10 biggest takeaways from the college basketball season
No sport features the insanity that college basketball is able to muster each and every year. Not only does college hoops feature 351 teams playing every night of the week for four straight months, but it gives us the gift of conference tournaments and the wildness of March Madness.
Every college basketball season has its own charms and highlights, though every single one is as exciting as the last. This season was no exception, making waves that we’ll remember or feel the effects of for years to come.
With the 2016-2017 season now in the books, here’s a look at the 10 biggest takeaways from theyear.
1. Gonzaga pushed mid-majors forward
Though the Zags lost in Monday’s championship game, the Bulldogs reaching the final game was historic. Gonzaga was the first mid-major program to play for a title in five years, but the first school without a football program to play for the national championship since Seton Hall in 1989.
In recent seasons, top seeded mid-majors have not lived up to the task. Gonzaga reaching the Final Four as a top seed, while Kansas and Villanova did not, could do wonders on Selection Sunday moving forward. Seeing is believing. Committee members who in the past had been less trusting of mid-major resumes could now be more comfortable rewarding small school achievements.
2. Wichita State wants to upgrade its status
The Shockers, on the other hand, are sick of playing the mid-major game. Reports say Wichita State is exploring the opportunity of joining the American Athletic Conference in the near future. After being questionably seeded by the committee this year, and in years past, Gregg Marshall and the Wichita State administration could be looking to upgrade the program’s opportunities.
This would be huge for not only the Shockers, but both conferences.
After losing out on the re-alignment merry-go-round, UConn and Cincinnati would be glad to welcome a strong basketball program to the AAC.
The Missouri Valley would be devastated to lose Wichita State, only a few years after Creighton departed for the Big East. The conference was once the class of the mid-major conferences in the mid-2000s, but can’t afford to have a another premier program bolt for greener pastures.
3. The one-and-done era is alive and well
No one expected the amount of players spending only one year on campus before heading to the NBA to slow down, and the trend has continued with fervor.
This season saw the likes of Lonzo Ball at UCLA, Josh Jackson at Kansas, Markelle Fultz at Washington, Dennis Smith at NC State, and Malik Monk, De’Aaron Fox, and Bam Edebayo at Kentucky, among a host of others, leave for the draft. Many of the best teams in the nation were fueled by freshman talent. Statistical leaderboards were dominated by first year phenoms, many of whom have played their final game in college basketball.
Purists have let their disdain for the system be well known, but the sport is better off with one-year cameos from these players than never having a chance to showcase their talents. Removing all, or many, of these players from this season’s action would have seriously diminished the state of college basketball.
4. Teams assimilating one-and-dones with veterans struggled
While the players bound for the NBA after one year in college dazzled audiences, none were able to deliver their teams any profound success in March. Ball, and fellow likely one-and done TJ Leaf, made UCLA exciting, but the Bruins failed to reach the Elite Eight or win the Pac-12.
Duke, with Jayson Tatum and Harry Giles joining a solid team of veterans, won the ACC Tournament after a wildly rocky season, yet couldn’t find its way to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Kansas’ streak of Big XII regular season titles continued, though Josh Jackson was suspended for a Big XII Tournament loss and the Jayhawks failed to reach the Final Four yet again.
Fultz and Smith’s teams didn’t even make the NCAA Tournament and struggled against more seasoned teams this season. Michigan State, attempting to mash together a highly-ranked freshman class and a crop of upperclassmen, ended up looking exactly like a clumsy mash-up and never found their groove.
Final Four weekend featured just two players who could be headed to the draft after one college season — Gonzaga’s Zach Collins and North Carolina’s Tony Bradley, though both came off the bench for their respective teams as role players. No player likely to be picked in the top ten of June’s draft played in Phoenix this past weekend.
5. Seniors still found success
One the other side of the spectrum, college basketball still has room for senior stars. The two players collecting most of the postseason individual awards, Frank Mason from Kansas and Josh Hart from Villanova, were seasoned seniors.
Mason was the epitome of a senior point, driving everything the Jayhawks looked to accomplish on offense. Without his steadying hand and never-ending shot-making, Kansas’ penchant for making dramatic, last minute comebacks likely never comes to fruition.
Hart, meanwhile, paced Villanova’s effort to repeat as champions. Winning consecutive titles requires a ton of luck and perfect circumstances, both of which eluded the Wildcats. Phil Booth’s injury severely plagued what Jay Wright’s team could do at both ends of the floor. Omari Spellman was ruled academically ineligible before the season ever tipped off, but Villanova had been counting on him being there. His presence was sorely missed. That being said, Villanova still won the Big East and earned the top overall seed in the Big Dance, in large part to Hart’s magnificent season.
