CBGB: Duke Descends, Iowa State Rises, Clemson Makes Bubble Magic

Welcome to the VICE Sports College Basketball Grab Bag, where every week we’ll round up the biggest news stories in the sport. Random stuff, too, because it’s college basketball. Enjoy!

Clemson could be an NCAA Tournament anomaly, and that’s good

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Looking for a weird NCAA Tournament resume? Let’s talk about Clemson. The Tigers have shown both their massive upside and downside this year, going 6-3 against top 50-ish teams on KenPom.com, but also losing to No. 196 UMass and No. 194 Minnesota.

Most NCAA bubble schools have boring resumes. They haven’t beaten many good opponents and largely hang their hats on avoiding bad losses. They’re just kind of meh: nothing ventured, nothing gained. Clemson is the opposite.

The Tigers have been on a tear since the beginning of ACC play, winning six of their first eight games. This isn’t due to a weak schedule. To the contrary, the Tigers have played almost the toughest slate of games conceivably possible: they’ve beaten No. 45 Florida State, No. 39 Syracuse (on the road), No. 3 Louisville, No. 19 Duke, No. 7 Miami, and No. 53 Pitt. Every one of those teams will either be in the NCAA Tournament or on the bubble.

By contrast, Clemson’s non-conference season was forgettable, with losses to two terrible teams as well as every opponent—Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina—of relevance.

It’s a strange resume, but Clemson has proved it can beat quality teams. That’s why I hope the Tigers find their way onto the right side of the bubble: the tournament will be full of schools Clemson can take down.

The Big Ten’s game of the year is tonight

It’s tough to find one game that will decide a conference title this early in the season, but Iowa-Maryland has that feel. The winner won’t automatically win the league, but the outcome will dramatically alter the Big Ten race.

The Hawkeyes, who are 7-0 in the conference and ranked No. 3 in the nation, travel to College Park to face the No. 7 Terrapins, who are 6-2 in Big Ten play. It’s the only meeting between the two teams this season, and it could play out as the tiebreaker if these teams are equals come March.

At 7-1, Indiana is technically ahead of Maryland in the conference standings, but the Hoosiers have all their toughest games ahead of them. Maryland has the most raw talent in the league, and with a win, the Terps will leapfrog over Indiana and put themselves in position to claim the Big Ten crown.

Meanwhile, a Hawkeyes win would give them a clear, relatively easy path to the title. Iowa already has two wins each over erstwhile contenders Michigan State and Purdue, as well as a win against Michigan. If they win tonight, it would saddle the Terps with three conference losses, and it’s hard to see the Hawkeyes losing three more times.

On top of that, this should be an awesome game between two teams that don’t really like each other. This isn’t a rivalry just yet, but last year’s Iowa-Maryland game was ultra-intense, even though the Hawkeyes won in a blowout. Case in point? Star Terps point guard Melo Trimble was poked in the eye by Iowa center Adam Woodbury.

Maryland is favored by one at home. KenPom.com gives Maryland a 53 percent chance of winning, with a projected score of 73-72. If the real game is that close, we’re in for a memorable night.

Is Wisconsin rediscovering its magic?

It has been a rough season for Wisconsin, which lost coach Bo Ryan in the middle of the campaign. Now steered by interim coach Greg Gard, the Badgers are in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 18 years, with some truly terrible losses on their resume, including Western Illinois and UW-Milwaukee.

At the start of Big Ten play, it looked like Wisconsin had almost no hope of turning things around. The Badgers began conference play 1-4, and while close losses to Maryland, Indiana, and Northwestern could be attributed to bad luck, Wisconsin simply didn’t look like a very talented team. Nigel Hayes is great, Bronson Koenig is pretty good, and freshman Ethan Happ is promising. Other than that? Not much firepower.

Since then, however, the Badgers seem to be rediscovering their magic. They’ve won their last three games, including victories over Michigan State and Indiana. Bubble hope has returned, and while Wisconsin has a lot of work to do, their upward tack and tactics are all too familiar to Big Ten fans. The Badgers will slow things down, muck up games, and put themselves in position to rack up quality wins against better opponents. There are ample opportunities remaining for Wisconsin to do its thing—at Maryland, at Michigan State, at Iowa, at home against Michigan, and at Purdue.

Win a few of those, and Wisconsin suddenly has more quality wins than a lot of other bubble teams. I’m not saying the Badgers are going to make the NCAA Tournament, but this team does resemble some of Bo Ryan’s less talented teams of the past—and that ought to scare the Big Ten.

Best week: Iowa State

This is really a best two weeks: following a 1-3 start to Big 12 play, Iowa State has gotten itself back in the thick of the conference race by beating No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 4 Kansas on back-to-back Mondays. The Cyclones are suddenly a top 10 team again, and they’ll be dangerous come March.

Worst week: Duke

That’s two weeks in a row! Congrats, or something. Duke has lost four of its past five games, including home games against Notre Dame and Syracuse. The Blue Devils’ defense is all out of sorts, ranking 147th nationally in defensive efficiency. Next week, Duke will likely be unranked for the first time in nine years, and Pete Gaudet won’t even be around to blame.

Random Ranking

In this week’s random ranking, my five favorite bubble teams:

1. Clemson: My dream scenario for the Tigers? Beat UVA, lose to Wake Forest, upset a one-seed in the NCAA Tournament, then get upset by a 13-seed in the Sweet Sixteen.

2. Monmouth: The Hawks probably won’t be a bubble team because they should win the MAAC, but on the off chance they don’t, they’ll still have a chance for an at-large bid. They’ve beaten UCLA, Notre Dame, USC, and Georgetown, but they’ve lost to Canisius, Army, and Manhattan. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3. Wisconsin: As noted above, it might be too much to call the Badgers a bubble team at this point, but they’re getting there. This team unabashedly makes games ugly, ranking 340th nationally in tempo, because that’s the only way it can win. Slowdown teams need love, too!

4. UCLA: UCLA should absolutely not be a bubble team given its talent, but here we are, because UCLA. The Bruins have wins over Arizona, Oregon State, Gonzaga, and Kentucky, but they lost to Wake Forest (lol) and Washington State (lolol).

5. Oregon State: There’s really no reason for this other than the fact that Oregon State is an awful basketball school and hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 1990. However, they’ve avoided bad losses and are led by one of the best players you likely have never seen, Gary Payton II. (Yep, he’s the son of that Gary Payton, the NBA legend and last player to lead OSU to March Madness). My alma mater is out, again—we’ll make it one year, Northwestern!—so go Beavers.