who has announced he\u2019ll be back.<\/a><\/p>\nBut given Toppin\u2019s return and how much talent Houston is bringing in, plus the fact that both of those programs made deep runs in the NCAA Tournament, I don\u2019t see BYU finishing higher than third in the Big 12 \u2026 which is exactly where the Cougars were at the end of the 2024-25 season.<\/p>\n
But it is plausible that they make a deep postseason run \u2014 they lost in the Sweet 16 to Alabama this year \u2014 when matched up with teams that aren\u2019t as familiar with guarding Dybantsa. Peterson should help KU with that, too. A deep run from either (or both!) of these teams could ultimately help the Big 12 recapture the claim as the best men\u2019s college basketball conference. \u2014Lindsay Schnell<\/p>\n
Do you think Kevin Willard can bring Villanova back to the top of the Big East? National contender status? \u2014 Brian S.<\/p>\n
Yes, and we\u2019ll see. I\u2019m not quite willing to go there yet on the second one \u2014 at least at the level of consistency of what Jay Wright reached \u2014 but I do think hiring Willard was a lot smarter than going with an unproven assistant. I\u2019m always wary of in-the-family hires. Some have gone brilliantly. Tom Izzo, Mark Few, Matt Painter, Jon Scheyer (on track). But others have really crashed.<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re one of the best programs in the sport, why limit yourself to one or two candidates when theoretically you should be able to attract some awesome candidates?<\/p>\n
Willard made sense because he had success in the Big East at one of the toughest places to win (Seton Hall), and then he was off to a solid start at Maryland. I\u2019m not sure he\u2019s Wright, but the floor is a lot higher than hiring a Kyle Neptune. Villanova has been willing to put resources \u2014 i.e., NIL funds \u2014 toward basketball, and Willard has done a nice job of roster building at his past two stops. The league has more depth at the top than when Wright had it rolling, so maybe how Villanova is judged should be slightly different. But if Villanova can consistently be a top-four team in the league with a league championship every four or five years, then that should be considered a success. And a league winner is usually going to be a national title contender. \u2014 CJ Moore<\/p>\n
How does Michigan State keep up after the losses of Tre Holloman and Jase Richardson? Tom Izzo doesn\u2019t usually get big talent from the portal, so I feel like we\u2019re stuck. \u2014 Kaiden B.<\/p>\n
Losing Richardson hurts much more than Holloman, IMO. By season\u2019s end, Richardson was Sparty\u2019s best player, and I thought there was a decent chance that he might run things back in East Lansing for a second season. Instead, with a first-round landing spot seemingly guaranteed, Richardson is testing his luck, and then Holloman\u2019s departure only exacerbated MSU\u2019s backcourt situation.<\/p>\n
Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo shows displeasure after a play during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Wisconsin, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo\/Carlos Osorio)<\/p>\n
So far, the only true guard Izzo has added is journeyman Trey Fort (Samford), who at least has high-major experience from his lone season at Mississippi State. Fort brings much-needed scoring and shooting punch \u2014 he shot 37.9 percent from 3 last season on five attempts per game \u2014 but he\u2019s not a true point guard. Fellow perimeter addition Kaleb Glenn (Florida Atlantic) is more of a wing, meanwhile, and even less suited to run MSU\u2019s offense. If Fort had to serve as a temporary lead ballhandler, he probably could. But you\u2019d rather find someone a bit more natural at creating behind Jeremy Fears Jr., who is going to almost singularly have the keys to Izzo\u2019s offense. Even with Kur Teng returning, I\u2019d be surprised if Izzo doesn\u2019t add at least one more ballhandling guard who can set up his offense when Fears needs a breather.<\/p>\n
As for Michigan State\u2019s outlook at large, though? I pegged the Spartans as a mid-tier Big Ten team last season, before Richardson\u2019s emergence and the team\u2019s incredible depth made clear they could play above that level. That might be more what reality is for this team. Purdue and Michigan already look like the clear Big Ten favorites, with Iowa and Illinois also looking dangerous. While I\u2019m a big fan of Coen Carr, Jaxon Kohler and Fears, the two things that made MSU special this season \u2014 a dynamic lead guard and depth \u2014 just don\u2019t seem like they\u2019ll be there. Maybe some late portal additions change that, but this should only underscore just how special a season Michigan State just had. \u2014 Brendan Marks<\/p>\n
From a basketball perspective, which school would be a great addition to the Revised Pac-12: Another Mountain West team, Saint Mary\u2019s, University of San Francisco, UC Irvine or another school? \u2014 Z77Pwjpycd<\/p>\n
As both a Pac-12 alum and someone constantly trying to look at the glass half full, I was holding out hope that UNLV would join the Pac-12 2.0. The league is already slated to be excellent in men\u2019s basketball, with programs like Gonzaga, Colorado State, Boise State, San Diego State and Utah State set to join Oregon State and Washington State. (This is also a pretty good women\u2019s basketball conference.)<\/p>\n
Of the schools you listed as a possible pickup, Saint Mary\u2019s has been the most consistent. The issue is that if the Pac-12 wants to be taken seriously, it can\u2019t have teams playing in high school gyms, which is essentially where Saint Mary\u2019s plays (I understand this is part of the Gaels\u2019 charm, but it\u2019s a branding issue). New Mexico would be a solid choice from a men\u2019s basketball perspective, but given how important football is, you can\u2019t invite a school that\u2019s gone a combined 16-39 the past five years.<\/p>\n
Now, is this pipe dream given that UNLV is getting as much as $24 million to stay in the MWC when other schools were fleeing? Technically, yes. But I\u2019m going to hold out hope. In the history of realignment, things that once seemed impossible are now a reality. (I will never have a truly satisfactory answer to, \u201cWhy is Nebraska in the Big Ten instead of the Big 12?\u201d) With the way things have gone, it seems like only a matter of months before we have another major shakeup in the college sports conference landscape \u2014 maybe then that $24 million becomes irrelevant. \u2014Schnell<\/p>\n
I saw recently on ESPN that Kansas was projected to be a 7-seed again. Additionally, I haven\u2019t seen anybody discussing it as a legitimate Elite Eight threat, let alone a title threat. Is this an overreaction to KU underachieving in the past two years? Or is the roster that it built around Darryn Peterson simply not good enough to contend? \u2014 Sam W.<\/p>\n
Bracketology in April and May is hilarious. Just like Top 25s this time of year, it\u2019s all guesswork, and there are a lot of picks that will look dumb in about seven months. But yes, you\u2019re right in both regards: This is probably a slight overreaction to what KU has been the past two years, and also on paper, the portal class looks slightly underwhelming. I think not just chasing names has been a sign of progress when it comes to the portal class. This is Bill Self approaching the portal more like Duke\u2019s Scheyer did last year. Scheyer got some criticism because his portal additions were not ranked highly on any portal lists, but he was intentional in finding players who he thought fit around Cooper Flagg, and he also wanted positional size. That approach ended up working out great, and an addition like Sion James was one of the steals of the 2024 portal cycle.<\/p>\n
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Brigham Young Cougars guard Egor Demin (3) drives to the hoop, as Kansas Jayhawks forward KJ Adams Jr. (24) and Kansas Jayhawks guard AJ Storr (2) defend, in Big 12 basketball action between the Brigham Young Cougars and the Kansas Jayhawks, at the Marriott Center, in Provo, on Tuesday, Feb 18, 2025.
<\/p>\n
KU\u2019s grade is still incomplete because Self still needs to add one or two more players. But what\u2019s apparent is that athleticism\/ability to guard mattered more this time around than just trying to add scoring\/top names on a list. He got a shooter in Jayden Dawson; he got a point guard\/secondary handler who can guard and also generate paint touches in Melvin Council Jr., which addressed a weakness from this past year; and then he got a Swiss Army knife kind of wing in Tre White, whose size (6-foot-7) and position 3\/4 type have been really important pieces on Self\u2019s best teams.<\/p>\n
The Jayhawks could still use another scorer, and they had Dame Sarr on campus last week. A 6-7 shooting guard, Sarr is one of the most talented unsigned players left who are planning to play college hoops next season. He would allow Self to lean into playing two to three big wings at a time, mimicking the approach in 2022-23, which is the last time KU was a No. 1 seed. KU could also still be in the mix for former Texas Tech wing Darrion Williams, who is in the portal but also considering the NBA. If Self lands either of those players, I\u2019d likely bump KU into the top 10. So let\u2019s wait to see what the final product looks like, but you are correct to assume that just like KU\u2019s preseason ranking is usually inflated because of past success, there\u2019s a hint of recency bias right now and also the hesitancy that comes with ranking a team whose best player is someone we haven\u2019t seen play at this level yet. \u2014Moore<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared in The Athletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s dive into the Big 12, Kansas, Michigan State, the new Pac-12 and more in this mailbag. How…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[1583,7,1581,1580,217,1582,231,772,1544,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-39150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-athletics","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-brigham-young-university","11":"tag-byu","12":"tag-college-basketball","13":"tag-cougars","14":"tag-ncaa","15":"tag-ncaa-basketball","16":"tag-ncaab","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}