“Feast Week” is an incredible opportunity for many NCAA Basketball teams to bolster their respective resumes for March Madness. There are various non-conference tournaments that feature multiple ranked and top 50 teams, along with talented mid-major teams that can face off against one another.
These past seven days have provided a number of big results, with some teams taking full advantage. Here are 10 NCAA Basketball programs that did the best with the opportunities provided from a resume-building standpoint.
Tennessee Volunteers – Wins over Butler, USC, and Kansas
Beating the likes of Butler and USC are solid victories but nothing overwhelming. But the win over Kansas in the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament finals is as good a signature win as one can ask in the non-conference. For a Vols squad that has a good chance to get a top-4 seed come March, beating the Jayhawks will hold up.
Tennessee still has a pair of marquee games coming up in Maryland and Arizona in the non-conference. Spilt those heading into SEC play without losing a “buy game’, they’ll be in great shape.
Arizona Wildcats – Wins over Cincinnati, San Diego State, and Creighton
The winner of the Maui Invitational will always be a “Bracketology Winner” and the No. 1 scoring team in the country has looked like a national title contender this past week in its games. The win over the Bluejays will certainly hold up and considering that the rest of the Pac-12 hasn’t done well in the non-conference, the Wildcats have to take care of business itself in order to get a high seed in March.
Arizona still has Indiana and Tennessee on its non-conference schedule and assuming they at least split those, will be in a commanding position for a top seed in the West Region. And as an added bonus, Gonzaga lost this week and they’re usually the biggest threat for the top spot each March.