Baylor Bears
On paper, this was supposed to be a brutal week for the Bears, who were supposed to do be recruiting. They had Villanova on Sunday before traveling out west to play a preseason top 15 Baylor. Instead, an argument can be made that both the Ducks and Wildcats are fairly overrated, whereas the Bears were being discounted.
That proved to be very true, as the No. 1 team in the country dominated Villanova, holding them to just 36 total points. And on Saturday night, Baylor was down to Oregon on the road for most of the night, before coming back to take the lead and never look bad, winning 78-70. Now, these wins don’t look to be absolutely killer right now but if history remains consistent, both Villanova and Oregon are set to make runs in their respective conferences, which will make these wins all the more important down the road for Baylor. These wins very well could just add to this team’s quest for the No. 1 overall seed in March.
Wake Forest Demon Deacons
Sometimes, the biggest winners in terms of Bracketology are ones that merely avoided a bad loss. That’s the case for the Deacons, who defeated both VMI and Charlotte this week by very close margins. They were of opposite nature, as Wake Forest was down nearly 20 to VMI and up around 20 against Charlotte, with both games coming down to the final minute. They were without arguably their second-best player in Jake Laravia, but had Alondes Williams to shine in both games, scoring 36 and 34 points respectively to carry them to victory.
The Demon Deacons are 11-1 on the season, with just a loss to currently unbeaten LSU on its resume. But outside a win over Virginia Tech in league play, they only have an okay victory over Northwestern and a NET ranking outside of the top 30. Had they lost either game this week, they would’ve been clearly outside of the at-large field as ACC play resumes.