USA TODAY International Edition
Pac-12 duo impresses early
Arizona, USC off to strong starts
College basketball’s opening weekend provided a first glimpse at some of the nation’s best men’s teams and introduced us to some of the newest superstars for the 2017-18 campaign.
With plenty of games between elite teams and inferior opponents — of which most took care of business — that’s hardly enough viewing to elicit any season conclusions. But it did outline instant takeaways and themes to look for moving forward.
1. Top-ranked Duke looks scary good
This Marvin Bagley III freshman kid is the real deal. The 6-10 forward looked like the best player in the country, stuffing the stat sheet and putting on highlight reels in the Blue Devils’ wins against low-level foes Utah Valley (9969 Saturday) and Elon (97-68 Friday). Bagley combined for 49 points and 20 rebounds in two games.
Two other positives for Duke: Grayson Allen (40 points in two games, including 10 made three-pointers) was back in All-American form and seems fit for his new role as the veteran leader of this squad. The other is point guard Trevon Duval, who combined for 20 assists in two games. With Bagley, Allen and a handful of other explosive offensive options for Duval to dish to, consider the true floor general a front-runner to lead the nation in dimes.
Seeing the Blue Devils blitz through a Utah Valley team that hung with Kentucky the night before helped punctuate the program’s solid weekend.
We knew going into the weekend that Mike Krzyzewski had a wide array of talent on paper. But last season a similarly hyped Duke team didn’t pan out that well. So seeing all that talent come together was a nice snapshot of the team’s potential, which will be further tested Tuesday against No. 2 Michigan State in the Champion’s Classic.
2. Southeastern Conference race will be close between four teams
The Southeastern Conference as a league is poised to have a better overall season than previous years, evidenced by a 13-0 mark on opening night. But what will be most interesting to watch is the conference’s race for a champion. No. 4 Kentucky didn’t exactly come out firing on all cylinders against Utah Valley, and John Calipari will have major fine-tuning to do to get his freshmanladen roster in position to again vie for the conference championship.
Then there’s No. 7 Florida, which has the potential to vault to No. 1 should Mike White’s squad find a winning chemistry and play up to its full potential behind explosive guard KeVaughn Allen.
But most impressive was Texas A&M, which drubbed No. 10 West Virginia by 23 in a major season-opening statement. And we cannot forget Missouri, which eased past Iowa State without its best player, freshman phenom Michael Porter Jr. (who had two points because of precautionary playing time with a minor injury).
These four teams demand the most attention.
3. Pac-12 elites Arizona, USC are exceptionally good
Interestingly enough, both programs are implicated in the sport’s FBI probe, which could easily distract or derail a thriving season from happening. On the court, though, both look stellar and figure to give fans a fun Pac-12 race.
Allonzo Trier erupted for 32 points in the fifth-ranked Wildcats’ 101-67 season-opening win against Northern Arizona, while his new teammate, freshman DeAndre Ayton (19 points, 12 rebounds), shined in his debut.
Southern California coach Andy Enfield has a dangerously good team (with well-balanced offensive potency) that perhaps didn’t get enough preseason love. Friday’s season-opening 84-42 win against Cal State-Fullerton was a nice wake-up call to any East Coast bias or USC-cannot-be-good type of skepticism.
4. Rebuilding first season at Indiana will be Archie Miller’s toughest test
Miller’s Hoosiers debut was spoiled by a 90-69 loss to in-state mid-major Indiana State. The loss was ugly (19 turnovers, 4-for-18 shooting from three) and immediately thrusts Miller into the same anxiety pool that Tom Crean was in before his dismissal, which is fans optimistic but unsatisfied, growing impatient and understandably angry after each loss.
Miller is the type of coach who can lead Indiana to Big Ten titles and even Final Four berths. But it’s Year 1, and of all the new coaches he might have inherited the barest cupboard. His biggest challenge will be the early stages of the program restructuring. At Dayton, he guided an underdog team to the Elite Eight. And the very next season he guided the Flyers to a 27-win season despite a depleted roster that featured no player taller than 6-6. So he knows how to get a lot out of a little. But doing it at the Big Ten level will put his coaching chops to the test.
5. FBI probe will loom large
A weekend’s worth of games won’t wash away the sport’s most controversy-plagued offseason in lieu of the elephant-in-the-room FBI probe. But games being played does help distract from the dark cloud hovering over all of college basketball.
College basketball coaches have often complained that their offseasons spent recruiting are actually harder than the actual coaching they’re hired to do in-season.
In the same sense, one could separate this season into two components of pay-for-play recruiting scandal and results-driven competition. Of course, they’re ultimately intertwined, and should more bombshells unravel from the FBI’s continuing investigation, we’ll see just how much they go together based on season impact.