Gotta Love College Basketball!

By Guest Blogger:  Aaron Murphy
@adm_217
01/30/2012

What a crazy 2011-2012 season this has been so far for College Basketball. Preseason polls had North Carolina as the #1 team in the country followed by Kentucky, Ohio State, Connecticut and Syracuse.  Those rankings lasted for 3 weeks before Kentucky beat North Carolina to become #1 and this was the first a several changes atop the rankings over the weeks to come.  Over the next few weeks Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina and Connecticut would all lose games and Syracuse would rise to the top of the charts.

The Syracuse Orangemen played to the top spot in the polls and stayed there for 6 weeks reaching an impressive 20-0 record by mid January.  Syracuse wasn’t the only unbeaten team though.  The top 25 held another couple of surprises in Baylor and Murray State.  Both teams sported unbeaten records entering week 11 of the season and this is where it got interesting.  The Orangemen lost to an unranked Notre Dame team on January 21st 67-58.  Baylor held the impressive 17-0 record before losing two straight games to #7 Kansas and #5 Missouri.  To date, Murray State is the only unbeaten team left in college basketball at 20-0, ranked #9 in the country.

The surprises weren’t limited to unbeaten teams though.  The Florida State Seminoles aren’t undefeated but had two of the bigger surprise games so far this year.  The ‘Noles crushed the NC Tarheels 90-57 and slid by Duke on a last second three pointer 76-73 in a 7 day span propelling them to a tie for the lead atop the ACC standing at 5-1.  The Louisville Cardinals were another surprise, just not for the best reason.  The Cardinals began the season ranked #9 and quickly ran out to a great start eventually peaking at #4 before falling on hard times and losing to #12 Georgetown, #3 Kentucky, unranked Notre Dame, Providence and #22 Marquette.  The Cardinals have now fallen completely out of the AP Top 25 and are now sitting at a disappointing 15-5.

The current #1 team in the country is Kentucky.  I am also giving this disclaimer….I am from Kentucky, a huge Wildcats fan and may see things in an ever so slightly, slanted view to their favor.  That being said, Kentucky is playing some of the best basketball of the season.  If not for a last second 3 pointer by Indiana, this team would be a very impressive 22-0.  However they did lose to Indiana, are 21-1 and are 7-0 in the SEC.  They have arguably the best defensive player in the country in freshman Anthony Davis, who shattered the Kentucky single season shot blocking record in mid January and currently has 98 blocks with 9 games left in the regular season.  Kentucky has now won 13 straight since the loss at Indiana, has yet to lose a game at Rupp Arena under John Calipari and is having the best SEC start since 2004.

As I said earlier, this has been a crazy season so far in college basketball and if this is anything like the NCAA Tournament will be, we are set for one heck of a ride!  There is no absolute dominant team this year and it appears as if any team can be beaten on a given night.  I’ll leave you with my four #1 seeds if I had to pick the tournament right now….Kentucky, Syracuse, Ohio State and  Duke.  It’s entirely possible for any of these teams to be beaten by any given team and be knocked from their #1 seed perch and that is what makes college basketball awesome!  Gotta Love College Basketball!!!