College basketball’s five best conference championship races

Though it feels like we were just celebrating Feast Week, believe it or not, we’re less than two weeks away from the start of postseason play in college basketball. That means we’re getting a better idea of the state of the NCAA tournament bubble (don’t say “historically weak”), the candidates for the four No. 1 seeds are continuing to take shape, and the races for regular-season conference championships are all entering the home stretch.

These five conferences, in particular, figure to give us a significant jolt of excitement over the final days of the regular season.

The Favorite: Texas Tech (10-3)

The Contenders: Kansas (9-4), West Virginia (8-5)

Three Key Games:

West Virginia at Kansas (2/17)

Kansas at Texas Tech (2/24)

Texas Tech at West Virginia (2/26)

The race for a conference championship in tournament form is almost always more exciting than its regular-season counterpart. The most glaring exception to this rule exists in the Big 12, where everyone is watching to see if Kansas can break its tie with UCLA and set a new record for consecutive regular-season conference titles with 14.

The fact that Texas Tech — a program which has never won a Big 12 title of any sort — could be the one to snap Kansas’ streak is still tough to wrap your mind around, but that’s where we are. Chris Beard has the Red Raiders ranked in the top 10 and playing as well as just about any team in the country in mid-February. If they take care of business at home against Kansas on Feb. 24 and then pull off what would likely be an upset on the road over West Virginia two days later, then Texas Tech will forever be remembered as the Big 12 team that finally slayed Bill Self’s giant.

The Favorite: Xavier (12-2)

The Contender: Villanova (11-3)

Three Key Games:

Villanova at Xavier (2/17)

Villanova at Creighton (2/24)

Providence at Xavier (2/28)

Since conference expansion shook up the league, no team other than Villanova has won an outright Big East regular-season title. Not only have the Wildcats won four straight, but no team in the conference over that span has finished closer than two full games behind them in the final league standings.

That appears likely to change in 2017-18, with Xavier currently leading the league by a game and a half and staring down a very manageable slate to end the regular season. Saturday’s tussle between the two league front-runners has monster ramifications not just for which team is going to win the league, but for which is more likely to hear its name called as a No. 1 seed on Selection Sunday.

If Xavier takes down Nova on Saturday (something it hasn’t had a whole lot of success doing since joining the league), then the race should be about over. If the Wildcats continue their dominance over X, then we’ll all go back to wondering if any other team is capable of winning a title in the “new” Big East.

The Favorite: Michigan State (13-2)

The Contenders: Ohio State (13-2), Purdue (12-3)

Three Key Games:

Ohio State at Michigan (2/18)

Penn State at Purdue (2/18)

Ohio State at Indiana (2/23)

Michigan State and Ohio State head into the penultimate weekend of the Big Ten’s regular season with identical records, but we’re listing the Spartans as the favorites here for two reasons. First, the Spartans are widely considered to be the better overall team. Second, Tom Izzo’s team has a remarkably easy three-game stretch to end the regular season. MSU wraps things up with a home game against Illinois and road tilts against Northwestern and Wisconsin, three teams with a combined Big Ten record of 13-30.

Ohio State, which hasn’t lost a conference game to anyone other than Penn State, has a bit of a tougher road ahead. The Buckeyes will have to bounce back quickly from their embarrassingly one-sided loss to the Nittany Lions on Thursday because they’ve got arch-rival Michigan in Ann Arbor on Sunday. After hosting Rutgers two days later, they’ll wrap up the regular season with a tricky Friday night tilt at Indiana.

Even if Chris Holtmann’s surprising Buckeyes are able to win out, it might only be good enough for a share of the Big Ten crown.

The Favorite: Middle Tennessee (13-1)

The Contenders: Western Kentucky (11-2), Old Dominion (11-2)

Three Key Games:

Old Dominion at Western Kentucky (2/24)

Western Kentucky at Middle Tennessee (3/1)

Marshall at Middle Tennessee (3/3)

We’ll step away from the big boys for a second and take a look at Conference USA. The race for the league title features three teams that are all capable of winning at least one game in the NCAA tournament. The issue for all of them is making sure they find a way into the field of 68.

Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee both have resumes that would get them heavy consideration for an at-large bid right now (the Blue Raiders especially), but neither is going to want to be in a position where that matters on Selection Sunday. The best way to make that happen is to earn the top seed for the C-USA tourney and then claim the league’s auto-bid next month.

Old Dominion and WKU will meet for the second time (the Hilltoppers won the first meeting) a week from Saturday. The winner of that game will likely go on to exist as the No. 1 contender to Middle Tennessee, a team which still has to face Western Kentucky once more. The Blue Raiders also have to end the regular season against a Marshall team that is the only squad to hand them a conference loss thus far.

The Favorite: Belmont (13-2)

The Contender: Murray State (13-2)

Three Key Games:

Belmont at Jacksonville State (2/22)

Tennessee State a Belmont (2/24)

Murray State at Austin Peay (2/24)

It’s business as usual in the Ohio Valley, where Belmont and Murray State both appear to be a step or three ahead of the rest of the conference as we near the postseason. The Bruins beat Murray State in the only between the OVC powers, so they get the status of being the favorite as both teams stare down the final three games of the regular season.

A regular-season championship would be nice, but both teams (especially Belmont) know what it’s like to claim that title and get nothing from it other than an NIT bid. The big prize will be up for grabs two weeks from now in Evansville.