Two days ago, there were eight undefeated teams in NCAA Division I college basketball. Sunday morning, five remain, and it’s far more likely than not that number will continue to dwindle quickly now.
One can assert that confidently because, from now until March, lopsided scheduling is just about over, and every team in the country now will be playing a significant number of road games. It’s an entirely different animal away from home, and what many teams with gaudy records now have avoided for a month and a half they won’t be able to any more.
All three unbeaten teams to lose since Friday did so in hostile territory, and the latest to fall came Saturday night as top-ranked Kansas was knocked off by Arizona State 80-76 in Tempe. The Sun Devils rallied after trailing almost the whole game, including by 13 in the first half. In fact, ASU led for just 2 minutes 5 seconds all night, but all of it came in the game’s final three minutes as the Sun Devils hung around all night and then heated up at the right time.
It’s a huge win for the Sun Devils, who have shown a knack for these things in November and December the last two years, have defeated KU two straight seasons, and this time slayed a No. 1-ranked team for the first time since taking down Oregon State in March 1981. The game is also huge for the beleaguered Pac-12, which is having a well-documented less-than enchanting non-conference performance.
The Jayhawks were playing their first true road game of the season, and there’s no shame in losing to a ranked team (ASU is 18th in the latest Associated Press Top 25). At the same time, this was also the same Arizona State team that was handled on the road at Vanderbilt six days earlier, and two days before that had to come back from 18 down to win at Georgia. Kansas lost to a good team, very likely an NCAA Tournament squad, but the Sun Devils weren’t exactly a juggernaut in their first road trip of the season just a few days earlier, struggling with two teams that would do well to make the NIT.
It has been confounding to see in recent years the impact of playing on the road become relatively pooh-poohed in this sport. The statistic about home teams winning two-thirds of the time is well worn, yet many seem plenty happy to accept at face value the implied dominance from non-conference performance numbers that are exceedingly skewed by where games are played. For as much as Graham Couch was recently pilloried for his AP poll ballot where he refused to rank teams that hadn’t played a road game, he was right on in making the point that teams not playing on the road aren’t giving close to a complete picture of their real quality.
You can certainly blame the NCAA selection committee for some of the lack of understanding, for a big part of the committee’s failings in recent years has been its increasing disregard for road victories. If there’s anyone who should know the value of road wins, it’s those who allegedly study the sport the most, but the committee has chosen to all but ignore a basic and very important piece of teams’ resumes, unless those road wins are of top-of-the-line quality.
Road games are difficult anywhere-not just at Cameron Indoor or Allen Fieldhouse. Neutral site games are good, but they don’t remotely replicate what it’s like to travel for a road game and play in front of surroundings that are unfamiliar for one team and downright friendly for the other.
The five remaining undefeated teams-Houston, Michigan, Nevada, St. John’s and Virginia-have played a combined eight non-conference road games, or three less than the combined 11 by Buffalo and Furman, which should make those two teams’ undefeated records until Friday night all the more impressive. Maybe a few of those undefeateds left will keep this going for a while, but the percentages say that now conference play with regular trips to unfriendly locations has arrived, it’s just a matter of time until they fall, too.
Side Dishes:
- Hoopville czar Phil Kasiecki has the latest edition of his Saturday Notes here, recapping all the biggest games of the day.
- Among Saturday’s top individual performers, Georgetown freshman Mac McClung exploded for 38 points, and the Hoyas needed about all of them to outlast Arkansas-Little Rock 102-94 in overtime.
- A player G-town has seen already this season, Campbell’s Chris Clemons, scored 36 points, more than half of his team’s total-and also added five steals-in a narrow 70-69 win over Alabama State.
- Another tiny scoring machine, Weber State’s Jerrick Harding also scored 36 in the Wildcats’ 83-69 win over Delaware State. Harding’s total included a perfect 13-for-13 showing from the foul line.
- South Dakota State All-American candidate Mike Daum was superb again with 33 points and 15 rebounds, but it still wasn’t enough as the Jackrabbits lost at home to Montana 85-74. The Grizzlies’ snapped what was the nation’s longest home winning streak at 26 games.
- Tyler Kohl of Central Connecticut State scored 33, including what proved to be the game-winner with 26 seconds left in the second overtime as the Blue Devils’ edged Maine 93-90 on the road. CCSU finally pulled this out after the Black Bears’ Sergio El Darwich hit tying three-pointers at the end of regulation and then again the first overtime to keep his team alive.
- Austin Peay star Terry Taylor scored 32 to tie a career high and the Governors moved to 8-4 with a 75-66 win over Liberty in the St. Pete Shooutout final. Taylor is just a sophomore, and Peay has now won six straight; along with Belmont and Murray State, watch them in the Ohio Valley.
- Also, a call to Old Dominion forward Aaron Carver. The son of ODU great Anthony Carver is not a glamour player and has the stats to prove it, but he scored 10 points and added a whopping 20 rebounds in the Monarchs’ 76-53 win over Morgan State. The 10 points represented a scoring outburst for Carver, a true dirty work player who is now up to averaging 1.8 points and 6.0 rebounds per game.
- Among Saturday’s other results, East Tennessee State won the 57th annual Don Haskins Sun Bowl Invitational, topping Norfolk State 89-61 in the final. Kudos to ETSU on the title, and to UTEP and El Paso for keeping going what is the longest-running true holiday tournament in the country.
Today’s Menu: It’s a light one two days before Christmas with just 10 games, four of them at the Diamond Head Classic.
- The semifinals in Hawaii have Indiana State against UNLV (4:30 p.m. Eastern, ESPN2) and Bucknell facing TCU (10 p.m., ESPN2). The Horned Frogs are certainly heavy favorites to win this event now, though Indiana State’s three-point shooting and Bucknell’s experience and comfort playing top competition could pose a few problems. Consolation bracket games are Colorado against host Hawaii (7 p.m., ESPNU) and later Rhode Island against UNC Charlotte (12:30 a.m., ESPNU).
- The Continental Tire Classic Las Vegas Classic finishes with upstart Drake against San Diego in the title game (7:30 p.m., FS1). The consolation game follows that as New Mexico State takes on Washington State (10 p.m., FS1).
- Also taking place in Vegas: Southern Illinois-Edwardsville meets Northern Colorado and Cal State Northridge takes on Rider.
- On campus, unbeaten Houston hosts winless Coppin State.
- Manhattan heads just south to Brooklyn to face St. Francis (N.Y.) in a pairing of New York City foes.
Have a blessed Sunday before Christmas.
Twitter: @HoopvilleAdam
