It’s all Quite Confusing

We’ve been beating this horse all season but as we begin the last week of January, a truth remains, this season is weird. The Big Ten can’t define itself. The ACC is the worst it has been in a long time and it’s still the 4th best league overall for KenPom. The Big East has a lot of solid teams but not a single great team. KenPom top 10 includes a Mountain West, A10 and WCC team.

As of this morning, Duke and Kansas have top-10 offensive and defensive efficiency teams. Kansas lost Silvio De Sousa for most of the rest of the regular season. Baylor, Michigan State and Louisville have top-20 offenses and defenses. Michigan State got a nice win at Minnesota yesterday after losing at Indiana. I keep waiting for the Spartans to take firm control of the Big Ten and they are favored for almost all of their games in February. Baylor’s win at Florida was an impressive victory. Louisville is on a 6-game winning streak and will be favored in all but one game the remainder of the year. Normally, you’d look at their remaining schedule and see 4-5 losses but I’m not sure this year.

I think those are the 5 best squads in the nation. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they lost on the opening weekend of the tournament.

Fun with numbers:

Virginia has a bad offense. They average less than a point per possession and are 258th in the nation in offense. Not having NBA players exposes the problem with Bennett Ball, cc: Wisconsin sports writers.

Texas Tech has the 108th offense which isn’t that far off what they were last season at this point. Will the offense catch up with the defense this year like last?


Gonzaga and Dayton own the two most efficient offenses and are 40th and 39th in defense. If those defensive numbers don’t improve dramatically, top 20ish by March, be weary of them as well. In the Zags defense, they will have 3 games against BYU and St. Mary’s, both are top 12 offenses.

Iowa, LSU and Oregon are top 6 offenses with Oregon’s 79th ranked defense being the best of the bunch. Creighton and BYU have top 10 offenses, too, but the defenses are bad. It’s a beautiful mess.