Oklahoma’s Young, Arizona State surprise
College men’s basketball intrigues during 1st month
What we have learned from the first month-plus of the college men’s basketball season.
1. The FBI scandal has faded from view — for now, at least
At the start of the season, all anyone could talk about was the fact that four assistants from major programs, plus two big-time sneaker executives, had been arrested in September for their part in a corruption scheme. And Louisville fired Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino. The FBI seemed to have exposed the seedy underbelly of AAU ball, and a lot of programs were mixed up in it.
But there hasn’t been much news since then, and the teams implicated seem to have adjusted. Most notable is Arizona, a popular preseason Final Four pick that had a brutal first couple of weeks but has recovered and climbed back into the top 25.
2. The best freshman in the country is not who you think
With respect to Duke’s Marvin Bagley III and Arizona’s Deandre Ayton, the standout of this year’s freshman class resides in Norman, Okla. Hometown star Trae Young, a 6-2 point guard who picked Oklahoma over offers from, among others, Kansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma State, has been nothing short of outstanding for the Sooners (8-1).
Young leads the country in scoring
(28.8 points per game) but might be an even better passer (8.8 assists per game, third in the nation). Young turned heads at the PK80 Invitational when he scored
43 points, handed out seven assists and grabbed four rebounds in a 90-80 win against Oregon. But his most impressive outing came Saturday, when he scored 29 points and recorded 10 assists in a win at No. 3 Wichita State.
3. Arizona State has been the biggest surprise
Quick, name a team that has two more impressive wins than the Sun Devils, who thumped Xavier on a neutral floor, then stunned Kansas in Lawrence (Arizona State beat Vanderbilt on Sunday and is 10-0 for the first time). You can’t, can you? Bobby Hurley’s group has been outstanding, led by senior guard Tra Holder (21.2 ppg, 5.6 rebounds per game, 5.2 apg).
Four ASU players average in double figures, and the Sun Devils hit on 42.7% of their attempts from three (they shoot almost 24 a game). Arizona State went from unranked in the preseason to No. 6. The Pac-12 is all over the place in non-conference play, which means the Sun Devils have as good a chance as anyone to finish in the top third of the conference and secure their first NCAA tournament bid since 2014.
4. Teams are scared to go on road
Non-conference play is great because it gives us a lot of awesome tournament-type atmosphere games (hello, PK80!) with a lot of good teams in one place. But the drawback to all the great neutral court games is that a lot of teams use those as a way to avoid scheduling tough road tests. That’s how it feels anyway — and that makes everyone tough to evaluate.
Take Kentucky, for example. The Wildcats are the youngest team, so creating a somewhat soft schedule makes sense. But how can anyone know how good Kentucky really is when its toughest game came in Chicago against Kansas before the Wildcats spent most of December beating up on teams such as East Tennessee State, Troy and Monmouth?
Kentucky is hardly the only team guilty of this. Florida, which turned heads at the PK80 with a double-overtime win vs. Gonzaga and a narrow loss to Duke, hasn’t played a real road game either. Ditto for Texas Tech and TCU, two other teams who’ve appeared in the rankings. There’s a good chance that as conference play heats up we’ll learn a lot more about a lot of Top 25 teams.
5. Upperclassmen still rule school
We live in an era of one-and-dones, and yes it’s very fun to watch all these freshmen come in and light up college basketball for a season. But we should never underestimate the value of experience: The two best players (Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges) on the No. 1 team (Villanova) are upperclassmen. Brunson, a junior, averages a team-high 18.5 points and has handed out 53 assists. A starter since his freshman year — when the Wildcats won the 2016 title — Brunson plays with a veteran’s poise because, well, he’s a veteran. Redshirt junior Mikal Bridges (17.1 points, 6.1 rebounds) clearly benefited from a redshirt season in 2014-15, soaking up everything he could from Villanova’s superstars before developing into one of the Wildcats’ most dependable players. Come crunchtime, Nova can lean on these guys’ experience — and that’s a rare commodity in this day and age.