I don’t pretend to know what you think, so the headline was more of an estimation of general perception than an attempt to read minds. Here we are in the middle of January, and you’re probably guessing that you know about all of the nation’s best teams. The top-25s list a cross-section of what coaches or the press thinks, but few of these people are charged with following what happens across the entire college basketball landscape, and so they often have blind spots.
Because of the imperfection of the rankings system, there are still a few teams that have yet to get much national fanfare but figure to be players in their conferences and into March. Here are five teams that I think fit the bill:
Brigham Young: Of the teams on this list, the Cougars probably have the worst case to be here. A five-point win on a neutral court against in-state rival Utah State and a six-point win over Tulsa are Dave Rose’s only wins of note, and the biggest headlines involving BYU this season came when Wake Forest broke the nation’s longest homecourt winning streak with a 94-87 win in Provo on Jan. 3. The Cougars’ other loss came by just a single point to Arizona State in Glendale, Ariz.
What BYU lacks in quality wins, it makes up for in blowouts. The Cougars’ have 12 wins by double-figures, half of those by at least 20. BYU is led by its shooters. Jonathan Tavernari, Jimmer Fredette and Lee Cummard shoot, shoot often and shoot well from inside and outside. Tavernari also leads a defense that is one of the nation’s best at rebounding. BYU also does a great job at defending the 3-pointer, allowing fewer than 30 percent makes.
The Cougars profile a lot like a faster-paced John Beilein West Virginia team — great shooting, tons of 3-pointers, great ball movement, terrific 3-point defense. On the negative side, BYU, like those Mountaineers, doesn’t get to the foul line, hardly attempts to get offensive rebounds and doesn’t force turnovers. But those Beilein teams showed that you don’t need to be physically imposing to win in March — Elite Eight, Sweet 16 and NIT champ in Beilein’s last three seasons in Morgantown — and this could be the year the Cougars finally break through with a run in the Big Dance. Rose’s teams have lost in the first round of postseason tournaments (two NCAAs, one NIT) in the coach’s first three years at the helm.
California: With Ryan Anderson an early entry into last June’s NBA Draft, it seemed like Mike Montgomery’s first season in Berkeley would be a long one. Instead, the Bears are 15-2 overall and 4-0 in conference after a three-overtime win in Seattle on Saturday night. A 27-point loss at Missouri in the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series is the only major blight on Cal’s record, and with wins over UNLV, Utah and both Arizona and Washington teams, the Bears are well on their way to their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2006.
This is a team I’ve seen a lot, and, man, can they shoot! The only ranked team featured here, the Bears are shooting 48.3 percent on 3-pointers, six percent better than anyone else in the nation. Nearly all of the 3-pointers come from three players — juniors Jerome Randle, Patrick Christopher and Theo Robertson — each of whom has hit at least 41 percent, led by Robertson’s 59 percent. Despite the great shooting, only 14 teams in the nation take a smaller percentage of their shots from three. This seems like an inefficient distribution of shots, but it also makes Cal less of a live-by-the-three, die-by-the-three team.
Chicagoan Randle is the engine that makes this offense go, sporting the best eFG on the team (62.8 percent), a mark that includes a 54.3 percent success rate on 2-pointers, amazing for a 5-foot-10 player. He’s also the biggest reason why Cal is one of the best teams in basketball at taking care of the ball. Christopher is the NBA prospect of the trio, able to slash and shoot to great effect. Robertson has returned from missing an entire season with an injury and is much-improved as a dependable third option. Three guys that can fill it up on a team that doesn’t turn the ball over give Montgomery the makings of a great offense.
The defense is solid if not spectacular, led by Duke transfer Jamal Boykin’s rebounding. Seven-foot junior Jordan Wilkes is a solid shot-blocker and rebounder off the bench. This team follows the Montgomery defense model, one that would fit better in the Big Ten: quarter-court man-to-man defense, few forced turnovers and terrific defensive rebounding. Combine that low-risk defense with the good shooting, and Cal has a recipe for premature success in the Mike Montgomery Era.
Illinois: I already discussed Illinois in my Big Ten catchup. Just a few things to add to what I wrote there — the Illini have just two losses, by two at home to undefeated Clemson and by 10 at Michigan. Illinois has a chance to make amends for that latter loss on Wednesday when the Wolverines visit Champaign. A win there would feel at home beside previous Illinois victories over Missouri by 16, Tulsa by four and Purdue by four in overtime in West Lafayette.
It’s ironic that Illinois actually makes fewer free throws now than a year ago. The team’s percentage is 12.6 points better, but with foul-drawers Shaun Pruitt and Brian Randle gone, Bruce Weber’s club is getting to the line as infrequently as any major-conference team. In fact, only Kennesaw State has fewer than the Illini’s 23.8 made free throws per 100 field-goal attempts. Balancing out the lack of charity-stripe visits is the emergence of Demtri McCamey and Chester Frazier to give the Illini some 3-point diversity next to marksmen Trent Meacham and his 49.4-percent shooting rate.
Weber needed a good season to get the critics off his back, and it looks like the Illini are on their way to a season that will defy most predictions. His fellow coaches picked Illinois to finish sixth — third sounds more accurate now.
Oklahoma State: Of the five teams featured in this piece, Oklahoma State is probably the most likely to fall off the map over the next two months. The Cowboys play the difficult Big 12 South schedule with home-and-homes against Oklahoma, Texas and Baylor, and they haven’t fared well in three previous games against elite competition — losses to Gonzaga, Michigan State and Washington. The other problem with OSU is that first-year coach Travis Ford gets just 18.3 percent of his team’s minutes from the bench. Only three teams — Brown, St. Joseph’s and Maryland-Baltimore County — get fewer run from their benches, and none of those teams has to deal with the rigors of a major-conference schedule. For comparison’s sake, Notre Dame, whose lack of depth was exposed in a Monday loss to Louisville, gets about 12 more minutes per game from its bench.
So, why might OSU be able to stick around in the Big 12? Like Cal, the Cowboys are a terrific offensive team led by great perimeter shooting, and unlike Cal, Ford makes sure OSU takes many, many, 3-pointers. James Anderson has made huge progress after a largely disappointing freshman season. The dynamic wing is hitting 45 percent of his threes and 58 percent of his twos along with 83 percent of his free throws. He’s the rare player that can maintain such high percentages in all three shooting facets while shooting at a high volume.
Beyond Meeks, Obi Muonelo is probably OSU’s most indispensible player. He rarely leaves the floor and is a beast on the defensive glass despite standing just 6-5. Muonelo, like Anderson, is a good 3-point shooter (43.7 percent), but he is not good inside the arc and gets to the line rarely. Terrel Harris and Byron Eaton, both seniors, round out the core of this team. Harris is kind of an Anderson-lite, able to score in several different ways, but he adds steals to the equation. Eaton is also a steals maven, as forcing turnovers is the only thing Ford’s team does well on defense. The bowling ball point guard is also terrific at finding his teammates, though he still shoots too much for someone so inaccurate (44.9 eFG).
Oklahoma State’s defense defends on theft because the team is so short. Since 6-foot-11 Ibrahima Thomas’ transfer to Cincinnati after seven games — a big blow to the frontcourt — Anderson (6-6) is often the tallest player on the court. In fact, only Nebraska is smaller among major-conference teams. Ford will have to try to use his team’s makeup as a matchup problem for his opponents rather than the other way around, but I’m not sure how that’s going to work against Blake Griffin.
Washington: Perhaps it says something about regional media biases that the Huskies are the third western team to be featured on this list. The Pac-10 has gotten a lot of guff this season, but the quality of play hasn’t dropped off as much as one might think with all of the talent that left the conference this summer (six of the first 21 picks in the 2008 NBA Draft). It’s taken a while for the Huskies to find their feet this season, as evidence by a season-opening loss at Portland and a pair of defeats at the CBE Classic. The Huskies, though, won nine straight after leaving Kansas City, including an 18-point win over Oklahoma State, a 10-point victory at rival Washington State, and a last-second win at home over Stanford. It took Cal three overtimes to end that streak on Saturday
It may come as a surprise that the Huskies are led by their defense, as Lorenzo Romar usually runs out good offenses and mediocre defenses. This team, though, is a terrific rebounding team thanks to senior Jon Brockman, probably the best rebounder north and west of DeJuan Blair and Blake Griffin. With Brockman eating up nearly a quarter of opponents misses, there aren’t that many for anyone else, but sophomore Matthew Bryan-Amaning is grabbing a lot of what’s left. His 17 points, six rebounds and two blocks were indispensible in the one-point win over Stanford, but he was largely invisible (four points, four rebounds, no blocks) in the subsequent loss to Cal. Bryan-Amaning’s presence as a shot-blocker is also a big reason why opponents are shooting just 43.6 percent on 2-pointers, but he needs to be more consistent.
The offense, like the defense, is boosted by its rebounding. Brockman is even better on the offensive glass — it was Brockman’s put back that secured the win over Stanford last Thursday — while Bryan-Amaning and wing Quincy Pondexter get their share of their teammates’ misses. Isaiah Thomas is Romar’s smallest (5-8) and most prodigious shooter, but his best attribute is not actually making field-goal attempts — it’s drawing fouls and hitting free throws. Justin Dentmon is the Huskies’ sole perimeter threat (shooting 41.5 percent from three), but that doesn’t stop Thomas from chucking up four per game.
Washington appears to be good enough to finish third in the Pac-10, though the home loss to fellow challenger Cal certainly hurts the cause. Wherever the Huskies finish, led by terrific rebounding, they figure to end a two-year NCAA Tournament, a time period when Romar’s team was considered among the nation’s biggest underachievers.
Note: I had originally planned to feature Kentucky as one of the teams in this piece, but Jodie Meeks’ performance in Knoxville on Tuesday night brought Kentucky front and center in the college basketball landscape, at least for a day. Prior to the big win at Tennessee, Kentucky had actually played pretty well this season but was best known for the shocking season-opening loss to VMI and the last-second defeat at the hands of Edgar Sosa and Louisville. Meeks’ 54 changed that.
