City of Basketball Love

Matt Trabold (@TrabsMatt)

In his weekly Trabs Files, CoBL national analyst Matt Trabold takes a look around the national college landscape, both in the week that was and the week to come:

Top Seeds in These Conference Tournaments Need to Take Heed

It happens every year. Recent history has shown that even regular season champions that finished at the very top of their respective smaller conference’s standings by a truly wide margin are tremendously susceptible to being upset in the conference tournaments they are the top seed in.

That fact is why there is a rule in place that gives automatic bids to the National Invitation Tournament of a given season to teams that came away with the regular season crown in their conference, failed to win the conference tournament they were the top seed in and were not awarded an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Last season saw a record fifteen squads that fit that description.

Both the Sun Belt and the Mid-American Conference are currently in the top fifteen in the country in conference RPI. In addition to that, both of those conferences have flaunted impressive depth for yet another season in a row this time around. That could spell disaster for the top seeds in their respective conference tournaments even with all of the clout Texas at Arlington and Akron have displayed this campaign.

Texas at Arlington has ridden a Kevin Hervey that is back healthy this season to a second campaign in a row in which the Mavericks are one of the country’s most daunting mid-majors. After beating Ohio State and Memphis in its non-conference slate last season, Texas at Arlington downed Texas and the twelfth-ranked team in the country at the time in Saint Mary’s during that part of the schedule this year.

Arkansas State was picked tenth in the preseason poll coming into this season for the Sun Belt, but the Red Wolves currently sit at a 20-10 record with victories over Georgetown, Chattanooga and Lehigh. By beating Georgia State on Monday night, Arkansas State reached a season win total of twenty victories for the first time since 1998. Chris Beard is at Texas Tech now, but the Sun Belt still boasts one head coach that has won an NCAA Tournament game within the last three years in Georgia State’s Ron Hunter. Louisiana at Lafayette has rattled off five wins in a row. The Ragin' Cajuns are again getting plenty of production out of Division I transfers. Brigham Young swap Frank Bartley IV is the squad’s leading scorer at the moment.

Akron is at least three games up on every other team in the current Mid-American Conference standings, but the Zips have dropped three of their last four ballgames since a sixteen-game span that featured fifteen victories. The automatic bid to the 2017 NCAA Tournament out of the Mid-American Conference is arguably Buffalo’s to lose after the Bulls were the conference’s representative in the NCAA Tournament field each of the last two full seasons despite having two different head coaches at the helm during that time. The 16-14 Bulls recently had a six-game winning streak. On top of both having a victory this campaign versus Akron, Ohio and Kent State also upset Georgia Tech and Texas, respectively, in the non-conference portion of the schedule this year.

Watch Your Back, Goliath (Upset Prediction)

No. 11 Baylor at Texas--Sat., March 4, 4:00 PM ET

The Bears were at the very top of the Associated Press Top-25 Poll at one point earlier this season, but they have looked human down the stretch in conference play. Baylor fell in five of its last nine contests with a majority of those defeats coming against unranked opponents. Whether or not Manu Lecomte returns from being on the wrong side of a game-time decision Baylor’s last time out due to an ankle sprain, the backcourt matchup in this battle is going to be an intriguing one. Burly Ishmail Wainright is the backcourt equivalent of recent renowned Baylor bulldozer wearing basketball shorts Rico Gathers, but Texas has all sorts of above average length among its batch of guards with Andrew Jones, Kerwin Roach Jr. and Eric Davis Jr. Similar to Texas A&M this year, the Longhorns have been plagued at times by not having much in the way of a true point guard.

Even with leading scorer Tevin Mack only playing in thirteen ballgames this season before being indefinitely suspended, it is not hyperbole to say that Texas may just be the most disappointing men’s college basketball team in the country this campaign relative to the amount of talent on the roster coming in. Johnathan Motley was made one of the ten semifinalists to be named the 2017 Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year on Wednesday on top of Jo Lual-Acuil Jr. being tenth nationally in shot-blocking, but the Longhorns have enough up front to at least make the battle in the trenches in this one interesting with Jarrett Allen, mountainous Shaquille Cleare and James Banks at their disposal. Banks is averaging 1.2 blocks an outing despite only playing around twelve minutes per contest. The senior Cleare has been a bruiser from the second he began his men’s college basketball career with Maryland, but he has a confident mid-range jumper and some silky post moves in his repertoire this season.

Stat Tease

Kansas at Oklahoma State: Scoring Offense

The Cowboys have turned into one of the most pleasant surprises out of the power conference ranks this season. After losing its first six games in Big 12 competition, Oklahoma State reigned supreme in ten of its last twelve outings – ranked foes being the reason for the two defeats. Brad Underwood’s forces are ninth in the country in scoring offense at this point. Jeffrey Carroll has added nearly ten points an outing to his scoring average since his sophomore campaign. Rather ironically, Carroll scored in the twenties in four of those six defeats to start conference play. The scoring prowess of Jawun Evans as a sophomore has been assisted recently by 25-of-26 shooting from the charity stripe against Texas Tech, Kansas State and a ranked Iowa State side over Oklahoma State’s last three ballgames.

The top-ranked team in all the land right now in Kansas finds itself tied for eighteenth nationally in scoring offense. Frank Mason III has been very good for a few years now, but he has taken quite the leap as a senior. Mason III is up 7.4 points per contest from the scoring average from his junior year. He has scored in the twenties or thirties in six of the Jayhawks’ most recent eight contests. 6-9 Mississippi transfer Dwight Coleby even got in on the noteworthy scoring fun of late with twelve points on 5-of-6 shooting from the field in thirteen minutes of play versus Texas two games ago.

Stat Sheet Stuffers in Conference Tournament Play Thus Far

David Nichols--So., Albany

On Wednesday in the 2017 America East Tournament, Nichols exploded for forty points on 14-of-22 shooting from the field and perfect 4-of-4 shooting from the charity stripe against Hartford. When the Great Danes also squared off with Hartford in their regular season finale last weekend, Nichols missed all four of his attempts from behind the arc. In this most recent meeting with the Hawks, he went 8-of-12 from out there.

Chris Clemons--So., Campbell

On Thursday afternoon, the opponent in the 2017 Big South Tournament for the Fighting Camels was two-seed North Carolina at Asheville – a team that was in the midst of a nine-game winning streak just two weeks prior. Campbell pulled off the upset in that one behind 51 points and eight threeballs from Clemons. The only other players to score fifty points or higher in a men’s college basketball game this season are Central Michigan’s Marcus Keene, Eastern Michigan’s Ray Lee and South Dakota State’s Mike Daum.

Jonathan Stark--Jr., Murray State

How do you follow up a performance of 41 points, seven rebounds at 6-0, five assists and three steals in a double-overtime win over Tennessee Tech in the first round of the 2017 Ohio Valley Conference Tournament? A good way to go about that is by hanging 37 points on 7-of-13 shooting from downtown on Morehead State next time out like the Tulane transfer did on Thursday. In that most recent one, Stark hit four more threeballs than the Eagles as a whole despite attempting three less shots from out there.