Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. The best month of the year is now here and conference tournaments have begun. In fact, they will be a key part of our discussion.
We begin this edition with one of the later games on Thursday, a Mountain West Tournament quarterfinal game. Utah State got all they could handle and then some from a New Mexico team that finished the season with a lot of downward momentum, even trailing by 11 in the second half. The Aggies then rallied behind Sam Merrill to pull it out and advance, and that just might seal their deal since a bad loss is not likely the rest of the way.
From there, we talk about the coronavirus leading the cancellation of three Division I basketball games, two of them slated to be played at Seattle University. It is possible that one team will not play in the WAC Tournament next week out of a similar abundance of caution.
Most of the remainder of the podcast is spent looking at the power conference races, most of which have still yet to be determined. Only the SEC has been clinched, with Kentucky doing that last week as much of the competition has been scuffling. Meanwhile, Virginia could still win the ACC regular season title and Villanova could get a share of the Big East regular season title, surprising though both might seem, and the Pac-12 is down to UCLA and Oregon for its regular season title.
After that, we go over a few final thoughts and what to look forward to in the coming days as the regular season ends for all and the conference tournaments pick up. We also highlight some recent pieces worth checking out – my CAA postseason award vote and Adam Glatczak’s series Bubbles, Sitting on the Fence and Brackets.
We hope you enjoy the podcast and share it with your fellow college basketball fans. Be sure to tune in again next week as we bring you several over the course of the conference tournaments leading up to Selection Sunday.
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