Big 12 basketball: After road sweep, Arizona’s outlook for a March Madness bid improves
There are nine-and-a-half weeks until Selection Sunday — more than enough time for a fragile situation to turn bleak, especially in a conference as rugged as the Big 12.
No matter, the Hotline is calling its shot here and now.
Arizona is in.
The Wildcats are a lock for the NCAA Tournament following their road sweep of Cincinnati and West Virginia.
Yes, a lock.
Despite five losses in 14 games.
Despite seven of their nine wins counting as Quadrant III or IV results.
Despite 290 Division I teams being more accurate from 3-point range. (The Wildcats shoot a ghastly 31.3 percent from behind the line.)
And despite not appearing on a handful of respected March Madness bracket projections, including those published by Fox and CBS.
Say it with us: The Wildcats are a lock.
They were within range of lock status before sweeping the Big 12’s eastern wing.
After outlasting the Bearcats by five points and thumping the Mountaineers, who just won at Kansas, by 19, the Wildcats jumped to No. 14 in the NET rankings and possess the key ingredients that support a tournament-worthy resume:
— Two Quadrant I wins (Cincinnati and West Virginia)
— No Quadrant III or IV losses
— A stout non-conference schedule (No. 45 nationally, according to the Pomeroy advanced metrics)
Also, they look like a tournament team.
Plenty could go wrong for Arizona (9-5, 3-0 Big 12) over the next nine-and-a-half weeks. But baked into our projection is the presumption that any team resourceful enough to build a resume with the aforementioned pillars is good enough to avoid a downturn that would lead to bad news on Selection Sunday.
The Wildcats often can’t shoot straight from long range — leading scorer Caleb Love misses seven of every 10 3-pointer attempts — but they do enough other things well to compensate.
Guards Jaden Bradley and KJ Lewis have a knack for raising their games at just the right moments.
Forward Henri Veesaar has ramped up production since Motiejus Krivas’ season-ending injury a month ago.
Love is Love, manufacturing points more often than not.
The defense is stout.
The bench is superb.
Also, it’s the Big 12, and the number of potholes on the road ahead is limited.
That’s a crucial change from life in the Pac-12, where the bottom of the conference was typically atrocious and a handful of resume-killers lurked.
Lose to Cal or Oregon State, and the stench of a Quadrant IV result was unmistakable.
But the Big 12’s bottom feeder in the latest NET rankings, Kansas State, is No. 124. Even if Arizona were to lose in Manhattan early next month, it would count as a Quadrant II defeat.
Put another way: Downside risks are limited; and opportunities for upside results are plentiful.
Two dates with Iowa State and Baylor, one each with Houston and Kansas.
No more games in the Eastern Time Zone.
And no trip to Salt Lake City, where the Wildcats have experienced all sorts of peril in recent years.
Add it up, and there’s no reason — none, zero, zip — for the Wildcats to expect anything other than good news on Selection Sunday. They might even climb all the way to a No. 3 or 4 seed.
And if an unexpected, inexplicable collapse materializes in the next nine-and-half weeks, this column will detonate in five … four …
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