College Basketball Analysis: Sweet and Sour, Week of February 26th

The week in college basketball gave us a fantastic conclusion to a great rivalry with the Border War finale between Kansas and Missouri. It gave us a big upset with Florida dropping one on the road at Georgia. It gave us some expected outcomes with Kentucky manhandling Vanderbilt. And it gave us some close calls with Duke narrowly escaping Virginia Tech in overtime.

Here are some of the teams that are trending either up or down as the season winds down. 

Sweet: Kansas Jayhawks

With their frantic comeback victory over the Missouri Tigers in overtime in what is seemingly the last installment of the Border War, the Kansas Jayhawks guaranteed themselves at least a share of their eighth-straight Big 12 regular season title. They also all but guaranteed themselves a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Sour: Missouri Tigers

Heading into the last scheduled Border War game for the foreseeable future, the Missouri Tigers were the obvious underdog. But after building a 12-point halftime lead and going up by as many as 19 points in the second half, they should have easily been able to close out the game with a victory. Instead, the defeat capped off a week in which they had already lost their first home game of the season against the Kansas State Wildcats.

Sweet: Kentucky Wildcats

Led by National Player of the Year frontrunner Anthony Davis, the Kentucky Wildcats currently ride a 20-game winning streak. They have proven to be the most consistent team in the country with their only loss coming at Indiana on December 10th by a mere one point. 

Sour: Wisconsin Badgers

Losers of three of their last six games now, the Wisconsin Badgers are headed in the wrong direction at a time when the preferred trend would be to win ball games. With home games left against Minnesota and Illinois, they have a chance to right the ship—especially with their victory over Ohio State Sunday, but will it matter to their tournament seeding?

Sweet: Michigan State Spartans

Coming off of a 28-point victory over the Nebraska Cornhuskers, the Michigan State Spartans are really starting to round into shape heading into the postseason. But before they get too comfortable, they have a road game at Indiana and a home game against Ohio State to finish the regular season.

Sour: New Mexico Lobos

The New Mexico Lobos had been one of the more pleasant surprises in college basketball, even avenging two previous losses earlier in the season against ranked teams in San Diego State and UNLV by beating them both in the previous week.

But this past week halted that momentum with two not-so-close losses at the hands of Colorado State and TCU. 

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