Can West Virginia, Gonzaga, Duke and others live up to the hype?

— -- Forty years ago, Al McGuire's Marquette Warriors upset a heavily favored North Carolina squad led by All-American Phil Ford, who was backed by a crew that connected on 53.7 percent of its shots in 1976-77.

"If you haven't broken your nose in basketball, you haven't really played," McGuire told Sports Illustrated's Frank Deford prior to that season, his last on the sidelines.

McGuire's team embraced the gritty style he preached and belied the odds and talent of a daunting Tar Heels squad.

That's the only way to topple a contender and erase the previous hype surrounding an opponent.

For the first two months of the 2016-17 season, West Virginia bullied its schedule with a guillotine-choke approach to defense, forcing turnovers on 31.1 percent of its opponents' possessions. Baylor committed 29 turnovers in a loss to the Mountaineers.

On Saturday, however, Kansas State -- like Temple, Texas Tech and Oklahoma in previous outings -- stood tall early and handed West Virginia its second consecutive loss and fourth overall.

Kansas State committed a turnover on its first possession when Nathan Adrian intercepted a pass and fired an errant dart to Daxter Miles that landed in the stands. Past opponents had caved to WVU's suffocating, belligerent defense.

Not Kansas State. A few possessions after that early mishap, Dean Wade hit a jump shot from the corner. Then, he dunked on an alley-oop from Barry Brown.

As the game progressed, the Wildcats developed this "That all you got?" bravado, even as West Virginia launched a 16-1 run in the first half. It was the same swagger on display when Oklahoma's Jordan Woodard took the Mountaineers to Rucker Park with his game-winning drive in overtime last week. Texas Tech's Zach Smith also had late confidence against West Virginia. Temple's? Obi Enechionyia, too.

College basketball's Mike Tyson seemed more docile, less insurmountable in those matchups.

And West Virginia is not alone. Some of the teams that danced into the New Year amid high praise and hopes hit some turbulence in the first few weeks of 2017. Others keep soaring.

With March a few months away, one question lingers: Should you believe the hype?

Well, we're to help you answer those questions.

Steve Masiello's embarrassing, hypocritical rant

Not only did Manhattan's Steve Masiello call society "fraudulent" after his team's 81-68 loss to Siena on Sunday, he also offered this assessment of millennials: "Nothing is real so when things don't go the way people want them to, people really struggle with if it's not 75 degrees and sunny and the stars aren't aligned, if it's not exactly 4 p.m., they didn't get exactly eight hours of beauty sleep ... young people today struggle with it. Our society struggles with that, and for me -- I can't speak for other coaches -- I see it more than ever."

A few issues with Masiello's take. First, a coach who fabricated his r?sum? to get the South Florida job should never use the word "fraudulent" in a public space. Here's the other thing: Stop bad-mouthing "millennials" and their issues with adversity. It's not like coaches come from a generation that always held it together when adversity arrived. The brawls and drama of the 1980s and 1990s -- and the list of players who continue to come forward and tell us how much they hated playing for or with a former coach or teammate -- suggest they did not. Here's the other thing: Masiello fails to recognize some of the hurdles players overcame to compete at this level. Are some coddled? Sure. Don't put every kid in the same boat, though. That's foolish.

Creighton lost to a Marquette team on the rise

The simple response to Creighton's 102-94 home loss to Marquette on Saturday is to assume Maurice Watson Jr.'s season-ending knee injury turned the Bluejays into an afterthought in the Big East. That's just not true. They're certainly not the same team without Watson on the floor, but they finished with 1.18 points per possession and connected on 50 percent of their shots inside the arc on Saturday. But Marquette put together a ridiculous 1.24 PPP display and stopped Creighton's five-game winning streak.

This is a Marquette squad that blew a double-digit halftime lead in a loss to Butler before securing Saturday's victory. The Golden Eagles should own a four-game winning streak right now.

So don't dismiss Creighton. The Bluejays scored 94 points on Saturday, and few teams in their league would have stopped a miraculous Marquette squad that couldn't miss.

What's wrong with USC?

After starting the year 14-0, Andy Enfield's squad has lost four of its past seven games. Every loss came against a top-60 team on KenPom.com. But the Trojans will continue to struggle if they fail to correct their ballhandling and rebounding woes. They've committed turnovers on 18.1 percent of their possessions in league play, ninth in the Pac-12, and they've also allowed Pac-12 opponents to collect 32.6 percent of their missed shots (10th in the league).

The Trojans must address these flaws prior to their difficult Oregon-UCLA-Arizona stretch in mid-February.