College Basketball Mailbag: Which Power Conference Has Disappointed the Most?

Plus, your questions on Duke, Wisconsin's potential, the Atlantic 10's pecking order and the MAAC.

Welcome to Sports Illustrated’s weekly college hoops mailbag with Kevin Sweeney. Here, Kevin will field questions submitted via Twitter and email about a variety of topics in the sport. Have a question you’d like answered in a future mailbag? Send it to @CBB_Central on Twitter or Kevin.Sweeney@si.com (questions around either men’s or women’s basketball are welcome!). Without further ado, let’s get to your questions, which have been lightly edited for grammar and clarity...

Kristy asks: Most disappointing Power 6 conference (so far)?

I think it has to be the ACC. Other than Duke (which lost Tuesday night to Ohio State), I think you could make the case that the only team in the league that has clearly overachieved its preseason expectations is Wake Forest … and the Demon Deacons aren’t all that close to being an NCAA tournament team.

Florida State just doesn’t have the talent it has had in previous years. Virginia might be starting to figure things out after a second-half surge against Iowa, but looks more like a bubble team than anything else. North Carolina’s defense is a wreck right now, and Louisville still has a buy game loss on its books despite a solid weekend in the Bahamas. Syracuse’s lack of athleticism is rearing its ugly head on the defensive end, and Notre Dame came away with nothing of value from a résumé standpoint at the Maui Invitational.

Buddy Boehiem and Syracuse are 4–3 to start the season, including a loss to Colgate :: Rich Barnes/USA TODAY Sports

It’s worth pointing out that this is part of a general downward trend for the league of late. After the last round of realignment concluded in 2014, the ACC was either No. 2 or No. 3 in KenPom’s conference rankings for six straight years. That slipped to No. 4 in the 2019–20 season, No. 5 in 2020–21 and now No. 5 again in 2021–22 so far. This just isn’t a vintage ACC right now.

Tristan asks: Who needs to be Duke’s third best player in order for it to be a title contender?

It’s clear that Paolo Banchero and Wendell Moore Jr. are asserting themselves as Duke’s best players, but we saw last night against Ohio State that the Blue Devils are far from unbeatable. Personally, I think it’s less about them finding a third clear scorer (they have guys who can step up in different roles every night depending on matchups) and more so about finding ways to get easier baskets in the halfcourt when their defense isn’t producing easy offense in transition.

In the second half, Ohio State was able to score at will on the inside and take care of the basketball. That let the Buckeyes control the tempo and force Duke to beat them in the halfcourt. With Banchero cold in the second half, Duke didn’t know where to look on offense. To me, I think the answer has to be Banchero and Trevor Keels using their positional size and strength to get downhill and draw fouls. This team just isn’t necessarily built to beat you firing away from deep, and while Mark Williams and Theo John are excellent defensive players, they aren’t elite back-to-the-basket scorers.

The loss to the Buckeyes wouldn’t be of huge concern to me if I were a Duke fan: OSU was the toughest team left on the schedule, on the road in a big letdown spot after an emotional win. The Blue Devils were the better team but let the Buckeyes hang around and Ohio State made them pay.

Illini Fan asks: Is Wisconsin legit? They were picked near the bottom of the Big Ten in the preseason.

I had a front-row seat (literally, right behind the Badgers bench) for Wisconsin’s run to the Maui Invitational title last week, and it was hard not to come away impressed. While this was one of the weaker Maui fields in recent memory, it’s still quite an accomplishment to win that tournament and the Badgers presented a winning formula down there that should translate to conference play.

First, Johnny Davis is a star. I expected a jump from the sophomore after he showed so many flashes last year as the youngster on one of the nation’s oldest teams, but he is a legitimate top scoring option on a good team. He’s a three-level scorer, an impact defender and has really good feel. The pieces around him are fully bought in too: Brad Davison is who he is at this point in his career, but freshman Chucky Hepburn and sophomore Steven Crowl are ahead of schedule and junior Tyler Wahl was so clutch in Las Vegas.

Am I buying this team as, say, a clear top-20 team? Probably not. I’m not sure it has the talent beyond Davis to get there all season long. But Davis and a solid group of role players, combined with a strong home-court advantage, is enough for me to expect this team to finish above .500 in the Big Ten and be in the mix to be ranked in many weeks.

Brent asks: The Atlantic 10 has had a lot of up and down teams so far, how do you see the field shaking out after St. Bonaventure?

Several questions about the A-10 came in, but this one is the most broad and gives me the chance to answer part or all of the other A-10 questions, so we’ll tackle this one.

First, I still believe St. Bonaventure is the league’s best team. Its home loss to Northern Iowa was far from ideal, but it doesn’t ruin the team’s at-large NCAA tournament hopes. Every preseason goal is still in front of the Bonnies.

Right now, they’re the only A-10 team I see with a realistic path to an at-large bid. Richmond hasn’t looked bad, but it’s now 0–4 against top-100 KenPom teams and won’t have many more opportunities to bolster its résumé. I’d still lean toward the Spiders being the second-best team in the league.

I think Dayton’s at-large hopes are pretty much shot, even after beating Kansas on a neutral floor last week as part of a stunning ESPN Events Invitational title win. Three bad home losses are already on the Flyers’ résumé, and this is a young team that will inevitably have more bumps in the road. Count me as a believer in the talent, though. I’d throw Dayton in this rather large middle tier of A-10 teams that I would never want to play in an NCAA tournament game but will likely have to win the A-10 tourney to get to that point. Who else is in that group?

Dayton celebrates its ESPN Events Invitational title :: Jeremy Reper/USA TODAY Sports

VCU proved in Atlantis that it is a tough out, despite having one of the more anemic offenses in the sport. The Rams’ defense is just taxing to play against. George Mason’s hot start has cooled quickly with four straight defeats, but it has old, experienced talent and will be feisty in the A-10. Rhode Island has started relatively well, albeit against a weaker schedule. Davidson and Saint Louis also probably belong in that “dangerous but not quite at-large” tier. I just don’t think there’s much separation between any of those teams.

Marc asks: Can Monmouth take down Iona to win the MAAC?

Iona has done nothing to convince me that it won’t be the league’s regular-season champ. In fact, I think the Gaels are a bit better than I projected them in the preseason (No. 87 nationally). Iona’s win over Alabama on Thanksgiving was without a doubt impressive: It’s rare to see a mid-major big man look so much better than anyone a high-major frontcourt could throw at him the way Nelly Junior Joseph did, and freshman guard Walter Clayton Jr. made some huge plays. This is a very good mid-major team. The at-large hype that started after the Alabama win is over-the-top and unrealistic still at this point, but I certainly wouldn’t want to see Rick Pitino’s team in March.

That said, Monmouth has been the biggest surprise in the MAAC and will have a real shot at knocking off the Gaels in a conference tournament setting. UNC transfer big man Walker Miller has been a revelation, and the Hawks have an experienced backcourt with three fifth-year players who will all contend for all-conference honors. Their win over Cincinnati Saturday was not a fluke—this is a very good basketball team.