Wednesday, Jan. 13th in College Basketball

The reason why conference play is so valuable (and interesting) for a college basketball fan is because it blatantly shows a team's true weakness. Perhaps this is because teams lose consistently in conference play, and you really don't find out about a team's weakness until they do lose, but whatever the reason, conference play is the area where you start to find out how a team matches up against decent opponents and what their limitations are. For example, there were a number of losses by top 25 teams yesterday, and by analyzing those games we can discover not only why they lost the game but if that reason concurs with the team's previous results. Wow, that totally sounded like a scientific paper. Anyway, on to the analysis:

Purdue

Why they lost: Among several reasons, Evan Turner, lack of transition defense, lack of bench scoring, Evan Turner, lack of quickness on the perimeter, inability to create shots, and Evan Turner.

Is this a trend?: Sort of. Outside of Moore, Hummel, and Johnson, we don't have any consistent scoring. This isn't the end of the world... unless one or more of those guys decides to have an off day (like Johnson did). The number of teams that can shut down Johnson or decide to try this hard to shut down Johnson are few, so this isn't a huge problem. Also, not everyone has Evan Turner. The scarier problem is the general lack of athleticism and quickness... not an issue when you're playing shut-down defense and only need to score 65-70 points to win, but the defense hasn't been there recently.

Can this team compete for a Final Four spot?: Yes, although the margin for error is slimmer than most teams. Purdue has to execute on both sides of the ball for the better part of 40 minutes, while other teams around them can get by on size, athleticism, shooting, or a combination of those three.

Florida State

Why they lost: They couldn't stop Scott Wood (31 pts, 7-11 from three).

Is this a trend?: Not really. The Seminoles aren't bad at stopping the three, and few guys are going to get that hot consistently. The bigger problem for Florida State (which, oddly enough, didn't show up tonight) is that they can't put the ball in the bucket consistently, mainly due to turnovers.

Can this team compete for a Sweet 16 spot?: Eh... I love their size, and they're strong defensively, but they just don't have the weapons to compete against the top teams. Maybe with good matchups they can make it past the first weekend, but I doubt it.

Baylor

Why they lost: Too many turnovers, and shot half as many free throws as Colorado did.

Is this a trend?: Yes. Baylor hasn't really faced the types of teams that can really hurt you if you turn the ball over as much as they do, and they're a good defensive team, mainly due to their size.

Can they make the tournament?: I'm going to say yes, but it might be pretty close. At best, Baylor is probably the fifth best team in this conference and they may be a .500 team in conference, which is probably enough to get it done, but not much more than a 10 or 11 seed. I doubt they get any farther than that.

This is the kind of analysis we can do to see where teams should end up come tournament time. In the meanwhile, we have games to play... starting with a couple of very important ACC showdowns:

Game of the Night:

UNC @ Clemson: Important game for both teams. Clemson could use a solid win to remove the ugly performance at Duke from people's heads. UNC could use a very good win to remove the ugly performance at College of Charleston from their heads. I told myself a week ago that the ACC is so parity-filled that I am pretty much just going to pick the home team every time, but I have other reasons to pick Clemson. Namely, they'll turn over UNC and attempt to get easy buckets in transition. Typically, high pressure, high turnover teams like Clemson feed off of crowd energy, and I think Clemson will do that and pick up a solid conference win.

Pick: Clemson 79, UNC 73

Others:

Minnesota @ Michigan State: Sparty looks to defend home court tonight against a good opponent.

Pitt @ UConn: The Panthers have erased all memory of the Indiana loss and look to continue to roll over an overrated (in my opinion) Husky team.

Wisconsin @ Northwestern: Both teams need this... Northwestern, to stay in good shape to make the tournament, and Wisconsin, to show they're serious about contending for a Big Ten title.

Missouri @ Texas Tech: Important bubble battle in the Big 12.

Cincinnati @ St. John's: Ditto, for the Big East.

Miami @ Virginia Tech: Ditto, for the ACC.

San Diego State @ UNLV: Ditto, for the... oh, you get the idea.