One Last Ride

A roundup of Saturday's regular season finales before driving on to the postseason.

This Saturday marks the end of the regular season in college basketball. While there are a smattering of games on Sunday, it’s the final of the wall-to-wall ball Saturdays that come to define the college basketball season, and even the extended college football-basketball season as a whole. With all but a few small conferences holding tournaments at neutral sites, it’s the last chance to catch some of what makes college basketball truly great – unique venues, rowdy student sections, and DJs who know the perfect time to drop Seven Nation Army after an opposing team calls timeout. It’s one last moment for the purists who don’t need any extra stakes to sit back and enjoy the action with nothing on the line except a single notch in the win column – although as you’ll find out here, that isn’t exactly the case. With that in mind, what is on the line?

St. John’s at Marquette | 12:00 PM | FOX

While St. John’s has already wrapped up a Big East title in Rick Pitino’s second year at the helm, this jaunt to Milwaukee remains a crucial road test. While both teams are jostling for NCAA Tournament seeding, this also will be St. John’s first attempt to overcome the curse they accrued from featuring in Jimmy Fallon’s bizarre cold open to Last Week Tonight. I shan’t wait to watch.

Clean possessions, let alone buckets, will come at a premium in this Big East tussle, with both teams forcing turnovers at a top 15 rate nationally. The divergence point for these two squads is on the offensive end; Marquette ranks in the 90^th percentile for three point attempts per game while St. John’s barely cracks the sixth. It’s a classic battle between the old guard and the new guns. Marquette, the relative newcomer to the league with the modern style and young coach, versus St. John’s with the classic formula and the classy suits. I hope Fallon decides to make the trip up the Saint Lawrence.

Alabama at Auburn | 2:30 PM | ESPN

Auburn confirmed their status at the top of college basketball by punking then #2 Alabama in front of a packed house in Tuscaloosa, and they’ll have to prove it once more against the Tide with #2 Duke poised to leapfrog the Tigers in the poll. For Alabama, this may be the last chance they have at securing a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, as the Tide have gone 0-3 against the top three teams of this loaded SEC. In the first matchup, star Bama point guard Mark Sears put up a paltry 87.4 O-Rating, worse than anyone who played more than ten minutes for Auburn that day. Other than Sears, Alabama’s only hope at the guard spot lands with Aden Holloway, a former High School All-American who struggled during his freshman season with, well, the Auburn Tigers. If revenge is the order of the day for Alabama, I can’t think of anyone better to serve it up.

Duke at North Carolina | 6:30 PM | ESPN

As storied and insufferable as rivalries come, Duke-UNC is often unbearable but almost always delivers. While it shapes to be a decidedly one-sided contest this year, an upset would not only shock the Duke squad running away with the top spot in KenPom but also provide a crucial leg up for Carolina as they look to make the NCAA Tournament field. While a win at the Dean Dome would be the penultimate jewel upon Duke’s crown, the Tar Heels have made a habit of ruining Blue Devil coronations. While this one might be a little more hollow than upending Coach K’s last home game or sending him to an early retirement in the Final Four, the North Carolina program has never been more desperate for a signature win to prove their relevance in this rivalry and in this sport. Maybe the ESPN obsession is warranted here.

For all of the firepower, Duke actually plays at a relatively slow pace, while North Carolina wheels and deals like they’re on top of the world. The Blue Devils must stay calm in the moment and avoid getting sucked into a track meet where North Carolina’s raw athleticism could shine. UNC’s defense has been porous all year, and they’ll need to take more chances than usual to try and prevent Duke from getting into their half court offense. For all of their explosiveness in transition, the Heels rank in just the 13^th percentile for defensive turnover rate; like many things at the moment, that’ll have to change in a major way if North Carolina is going to compete with Duke.

Oklahoma at Texas | 8:00 PM | SECN

Oklahoma is a team fascinating enough to warrant their own article (and very well might get one), but the long and short of it is that they’ve done relatively well against an unbelievable schedule that makes for an ugly win/loss record. While the NCAA Tournament committee claims that they don’t look at conference records, OU needs this one to push back the baying hounds that would raise hell if the Sooners got into the Dance after winning just a third of their SEC games. While Texas’s bread is largely buttered on the at-large bid front, a win here would mean they aren’t completely toast heading into an SEC Tournament where they could make a better case. This is a Red River Rivalry installment with important, albeit murky consequences.

All the players can do is go out and try to win it, and each team has a phenomenal freshman to hang their hat on. For Oklahoma, that’s Jeremiah Fears, a point guard who should still technically be in high school, but hasn’t looked out of place starting in the SEC. In Oklahoma’s crucial win over Missouri earlier this week, Fears displayed the maturity of his game, scoring 31 points, posting a 5-1 assist-to-turnover ratio, and knocking down all twelve free throws in the upset win. Texas’s Tre Johnson will give Fears a run for his money, however, as the lanky Longhorn has drawn comparisons to Kevin Durant for his pure scoring prowess in burnt orange. Those likenings are well deserved, as Johnson leads the historically strong SEC in scoring while knocking down shots at a true shooting percentage of 57.5% (Just one player in the nation, 24 year old Eric Dixon, is more efficient at higher volume.) For all the bellyaching about SEC teams with ugly records making the tournament, it would be a great loss if these two talents weren’t featured this March.

OVC Championship | 9:00 PM | ESPN2

The clock officially ticks over from regular season to postseason with the Ohio Valley Conference’s annual first-in-the-nation championship game. The spotlight was nearly stolen from the OVC, however, as Lipscomb survived a close-shave against tournament-ineligible Queens in the ASUN semi-finals which would’ve given North Alabama the first automatic bid of the year. While I won’t know exactly who’ll feature in this matchup until later Friday night, I’ve got a keen eye on the winner of the SE Missouri State – Little Rock semifinal. SEMO has been the class of the OVC all year, while Little Rock has former high major talent rarely found in this college basketball backwater. With the first ticket punched, the calendar has finally turned from March to Madness.