Alright, welcome in, folks, to another rendition of College Basketball Weekly. This time around, we’re looking at the following topics:
The overhaul check-in. With several marquee schools completely refashioning their men’s hoops programs, it’ll be interesting to see which squads and coaches have been able to successfully navigate these choppy waters. Of course, we’ll also review the biggest results of the week past with a few commentaries while previewing the top games of the coming week at the end.
Enjoy!
Notable Results
…Since last Sunday night. Rankings are from Monday’s AP Poll.
Arkansas 89 vs. (14) Michigan 87
(20) Wisconsin 80 @ Illinois 86
(3) Iowa State 89 @ Iowa 80
Louisville 85 @ (5) Kentucky 93
(17) Texas A&M 70 vs. (11) Purdue 66
Xavier 65 @ (22) Cincinnati 68
(24) UCLA 57 @ Arizona 54
(1) Tennessee 66 @ Illinois 64
(6) Marquette 63 @ Dayton 71
(8) Gonzaga 71 vs. (18) UConn 77
Quick Blurbs
UConn bounces back: My guy Bart Torvik has the Huskies rating as the No. 4 team in the country since they left the apparently-haunted Lahaina Civic Center, a stretch that includes wins vs. Baylor and Gonzaga, plus at Texas. UConn is unlikely to command the same respect they did last season, but the free fall was put to a hard stop.
So… how about Dayton? The Flyers have a case as the top mid-major squad after some recent Gonzaga slippage, because UD is undefeated outside of two narrow losses to North Carolina and Iowa State in Maui, where they also clobbered UConn in the last-place game. Along with the Huskies, Dayton has also toppled Northwestern and now Marquette among the power conference ranks.
SEC Dominates another Saturday: Kentucky provided another high-scoring thriller vs. rival Louisville but maintained their handle over the Battle of the Bluegrass. Meanwhile, Jordan Gainey went coast to coast for a layup at the buzzer to send No. 1 Tennessee to 10-0 over Illinois. Then, Texas A&M scored another huge non-conference victory for the SEC by downing Purdue in Indianapolis.
The Overhaul Check-In
Transfer portal and NIL rules make college sports a constant churn-and-burn of player movement, which has its fair share of positives and negatives. However, one domino effect is the increasing ease with which new coaches can flip programs like Sunday morning pancakes.
Just this season, power conference programs Kentucky, Louisville, Vanderbilt, West Virginia, DePaul and USC all have 100% brand new rosters and head coaches, retaining 0% of what they had the year prior. So, let’s do a little check-in and see how the wholesale changes have fared at the various power players.
Kentucky: These ain’t John Calipari’s Wildcats. The new coach came from BYU, the best player did too and wasn’t even a starter. Meanwhile, Kentucky’s leading scorer averaged 11 per game on an Oklahoma team that missed the NCAA Tournament last season and the closer in UK’s Duke and Gonzaga wins began his career at Delaware and was Wake Forest’s fourth option in 2023-24. What’s going on in Lexington is completely unprecedented.
Louisville: The Cards saw injuries turn two transfers into redshirts back in the summer, and the injury bug has now sidelined three more key pieces. The Cardinals are a shell of what they thought they’d be. Nonetheless, Pat Kelsey’s group is perhaps over-committed to the 3 offensively, though they’ve survived enough defensively to pull off a couple solid wins during this brutal start to the schedule. A tourney appearance would be more than worth celebrating in his first season.
Vanderbilt: Mark Byington first made waves as the Vandy coach by listing his entire roster as “point guards” on the team website. Nothing more than a stunt, surely, but Byington is less of a clown on the court, where his team is off to a 4-0 start against power conference teams with a lone loss this season to undefeated Drake. Find a way to nine SEC wins and the Commodores will return to the Big Dance.
West Virginia: Darian DeVries brought his star son, Tucker, along with him from Drake after accepting the West Virginia job, and then added a second star in Oklahoma State point guard Javon Small. As NBA fans know well — sometimes, it’s better to have two studs than a deep roster. Small and DeVries are perfect complements as a 1-2 punch and there’s just enough shooting (but possibly not enough size) to make the Mountaineers tourney material.
DePaul: I tweeted out a chart (see below) declaring DePaul as “the most productive shooting team in the country” earlier in the week, because no squad has a better combination of volume and accuracy from deep. They also doubled their win total from last season in just six total games this season (6-0 start vs. 3-29 a year ago).
The shooting chart, per @totally_t_bomb
-DePaul is the most productive shooting team in the country
-Louisville: No. 1 3P rate, 2nd-worst 3P% among P5
-Houston is No. 2 nationally in 3P%, No. 304 in 2P%. Shoot more 3s Cougars!!
-Poor Syracuse and Michigan State pic.twitter.com/IshSfkpq6S
— Alex Weber (@alexhweber) December 12, 2024
USC: Eric Musselman would have better luck tying on a blindfold and lobbing a dart directly into the bullseye than he’d have trying to guess how this Trojan team will perform each time out. USC lost three straight at the end of November, including a 71-36 bludgeoning from Saint Mary’s; yet they also beat Washington by 24 points to snap that streak. At the veery least, this group is as unpredictable as you’d expect from a totally new roster and coach.
Overall: That’s a lot of three-happy teams, isn’t it? You look at DePaul, West Virginia, Louisville — those are three of the top-15 teams in the country in 3-point rate (how often you shoot 3s). Of course, Kentucky is another team that loves the 3 even if they’ve cooled off since an en-fuego start. If you’re throwing together a random team, perhaps you’re better off with an offense built around the 3, since these teams largely don’t have the chemistry and continuity to run advanced inside-the-arc offense routinely.
Games to Watch
Not a ton of fun with semester finals and Christmas break going on. Nonetheless, there’s a couple of intriguing matchups to snack on throughout the week.
Tues: North Carolina @ (9) Florida
Wed: (13) Oklahoma @ (14) Michigan
Fri: (22) Cincinnati @ Dayton
Sat: (25) Mississippi State @ Memphis
Sat: (24) UCLA @ North Carolina
Sat: (11) Purdue @ (2) Auburn