The Watchlist Tune o' the Week:
Jeez, this is a long one, 6,300+ words. Sorry! Incredible NFL Wild Card weekend, huh?
Onto the Watchlist.
- A Games are obvious: the best of the best. We have one A+ Game every week, which is the Game of the Week under a different name. If you’re near a TV you should be watching this game at this time.
- B Games are good games that perhaps don’t quite have star power. I recommend keeping these on your periphery and flipping to them during commercial, or perhaps exercising them as a second screen if you’re into multi-view.
- C Games are clear undercards that could become a certifiable Situation if things break correctly, but in general these are mostly just games to be aware of in case your top options fall through.
- We hope to never get to D or F Games this season. No need.
All lines and game information are via KenPom unless otherwise noted. All lines for women's games are via Bart Torvik.
Monday, January 12
A Game
Texans at Steelers, 8 PM ET, ESPN. As I'm writing this, Saturday of the NFL playoffs was about inevitability in the face of questionability, while Sunday was almost entirely about which team had the better QB and/or OL. I'm interested to see which notes Monday hits: is this a Correct Team Wins game (Texans) or a Random Dumb Stuff Happens Because We Cannot Escape These Freaking Guys game (Steelers)? Time will tell.
B Game
NCAAW: #22 Alabama (-12) at #74 Missouri, 7 PM ET, SEC Network. For actual basketball, this is the best of the night. Missouri is well off the pace for the NCAA Tournament, while Alabama looks like a 3 seed with their resume but a 6 seed with actual on-court performance. Which one is closer to the truth should be telling as to how interesting this game becomes.
C Games
#178 Navy (-1) at #243 American, 7 PM ET, CBSSN. This may just be for First Loser in the Colgate Conference, but Colgate is fallible and I think your future non-Colgate Patriot League winner (if there is one) would likely be one of these two teams. Can American's no-bigs offense crack a good Navy defense that is really good at stopping downhill attacks to the rim?
#277 Southern at #258 Bethune Cookman (-3), 7 PM ET, SWAC TV. Yes, the SWAC has learned (somewhat), and these games are now fairly easy to access. As usual, the SWAC is wide open, and either of these teams could win the league or finish sixth.
#192 Nicholls at #73 McNeese (-12), 7:30 PM ET, ESPN+. The last undefeated in the Southland (7-0) versus the actual best team in the Southland in McNeese. I'd like more confidence in a fun game here, but over the last five Nicholls/McNeese battles, none have been closer than an 8-point affair.
Tuesday, January 13
A Games
#15 Virginia at #16 Louisville (-3), 7 PM ET, ESPN2. This has higher stakes to it from my eye than it did a week ago. Louisville appears to be experiencing a little bit of wobble, which I would argue is mostly injury-influenced, while UVA has been a top-10 team in the sport since December started. Some of that is opponents shooting 26% from 3, but when you're +14.5% from 2 in that span I can't complain THAT much.
This is surprisingly the first Odom/Kelsey tangle in their collective history, so nothing to go on there. As such: down to the players. If Virginia remains exceptional on the boards against a very strong Louisville rebounding collective, that can swing the game. I would specifically look for how much impact Johann Grunloh and Thijs De Ridder have rebounding here; unsurprisingly, UVA's two losses saw the two combine for three OREBs in regulation. Louisville-wise, it seems as if Mikel Brown's status is still in the air. (Ryan Conwell seems more likely to play.) Can they continue to drive and attack, creating kickout threes without their best creator?
#27 Indiana at #13 Michigan State (-7), 8 PM ET, Peacock/NBCSN. In the quest to generate a Signature Win™ in Darian DeVries' first year at Indiana, the Hoosiers have tried and failed three times to deliver, the latest of which was a pretty catastrophic collapse at home against a Nebraska team that I guess has the Mandate of Heaven and will next lose a game in 2038.
The best proxy for what Indiana runs is something similar to Illinois in terms of drop coverage and 3PA/assist elimination, which is interesting for a couple of reasons. For one, eight of the last nine Illinois/MSU matchups have had single-digit scorelines; for another, MSU has done a good job generating points through - you guessed it - big guys scoring in P&R and guards/wings scoring in transition. IU's coverage is such that it actually allows very little big involvement in P&R, instead letting ball handlers do whatever they'd like. So: is this a Good Fears game or a Bad Fears game?
#3 Iowa State (-4) at #23 Kansas, 9 PM ET, ESPN. We could be in one of the rarest spots in modern history, depending on how much Vegas chooses to adjust for a super mega spot here: Home Underdog Kansas. This would be just the fifth time in Bill Self's KU tenure his opponent will be expected to win at Allen Fieldhouse. He's 2-2 in these spots previously. In the equally likely event he's a 3-point favorite or shorter, he's 10-3. What can I say? The guy wins games. When none of the losses are by more than 6 and that one required a historically absurd sequence of events to happen, you could call this the ol' Scheduled Loss.
All that noted, Otz-era ISU/KU games are typically rockfights that go the way of the home team, who has won six of seven matchups. (The favorite is 8-0, counting a Big 12 Tourney game.) The lone game to go over the Vegas total was in January 2024, when ISU shot 14-30 from 3 (next-highest made threes that year: 11) and the two teams scored 32% of their points in the final ten minutes.
If this is its usual rockfight and if Iowa State finally experiences three-point regression for the first time all year (they're shooting 43.5% from deep since Players Era with a +14.5% 3PT% delta), that feels like a pretty clear path for Kansas to pounce. Given KU's questionable offense, that may be the only path. I have a hard time picturing Iowa State losing if they can get to 70, which has generally been their win/loss barrier under Otz.
B Games
#41 Texas A&M at #19 Tennessee (-8), 7 PM ET, SEC Network. I mentioned on our SEC preview show in the preseason that the supposedly variance-heavy Bucky McMillan was secretly fairly easy to figure out over the years: 44-6 as a home favorite, 36-41 in every other situation. As a road dog of 5+ points: 5-9 ATS with his two straight-up wins being by one and two points, respectively.
They did beat Auburn in a similar situation last week, but this required 1) A&M shooting 43% from 3, and 2) Auburn shooting 27% in a game where Auburn demolished them in shot volume and in free throw attempts. This will be Rick Barnes' first run-through against Bucky Ball in his career, but Tennessee's actually been excellent in press offense this year (95th-percentile). The teams that have beaten Tennessee's defense this year have typically done it via larger guards that can drive from the perimeter and/or hitting jumpers off the dribble, two items A&M doesn't do often.
#9 UConn (-6) at #43 Seton Hall, 8 PM ET, TruTV. UConn loves losing this game every year, to the point that I've mentally chalked it up in my head already as a How Did UConn Lose That Game loss. But! Did you know that in his first try in March 2021, Dan Hurley did win this game as a 1.5-point favorite? It's true. Anyway, I think SHU gives UConn the level of trouble they do because they're so good at eliminating drives to the basket and at defending backdoor cuts, two staples of the Hurley offense. Can they figure it out, finally, after four straight road losses in New Jersey?
#59 West Virginia at #10 Houston (-12), 8:30 PM ET, FS1. Huge win for the Buy Low Teams over the weekend, as West Virginia made a righteous comeback to defeat Kansas at home. Now, sadly, two of our Buy Low Teams must tangle with one another, which leads me to say the obvious: the better team usually wins these.
#42 Baylor at #55 Oklahoma State (-1), 9 PM ET, CBSSN. Baylor is in Actual Real Danger of missing the NCAA Tournament and I'm not sure national media types have registered this. At Torvik, they've got a 19% chance to make the future field of 68. TeamRankings goes with 46%, which is more charitable but still not ideal. I think they're better than they've shown, but it's sort of meaningless if you don't win games. Better start here.
#35 Saint Mary's (-5) at #103 San Francisco, 11 PM ET, ESPN2. Fun fact: outside of the two Gonzaga games, this week has Saint Mary's two closest-projected games of the rest of the regular season: road USF, road Santa Clara. If they go 2-0, they're going to finish 15-3 at worst in the WCC and probably 16-2. The Gerlufsen-era battles with SMC have mostly gone SMC's way, but there are two items of note here: USF has yet to top 66 against SMC in the last four years, and SMC has yet to go below 64. So: 65 is the number to watch. If USF gets there first, I think they can win. Reductive, but worth noting.
C Games
#25 Villanova (-3) at #67 Providence, 6:30 PM ET, FS1. Providence is now 8-8 after a horrifying collapse against UConn and a disgusting follow-up at Xavier. At minimum, they have to go 1-1 this week to regain any fan trust whatsoever, and probably, they need to go 2-0 to restore real confidence. Villanova's handled their first two Not That Tough but That Tricky (Butler, Marquette) road games in Big East play with some amount of ease. Can they do it a third time in a row?
#38 Wisconsin (-3) at #86 Minnesota, 7 PM ET, BTN. Not my pig, not my farm, you know the drill. But seeing people say things like "if Wisconsin shoots like THAT every game, they'll be a Big Ten darkhorse!" is really goofy. Yeah, if they shoot 46% from 3 every game, they're gonna win a lot. Do you think what you're saying is novel or interesting?
#36 Miami FL (-1) at #68 Notre Dame, 7 PM ET, ESPNU. True story: prior to this game, Miami will have played zero true road games against a top-50 team. After this game, that will remain true. I don't think I blame Miami for this, but rather their opponents. None of Ole Miss, Wake Forest, or Notre Dame could get to top-50 this year?
#317 Central Michigan at #97 Miami (OH) (-18), 7 PM ET, ESPN+. You know the drill: on here until they lose. Go RedHawks.
#14 Alabama (-6) at #72 Mississippi State, 9 PM ET, SEC Network. Fun with numbers: after one of the most disastrous Novembers I can recall, Mississippi State has played like a top-60 team since December 1. That's still not where I thought they'd be in preseason (top-40), but they've shot 56% from 2 during that time and have at least somewhat figured out a defensive coverage that works. Unfortunately for them, worth noting that Nate Oats is 7-0 against Chris Jans.
#12 Florida (-6) at #54 Oklahoma, 9 PM ET, ESPN2. Florida finally remembered how to shoot a basketball on Saturday, which makes me very fearful for anyone playing them going forward. They're clearly a really good team; all that was missing was anything in the way of made jumpers. If they shoot 32% from deep the rest of the year, which is bad but at least not horrid, they're a top-10 team in the nation. I do not want arguments.
#79 Boise State (-4) at #148 UNLV, 11 PM ET, CBSSN. I had this on here before Boise State completely ate it at home against a Utah State team that should start being considered as a real and serious option for a 5 seed. They've gotta go 2-0 this week to retain any sort of fan support.
Wednesday, January 14
A Games
#21 Iowa at #4 Purdue (-10), 6:30 PM ET, BTN. I was more excited about this one when I thought Iowa might beat Illinois, but it's still good. On one hand, there's a decent chance that Iowa gets run out of the building by a Purdue team with a far better frontcourt and the lone point guard in the league that can go possession-for-possession with Bennett Stirtz. On the other, I think Iowa's been pretty unlucky with their road results. Are we sure they go from a fairly standard fouls team at home/neutral sites to a Southland squad on the road? I just think that's not long for wear and they'll pick one off eventually. Probably not this one, but eventually.
NCAAW: #7 TCU (-1) at #20 West Virginia, 7 PM ET, ESPN+. The motivation on the West Virginia side will be sky-high here. WVU had a breakout year last year, but they went 0-2 against a TCU team they consistently rated at the level of analytically and got demolished on the interior in both. This WVU team isn't as good as that one, but they're significantly improved on the interior and just got done smoking Iowa State on the road yesterday. Time to let some frustration out, maybe?
NCAAW: #2 UCLA (-8) at #11 Minnesota, 8 PM ET, BTN+. By some distance, Minnesota is the best four-loss team in women's basketball. All four losses are excusable (yes, even Kansas on the road), and beating a good USC team yesterday on a day where USC shot 14-31 from deep out of nowhere is pretty meaningful to me.
Now, I like the Minnesota frontcourt and believe it's quite good, but we all know Lauren Betts is an entirely different task to tangle with. If Minnesota can at least contain her impact to some extent - something like <14 points and <10 rebounds - they should have a real chance. This could just mean the terrific UCLA backcourt shreds you through drives and kicks, but you have to make choices, and I'd rather induce variance than go 1-on-1 with Betts for two hours.
The Non-D1 Game of the Week
NAIA: #4 Bethel (IN) at #1 Grace (IN) (-7.5), 7:30 PM ET, streaming ($). In the event you live near or around Winona Lake, IN, I believe you should attend this game. Mostly because this is a Small School Special, which means you have to pay $10 to actually watch this on what I'll assume is a not-great stream. These are possibly the two best teams in NAIA this year, and while I'm not going to pretend to know much of anything here, I do know that this is also a 92.5 PPG team playing at a 94.4 PPG one. Fun! This is also a very strong regional and religious rivalry per my understanding, so think of this as the Indiana Hope/Calvin.
B Games
#31 Auburn (-1) at #57 Missouri, 7 PM ET, ESPN2. Auburn finally moved out of having the best resume of losses in America by pounding Arkansas into the dirt, which brings me to a point I've made in the past about Auburn. These guys are fine! Against top-200 competition, Auburn is 4-6...but has a top-20 offense and has suffered some very bad defensive shooting luck, both from midrange and from deep. I think they're a little undervalued right now and could definitely be this year's team that rises from cutline material to 10-8 in the SEC and an 8 seed.
#26 Kentucky at #40 LSU (-1), 7 PM ET, SEC Network. After tricking the computers into putting them in the top 25 for a week, LSU has revealed themselves to be what I thought they would be preseason: bad. Since December 1, the Tigers have played like the 92nd-best team in America per Torvik, which means they're one spot ahead of Wyoming and 16 spots behind Northwestern. AKA: they are still way overvalued, particularly as Dedan Thomas continues to miss games and opponents realize they're just as awful defensively as we projected three months ago. Now, for them to do the only thing they can do, which is defeat Kentucky and made the preceding paragraph useless.
#52 San Diego State (-1) at #92 Wyoming, 8 PM ET, CBSSN. Speaking of Wyoming! This is a very fun team to watch that cannot defend a soul but cannot stop attacking the paint with such brute force that I have no choice but to tip the virtual cap. San Diego State is typically happy to overhelp on drives and force guarded kickout threes, and that's probably the right strategy against a Wyoming team generating 1.13 points per shot from 2/1.02 from 3. But! This is a superior rebounding team to SDSU (a surprising sentiment for me) and is a legitimate top-100 opponent.
#7 Illinois (-9) at #61 Northwestern, 8:30 PM ET, BTN. Non-Quad 4 games only: #8 at #69. I'm still buying what others are selling on Northwestern just because they are an unkillable franchise and have merely moved to 11-7 in games since 2022 where they're 56th or lower at KenPom. Northwestern has also been a strange bugaboo for Illinois in general, as the Illini are 2-6 ATS in the last eight against their Hat rivals and six of those eight games were single-digit affairs. I guess I expect this to be very close the whole way through, and as usual, for Northwestern to elect to do everything possible to park the bus at the rim and force the Illini to win a jump-shooting contest.
#5 Vanderbilt (-7) at #47 Texas, 9 PM ET, ESPN2. 16-0 Vanderbilt and all, but this is the real test for me, a sort of "can you do it on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke" deal. Texas's super-drop has been awful all year against any team with a pulse offensively, and playing under on-ball screens against Vandy of all teams could be a death wish. However...HOWEVER.
The two things Texas does exceptionally well on offense are hammer the paint en route to unlimited foul calls and offensive rebounds. Vandy, against non-Quad 4 competition, sits 312th in defensive FT Rate and is underwater in rebounding margin. There's also some two-way 3PT% regression here; in these same games, Vandy is +10.2% from 3, while Texas is -5.5% and their opponents have shot 41% from deep. This has a lot of hallmarks of the hallowed Scheduled Loss™ SEC faithful know too well, and I'll be deeply impressed by Vandy if they avoid it.
NCAAW: #33 Iowa State (-1.5) at #44 Colorado, 9 PM ET, ESPN+. Removing all Quad 4 games, this is #40 at #43. As much as the Audi Crooks Experience has galvanized a nation, this simply isn't a very good Iowa State team. They're horrific defensively (though are also due serious 3PT% regression), don't force turnovers, don't rebound well, and don't get to the foul line. Generally speaking, it is just Crooks, especially when Addy Brown isn't available to save them from the perimeter. There's things here to like but it's a bench that's going to get exploited in Big 12 play and already has a catastrophic road loss to Cincinnati.
NCAAW: #31 Baylor (-2) at #40 Utah, 9 PM ET, ESPN+. Baylor's defense is so strong that it's covered up how bad of a watch their offense can be. Against top-100 competition, their best effort is 1.017 PPP, and that required going 20-25 at the free throw line to save a 47.5% eFG% day from the field. They can't generate runaway speed, but the defense can give them just enough to survive. Interested to see how long this formula lasts and how far it can take them; sight unseen I'd guess the Round of 32.
#1 Michigan (-12) at #48 Washington, 10:30 PM ET, BTN. I said it on the Twit, which is meaningless, but I do believe that Saturday's loss was extremely necessary for Michigan. For one, it comes after they probably could've lost to Penn State, which would've been a worse result. For two, it comes after six uninterrupted weeks of people asking if this is the best team since (pick your favorite), and doing that before conference play is truly rolling is unwise. You can live with losing at home to a now-probable NCAA Tournament team when said team has a season-high 3PT% day and shot 11-15 (!) on open threes when teams normally hit about 38%. I'll hold off on taking their supposed 'drop-off' seriously unless they lose this game by 10+.
C Games
#90 High Point (-2) at #138 Winthrop, 6:30 PM ET, ESPN+. This is #1 at #2 in the Big South race, which is my way of saying that this is the only game remaining on High Point's schedule where they're less than 8-point favorites. Tune in!
#69 Ole Miss at #28 Georgia (-10), 7 PM ET, ESPNU. This will annoy every Georgia fan, but I didn't find this team all that believable until they defeated South Carolina on the road on Saturday. Why a road win over a bottom-three SEC team swayed me, I'm not sure, but it feels like every other Georgia team with any promise in years past loses that game, especially when shooting 6-27 from 3 and trailing 62-54 with eight minutes to play. Now, are they as good as their record? I'm not there yet, but the concept of future 9 seed Georgia works.
NCAAW: #46 Marquette at #37 Seton Hall (-5.5), 7 PM ET, ESPN+. Mostly deck shuffling to figure out who finishes third in the Big East behind UConn and Villanova (just like MBB!), but Marquette is running an extreme 3PT% delta of +11.6% that seems highly unlikely to last.
NCAAW: #34 Oklahoma State (-5) at #57 Kansas, 7:30 PM ET, ESPN+. Oklahoma State really needs to get some wins, as their 14-4 record is heavily influenced by a 12-0 record against teams outside the top-100. Their best road result against a top-100 team is a close road loss to TCU. Kansas isn't very good, but at 68% to win (per Torvik), you need to make this free throw. Can you make one (1) free throw?
#45 UCF at #77 Kansas State (-1), 8 PM ET, Peacock. I like to think that, when Jerome Tang and Johnny Dawkins shake hands Wednesday night, they'll have a "who would've thought" moment with each other. On January 11, 2024, would either of these two have thought that it would be Tang on the hot seat while Dawkins has appeared in the AP Top 25 in the last month?
#33 North Carolina (-2) at #80 Stanford, 9 PM ET, ACC Network. I'd like to share this with you, which is UNC's away-from-home versus home splits, per Hoop-Explorer.
Obvious strength of schedule stuff is at play here, but even including games against top-200 opponents only, UNC is nearly 10 points worse per 100 away from home. The profound interior advantage they've shown at home entirely dissipates on the road, which is interesting to me when home Stanford gets a ton of foul calls (nearly 0.48 FTA to every 1 FGA) and forces a lot of turnovers in the frontcourt. If UNC gets behind early, the game script here surprisingly favors Stanford, especially given UNC's leakiness on the defensive end against better backcourts.
#66 Virginia Tech at #32 SMU (-8), 9 PM ET, ESPN2. Yet again, SMU is a very easy team to figure out: 1-4 against top-50 competition, 11-0 against everyone else. This follows a 2024-25 where Andy Enfield's crew went 0-6 against the top-50 and 23-4 against everyone else. Virginia Tech is 65th, so.
#71 South Carolina at #30 Arkansas (-10), 9 PM ET, SEC Network. I've gone on record as not liking this Arkansas team nearly as much as the average media member. You're just not gonna be +9.7% from 3 forever or 42.2% from deep, as they've been since December began. They're very bad defensively and Auburn rocked them. Now, will that matter here? Maybe not! But South Carolina has been a top-60 team post-Feast Week, and last year was the first time since 2017-18 (yes) that John Calipari went undefeated at home as a 7+ point favorite. They just...lose sometimes, for no real reason.
#78 Nevada at #20 Utah State (-12), 10 PM ET, CBSSN. Either Utah State is about to make the Mountain West race a laugher or the Rubber Band Effect will get them a little.
#89 Arizona State at #2 Arizona (-22), 10:30 PM ET, FS1. Sure, this is probably nothing. But the KenPom spread is 22 points, and under Tommy Lloyd, just one of these games (February 2024) has ended with Arizona winning by 20+. ASU doesn't often win, but they're good at making a game interesting.
#8 Duke (-10) at #82 California, 11 PM ET, ACC Network. Because I know you're curious, the California teams since moving to the ACC are collectively 16-8 straight-up and 11-13 ATS in ACC home games. Not this huge advantage you'd think of, really. I wonder how it would've gone, like, 20 years ago.
#53 TCU at #11 BYU (-13), 11 PM ET, ESPN2. On the contrary, BYU home games since becoming Big 12 People have perhaps gone overlooked as a spot to take advantage of. 16-4 at home in Big 12 play, and 12 of those 16 wins were by double digits. Very mild revenge factor for BYU here too, as they lost at TCU last January.
Thursday, January 15
The A+ Game of the Week
NCAAW: #3 Texas at #4 South Carolina (-2.5), 7 PM ET, ESPN2. Super-mega banger of the year, perhaps. These are inarguably two of the four best teams in the sport, as I and most believe there's a real separation between UConn/UCLA/Texas/South Carolina and the rest of the pack.
I wonder if this could be a secret bad spot for South Carolina, as they'll receive the unenviable task of playing Texas off of their first loss of the season to Texas. However, some of what LSU did is repeatable here with South Carolina having a significantly better frontcourt and at least a comparable backcourt. Texas's offense felt stuck in the mud against an LSU team that essentially packed it in and dared Texas to consider doing their least favorite thing, which is attempting a jump shot. They owned the Longhorns on the boards, which is alarming to me when South Carolina is a better defensive rebounding team and is significantly ahead of LSU defensively overall. Genuinely can't wait for this. Real hoop.
A Games
NCAAW: #19 Nebraska at #24 Michigan State (-2), 7 PM ET, BTN. Top-200 games only: #21 at #24. Doesn't seem like it matters that much, but I would note that means MSU may be a tad undervalued in this spot. Both have shot extremely well from deep against good competition; both have very leaky defenses, though Nebraska's is a simple designation of "we have no rim protection" while Sparty's is a more complicated "we have rim protection at the expense of defensive rebounding." Texas/SoCar is the headliner, but this is a tremendous second-screen piece.
NCAAW: #12 Maryland at #17 USC (-1), 9 PM ET, Peacock/NBCSN. Maryland suffered a surprise home loss to an Ohio State team I thought they'd demolish on the boards as I was typing this. They outrebounded them, but not by a ton, and it was meaningless anyway because OSU shot 11-22 from deep. Draw even in shot volume, give up 50% from 3, you're probably gonna lose.
I guess the good news is that they get to play at USC, a team way better than their record (I'd note every loss is to a top-25 team) but with a putrid offense that has cracked 1 PPP against exactly one of their ten top-100 opponents. USC cannot generate easy points anywhere but transition, and if the opponent stunts their primary break, it's a long, looping possession of hoping Londynn Jones or Jazzy Davidson bails them out. As such, USC can win this game if they hold Maryland under 60, which is a serious ask when Maryland has yet to be held under 70.
NCAAW: #25 Oregon at #18 Iowa (-4), 9 PM ET, FS1. This is possibly the Big Ten's best transition offense (Iowa) taking on the Big Ten's second-most prolific transition offense (Oregon) behind Ohio State. I love this game because I know both teams want to play fast, with Oregon's matchup zone creating a lot of havoc and turnovers while Iowa is among the national leaders in points generated in the first 10 seconds off of an opposing miss.
It's a little reductive to say "whoever controls two-way transition wins" but that's probably most accurate. Short of that, Iowa's offense has had a pretty clear tell: 3-2 when scoring 30 or fewer points in the paint, 11-0 with no wins by less than 10 when scoring 32+. This is meaningful against an Oregon team that gives up a healthy amount of PITP and is 0-3 when allowing 36+ (14-0 otherwise).
B Games
NCAAW: #8 Louisville (-2) at #26 Notre Dame, 6 PM ET, ACC Network. Notre Dame is Hannah Hidalgo and fine-not-great players, which makes for a really frustrating viewing experience. It feels like a team that could be pretty good if they ever found depth or a single bench player they liked, but they cannot do so. They're so reliant on Hidalgo, who has had another masterful season and is a top-10 player in the nation, that against top-100 teams she last played fewer than 35 minutes against any of them in 2024-25. That being said, they're still good, and this is a favorable matchup with a Louisville team that lacks great rim protection.
NCAAW: #14 Vanderbilt (-5) at #36 Mississippi State, 6:30 PM ET, SEC Network. Here is how sickening the SEC is right now. Remove all games against teams outside of the top-200, and Vanderbilt is 15th nationally. (Mississippi State is 32nd, but they're not part of my point.) For anyone else, this would be a real accomplishment and would have you be hopeful for no worse than a top-four finish in your league. For Vandy, all it does is make them the 8th-rated team in a 16-team conference. This, truly, is a conference of nightly war.
NCAAW: #38 Virginia at #15 Duke (-11), 8 PM ET, ACC Network. Hat tip to our own Skim Milkey, who has been on top of something that I was not: since December 1, Duke has played like a top-10 team in America with a top-15 offense and defense. If they can handle this one against a Virginia team who's done well for themselves this year, it sets up a potential Herculean clash with Louisville on February 5 where both may be undefeated in ACC play.
C Games
NCAAW: #51 California at #45 Syracuse (-4), 6 PM ET, ESPN+. These are similar teams with very different outcomes this year. Cal's better than their record; Syracuse is worse. And yet, Syracuse is far more likely to make the Tournament at this stage because they've won close games and Cal hasn't.
NCAAW: #35 Illinois at #5 Michigan (-18), 7 PM ET, Peacock/NBCSN. Major stretch run starts here for the Illini. After this and a should-be home win over Northwestern, it goes Nebraska (A)/UCLA (H)/Washington (A)/Oregon (A)/USC (H) over the following three weeks. Including this game, if you can even win two of those six, you should feel extremely good about yourself. Even one of six wouldn't be a true disaster, just a bummer.
NCAAW: #28 Villanova at #1 UConn (-29), 7 PM ET, FS1. Villanova is the only team in the Big East that I can picture keeping it somewhat close against UConn for 2.5 quarters, and even then I don't think they can stay within 20 at game's end. This UConn team is significantly better than last year's and is the best women's team I've seen since 2015-16 UConn, which was the Breanna Stewart/Moriah Jefferson team.
NCAAW: #59 Florida at #9 Kentucky (-16.5), 7 PM ET, ESPN+. Again: I invite Kentucky men's basketball fans who are annoyed by their team's progress to simply watch Kentucky women's basketball instead, as they're in the midst of what may be their best season in school history.
NCAAW: #53 Miami FL at #23 North Carolina (-13.5), 7 PM ET, ESPN+. North Carolina needs to stop losing close games, as it's harming their resume and is making the metrics case that they're actually a top-25 team harder and harder to agree with. My recommendation: play better defense.
#134 Arkansas State (-1) at #201 South Alabama, 8 PM ET, ESPN+. Not one of the better nights of the year, but still some interesting hoop to track. This one could matter in the future Sun Belt ladder tournament, as Arkansas State and Troy have early legs up but South Alabama remains threatening.
#102 Wichita State at #100 Florida Atlantic (-3), 9 PM ET, ESPN2. Well...it's just since December 1, and it's just 8 games. But! FAU has played like the 60th-best team in the country during that time, and it's not due to anything obvious shooting-wise. They're strong defensively and do a great job of cleaning up on the interior.
#6 Gonzaga (-17) at #146 Washington State, 10 PM ET, CBSSN. I'm afraid we have exhausted our yearly quotient of Why Is This Gonzaga Game So Close moments already, but I'm willing to be proven wrong. This is probably exactly what it looks like, which would be a 17-point Gonzaga win.
Friday, January 16
A Game
#42 Baylor at #23 Kansas (-7), 8 PM ET, FOX. As mentioned earlier, this could either be a really cathartic, get-right week for Kansas...or it could be truly disastrous. There may be a roughly equal chance of both, who knows. But I have a feeling that Kansas sees a reeling Baylor as very ideal for a revenge game after last year's truly unbelievable collapse, and if Darryn Peterson can go, he's a nice antidote to a Baylor defense that funnels everything into the midrange...where Peterson is downright deadly when on.
B Game
#44 Creighton at #67 Providence (-1), 6:30 PM ET, FS1. Kim English has been extremely close to turning his entire narrative around, and while the Xavier loss was merely piling on the UConn game was the real swing piece. He gets that and I'd imagine the hot seat is more or less entirely gone. Now, Providence gets Creighton at home, which is interesting to me because Providence has generally played well against the Jays during English's tenure. Providence has played like a top-60 team since December 1, suggesting they're mildly undervalued, and Creighton's own ranking of 38th during that period comes with the usual caveats of being a dramatically variance-heavy team on both ends of the floor.
C Games
#166 Toledo at #150 Kent State (-4), 6:30 PM ET, CBSSN. Two horrendous defensive teams and two good offenses with a projected score of 87-83. You can do worse.
#85 Colorado State at #79 Boise State (-4), 10:30 PM ET, FS1. Loser Leaves Town but for how much mental investment I'll have for each team in the Mountain West Tournament.
