Floor Burns: Wheat From Chaff

The Northwestern Note leads off, because the Wildcats are part of the greater point to be made this week.

Northwestern closed a 14-point halftime deficit to one point, but Jon Leuer's late block preserved Wisconsin's win, and made the 'Cats' NCAA hopes entirely dependent on running the table in the Big Ten Tournament. 

This was the sort of game that forces a bubble team hoping to make the field as an at-large team to either seize its own destiny or seize up and be left with questions and regrets. Northwestern did the latter.

The last few weeks of February are littered with these gateway games. They are the last, most critical tests before tournaments, ones that seal seasons and separate the wheat from the chaff, especially around the bubble. Northwestern's loss has it waving goodbye to the bubble for good this year, much like Dayton, but Marquette's overtime win over Cincinnati might gain it entry to the NCAA Tournament.

But these games make separations clear at many levels beyond the bubble, too.

Pittsburgh beating Villanova is just the latest bit of evidence that the Big East is almost all wheat. 'Nova was thought of as a one seed-to-be for a while -- now, the fourth one behind Kansas, Kentucky, and Syracuse is probably Purdue's to lose -- but the brutal Big East slate has worn it down. There's no other conference with four teams as good as Syracuse, Villanova, Georgetown and Pittsburgh, four teams that could win it all and never be called Cinderella. The best of the Big East is the tallest wheat in the country, and the chaff -- say, South Florida and Connecticut -- might be other conferences' wheat.

At the same time, it's clear that the Player of the Year race is down to two favorites and a bunch of darkhorses.

Evan Turner is Ohio State's all-everything man, the guy who scores when he must, runs the floor, defends and rebounds. He's a triple-double threat every night, and his return has made the Buckeyes a worthy 1A to Purdue in the Big Ten, and a team that can beat Michigan State by seven in East Lansing. Ohio State was 3-3 without him, and no better than an NCAA bubble team on the court; with him, the Buckeyes are 18-4 and very much a sleeper come March.

No one has slept on John Wall. College basketball's flashiest freshman has delivered on his hype, with speed and shooting, defense and leadership. He seems more mature than previous freshman point guards under John Calipari, more reliable than Derrick Rose and more polished than Tyreke Evans. It doesn't hurt that he's got NBA talent to dish to, but Wall has been the catalyst for Big Blue, and he's going to be the reason Kentucky wins or loses the NCAA Tournament.

There are arguments to be made for other players -- Wall teammate DeMarcus Cousins, Syracuse's Wes Johnson, the perpetually underrated Scottie Reynolds and Jon Scheyer -- but it's Turner and Wall and everyone else. It's not quite wheat and chaff, much like the Big East, but there is a gap.

"Bubble," as always, will be the buzzword for the next few weeks. But it's separation, differentiation and distinction that every team will strive for.

Required Reading. Just one this week: John Perrotto's case for BYU's Jimmer Fredette as Player of the Year.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.