Week 2 Recap: Champions Classic Fallout + An Electric CBB Friday
HELLOOOO my friends in College Hoops,
Welcome back to the BracketBound Newsletter, we hope you had a FANTASTIC Week 2 of this College Basketball season - I assume you did because it was a hell of a week. And apologies for the newsletter being just ever-so-slightly tardy this week - BracketBound is attempting to be present on vacation with his wonderful partner, who is celebrating her birthday on Thursday. If you know who she is, feel free to wish her a happy birthday during a spare moment between that day’s games (maybe after that great Baylor / St. John’s game and before Tennessee and Virginia combine to score 90 points). This works out well for yours truly because it frees up Feast Week for maximum watchability - we’re all about compromise and mutual benefit in the BracketBound household. Vacations during the season make it tough to keep up and get blogs out, but if you thought we were skipping this week…well, you were WRONG. We can have it all, my friends, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. ANYWAYS, to recap last week, we started the week off HOT on Tuesday with the Champions Classic, always a fun way to dip our toes into some fun big program matchups early in the season, maybe get an idea for which of those teams are overhyped/underhyped. Friday was another great slate - which is somewhat abnormal for college basketball, but I kind of think the sport should lay claim to Fridays during football season. I’m personally very okay with loading up on good games that day and reducing the overlap with football on Saturdays and Sundays. I think if I was the College Basketball Czar, that might be my strategy for Fall weekends. Saturday and Sunday had a few good games sprinkled in as well - and we’ll get into all that! But first, let’s go through the 10 Most Important Things from Week 2:
Kentucky’s experience beat Duke’s talent 77-72, BBN officially embraces the Pope era, and the Cooper Flagg narrative shifts a bit. This was a phenomenal, high level college basketball game - it’s exactly the kind of game that we hope the Champions Classic delivers each year. Duke looked like the more talented, better overall basketball team through the first 3/4 of the game. They were up 9 at half, and held a stable lead until after the Under-12 timeout. But their offense went catatonic in the second half - Kentucky outscored the Blue Devils 40-26 in the final 20 mins. Cooper Flagg’s performance lived up to expectations in his first primetime game - until the last couple of minutes. While he was far and away the best player in the game, tallying 26 pts / 11 rebounds / 2 assists / 2 blocks - he also turned the ball over 3 times in the last 2 minutes, and twice in the last 12 seconds of the game. This late-game meltdown resulted in a mixed reaction to his performance - sure, he was the incredible #1 overall pick that we were promised for almost the entire game, but a few slip-ups in the final 2 minutes had the media reminding viewers that he’s only 17 years old and has a long way to go. I think this is probably just a one-off bad ending to a game for him individually, and that he has a lot of winning ahead of him this season, but it kind of feels like the media is giving him a free pass. “As long as you score a lot and record highlights, we don’t expect you to win big games because you’re young!” It’s a prime situation for him personally, but it’s potentially an alarming start for Duke fans. I’ll be interested to see how Scheyer and the team react in similar situations throughout the season. Remember, one of our biggest knocks on Duke after last season was that Scheyer’s teams can rely on talent to make something out of nothing on offense too often - and that can come back to bite teams when the ball sticks, defenses adjust, etc. They’ve got some big games coming up against Arizona and Kansas, so we’ll see if they turn things around. As for Kentucky…the fanbase seems like it’s all-in. They beat a team that loses the same way Calipari used to, by fielding a team that was the exact opposite of how Calipari constructed rosters. Andrew Carr had 17 pts, and Otega Oweh had 15, including 4 critical late free throws to ice the win. I can’t imagine a more vindicating win for Pope to begin his tenure at the helm in Lexington. I’m incredibly interested to see how good this Kentucky team will be - I think they might be much better than folks anticipated.
Purdue defends the Big Ten’s honor by winning 87-78 over Alabama, doesn’t look like the Top 3 team we thought they would be…yet. Just when we thought Purdue might take a step back and the Big Ten would be pretty mid - they defeat the team that many had ranked #1 to start this season. Braden Smith didn’t even have his best game - shot 6/18 FGs for 17 pts - but Trey Kaufman-Renn had 26 pts and 8 boards, and freshman CJ Cox hit 3/3 from deep during a 13-0 run in the second half to overcome the Rolling Tide. The Boilermakers shot 9/16 from 3 (56%), while Alabama struggled shooting from 3 yet again (9/29, 31%). Alabama’s offense doesn’t seem to be firing on all cylinders, at least not to the same extent as last season. They’re only shooting 30.4% from 3 as a team, about 7% lower than last year. Sears was fine but not great (5/15 FGs, 15 pts), and although the Tide’s freshman point guard Labaron Philon is a surprising bright spot who helped keep them in the game on Friday, it wasn’t enough to overcome how poorly the rest of the team played and how unimpressive the Tide have been to start this season. And it’s not getting any easier for them - their next 5 games are Illinois, Houston, Rutgers, Carolina, and Creighton.
Wisconsin stuns Arizona 103-88, and is once again probably not as bad as anticipated. It feels like we do this every couple of years now - Wisconsin’s roster turns over, the new names aren’t very flashy so we don’t expect much, then they play a Top 15 team at home and BAM, beat the hell out of ‘em. That’s exactly what happened on Friday, anyway - Wisconsin, who we rarely expect to break 70 points in a game, put up 103 on Arizona, beating them 103-88! The Badgers hit 12 threes, but both team’s scores were inflated because both took 40+ free throws. That’s right, 87 free throws shot in one game. Despicable officiating. John Tonje - a transfer from Mizzou who averaged under 3 pts last season - took advantage, hitting 21/22 from the charity stripe and notching 41 points total. John Blackwell had 14 pts and Max Klesmit had 13. Caleb Love had one of his “Bad Caleb Love” nights, scoring only 6 pts on 2/13 shooting (0/6 from 3). The Wildcats only shot 4/23 from behind the 3 pt line, but Bradley, Lewis, and Townsend all had good games overall - Caleb stinking and John Tonje very much not stinking was the difference.
Charleston won the game of the year (so far) with a 2OT buzzer beater to beat FAU, 119-116. And Ante Brzovic - the second leading scorer in D1 right now - hit the shot of the season to pull it off. Just watch this clip. The whole end of regulation and both overtimes were thrilling, but the ending is just the best.
Marquette survives Maryland’s upset threat in College Park, 78-74. This was a very fun game to watch - the Maryland crowd was JUICED for this game, which is generally a good sign for a fan base that hasn’t had much to get excited about in some time, and unfortunately the Terps failed yet again to give them something to celebrate. Maryland was leading by 4 heading into the second half, then Kam Jones went absolutely ballistic, scoring 18 of his 28 to propel the Golden Eagles. He is so damn fun to watch, man - I think he could be a First Team All American at this rate. There’s a lot of season ahead, but I’d take him over RJ Davis and Mark Sears right now! Both teams missed opportunities late in the game to move momentum in their direction, until Marquette’s Stevie Mitchell (who had 18 pts) secured the win with some clutch free throws. The good news / silver lining for Maryland fans is that Derik Queen and Ja’Kobi Gillespie are incredible - they had 24 apiece to lead the Terrapins.
Kansas takes down Michigan State 77-69 in early Champions Classic game, and Bill Self becomes the winningest coach in Kansas history. The first half of this game had those of us watching tending to our bleeding eyeballs (KU 30-24) - but the second half was much more entertaining (KU 47-45). The Jayhawks leaned heavily on Hunter Dickinson, who had 28 pts and 12 rebounds. Izzo played two centers for much of the game to take KJ Adams out of the game - a very interesting strategy, and it worked as Adams finished 1/7 from the field with 7 pts. And while Kansas didn’t exactly light it up from the field (41%), or from 3 (29%), they shot better than Sparty (35% FG / 13% 3FG), which was good enough to win. Bill Self won his 591st game as the head coach of the Jayhawks in ugly fashion, passing Phog Allen, the father of basketball coaching and the namesake of Kansas’ home arena.
Rick Daddy wins the Pitino Bowl! Slick Rick and his St. John’s Red Storm defeated his son Richard’s New Mexico Lobos in a father/son clash in New York on Sunday. St. John’s scored inside a lot more easily and beat up on the Lobos on the boards, outrebounding them 49-32. All 5 St. John’s starters scored in double figures, and were led by RJ Luis Jr, who had 21 points.
K-State struggles in first real test, losing 76-65 to LSU, and Cam Carter performs in his old stomping grounds. Cam, the former Kansas State Wildcat, shot 6/11 (3/6 from 3) and scored a game-high 20 points in a big road win for LSU in Manhattan. Only Dug McDaniel and David N’Guessan looked impressive for the Cats, both scoring 16 points. They were the only double-digit scorers on the team. Kansas State is starting to draw attention for the underwhelming play of (most of) their transfers thus far. Dug McDaniel and Coleman Hawkins are both averaging under 10 points per game - probably not what Jerome Tang was hoping for if he truly did pay $2.1 million for Hawkins to join the team. This is not the start the Cats needed if they want to make the NCAA Tournament - the LSU loss puts a lot of pressure on K-State to beat St. John’s in what is their only remaining valuable non-con game, and to perform in conference play, which will be an absolute gauntlet.
Texas A&M and Xavier get big wins at home. Texas A&M convincingly beat Ohio State, 78-64, despite hitting fewer field goals. The Aggies hit 32/40 from free throw, compared to Ohio State’s 16/22. I won’t say I hate watching this A&M team play - but I certainly don’t enjoy it. It’s just fouls, free throws, and aggressive defense and rebounding. Give them credit for taking Ohio State out of their offensive flow for most of the game, I guess. But I think about A&M as just less polished Houston - good at exploiting their advantages to win, but sometimes at the expense of enjoyable basketball. Meanwhile, Xavier got its first big win of the season over a solid Wake Forest team, 75-60. Hildreth, Spillers, and Friedrichsen struggled for Wake; whereas, Ryan Conwell had a great day, scoring 21 pts to lead Xavier. Dayvion McKnight added 13 pts and Zach Freemantle had 11 pts.
Villanova loses…again. 70-60 to Virginia. Kyle Neptune FireWatch intensifies - I don’t know if he makes it to January at this rate.
Other Games & Off The Court Happenings:
Arizona State took down Grand Canyon, 87-76. The Sun Devils might be more frisky than we thought after Duke dismantled them in that scrimmage. Freshman guard Joson Sanon had 21 pts to lead ASU.
Florida beat in-state rival Florida State. Walter Clayton Jr. had 25 pts to lead all scorers - he’s playing really well to start the season.
Michigan beat TCU, 76-64. It’s Dusty May’s first big win as head coach of the Wolverines!
Loyola Chicago hands Princeton its first loss of the season, in a battle of NCAA Tournament hopeful mid-majors.
Butler defeated SMU, 81-70. Jahmyl Telfort had 19 pts (17 in second half), and the Bulldogs shot 46% from 3.
Pitt blows out WVU in the Backyard Brawl, 86-62. Rough start for Darian DeVries’ team.
Indiana blows out South Carolina 87-71 at home. Rice and Mgbako were outstanding, and the Hoosiers shot 47% from 3…that’s a good sign for Hoosiers fans
Ole Miss takes care of Colorado State, 84-69
Nevada smokes Santa Clara, 85-59
Saint Mary’s pulls out win over Nebraska in tight 77-74 game at the Sanford Pentagon. Freshman Mikey Lewis had 23 pts for SMC, while senior Brice Williams had 28 for the Huskers
Boise State beats Clemson convincingly 84-71, handing Tigers first loss of their season
Cal upsets USC 71-66 to rebound after bad loss at Vanderbilt. Stojakovic had 20 for the Golden Bears.
Alright, those are the updates - let’s check in on our Top 40 Teams That Matter:
National Title Favorites
Kansas
Gonzaga
Auburn
Serious Final Four Contenders
UCONN
Houston
Iowa State
Kentucky
North Carolina
Tennessee
Duke
Purdue
Could Make a Final Four (and Beat Most Teams on a Good Day)
Alabama
Creighton
Marquette
Indiana
St. John’s
Texas Tech
Baylor
Florida
Arizona
Could Make an Elite Eight Run, but Probably Not Make a Final Four
Illinois
Xavier
Ohio State
Cincinnati
Arkansas
Mississippi State
Should Make the Tournament, but Sweet Sixteen is the Ceiling
Memphis
Maryland
Michigan State
Dayton
Oregon
Texas A&M
New Mexico
Wake Forest
BYU
Texas
Rutgers
Northwestern
UCLA
VCU
Honorable Mention (No Order): UCF, San Francisco, Michigan, Saint Mary’s, Ole Miss, Pitt, Boise State, Penn State, Nevada, LSU, and Still Not Villanova
Big Games This Week:
Now, we begin to enter Pre-Feast Week, which to be honest is a little slower than the average week will be going forward, but you have to think about it like actual Thanksgiving. We all know that each and every one of us is going to stuff our damn faces and eat like we’re going to the chair next week. The same is true for watching college hoops - we’re going to consume it - a delicious version of it, I might add - for several days, until we are near physical illness and incapable of consuming any more. So how does one prepare for that, in the preceding week? We just behave like normal - maybe even eat a little healthier than usual so that our bodies are fully prepared to capitalize on the upcoming Feast(s). Again, the same is true for college ball - watch the good games of course, but don’t gorge yourself, save it for next week.
Tuesday, Nov 19
Purdue @ Marquette
Wednesday, Nov 20
Illinois @ Alabama
Thursday, Nov 21
Shriners Children’s Charleston Classic!
Miami vs. Drake
Oklahoma State vs. FAU
Seton Hall vs. VCU
Vanderbilt vs. Nevada
Baha Mar Bahamas Championship!
Baylor vs. St. John’s
Virginia vs. Tennessee
Legends Classic!
Syracuse vs. Texas
Texas Tech vs. Saint Joseph’s
Memphis vs. San Francisco
Oregon vs. Oregon State
Friday, Nov 22
Shriners Children’s Charleston Classic Round 2 Games!
Baha Mar Bahamas Championship & 3rd Place Games!
Legends Classic Championship & 3rd Place Games!
Greenbrier Tip-Off:
Wisconsin vs. UCF
Pitt vs. LSU
Nebraska @ Creighton
Mississippi State @ SMU
Duke @ Arizona
Saturday, Nov 23
Marquette vs. Georgia (Nassau, Bahamas)
Cincinnati @ Georgia Tech
Sunday, Nov 24
Shriners Children’s Charleston Classic Final Round Games!
Greenbrier Tip-Off Championship & 3rd Place Games!
St. John’s vs. Georgia (Nassau, Bahamas)
Villanova vs. Maryland (Newark, NJ - give me Maryland to cover)
Alright y’all, thanks again for reading this week! Hope you find some fun games to keep you satiated this week - I’ll be tweeting out some thoughts & picks for games whenever I’m not sipping tropical beverages and getting wrecked by waves while attempting to surf. I’ll do a big preview for Feast Week over next weekend, then will be much more plugged in that whole week. Have a great week, friends!
Humbly Yours,
BracketBound