It’s time for some buy/sell as college basketball enters the last month of the regular season. Below are five things that have grabbed my attention heading into Week 15.
Florida can beat anyone
Many, myself included, wondered if Auburn’s loss to Florida over the weekend would bump Alabama up to No. 1 in the newest AP poll. Instead, on Monday, Auburn held onto the top spot and Alabama slotted in right behind the Tigers. In retrospect, it wasn’t much of a surprise. Auburn remains No. 1 in KenPom’s net efficiency ratings. Even in spite of the loss, Auburn still looks like it belongs in a tier all by itself this season.
In all reality, perhaps Florida should have been slotted ahead of Alabama in the recent AP poll. Todd Golden’s Gators are fifth in KenPom and fourth in EvanMiya. The Gators are ahead of Alabama in both ratings.
With its win over Auburn, Florida became just the fifth team in AP poll history to beat a No. 1 at home and on the road. And it became the first ever to do so against different AP No. 1s.
According to Bart Torvik, the Gators have the fourth-best chance of reaching the Final Four this season at 24%. Duke, Auburn, and Houston are the only teams with a more favorable path, according to Torvik’s model.
The Gators’ résumé is a fascinating one. They’re top-10 in both adjusted offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency at KenPom, which usually has a strong correlation with tourney success. They’re a low-turnover team that rebounds the basketball well and plays outstanding first-shot defense. They have 3 guards who can all light up the scoreboard and they have enough size to deal with bigger frontcourts.
Florida is 7-3 thus far against top-50 teams in KenPom’s ratings, with 3 of those wins coming away from home. Two of the 3 losses were in tight games. The 20-point road drubbing at Tennessee marks the only time all season another team has really gotten the better of the Gators, and they responded to that showing with an 11-point win over a top-50 opponent 3 nights later.
Given how much distance separates the SEC from any other conference this season, I would be shocked if a team outside the conference wins the national championship. Absolutely no one will be as battle-tested come Tournament time as the SEC’s participants. The amount of stress testing being done right now is going to undoubtedly pay dividends once March rolls around. As Kirby Smart would say, playing on the road in this league is just a different animal.
And Florida still has one more road game on its schedule (March 5) against a team that could feasibly be an AP No. 1. There’s a path still for Alabama to grab and hold the top spot in the AP poll.
Six of the Gators’ final 8 games are against KenPom top-50 teams. But given what we’ve seen from this group already, Florida can beat anyone on any given night.
Verdict: BUY
Bet to consider: Florida is +1400 to win the national championship at bet365, and that would fall right in line with the 6.1% chance Bart Torvik gives the Gators to win the tourney. Bet365 also has Florida +350 to make the Final Four, which has a bit of plus value based on Torvik’s projections.
Tennessee is a 1-seed
In Joe Lunardi’s latest bracket projection for ESPN, he has Tennessee on the 1-seed line. Bart Torvik gives the Vols a 47.9% chance to grab a 1-seed — the fourth-highest chance of any team. By most accounts, Tennessee is trending toward a 1-seed. And with road games remaining against Kentucky, Texas A&M, and Ole Miss, as well as a home game against Alabama, the Vols have plenty of opportunities to solidify themselves as a 1. At 20-4 entering Tuesday night’s battle with Kentucky, UT might even be able to drop another game and still grab a top seed.
Yet FanDuel still has UT at +230 to earn a 1-seed, a price that carries an implied probability of 30.3%. I’m grabbing this ahead of the UT-Kentucky matchup on Tuesday night.
Over the last 3 NCAA Tournaments, 1-seeds have entered the field with an average of 4.7 losses. A 7-loss Kansas team got a 1-seed in the 2023 NCAA Tournament and then a 7-loss North Carolina team got a 1-seed in last year’s tournament. It remains to be seen how much latitude SEC teams will be given when it comes to record. The league currently has a plus-21.7 net rating, which would be the highest by a single conference in the KenPom era (1997-present).
Tennessee might even be able to drop 2 more games, depending on how they look. Current projections from KenPom have the Vols ending the regular season at 25-6.
Verdict: BUY
Arizona is legit in the Big 12
The Wildcats have won 6 straight and are currently 11-1 in Big 12 play. They’re coming off an 82-73 win over Texas Tech last Saturday and have moved up to 10th overall in KenPom’s net ratings. Arizona has a top-20 offense and a top-20 defense for the second consecutive season under coach Tommy Lloyd.
And that puts the Wildcats in the “title contender” conversation. Since the turn of the century, all but 1 national champion has had adjusted offensive and defensive ratings that both ranked in the top 20 nationally.
This season, that group includes Auburn, Florida, Duke, Houston, Arizona, and Iowa State.
Arizona has already beaten Iowa State this season, and it’ll play Houston just once, on Feb. 15.
It’s still a little too early to officially label the Big 12 regular-season title race a 2-horse race, but we’re getting close. Arizona’s win over Texas Tech pushed the Wildcats 2 games clear of third place. The U of A is tied with Houston in the loss column for the Big 12 lead with 8 to go.
At BetMGM, Houston is the outright favorite to win the regular-season crown (-190). Arizona’s price (+200) implies a 33.3% likelihood. Bart Torvik gives the Wildcats about a 25% chance to win at least a share of the league title but only a 10% chance to win it outright.
Houston has a 72% chance.
It could very well come down to that Feb. 15 meeting.
Arizona was here last year. It was a team that fit the “contender” criteria. But in loss to Oregon in the conference tournament and Clemson in the NCAA Tournament, Caleb Love went a combined 7-for-29 from the field and 1-for-16 from 3-point range.
Love is still Love — he averages 17.4 shot attempts and a career-high 9.5 3-pointers per 40 minutes — and Arizona’s fate is going to be tied to his shooting in the biggest games. Houston has the nation’s third-best defense and operates at the fifth-slowest tempo in the country. Even with the matchup happening inside McKale, I’d lean Houston in that game.
Verdict: SELL
Bet to consider: The value on Houston to win the Big 12 shrinks this weekend with a win over Arizona. Right now, I’m backing the Cougars at -165 via FanDuel.
St. John’s is a top-10 team
The ninth-ranked Red Storm are 21-3 on the season, 12-1 in the Big East, and riding high after knocking off UConn on the road. The 68-62 win was the 10th consecutive victory for St. John’s — currently the nation’s second-longest active winning streak behind Akron (11).
I’m worried about some potential negative regression with this team. The win over UConn was the fifth time this season St. John’s has won a game in which it trailed by double digits. St. John’s is also 7-1 overall when trailing at the halftime break. That’s tied for the second-most wins from trailing spots of any team in the country.
The Red Storm face Creighton on Sunday, they host UConn the following Sunday, and they close the regular season with a road game at Marquette.
Despite its record and one of the best defenses in college basketball, St John’s currently sits outside the top 10 in EvanMiya’s ratings and outside the top 15 in KenPom’s ratings. This is a team that has lived right on the edge of the knife all year. At some point, the hole is going to be too large to claw out of and the Red Storm are going to get burned. Maybe that doesn’t happen in the regular season, but depending on the bracket, this could be an upset waiting to happen in the NCAA Tournament.
Verdict: SELL
Clemson can win the regular-season ACC title
With its 77-71 win over Duke at home last Saturday, Clemson kept itself alive in the ACC title race. The Tigers then smashed North Carolina on Monday night, 85-65, to move to 20-5 on the season and 12-2 in conference play. They currently sit just a half-game behind Duke in the ACC standings.
Clemson has won 8 of its last 9 games. The Tigers are one of the best 3-point shooting teams in basketball, they’re one of the most experienced teams in basketball, and, according to EvanMiya’s ratings, they have one of the best 5-man lineups in basketball.
But while Duke closes out its conference slate with 4 home games and 3 road games — 1 of which is against the lifeless husk that is Miami — Clemson plays 4 of its final 6 conference games on the road.
The Tigers need Duke to stumble somewhere along the way, and they don’t have another chance to do it themselves. Duke is the overwhelming favorite on most sports betting apps for a reason.
Verdict: SELL
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
