The SEC/Big 12 Challenge is in the books, and it was the Big 12 that took the prize in 2019. Still, if there's any consolation for the SEC, it's that the league may turn out to have the two best teams in the entire Challenge field in the form of Tennessee and Kentucky.
Both the Volunteers and the Wildcats emerged victorious (both at home, against West Virginia and Kansas, respectively), and Rick Barnes' and John Calipari's teams have now won a combined 20 games in a row. The Challenge loss notwithstanding, these are in fact the best of statistical-strength times for the SEC.
Speaking of elite teams, here's the first hot take I think I can prove ...
Anyone who says 'there are no great teams this season' is greatly mistaken
College basketball features one of the most pronounced home-venue advantages seen in major team sports, which is probably why people who talk about college hoops love saying there are no great teams "this season" every season without fail.
If you know in advance that even the best teams in the country are likely to lose games when they play on the road, saying there are no great teams is the safe course of action. That way you won't look silly by praising a team to the skies only to see it lose.
The problem there, of course, is that great teams do in fact lose on occasion. (Either that or there have been no great teams since Indiana went undefeated in 1975-76.) And as it happens, this season projects to be possibly the best for greatness since 2014-15 (Duke, Wisconsin and Kentucky -- those were some great teams).
Purely for the sake of discussion, let's consider these six 2018-19 candidates for "great team" honors: Tennessee, Duke, Virginia, Gonzaga, Michigan and Michigan State. In other words, let's consider the top six teams in this week's AP poll.
These teams are not only a combined 109-9, they're actually a collective 106-6 against the other 347 teams in Division I. That is, three of those nine overall losses came simply from these teams colliding with each other: Gonzaga beat Duke, Tennessee beat Gonzaga and Duke beat Virginia.
Note additionally that Kansas alone owns two wins against this Big Six, having recorded victories over both Michigan State and the Volunteers. So yes, there's a reason the Jayhawks are ranked so highly in many of the "résumé-based" rating systems.
KU's body of work in the "good win" department is hard to top. Nevertheless, on a possession-by-possession basis, Bill Self's team has opened Big 12 play by performing at a level more or less equivalent to what we've seen from Kansas State or TCU. We'll keep an eye on Kansas, North Carolina and most certainly Kentucky, but for now our Big Six looks pretty solid.
To take one example, consider the adjusted efficiency margin stat (AdjEM) at KenPom. This is the scoring margin a team would be expected to record in 100 possessions against an average D-I opponent.
Over the past five years, No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament have posted an average AdjEM of +28.9. Conversely, our Big Six from 2019 clocks in with an average of +31.7. In other words, Tennessee, Duke, Virginia, Gonzaga, Michigan and Michigan State are, collectively, about three points better per 100 possessions than the average No. 1 seed from the past five years.
Naturally, it's only January, and we've seen midseason statistical flashes in the pan before. Texas in January 2011 looked ready to stop KU's streak of Big 12 titles dead in its tracks (ha), Florida was putting up historically mighty stats in January 2013 and just last year Purdue opened Big Ten play 12-0 and seemed like a good bet to lock in a No. 1 seed. January glory is fleeting.
The hot take offered here isn't that all six of these teams are sure to be great. It's just that, with an unusually high number of promising candidates this season, we're likely to see multiple programs get that job done. No great teams this year? Don't you believe it.
The 'foul up three' debate can never be resolved, and that's fine
On Saturday in Raleigh, Clemson's Clyde Trapp fouled NC State's Braxton Beverly with nine seconds remaining in a game that the Tigers led by three points. Meaning this was a classic "foul up three" scenario.
The most common school of thought in support of purposefully putting an opponent on the line, however, says Clemson actually fouled far too early. The rule of thumb, for better or worse, tends to be that fouling up three only in the last five seconds or so nets the best results.
In any event, the Wolfpack won. Beverly made both free throws, Marcquise Reed missed two free throws for the Tigers and then Beverly hit the game-winning 3 with one second remaining.
Believers in fouling up three said the idea is fine, but the execution, this time, was lacking. Skeptics were probably correct when they said that, in the event of a Clemson victory, the "too-early" foul would likely have been cited as proof of the value of fouling up three.
The hot take here on fouling up three may feel like blatant bothsidesism, but, well, sometimes bothsidesism is correct. Maybe fouling up three (or not) is an intrinsically poor parallel to more mechanistic sports decisions like punting or infield shifts. Perhaps it's more contextual.
Start with the premise that the analytically woke anti-anti-conventional wisdom says not fouling up three is in fact just as good as -- if not better than -- putting the opponent on the line. Fair enough. After all, when 65 percent of 3-point attempts are misses, it's not terribly surprising to find the "no-foul" option will, on balance, work out for you.
Still, isn't this a bit of a tautology? Saying, "Fouling up three entails risk, because most of the time they would have missed that 3-pointer anyway," is sound enough as a prescriptive read on big data, but not all three-point leads are created equal.
Consider Stanford's game back in December against Kansas in Lawrence. The Cardinal had a three-point lead in the final seconds of regulation and chose the no-foul approach.
Jerod Haase's team went on to allow a Lagerald Vick 3-pointer and then lost in overtime. Clemson lost by fouling this weekend, Stanford lost by not fouling in December.
Maybe coaches should have -- and we should allow -- the freedom of movement to foul up three sometimes and not foul up three other times. Perhaps either option can be made to look wrong in the most extreme cases.
Say, for example, a so-so Pac-12 team with uncertain NCAA tournament potential finds itself in foul trouble but also just seconds away from a résumé-transforming win at Allen Fieldhouse. Meanwhile, the best perimeter shooter on the opposing team (Vick) enters the game hitting 58 percent of his 3s on the young season and has already drained four shots from beyond the arc in the second half alone. Do you really not foul up three?
If not all three-point leads are the same, it's conceivable not all "foul up three" decisions will be alike, either. So be it. Stay flexible in this debate and switch sides as you see fit. That is likely the best approach.
Washington is the Pac-12 team your team doesn't want to see in its bracket
It is the custom in 2019 to refer to the Pac-12 only to highlight the possibility that the conference may get just one NCAA tournament bid. Duly noted.
Now, let's make an additional observation. Washington is playing basketball very well at the moment.
In Mike Hopkins' second season as head coach, the Huskies are burying conference opponents with made shots. Over the course of the program's first 2-0 road swing against Oregon and Oregon State since 2010, UW converted 71 percent of its 2-point tries.
Jaylen Nowell and David Crisp are often at the point of attack for Washington, but against the Beavers in Corvallis, it was 6-foot-6 sophomore Nahziah Carter who came off the bench and blew up for 18 points on just 11 shots.
The result of all this collaborative accuracy is an offense that's achieving rather startling results from the field. (Though, to be sure, Noah Dickerson is exceedingly adept at getting to the line.) The Huskies don't show much that's exceptional in the areas of turnovers or offensive boards, but they don't need to. Their shots are falling, from both sides of the arc.
Granted, Hopkins is best known for zone defense, and the Huskies are indeed holding the Pac-12 to just 0.93 points per possession. It doesn't hurt matters that, at a listed height of just 6-foot-5, Matisse Thybulle has transformed himself into one of the best shot-blockers in the Pac-12.
The one weakness for Washington, true to the zone stereotype, is clearly defensive rebounding. Conference opponents have pulled down 32 percent of their misses, a seemingly small number that nevertheless looms large in a league in which no one team stands out for pursuing offensive boards. Should the Huskies run across an opponent that does, there could be a problem.
Then again, if Hopkins' men have shown anything, it's an ability to meet any challenge with made shots. Mock the Pac-12 as a one-bid league all you want. UW has the potential to take that bid and do some damage.