New bloods changing college hoops landscape

Perennial powers frontloaded the final poll of the 2012-13college basketball season.

The top 10 included Louisville, Kansas, Duke, Indiana andGeorgetown. Gonzaga was No. 1, at the start of its rise to thesport’s upper echelon.

Flash forward 10 years and the AP Top 25 has a different lookand feel.

New programs have risen to the top tier. Upsets have turned upthe madness in March even more. A few bluebloods have lost a bit oftheir shine.

“When you look at college basketball, there are some newbloods,” said ESPN college basketball analyst and former coach SethGreenberg. “The bluebloods have an opportunity to reemerge as theseason goes along, but we’ve got some new bloods that are steppingup and making a statement.”

Changes in the sport have led to the shuffling at the top.

Elite recruits have become more willing to eschew thetraditional powers for smaller schools, spreading talent across thecountry. NIL deals have helped facilitate the shift, offeringplayers opportunities they had never had before at thoseschools.

The transfer portal has allowed schools to replenish rostersquickly, pull in players who have experience and maturity that canfit in quickly. Some schools have invested more in facilities andcoaches, adding to the allure of their programs.

The lasting effects of the pandemic — namely the extra year ofeligibility — has also made teams older, adding cohesiveness andcoachability.

“Because of the COVID year, you have older, more experiencedteams that have grown or been put together that have the maturityand understanding of what it takes to be successful,” Greenbergsaid. “But the big thing is new coaches in certain leagues havedone a really good job of evaluating and recruiting.”

The evidence is in the rankings.

Purdue has continued its rise under coach Matt Painter, spendingsix weeks atop the poll this season after earning the program’sfirst No. 1 ranking a year ago. Tennessee has become a defensivemenace, steadily rising until reaching No. 2 this week.

Kelvin Sampson has molded Houston into one of the nation’stoughest teams to play. The Cougars went to the Final Four in 2021and had two stints at No. 1 this season. No. 4 Alabama has shown itcan play some basketball, too, reaching the Sweet 16 two years ago,climbing to No. 2 last week.

No. 7 Kansas State, picked to finish last in the Big 12, hasmade a quick rise under first-year coach Jerome Tang, a formerlong-time assistant at Baylor. No. 15 TCU is no longer known asjust a football school, while schools like Florida Atlantic andCharleston have risen through the ranks.

No. 20 Clemson leads the ACC and Pittsburgh is just a game back.No. 18 Saint Mary’s is ahead of No. 12 Gonzaga in the West CoastConference.

On the flip side, North Carolina fell off quickly. A nationalfinalist last season, the Tar Heels went from preseason No. 1 toout of the AP Top 25 in less than a month.

Kentucky struggled so much earlier in the season, fans werecalling for coach John Calipari to be fired. Villanova dropped offprecipitously in its first season since Jay Wright retired.

Of course there’s still a month left in the regular season, sothe middling bluebloods can still turn it around.

And once it gets to March Madness, the final chapter has stilltended to be written by established powers.

Kansas won last year’s national championship after anall-blueblood Final Four. ACC schools won three titles between2015-19, wrapped around two Villanova championships.

But with those big-name champions, chaos has reigned with someof the biggest upsets and unexpected deep March runs the past fewyears.

Loyola Chicago reached the 2018 Final Four afterMaryland-Baltimore County beat Virginia to become the first No. 16seed to topple a No. 1 in NCAA Tournament history. Oral Robertsreached the Sweet 16 in 2021, Saint Peter’s the Elite Eight a yearago.

The way this season has gone so far, college basketball fanscould be in for the maddest March yet.