With the non-conference season winding down, there are many NCAA Basketball teams that we’re unsure of. Which ones should we have patience with?
We’ve reached the midway point of December in the 2018-19 NCAA Basketball season. And that means that the schedule has slowed down a bit, with the student athletes participating in finals. For the rest of us, that provides a time to reflect on what has happened so far.
And a lot has happened, especially at the very top of the AP top-25 rankings. No. 1 Gonzaga fell to Tennessee last week, allowing the Kansas Jayhawks to claim the No. 1 spot again. They defeated the Vols earlier in the season, around the same time that the Bulldogs took down the previous No. 1 team in the country in the Duke Blue Devils.
But there’s been plenty of action outside of the five teams, including many of the unranked programs. For the middle-tier power conference teams and top mid-majors, now is the time to accumulate enough quality wins to warrant an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Some programs have already accomplished that, while others have fell flat on their face.
Then there are those in-between, who he shown flashes of brilliance, and at other times, ineptitude. The ladder can be the difference between the Big Dance and the NIT.
The following are 10 teams who all had expectations of making the NCAA Tournament this season and still have a shot at doing so. But each have suffered setbacks in the process that has put some doubt in that. Should fans and experts have patience or already panic with those teams at this very moment?