When you get deeper into a sports season, all kinds of questions come up. Incidents, issues, and trends re-direct how the campaign will turn out at the finish line. This week, more of those questions turned up across college basketball. Here are a few items that could have bigger impacts down the road.
What Are We to Make of Auburn's Rise?
We all know that Bruce Pearl is a really good coach. We also know that with the good coaching and winning records comes a bit of ... cheekiness. Pearl's record is fantastic. He should surpass 600 overall wins by next season. His teams' winning percentage in just under 67%. He's working on his 11th NCAA tourney bid.
However, not all is clean and clear under a Pearl-led program. There's the three-year show-cause penalty (after leaving Tennessee) for not being forthcoming about his hosting habits with recruits. Then, you have the more recent punishment involving a former assistant's activity that led to Chuck Person pleading guilty to federal charges.
In the midst of all that, we get back to the positive. This season's Tigers are on the verge of program history. The school on the Alabama Plains has never had a top-ranked men's basketball team. They are on the precipice of the accomplishment (and might leapfrog No. 1 Gonzaga based off of Saturday's victory over Kentucky). If that happens, it will be the second time Pearl has led a school to its first-ever No. 1 ranking (he did the same thing on Rocky Top). Now that he has broken through to a Final Four, could Pearl have the squad to hold the biggest trophy of them all?
When Does the Pressure Cooker Become Too Much?
On Thursday, SMU went on the road and took down Memphis. It dropped the Tigers, a top-10 team in late November, to 9-8 overall and 3-4 in the AAC standings. In the postgame presser, coach Penny Hardaway took a question that didn't sit well with him ... and the floodgates open. This is Hardaway's fourth season leading his alma mater, a place he led to two NCAA Tournament bids and an Elite Eight berth. The program has won 20 games or more in his first 3 seasons at the helm. However, despite drawing top talent to the school, the Tigers haven't returned to that postseason realization Hardaway fulfilled as a player.
Now, coaching rants are part of the filling that give sports its flavor. Jim Mora, Dennis Green, Bob Knight, and Herm Edwards are just a few in this industry who have peaked our interests through their most memorable media availability soundbites. But are there even more forces at work than just the simple quibble between coach and reporter?
First, there's an age-old philosophy, especially in the more well-known sports, that athletes with superstar talent don't usually make the best coaches at the top collegiate and professional levels. Hardaway was a three-time All-NBA player and a four-time all-star in the first five seasons of his injury-riddled career. The other force that might even have more of an effect may be in the forest, so to speak. As most know, Hardaway doesn't just have the University of Memphis buried in his soul. The western Tennessee city is his hometown. The roots are extremely deep, which may mean that the urgency to produce a winning program is even stronger than a Patrick Ewing going back to Georgetown or a Mike Woodson going back to Indiana.
Will the pressure of all those factors cause the coach to part ways with a school and a community he has so much investment in? Only time will tell.
How Does This Guy Keeping Falling Under the Radar?
One glaring point overshadows the Tom Izzo era of Michigan State men's hoops. Since he took over as head coach in 1995, the program has only managed to win one national title. However, in almost every other category, this run has been extraordinary. His 658-257 record means that he wins a tick under 72% of those games in which he strolls the sideline.
Over this ongoing tenure, he's gathered up a share of or an outright Big Ten regular season title 10 times and 6 conference tournament titles. Except for the cancelled 2020 postseason, every other team he has coached since the 1997-1998 season — all 23 of them — has made the NCAA tournament (and the 2019-2020 team would have safely been in with their regular season conference title). His eight Final Four appearances leave him solo 5th on the list of coaches that have guided teams to the national semifinals. But that didn't matter going into this season.
At the beginning of November, the Spartans were unranked. The Big Ten media had them finishing 6th in the conference standings. Sports Illustrated predicted that they would finish 6th. This all seemed to be backed up after losing handily to Kansas in the season-opening Champions Classic.
On the court, though, Izzo's squad has basically said, "forget the noise." After winning in Madison on Friday, Michigan State sits atop the league standings. Will it stand up through the first week of March? Tough tilts are ahead, but CBS Sports' Kyle Boone may have suggested it best with his conference predictions a couple months ago.
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