College Basketball’s 5 Contenders For Its True No. 1 Ranking

With the NBA reaching its halfway point with this weekend’s All-Star break in Houston, some will start to turn their attention to what’s going on with NCAA basketball. March is, after all, just around the corner. A quick recap for those who haven’t been paying attention: Kentucky isn’t all that good (especially now that Nerlens Noel is out for the season), UCLA’s Shabazz Muhammad is starting to live up to the preseason hype, and there is no dominant team.

The last few years teams have separated themselves by now (Kentucky in 2012 and 2010, North Carolina in 2009 and Memphis in 2008). This season there has been a far greater amount of parity, and thus, far greater unpredictability when trying to ask: Who’s No. 1? To add context, four teams in the Preseason Top 25 are not ranked in the top 10 currently. To take it even a step further, none of the three Tobacco Road teams sit atop the ACC standings. Could this be another 2011, where a team like Connecticut makes an unheralded run through both their conference and the NCAA Tournament to cut down the nets in Atlanta? Or could it be like 2010, where a strong mid-major team like Butler rises to the top and contends with some of the bigger name programs at a chance of being crowned national champions?

With less than a month remaining in the regular season teams are starting to mold into what we will probably see when March rolls around. As of now there are five teams that stand out the most: Indiana, Michigan, Duke, Miami and Gonzaga. However, this isn’t about the five best teams in college basketball, it’s about who is the one truly best team in the land. Without further ado, let’s jump into the argument.

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INDIANA
The preseason and current No. 1-ranked team in the NCAA is NOT the best team. I repeat: The Indiana Hoosiers are not the best team in college basketball. The talent and depth is there and the Hoosiers have eight players who play more than 10 minutes per game — and Maurice Creek averages 9.5 minutes per game. They also had five players return from a team that made a somewhat surprising trip to the Sweet 16 in last year’s tournament.

Indiana is also an amazing offensive team: they can play inside through Cody Zeller post ups and Victor Oladipo drives, and they have perimeter shooters in Jordan Hulls, Christian Watford and Yogi Ferrell. This versatility allows the Hoosiers to average 82.9 points per game, good for second best in the nation.

Indiana is good, but they just aren’t the best. They have had trouble closing out games this season, with three losses coming by a combined nine points. Against Butler they battled back in the final two minutes to send the game into overtime and held a four-point lead with 1:49 left to play. The Bulldogs would go on an 8-2 run to end the game and get the win.

In their second loss of the season, to Wisconsin, the two teams played a tightly contested game that, at the under-16 minute media timeout, the Hoosiers trailed by one, 38-37. However, in the next four minutes Wisconsin went on a 9-2 run to bring their lead up to 8 and the Badgers kept the lead for the remainder of the game.

Their latest lost came against an Illinois Illini team that was 2-7 in Big Ten play coming into the matchup. The Hoosiers took a convincing, and expected, 41-29 lead at the half. Illinois came out with a much more valiant effort in the second half, but it seemed that Indiana always seemed to have an answer. At the 2:55 mark Illinois took a timeout trailing by eight. From that point on the Illini closed out the game with a 12-2 run resulting in another upset loss for Indiana. The Illinois loss is the only one that was a true road game, which isn’t the best of signs for the Hoosiers going forward. Zeller is having a good season averaging 16.5 ppg and 8.2 rpg, however the engine that drives Indiana is junior guard Oladipo. The Maryland product is the team’s best all-around player and is the team’s heart and soul. The Hoosiers will go as far as Oladipo can take them when March Madness begins.

DUKE
Coach Mike Krzyzewski was able to get his team to take advantage of a down year in talent in 2010 and defeat Butler to claim the Blue Devils’ fourth national title. Can this year’s squad replicate that success? Early in the season Duke looked like they were world-beaters. In the month of November they defeated, then No. 3-ranked Kentucky, Minnesota, Virginia Commonwealth, then No. 2-ranked Louisville, and then No. 4-ranked Ohio State. In my opinion, however, the Blue Devils are a solid but not great team. With Seth Curry and Mason Plumlee they have two players capable of scoring 30 points on any given night. Yet, they have more flaws than Indiana.

One of the biggest things working against Duke right now is the injury bug. Ryan Kelly, their biggest offensive mismatch, was bitten in a January 8 win over Clemson and is still yet to return to the court. Curry has been battling through a right shin injury all season that has caused him to be limited in practice. Quinn Cook and Rasheed Sulaimon have been providing stellar guard play throughout the season, but neither has been able to consistently replace what the Blue Devils have lost due to Kelly’s absence.

Even though Plumlee is having a National Player of the Year-caliber season, the Blue Devils are a team that still relies heavily on three-pointers for offense, a high-risk, high-reward proposition. They shoot at 41 percent as a team — led by Kelly’s 52 percent, Cook and Curry’s 42 percent and Sulaimon’s 40 percent — good for sixth in the nation. But like all teams that live by the three, they can also die by the three, too. If Duke’s shooters have an off night they are in for trouble. Case and point, their 90-63 defeat at the hands of the Miami Hurricanes. As a team the Blue Devils shot 4-25 from three, good for just 17 percent.

Kelly’s possible return will help Duke, but it may take some time to get acclimated after he’s been out for at least more than a month. Being able to gel quickly to Kelly’s return is Duke’s best shot at possibly getting a fifth national title for Coach K.

MIAMI
The most surprising team in all of the NCAA is the Miami Hurricanes. There must be something in the water that Jim Larranaga is serving down in Coral Gables because the team is starting to look as good as some of the women walking around South Beach. The architect behind George Mason’s unprecedented run to the Final Four in 2006 has lead Miami squarely into the spotlight thanks in part to an 11-game winning streak and a perfect 10-0 record in conference play. The Hurricanes are the only team in a power six conference without a loss in their conference.

In this week’s AP poll, Miami’s No. 3 ranking is the school’s highest in history, to go with a 19-3 record. Coming into the year most knew Durand Scott was a perennial All-ACC player and that Reggie Johnson had the potential to be the league’s best big man. Thanks to the unexpectedly stellar play of Shane Larkin, Kenny Kadji, Trey McKinney Jones, Julian Gamble and Rion Brown, the Hurricanes have morphed into the ACC’s best team. Miami is 4-0 against the Tobacco Road schools (North Carolina, Duke and North Carolina State) and is averaging 81 points per game and allowing only 65.25 points per game against the ACC’s traditional powerhouses.

Though the Hurricanes are one of the hottest team in the nation, they are not its best team.

The holes in their credentials come in the form of two losses that a team vying for the position of best in the land would never suffer, a road loss to Florida Gulf Coast and a home overtime loss to Indiana State. Granted the two teams are first and second in their conferences respectively, these are games that Miami should never, ever have lost. Even now, it leaves me hesitant to pick the ‘Canes No. 1.



GONZAGA
There will be no “East Coast Bias” in this article: The team making the most noise out West resides in Spokane, Wash. The Gonzaga Bulldogs were one of the first teams to bring respectability to the so-called “mid-major” teams in the NCAA. During the late 1990s no big-name program wanted to match up with them come tournament time after the ‘Zags advanced to the 1999 Elite Eight. That still holds true now because with stud players in Kelly Olynyk, Elias Harris and Kevin Pangos, the Bulldogs now have the talent to go toe-to-toe with some of the nation’s top programs. In a season that was supposed to see the reemergence of traditional West Coast powerhouses like UCLA and Arizona, Gonzaga has stood head and shoulders above the rest. Their two key reasons is their offense — they rank twenty-seventh in the nation in assists (15.8 APG), seventh in the nation in scoring (78.6 PPG) and second in field goal percentage (50.7 percent) — and a stingy defense that allows just 61 points per game.

Olynyk and Harris form one of the best and most dangerous frontcourts in the nation, averaging 17.7 PPG and 6.8 RPG and 14.8 PPG and 7.2 RPG respectively, but they don’t make Gonzaga the nation’s best team. Two of the three ranked opponents that Gonzaga has played this year, Illinois and Butler, account for the Bulldogs’ only two defeats. As for the rest of Gonzaga’s schedule, they had an impressive run through the Big 12, including at Oklahoma State, but outside of St. Mary’s, there are not too many other strong teams that the Bulldogs will face.



MICHIGAN
Finally we get to the crème de la crème. Yes, Michigan has the most losses out of any team on this list (21-4). Yes, they are 1-3 in their last four games. Yes, they just got absolutely destroyed by Tom Izzo and Michigan State in East Lansing. But they remain the most complete team in the nation right now. Why? The Wolverines have quality players at every position. Every school would love to have a big man rotation of Mitch McGary, Jon Horford, and Jordan Morgan. Name a school with better freshman than Nick Stauskas or Glenn Robinson III. Finally there isn’t a better backcourt in all of the NCAA than Tim Hardaway Jr. and Trey Burke.

John Beilein has brought Michigan back to a level that was last seen when the Fab 5 and their baggy shorts and black socks took college basketball by storm. Burke is the leader and superstar of these Wolverines. Burke is the first Big Ten player since Earvin “Magic” Johnson to average 18-plus PPG and 7-plus APG. Hardaway Jr. may not have as deadly of a “UTEP Two-Step” that his dad did but being six inches taller has allowed him to be an offensive assassin.

Don’t be fooled by the 40 percent three-point percentage either, because this team can bang down low with the best of them. For the year they are scoring 36 points per game in the paint, good for number one in the Big Ten — where paint points are what the conference is known best for. They have multiple options on offense with Burke, Hardaway Jr., Robinson III, Stauskas and McGary. This versatility allows them to be one of the most efficient offenses in the NCAA. They average only 9.3 turnovers per game, the fewest turnovers per game in all of college basketball.

If you are not yet a believer in the Wolverines, it’s OK. They still have rematches against Big Ten-leading Michigan State and Indiana at home to come in March. Come March 11th, Michigan quite possibly could be sitting pretty once again at the top of the polls, ready to make a March Madness run.

What do you think?

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