College Basketball Couch Power 10 (Mar. 3rd)
Kansas rediscovered their form just in time to end Baylor's perfect season
Welcome to March! It feels surreal, but we’re finally in the month of madness, rapidly approaching the 1 year anniversary of the stunning cancellation of all spring sports’ postseason tournaments. The last year has taught us to never count our chickens before they’re hatched, but it certainly seems as if the tournament will in fact proceed as planned, with 68 teams in and around Indianapolis.
In terms of where we stand heading into the final week of the regular season, it remains essentially the same: there’s a clear top tier of a few really great teams, and behind them, chaos. In the week since our last rankings, a whopping NINETEEN more ranked teams lost, several in high-quality clashes, but nine of them to unranked teams! And in perhaps the biggest storyline from the week, the number of unbeaten teams was whittled to one, with only Gonzaga keeping the dream of a perfect season alive.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: it's been a wild and unpredictable season. The world at large is so unpredictable that it's not even a given that we'll have a tournament this year. Despite this, I’ll do my best to rank the top teams based on what they’ve done to date:
1. Gonzaga
All Gonzaga did in the last week was stay perfect by pasting a couple conference opponents by 14 and 17 points, respectively. The common wisdom is that it's good for an unbeaten or rarely-beaten team to suffer a loss going into the tournament in order to lift the pressure of staying perfect and remove an air of invincibility. But in this case, given how weak the WCC is, I'm not sure a Gonzaga loss would be helpful for them, or even feasible.
2. Michigan
It feels a little in poor taste to bump Michigan up to the #2 spot on the heels of a home blowout loss to Illinois, but this ranking mostly reflects everything they'd done up to Tuesday night. Besides, unlike Illinois, Michigan's 1-seed status is intact, and they need just one more win to clinch the Big Ten. It's reasonable that their focus might be on doing so against archrivals Michigan State. Before losing to Illinois, and since our last ranking, the Wolverines had extended their winning streak to 7 with a blowout road win at bubble team Indiana.
3. Baylor
It feels a little in poor taste to bump Baylor down to the #2 spot on the heels of Michigan's blowout loss to Illinois, but the truth is, Baylor's loss to Kansas was a worse one. And while it was their first of the year, it was coming. The Bears looked like a shell of themselves coming back from their lengthy COVID break against Iowa State, and that didn't improve in what ended up being a surprisingly easy win for the Jayhawks. Still, the Bears dug deep in being able to grit out a tough road win at West Virginia, which is perhaps a good sign for them coming back into form right in time for the postseason.
4. Illinois
The Illini came into their Top 5 clash with Michigan with an opportunity to make a real statement, and boy, did they make the most of their opportunity. Illinois bossed the Big Ten champions-elect from start to finish, and fresh off of a tough road win at Wisconsin, may have clinched a #1 seed in the process.
5. Iowa
Iowa were preseason Big Ten favorites, and also projected national title contenders. Over the last month, they’ve finally started to play like it. Other than running into the Michigan buzzsaw (a fate that has befallen many other teams besides them), they recorded 3 wins over ranked teams since the beginning of February, culminating in Sunday’s dominant, needed blowout win over Ohio State. Could the Hawkeyes be doing a ‘reverse Iowa’ and actually peaking at the right time heading into the postseason?
6. Ohio State
It has been a rough stretch for Ohio State. Not too long ago the Buckeyes seemed like almost a lock for a top seed in the postseason, but after losing their crucial matchup with Michigan, they stumbled against bubble team Michigan State, and then got blown out by Iowa at home. The good news is, unless this backsliding continues, their overall body of work should still set them up nicely for the postseason.
7. Arkansas
Ready for my pick for most slept-on team in America at the moment? That honor falls to the Razorbacks, who have quietly put together 9 wins out of 10, including their last 7. The one loss in that stretch? A competitive road one to Oklahoma State, who— spoiler alert! — will also feature in this piece. Ever since Kentucky stumbled out of the gates, it’s been almost a foregone conclusion that Alabama would be the SEC’s champion and only viable contender. But with the Hogs avenging their earlier loss to Alabama last week, suddenly both of those claims are in doubt.
8. Alabama
That said, now is not the time to abandon hope on Alabama. They’re still the favorites in the SEC, and though they will be disappointed by whiffing out on the season sweep of Arkansas, they bounced back nicely with two tough conference wins.
9. Florida State
The last week was certainly not all bad news for Florida State. They blew out rivals Miami, and thanks to Virginia’s continued slide, have all but clinched their 2nd consecutive ACC regular season title. Unfortunately, they also continued to exhibit a pattern of struggling on the road, in last weekend’s loss to North Carolina. To be fair, in my completely objective view, North Carolina is poised for a magical national championship run, and it’s hard to fault a team for not having an answer for “Baby Bill Russell” Walker Kessler. But still, losing a 16-point lead to a side that has been remarkably easy for good teams to beat the last couple years will leave a bad taste in Leonard Hamilton’s mouth.
10. Oklahoma State
Welcome to The Couch Power 10, Oklahoma State! Don’t quote me on this, but I’m fairly certain this is the first time the Pokes have ever crashed the basketball version of our Power 10. It’s nothing if not deserved, though. Led by freshman stud and likely Wooden Award finalist Cade Cunningham, Oklahoma State have thoroughly hit their stride with 5 consecutive wins, the two most recent coming against archival (and previous Top 10 team) Oklahoma. Their last loss was to Kansas, but you only need to go back a week or two to find wins over Texas and Arkansas. If the NCAA doesn’t uphold the postseason ban, or just fails to rule on it in the next couple weeks, this could be a really dangerous team in March Madness.
Just missed: West Virginia, Villanova, Clemson, Houston, Kansas, Walker "Bill Russell 2.0" Kessler
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