NCAA Basketball: Baylor’s ceiling, Michigan’s return and more weekly takeaways

Here are the biggest takeaways from the past week in NCAA basketball, including Baylor’s ceiling, Michigan’s return, and much more.

The last month of NCAA Basketball featured plenty of upsets, but the projected No. 1 seeds were largely immune to it. That changed on Saturday as Baylor, Gonzaga, and San Diego State were all upset, ending the Aztecs’ quest for an undefeated season in the process.

That was the biggest surprise of the night, as San Diego State fell to a .500 UNLV team at home thanks to an off shooting night. Gonzaga lost on the road to a very good BYU team we talked about last week (pick them to win a few games in your bracket, folks) while Baylor was dropped at home to a healthy Kansas team, who will likely be the new No. 1 on Monday.

The Baylor-Kansas game was fantastic, yet it also confirmed something about the Bears that will hurt them in the NCAA Tournament. That is where we start this week’s Rauf Report, breaking down my top takeaways from the past week of college basketball.

1) Baylor’s offense will keep them from winning a title

Baylor had been a bit of an enigma coming into Saturday’s game against Kansas because, despite winning 23 games in a row and being ranked No. 1 in the country for five straight weeks – longer than anyone else this season – no one seemed to mention them among the national championship favorites.

And we saw the reason why against the Jayhawks – their offense simply isn’t good enough.

That isn’t to say Baylor is bad or that they’re going to be upset early in the NCAA Tournament because I don’t think either of those things is true (and you don’t just luck your way into having Baylor’s resume). But, when it comes to beating the kind of defenses a team has to beat to get to the Final Four and win a championship, Baylor simply doesn’t have the firepower.

The Bears do rank 22nd nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency, though that is somewhat misleading. They’re only 167th in effective field goal percentage because they sit 238th in shooting from inside the arc. Baylor is fine from three at 35 percent (84th), but aren’t anything overwhelming.

A majority of their offense comes from second-chance points. Freddie Gillespie and Mark Vital are monsters on the offensive glass (both rank in the top 75 in offensive rebound rate) and help Baylor rank No. 5 in that category.

Kansas was able to win the rebounding battle over the Bears and Baylor’s offense looked worse for it, shooting below 40 percent from the field.

A lot has been made of how good Baylor is as a team despite their lack of stars, but those are the kinds of games – the kind the Bears will see in the later rounds of the Big Dance – where you need a go-to player or two that can get you buckets when you need them.