1 TO WATCH:Michael Carter-Williams and Syracuse is one of many teams capable of winning the NCAA Tournament this year, according to CBS analyst Steve Lappas.
Steve Lappas was an assistant on one of the most improbable NCAA Tournament champions of all-time. He is expecting competition very soon.
“We were an unlikely champion, but we had three guys that played in the NBA,” Lappas, who later became the Villanova head coach, said of the team’s 1985 national championship victory over Georgetown.
“So, as unlikely as we were, we were pretty good. It was a great upset and Georgetown had [Patrick] Ewing — one of the great players of all-time. But we had three pros and when you have three pros on your team that is usually a formula to have a chance. … When you see an upset nowadays, like with Butler, they had one pro. That was unheard of in those days.”
A team like that Villanova squad, a No. 8 seed, making a run to the Final Four is not the norm yet, but we could be headed that way as another wild NCAA season unwinds. When Indiana lost to Illinois last week, the Hoosiers became the fifth straight top-ranked team to lose the week it became No. 1. And with four of the other top seven teams in the country also losing last week, Indiana was not even dropped from its perch. Heck, even Miami is undefeated in the ACC and is stealing south Florida headlines from LeBron James.
It has made for a bizarre February that is setting up an unpredictable March.
“It’s so hard to tell,” said Lappas, now an analyst with CBS Sports Network. “If you would have asked me three weeks ago I would have told you that Kansas and Louisville were the top teams, and they’ve gone south completely. Kansas losing at TCU is unheard of. I feel that Duke, if Ryan Kelly [who has been out a month with an undiagnosed foot problem] comes back, is the best team. But that’s a big if.”
Lappas said he sees 10-15 teams in a group of favorites to win the national title with another dozen that “wouldn’t surprise him.”
“You have the schools like North Carolina and Kentucky, and they don’t have juniors and seniors that are NBA players,” he said. “Those schools are trying to learn on the ropes. Now, the mid-majors have caught up and it’s about as wide open as I’ve ever seen.”
One thing Lappas can say for sure is the Big Ten is the best conference. And this is the last year for the Big East as we know it, with Syracuse and Pittsburgh leaving after the season, and more drastic changes on the horizon.
“Clearly the Big Ten is the best conference in the country this year. Indiana and Michigan are two of the top teams in the country,” Lappas said. “Michigan State is not far behind, Ohio State is good and they have a lot of good teams in the league. The Big Ten is the deepest and best conference in the country.”
But if a Big East team is going to contend, Lappas sees the most likely choice being Syracuse. The Orange has had some downs this season with losses to bubble teams Villanova and Temple, as well as this week’s loss to UConn. But Syracuse now has sharpshooter James Southerland back from being academically ineligible.
“They are probably in the first five of those 15 [teams], especially with Southerland back,” Lappas said of the Queens product. “That one guy makes a huge difference in terms of their rotation, their bench, a 3-point shooter. When I look at the Big East, Syracuse has the best chance to win it out of that conference.”