NCAA Basketball: Michigan on top, Spartans tough task among key questions

5. Biggest non-conference tournament game that has your attention this week and why

Stevenson

The game that has my attention Illinois at Michigan. People have been asking if Michigan is potentially the best team in the country and the Fighting Illini are very good as well. Should be a good game.

Tineo

Illinois obviously has the toughest remaining schedule with games against Michigan and Ohio State. However, there is an outside shot for a certain team to win the Big 12. After Baylor has stumbled out of the gates of their three-week pause, West Virginia has continued to climb and sits just 1.5 games back of the Bears.

Baylor has to travel to West Virginia, where they have not had much success at since the Mountaineers joined the Big 12. West Virginia has beaten the Bears twice, when ranked in the Top 5 nationally, in 2017 and 2020.

With a head-to-head win, West Virginia has a legit chance of winning the conference, and beating the Bears on Tuesday will help their case to their first-ever Big 12 Championship. Baylor is also eyeing their first title, after being the consensus favorite over the past three months.

Derek Culver creates a matchup that is similar to what David McCormack did to Baylor on Saturday. West Virginia has the best 6th man in the conference and a slew of guards that can compete with the Bears in McNeil, Sherman, and McBride.

Zacher

Baylor and West Virginia, Tuesday evening, a duel between two top-six teams out of the Big 12.  This battle has been a long time coming, and now, the surging Mountaineers – with their highest ranking on the season – get to host a Baylor squad coming off its first loss.

There is so much potentially on the line in this game.  It’s not unreasonable to believe that a West Virginia win could catapult the Mountaineers onto the one-seed line, and potentially drop Baylor to the weakest one-seed or onto the two-seed line.  A win for Baylor, meanwhile, would do wonders in helping boost the nation’s confidence in a team that struggled mightily against Kansas.

West Virginia’s press – paired with the stellar play of Derek Culver inside – against Baylor’s four-guard lineup that ranks first in the nation in 3P%.  This is a game that could genuinely go either way, and there is not a team that I feel confident pointing at and saying, “they’re the clear favorite.”

Zinkula

I’m really looking forward to Baylor at West Virginia on Tuesday. How will the Bears bounce back following their first loss of the season? Was the team’s poor 3-point shooting performance (6-26, 23.1%) — only their second game this season below 30% — simply a fluke or a sign of struggles to come?

The Mountaineers are intriguing as well. The team has been playing well lately — rising to No. 6 in the AP Poll – but are they quite as good as this ranking suggests? Baylor appears to be favored by roughly three points. It should be a fun one.

Brown

I like the Creighton Bluejays and Villanova Wildcats matchup Wednesday night because the Big East regular-season title is down to these two. Both of them are coming off of losses in trap games to the Butler Bulldogs and Xavier Musketeers, respectively. It’s a ranked matchup, so I expect it to be entertaining.

As a Big Ten guy, I’m looking forward to watching No. 4 Illinois and No. 2 Michigan square off at the end of the regular season. Either or both of these teams could make the Final Four. The frontcourt battle will be fun to watch.

Thedinga

Creighton @ Villanova on Wednesday night. When these two teams get together, it’s appointment television. The Big East regular-season crown on the line, as well as heavy seeding implications—this is a big one. Zegarowski and Gillespie are two of my favorite players to watch—especially head to head.