Can anybody beat the Kansas men's basketball team between now and next November?
With the top-ranked Jayhawks 26-3 after Saturday's 62-58 victory at Kansas State, it's probably time to ink them in as the overall No. 1 seed when the NCAA tournament's 68-team field is announced Sunday, March 15.
As for who will join them as the other No. 1 seeds, that trio gets murkier every day.
Unless it loses again, the West Coast Conference's Gonzaga is likely to be there by virtue of its 29-2 overall record and 3-1 mark against teams in The Associated Press Top 25.
For comparison's sake, Kansas is 4-3 against the Top 25 and Kentucky, arguably the hottest team in the country considering its eight-game winning streak, is 4-2.
Then there's Baylor, which was No. 1 for several weeks until losing at home to Kansas on Feb. 22 and has now lost for the second time in three games, falling by 10 at TCU on Saturday. One reason to believe the Bears might still get a No. 1 seed: Baylor is 6-1 against the Top 25, easily the best mark in the land.
If Baylor wins out in the regular season - versus Texas Tech on Monday and at West Virginia next weekend, neither of which is an easy win - the Bears should still somewhat comfortably lock down the third No. 1 seed.
As for the fourth, if anyone deserves it, it has to be fourth-ranked Dayton, which won its 18th straight game Friday night with an 82-67 victory over visiting Davidson in which the victorious Flyers hit a preposterous 72.3% from the field, including 27 of their 28 2-point attempts.
"(That's) unheard of," Dayton coach Anthony Grant, who led Alabama from 2009 to 2015, told the media afterward. "A great job tonight of taking quality shots and sharing the ball."
What's especially scary for anyone who may draw the Flyers in the NCAA tourney is that while shooting 72% from the field is unusual by any standard, Dayton leads the nation in field-goal shooting at 52% this season.
AP photo by Gary Landers / Dayton men's basketball coach Anthony Grant, center, hugs players Trey Landers, left, and Ryan Mikesell after the Flyers' 82-67 win over Davidson on Friday in Dayton, Ohio.Now 27-2 and 16-0 in the Atlantic 10 Conference with two regular-season games to go, the Flyers not only have the look of a No. 1 seed, they may wind up with the second overall No. 1, given that one of their two losses was to Kansas in overtime in the Maui Invitational back in November.
Dayton's only other loss? By two points to Colorado.
To return to that Maui defeat, which remains one of the best games played all season in college hoops, had Dayton won instead of lost, the Flyers might well be the overall No. 1 at this moment, which just goes to show you that Grant, a Dayton alum, was always a better coach than he ever showed at Alabama.
Or maybe coaching at his alma mater was the perfect fit.
"I'm the luckiest man in the world," said Grant, who's in his third season at Dayton. "It's rare you get to do it at your alma mater."
Where he's lucky is with the late blossoming of Obi Toppin, who was something of a basketball vagabond before college, playing for four high schools before landing at Dayton, where he had to redshirt as a freshman because of academic struggles.
Now a third-year sophomore who stands 6-foot-9, weighs 220 pounds and has per-game averages of 19.8 points, 7.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.3 blocks and 1.0 steal this season, Toppin has also hit 63% from the field and 38% from treysville.
According to NBA.Draft.net, if the draft were held right now, Toppin would be projected to go third overall to the Atlanta Hawks.
"We definitely want to finish this off and make a statement so when we get to March we've got a statement on our back," Toppin said after scoring 23 points and pulling down 12 rebounds against Davidson.
The team oddly making the statement the wrong way is Duke, which has suddenly dropped three of its past four games, all on the road, including Saturday night's 52-50 loss at 2019 national champ Virginia.
"It was going to be a really good, tough win for one team and a tough loss for the other, and they got the good, tough win," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
Three losses in four games may not mean much this year in what long ago became perhaps the wackiest college hoops season in 15 or 20 years. But with the same North Carolina State team that battered the Blue Devils by 22 a couple of weeks ago arriving at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Monday, followed by North Carolina on Saturday, another Duke loss before the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament could mean these Dookies are running out of time to become the Final Four team they've seemed a cinch to be for so much of the season.
So if you put Kansas, Dayton, Gonzaga and Baylor on the No. 1 line, in that order, who should be the four No. 2s?
Let's go with San Diego State, Kentucky, Seton Hall and Maryland, at least for today.
Just don't count on any of those beating a deep, experienced Kansas squad at the moment.
The NCAA may ultimately strip the Jayhawks of their crown, given the notice they've already received regarding NCAA violations. But for now, on the court rather than in a court, KU is the only team that seems to have more questions than answers.
Of course, we also thought that about Duke three weeks ago.
Mark WiedmerContact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @TFPWeeds.