Cardinals have chance at title

Has “Hoosiers” been on TV lately?
Or are The CR’s readers just living up to the state’s reputation as a basketball hotbed?
Either way, they came through in the clutch despite the late call for questions Monday night. And their focus was hoops.
We’ll start with a pair of college questions and then work our way to the high school sectional tournament.
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What are the chances Trey Moses and the Ball State University Cardinals make a run in the Mid-American Conference tournament and get into the NCAA Tournament?
—Joseph Vormohr,
Indianapolis

Jay County’s very own adopted Cardinal and his teammates have an excellent opportunity to earn the MAC’s automatic bid.
The key for Ball State, and any other team really, is winning the division and earning a top-two seed in the conference tournament. The MAC gives a massive reward — a bye all the way to the tournament semifinals — to the division winners. That means the No. 1 and 2 seeds need to win just two tournament games to win the conference title. That number is three of the No. 3 and 4 seeds, and five for everyone else.
So it’s extremely good news for the Cardinals that they currently hold a two-game lead in the MAC West over Central Michigan, Northern Illinois and Toledo. Even better, two of their last three wins have come against those teams. With four regular-season games left, they’re in great position.
Akron, which beat Ball State by nine last month, is the favorite, but the Cardinals, Ohio and Kent State aren’t far behind.
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Big Ten projections? Player, coach, freshman, defensive of the year along with first team.
—Jenae Horn Blasdel, Portland

Let’s start with the team title, which is probably what fans care about the most. I’ll stick with Iowa, which is currently a half-game behind Indiana, to win the conference. The Hoosiers travel to Iowa City next week in a game that could decide the regular-season crown.
The tournament title is anyone’s guess, but I have a hard time betting against Tom Izzo and his Michigan State squad.
On to the awards …
Coach of the year: Fran McCaffery, Iowa. I saw Indiana, Purdue, Maryland and Michigan as Big Ten contenders heading into this year, but not the Hawkeyes. He deserves recognition for his team’s rise to the top of the conference.
Player of the year: Denzel Valentine, Michigan State. How can anyone pass up the guy who leads the conference in both points (19.7) and assists (7.3) while grabbing 7.7 rebounds per game?
Freshman of the year: Ethan Happ, Wisconsin. He’s averaging 12.1 points and eight rebounds per game while shooting 53 percent from the field.
Defensive player of the year: A.J. Hammons, Purdue. The Boilermakers are second in the conference in defensive field goal percentage and Hammons leads the Big Ten in blocks (2.6) while grabbing 7.9 rebounds per game.
First team: Valentine; Hammons; Melo Trimble, Maryland; Jarrod Uthoff, Wisconsin; Yogi Ferrell, Indiana.
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What are the chances we could see the sectional match-up between Jay County and Huntington North?
—Adam Gray,
Fort Wayne

The chances are not very good, but not because either team is incapable of advancing to the sectional championship game.
They are slim simply because the Patriots and Vikings both have to take the long road to get there.
A couple of weeks ago when we were talking girls basketball, Homestead was the clear favorite in the Class 4A Sectional 6 group. When it comes to next week’s boys tournament, the field is much more balanced.
Five of the six teams have between 13 and 16 wins. The Sagarin Ratings predict any game between Homestead (15-5), Muncie Central (13-9), Huntington North (15-7) and Fort Wayne South Side (15-7) would be decided by fewer than four points. (The rankings have the Patriots (16-6) as the fifth-best team in the group, but they have proven to be more than capable of competing with a three-point win at South Side and a two-point overtime loss Monday to Homestead.)
None of the regular-season games between sectional opponents have been blowouts, with the widest margin coming when Muncie Central beat the Patriots by 16. And the supposed worst team in the group — Wayne (6-13) — beat Homestead by two on Feb. 9.
There will be no easy games. So the teams that drew the byes — Central and Wayne — have a distinct advantage.
To make the final, the Patriots would first have to beat South Side again — no easy task — and then knock off a Muncie Central squad it lost to by double figures. Huntington North would need to beat Homestead, which it lost to by nine in the season opener, and Wayne.
Seeing Jay County against former coach Craig Teagle would definitely make for an electric sectional championship game. But it’s unlikely.
If you want me to put a number on it, I’d say there’s a 10 percent chance.