By Aidan Joly
One of the best tournaments of the early season finished up Sunday night in Portland. 16 teams in two brackets, the Phil Knight Legacy and the Phil Knight Invitational. Here are some takeaways from the games that were played throughout the week.
North Carolina exposed
The preseason No. 1 team hadn’t impressed before the tournament, so it seemed like almost a definite that the Tar Heels would lose a game in Portland. It lost two, a 70-65 loss to Iowa State on Friday and then lost a 103-101 quadruple overtime game to No. 18 Alabama on Sunday. Losing to Alabama is fine, but the Tar Heels finally got beat against TJ Otzelberger’s Cyclones. The Cyclones did it thanks to a magical night from Caleb Grill, who finished with 31 points on 11-15 shooting and 7-11 from three. The offense of UNC seems fine, it’s the defense that needs work. It will be fine in the ACC, but is not close to the best team in the country. Right now, it sits at #21 in KenPom.
Duke not getting necessary production
Duke had the best recruiting class this year, getting three of the top four prospects via 247 Sports in Dariq Whitehead, Dereck Lively and Kyle Filipowski, and not to mention Mark Mitchell at #20 and Tyrese Proctor at #27. In Portland, Duke went 2-1, beating Oregon State by just three points and Xavier by seven, before a blowout 75-56 loss to Purdue in the Legacy bracket final. Filipowski has been great and Mitchell and Proctor are both serviceable, but Whitehead and Lively have been disappointing and have already seen their minutes drop. To be a national title contender with freshman, you have to have them perform. So far, that is not happening.
Villanova looks bad
Is the sky falling already? The Wildcats went 0-3 in Portland with losses to Iowa State, Portland and an Oregon team that had just six scholarship players available. That drops them to 2-5 on the season and 0-5 against top 200 KenPom teams. Shorthanded due to injuries or not, new coach or not, this is a jarring turn. The Wildcats are out of good non-conference opportunities too. Not saying Nova is done, but this team is in a bad place right now.
Shantay Legens stock is up
Having taken over a program that is traditionally in the basement of the WCC, Shantay Legens had the Portland program at 19 wins last year in his first season at the helm and went 7-7 in conference play. This week, one of the two host schools of this tournament grabbed a win against the aforementioned Villanova and kept it close in its two other games, hanging around for about 39 minutes against UNC before losing by eight. Then, it only lost by one to Michigan State on Sunday, 78-77. The WCC is always a four-dog race, but the Pilots could make themselves known as the “best of the rest” in that league. Legens, still only 41, is a rising star in coaching.
UConn is legit
After going 3-0 in Portland and winning the Invitational bracket to improve its record to 8-0, an argument can be made for UConn to be a top 15 team in the country. It rolled over Oregon 83-59 on Thursday before beating Alabama 82-67 on Friday night before putting a final 71-53 beatdown on Iowa State on Sunday. Adama Sanogo has taken that jump to be a star, East Carolina transfer Tristen Newton has been a fantastic addition, sophomore Jordan Hawkins has made a jump in year two and Alex Karaban is an impact freshman. The Huskies have a ton of good role players too. UConn should be the new favorite to win the Big East at this point.
Iowa State’s big week
The Cyclones had a big week, going 2-1 in the bracket and are now 5-1 on the season, including the program’s first win against a No. 1 team since 2016 and just the second since 1957. The aforementioned Grill had one of the best performances from any player on any team in recent memory against UNC, meanwhile a pair of St. Bonaventure transfers in Jaren Holmes and Osun Osunniyi have been great additions. Otzelberger, in his second year in Ames, has this program going in the right direction.
Purdue’s massive weekend, Edey is a star
Purdue was the other team that went 3-0 in Portland and won the legacy bracket with wins over West Virginia, Gonzaga and Duke. The Boilermakers are now 6-0 on the season. However, it was 7-4 center Zach Edey who has taken centerstage, having scored 24, 23 and 21 points in the three wins and has averaged 21.7 points and 12 rebounds per game so far. Matt Painter had limited his minutes through his first two years, but he now averaged almost 30 per game after never averaging more than 20 and it’s paying dividends.
AJ Hoops 