Sports

Crazy NCAA season is wide open

Mike Krzyzewski

Mike Krzyzewski (Getty Images)

Yesterday morning began like so many others the last two months, with an email from a reader ranting about the state of college basketball.

The game is down. Way down.

Certainly there is no version of the 2011-12 Kentucky squad that was deemed the team to beat before the season tipped and cut down the nets in April.

This season we have seen three of college basketball’s historical powers struggle. For the first time since 1990, Kentucky, North Carolina and UCLA are all out of the Top 25. The Wildcats dropped from No. 8 to out of the Top 25 earlier this season, the greatest drop by a ranked team ever. And Kentucky superfan Ashley Judd is getting divorced.

Connecticut is no longer the team to beat in the Big East.

Duke suffered one of its worst losses ever. The 90-63 beat down by Miami was the third worst loss ever by a top-ranked team and the sixth-worst loss in the Mike Krzyzewski Era.

Purdue is a .500 team. Stanford and Washington are middle-of-the-pack Pac-12 teams.

So the game is down. Way down. The player of the year could be Duke’s Mason Plumlee, a Danny Ferry clone not in the same class as previous winners such as Anthony Davis, Blake Griffin or Kevin Durant.

But take a second. Think about the Monday after Selection Sunday, when you fill out your bracket.

Who’s your Final Four?

Louisville? The Cardinals just absorbed a three-game losing streak.

Indiana? The Hoosiers are 47th in scoring defense and 152nd in turnovers.

Michigan? The Wolverines are 117th in free-throw shooting. How many NCAA Tournament games have you seen that were determined by foul shooting?

Kansas? The Jayhawks are 213th in turnover margin and 217th in 3-pointers made per game.

Back to our question: Who’s your Final Four?

How about Butler (17-4), Gonzaga (20-2), Syracuse (18-2) and, oh, Duke-beater Miami (16-3). Miami? Didn’t the Hurricanes lose to Florida Gulf Coast? Yes, they did.

Isn’t that great?

There is a beauty to this season — a season in which the tournament will be ridiculously wide open.

There are four Atlantic 10 teams — Butler, VCU, Xavier and St Louis — which could easily get to a regional final.

There are two Missouri Valley Conference teams — Creighton and Wichita State — which are Sweet 16 teams at the least.

Akron, which has every key player back from last year’s team which almost went to the NCAA Tournament for a second straight season, has won 12 straight.

Detroit has a player, guard Ray McCallum, who can take over a game.

South Dakota State has wins over Alabama and Minnesota.

Belmont joined the highly respectable Ohio Valley Conference, is 9-0 in league play, 18-4 overall and has the best backcourt you’ll want to remember on Selection Sunday.

St. John’s could make the tournament. Oh, yes, today at Georgetown the Red Storm (14-7, 6-3 Big East) begin a brutal four-game stretch that could make or break them. They can beat the Hoyas, who waxed them earlier this season. They certainly can beat Connecticut on Wednesday night at the Garden, which will be rocking.

If college basketball has a problem it’s this: The regular season is a second thought to most sports fans.

But March Madness remains the single best sporting event in the world, save, perhaps, the World Cup.

We’re agreed, on Feb. 2, college basketball is down.

Let’s see how we feel on March 18, the day after Selection Sunday, when the junior associate in mergers and acquisitions chooses teams based on uniform colors — then goes on to win your office pool.