NCAA Tournament Crystal Ball
by Dan Hauptman and Michael Protos
Feb. 9, 2007
When gazing into Hoopville’s Crystal Basketball this week, Dan Hauptman and Michael Protos could not stop from having vivid flashbacks to the early 1990s. Their walk down Nostalgia Lane leads the duo to 1992 and the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis. On the night of April 6, Duke conquered Michigan and won its second consecutive NCAA title. The Blue Devils’ repeat championship achievement has not been seen in the 15 years since, setting the stage for a remarkable happening come April.
This season, Billy Donovan’s Florida squad returned virtually the same team that won it all in 2006, a rare occurrence in today’s college basketball. The collective Gator dream was to come back this year and replace Duke as the most recent hoops team to win back-to-back and belly-to-belly. With five weeks to go until the 2007 NCAA Tournament tips off, Gainesville’s goal may soon become a Blue Devils nightmare, as Florida is playing far better than it did last year and is Hauptman’s and Protos’ undisputed best team in the land.
Making matters worse in Durham is the relative failure of a season that is unraveling in front of Coach K’s eyes. Expectations are always great for the Blue Devils, even in a rebuilding — or is it reloading? — year. These enormous annual hopes inevitably produce disappointing seasons every now and again, and 2007 has “hellish” written all over Cameron. Duke has not yet fallen onto the tournament bubble, but three straight conference losses and a .500 ACC record has the Crazies in a cold sweat and dreaming of the glory days when Laettner, Hill and Hurley dominated in royal blue.
Duke’s latest loss Wednesday to North Carolina drops the Blue Devils down Hauptman’s and Protos’ brackets. Although Protos still has Duke as a weak No. 5, Hauptman drops the Blue Devils to the No. 7 line. Duke is a good representative of this year’s ACC – the league has a whole slew of teams competing for NCAA Tournament berths, but only North Carolina is a bona fide top four seed. The conference has nine teams contending for bids, and North Carolina State has shown signs of life in the past week to indicate that the Wolfpack will be a tough out in the conference tourney. But are any of those teams going to be favored to win more than one game in the NCAA Tournament?
Although the ACC has depth without much star power, the Big Ten is the exact opposite. Hauptman’s current vision of the field places only three teams in the tournament, all of which are a No. 5 seed or better. With Michigan State’s recent struggles, the Big Ten is in peril of fielding an embarrassingly low number of teams for a major conference. Protos’ outlook is not so dire for the conference that has produced one national champ and two runners-up this decade. He has Purdue and Michigan State in the field, but they are both among the last four in.
In addition to those two, Protos foresees the selection committee sending Georgia Tech and Providence to the tournament, but Hauptman thinks they will be watching the games from home. Instead, he favors BYU, Georgia, Northern Iowa and Kansas State.
The Crystal Basketball is yielding vastly different visions on BYU for Hauptman and Protos. Hauptman finds the Cougars impressive, proven by victories against Mountain West powers Air Force and UNLV. Although Protos likes the Falcons and Rebels, he considers BYU’s No. 25 RPI– according to Ken Pomeroy’s rankings – to be a sham. BYU has a mediocre non-conference strength of schedule, largely because the Cougars dropped road games at Boise State and Lamar. In addition, BYU’s résumé is devoid of a signature victory, especially on the road. For the Cougars to become a realistic NCAA Tournament candidate, Protos needs to see them win at Air Force and San Diego State later this season.
Here’s what else Hauptman and Protos saw in the Crystal Basketball this week.
| Hauptman’s Hoops Horoscope | Protos’ Prognostications |
|---|---|
 Florida UCLA North Carolina Wisconsin |
Florida UCLA North Carolina Ohio State |
 Ohio State Pittsburgh Texas A&M Washington State |
Wisconsin Texas A&M Pittsburgh Kansas |
 Memphis Kansas Southern Illinois Nevada |
Memphis Marquette Butler Oregon |
 Marquette Kentucky Butler Oregon |
Indiana Nevada Washington State Kentucky |
 Air Force Indiana Oklahoma State Creighton |
Southern Illinois Virginia Tech Duke Oklahoma State |
 Georgetown Boston College UNLV Texas |
Clemson Arizona Air Force Georgetown |
 Arizona Notre Dame Duke Tennessee |
Texas Boston College UNLV Tennessee |
 BYU Virginia Tech USC Florida State |
USC Villanova Creighton Virginia |
 West Virginia Gonzaga Texas Tech Alabama |
Gonzaga Texas Tech Stanford Arkansas |
 Missouri State Virginia Vanderbilt Clemson |
Notre Dame Vanderbilt Missouri State Florida State |
 VCU Villanova Stanford Georgia |
VCU Alabama Purdue Georgia Tech |
 Northern Iowa Kansas State Xavier Arkansas |
Davidson West Virginia Michigan State Massachusetts |
 Appalachian State Winthrop Akron Holy Cross |
Providence Winthrop Akron Holy Cross |
 Long Beach State South Alabama Oral Roberts Yale |
Texas A&M – Corpus Christi Oral Roberts Vermont Penn |
 Vermont Austin Peay Weber State Marist |
Marist Austin Peay South Alabama Central Connecticut State |
 East Tennessee State Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Central Connecticut State Delaware State Jackson State |
Delaware State East Tennessee State Cal State Fullerton Jackson State Weber State |
 Last 4 In:Georgia Northern Iowa Kansas State Arkansas |
Last 4 In: Purdue Georgia Tech Michigan State Providence |
| Last 4 Out: Bradley Maryland Georgia Tech Illinois |
Last 4 Out: Illinois Maryland Northern Iowa Syracuse |
| Shooting Stars: BYU Georgetown Southern Illinois USC |
Shooting Stars: Marquette Virginia Florida Boston College |
| Sinking Ships: Duke Oregon Arkansas Texas Tech |
Sinking Ships: Notre Dame Michigan State Maryland Syracuse |
| Conference Breakdown: ACC: 7 SEC: 7 Big 12: 6 Big East: 6 Pac-10: 6 Missouri Valley: 4 Big Ten: 3 Mountain West: 3 23 one-bid conferences |
Conference Breakdown: ACC: 8 Big East: 7 Pac-10: 6 SEC: 6 Big 12: 5 Big Ten: 5 Missouri Valley: 3 Mountain West: 2 23 one-bid conferences |
Whose field looks more accurate to you? Or are both Hauptman and Protos off target? E-mail us your comments on the Crystal Basketball or give us your own NCAA Tournament prognostications. Then check back throughout the next two months, as Hauptman’s and Protos’ visions for the Big Dance become clearer as the days until Selection Sunday count down. The calendar reads February. In this shortened month, Cinderella has less time to pick out her dancing slippers.
