Auburn roars toward the top in men's basketball short lineal

Auburn added one more game to it's season-leading performance in the short traveler through men's college basketball, finishing 2019-20 with 14 games. The Tigers now are second place all-time behind UCLA, which has 17.

                            

Other than the coronavirus, you'd have to say the 2019-20 men's basketball season went pretty well for Auburn.

The Tigers were, after all, coming off a trip to the national semifinals and a 30-10 finish, then they were 25-6 in 2019-20 when play was ended, having risen as high as fourth in the basketball writers' poll. We'll simply never know what the Tigers could have accomplished in 2019-20.

Come to think of it, we'll never know how far Kentucky could have gone, either. The Wildcats actually won the Southeastern Conference, finishing a game ahead of Auburn. The Cats clinched that championship on Feb. 29, a 73-66 win against Auburn that also returned the short version of the men's college basketball lineal to Lexington.

With that win, the Cats had a chance to move up in the all-time standings, but they immediately lost to Tennessee, which then lost the title right back to Auburn on the final day of the regular season.

With that Auburn finished the season with 14 games of lineal championship in the short version, the most of any team. Kentucky, with five games, was second, followed by Alabama with four.

Auburn moved up to second place in the all-time standings with its 14 wins, trailing only UCLA, which has 17. North Carolina is third with 11 wins, followed by Kentucky and Xavier, each with 10.

2019-20 men's college hoop season ends without ending

We didn't get a resolution to the 2019-20 men's college basketball season due to the coronavirus. The long version of the traveling championship ended with USC beating UCLA and Villanova still leading the all-time standings.

                    

The college basketball season ended before the NCAA Tournament in 2019-20 due to, of course, coronavirus, which struck the United States in March.

Thus, we didn't get to see a national champion. And when the playing stopped, the national men's basketball lineal belonged to Southern Cal, which defeated crosstown rival UCLA, 54-52, in a terrific game.

Because the championship spent the conference portion of the season in the Pac-12, where it had never been before, it made no impact on top of the all-time standings, which begin with 2015-16. The leading teams remain Villanova (27 games of title), Michigan State (26), Michigan and North Carolina (23 each).

However, Virginia added seven games of championship, the most of any team in 2019-20, and now is up to fifth on the all-time list with nine games of championship, nudging ahead of Wisconsin. UCLA, which won two championships totaling four games in 2019-20, is up to a tie with Wisconsin in sixth place with eight games of title.

Virginia leads men's hoop long corn, but UCLA has speed

Winning the NCAA Championship in men's basketball means taking the long lineal title to the next season. Thus, Virginia sprinted out to seven games of title defense in 2019-20 and still has the lead. But UCLA has the title now, three games down with the regular season still not done.

Mamadi Diakite is one of only three seniors trying to defend the men's college basketball championship this season with the Virginia Cavaliers (SneakinDeacon/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

The long version of the men's college basketball traveling championship is touring the Pac-12 this season, and the results are about as one would expect.

The Pac-12 is an even league in which every team went to Feb. 29 with at least five losses in the league and six teams were within two games of the top. Now that the weekend of games has played out, three teams still have a chance to at least tie for the title. The most likely outcome is that Oregon and UCLA will tie in the end, and Oregon won their head-to-head match, 96-75, in Eugene on Jan. 26. No other league was that close.

The Big Ten had five teams within two games of the top, but that's close as anyone got to league-leading Maryland until Michigan State dropped the Terps, 78-66, in College Park on Feb. 29. Now, Maryland is 13-5 in the league with two games left. But Michigan State, Illinois all are within a game at 12-6, while Iowa and Penn State both are two down at 11-7

But the Pac-12 has a thick one going, too. UCLA is on top at 12-5 with one game left coming up Saturday at Galen Center against Southern Cal. Oregon 11-5 with the NoCal teams, Stanford and Cal, visiting Eugene this weekend. Arizona State has an outside chance to tie for the title at 10-6.

The Pac-12 is not a league in which anyone is going on long winning streaks. And, considering that the traveling prize had only briefly before been in UCLA's possession among all the Pac-12 teams, this first dip into an even league wasn't going to produce an immediate threat to the crown. Villanova's all-time leading 27 games of championship was in no jeopardy once the title entered the Pac-12.

Arizona State is the biggest winner this year among the Pac-12 teams with six games of championship, not even enough to dislodge Virginia from the lead after the defending national champions began 2019-20 with seven traveling title defenses.

In December, the championship went on a little tour through four teams and three conferences. Purdue smashed the Cavaliers, 69-40, on Dec. 4 in West Lafayette, IN. After one defense, though, Purdue dropped the title to Nebraska, which immediately fell to North Dakota.

If the Fighting Hawks could have defended the title just one time, they would have taken it into the Summit League, where the leading teams this year are South Dakota State and North Dakota State. But North Dakota lost that opportunity, 83-66 at Oregon State on Dec. 29, and the traveling title was headed to the West Coast.

In five years of following this championship, only once has the lineal title started the year in some conference and remained there when the conference portion of the season began in January. That was 2016-17, when Villanova began as the defending national champs and took down every foe in its pre-conference slate, which really wasn't saying much. But no one else has done it. The prize stayed in the Big East all the way until the second round of the NCAA Tournament, when Wisconsin took down Villanova, 65-62, for a Sweet 16 berth.

At the top of the all-time traveling standings, this makes for no real differences. Among the leaders, Purdue and UCLA have each picked up a couple of games and moved up to seven each, which is sixth on the all-time list going back to 2015-16. UCLA will continue adding to its total, though, as long as it keeps winning, and there's still a lot of basketball left in this championship, which goes all the way to the national championship game.

Under Helton, Trojans control Pac-12 traveling title

Southern Cal began winning the Pac-12 traveling football championship early, and they have won it often under head coach Clay Helton. The Trojans are the all-time leader with 16 victories.

Southern Cal football coach Clay Helton (LA Big Leagues screen capture).

We're not about to lump Clay Helton in there with John McKay, Pete Carroll and Howard Jones as the greatest football coaches in Southern Cal history, but he's had a couple good years.

And we have to give him this: He is killing it with the Pac-12 college football traveling championship.

It happens that Helton was installed as the head coach in place of Steve Sarkisian six games into the 2015 season, and 2015 happened to be the first year of our conference college football traveling titles. In fact, it happened that Helton's first Pac-12 game as the USC coach also brought USC its first traveling title in the conference.

It was a 42-24 win against Utah, which came to the Coliseum on Oct. 24, 2015, with the title. 

From there, Southern Cal has been easily the most successful program with this prize. Through September 2019, the prize has been on the line in 39 games and USC has won 16 of them. In second place, with seven victories, is Utah.

Angelinos may not be surprised to note that football standings with USC on the top also have UCLA at the bottom. The Bruins are 0-4 in their attempts to win the Pac-12 traveling championship.

USC's best run with the traveler was eight games, starting with a 21-17 win at home against Colorado on Oct. 8, 2016, and ending with a 30-27 loss at Washington State on Sept. 27, 2017. USC last held the title at the very start of the 2018 season before losing its opener, 17-3, at Stanford.

The present title holder, Oregon, won it with a 31-29 win at home against Arizona State last Nov. 17 and the Ducks have held it for three games through a 21-6 win at Stanford on Sept. 28. Oregon will put the championship on the line Saturday at home against California.

Men's short traveler takes tour of Sun Belt

The regular-season men's college basketball traveling championship took a trip to the Sun Belt Conference in 2018-19.

Trojan Arena is home of the Troy Trojans, who captured the regular-season men's college basketball traveling championship for the Sun Belt Conference in 2018-19 (Kreeder13/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike International 4.0 license).

The top of the all-time standings for the short season traveling championship in men's college basketball did not change in 2017-18, much because the title took the scenic route through the conference portion of the season.

As it ended up, the title ran through the Sun Belt Conference, which is not one of the more glamorous assemblies of programs.

The season began with Marquette holding the title. But Marquette lost it to Indiana, which later lost it to Arkansas. Following that came a couple of upsets.

First Western Kentucky of Conference-USA dropped into Fayetteville and beat the home-standing Razorbacks, 78-77. Next, Troy of the Sun Belt went to Western Kentucky and posted an 87-81 win. The title might have still gone to Conference USA for the conference schedule, but Troy held on at Alabama-Birmingham, 74-73, in a Dec. 21 road game.

So, the prize went to the Sun Belt, where no one claimed it for long. In fact, no team in the Sun Belt held it for longer than two games once the league schedule began.


The top of the standings, then, look the same as a year ago. UCLA leads with 17 games, followed by 11 for North Carolina and 10 for Xavier.

UCLA still leads short men's cage traveling title through 2017-18

Xavier had the best year of any team in the 2017-18 men's college basketball short traveling championship, ringing up 10 wins. But UCLA still has the most all-time with 17.

The shortened traveling championship in men's college basketball, which includes only the regular season, took its long run through the Big East in 2017-18.

Once there, the team that made most of it was Xavier with 10 wins, the most for any team with the championship during the year.

The prize did most of its kicking around in late November. UCLA began the season as champion and made three defenses before losing, 100-89, to Creighton in Kansas City on Nov. 20. The next night in Kansas City, Baylor took it away from Creighton with a 65-59 win in the same arena.

A week later, on Nov. 28, Baylor went to Xavier, where the challenging Musketeers produced a 76-63 victory. After Xavier's run, six other Big East teams won seven titles. The season ended with Marquette as the title holder after an 85-81 home win against Creighton on March 3.

Xavier's run of 10 wins moved it all the way to third place in the all-time standings through three years of this history. UCLA is the only team with wins in all three years, leading the all-time standings with 17 wins, followed by North Carolina with 11.

UCLA leads men's college basketball short corn

The traveling championship in college basketball that only covers the regular season, which we may call the "short" Ear of Corn, now belongs to UCLA, and for the third time. As the 2016-17 season ended, UCLA also had more wins in this championship than anyone else.

UCLA guard Isaac Hamilton has helped the Bruins to 15 wins in the shorter college basketball traveling championship during the last two seasons (Neon Tommy/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike Generic 2.0 license).

It's nothing to be compared with the Wooden days, perhaps, but the men's basketball team at UCLA nabbed its third regular-season traveling championship in February and now holds the title through the off season.

Since this traveler began last season, the Bruins have won more of these championships than any other team, surpassing Louisville, which has won two.

The Bruins also top the rest with 15 wins in this Ear of Corn through two seasons. Next in line is North Carolina, which notched all of its 12 wins during a winning streak last season. Oregon has won eight of these games, all this season. Next up are Duke, Kentucky and Virginia Tech, each with five.

Virginia Tech began the season with the championship and held it for four games before a 68-65 loss to Texas A&M in Fullerton on Nov.  25. Two days later, UCLA beat A&M, 74-67, at the Honda Center.

The Bruins held on for six more games before losing, 89-87, at Oregon, on Dec. 28. But the Bruins at least held it into the Pac-12 season, meaning they would have some chance of regaining the championship.

Following Oregon's run, the title went through Colorado, California and Arizona before the Bruins regained the championship with a 77-72 win against the Wildcats at Pauley Pavilion on Feb. 25.

UCLA closed out its regular season with home court wins against Washington and Washington State to maintain the title until at least next November.

North Carolina all year, Virginia Tech in the end

Virginia Tech made huge strides in the Atlantic Coast Conference this year and now holds the Ear of Corn in men's college basketball entering the 2016-17 season. But no team had a 2015-2016 with the prize like North Carolina. (This piece originally was published on EarofCornAwards.com on April 7, 2016.)

Under Buzz Williams, Virginia Tech improved from 2-16 in the ACC last year to 10-8 this year, ending with an upset of Miami during the regular season finale (Virginia Tech Sports information photo).

We began the season with Duke holding the Ear of Corn as the defending national champion in men's college basketball. We must start somewhere. So, as is the practice when initiating one of these prizes, we start it with the defending national champion. We don't count the championship bestowed as an earned championship, but we do give credit for title defenses.

So, the Blue Devils defended the Corn for only two games (easy wins against Sienna and Bryant) before the prize set onto a tour of the other college basketball capitals.

Last Nov. 17, Duke went to Chicago to face Kentucky in the first meeting of high profile teams for the Corn. Kentucky won, 74-63, then defended it consecutively against Wright State, Boston University, South Florida and Illinois State before coming to Pauley Pavilion for a meeting with UCLA.

Inexplicably, a UCLA team that would finish 15-17 and 10th in the Pac-12 beat the Wildcats, 87-77. The Bruins defended the prize three times, including a 71-66 win at Gonzaga.

But when North Carolina visited Pauley Pavilion on Dec. 19, the true direction for the Ear was set. The Tar Heels captured the Corn for the first time with an 89-76 win, then went back home for a couple wins against local schools before taking it into the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) schedule.

The Tar Heels defended the Corn 10 times before a Feb. 1 trip to Louisville, which really wasn't playing for anything. Sidetracked by one of those sex scandals that crops up at Louisville, the Cardinals were going to self-sanction by disqualifying themselves from the tournament.

Here, though, they were playing for the Ear of Corn, and they pulled an upset, 71-65. After an easy (79-47) win at home against Boston College on Dec. 6, the Cardinals went to Duke on Feb. 8. And, there, the Blue Devils won the Ear outright for the first time, 72-65.

But Duke's first earned championship in this contest lasted barely longer than its earlier place-holder status. The Devils beat Virginia at home (63-62), then North Carolina on the road (74-73). And after those two hard-fought wins, the Dukies went to Louisville on Feb. 20.

This time, Louisville won, this time by a 71-64 score, becoming the first school to claim the Ear of Corn twice. The Cardinals defended their title for only one game, until they went to Miami on Feb. 27 and lost, 73-63.

The Hurricanes made one title defense, a 68-50 win at Notre Dame on March 2. On March 5, the Hurricanes went to Virginia Tech to finish the regular season for both teams. In other words, this would be the game to decide who would end the regular season with that version of the Ear.

It was no contest. Virginia Tech stomped the Hurricanes, 77-62, and, with that, secured the regular season Ear into the start of next season.

Nice finish for Virginia Tech, which made historic progress this year in the ACC. The Hokies jumped from 2-16 last year to 10-8 this year, the second season of Buzz Williams.

All together, though, North Carolina gets the nod here as Team of the Year. The Tar Heels won a title and defended theirs twice as long as anyone else, finishing 11-2 in games for the Ear of Corn.

But other teams were good, too. Duke was 5-2, including a title defense against North Carolina. Louisville was 4-2 with a title victories against Duke and North Carolina. UCLA was 4-1 with a title win against Kentucky, and Kentucky was 5-1 with a title victory over Duke.

Will any of those teams be the one to wrestle the Ear away from Virginia Tech? We'll find out next season.