NCAA Basketball: San Diego State, Baylor exposed and more takeaways

Here are the biggest takeaways from the past week in NCAA basketball including weaknesses shown by San Diego State, Baylor, and much more.

This week marked the final week of the NCAA Basketball regular season for some while, for others, it marked the start of their conference tournaments. And we’ve already seen a bit of madness with the top three seeds in the Missouri Valley failing to advance to the semifinals and Sam Merrill punching Utah State’s ticket to the Big Dance with this iconic shot.

Utah State’s victory shrinks the bubble as it makes the Mountain West a two-bid league, since San Diego State is obviously going to get an at-large bid – but that doesn’t mean all is well with the Aztecs.

We start this Rauf Report, where I give my top eight takeaways from the past week in NCAA Basketball, with San Diego State’s biggest flaw.

1) San Diego State’s slow starts

We know that San Diego State is a really good team. Yes, they didn’t win the Mountain West Tournament and it potentially cost them a No. 1 seed, but they’re still the only team that will enter the NCAA Tournament with fewer than three losses.

Many of this team’s doubters point to their lack of in-conference competition as a reason for their inflated record, but the Aztecs are just flat-out good.

That said, it doesn’t mean they don’t have a weakness, because they’ve developed a pretty severe one of the last few weeks in their slow starts.

Starting with their loss to UNLV on Feb. 22, San Diego State has trailed or been tied at the half in five of their last six games (coincidentally, the Utah State game is the only one they were leading in). They came back to win almost all of those by a pretty comfortable margin with the exception being that game against the Runnin’ Rebels, but they’ve put themselves in a tough position in those games.

Now we can circle back and discuss the level of competition, because coming back from down nine at halftime against Nevada is much different coming back from down nine at halftime against Texas Tech, Providence, Maryland, Creighton, or any of the teams the Aztecs would likely have to face in the second round or Sweet 16.

San Diego State has the talent, defense, and star (Malachi Flynn) to make a long run through March and potentially end up in Atlanta for the Final Four. But they’re playing with fire with these slow starts, and my guess is it will burn them way before then if they can’t get it corrected.