NCAA Basketball

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Cody Goggin

NCAA Basketball

It is that time of the season again, the time where the field for the NCAA tournament is beginning to be projected and more and more teams are realizing that they are out of contention for the tournament. Conference play is beginning, and that means that now teams are also fighting for their positioning in their conference tournaments and the chance to win an automatic bid for the field of 68.

As of today, the number one team in college basketball is the Louisville Cardinals. They gained the number one spot after the two teams ahead of them lost last weekend. With a record of 15-1 this season, and their only loss coming to Duke, Louisville has a reasonable chance at winning a National Championship under Rick Pitino. Led by their point guard Peyton Siva, the Cardinals will be a dangerous team for the rest of the year and into March. This team is one of my personal Final Four favorites at this point.

Indiana takes up second place in the rankings. The Hoosiers will likely fall down in the rankings, though, as on Tuesday night they lost to their conference foe Wisconsin, who was unranked. The Hoosiers have only suffered two losses this season, with the first one being to Butler and the second one being to Wisconsin. Cody Zeller and Oladipo are the leaders for this team that has a promising future.

The Duke Blue Devils slid down to number three this week after their loss to North Carolina State this past weekend. NC State is a decently good team, though, and that is why Duke did not slide any farther than they did. The ACC will be hard for the Blue Devils to win this year as they battle out against North Carolina State, North Carolina, Maryland, and any other team that could surprise us all. With only two of the Plumlee brothers and the loss of Ryan Kelly, Duke is not as strong as previous years, but could still be national title contenders… unless they choke in the NCAA tournament again.

These are just the top three teams, but there are many, many more that have a chance to make a run deep into the tournament. In past years, it has been the team on a hot streak in March that wins the championship. This year we could even have a Cinderella Story on our hands.