By Aidan Joly
The biggest weekend so far this season in college hoops is in the books. Let’s get into what happened.
The weekend started with a big one on Friday night as UConn cruised to a win against Gonzaga in Seattle, a game that I was in attendance for.
We learned that UConn is a real threat to go back-to-back as national champions, while it remains possible for Gonzaga to have something of a down year, which it now appears to be having as it drops to 8-3 and fell to No. 15 in the country in the new AP poll released on Monday afternoon. Some more extended thoughts on that game can be found here.
The biggest game on Saturday was No. 3 Purdue taking down No. 1 Arizona 92-84 in Indianapolis, a win that propelled the Boilermakers back to No. 1 in the country for the first time since it lost to Northwestern on Dec. 1.
In that game, Fletcher Loyer and Braden Smith were the difference-makers, with 27 and 26 points respectively while finishing a combined 20-33 from the field, a great night from those two. Purdue’s offense has been nothing short of terrific this season and showed it again against one of the best defensive teams in the country in the Wildcats.
Caleb Love and Keshad Johnson were both great for Arizona, finishing with 29 and 24 points respectively. On the flip side, Jaden Bradley was a complete no-show, not scoring in 17 minutes and only took one shot.
All in all, these are both very good teams and this was a heavyweight fight between these two.
Earlier in the day, Kansas came back to beat Indiana 75-71 at Assembly Hall. Trey Galloway had perhaps one of the best games in a losing effort that we will see all season long as he finished with 28 points on 12-17 from the field. He fouled out in the closing minutes, which was something of a blow for the Hoosiers.
The loss is a huge missed opportunity for Mike Woodson and the Hoosiers, who seemingly had the game won on several occasions throughout the afternoon. A win against Kansas would have lasted all the way to March, but instead Indiana drops to 7-3 on the season with its best win coming against Michigan.
A question about Indiana that should be asked is the job security of Woodson. It’s tough to say the seat is hot at this point, but it is surely starting to warm, especially so with the names that may pop up in this year’s carousel. Despite signing a 10-year extension to stay at Florida Atlantic, Dusty May seems to be a real candidate for the Louisville job that seems set to open any day now.
It’s worth nothing that May is an Indiana alum who served as a student manager for Bob Knight in the late 90s and may covet the job in Bloomington. Could this be a situation where Indiana wants him and parts ways with Woodson, possibly before they should, in order to get May? Time will tell with that one. Maybe May will wait a few more years to make the jump, or he will stay to turn FAU into a powerhouse in the American Athletic.
On the flip side, it is also worth noting that the last time Indiana went with a coach from a smaller school who succeeded at a high level – Archie Miller at Dayton – it was pretty much a disaster. It feels like May is a better fit, though. Indiana may be wary of potentially making the same mistake twice. Again, we’ll see.
Moving on to a different Big Ten school, Michigan State blew the doors off of No. 6 Baylor, beating the Bears 88-64 in Detroit. What happened here? The Spartans were 5-4 heading into the game, had lost three of its last four and only had one win against a high-major opponent (Butler).
Tom Izzo’s squad got the get-right performance it needed behind 25 points from Tyson Walker, 14 from AJ Hoggard and 11 from Tre Holloman.
The big men are still something of a question, but this has to be confidence-boosting win for this group.
Speaking of schools that have a 5-4 record, enter the UCLA Bruins, who dropped a 67-60 decision to Ohio State in Atlanta on Saturday. After a 3-0 start against low-major opponents, the Bruins have lost four of six with those only wins coming against Division II Chaminade in Maui, and UC Riverside. In that time, it has lost to Marquette, Gonzaga, Villanova and now Ohio State.
The issue here seems to be depth. Sebastian Mack, Adem Bona, Lazar Stefanovic and Dylan Andrews have all performed anywhere from decent to well, but outside of that there is not many options on offense. All four of them average in double figures but then it drops off to Berke Buyuktuncel, who has averaged 5.3 PPG in limited minutes this season.
We discussed the Louisville job earlier and it’s time to bring it up again. Mick Cronin has spent the vast majority of his coaching career in that area of the country. He’s now in his fifth season at UCLA and some seem to be wondering if the Louisville job will be enough to draw him back closer to home. Again, time will tell with that one.
The UCLA-Ohio State game was the first game of the day at the CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta. The second game was Kentucky taking on North Carolina, with the Wildcats picking up a very good 87-83 win against the Tar Heels in what was a heck of a game. It stayed a one or two possession game the entire way, with Antonio Reeves hitting a clutch three with 2:56 to go that gave Kentucky a 79-74 win, a three that really ended up being the dagger at the end of the day. Reeves finished 2-9 from the field, but hit the big one in the end.
It was a balanced attack for John Calipari’s squad, with seven players scoring at least eight points, led by 17 off the bench from Rob Dillingham.
This seems to be the best Kentucky team in the past few seasons, now sitting at 8-2. It did lose a weird one to UNC Wilmington and that loss will hurt the entire season and may cost a seed line, but the Wildcats have two wins against top-10 teams after this game and will have plenty of chances to pick up good wins when it starts SEC play on Jan. 6. It’ll face Louisville on Thursday (will that be Kenny Payne’s final game with the Cardinals?).
North Carolina has something of a strange resume so far, sitting at 7-3 with its three losses coming to Villanova, UConn and now Kentucky. It has wins against Arkansas and Tennessee, though. The Tar Heels seem to be a bit better than expected. They do have one conference game under their belts – a 78-70 win against Florida State on Dec. 2 – it will be fascinating to see what this team really looks like in ACC play.
A few quick hitters as we try to wrap this up. Memphis continued its hot start, handing Clemson its first loss of the season, beating them 79-77.
Memphis is now 8-2 on the season, with losses coming to undefeated Ole Miss and putting up a stinker against Villanova. David Jones has been a stud for Penny Hardaway’s squad, averaging 20.3 PPG thus far, while Jahvon Quinerly has been a great sidekick, averaging 13.7 PPG so far. This team will also add Nae’Qwan Tomlin, who was dismissed from Kansas State earlier this month. Tomlin is expected to suit up for the Tigers sometime in the next few weeks. Tomlin averaged 10.4 points and 5.9 rebounds per game last year for Kansas State and will be a really quality addition.
For a team that looks to be a good number two in the AAC, they could pass FAU. The Tigers entered the top 25 for the first time this year on Monday, checking in at No. 23.
A team that’s losing games, but not necessarily struggling right now, is Alabama. The Tide have now lost four of their last six to drop to 6-4 after an 85-82 overtime loss to Creighton on Saturday. Those other three losses have come to Clemson, Ohio State and Purdue. The Tide are going to be fine, but have a huge game coming up against Arizona on Wednesday night. It then faces Eastern Kentucky and Liberty before the start of SEC play. Like mentioned, the Tide will likely be fine, but it is something to monitor over the next few weeks.
Finally, a team that picked up its biggest win of the season on Sunday: Syracuse. The Orange thumped Oregon 83-63 at Sanford Pentagon in South Dakota (why are we still putting games there?) to improve to 8-3 on the season.
In his first season running the program, Adrian Autry’s offense has looked dynamic several times, while the defense has improved. It’s somewhat telling that it got blown out by Virginia in its lone ACC game so far, but the Oregon win is a good one. It did also blow out LSU, which doesn’t say a ton, but it’s a high-major opponent that you beat by 23. It has a tune-up against Niagara on Thursday before getting into the thick of ACC play after Christmas.
Some games to look forward to before Christmas:
- Florida vs Michigan in Charlotte, Tuesday, 7 p.m.
- No. 22 Virginia at No. 23 Memphis, Tuesday, 7 p.m.
- No. 10 Baylor vs No. 21 Duke at MSG, Wednesday, 7 p.m.
- Villanova at No. 12 Creighton, Wednesday, 9 p.m.
- No. 7 Oklahoma vs No. 11 North Carolina in Charlotte, Wednesday, 9 p.m.
- Alabama vs No. 4 Arizona in Phoenix, Wednesday, 11 p.m.
- No. 13 Illinois vs Missouri in St. Louis, Friday, 9 p.m.
- No. 14 Florida Atlantic vs No. 4 Arizona in Las Vegas, Saturday, 3 p.m.
- St. John’s at No. 5 UConn, Saturday, 8 p.m.
AJ Hoops 