The University of Texas men’s basketball team woke up as the nation’s No. 1 team for the second week in a row on Jan. 18.
The Longhorns stood 17-0, owned (then) impressive victories over defending national champ North Carolina and NCAA runner-up Michigan State and seemed to be as deep and dangerous as Pacific Rim fault lines.
Now fast-forward seven weeks to today. Texas has lost eight of its last 14 games with Saturday’s 92-77 beat-down at Baylor and is in minor danger of missing the NCAA tournament.
But it’s not just the Shorthorns who have collapsed like Tiger Woods’ image the past two months. Just look 100 miles down the road at Georgia Tech.
Also on Jan. 18, the Yellow Jackets were ranked 19th, had posted a home win over Duke and a road victory at North Carolina in a span of eight days and looked certain to reach the NCAA tournament for the first time in three years.
Instead, GT has lost five of its last seven with Saturday’s home loss to Virginia Tech and now looks all but certain to land in the Nobody’s Interested Tournament (NIT) unless it mounts an inspired run through this week’s Atlantic Coast Conference tourney.
You can also throw Connecticut into that mix. A Top 10 team at the start of the season, the Huskies appeared to have more than enough talent to return to their second straight Final Four. Instead, a losing league record now has UConn needing to reach the Big East tourney final to have any chance to earn an NCAA bid.
Then there’s Tennessee. The Volunteers had the look and the ranking of a Top 10 team when they barely lost to Purdue early in the season. Then the Big Orange were forced to endure a big embarrassment when senior All-America candidate Tyler Smith was dismissed from the team on gun-possession charges and three other players were suspended.
But with Saturday’s 75-59 victory at Mississippi State, the Vols have won three straight heading into this week’s SEC tourney in Nashville, have beaten two likely No. 1 seeds in Kansas and Kentucky and now head into March as the league’s most experienced team.
In fact, if one can get past the outrageous athleticism and NBA potential of Kentucky freshmen John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins, UT should be the SEC’s top NCAA threat.
The Vols have three senior starters in Wayne Chism, J.P Prince and Bobby Maze, a Top 10 prep All-American in sophomore wing Scotty Hopson, a 6-10, 275-pound junior space eater in Brian Williams and a third-year sophomore sharpshooter in Cameron Tatum.
Yes, the Vols occasionally have missed the surly Smith’s talent, but they have been a far more cohesive and unified group since his departure, and with the right draw the Vols could easily advance past the men’s Sweet 16 for the first time in school history.
So with Selection Sunday now but seven days away and Kansas assured of returning to No. 1 following top-ranked Syracuse’s Saturday loss at Louisville, the question for today is whether anyone can deny the surging Jayhawks their second title in three seasons?
Kentucky and Syracuse both have the talent, and the ‘Cuse — despite its twin losses to Louisville — also has the experience. West Virginia, which staged a remarkable comeback at Villanova on Saturday, also is capable of a deep tourney run, as is Georgetown, especially if Austin Freeman (diagnosed this past week with diabetes) can keep scoring 24 points, as he did in Saturday’s rout of Cincinnati.
Below that group fall Duke, Tennessee, Ohio State and Baylor — teams blessed with offense, defense, great coaching and players old enough to elevate their games more than their nerves before the eyes of March.
Further down the food chain, look for the SEC to get four teams in the NCAA field if Kentucky beats Florida today and five if the Gators win. Expect the Big East to get no more than eight, the ACC to land five, the Big 12 six and Big Ten five. That covers 24 of the 34 at-large berths, and if there are few upsets in mid-major tourneys that number could swell by four or five.
Still, less than two weeks from the NCAA tourney’s opening round, the team that began the year on top looks most likely to finish it there, much as a similarly gifted North Carolina team did a year ago.
“It’s a fine line,” Kansas coach Bill Self told ABC Sports on Saturday. “So much of it is luck, who you play, who gets the calls. (But) if we play hard and get a little lucky, we’re capable of playing for the highest stakes.”
Without strong showings in their league tourneys, Texas, UConn and Georgia Tech may need a lot of luck just to earn NCAA invitations.