The road between glory and indignity is brutally skinny in March.
One bounce of a ball will be the distinction between a contract extension and a visit to the unemployment line. The distinction between by no means having to purchase a drink in a school city once more, or having to hit the switch portal earlier than the staff bus arrives again on campus.
One week in the past, there was buzz that Kevin Keatts was a loss to Louisville away from being fired. 5 days later he was headed to the NCAA event with a hefty bonus and an automated 2-year extension to his contract.
March is fickle, which makes it powerful on each fan base affected.
Listed here are the 5 that essentially the most to achieve and essentially the most to lose over the three weeks forward:
1. Purdue
I don’t suppose No. 1 on this record is up for dialogue.
That is the 12 months. This needs to be the 12 months. If it isn’t the 12 months, Purdue followers may simply begin getting actually into miniatures or bonsai bushes throughout the winter months transferring ahead.
Purdue has 28 convention championships to its title, it has 35 NCAA event appearances since 1969, it has one of the crucial passionate fan bases in all of school basketball, and it’s about to have the game’s first back-to-back Naismith Award winner since 1983.
Understandably, there’s been extra speak main as much as this event about what the Boilermakers don’t have.
Purdue has by no means gained a nationwide championship, and the Boilermakers haven’t been to a Closing 4 since 1980. However the fan base’s angst main as much as this March has rested extra with this system’s current historical past.
In each event since 2016, Matt Painter’s staff has been a high 5 seed. That string of normal season success has produced little reward throughout the sport’s most necessary month. Purdue has superior to the Elite Eight simply as soon as below Painter, a soul-crushing extra time loss to eventual nationwide champion Virginia in 2019. Within the final three tournaments, the Boilermakers have been eradicated by a 13-seed, a 15-seed and, most famously, a 16-seed a 12 months in the past.
Within the 12 months which have transpired since Fairleigh Dickinson shocked each Purdue and the sports activities world, Boilermaker followers have been comforted by a single thought: The one different time this occurred, the embarrassed social gathering — one with a prolonged status for March failures — turned proper round and gained their first nationwide championship a 12 months later.
This 12 months’s Purdue staff has mimicked that 2018-19 Virginia squad in so some ways.
First, simply as Tony Bennett was in a position to do six years in the past, Painter was in a position to persuade practically each key contributor from final season’s Purdue staff to return for one more 12 months. Neither staff made any drastic modifications to fashion or philosophy, and each dominated their convention in a trend practically equivalent to what they’d achieved the season earlier than. After profitable twin convention championships the season earlier than, each 2019 and 2024 Purdue adopted up their common season convention championships with an upset loss within the convention event semifinals.
Virginia’s win complete coming into the 2019 NCAA event: 29.
Purdue’s win complete coming into the 2024 NCAA event: 29.
If Purdue occurs to be trailing its first spherical sport at halftime, Boilermaker followers ought to most likely really feel comforted, not alarmed. Simpler stated than achieved.
2. Tennessee
The one fan base inside shouting distance of Purdue relating to teetering the tremendous line between “determined for a breakthrough” and “one loss away from a whole and complete breakdown” is Tennessee. Naturally, UT is the No. 2 seed in Purdue’s Midwest Area.
Comparatively talking, the Volunteers have an especially proud school hoops custom. They’ve gained 16 convention championships (the latest being locked up earlier this month), superior to the Candy 16 of the NCAA event 9 instances, and have extra all-time wins than packages like Virginia, Georgetown and Marquette.
From “The Fearless 5” period to the “Ernie and Bernie Present” to the fashionable success below Bruce Pearl and Rick Barnes, there’s lots for UT followers to thump their chests about.
The chest thumping involves an abrupt halt when the subject of school basketball’s largest stage is introduced up.
Discover any record of “finest school basketball groups to by no means make a Closing 4” from any website throughout any time interval, and Tennessee is for certain to be at or close to the highest.
Not solely have the Volunteers by no means performed in a nationwide semifinal, however solely as soon as have they superior to the NCAA event’s Elite Eight. In 2010, as a 6-seed, their goals of lastly breaking by to the primary weekend of April got here crashing down with a soul-crushing 70-69 loss to Michigan State within the Midwest Regional ultimate.
A season in the past, it appeared like Tennessee could be poised to interrupt by. The Volunteers boasted not simply essentially the most stifling protection within the nation, however one of many high adjusted defensive effectivity marks within the Ken Pomeroy period, which dates again to the start of the century.
What Barnes’ staff didn’t have was an equally potent offense. UT’s backcourt lacked a pure scorer it might flip to throughout dry spells, a problem which grew to become doubly troubling when place to begin guard Zakai Zeigler re-tore his ACL simply earlier than the calendar flipped from February to March.
Regardless of all this, Tennessee earned a No. 4 seed for the NCAA event and bullied fashionable Closing 4 choose Duke out of the Massive Dance within the second spherical with a dominant 65-52 victory. With the highest two seeds within the East Area out earlier than the event’s second weekend, it seemed just like the seas to the Closing 4 could have lastly parted for UT. As an alternative, the shortage of a constant scoring menace doomed them one final time. Whereas the Volunteer protection stored high-flying Florida Atlantic largely in test, the offense shot a woeful 33.3 % from the sphere and misfired on 17-of-23 three-point makes an attempt because the staff noticed a 27-22 halftime lead flip right into a 62-55 defeat.
Quick ahead 12 months and hope ought to as soon as once more springing everlasting in Knoxville.
The Volunteers are the third finest defensive staff within the nation, Zeigler is wholesome and taking part in the most effective basketball of his school profession, and Barnes addressed his program’s scoring points by going out and getting a First Workforce All-American in Dalton Knecht who simply could be the most effective pure scorer within the sport. UT is a 2-seed in a reasonably open area the place the 1-seed has had simply as many current postseason struggles as they’ve.
You’ll must forgive UT followers had been sustaining an unjustified degree of pessimism. It’s not simply their program which appears cursed this time of 12 months.
Solely three energetic coaches in Division-I’ve extra profession wins connected to their title than Barnes, who resurrected a Tennessee program that had gained only one SEC event since 1979 and only one regular-season title since 2008 when he arrived in 2015. Barring one thing remarkably unexpected, this would be the seventh straight 12 months he’s led the Volunteers a to a profitable file, the sixth time he’s taken them to the NCAA event, and the third straight season he’s guided them to at the very least 20 wins.
However then there are the struggles in March, an inventory which Tennessee followers know by coronary heart at thus level. The buzzer-beating loss to Loyola in 2018, the extra time loss to Purdue in 2019, falling to 12-seed Oregon State in 2021 after which to 11-seed Michigan a 12 months later, after which the heartbreak in opposition to Florida Atlantic final season. Toss within the info that Barnes’ final six NCAA event groups didn’t make it out of the opening weekend and that he’s 1-12 all-time within the Massive Dance in opposition to better-seeded groups, and yeah, you’ll be able to see how a status has been shaped.
The narrative is all the time the narrative in school basketball, till it isn’t. Tennessee has all the things essential to win at the very least 4 consecutive video games within the weeks forward. If it doesn’t, everybody with a creamsicle wardrobe will say they need to have seen it coming.
3. Kentucky
It’s been 9 years because the final time John Calipari led Kentucky to the Closing 4, and 12 years because the solely time the Wildcats have minimize down the nets this century.
In “Kentucky years,” these numbers could as properly be 25 and 30 years.
What was as soon as the proper marriage between Calipari and Massive Blue Nation has dissolved lately. Each loss has elicited cries that the person who was as soon as the determine in school basketball hasn’t found out a strategy to (or has merely refused to) evolve with the instances. Calipari has countered with rumors of a possible departure over a number of offseasons, a not so delicate reminder that if Lexington doesn’t need him anymore, there are many locations that may open each their arms and their pocketbooks.
On the coronary heart of this cold and warm relationship are the failures of the final handful of years.
There was a soul-crushing Elite Eight loss to North Carolina on the buzzer in 2017, a missed alternative with a wide-open South Area in 2018, and one other heartbreaker in a regional ultimate in opposition to Auburn in 2019. However what has actually raised the stakes for Kentucky this season is what the the Wildcats have achieved within the post-COVID world.
Kentucky gained simply 9 video games in 2020-21, a indisputable fact that despatched some Wildcat followers right into a state of hysteria and left others brushing it off because the product of a season doused in unprecedented ranges of bizarre. Then there was the beautiful first spherical NCAA event loss to Saint Peter’s in 2022, Cal’s first opening spherical defeat at UK. A 12 months later, the Wildcats struggled (by their requirements) to a 6-seed within the dance, the place they defeated Windfall earlier than falling to Marquis Nowell and third-seeded Kansas State.
All instructed, Kentucky has gained only a single sport within the NCAA event since 2019. Its lack of success within the SEC event — the place it has additionally gained only one sport because the pandemic — has not helped issues both.
All will be made properly with a run over the weeks forward.
Kentucky followers are in love (much more than common) with their 2023-24 Wildcats. UK performs an absurdly enjoyable model of basketball, one which has made the Cats the second highest-scoring staff within the nation. They function a veteran main scorer in Antonio Reeves, what appears to be like to be a can’t miss future NBA star in Rob Dillingham, and the product of Kentucky basketball royalty within the homegrown Reed Sheppard,
It’s the most-loved staff the Bluegrass State has thrown its eight behind in fairly a while.
For now.
The weeks forward are sure to throw the Calipari-BBN relationship in certainly one of two excessive instructions. Both “Swaggy Cal” is formally again and the Wildcats are going to win a number of nationwide titles over the subsequent hanful of years, or the Cal period has run its course, and the person who as soon as set the Commonwealth on fireplace must discover a new house for his ultimate act.
There will probably be no in between.
4. Arizona
Arizona followers have skilled three kinds of torture during the last decade.
First, there have been the back-to-back Elite Eight losses to Wisconsin in 2014 and 2015, those that had head coach Sean Miller’s capability to “recover from the hump” present as one of many greatest questions within the sport.
Second, there was this system being in the course of the FBI’s probe into school basketball, an occasion which left U of L in an unprecedented state of uncertainty, and which in the end led to Miller’s ouster.
Most lately, there was Arizona’s rapid and elite degree of normal season success below new head coach Tommy Lloyd … after which its embarrassing NCAA event flops.
The Wildcats earned a No. 1 seed in Lloyd’s first season on the helm in 2022. After struggling to an extra time win over TCU within the second spherical, Arizona was manhandled within the Candy 16 by a harder and extra bodily fifth-seeded Houston staff. It received worse a 12 months later, when ‘Zona was surprised within the first spherical by No. 15 seed Princeton.
Now, after one more Pac-12 championship, Arizona is again on the 2-seed line once more. Lloyd deservedly appears to have the fan base’s full backing, however a 3rd straight loss to a determined underdog — particularly if it comes within the first weekend for a second straight 12 months — may ship Tucson right into a full-blown state of panic.
Two instances you’ll be able to clarify away. Thrice is a pattern.
5. Duke
Don’t let anybody inform you any otherwise: This can be a huge month for Jon Scheyer.
Taking up for arguably the best school basketball of all-time on the program that at present serves as the face of the game was all the time going to be a problem. To this point the early returns on Scheyer have been … combined.
He definitely hasn’t been unhealthy sufficient to warrant a mutiny or something like that.
After an uneven debut common season, Scheyer led Duke to an ACC event championship and a 5-seed within the Massive Dance, the place they had been a classy choose to make a run to the Closing 4. After a dominant win over Oral Roberts within the first spherical, the Dukies had been manhandled by Tennessee (65-52) two days later.
That efficiency was shortly forgiven as Scheyer landed each the nation’s top-rated recruiting lessons and commitments from his high 2022-23 performers to return to Durham for one more 12 months. The assembled roster made Duke various individuals’s preseason choose to win the nationwide title, and the No. 2 staff within the Related Press preseason high 25 ballot.
They haven’t fairly lived as much as that billing.
Whereas the pitchforks and torches aren’t out but, Blue Satan followers are at the very least a bit stressed after a daily season that featured eight losses, a sweep by the hands of arch-rival North Carolina, after which a one-and-done efficiency within the ACC event.
For the second straight season, Duke will probably be a 4-seed within the Massive Dance. A visit to the second weekend will probably be greeted with a golf clap and hope that even higher days are proper across the nook. An elimination in spherical one or two and the speak that taking a flyer on a 30-something who had by no means been a head coach earlier than was an error in judgment will develop from a murmur to a shout.