... and 8 more teams that could make a deep run

By Matt Tait l l l mtait@ljworld.com

Regular-season polls can’t tell you who’ll cut down the nets in April, but this season they were a great indicator of just how wide open the race for the national title really is.

There were many weeks this season when the entire top 10 had to be reworked, with a wild number of teams crawling into the top spots and falling out almost as soon as they got there.

By all of the metrics, the Big 12 was the No. 1 conference in college basketball this season. So it won’t surprise you to see some of KU’s conference foes doing well in the tourney. But the rest of the group has just as good of a shot as anyone.

Here are eight teams other than Kansas that can win it all this year.

l Alabama. The team’s offthe-court scandal involving a former player who’s charged with capital murder is concerning, but when it comes to just playing basketball, Bama

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A certainly has enough to make a serious run. Brandon Miller is an elite talent, and the rest of the roster is full of versatile athletes who can score in bunches and lock teams down defensively. l Creighton. The Bluejays opened the season in the top 10 and then had a heck of a time finding their footing. Injuries contributed to that, but the expectations were massive, too. They got healthy late in the regular season and reminded people of what they can do. They also played in a conference that was one of the toughest outside of the Big 12. Their late surge, combined with excellent coaching and plenty of confidence and chemistry, should make them a tough out this year, just like they were last year. l Duke. I never really bought the late-season surges by Kentucky or North Carolina, but Duke’s actually looks legit. Firstyear coach Jon Scheyer’s team is healthy and playing with great confidence, with all of the pieces actually fitting together. It can take time for such a young team to mesh, but it appears they have, and the ACC tourney title and nine wins in a row have the Blue Devils in that “team no one wants to play” territory. l Gonzaga. How many times has it looked like Gonzaga’s year, only for the Zags to fall short? Could this year be the opposite of that? A lot of it will depend on whether the Zags can shore up their defense. If they can defend more reliably, they’ve got more than enough on offense, and they still have Drew Timme, as well.

> TEAMS, 10AA

By Matt Tait l l l mtait@ljworld.com

o Bill Self and Roy Williams, college hoops analyst Billy Packer was a man who called games like he saw them — whether fans and coaches liked it or not.

To a former Lawrence High School coach who worked with him, he was a consummate broadcaster who respected the games he covered and the stories they told.

Those men and many others believe that Packer, who died in January, played a Packer joined NBC in 1974 and called his first Final Four in 1975. He moved in 2008 — after KU’s win over Memphis in the 2008 national title game. cities and covering dozens of regular-season games and nine NCAA know I heard him say at least 20 times that his primary objective was to just tell the