Could a March miracle be brewing in Kansas City?
The Thursday of Championship Week is the busiest and often most impactful non-NCAA tournament day on the college basketball calendar. All five of the major conferences have a full slate of four games, with the second round action in the Big Ten and SEC, and quarterfinal games in the ACC, Big 12 and Big East.
Let’s look at the most critical games of Thursday in each of the sport’s biggest leagues.
ACC
No. 4 Wake Forest vs. No. 5 North Carolina (2:30 p.m. ET/ESPN)
It is apparent at this point that North Carolina is the ACC’s only hope of getting more than three at-large bids to this year’s NCAA tournament. The Tar Heels were extremely impressive in Wednesday’s second round victory over Notre Dame, but a 20-point beatdown of a team with a losing overall record isn’t going to do much for the Selection Committee.
The real test starts Thursday afternoon against a Wake Forest team that did everything it could down the stretch of the regular season to play its way out of at-large consideration. Still, the Demon Deacons are supremely talented and clipped the Heels by a point in their only regular season meeting this year.
A win for North Carolina would almost certainly set up a “win and you’re in” game against arch-rival Duke in the semifinals on Friday. Fellow bubble boys are assuredly hoping that things don’t get that far.
Big Ten
No. 8 Indiana vs. No. 9 Oregon (Noon ET/Big Ten Network)
Just on the other side of the bubble (it seems) is Indiana. The Hoosiers have become one of the better stories in the sport over the last few weeks, going 5-2 since head coach Mike Woodson’s announcement that he would not be returning to Bloomington next season, and playing their way from safely outside of the NCAA tournament to, presumably, in the field for the time being.
The Hoosiers have a chance to score a monumental victory Thursday afternoon over an Oregon team that is already very safely in the field of 68. Lose, and it’s going to be an extremely anxious few days before Selection Sunday.
Big 12
No. 16 Colorado vs. No. 1 Houston (3 p.m. ET/ESPN2)
This is probably nothing … it’s probably nothing … BUT, we have a potential all-time bid thief story brewing.
Colorado finished dead last in the Big 12 this year with a 3-17 record. Before this week, they hadn’t won consecutive games since the middle of December. Now, after back-to-back upsets of 9-seed TCU and 8-seed West Virginia, the Buffaloes are the first team to advance to the quarterfinals of any conference tournament after finishing 16th-or-lower in the regular season since Tennessee in the 1931 (1931!) Southern Conference tournament.
Again, this is probably nothing … BUT, if the Buffaloes can somehow continue the magic with a stunner over the best team in the league, well, it will definitely become something.
Big East
No. 4 Xavier vs. No. 5 Marquette (2:30 p.m.ET/Peacock)
Yes, the game is enormous for Xavier, which is situated firmly on the bubble, but it’s also big for a Marquette team that desperately needs to capture some positive momentum before the Big Dance.
These two teams have been going in opposite directions for weeks.
Xavier, which seemed to have no shot at the NCAA tournament back in early February, heads to New York having ripped off seven consecutive victories. Marquette, which had legitimate aspirations of a Big East regular season title not that long ago, is 4-6 since the start of February.
Bubble teams are rooting hard for Marquette. Teams safely in the 4-8 seed range are rooting for the Musketeers.
SEC
No. 5 Texas A&M vs. No. 13 Texas (3:30 p.m ET/SEC Network)
Might I interest you in 14 of the 16 teams from the SEC making the NCAA tournament? No? Well it might happen anyway.
If we’re working under the assumption that Arkansas secured its spot in the Big Dance by narrowly avoiding disaster against South Carolina on Wednesday, then the SEC is already looking at getting 13 teams into the field, breaking the old record for most teams from a single conference (11 by the 2011 Big East).
If that is in fact the case, the only team with work left to do is Texas, which kicked off its postseason run with an impressive upset of Vanderbilt on Wednesday. Beat Texas A&M on Thursday, and a whole lot of people are going to take note of the fact that the Longhorns have seven Quadrant-I victories, way more than most of the bubble teams they’re jockeying for position with.
