The Rauf Report breaks down the biggest takeaways from the week of NCAA basketball, including why Florida is struggling and Florida State is surging.
We’ve crossed the halfway point of the NCAA basketball season, and we’re now less than two months away from Selection Sunday. The bracket will be unveiled on March 17, and there figures to be plenty more twists and turns between now and then.
At the same time, I think clear tiers have now been established in the rankings now that we’re a few weeks into conference play. There’s a clear line after the top six of UConn, Purdue, Kansas, North Carolina, Houston and Tennessee. Another group mixed in right behind them features teams that have flashed high-level play but have been inconsistent.
That allows us to cast a pretty wide net as we start looking ahead to the NCAA Tournament and potential national championship contenders. However, we can shrink that net down a bit.
Past champions have generally been dominant on both ends of the court, ranking in the top 20 in both adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency. Right now, six teams meet the criteria, and they are not the same six at the top of the AP poll. Arizona, Auburn, BYU, Houston, North Carolina and Purdue are all top-20 on both sides of the ball, and Tennessee isn’t far off (No. 21 in AdjO, No. 2 in AdjD).
The point is that we have a much clearer picture regarding how this season is likely to go. There have been some surprises in conference play that have revealed teams that have improved and teams that may be a bit fraudulent. We’ll start this Rauf Report with a look at the latter before moving to the former.
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Florida’s struggles against quality competition
This season is a very important one for Todd Golden. His hiring came with much fanfare after leading San Francisco to the NCAA Tournament in 2022. It also came with expectations to bring the Gators back to SEC power quickly.
Instead, Florida finished with a sub-.500 record in his first season. Golden used the transfer portal to overhaul the roster this offseason. That looked like a smart move for the first two months of the season as the Gators started 10-3.
But things have been different since SEC play started. Florida is just 1-3 in the league, and there are valid concerns about its ability to save its record. The Gators are currently 3-6 in games against the Quadrants 1 and 2 without a single Q1 victory.
The Gators’ record and inflated metrics are due to Florida beating up on the lesser teams it has played. When facing off against the best teams on the schedule, though, the Gators have been dreadful — particularly on the defensive side of the ball.
The same problem plagued Florida last season. A 13-9 start included a single victory over a KenPom top-50 team. Then, the Gators went 3-8 down the stretch against a backloaded schedule. The backend of this year’s schedule is generous, but that just means Florida is going through the thick of it right now.
Four of Florida’s next six games are against top-50 teams. Will the Gators right the ship or completely fall apart like last season? In order to turn things around, their defense needs to improve immensely.
Florida State’s surge
Staying in Florida, the Seminoles have been surprisingly successful against the league it is currently suing.
Leonard Hamilton’s squad is rounding into form following a disappointing nonconference slate that featured losses to Lipscomb and South Florida (along with a defeat to the aforementioned Gators). Since that Lipscomb loss on Dec. 30, Florida State has won five games in a row with victories over Wake Forest and Miami in its proverbial cap.
Those victories signal that this turnaround is legitimate — despite a significant jump in competition.
So, what caused this sudden turnaround?
The most obvious answer is the players that became available for FSU. Georgetown transfer Primo Spears did not become eligible until a West Virginia judge’s ruling that the NCAA couldn’t restrict two-time transfers from playing. Now, he is one of three players averaging double-figure points. The Noles are 7-2 since Spears returned to the court.
Sophomore center Cam Corhen missed five games in December and is back playing at a high level. Brown transfer Jaylan Gainey missed the first part of the season and has established himself as a key piece to the frontcourt rotation.
Other players have found their footing. VCU transfer Jamir Watkins looks like Florida State’s best player, leading the Seminoles in points, rebounds, assists and steals. Watkins has really embraced that role of late. Baba Miller is playing the best basketball of his young career, particularly on the defensive end.
The Seminoles still have a long way to go to get into the NCAA Tournament picture. Those nonconference losses are serving as anchors to their resume, but this team is tied for second in the ACC and has found its groove. A home game against a struggling Clemson team on Saturday will be another chance for FSU to separate itself from the middle of the conference.
UNLV is playing spoiler in the Mountain West
Speaking of teams that struggled in nonconference play, UNLV is one of the teams Florida State was able to beat during that slow start. The Rebels started even slower than FSU, going 3-4 in their first seven games with a pair of Quad 4 losses to Southern and Loyola Marymount. It was so bad that there were serious questions about head coach Kevin Kruger’s future after that loss to LMU.
Since then, things have changed in a pretty big way. The Rebels blew out a then-top-10 Creighton team thanks to a hot-shooting performance and stout defensive effort. UNLV has been able to maintain that level of play since, especially on the defensive end, where their play is a night-and-day difference since the disastrous start.
“We’ve been playing more together as a team, and that’s increasing everyone’s confidence, especially myself,” said 6-7 big Rob Whaley, who has emerged as a key interior piece during this stretch.
This turnaround has UNLV thinking about postseason possibilities. Starting with that victory over Creighton, UNLV is 6-3 with three Quad 1 victories. All three losses were to Quad 1 opponents, too. Two of them came by a combined three points — a double-overtime loss to Saint Mary’s and a one-point loss to Utah State.
The biggest thing dragging UNLV’s resume down is its win-loss record. At 9-7, the Rebels simply don’t have the magnitude of wins to offset those bad nonconference performances. The Q1 victories are there, but a 4-4 mark in the other quadrants won’t get it done.
The good news: the Rebels will start racking up those victories if they keep playing at this level. Based on the latest NET ratings, UNLV has five Quad 1 games left on its schedule. The team also has one more (home vs. Nevada on Feb. 17) against a team in the top half of the conference, plus five Quad 4 games and three in Quad 3.
The top half of the Mountain West is a bear, and UNLV’s conference schedule was frontloaded with those teams. As things lighten a bit during the back part of that schedule, the Rebels’ postseason hopes rest on continuing this production.
“We feel like we’re playing well right now,” head coach Kevin Kruger told reporters on Monday. “We’re excited for that challenge.”
Holes emerging in Memphis’ resume
Memphis’ 74-73 loss to South Florida on Thursday night was the Tigers’ first loss since Dec. 2, ending a 10-game win streak. Penny Hardaway’s squad rose to the top 10 in the AP poll during this stretch, establishing itself as the class of the American and looking like a surefire NCAA Tournament team.
That didn’t necessarily change on Thursday. However, the USF loss did bring about questions regarding Memphis’ tournament resume.
The impressive neutral-court victories over Michigan and Arkansas at the Battle 4 Atlantis are, well, not that impressive anymore. Those are Quad 2 and Quad 3 victories now, respectively. (Both may end up being Q3 given how Michigan’s season is going.)
Memphis’ home victories over Clemson and Virginia were eyebrow-raisers at the time, particularly the 23-point drubbing of the Cavaliers. But now both of those teams are headed in the wrong direction. Neither is a Q1 win anymore, and the Virginia victory is close to being a Q3. A road win over Texas A&M remains the Tigers’ lone Quad 1 win of the season — and the Aggies are just 3-4 since that meeting, with just one of those wins coming against a non-Q4 opponent.
Having Texas A&M be the best win does not bode well for the Tigers’ resume moving forward. That is especially true considering the lack of high-end opportunities afforded to them in conference play.
Memphis has also hurt its metrics with some nailbiters. A two-point victory over Vanderbilt, a three-point victory over Tulsa, an overtime win against UTSA at home. These results do not inspire confidence. That’s why this latest South Florida loss is worrisome: it’s indicative of how the Tigers have been playing of late.
Here’s a look at where Memphis stands in various rating systems:
- NET: 40
- KenPom: 49
- Torvik: 74
- EvanMiya: 37
- BPI: 46
Those are ratings reflective of a team on the bubble, not one that ranks in the top 10 nationally. Now that the Tigers have as many Q3 losses as they do Q1 wins, those lackluster metrics matter more.
Ultimately, I still think Memphis will be fine. That said, the margin for error is significantly lower than most realized before Thursday’s loss to USF.
Texas’ uphill battle
Texas has had a no-good, very-bad start to Big 12 play.
The Longhorns went 11-2 during the nonconference portion of its schedule, but they only beat one team of note (LSU). UConn and Marquette blew Texas out in the Horns’ two biggest games, signaling that their record might be strongly inflated. In fact, our Jan. 8 Rauf Report openly questioned this Texas team following a double-digit home loss to Texas Tech.
Since then, the Longhorns have…
- …beaten Cincinnati by one point thanks to a Max Abmas shot in the final seconds
- …lost to West Virginia (KenPom No. 140)
- …blown a 16-point lead and a 12-point halftime lead in a loss to UCF (No. 79)
The UCF loss prompted a comical rant from Rodney Terry about the “Horns Down” gesture. While that may have redirected the discussion around this team, I want to bring it back into focus.
Texas has a 1-3 mark in league play and is only on nine of a possible 70 brackets on BracketMatrix. Texas is struggling, and there’s a real chance this thing completely falls off the rails.
That 1-3 record has come against four of the bottom six teams in the Big 12, per KenPom rankings. Of the 14 remaining games on Texas’ schedule, 10 will be played against teams currently ranked inside the KenPom top 25. Only West Virginia, Kansas State, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State are outside that threshold — and two of those teams have beaten Texas this year.
KenPom projects that Texas will go 5-9 down the stretch, finishing with a 6-12 record in conference play. That would be the program’s worst Big 12 record since Shaka Smart’s second season when it went 4-14 and finished in last place.
That same fate — a last-place finish — is a much more likely outcome than competing for a conference title, which is where Texas was expected to be in the preseason. Things could go from bad to worse quickly for Rodney Terry & Co. If they do, he’ll have much more to worry about than those “Horns Down” hand gestures.
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