Streaks continue, streaks end. That’s the natural order of a basketball season, but when it happens in late February, that can echo right into March. Several might do that this week.
Kansas winning 41 home Big Mondays in a row under Bill Self.
Actually, Self is 41-0. That’s pretty unfathomable given the very nature of what Big Mondays are supposed to be; pairing opponents often ranked and almost always good. This latest over Houston might calm recent Kansas anxieties and fortify the zig-zagging Jayhawks for next month, especially with Darryn Peterson on the court for 30 minutes. “Do I know who we are? No, but I still think we’ve got time to figure it out a little bit,” Self said. “But it was a big step in the right direction having (Peterson) out there.”
In Houston’s case, Monday meant the first three-game losing streak in nine years. Understandable, since the three games in eight days came at Iowa State, home to Arizona, then at Kansas. The current combined record of that trio is 71-13. “A gauntlet,” Kelvin Sampson called it, mentioning he had a team with no legs left by the second half in Lawrence. “It’s not the end of the world. I think we can take these opportunities to help us in March and get better.”
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But there is a cost. Plausible or not, the skid has likely dropped the Cougars off the top seed line, where they could possibly have been sent as a No. 1 to the regional in… Houston.
Northwestern beating Indiana for the sixth consecutive time.
If the Big Ten history book could talk what would it say? Nothing. It would gasp. Consider that from 1971-2003, the Wildcats were 3-56 against the Hoosiers. But after his team rallied from 13 points down to win 72-68 Tuesday night, Chris Collins’ record against Indiana moved to 11-8, including four consecutive wins in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, right there beneath all five national championship banners. That’s two more than Northwestern has won NCAA tournament games. No wonder the Hoosiers seemed so perplexed. “They played a good game,” Lamar Wilkerson said. “But there is no way in hell we should have lost that game.”
The result left 17-11 Indiana as a loser of three in a row and eight of 13, and sliding off the wrong side of the bubble. Michigan State is next. “We’re going to have to really look in the mirror a little bit and get some things figured out before we play again on Sunday,” coach Darian DeVries said.
Miami Ohio winning its 28th game in a row.
The RedHawks showed up at Eastern Michigan with the finest field goal percentage in the land and struggled to shoot 41 percent. The result was something of a grinding 74-64 win over the Eagles. But they’re still 28-0 and the magic number for an unbeaten regular season is down to three — at Western Michigan, home to Toledo, at Ohio. It has become talk show and internet fodder projecting what might happen to Miami should the RedHawks lose a game in the Mid-American Conference tournament. No MAC team has received an NCAA tournament at-large bid this century, and the RedHawks’ unbecoming schedule metrics are common knowledge.
But it’s not hard to imagine the firestorm that would come if the selection committee shunned a team that went 31-0 during the regular season. Best guess is that feat would seal the deal, no matter what happens in the MAC tournament. So the RedHawks are in the old Al Davis mode: Just win, baby.
The No. 1 team in a major poll visiting Notre Dame and losing seven times in a row.
It doesn’t get more magic-of-the-Irish than that, going back to the 1974 day when Notre Dame stopped the 88-game UCLA winning streak of John Wooden and Bill Walton.
Would newly-minted No. 1 Duke join the victims’ list Tuesday night? Hardly.
The Blue Devils took apart the Irish lock, stock and Golden Dome, winning 100-56. That was Notre Dame’s worst home loss since 1898. You know it’s bad when you’ve hit a low that hasn’t been seen since five years before the Wright Brothers.
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This was not exactly a 13th Quad 1 win for Duke but it did come on the road against a team that has beaten TCU and Missouri and took Virginia to two overtimes. So it served as a devastating reminder of the wave the Blue Devils are riding toward March. They’re 36-2 in their past 38 games against ACC teams and 57-4 since Thanksgiving of 2024. Since losing by three points at North Carolina, they’ve won four conference games by 16, 13, 37 and 44 and also took care of No. 1 Michigan. “I think (the Carolina loss) gave us a chance, each of us to look ourselves in the mirror, address what each of us individually can do, and then make sure we understand where our team was at and where we’re growing,” coach Jon Scheyer said. “I think that’s shown up in these games.”
But 25-3 Virginia will be in Durham this weekend.
Dayton beating Saint Louis for the 12th consecutive time in University of Dayton Arena.
Before Tuesday night, we had the Hard-to-beat Half Dozen. The six Division I teams with two or fewer losses for the season. Duke, Michigan, Arizona, Gonzaga… the shiny names. Even Miami had hit the headlines, as 28-0 teams will do. And the sixth? They might not have been on the tip of a lot of tongues — the Saint Louis Billikens. No. 1 in the nation in scoring margin and field goal percentage defense, No. 4 in shooting, No. 5 in scoring. The whole package. And though there had been a recent slip at Rhode Island, the trip to Dayton was the chance to reassert themselves as a team to watch in March. The most intriguing unexpected top-25 face in the nation, this side of Oxford, Ohio.
Not much reasserting was done Tuesday night. It took Saint Louis 12 shots from the arc to make the first 3-pointer. It took the Billikens 12 minutes to reach double figures. They were down by 25 points and lost by 15 to an opponent they had mauled by 31 a month earlier in Saint Louis.
So now there is a concerning trend. A team that trailed only 109 minutes out of the first 1,000 this season has been behind 104 of the 120 over the past three games, losing two of them. Dayton’s home court streak pushed the Billikens into a bit of a crossroads situation, with March days away. Their great start and poll ranking made them a target, and that can take getting used to.
“You’re going to get the other team’s best punch, you’re going to get their best crowd,” coach Josh Schertz said Tuesday night. Especially Dayton, eager to atone for a 31-point thrashing. “You know they’re watching that film and those guys are at a 10 in their preparation and the crowd was at a 10 and they’re full throttle. But you have to be able to raise your level to meet the challenges and you understand that. Success is not a continuum. Because something was, doesn’t mean it is. It only is if you continue to do the things that made you successful. We have an identity and a way we need to play.
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“We’ve been backsliding but that’s part of the season. The season’s very long and teams tend to go through really good phases and really bad phases, times the wind’s at your face and times the wind’s at your back. It’s on us to correct it. It’s a mentality correction more than some overhaul of X’s and Os.”
Texas Tech’s Christian Anderson staying on the court for at least 35 minutes for his 27th consecutive time.
In other words, every game he’s played this year. He was actually out there all 40 minutes Tuesday night to lead the Red Raiders over Cincinnati with a double-double. It was his 11th 40-minute game of the season. Texas Tech needs such marathon work if it is to make a run in March without injured star JT Toppin.
BYU winning 16 consecutive games at home against unranked opponents.
That ended Tuesday night with a splat, the Cougars getting rolled over by UCF 97-84, which sets up the 20-7 Knights for a happy March. They haven’t been in the NCAA tournament in seven years and were picked in the preseason to finish 14th in the Big 12. But to go on the road and whip a ranked team, and pair that with earlier wins over Kansas and Texas Tech, makes an at-large bid more than doable for UCF. This is coach Johnny Dawkins’ 40th anniversary year of his Duke playing days when he helped get Mike Krzyzewski to his first Final Four. He will likely spend his 40th anniversary on the NCAA dance floor.
Streaks taketh and streaks giveth. Especially now.
