The importance of defensive consistency highlights the contenders and pretenders in the latest edition of the Rauf Report.
Following Ohio State’s victory in the College Football Playoff last night, there are only three more football games remaining on the calendar. I do not say this to make you sad — I say this because now is the time when casual sports fans start turning their attention to college basketball for the next two months.
If you’re new to the season, buckle up.
Eighteen of the teams ranked in the top 25 last week suffered at least one loss, and only a few were true upsets. Iowa State’s loss to West Virginia showed that even the top teams are still mortal, too, especially on an off-shooting night.
Speaking of off-shooting nights, they have become the main worry for Kentucky.
The Wildcats have exceeded all expectations in Year 1 under Mark Pope, but their porous defense puts a lot of pressure on the offense to be incredibly efficient every single game. Those defensive struggles are where we’ll start this Rauf Report.
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Kentucky’s defense limits its ceiling
Kentucky’s 14-4 start has erased any fear of the Wildcats struggling in the post-Calipari era. Between the success of Pope’s aesthetically pleasing offensive system and Calipari’s struggles at Arkansas, Big Blue Nation seems to have come out on top in the offseason shuffle.
But betting on a Final Four run may be a risky proposition until Kentucky’s defense improves.
As good as this offense is, SEC play has exposed Kentucky’s defense as a weak spot. The Wildcats are allowing a league-worst 88.6 points per game in conference play, and two of their five SEC opponents scored at least 100 points (Florida, Alabama).
Pope’s squad now ranks 121st in adjusted defensive efficiency against top-50 opponents, per Bart Torvik, far worse than your typical successful March squad. Looking at the 10 past teams with the most similar Torvik efficiency profiles, a first round loss in the Big Dance was just as likely as a second-weekend trip.
I’m a believer in this Kentucky team finishing closer to the higher end of this list. The three most recent teams — last season’s Illinois group, and both Xavier and Gonzaga from 2023 — all made the second weekend.
Meanwhile, recent history has shown us that overall defensive efficiency doesn’t matter as much as playing solid defense in stretches. Great individual defenders like Lamont Butler, Otega Oweh and Amari Williams will be able to string together stops at some point. Even if the stops don’t materialize, both Alabama and Miami made recent Final Fours despite major holes on defense.
The Wildcats already have six Quad 1 wins, including a 4-3 mark against Quad 1A foes. They’re good enough to make the second weekend for the first time since 2019. But their recent play on defense has exposed their biggest vulnerability.
Purdue’s defense raises its ceiling
On the flip side, Purdue’s defense has helped turn its season around. The Boilermakers have not lost since back-to-back pre-Christmas defeats to Texas A&M and Auburn, and it’s largely because they have found their groove on the defensive end.
Matt Painter’s squad hasn’t allowed anyone to score more than 68 points during its current seven-game win streak, a mark opponents eclipsed nine times in its first 12 games.
Purdue obviously had an elite rim protector anchoring its defense the last two seasons in Zach Edey, and it expected 7-4 freshman Daniel Jacobsen to somewhat fill in that role. His season-ending injury left the Boilermakers without any sort of rim protection, and it took some time to adjust.
“It’s just everybody on the team,” Painter told reporters following Purdue’s victory over Oregon on Saturday when talking about his defense. “It’s the old saying, ‘You’re as strong as your weakest link.’ You’re as strong as your worst defender. If you can play good team defense and you know what’s going on and you can stay with the game plan, but you just can’t get beat on the dribble all the time. You just can’t get beat.
“We kind of go back-and-forth on things, but whatever we do, guys have been really good sticking to a game plan and fighting. You have your foundation defensively, so you have your core principles and you have specifics of things that can change in a scouting report.”
Purdue’s offense is still its best trait, ranking top 10 nationally in KenPom adjusted offensive efficiency. Braden Smith’s playmaking and Trey Kaufman-Renn’s scoring ability on the block play a huge part in that and give the Boilermakers a solid floor.
If they can maintain this level of defense, Purdue can win the Big Ten crown again.
Marquette’s loss to Xavier was coming
The Golden Eagles were one of the teams that lost in surprising fashion over the weekend, falling by two at home to Xavier on Saturday.
It’s certainly not a detrimental one of Marquette’s season — it was the team’s first loss in over a month. Meanwhile, Xavier has been coming on strong, and the Golden Eagles are still tied for first in the loss column in the Big East. Still, it was indicative of the way the team had been playing.
Shaka Smart’s squad has not looked like as elite as during the first part of the season, often struggling with lesser opponents since beating Wisconsin in early December. In the eight games since that victory, the Golden Eagles have lost twice (Dayton, Xavier). They also needed comeback victories to escape upset bids by DePaul and Georgetown, as well as in their first meeting against the Musketeers.
The numbers reflect they’ve been playing much more like a bubble team than the top-3 seed they’re currently projected to get.
To provide some context, that No. 41 ranking is one spot behind McNeese and just two ahead of Villanova for the time period. Not ideal!
Kam Jones has been in a bit of a shooting slump, too. I trust he will return to form, but this entire offense has taken a step back. Marquette needs to find its rhythm quickly to stay in the Big East title hunt.
Pitt is in danger of sliding out of the NCAA Tournament picture
Just two weeks ago, Pitt sat tied for first place in the ACC and close to returning to the top 25 poll as the first team out. Things were looking up for Jeff Capel’s squad.
The Panthers have since lost four games in a row to Duke, Louisville, Florida State and Clemson. Though all of those are either Quad 1 or Quad 2 defeats, it highlights Pitt’s precarious situation: The Panthers do not have the quality wins or analytical metrics of anything more than a bubble team.
Pitt is just 3-6 against the top two quadrants and has a NET ranking of 33, its lowest of the season, which is also right around where it sits in most of the metrics on NCAA Tournament team sheet.
That’s a problem when looking at how those middling teams — particularly from the ACC — have fared on Selection Sunday.
Two of their three most similar efficiency profiles, per Torvik, are last season’s Wake Forest and Virginia Tech teams. Both missed the NCAA Tournament because of their lack of quality wins in the ACC. Two of the four most similar tournament resumes resulted in missing the Big Dance, too (2018 Louisville and 2019 Clemson).
The only way the Panthers can get back on track is by picking up more marquee wins while continuing to avoid bad losses. That’s a tougher task in the ACC, with just three Q1 opportunities left on Pitt’s schedule against six Q3 or Q4 games.
What’s worse, the way Pitt is playing right now indicates that simply taking care of business — that is, winning the games it is supposed to win — may be too much to ask.
UNLV’s late-season surge
While Pitt is sliding, UNLV is trending up. The Rebels are 6-2 in their last eight games and 5-2 in the Mountain West, tied for third with Colorado State and 1.5 games behind first-place New Mexico.
UNLV validated its turnaround this week with victories at home over Utah State and on the road at San Diego State. Those were the program’s first Q2 and Q1 victories of the season, respectively.
The two losses during this stretch came in back-to-back games against CSU and Boise State, both of which were blowouts. After the victory over San Diego State, head coach Kevin Kruger said he was proud of the way his team got back on track.
“To put up with what they put up with after the week of Colorado State and Boise, to come back with two huge wins, they deserve it,” Kruger said postgame. “They’ve earned it. I’m happy for them. I want them to carry a little bit of an edge and a chip on their shoulder, because there was a lot of things said, and I hope they remember it. I hope they play with that edge — I hope they hate everybody and play like we did today.”
This is around the time the Rebels turned things around last season, too. The Rebels got off to a 9-9 start in 2023-24 with bad losses to Southern and Loyola Marymount, but they got into the NCAA Tournament bubble picture after winning 10 of their last 12 games.
This season’s group does not carry that same baggage. UNLV has no Q3 or Q4 losses, so a turnaround could be fruitful. A two-game homestand this week against Wyoming and those conference-leading Lobos could really get UNLV’s momentum going in the right direction.
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