Big Ten, Big 12 Dominate the Top 25; Kansas,Villanova Look to Keep Win Streaks Alive

With the Big Ten and ACC typically grabbing headlines for Men’s NCAA basketball, this year there’s another conference pushing its way into the conversation: the Big 12.

It has five of its 10 teams ranked in the Top 25 (plus one) through Sunday per CBSSports.com: No. 8 Kansas, No. 11 Iowa State, No. 12 Oklahoma State, No. 22 Kansas State and No. 26 Oklahoma. Look for Baylor and Texas to also join soon.

Should this happen, it’s not impossible to see 70 percent of the Big 12’s teams in the Big Dance.

Tied with the Big 12, is the Big Ten with its five teams: No. 3 Michigan State, No. 6 Wisconsin, No. 11 Iowa, No. 18 Ohio State and No. 20 Michigan while the new American conference adds four: No. 16 Cincinnati, No. 21 Louisville, No. 23 Connecticut and No. 25 Memphis.

The typically dominant ACC has three teams: No. 2 Syracuse, No. 17 Pittsburgh and No. 19 Duke while No. 1 Arizona is the sole Pac-12 team.

While the NCAA tournament is still weeks away, Vegas already has some thoughts:

11/2 Arizona, 6/1 Michigan State, 7/1 Kentucky, 15/2 Kansas and 10/1 Louisville, Oklahoma State and Syracuse

Looking ahead to this week, Monday has two interesting games. One is the Big East matchup of its top two teams: No. 20 Creighton (15-3, 5-1) vs No. 6 Villanova (16-1, 5-0).

Doug McDermott

Creighton will bring its star player Doug McDermott who has been fondly nicknamed by Villanova as “Dougie McBuckets.” This comes as McDermott has a 24.9 point scoring average, placing him at No. 2 in the nation.

In Saturday’s game, a 81-68 loss at Providence (13-5, 3-2), McDermott scored 21 points but his ended its 10-game win streak. It was an off day for Creighton in 3-pointers as they’re one of the country’s best at 42.4 percent but on Saturday, it was a season-low game with 21.1 percent.

Creighton coach Greg McDermott said of the game via ESPN, “We weren’t ourselves but Providence had a lot to do with that. We had a hard time stopping them and when we made a mistake, they certainly made us pay for it.”

They’ll face a tough battle as Villanova leads the Big East in allowing its opponents to only hit 38.8 percent shooting. In Saturday’s game, an 88-62 win against DePaul (10-9, 2-4), James Bell scored 17 points while Daniel Ochefu added 14 points (6 for 6). The team’s leading scorer JayVaughn Pinkston only contributed eight points, a down day after his 18.3 point average in the first four conference games.

Creighton played on Villanova’s home court last year for the NCAA tournament and the two teams have met three times with Villanova always the winner. On Monday, they’ll make it a fourth win (-6) and a sixth straight.

No. 12 Baylor vs. No. 15 Kansas 

In this Big 12 battle, Kansas (13-4, 4-0) sits at the top of the conference (and the only undefeated team) after winning four straight games (three versus ranked teams). .

Baylor has gone the opposite direction, losing both games last week: against Texas Tech and Oklahoma. It has now fallen to the bottom of the Big 12–but just above TCU.

Joel Embiid

Kansas has talented players contributing to their recent successes including Nadiir Tharpe. On Saturday he had 21 points (7-of-8 shooting) but had a career-high 23 points last Monday against Iowa State. Then there’s Andrew Wiggins (15.1 ppg), Perry Ellis (12.9 ppg) as well as Joel Embiid. He scored 13 points, 11 rebounds and eight blocks in Saturday’s game.

In its Big 12 matchups, Kansas has been shooting 53.8 percent while their opponents have been held to 39.3 percent.

For Baylor, it has 41.9 percent shooting in conference games while allowing opponents 48.2 percent. This is a different story after the team started 12-1 in non-conference play with a 50.4 field-goal percentage and 38.8 points allowed.

Last season, these teams had a split record for play and on Monday, Baylor will look for its first win at Kansas. It won’t happen this time as the home team gets the win (-10.5).