By Aidan Joly
It was a busy Friday in college basketball with the best slate of the season so far last night. Let’s get right into what happened.
First off, Arizona picked up a great win, going into Cameron Indoor Stadium and taking down No. 2 Duke 78-73 in the first ranked-on-ranked game of the season.
The Wildcats proved to be threats to win the national championship in the victory. Kylan Boswell was most impressive, scoring 12 points on 4-7 shooting and also grabbed eight rebounds in the win. All five Wildcat starters finished in double figures, led by Keshad Johnson, who had 14. It was a balanced scoring attack from Tommy Lloyd’s squad all-around.
One player that you need to be impressed with is Caleb Love. Love was returning to Cameron in just his second game since leaving North Carolina. He struggled most of the way, but kept his head up and made some key free throws down the stretch that helped Arizona put the game away. He also defended well. It could have been easy for Love to sulk after the win because he didn’t have a good game, but he did not. That shows maturity and that he can be a leader for this team.
This was also the first of a home-and-home between Arizona and Duke, with a return game at the McKale Center in Tucson next year. We need more of these in college basketball. Top teams, going head-to-head in the first week or two of the season. It brings eyeballs to the sport early on and it’s only helpful. Of course, there is a time and place for neutral site games, but it was amazing to see the Cameron Crazies at a 10 on November 10.
More true home and road games!
Elsewhere, Virginia picked up a 73-70 neutral site win against Florida in Charlotte. It’s a 2-0 start for Tony Bennett’s Cavaliers team after they made plays down the stretch and were able to walk out with a win.
Blake Buchanan was huge from the free throw line, going 10-16 from the charity stripe and finished with a team-high 18 points. He made up for bad shooting nights from Reece Beekman and Isaac McKneely.
I want to give a quick shoutout to Florida’s Micah Handlogten. He was terrific, albeit in a losing effort, finishing with 14 points and 14 rebounds – eight of them offensive – and played tough defense in the paint. In the preseason I had him marked down as a player who could make a huge difference for the Gators, and through two games, he has. It will be exciting to see how he does the rest of the way.
Memphis went on the road and picked up a thoroughly impressive 70-55 win against Missouri. The Tigers did it in the second game of Penny Hardaway’s three game suspension, so former Mississippi State and Western Kentucky coach Rick Stansbury was running the show.
The Tigers looked poised the whole way and were led by Jahvon Quinerly, who had 18 points on 7-10 shooting and had eight rebounds. Jaykwon Walton had 13 points on 5-8 shooting as well.
It’s tough to see the American getting more than three or so bids to the NCAA tournament, but this is a good early-season win for Memphis that may help tip the scales in their favor in a few months.
Speaking of those types of wins, BYU picked up an equally impressive win, taking down No. 17 San Diego State in Provo 74-65. The Cougars had five players in double figures in the win and out-rebounded the Aztecs 35-25.
Having moved to the Big 12 this season, BYU will absolutely have more chances to pick up quality wins along the way than it did in the WCC, but taking down a ranked team that was just in the national championship game, a win that will probably be a Quad 1 win when it is all said and done, it says a lot. This win will stay with BYU all the way to March.
Dayton, the best team in the Atlantic 10 coming into the season, hit 12 of 23 shots from behind the arc but struggled everywhere else, falling 71-66 to Northwestern in Evanston.
The loss shouldn’t hurt Dayton all too much, though. Northwestern has not cracked the top 50 in KenPom following the win. Ryan Langborn was impressive, putting up 19 points on 6-9 shooting, while Boo Buie had 15 points and Brooks Barnhizer had 13 points and 10 boards.
Now, to get to the bad.
Louisville…. lost to Chattanooga 81-71. It comes one game after the Cardinals trailed most of the way to UMBC before it won by one point. Chattanooga was picked to finish fifth in the Southern Conference this season in a 10-team league, and the Cardinals lose to them. It was a reprise of last season and a lot needs to be done to make sure this entire season isn’t a repeat of last year.
Louisville has already dropped 68 spots in KenPom since Monday, going from No. 109 to No. 177. That comes after it finished at No. 290 last season. How far will this slide go?
Kenny Payne is now 5-29 at Louisville, with losses to the aforementioned Chattanooga, Bellarmine, Wright State, Appalachian State and Lipscomb. That doesn’t even include losses to Division II teams in exhibitions, one last year and one this year. We might be at a point where Payne making it to the end of the season is a stretch.
LSU lost to Nicholls 68-66, with Jalen White hitting a corner three in the dying seconds to give Nicholls the win.
It is likely going to be another struggle for LSU this season as it continues the rebuild. Nicholls’ 28-year-old head coach Tevon Saddler, the youngest head coach in all of Division I, picks up his first career win against a foe from the SEC. Congratulations to him.
Some other notes:
- No. 9 Tennessee picks up an 80-70 road win against Wisconsin. Northern Colorado transfer Dalton Knecht had 24 points in the win. He is going to be a star.
- No. 15 Texas A&M similarly goes on the road and beats Ohio State 73-66. The Aggies had three players (Tyrece Radford, Wade Taylor IV and Henry Coleman III) with 20+ points.
- Georgia beats Wake Forest 80-77.
- Davidson with a minor upset, beating Maryland 64-61 on a neutral floor. Bobby Durkin hit a three with nine seconds left to give the Wildcats the win.
- Sean Pedulla had a great night for Virginia Tech, but it was not enough as the Hokies lost to South Carolina 79-77.
- PJ Hall had 27 points for Clemson as the Tigers beat UAB 77-76.
AJ Hoops 