The 2017-18 college basketball regular season will likely be remembered for two things.
1. There are no truly great teams. Almost everybody has at least one stinker loss on their resume and nobody has played well often enough to make anyone confident of a deep run the NCAA Tournament.
2. Some unexpectedly great coaching performances. There are several impressive candidates for national coach of the year honors:
Chris Beard, Texas Tech — The Red Raiders, who were picked seventh in the Big 12, are tied for sixth in the nation, and have been a top-10 team for most of 2018. Texas Tech has emerged as a national championship contender.
Chris Holtmann, Ohio State — Holtmann entered the season with no expectations. He was hired over the summer to replace Thad Matta, who was pushed into retirement largely because he couldn’t recruit effectively anymore, leaving Holtmann with a roster predicted to finish 11th in the Big Ten. A week ago the Buckeyes were in the top 10 and they’re currently a game out of first place in the Big Ten.
Tony Bennett, Virginia — This was supposed to be a slight rebuilding year for the Cavaliers, but it’s becoming more and more apparent that it’s never a rebuilding year under Bennett, whose ability to transform any combination of players into a dominant defensive team is outstanding.
Bruce Pearl, Auburn — His program’s connection to the FBI investigation combined with Pearl’s less than stellar history with the NCAA enforcement staff, makes him an unlikely winner. But Auburn has been one of the hardest-to-win-at programs in the power conferences. The Tigers are No. 12 and are two games ahead of everybody in the SEC. This is the conference’s best season in years.
Bobby Hurley, Arizona State — Early on when the Sun Devils got off to their great start, he was among the favorites. ASU has faded and so have his chances against this field.
In other years, Houston’s Kelvin Sampson, Purdue’s Matt Painter, Clemson’s Brad Brownell, Washington’s Mike Hopkins and even Tennessee’s Rick Barnes might be favorites to win, but against this field, they’ll barely get noticed.
MY TOP 10 — 1. Virginia, 2. Michigan State, 3. Villanova, 4. Xavier, 5. Duke, 6. Texas Tech, 7. Purdue, 8. Cincinnati, 9. Gonzaga, 10. Kansas.
GAMES OF THE WEEK: Michigan at Penn State, Wednesday 7 p.m., BTN — The Nittany Lions (19-10) are hovering around bubble status. A win over No. 17 Michigan would cement them as a real at-large contender.
No. 8 Kansas at No. 6 Texas Tech, Saturday 4:15 p.m., ESPN — There are too many good teams in the Big 12 to declare this the Big 12 regular-season championship games, but it’s not far from it. Before Monday’s games, the Jayhawks and Red Raiders were tied for first at 10-4, two games ahead of everyone else. The winner gets a nice resume line when it comes to NCAA Tournament seeding.
ATLANTIC 10 GAME OF THE WEEK: St. Bonaventure at VCU, Saturday 8 p.m., CBSSN — Suddenly every game is a must-win for the Bonnies, who played themselves into at-large consideration with Friday’s win over then-No. 16 Rhode Island. A road win over VCU doesn’t mean what it has in past years, but SBU needs it.
BUZZER BEATER — It’s going to seem weird next week when most of the nation’s best conferences are playing their final regular season games to have the Big Ten in the midst of its conference tournament.
The first week of conference tournament play has been almost exclusively small conferences, most people’s introduction to the future upset-authors in the NCAA Tournament.
But the Big Ten, the quintessential big guy, will compete among the little guys next week. The league wanted the stage and exposure that comes with playing in Madison Square Garden, but the self-proclaimed World’s Most Famous Arena hosts the Big East during the second tournament week. So the Big Ten agreed to move up its tournament and will begin its limited Broadway run on Feb. 28. It figures to get plenty of attention. National media which will have to decide between ACC, Big 12, SEC, Big East, etc. during the second week will almost certainly choose to be in New York for the Big Ten over the Big South, Patriot, Northeast Conference, etc.
The league returns its conference tournament to its footprint playing in Chicago in 2019. But if the Big Ten is successful, in both attendance and television ratings, it’ll be interesting to see if another conference moves it’s tournament up a week in hopes of having the early attention all to itself. The ACC wouldn’t need to, but the SEC or Pac 12 might benefit from less competition.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage