The Rauf Report breaks down another weekend of NCAA Basketball action, headlined by looks at UNC, Texas, Marquette and more.
This weekend was emblematic of the NCAA Basketball weekends we’re going to enjoy between now and Selection Sunday. It was wall-to-wall conference games from noon Eastern through well past midnight on Saturday with a few intriguing contests filling the Friday night and Sunday windows as well.
And, man, this first full weekend of conference play was glorious.
Purdue held on to beat Illinois on Friday and maintained the No. 1 ranking. On Saturday, both James Madison and Ole Miss lost games on the road, leaving Houston as the lone unbeaten team remaining. Sunday had … Juwan Howard yielding head coaching duties to lead assistant Phil Martelli because they were playing at The Palestra.
That was certainly a choice and just the latest chapter in what has been a tumultuous season for a Michigan team that has had enough drama to fill a reality show. That has been much discussed and I’m sure will continue to be, but I have a handful of other topics I want to make sure we get to in this Rauf Report. Let’s start in Texas to discuss why the Longhorns — despite having been ranked all season — still have quite a bit left to prove.
More Heat Check CBB:
Are we sure Texas is any good?
Max Abmas is a proven commodity at the college level, Dillon Mitchell is a legitimate first-round NBA talent and Texas has a core of players who were vital contributors on last season’s Elite Eight team.
But do we know if Texas will truly live up to the hype?
The Longhorns have played a very easy schedule to this point and have beaten the teams they should beat. However, LSU (No. 83) is the only team it has beaten that ranks higher than No. 138 in KenPom. They are just 2-3 in games against opponents in the top three quadrants and are 9-0 in Quad 4 games.
Texas is sure to get plenty of Q1 and Q2 chances in the Big 12 — that’s pretty much all that exists in that league — but to have this flimsy of a resume at this point in the season is alarming.
Now, two of those three losses were to UConn and Marquette, two of the nation’s very best teams. There is no shame in losing to those two away from home no matter the team, which is why Saturday’s game against Texas Tech figured to be telling. The Red Raiders came to Austin with computer metrics similar to the Longhorns, meaning Rodney Terry’s squad was finally going to play a game against a similar opponent.
The result wasn’t great. Texas looked outclassed at home with a short bench, a frontcourt that didn’t produce and a backcourt that looked overmatched by its counterparts. The Red Raiders led for a majority of the game, grabbing the lead in the first half and never surrendered control of this game. They looked like the favorites playing at home — not the Longhorns.
We now have three data points of Texas facing good teams and it has lost all three by double digits. Considering they’re the only three games the Longhorns have played against KenPom top-80 teams, it should serve as a concern.
Again, although we’re in the middle of the season, it’s likely too early to make a firm judgment on the Longhorns because they’ve played so many Quad 4 games. But we certainly need to temper expectations for this group because a big slide could be on the horizon.
Marquette’s road woes
Let’s dive into Marquette as well. Its loss to Seton Hall on Saturday was its fourth consecutive loss away from home, indicating a troubling trend for the Golden Eagles.
When they play at home, Shaka Smart’s squad looks every bit of a top-10 team as advertised. On the road, though, Marquette is extremely vulnerable.
Marquette’s defense has declined a bit away from the Fiserv Forum, but it’s this team’s potent offense that has fallen off a cliff during these road losses. It’s not that one particular player or a group of players are struggling, either. It’s a collective issue that Smart says he’s trying to address.
“It’s hard to win on the road, and teams are going to be very, very motivated on their end to win the game,” he told reporters after the loss to Seton Hall. “I think we’ve run into that in those games. But we try to focus on ourselves, we don’t really control the other team. We spent some time as a group talking about resetting our road mindset coming into today, I thought in some ways our guys carried that over and then in other ways we didn’t.”
Marquette’s offense is built around motion concepts and cutting off a ball-screen action, many of which involve All-American Tyler Kolek running the show. But too often the Golden Eagles have been thrown off rhythm in those road environments, allowing their opponents to dictate things.
“We have a lot of things that we have to get better at from this game [against Seton Hall],” Smart told reporters on Saturday. “Losing games exposes your issues that sometimes can be under the surface, but we’re not entitled to win. I keep telling our guys that.”
Marquette has established itself as a very good team that will be in the mix for the Big East title and will spend pretty much the whole season in the top half of the AP poll. However, the Golden Eagles have bigger goals than that — they want to repeat as Big East champs and make a run in the NCAA Tournament. But for that to happen, they need to improve their play on the road.
UNC’s defense is playing at an elite level
North Carolina has been an offense-first program under Hubert Davis and was under Roy Williams, too. This season’s team isn’t shedding that mantra, but its four-game win streak has been bolstered by their play on the defensive end of the court.
After giving up 87 points in losses to both UConn and Kentucky, the Heels have made adjustments on that end that are working to perfection. Increased pressure on the perimeter, mixing ball-screen coverages and changing philosophies on defensive switches to avoid having guards stuck on opposing big men and vice versa have helped transform the Heels from having a solid unit to a great one in recent weeks.
Saturday’s performance against Clemson was UNC’s best defensive effort to date. The Heels limited the Tigers to just 55 points, including 1/18 shooting from 3-point range and won the rebounding battle.
“I like what we did defensively as a team,” Davis told reporters postgame. “In the first half we defended and then we kept fouling … I felt like in the first half, that was Clemson’s number one most efficient way to score. Second half, we did a bunch of the same things but we defended without fouling. This is the third straight game we’ve played really good defense and out-rebounded our opponent.”
I’ve described North Carolina’s play recently as “mature.” This is a very experienced team (fourth nationally in D1 experience, per KenPom) that goes about its business and has started playing to a standard. The high-variance teams from the past two years are gone. This team has become a steady, consistent, reliable group largely because of the way it has improved defensively, and now they’re the favorites to win the ACC.
Clemson’s crucial stretch
On the flip side of things, Clemson has a very important stretch coming up. The Tigers are now 2-3 in their last five games and have four very winnable games ahead in the next two weeks, which will be followed by the toughest four-game stretch of the season.
The next four games:
- at Virginia Tech
- vs. Boston College
- vs. Georgia Tech
- at Florida State
That stretch will be immediately followed by:
- at Duke
- vs. Louisville
- vs. Virginia
- at North Carolina
Clemson’s 11-1 start raised expectations. This is a team and a program that expects to at least be in the mix for an ACC title now and continue to be ranked in the AP Top 25. There has been a collective drop in play over this 2-3 skid that is worth wondering whether the Tigers may be following a similar pattern as last season.
On January 14th of last season, Clemson was 15-3 overall and 7-0 in the ACC after beating Duke. Brad Brownell’s squad was expected to do big things much like this season’s team. However, the Tigers went just 8-8 in their last 16 games, including losses to Wake Forest, Boston College and Louisville teams that did not make the NCAA Tournament.
This coming four-game stretch is the perfect time to stop that skid from happening. Joe Girard and PJ Hall need to get back on track and the bench has to contribute more, and these “easier” games are a good opportunity to build some momentum. If Clemson is unable to, it’s in danger of having this season spin out of control like last year’s did.
Wake Forest is legit
We’re going ACC-heavy to close out this Rauf Report, and I needed to make sure we touched on Wake Forest.
The Demon Deacons beat Miami in overtime this weekend, pushing their win streak to nine games. They’re playing at an incredibly high level that few saw coming during a 2-3 start that featured losses to Georgia and LSU, but things changed when big man Efton Reid was able to step on the court.
Reid, a transfer from Gonzaga who started his career at LSU, was not eligible to play this season until Wake Forest won his appeal in early December. This has been a different group with the big man in tow, as his elite rim protection and rebounding have provided a boost exactly where the Deacs needed it.
Now, Reid is not the sole reason for this win streak. Fellow Gonzaga transfer Hunter Sallis is playing at a very high level alongside Kevin Miller and Cameron Hildreth, providing Steve Forbes with an extremely dangerous three-guard attack. Having someone like Reid inside generates easier opportunities for them and allows them to be more aggressive and efficient.
Wake Forest is not a team without flaws — depth is still an issue, certainly — but lackluster interior defense and rebounding were major problems early in the season. Reid has been the solution to those problems, spearheading this run. The Deacs are a team on the rise.
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