Now that the Super Bowl and its aftermath are over, it’s time to settle in for February and college basketball, as teams race to position themselves for the NCAA Tournament and win conference championships. If you’re just starting to follow hoops seriously now that football’s over, here’s a brief primer on the college basketball Sweet 16.
College basketball coverage here at TheSportsNotebook will tip off with a basic look at the nation’s Top 16 teams, as ranked in the preseason AP poll…
TheSportsNotebook’s college basketball coverage since the Super Bowl has focused on a narrow look at the nation’s Sweet 16—as defined by Lunardi’s projections—each Friday. The goal is not to quibble with seedings, which are based on the overall body of work, but to get a feel for which of the national championship contenders are really playing their best basketball right now. Obviously, Syracuse is not. At least not yet. Here’s the rundown on everyone else, starting with the 4-line and ascending upward…
For most of the power conferences, this is the penultimate weekend of the regular season. For Gonzaga and other schools who start their league tournaments early for TV exposure, this weekend brings the curtain down on the regular schedule. If you want to build momentum, there’s no time to waste, so with that in mind TheSportsNotebook’s college basketball coverage continues its weekly breakdown of the top 16 teams in the country—how they’re playing in the present and what the immediate schedule holds.
We’re three weeks out from Selection Sunday and to continue tracking the current form of the nation’s best teams it’s time for TheSportsNotebook’s College Basketball Sweet 16 Report. It’s a look at the top 16 teams in the country, as based on the seed projections of ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi. We’ll look briefly at what each team has done over the past week and what they have ahead on the weekend. Our purpose is to target teams who peak at the right time or decline at the wrong time.