If you’re an ACC basketball fan — or worse, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips — then you might want to avert your eyes.
If you’re an SEC basketball fan? Come on in. The water’s more than fine.
1. The ACC’s nightmare is the SEC’s coronation
This week’s ACC-SEC Challenge wasn’t just a beatdown.
It was a baton pass: one league definitively usurping another, history and long-term success be damned.
What else do you call a 14-2 slaughter in the SEC’s favor? Some “challenge.” Really, this was validation of Greg Sankey’s conference finally pouring its football riches into basketball — leading to what now appears to be the deepest, toughest conference in America. That isn’t just anecdotal. KenPom currently ranks the SEC as the best conference in the nation by a significant margin; there’s more of a gap between the SEC and the second-place Big Ten than there is from the Big Ten to the fourth-place Big East. The ACC, meanwhile, is the caboose of the high-major leagues, firmly back in fifth.
And though the ACC’s two wins — Clemson over Kentucky, and Duke over Auburn — did come against previously undefeated, top-five teams, that does not compensate for the larger lopsidedness. Consider that the SEC had as many teams ranked in the top five this week (three) as the ACC did altogether … and that’s including North Carolina, which somehow remained ranked despite not having beaten a high-major team all season. UNC’s 94-79 home loss to Alabama on Wednesday sinks the Tar Heels to their worst first-month record since Matt Doherty’s doomed 2001-02 season.
Also, it’s not like the SEC squeaked out a few nail-biters. Tennessee trounced Syracuse by 26, will probably be No. 1 in next week’s poll and has won every game this season by at least 15 points. Ole Miss beat up on banged-up Louisville by 23. South Carolina beat Boston College by 22. Georgia beat Notre Dame by 21. Mississippi State clobbered Pitt, one of the ACC’s three ranked teams, by 33.
So, annihilation.
The ACC has earned only five NCAA Tournament berths the past three seasons, its fewest in a three-year span in a decade, and yet, the league hitting that total again this season already seems ambitious. Duke looks like a legitimate national title contender, so that’s one. Clemson has been sneakily solid, especially defensively. North Carolina still probably wins enough games to get in? And Pitt’s resume and metrics are right there, too, even after Wednesday’s shellacking. But after that… Louisville? Wake Forest? Bueller? It’s bleak.
On the other side of that coin is the SEC, which should toy with the all-time tournament bids record of 11, set by the Big East in 2011. Thirteen (!!) SEC teams rank in KenPom’s top 50 in terms of adjusted efficiency, and 14 of the league’s 16 members have at least seven wins and two or fewer losses. (John Calipari’s first Arkansas team isn’t in that mix; the Razorbacks have lost to both top-75 teams they’ve played.) The league has depth and top-end talent. Of the four undefeated power conference teams left in the country, three — Tennessee, Florida and Oklahoma — hail from the SEC, and all of them own at least three high-major wins.
Maybe it does just mean more.
2. Four of the top five lost in one week? That means…
Our preseason expectations seem to be correct: There are plenty of great teams this season, probably a dozen or so that could conceivably make the Final Four, but there likely isn’t an elite tier.
Like last year, for instance. Purdue and UConn proved early on — like, by this point in the calendar — that they were 1A and 1B. That they faced off in the national championship game was only a further testament to that lofty status. A single-elimination tournament does not always produce the “best” team, but both teams were so good last season that their collision course almost felt inevitable.
This year? Auburn looked great in beating three top-12 teams in the first month, plus winning the Maui Invitational, but Duke’s No. 1 defense held the Tigers’ top-ranked offense at bay for long enough Wednesday to pull out a win. It took Creighton using an extreme defensive strategy to down No. 1 Kansas, but the Jayhawks’ lack of perimeter shooting, which doomed Bill Self’s team late last season, reared its head again, despite Self’s transfer portal imports this summer.
There’s absolutely no shame in Marquette losing at Iowa State — the Cyclones are elite enough as is, without factoring in Hilton Coliseum’s magic — but now the Golden Eagles need to see what’s up with Chase Ross, their best 3-point shooter, who exited early with an ankle injury. And as for Kentucky, the Cats had their worst 3-point shooting game all season — largely thanks to Clemson’s defense, which is top-20 nationally in adjusted efficiency — and never got Koby Brea, the country’s top 3-point shooter, turned loose.
None of those are bad losses. But they do suggest a level of parity at the top of the pecking order. All that said, I’d still pick several of those teams among my top-five favorites to make the Final Four. In alphabetical order: Auburn, Duke, Iowa State, Marquette (if Ross is fine) and Tennessee.
3. How Duke’s No. 1 defense out-toughed Auburn’s No. 1 offense
Auburn center Johni Broome entered Wednesday night first in KenPom’s National Player of the Year rankings, and for good reason. The All-American was fresh off being named Maui Invitational MVP, after carving up Iowa State, UNC and Memphis. And early on, against Duke freshman center Khaman Maluach — who is 7 feet 2 but not nearly as physically strong as Broome — it looked like Auburn’s big man might get rolling again.
The Tigers raced out to a 13-2 lead, prompting Jon Scheyer to call timeout and sub in backup center Maliq Brown, an All-ACC defender last year at Syracuse. At 6-9 and 222 pounds, Brown still gives up size to Broome, but between his hands — “the best hands I’ve ever coached,” Scheyer said — and his ability to switch onto the perimeter, Brown gives Duke one of the most versatile defenders in the country. Just look how much more resistance Brown (No. 6, wearing the headband) offers, even off a BLOB (baseline out of bounds) set:
Per ESPN Stats & Info, Broome made two of his seven shots when Brown was his primary defender. Against every other Duke player, he went 6-for-11.
Beyond Brown’s interior presence, he was key to the Blue Devils blowing up Auburn’s primary offense. Generally speaking, Auburn under Bruce Pearl has depended on Flex concepts: where a defender sets what looks like a cross screen just outside of the paint, allowing his teammate to cut untouched parallel to the baseline.
You can see why it works. Broome gets isolated almost right at the rim, where (per CBB Analytics) he’s shooting 83 percent this season — more than 20 percent better than the national average. Few teams are stopping this:
In studying Auburn’s tape, though, Scheyer had an idea: If Auburn’s Flex is predicated on picking defenders off with screens, creating momentary openings, then what if Duke switched everything and never gave Auburn those windows? It would be tough to execute, defenders having to communicate everything, and doing so quickly enough to cut off Auburn’s angles. But Duke was willing to try — and mostly, the strategy worked.
Auburn went almost four minutes down the stretch without a made basket — including this possession — specifically because of Scheyer’s decision to switch against the Flex. Auburn tries to get Chaney Johnson (No. 31, top of the screen) coming open across the middle, but Cooper Flagg switches it and passes Johnson off to Isaiah Evans; that prevents Tahaad Pettiford from hitting Johnson across the middle, and instead forces him to kick it out wide to Miles Kelly. Duke has Brown hedge the subsequent Kelly-Broome ball screen, but Evans and Tyrese Proctor nail the rotation on the help side, giving Brown time to recover and help contest the shot.
After Duke beat Arizona on the road, Scheyer compared Maluach and Brown’s different styles to a pitcher with multiple pitches. Maluach offers sheer length and rim protection, while Brown gives more versatility, deflections and (at least for now) strength. In some ways, it’s not unlike the big man rotation UConn used the past two seasons with Donovan Clingan and Adama Sanogo/Samson Johnson. The different looks means Duke can play multiple coverages. That’s a valuable asset in Scheyer’s toolbox.
4. Injury woes emerge
Sadly, it’s that time of year. Multiple teams have been burned by long-term injuries to big-time players, including:
Alabama: The Crimson Tide lost starting guard Latrell Wrightsell Jr. over the weekend to a ruptured Achilles tendon, and it’s as devastating for the player as it is for the program. Nate Oats’ team has struggled shooting the ball — Alabama is sub-150 nationally in 3-point shooting, at just 33.1 percent, and couldn’t afford to lose Wrightsell, its top shooter. He leads the Tide in made 3s (19) and 3-point percentage (42.2 percent).
However, transfer guard Chris Youngblood — the reigning co-AAC Player of the Year, who averaged 15.3 points and shot 41.6 percent from 3 at South Florida last season — is close to returning. Youngblood hasn’t played yet this season with an ankle injury, but Oats said over the weekend that the 6-4 guard will make his debut “pretty soon,” possibly in the next two weeks. Alabama is off until next weekend, when it hosts Creighton in its final consequential nonconference game. It’s very possible, if not probable, that Youngblood suits up. Regardless, Alabama needs to get him up to speed quickly; it hosts undefeated Oklahoma in its first SEC game on Jan. 4.
Louisville: Because Pat Kelsey’s job rebuilding the Cards wasn’t tough enough already. Forward Kasean Pryor — who I thought was Louisville’s most talented player during a mid-October visit — tore his ACL during the team’s Battle 4 Atlantis appearance, and it’s hard to overstate how big a blow that is for UL. Pryor was averaging 12.1 points, 6.1 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game in only 23.3 minutes per contest, and his all-around impact will be borderline impossible to replace.
But that’s not all. Backup guard Koren Johnson — the reigning Pac-12 Sixth Man of the Year — announced Tuesday that he is undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery and will be redshirting. Johnson hadn’t played since the team’s second game, sitting out with an undisclosed ailment, but losing him means Kelsey is down a valuable body in the backcourt. Finally, forward Aboubacar Traore — who averaged 12 points, 8.4 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game at Long Beach State last season — has been out since mid-November with a broken left arm. Kelsey said the expected recovery timeline for Traore is about six weeks, which would have him returning around the new year. That can’t come soon enough for a Cards team trying to get back to the NCAA Tournament.
Connecticut: After taking an elbow to the head late vs. Dayton in Maui, UConn wing Alex Karaban — the only returning starter from last season’s title team — had to be taken to a Hawaiian hospital. Karaban suffered what coach Dan Hurley later called a “pretty mild concussion.” Still: Karaban sat out UConn’s blowout victory vs. Maryland Eastern Shore on Saturday, as well as the Huskies’ big four-point win over Baylor on Wednesday in the Big 12-Big East Battle.
Karaban’s going to be back sooner rather than later, but just how quickly will that be? With UConn in the midst of arguably its toughest stretch all season, it sorely needs its leading scorer. It plays Sunday at Texas before playing Gonzaga in Madison Square Garden and hosting Xavier in two weeks’ time.
(Photo of Tennessee guard Chaz Lanier: Brianna Paciorka / News Sentinel / USA Today via Imagn Images)
