. The Cyclones shot it terribly from 3 (1 of 17), with Lipsey, Jefferson and Gilbert combining to go 0 for 8 from deep. The approach gave the Cyclones even more trouble when they drove. Iowa State had its highest turnover rate of the season, and eight of those giveaways came with a West Virginia defender cheating off his man — either Lipsey, Jefferson, Gilbert or Nate Heise — and reaching in to get his hand on the ball, including this Javon Small steal that iced the game:

T.J. Otzelberger said this week that Momcilovic, who has a hand injury, is expected to miss four to six weeks. Iowa State is trying to win the Big 12 regular season title for the first time since 2001, and if Momcilovic is out for that long, you could make a case that the favorite becomes Houston, off to a 6-0 start in conference play. Houston also gets the benefit of hosting the only regular-season game between these two teams, on Feb. 22.

Mark Sears has nearly a 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio in SEC games, and he went for 24 points, nine assists and just one turnover in Saturday’s 102-97 win at Kentucky. The fifth-year senior now in his third season in Tuscaloosa is a prime example of the value of spending multiple years in one system because he knows where to get his shots and where everyone is going to be in Alabama’s offense.

That allows him to make ridiculous passes like this one:

Watch Kentucky’s Otega Oweh (00), who was guarding eventual shot maker Labaron Philon on that play. He’s expecting that Sears is throwing the ball to Philon, but he thinks Philon’s still on the right wing. That’s why Philon is so open, but Sears still shouldn’t be able to complete this pass. It’s like a lefty quarterback throwing back across his body to his right while running left. Sears knew exactly where Philon was supposed to be, and by leaving his feet instead of coming to a jump stop, he prevented Oweh from looking to see where Philon was until the ball was in the air. Sears is one of the best at hitting shooters with on-the-dot passes when he’s driving, and although he hasn’t shot the ball as well this season, he’s become a more complete player.

No. 6 Tennessee

In Tennessee’s four worst defensive games this season, the Vols have allowed their opponents to get back 41.4 percent of their misses. Over the course of an entire season, that would rank dead last in college hoops. Florida and Vanderbilt, the two teams that have beaten the Vols (Vanderbilt most recently, 76-75 in Nashville on Saturday), account for two of those four defensive rebounding no-shows.

Tennessee ranks 202nd in Division I in defensive rebounding rate for the year, and in SEC games, the Vols are allowing opponents to get back 37.1 percent of their misses, which ranks 15th in the 16-team league. That’s something to watch down the stretch, starting with this week’s opponents. Both Mississippi State and Auburn rank in the top 40 nationally in offensive rebounding rate.

No. 7 Houston

Houston was 0-3 in games decided by fewer than 10 points this season, including two overtime losses, before escaping UCF with a dramatic 69-68 win on Saturday.

In the final minute, UCF had five possessions and Houston four. It really got wacky starting with 16.1 seconds to go, when Terrance Arceneaux missed the front end of a one-and-one. Keyshawn Hall rebounded the miss and gave UCF a one-point lead with an end-to-end layup that went through the net with 9.8 seconds left. Houston’s Milos Uzan got the ball into the frontcourt and called timeout with 3.2 seconds left to set up a sideline out of bounds play. The Coogs executed beautifully, with UCF playing some bad scouting report defense by letting J’Wan Roberts get to his left hand and make this grown man’s move to put Houston back ahead:

Game over, right? Nah. More chaos.

With 1.1 seconds on the clock, UCF’s Dallan “Deebo” Coleman tried to throw a full-court pass, which he successfully completed to Hall, but the ball skimmed off the scoreboard, which meant it was out of bounds and back to Houston. The Cougars just needed to inbound the ball to win and tried to find LJ Cryer, but as Cryer was running by Roberts, he leaned back and hip-checked UCF’s Jordan Ivy-Curry and was called for a foul without any time coming off the clock. That gave UCF the ball on the sideline at Houston’s end of the floor with a chance to win. Alas, the game ended without any more drama when Joseph Tugler deflected the inbounds pass.

Houston is now the No. 1 team in the country at Bart Torvik by a slim margin over Auburn. The gap is slightly bigger when sorting from Dec. 1 on, which remove Houston’s two losses in Las Vegas at the Players Era Festival over Thanksgiving week.

The only unbeaten Big Ten team in league play is Sparty, which won a bizarre game against Illinois 80-78 on Sunday and has both the top offense and defense efficiency-wise in conference play. Penn State on Thursday ended Michigan State’s streak of holding opponents under a point per possession at seven games, but Michigan State’s defense stepped up to get the stop it needed to win in the final seconds against the Illini, with Jaxon Kohler making an adjustment that got it done.

The Illini kept running the same play with Morez Johnson setting a ball screen for Kylan Boswell, then Boswell immediately throwing ahead to Tomislav Ivisic, who threw it over the top to a rolling Johnson. Because the Spartans were hedging the screen, Johnson was getting a step on the defense. Ivisic had hit Johnson three times down the stretch, including this one:

The Illini went back to it, and this time Kohler stayed more in a drop and didn’t allow Johnson to get behind him. Sparty’s Carson Cooper also had better pressure on the ball, with his hands up.

Ivisic was actually open on his roll when the Illini reset, but again, Cooper did a good job of keeping his hands up and taking away Boswell’s vision. Boswell was able to get into the paint, but that pass to Ivisic is a lot harder to complete in close range than the dimes Ivisic was dropping over the top of Michigan State’s defense. The Illini are one of the hardest ball screen teams to guard in the country, and MSU’s execution on this play won it the game.

Michigan State is one of the hottest teams in the country, and there’s no shame in losing a one-possession game in East Lansing, but…

Last week I wrote that Illinois got somewhat of a pass from me for losing to USC without freshman Kasparas Jakucionis, who is one of the best point guards in the country and the Illini’s best player, as well as one of my favorites to watch. Great feel, vision, handle, shooting — I’m smitten.

And so I was disappointed when Jakucionis fouled out in only nine minutes of action against the Spartans. Illini coach Brad Underwood was in the same boat. “The best player in the game played eight minutes,” Underwood said at his postgame press conference. “You saw just a little bit of what he can do when he’s in. Just controlled the whole game with pick-and-rolls and passes. Unfortunately today, he didn’t get to play. … There hasn’t been one team in the country that has guarded him with any success. He’s a maestro. He is completely different than anybody else. You saw the little three-minute stretch he went on that he did play; every bucket was easy. He got a layup. He is that dude now. Don’t make any mistake. If he’s not the best point guard in the country, he’s very close and he’s 18 years old.”

As for the fouls: “I don’t know. I’ve got to look at the film.”

I did. And I don’t love commenting on the officials, but every single one was on the questionable side. (I have much more to say on the interpretation of the fifth foul, when Frankie Fidler jumped into Jakucionis to draw a whistle, but I’ll save that for a column down the road.) It’s a lot easier to slow down the film and critique, but it was frustrating officiating for anyone who just wanted to see the best players play in a great matchup. Luckily we get to see a rematch on Feb. 15. Fingers crossed no one fouls out.

No. 14 Mississippi State

In the side defense that Ole Miss coach Chris Beard and assistant Mark Adams have been running for years, the Rebels send any post-ups toward the baseline and bring a second defender on the bottom side. Mississippi State had a great plan for this coverage.

First, the Bulldogs would set a ball screen to get a guard on a big, because Ole Miss switches almost every ball screen. Then, knowing the double was coming, the Bulldogs got a numbers advantage by cutting someone from the opposite side while also having a second big parked right by the bucket. As soon as the second defender committed, the cut was made right into the middle of the lane:

The next time that cut happened, the Rebels tried to take the cutter away, and Cameron Matthews read it perfectly, throwing it straight to KeShawn Murphy under the basket:

Mississippi State’s execution was so good that Ole Miss decided to change its strategy entirely. First, the Rebels didn’t switch on the ball screen and just went under it. Matthews could sense the double wasn’t coming by his defender’s positioning. Notice in the top two videos that the on-the-ball defender is on the ball handler’s top shoulder, forcing the help to come from the baseline. This time Dre Davis was guarding Matthews straight up, so Matthews set him up so he could spin baseline, where the help defender was reluctant to commit:

In its first four games of January, all wins, Ole Miss was playing the fifth-best defense in the country this month, per Torvik. The Bulldogs scored 1.14 points per possession, only the third time in the last two months a team has topped a point per possession against the Rebels. Hat tip to Chris Jans for a smart game plan.

No. 17 Missouri

The Tigers are one of the more remarkable stories in the sport. After going 0-18 in the SEC last year, they’re now 4-1 and tied for second in what some believe could be one of the strongest leagues ever. With a win over Kansas also on the resume, the Tigers are trending toward an NCAA Tournament bid.

How often does a high-major team go from last place in the league to making the tourney the next season? More often than you’d think.

Since 2000, it has happened 22 times. But only one other school (Iowa State in 2022) has gone winless in league play the previous year and then made it. The difference: The Cyclones made a coaching change between the winless year and the tournament year. Gates might become the first coach to ever pull the one in charge of a winless league season and then make the tourney. (If someone can find an example of this happening ever before, find me on Bluesky or Twitter at @cjmoorehoops, and I’ll give you a shout out next week.) I thought most of these last-place-to-tourney instances would be the result of a coaching change, but that was the case in only five of the 22. The coach on the list who will surprise you: Matt Painter. He’s done it twice at Purdue.

Michigan and Louisville are also candidates to go from last place to the tourney. Both, of course, made coaching changes in the offseason and have almost entirely new rosters.

No. 23 Louisville

The Cards are hot, winning eight straight and looking like the second-best team in the ACC. It’s another awesome turnaround, especially considering some bad injury luck. One thing Louisville does as well as any team in the country: Set up its best shooter. Ryne Smith has made 68 3s, tied for second-best nationally, and his teammates are always looking to screen for him. Watch how freshman Khani Rooths screens his own man to set up Smith, whose defender is monitoring the roller, when Chucky Hepburn comes off the ball screen.

That’s high-level.

Smith is averaging 4.1 made 3s per game during this eight-game winning streak, and while there aren’t a ton of opportunities to get quality wins in the ACC this year, Louisville doesn’t have any bad losses on the resume and has already beat three of the league’s teams that will be competing for a tourney bid (North Carolina, Clemson and Pitt). The Cards haven’t been ranked since the 2020-21 season, but they’re clearly back after a tough few years, and Pat Kelsey has pulled off one of the more impressive Year 1 turnarounds in the nation.

Dropped out: UConn, Gonzaga, Georgia, Utah State.

Keeping an eye on: Texas Tech, Arizona, Saint Mary’s, Drake, Vanderbilt, Creighton.

(Photo: Greg Fiume / Getty Images)