Mid-Major Misnomer: Wisconsin Knows North Texas is Talented and Tough
MADISON, Wis. – The great divide between the Power Conference schools and the mid-majors has been shrinking for years as college basketball has evolved. This season, as college basketball’s two biggest postseason tournaments would suggest, the parity in college basketball has never been greater.
Of the eight teams remaining in the NCAA Tournament and the four teams competing in next week’s NIT Final Four, half the field comes from schools labeled as mid-major conference members.
In this weekend’s Elite Eight, Conference USA, the Mountain West, and West Coast Conference are all represented while the Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC are not. In the NIT, Wisconsin (20-15) is the lone Power Conference school, as the Badgers will take on Conference USA"s North Texas (29-7) Tuesday at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. The winner is guaranteed to face another mid-major with either C-USA's UAB or Utah Valley out of the WAC in Thursday’s championship.
“I feel like the way college basketball is going on, and the way kids are training, you’re going to have good hoopers no matter where you are at,” senior Tyler Wahl said. “When you run into these mid-major teams, the basketball is still the same. You’re still going to have a pretty decent coach you’re going up against. Maybe not the tallest guys, but everyone out there knows how to play basketball and has been playing basketball for a while. They got to this level, and I don’t really see a dip in anything high major (or) mid-major.”
The Badgers are the last Big Ten team standing out of the 10 selected to participate in the postseason, a frustrating run for a conference that hasn’t won a national title since Michigan State in 2000. Only one Big Ten team out of the 26 that earned bids to the last three NCAA Tournaments has advanced to the Elite Eight (0-for-17 in the last two years). Of the eight teams to earn a bid this season, only No.7 seed Michigan State made the Sweet 16 before losing to No.3 Kansas State in overtime.
Juxtaposed to Conference USA, which has a team in the Final Four (Florida Atlantic), two in the NIT semifinals, and the CBI champion (Charlotte).
Part of that is due to a percentage of players getting a COVID year, allowing teams to get older and play together longer. Another is the transfer portal, allowing players a one-time move to a different school without having to sit out a season. While that’s caused players from one-bid conferences to move to bigger schools for more exposure, it’s resulted in players not receiving consistent playing time at Power Conference schools to find more minutes in a smaller conference.
“In basketball, one or two guys can be huge difference makers,” head coach Greg Gard said. “You throw the portal into it where you can grab some experience, the playing field is so much leveler than what it was 10 years ago.”
The Mean Green have five transfers on their roster, none more impactful than adding guard Tylor Perry from Coffeyville Community College last season. After seeing his would-be game-winning 3-pointer rim out in a second-round NIT loss to Virginia last season, Perry has been dynamic all season in leading the program to the regular-season title.
The Conference USA Player of the Year, Perry averages a team-best 17.3 points per game and has thrived in the pressure situations that betrayed him last season. With four seconds or less on the shot clock, Perry has scored 87 points, the most by a player since at least 2008.
Over the last 15 games, in the final five minutes of regulation and/or overtime periods, Perry is shooting 62.5 percent from the floor, 57.1 percent from 3-point range, and 100 percent at the free throw line.
“He’s really, really good,” guard Chucky Hepburn said of Perry. “He has the ultimate green light. His confidence is really high. I think we just have to lock down on him, and we know they are really good on defense. We have to make them work every possession.”
Having set a new program record for wins, North Texas is a mirror image of the Badgers. The Mean Green has the nation's slowest tempo, averaging 21.3 seconds per possession and 58.9 possessions per 40 minutes (UW averages 63.4), and both teams have an adjusted defensive efficiency of 94.4 points allowed per 100 possessions.
North Texas features the nation’s No.1 scoring defense (55.7 ppg), won 13 away/neutral site games during the regular season (tied with No.1 Houston for the most nationally), has the nation’s seventh-best winning percentage (.794) over the last two seasons (one spot ahead of Duke) and is ranked the No.33 overall team nationally by kenpom.
Mid-major? It’s becoming harder and harder to tell these days.
“They’re a really good team,” Hepburn said. “Winning the conference, they’re top of the conference each year. Still nothing new. You still have to come out and play. You see what happens in March Madness. A lot of teams get upset.”
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