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The Breakfast Buffet: The Big East could be a five-bid league, Kansas/Houston, Gonzaga

Here’s today’s installment of “The Breakfast Buffet”, a daily column that can be found here every single morning getting you caught up to date on everything that’s happened from the day/night before and everything that’s going to happen in the next 24 hours.

Things To Sample

The Big East could be a five-bid league
One year after this conference only got three teams — UConn, Creighton, and Marquette — into the NCAA Tournament, things are trending in a much different direction. St. John’s renaissance combined with a late-season surge by Xavier has now put the Big East in position to have five of its teams hear their names called on Selection Sunday. The Musketeers took a major step towards March Madness with a win on Saturday over Creighton and need to keep winning, but they’re trending on the right side of the bubble as we’re now officially less than two weeks away from Selection Sunday. The other four teams mentioned above — St. John’s, UConn, Creighton, and Marquette — are all locks for the NCAA Tournament.

The Big 12’s past and present go head-to-head at the Fertitta Center
From 2004-18, Kansas won at least a share of every single Big 12 regular season title under Bill Self. It was a run that was unprecedented in college basketball and a time in the sport that was simply known as “The Streak”. That level of dominance feels like a distant memory for the Jayhawks, who will take a 19-10 record into tonight’s game at Houston. The Cougars have quickly become the Big 12’s flagship program in just two seasons in the league, winning back-to-back outright regular season titles in dominant fashion. Houston is 32-4 in Big 12 regular season games since joining the conference prior to the 2023-24 season.

Here comes Gonzaga
Just like last season, the Bulldogs are peaking late. Mark Few’s squad averaged 95 points last week in a pair of road wins at Santa Clara and San Francisco, with an average margin of victory of 19.5 points during those two games. Gonzaga will be the two seed in the upcoming WCC Tournament in Las Vegas. It remains to be seen if momentum can carry the Bulldogs all the way to the Sweet 16 like it did a year ago, but it should be noted how well this team played on the road against two very capable opponents. Gonzaga has not missed the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament since 2014.

On The Side.

  • Michigan State hasn’t won an outright Big Ten regular season title since 2017-18. That will change if the Spartans will their final two regular season games this week against Iowa and Michigan.
  • Auburn’s Bruce Pearl deserves to be the SEC Coach of the Year, but Vanderbilt’s Mark Byington is firmly in the mix to be the runner-up along with Florida’s Todd Golden. The Dores were picked 16th in the SEC Preseason Poll, but have 20 wins and are set to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017.
  • UConn’s Tarris Reed is exploding like a volcano. The 6-10 big man is averaging 22.0 points, 14.0 rebounds, and 3.5 blocks in the Huskies’ last two games. Keep a close eye on this guy heading into the postseason.
  • Texas Tech freshman Christian Anderson is 15-of-35 from three-point range in his last five games.
  • Colorado State is now the bid stealer to watch at the Mountain West Tournament. The Rams are 15-4 after starting the season 5-5 and have beaten both Utah State and San Diego State in the last month.

Daily Specials

  • Wake Forest at Duke
  • Kansas at Houston
  • UCLA at Northwestern

Leftovers