The New Parity in College Basketball

(St. Louis, MO) – The National Football League brags about it’s parity, but the best way to spell parity is N-C-A-A-H-O-O-P-S.

Saturday’s blood letting of national contenders reminded this writer that college basketball is as pothole filled as ever. Long gone are the days of dominant teams that run rough shod over the rest of the nation’s teams.

Exhibit 1 – Saturday’s Upsets

Nine, yes NINE top 25 teams were upset on Saturday. Even if you take away Kansas’ upset of Oklahoma, there were eight legitimate upsets of the nation’s best teams. There are no undefeated teams. No one loss teams. Only two teams among the top 25 have as few as two losses and they are not from the traditional ‘money conferences.’

Exhibit 2 – The Blue Bloods

Prior to their upset of Virginia, Duke is unranked for the first time since 2007-2008. Kentucky seems to finding their stride, but six early season losses had Rupp Arena fans nervous. Even Kansas is only tied for first place in the Big 12.

Michigan State hasn’t finished lower than tied for fourth in the Big 10’s regular season race since 2007-2008. At 8-5 they are currently in a three-way tie for sixth.

Exhibit 3 – Home Winning Streaks Ended

Belmont had never lost an Ohio Valley Conference home game, but on February 6th that came to an end. Wichita State hadn’t lost at home in 43 opportunities, but that streak came to an end in one of Saturday’s upsets. Arizona’s 49-game home winning streak ended just over a week ago. Maryland’s 27 game home winning streak ended on Saturday.

So what’s going on in college basketball? Parity and it’s great for the game. Northern Iowa’s three top-25 wins are emblematic of what’s going on. UNI (16-11, 8-6) isn’t in the top three in their own conference (Missouri Valley) but they’ve dropped North Carolina, Iowa State and Wichita State.

Parity is showing up in the ‘money conferences’ too. Kansas may win their 14th straight Big 12 title, but as of this writing they are tied for that top spot. The Big 10, Atlantic 10 and Mountain West will all have different conference champions.

Better players are spreading throughout the college basketball landscape. Ben Simmons at LSU, Buddy Hield at Oklahoma are just a few of those examples. The mass migration of players through relaxed transfer rules can change teams and entire programs in short order.

The rule changes brought to college basketball to increase freedom of movement and open up the driving lanes and hopefully improve offense have helped the under dogs. Many thought those rules would secure the ‘money conference’ dominance and instead the rule changes have opened up opportunities for skilled players do do what they do best, and parity has been one of the results.

The Ohio Valley Conference is a perfect example of all these things. Tennessee State, Morehead State, UT-Martin have all utilized a heavy dose of transfers to climb the OVC power structure. Scoring is up across the league and Belmont, still in the hunt for ‘The O’ East Division championship is in the fight of its life for their 6th consecutive conference championship.

Parity makes everything better and we still have roughly three weeks left in the regular season and then the conference tournaments before ‘March Madness’.

Do Good