College hoops proves yet again why it’s way better than the NBA

This week’s Bucket List — 10 observations on the college basketball season:

1. What a great night Wednesday was in the college game. In case you missed it:

Butler staged a major upset at second-ranked Villanova. Syracuse — on the NCAA Tournament bubble and desperate — took down No. 10 Duke on a John Gillon three-point bank shot at the buzzer. No. 6 Oregon erased a huge deficit at Cal and won on a Dillon Brooks last-second three. North Carolina’s Justin Jackson and Louisville’s Donovan Mitchell put on a show as the Tar Heels outfought the Cardinals in a tense top-10 matchup.

Yet, let’s face it, there’s a good chance a whole lot of you missed it. Why? Because a lot of sports fans just don’t get into college hoops until March Madness. The big early-season tournaments don’t do it for them. The start of conference play doesn’t get their attention. Only when Earl from accounting shoves a bracket sheet under their nose and demands $5 does stuff get real.

Come on, man. Like any NBA night in February can hold a candle to the thrill ride the college game treated viewers to on Wednesday. If we’re lucky, next month’s Elite Eight games will be half as good.

2. But let’s give a big ol’ hat-tip right now to Villanova seniors Josh Hart and Kris Jackson. Why? The aforementioned defeat was their first on the Wildcats’ home floor. No, not of the season. Rather, of their four-year careers. The loss to Butler was the defending national champs’ first at the Pavilion in 49 games — 46 of those since Hart and Jackson arrived on the outskirts of Philadelphia. Amazing.

3. Butler, you’re kind of strange.

The 22^nd-ranked Bulldogs have beaten a who’s-who of opponents this season — Villanova (twice), Arizona, Xavier, Cincinnati, Northwestern, pre-injuries Indiana.

But they’ve also lost to Indiana State and awful St. John’s and — in a recent four-game stretch — Georgetown, Providence and Creighton. It’s hard to peg this team. I’ve had Butler in the back of my head as a Final Four pick all season, but when the time comes I’ll probably chicken out.

4. Speaking of Northwestern, the Wildcats have dropped to a 9 seed in the bracket of ESPN tournament forecaster Joe Lunardi. The way things go, it’s clear Chris Collins’ team has to win at least another game to be comfortably in.

5. Four weeks ago, I’d have bet big against Minnesota making the tournament. And I’d have lost big. The Gophers have answered a five-game losing streak by winning their last six in a row, with Wednesday’s steamrolling of Maryland on the road as the exclamation point. That’s some kind of turnaround from last season’s 8-23 (2-16 Big Ten) debacle.

6. Hmm … Collins or Richard Pitino for Big Ten coach of the year? Neck-and-neck, at this point.

7. To any Big Ten fan who’s still whining because the league doesn’t have a team in the top 10: Just stop it already.

To put it another way, the list of teams from other conferences that would win the Big Ten this season is longer than 10. No, I can’t prove that, but here’s how certain I am: If a Big Ten team reaches the Final Four this year, I’ll shave someone’s head and kindly ask him to walk home backward.

8. Tougher question: If you can have (a) the ACC and Pac-12 or (b) the rest of the field to produce the national champion, which are you taking?

9. Seton Hall’s Angel Delgado, the nation’s leading rebounder, has had only one game — one! — with single-digit boards since November. That, friends, is the definition of a bad man.

10. One of the first questions you hear asked about potential coaching hires in football: Can he put together a good staff?

For some reason, that question doesn’t seem to be on fans’ (or the media’s) minds when it comes to basketball. But it should be.

Case in point: John Groce at Illinois. Did he put together a good staff? You won’t find assistants at his side who’ve been in the big leagues prior to Illinois, for what that’s worth. It is, essentially, a MAC staff that was thrown into the Big Ten pool and may be out of its depth.

On the other hand, consider the staff Cuonzo Martin — a name you hear as a potential replacement for Groce — has put together at Cal. One of Martin’s assistants came from Louisville, where he spent several seasons under the tutelage of Rick Pitino. Another coached under Jim Boeheim at Syracuse and Mike Krzyzewski at Duke before a near-decade-long run as a mid-major head coach. A third assistant brought experience in the Big East, SEC and Big Ten.

See a difference? It’s like night and day.

Follow me on Twitter @slgreenberg.

Email: sgreenberg@suntimes.com