Week 17 Watchlist: Climactic Phase
Preparations for leaving Earth
The Watchlist Tune o’ the Week
Hello! You have made it to THE FINAL TRUE WATCHLIST OF THE SEASON. I’ve opted to not do this weekend’s games, as the cross-pollination of conference tournaments with regular season games makes for a really choppy-looking list of games. (How fun is it, really, to say “watch this semifinal” instead of “watch these two teams play at this time in a game I’ve known will exist for five months?”)
This is my opportunity to thank you for reading these for another season. They’re oddly fun to do, and I personally refer back to them often during the week when I need to remember what game or games I was wanting to watch. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading along. We’re about to have a really fun month here at the newsletter, and you can sign up for a full year of it for all of $20. That’s like 1.5 Wendy’s meals these days.
Simultaneously, I opted out of a weekend watchlist because this week’s content is about to be pretty nuts. I have the following planned:
Three different previews of conference tournaments: one today (covering the OVC through the WCC), one on Friday (covering the Southland through the MAAC), and one next Monday (covering the ACC through the Big Ten). Based on this schedule, of course.
A post on how to draw charges in 2025, headlined by the two best players at it. (Looking at Wednesday for this one. It won’t be super long, but more like an extended Twitter thread.)
A post figuring out if the 1 seed really is that important, or if we’re mistaking metrics excellence for binary seed line differences. (TBD.)
A post on this year’s Extreme Teams (super-good offense and a bad defense, or vice versa) and how those teams have performed over the years in the NCAAT.
Plus a lot more, including some potential updates of older posts I’ve worked on over the years.
And, yes, the usual “how stats and history would pick the NCAA Tournament” posts for both men’s and women’s.
Plus live bracket analysis on Selection Sunday.
I think it should be a good month. The idea is to have as many posts on here as there are days in March, so 31 in a month. If you like it and you want to get behind the paywall, I really think you gotta sign up now so you don’t forget.
Let’s ride.
NOTE! There are no specific conference tournament games included; instead I’ve tried my best to just post when the important conference tournament games are, both NCAAW and NCAAM. Follow along.
MONDAY, MARCH 3
A GAME
None. This is probably a safe night to, like, cook with your wife or husband or whatever. Actually, one second:
The Division III Tournament Selection Show, 12 PM ET, NCAA.com. It’s the first official one and it gives you some practice. People have asked - people being literally one guy - and yes, I will put up D3 NCAA Tournament odds somewhere. It’ll either be on here or as part of a Note or something. Eamonn Brennan, please teach me how to use the chat feature on here. How are you older than me and yet way more tech-wise when it comes to using the features on Substack? I am clueless.
B GAMES
#20 Kansas at #3 Houston (-11), 9 PM ET, ESPN. Houston wrapped up the Big 12 title over the weekend, so this is merely a victory lap, but it is also senior day for some particularly important pieces to the Houston puzzle: J’Wan Roberts, first and foremost, but also Ja’Vier Francis and Ramon Walker, two four-year Cougars that never seem to have complained once about their role. Also graduating: Mylik Wilson and LJ Cryer. Going to be a nuts atmosphere. Also, as an actual game, I cannot figure out what it is that would keep Kansas in this game beyond another out-of-nowhere Rylan Griffen heater from three. Based on the last month only Houston would be favored by 13.5.
#28 UCLA (-1) at #47 Northwestern, 9 PM ET, FS1. Little at stake here in any meaningful fashion, but I do wonder a bit if UCLA’s being undervalued somewhat based on true road performances, which won’t exist in the Tournament. On the road, they’ve suffered a near -11 FTA gap per 100 shot attempts and have lost 2PT% by 6.2%. Everywhere else: +2 FTA per 100, +5% on twos. Obviously not something of note for this game, and Northwestern has a near-zero shot at the Tournament even with a win, but it’s something I have in mind with Cronin’s crew going forward.
C GAMES
#77 Wake Forest at #1 Duke (-22), 7 PM ET, ESPN. Only interesting in any capacity if Wake Forest wins. If not, who cares.
#163 Nicholls at #181 Lamar (-2), 8 PM ET, ESPN+. Possibly the two best non-McNeese teams in the Southland, for what it’s worth. Lamar is one of the rare teams with a significant reverse home/away split, playing way worse at home than on the road.
TUESDAY, MARCH 4
TOURNAMENT HAPPENINGS
The Sun Belt ladder tournament begins. Read about it later today in a larger newsletter. The Horizon League and Patriot League tourneys also start up.
A GAME
#26 BYU at #11 Iowa State (-6), 9 PM ET, ESPN2. Fine, Auburn/TAMU has the higher FanMatch score and whatnot, but this is the game I’d rather watch. Look, you can either get two fun teams or you can get one fun team playing a team that sometimes resembles the Iraq War on hardwood. Your call!
BYU did a pretty good job of dicing up the vaunted Iowa State defense last year, going 1-1 and posting 1.1 PPP across the two games. Why? Well, their highly attack-and-kick-based offense took advantage of all the backside threes Iowa State gives up with dribble penetration and just launched away, shot after shot. What this does is add variance, but it also enabled the Cougs to get back 38% of their misses because of the unpredictability of rebound locations on missed threes. (ISU also got got a lot on backdoor cuts.) This version of BYU is built very similarly, and given that the 68-63 ISU loss last year came in a game where they lost the turnover battle by 11 - a rarity - I guess I wouldn’t be shocked by a BYU team playing really, really good basketball to pull off a Hilton howler. Then again, Iowa State is fully healthy for the first time in a month and finally looks the part of a top-end team again.
B GAMES
#51 Texas at #31 Mississippi State (-7), 8 PM ET, SEC Network.
#52 Nebraska at #32 Ohio State (-6), 9 PM ET, Peacock. These are the exact same game, just in different conferences and with the stakes flipped somewhat. Nebraska/Ohio State is the Anxiety Game of the Month with more single-game leverage than I think I’ve ever seen at Torvik’s site for a non-postseason battle; OSU’s win/loss swing is 82% to make the field with a W/27% with a loss, while Nebraska is 36%/4%. Texas is functionally eliminated from the NCAA Tournament with a loss at his site, and frankly, I welcome it. How are you going to be as unwatchable as they are with Tre Johnson on your roster? A total shame.
#2 Auburn (-7) at #21 Texas A&M, 9 PM ET, ESPN. Auburn has wrapped up everything they need to wrap up: SEC regular season banner, 1 seed, and probably, the 1 overall seed barring some sort of miracle run by…Duke? I guess? Against air? But I do find this game particularly interesting even without the motivations at play. Since Buzz got to A&M Auburn’s 2-5 against him and have yet to touch 80 against the TAMU defense. The uber-wonky structure of A&M’s defense generates a ton of kickout threes, which can be horrid for variance but might actually work against an Auburn unit that really doesn’t attack and kick that often in the traditional sense. Plus, as usual, rebounding. A&M’s whole thing.
#44 Indiana at #33 Oregon (-6), 9 PM ET, FS1. It would be funny if Indiana lost this game. It would also be really funny if they won it. Conclusion of analysis.
#42 Arkansas at #38 Vanderbilt (-4), 10 PM ET, SEC Network. Let’s go Dores. Hey, don’t yell at me! Yell at all the people who want THIS Arkansas team in the Tournament over, like, Boise State. I’m good.
C GAMES
#34 Georgia (-1) at #68 South Carolina, 6 PM ET, SEC Network. Hey, how about South Carolina? Since getting Jamarii Thomas back on January 25 they’ve had a top-50 defense. With a normalized 3PT% - they’ve gotten utterly brutalized on that, going -12.6% - they’ve played like the 54th-best team in the nation.
#105 Saint Louis at #79 Dayton (-6), 7 PM ET, ESPN+. This one is giant for A10 double-bye purposes. Dayton would be at 80% to get one with a win; if Saint Louis steals one they’re up to 92%. Dayton won the first edition at SLU in a game with four (4) combined midrange attempts.
#70 Rutgers at #14 Purdue (-12), 7 PM ET, Peacock. You know Rutgers as the team that gave Zach Edey-era Purdue consistent issues, but a more decentralized/perimeter heliocentric Purdue handled Rutgers easily in January despite shooting 4-24 from 3/8-16 from FT. The Rutgers care level remains high, and their last three games have been nice, but it comes with the caveat that an otherwise-33% 3PT team has shot 42% from deep.
#78 LSU at #18 Kentucky (-14), 7 PM ET, ESPN2. Kentucky’s defense is so bad inside that it can make almost anyone look competent offensively, and LSU’s P&R attack matches up fairly well with UK’s abhorrent drop coverage. But an LSU team that cannot rebound and whose own drop coverage has been routinely shredded by good shooters is going to give up 80+ and probably lose this 82-73 or something.
#103 Akron (-7) at #249 Toledo, 7 PM ET, ESPN+. Nothing left to play for in the MAC for either side, really, but these are the two best offenses in the league.
#30 Baylor (-2) at #82 TCU, 8 PM ET, ESPN+. Baylor, for better or for worse, is almost certainly a Tournament team if they win this game. If not, it gets hairy fast, and this is a TCU team they already lost to at home earlier this year despite having 12 fewer turnovers.
#53 West Virginia at #69 Utah (-2), 9 PM ET, ESPN+. I do not claim to know the inner workings of bracketology, but West Virginia spiritually feels like the right kind of First Four team. Bracket Matrix says they’re ‘safe’ but they have strong vibes of a NASCAR race coming down to fuel mileage.
#40 New Mexico (-1) at #76 Nevada, 9 PM ET, CBS Sports Network. Simple game: New Mexico clinches a share of the MWC title with a win. A 2-0 week and they take it outright no matter what Colorado State does.
#41 San Diego State (-3) at #91 UNLV, 11 PM ET, CBSSN. It’s dumb that this feels huge but it really does for San Diego State. A win only puts them at 66% in (again, per Torvik) but given the general behaviors of all other bubble teams right now, a win is more than enough to help out.
#65 Arizona State at #13 Arizona (-13), 11 PM ET, ESPN. Very exciting times as we see if Bobby Hurley allows his players to shake the hand of Caleb Love or not after an 89-73 loss.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5
TOURNAMENT HAPPENINGS
The OVC, Big South, NEC, and Summit League all begin tournament play.
THE A+ GAME OF THE WEEK
#4 Florida at #6 Alabama (-1), 7 PM ET, ESPN2. If you’re seeing a game like this on ESPN2 and are like “what could possibly be on actual ESPN,” it’s because it’s NBA Wednesday and they have a truly elite Cavs team on. Fair enough. The late game is OKC/Memphis, so, yeah, hard to compete.
TV goofiness aside, this has gigantic stakes in one specific manner: it may well be a 1-seed elimination game. Thanks to Tennessee’s buzzer-beater win over Alabama on Saturday, Tennessee now has the minor edge over these two teams in the race for the final 1 seed. Michigan State is also scalding hot at the moment and has a much better resume than you think, so beyond the likely locked-in trio of Auburn/Duke/Houston, you have four teams fighting for one spot. Considering Florida’s next game after this is at home against an Ole Miss team barely hanging onto a top-30 spot (Alabama has Auburn on the road), this could be their last chance to state their case.
I’m still not sure I fully trust Florida’s defense, particularly away from home, where it’s been considerably worse than at the O’Dome. Road Gators have played like the 12th-best team in the nation and have a negative turnover margin, but more importantly, opponents have shot a reasonable 3PT% (31.5%; at O’Dome, 26.8%) and shoot 6% better on twos. The teams that have gotten them the best all have similarities: guys that take and make jumpers off the dribble, along with post players that can both pop and roll to the basket. Alabama has both, though obviously in a Nate Oats offense it’s unlikely the Tide will look to exploit Florida in true post-ups.
That being said, it’s Florida’s offense against a pretty middling Tide defense…but then again, at home, Alabama’s defense has looked legitimately awesome. Partially it’s due to giving up a 27% hit rate from three, but they have the nation’s 58th-best 2PT% allowed in home games (genuinely really good when you’ve played a top-3 SOS). Alabama’s all too happy to avoid giving up kickout threes and is tremendous at rim denial. I don’t know, on paper it feels like a bad matchup for Florida, which is why I’m sure I’ll see at 9:27 PM ET on Wednesday that Florida won this game 89-88.
A GAMES
#15 Maryland at #25 Michigan (-2), 6:30 PM ET, Big Ten Network. Michigan is flagging hard as of late, which is a shame given how fun they were earlier in the year, but there’s two pretty clear explanations: they have no real point guard, and a team predicated on elite shot quality is starting a small forward (Roddy Gayle) who’s now shooting 20% from deep on the year. The problem is that the other options to start there are either at 25.9% (Rubin Jones), are too big (Will Tschetter), or are too small (LJ Cason/Justin Pippen). Gayle’s gotta find his shot ASAP.
#5 Tennessee (-3) at #27 Ole Miss, 9 PM ET, ESPN2. If you’re going exclusively on numbers generated in conference play, you can expect Tennessee to win the rebounding battle here by +10. Ole Miss is the worst rebounding team in the SEC by a very large margin, which is problematic when you’re playing Tennessee, who’s pretty good at it. Ole Miss makes up for it a bit with a huge turnover margin (+6 per 100) but this still means Ole Miss has to outshoot Tennessee by 6-7% to win even by a point. Obviously, given it’s Tennessee, that’s never out of the question, but this team has really thin paths to winning games against superior competition…as evidenced by a 1-9 record when losing the combined REB/TO margin by 5 or more. (The one win was by four over South Carolina.)
B GAMES
#43 Xavier (-1) at #72 Butler, 7 PM ET, CBSSN. I guess Xavier is going to Do This, and by Do This I mean make the NCAA Tournament. They started the season at 67% to make it, per Torvik, fell all the way to 3% on January 11, and are now up to 67% again as I type. Since January 11 they’ve played like a top-25 team. What’s happened? Well, they’ve had a top-20 defense, for one, but the key has been Toledo transfer Dante Maddox: 52% from 3 after starting out 34% and 53% from 2 after starting out 36%.
#12 Missouri (-2) at #45 Oklahoma, 8 PM ET, SEC Network. Here is the inverse of Xavier:
This is Oklahoma, who peaked at nearly 90% to make the Tournament not that long ago but simply Sucks Bad and couldn’t overcome that fact. Honestly, the explanation is pretty simple. During their 13-0 start, they outshot opponents by 9.6% from three, but against four top-100 opponents, they outshot them by 21% from deep. Since the calendar flipped to January that’s now +4.1%. Weirdly, they look like garbage now that they’re not out-shooting everyone like it’s varsity versus JV. If only there were multiple pieces in existence about that.
#23 Marquette at #36 UConn (-1), 8:30 PM ET, FS1. I wrote about it in the Weekend Watchlist but since NYD, this is #43 at #47. UConn is a little more explicable (injuries and a huge negative TO margin) but Marquette’s seems way more structural. There’s two players on the roster that can truly attack and shoot the way four different guys could last year, which means Kam Jones and David Joplin have to do twice the work.
NCAAW: #47 UNLV (-1.5) at #68 Wyoming, 10:30 PM ET, FS1. The Mountain West race is already decided, so this is merely a pretty good game between the two best teams in the league. UNLV had to go to OT to take down Wyoming earlier in the year and got worked defensively during that; I will not be surprised at all by a mild upset here.
C GAMES
NCAAW: #104 Lehigh (-1) at #149 Colgate, 6 PM ET, ESPN+. Final day of PatLeague action. Lehigh already owns the conference title but must defeat arguably the second-best team in the league on the road to finish it off. Colgate beat them at Lehigh 70-66 earlier in the season.
NCAAW: #158 Army at #142 Holy Cross (-4), 6 PM ET, ESPN+. #3 at #4. These two teams have two of the nine lowest foul rates in America, so this game may be over in 90 minutes.
NCAAW: #73 Ball State (-2.5) at #119 Buffalo, 7 PM ET, ESPN+. Ball State has to just win once this week to clinch an outright MAC title, but they could do it in style by beating the league’s second-best team on the road.
#66 Kansas State at #50 Cincinnati (-6), 7 PM ET, ESPN+. …ugh. I guess we gotta talk Bearcats. Cincinnati, despite my desires that their season would have ended by now, have won five of eight and would be on the right side of the bubble with a 2-0 week, per Torvik.
#9 Wisconsin (-9) at #89 Minnesota, 8:30 PM ET, BTN. Ben Johnson is not an ‘elite’ coach but he’s clearly doing fairly well despite having no obvious NIL game that I can find. Maybe they should funnel some money from Fleck to the hardwood?
THURSDAY, MARCH 6
A GAME
None. The Atlantic Sun quarterfinals are at some point, as are the OVC quarterfinals. The Missouri Valley tournament also begins! Horizon League quarterfinals, too. Go out for a date or something.
B GAMES
NCAAW: #48 MTSU (-3) at #89 Liberty, 7 PM ET, ESPN+. MTSU, who is really, really good, is 15-1 in CUSA play…but Liberty, their #1 foe, is 14-2. This is for either an outright MTSU title (win) or a shared title (Liberty win). MTSU’s defense is otherworldly for a mid-major, as they’re #1 in 2PT%, #1 in eFG%, and are top-125 in all of TO%/DREB%/FTR.
#10 Michigan State (-7) at #74 Iowa, 8 PM ET, FS1. Michigan State is a win away from clinching at least a share of the Big Ten title regardless of what Michigan does. Iowa does have something to play for here in that they’ve gotta likely go at least 1-1 this week (and USC 0-2) to make the Big Ten Tournament, but an Iowa offense highly reliant on creating in transition and through the post against a State team that defends both very well seems less than ideal.
C GAMES
#206 Merrimack at #244 Marist (-1), 7 PM ET, ESPN+. A 2-0 Marist week + a 1-1 Quinnipiac week = a shared MAAC title.
#67 Liberty (-2) at #117 MTSU, 7:30 PM ET, CBSSN. CUSA has been a wild ride this year and remains so, with three teams all projected to either finish 12-6 or 13-5 at the top. The winner all but locks up a share of the conference title with Jacksonville State; the loser gets the 3 seed.
#101 CSU Northridge (-1) at #141 UC Riverside, 10 PM ET, ESPN+. Deceptively huge game here for UC Riverside, who with a win more or less locks up the Big West 3 seed. Why does this matter? Well, you don’t want the 3 seed; it’s cursed. The last Big West 3 seed to win the conference tournament was in 2003. I’d think CSUN should have a path here with an extremely downhill offense against a UCR unit that is pretty bad inside the perimeter, but that just gives them the 3 seed instead. A frightening race to third and to the bottom of the vibes-based odds board.
FRIDAY, MARCH 7
TOURNAMENT HAPPENINGS
NCAAW:
ACC quarterfinals. Best likely game:
Big 12 quarterfinals.
Big Ten quarterfinals.
SEC quarterfinals.
Ohio Valley semifinals.
SoCon semifinals.
NCAAM:
OVC semifinals at 8 and 10:30 PM ET on ESPNU.
MVC quarters on ESPN+ throughout the day.
Big South quarterfinals.
Summit League…quarterfinals? I think?
Sun Belt quarter-ish finals?
Please just read Heat Check CBB’s guide.
A GAMES
#14 Purdue at #22 Illinois (-1), 8 PM ET, FOX. Hey, remember when everyone left Illinois for dead because they were in the midst of one of the worst shooting slumps in basketball history? Alas, they might just be pretty good at this basketball thing. This has the chance to be a defining win of some sort, though I feel like they’ve already had four of those at various points of the season. By the way, Purdue’s last 10 games: 22nd overall, but giving up a 65% 2PT% (the very worst in America) and posting the 87th-best defense in the nation.
#57 Colorado State at #49 Boise State (-4), 10 PM ET, FS1. Speaking of last 10 games efforts, this is #38 at #47. CSU’s rise has really been remarkable, and it would be nice (although unlikely) to see them in the NCAA Tournament over a few teams that will actually be in it. This series has been super-even since Niko Medved got there, now 5-5 all-time, but it usually goes in spurts: Boise won two straight, then three for Colorado State, then three for Boise, now two for CSU.
B GAMES
#79 Dayton at #29 VCU (-10), 7 PM ET, ESPN2. VCU has to go 2-0 this week to win the A10 outright, but even 1-1 gets them at least a share. Most importantly, I’d imagine that a 2-0 week would juuuuust about lock them into your 2025 NCAA Tournament field regardless of an A10 Tournament upset. By the way, have you read about how you really don’t want to play VCU in 2-3 weeks, based on historical contemporaries?
C GAMES
#91 UNLV at #40 New Mexico (-11), 10 PM ET, CBSSN. New Mexico just needs one win - tomorrow or this one - to get their first MWC title since 2013.
ONE TO PLAY US OUT!