College basketball has been played for four months and counting of a pulse-pounding season that has finally hit March. The NCAA Tournament will bring out the greatest moments and memories in this fantastic sport, but we’re not quite into March Madness. A myriad of conference tournaments have already begun this week while the majority get underway in the coming days before crowning more than two dozen league champions before next Sunday.
This is some a fantastic time of the year, both heartbreaking for teams falling just short and euphoric for those players, coaches, and fanbases achieving those dreams. As mentioned, we’re still over a week short of the NCAA Tournament but that doesn’t mean it’s not too early to look ahead to that field of 68. We’ll have a pretty firm idea on who’ll be in the Big Dance, though these last few days remain for these teams to make a major impression.
The attention in the coming days turns to the mid-major leagues and who’ll earn their lone bid to the NCAA Tournament. After that, we’re thinking big once again and the SEC is proof of that. That league has been fantastic this season and may send a dozen teams into the NCAA Tournament field, with several of them emerging as top teams in the nation. The SEC is far from the only league worth watching next week as every single conference tournament will have intrigue.
What’s additionally intriguing is how those hard fought neutral-site games will affect the top teams in the nation and how they’ll be represented on our Top 25 rankings. We’re presenting this weekend’s update to those rankings with the regular season nearly complete. A lot has been learned over the previous months but there’s still a lot to see even from the best of the elite teams. What exactly have we learned and what’s more to come?