LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Ochai Agbaji, David McCormack and the Kansas Jayhawks had yet to snip at their NCAA Championship nets at Caesars Superdome in Minneapolis when the good folks in Las Vegas were ready to help college basketball fans in this area do what they have been itching to do for several weeks:
Move on to next season.
TheLines.com posted its betting odds for next season, identifying Arkansas and Duke as the teams to beat for the 2023.
You can find all the numbers at this link. But before you do, let’s take one final stroll at five biggest winners — and five biggest losers — from the 2022 NCAA Tournament.
WINNER
Big 12: You didn’t think I was going to start with Kansas coach Dollar Bill Self and his program’s five Level I infractions, did you? In a just world, that Kansas banner will come down from the walls of Allen Fieldhouse one day.
Until that happens, though, I’ll give reluctant props to the Big 12. With Baylor winning the title last season, the Big 12 becomes the first league to produce back-to-back champions since North Carolina and Duke scored for the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2009 and 2010.
Sources say the chesty folks in Lawrence believe their program was the team to beat in the COVID-canceled tournament of 2020, and Texas Tech finished second to Virginia in 2019.
Who needs Texas and Oklahoma, anyway?
LOSER
NCAA Enforcement Division: It certainly appeared NCAA investigators had more goodies on Self and Kansas than it had on Louisville from the 2017 FBI play for pay scandal, the one that cost Rick Pitino (Louisville), Sean Miller (Arizona) and, finally, Will Wade (LSU) their jobs. Self was named Coach for Life. They’ll probably give him a statue.
Folks in the coaching grapevine believe that Kansas was always the basketball program Adidas was determined to take care of first.
Kansas did a better job of lawyering up. I hope Self sent a piece of the net to the Jayhawks’ attorneys.
WINNER
Atlantic Coast Conference: This was not a great season for ACC basketball. For most of the season, the league had only one and occasionally two teams ranked in the AP Top 25.
Then the real basketball began. Notre Dame won two NCAA Tournament games. Miami won three. Duke won the West Regional. North Carolina finished as the national runner-up.
Three teams in the Elite Eight. Commissioner Jim Phillips will take a down year like this season — minus the title game defeat.
LOSER
John Calipari, Kentucky: Led Kansas by 22. Beat Kansas by 18 at Kansas. Then the Jayhawks proceed to win the national title while the Wildcats lost four of their last nine games.
Beat North Carolina by 29 on a neutral court on a day when the Wildcats made the Tar Heels look like the JV squad. Sahvir Wheeler made seven more field goals than UNC guards RJ Davis and Caleb Love combined. You know the rest of the story.
Gave Saint Peter’s a lead role in “One Shining Moment.”
Couldn't win a single NCAA Tournament game with the unanimous national player of the year, Oscar Tshiebwe?
After handing Self his first national title in 2008 with brutal free throw shooting with his Derrick Rose-Memphis team, Calipari fell behind Self in the ring collection race Monday night.
Friendly suggestion: Stop telling Kentucky fans that NBA Draft night is the most exciting night on the basketball calendar. Fish ain’t bitin’.
WINNER
Shaheen Holloway, Saint Peter’s/Seton Hall: Finished second to Rick Pitino and Iona in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Lost games to St. Francis and Rider and Stony Brook.
Then Holloway led his team to jarring victories over UK, Murray State and Purdue and became national media darlings. Holloway also got paid, transforming his $300,000 per season gig at Saint Peter’s into a six-year deal worth $2.4 million per season while replacing Kevin Willard at Seton Hall.
LOSER
Big Ten: The gap is 22 years and counting since the Big Ten produced a national champion. If you watched the way Kansas and North Carolina got up and down the floor Monday night, you know the reason. The Big Ten needs to junk its plodding, grabbing, clutching and ponderous style of play to stop having seven of its nine tournament teams knocked out before the Sweet Sixteen.
WINNER
Turner Sports: The first time Duke and North Carolina played in the NCAA Tournament and the game did not air on CBS. Ouch. Turner won the lottery — and its glib, conversational studio show with Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Clark Kellogg is miles ahead of anything CBS or ESPN offers.
LOSER
Purdue: I loved Matt Painter’s team — and wrote exactly that early in the season. I was the first person to vote the Boilermakers No. 1 in the AP poll. But the Boilermakers failed to win the Big Ten regular season title. They failed to win the Big Ten Tournament and they lost to Saint Peter’s in the Sweet Sixteen after the top two seeds were cleared from their path in the East Regional.
Air ball.
WINNER
Eric Musselman, Arkansas: Two seasons in Fayetteville, two trips to the Elite Eight. Musselman has lined up the No. 2 recruiting class in the nation, a group that features a trio of five-star prospects as well as a trio of four-stars.
Prepare to call the Hogs in the Southeastern Conference.
LOSER
Gonzaga: The Zags have lost as a No. 1 seed several times. They’ve been beaten twice in the national championship game. But this season, Gonzaga coach Mark Few took his program more mainstream, adding high-level recruits like Chet Holmgren, Hunter Sallis and Nolan Hickman.
Big deal. The Zags were life and death to beat Memphis in the Round of 32 and got KO’d by Arkansas in the Sweet Sixteen.
Same ‘ol Gonzaga.
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