NCAAM Breakdown: Alabama Rises to the Top

The Alabama-Tennessee game is certainly the headliner this week. However, it is just one of the games to keep an eye on.

Creighton at Providence, Iowa State at Kansas State, Baylor at Kansas, and TCU at Iowa State are the other games between ranked teams this week.

The game to keep an eye on Monday night is when Miami, listed by the sportsbook as the 5½-point favorite, travels to meet North Carolina.

Looking at the Las Vegas odds, No. 2 Houston (+700) is favored to win the national title. Alabama and Purdue are both priced at +850 followed by UCLA at +1200.

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Change At the Top

Purdue’s first run at the top of the Associated Press Top 25 poll lasted for four weeks before a loss to unranked Rutgers. The Boilermakers were No. 1 for the last three weeks but that ended with a 64-58 loss to unranked Northwestern. Purdue fell from No. 1 to No. 3 with Alabama leapfrogging Houston to take the No. 1 spot for the first time in two decades.

National Player of the Year front-runner Zach Edey had 24 points and eight rebounds for Purdue. However, he managed just 10 field goal attempts. His teammates didn’t offer enough support with the other four starters going 6 of 23 from the field and 2 of 10 from 3-point range.

Purdue still holds a 2½-game lead on Northwestern and Indiana and is up by three games on Illinois with five games left in the Big Ten regular season.

Boo Buie had 26 points, two shy of his season high, to lead Northwestern to its first win over a top-ranked team in program history.

DOWN GOES NO. 1 😼

For the first time in program history, Northwestern takes down the nation’s No. 1 team ‼️ pic.twitter.com/z6DEoJ933E

— Northwestern Basketball (@NUMensBball) February 12, 2023

Alabama had a bit of a tussle in Saturday’s game at rival Auburn as the game was tied at halftime.

The Crimson Tide overcame freshman star Brandon Miller missing all seven of his 3-point attempts to come away with a 77-69 win. It was the fourth win in a row for Alabama, which leads second-place Texas A&M by two games at the top of the SEC standings.

Houston had no such issues as the Cougars led visiting Tulsa by 28 points at halftime en route to winning its fifth game in a row.

Memphis could stand in the way of the Cougars running the table in the regular season as the AAC rivals will meet twice in the final five games of the regular season.

Baylor and Creighton made the biggest jumps. The Bears moved from 14th to ninth while Creighton went from 23rd to 18th. Iowa State took the largest tumble, falling eight spots to No. 19.

Super Saturday

There have been other days this season that shook up the national rankings, and Saturday’s results will go down are one of the most disruptive days of the season.

Eight ranked teams lost and eight others had to work for single-digit victories.

It could be argued whether the biggest surprise happened when Arizona lost at Stanford or Tennessee fell at home to Missouri.

Tennessee, listed by the Las Vegas odds as a 12½-point favorite, lost to Missouri on D’Andre Gholston’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer.

It was the second time in a row that the Tigers got to celebrate a win on Tennessee’s home court. It was also the second straight game when the Volunteers fell by one point on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer, with Vanderbilt accomplishing the feat on Wednesday.

Arizona was a 7½-point favorite against Stanford per the college basketball betting lines. Perhaps the line was a little lower because eight of the previous 11 matchups were decided by single digits.

Arizona’s top scorer, Azuolas Tubelis, was saddled with foul trouble and finished with four points and no rebounds in 17 minutes in the 88-79 loss. It was the first time all season that Tubelis failed to score at least 10 points.

No. 11 Iowa State, No. 12 Kansas State, No. 20 Providence and No. 24 Rutgers also lost to unranked teams. Virginia almost joined that list.

Duke high-scoring freshman Kyle Filipowski was fouled on a drive to the basket on the final play of regulation and the score tied. After a review, the call was reversed and ACC officials later announced that the reversal of the call was incorrect. Virginia would win 69-62 in overtime.

There were two ranked showdowns with Creighton topping UConn 56-53 and Baylor winning at TCU.

New Mexico State’s Season is Over

With the entire coaching staff placed on administrative leave amid hazing allegations, New Mexico State made the decision not to play out the remainder of the season.

The Western Athletic Conference said it is weighing the options on what to do with the scheduled games that are being called off when it comes to seeding in the upcoming conference tournament.

New Mexico State finished the season with a 9-15 record and 2-10 mark in conference play. Abilene Christian was scheduled to meet the Aggies twice and the remaining games were against UT Rio Grande, Grand Canyon and Tarleton.

The WAC has been informed that New Mexico State University has suspended operations for its men’s basketball program for the remainder of the 2022-23 season.

CONFERENCE STATEMENT WITH QUOTES FROM COMMISSIONER BRIAN THORNTON: https://t.co/ZVJbs5HwT1 pic.twitter.com/AX0ScMe3Wr

— The Western Athletic Conference (@WACsports) February 12, 2023

Updating the NET Rankings

Houston and Alabama are No. 1 and 2 in the current NCAA NET rankings, a tool utilized by the selection committee to seed the NCAA Tournament field.

Kansas leads the way with 11 Quad 1 wins. Houston is 5-1 against Quad 1 teams and Alabama 7-2.

Tennessee, Purdue, and UCLA round out the top five.

One of the biggest moves was made by Michigan State as the Spartans moved up nine spots to No. 32.

Team of the Week

Northwestern Wildcats

The win over Purdue gives the nod to the Wildcats. Northwestern is not a one-hit wonder as the Wildcats are tied for second in the Big Ten with a 9-5 record.

Before meeting up with Purdue, the Wildcats went on the road to beat Wisconsin and Ohio State. Northwestern is tied with Purdue with a 6-2 road record, the best in the conference.

Buie has scored at least 20 points six times over the last nine games while Chase Audige has eight straight double-digit scoring games.

Sophomore year highlights 📈. .
🎥: @peterfarkas_ #GodIsGreat#CountYourCommas💸https://t.co/m5aYkH530x

— Chase Audige (@ChaseAudige) April 22, 2021

Player of the Week

Adam Flagler, Baylor

Flagler endured a tough stretch recently with 29 points on 10-of-33 shooting. He certainly seems to have rediscovered his shot as he had seven 3-pointers and was 11 for 11 from the foul line in wins over Oklahoma and nationally-ranked Texas Christian.

Flagler is doing more than just scoring as he has already topped last season’s assist total. He has 113 assists and just 39 turnovers and is four steals shy of reaching his career high in that category as well.

Game of the Week

Alabama vs Tennessee

• Date, time (TV): Wednesday, Feb. 15, 7:00 p.m. ET
• Alabama vs Tennessee Live Stream: TBS.com

This is quite the first game as a No. 1 team for Alabama as the Crimson Tide head to meet Tennessee, a team looking to shake off a pair of heartbreaking losses.

Alabama did win in its last trip to Knoxville on Jan. 2, 2021, as the 10-point underdog. The last time the Crimson Tide won back-to-back road games in the series came in 2009 and 2011.

The matchup took a bit of a hit when Tennessee lost a pair of one-point affairs to drop to No. 10 in the national rankings and fall four games out of first place in the SEC standings.

Santiago Vescovi is 8 of 17 from 3-point range over the last two games for Tennessee while Mark Sears has 34 points over the last two outings for Alabama.