March is only a few short months away, so it is time college basketball teams make their mark and start to think about punching their ticket to the NCAA tournament. About halfway through the season, a few teams stand out for the great seasons they are having.

Reigning National Champions, Villanova, has been ranked the no. 1 team in the country for a large part of the season so far. They are winning the Big East with a 7-2 conference record and a 17-2 record overall. They have had some very impressive showings, and since the Big East has a handful of teams ranked in the top 25, Villanova has had to prove they have the ability to compete for another National Championship. They have wins over recently ranked no. 22 Creighton and Xavier. If they continue their play, and no one has reason to believe they will not, they will most likely find themselves a no. 1 seed come March.

Kentucky and Kansas are other teams that are always at the top of the rankings by the end of the year. The two teams have records of 17-4 and 19-2, respectively, and are each winning their conferences. When the two teams met up in the SEC-Big 12 Challenge on Saturday night, they each proved they are good enough to be in contention for the National Championship and look like they are heading in the right direction for March.

Gonzaga is 22-0 and currently ranked in the top 5 in the country. On Joe Lunardi’s bracket predictions, he has them at a no. 1 seed in the west and if they continue to win their conference, the West Coast Conference, they will have earned that spot fairly. The problem with Gonzaga is that they always seem to have a good season but never win or make it very far in the NCAA tournament, so they still have a lot to prove.

The ACC has a bunch of teams who could win the conference, and surprisingly, Duke does not seem like one of them. Despite having a 16-5 record, they are 4-4 in conference play and seem to be out of sorts lately. After a bunch of Grayson Allen problems, Coach K’s absence due to back surgery and the team being banned from the locker room, Duke is not having their best stretch and they will need to figure it out soon. Overall, the ACC is anyone’s game because every week some of the best teams go head-to-head for the top spot.

The Big Ten is another interesting conference. The top teams consist of Maryland, Wisconsin and Northwestern, and after them the middle is really jumbled up. Michigan State, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Penn State and Nebraska all have four or five wins each. All of these teams need to continue to win in their conference and play well throughout their conference tournaments in order to do well in the NCAA tournament.

Overall, it has been an interesting year for college basketball, leaving fans in for a treat come March Madness.

To see an updated list of each week’s top 25 rankings as well as see previous weeks, go to: http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/rankings