By Aidan Joly
The first full weekend of conference play is in the books and it was glorious.
It was wall-to-wall on Saturday with 12-plus hours of action, plus some intriguing games and storylines on both Friday and Sunday as well.
Let’s get into what happened.
Purdue kicks weekend off with win
Purdue defended home court on Friday night, picking up a 83-78 win against No. 9 Illinois.
The game wasn’t as close as the score indicated, save for Illinois making a run at the end.
Zach Edey didn’t have as large of a scoring output in this one with only 10 points (although that was on 5-5 from the field), he did grab 15 rebounds. Trey Kaufman-Renn came up big to pick up the slack, scoring 23 points on 8-12 from the field and practically willed himself to a win.
Illinois’ Marcus Domask proved himself once again as a big game player, scoring 26 points in the losing effort.
Seton Hall, St John’s make statements
A pair of Big East teams made big statements with wins on Saturday.
Seton Hall was the first to do so, pulling off a 78-75 upset win against No. 7 Marquette, holding off a big charge by the Golden Eagles in the final minutes. The Pirates are now in a tie for the lead in the Big East at 3-1.
That mark includes wins over UConn, Providence and now Marquette, all ranked at the time of the win. It should win its next two games as well against Georgetown and Butler, which would make it 5-1 in league play.
Al-Amir Dawes was huge in the win for the Pirates, scoring 23 points on 7-10 from the field, while leading scorer Kadary Richmond 21 points on 8-16 from the field.
This group has proved to be better than many thought it would be in the preseason and that is a testament to how Shaheen Holloway has built this team. Now, the results are coming. The aforementioned three wins in the Big East so far will prove huge come March and if Seton Hall continues to take care of business, it could very well put the Pirates on the right side of making the NCAA tournament.
Slightly later in the day, St. John’s went into Finneran Pavilion and picked up the program’s first win in that building since Jan. 13, 1993, beating Villanova 81-71.
It was a major statement win for Rick Pitino and the Red Storm, who have made it clear that the team will compete in the top half of the Big East right out of the gate. Also sitting at 3-1 in Big East play, it has done so thus far.
In Saturday’s win, Joel Soriano, Daniss Jenkins and Brady Dunlap all came up big. St. John’s has a home game against Providence on Wednesday before a big meeting against Creighton on Saturday.
Houston is the last undefeated
The Houston Cougars are the final undefeated team in the nation after James Madison took an 81-71 loss to Southern Miss and Ole Miss was blown out 90-64 at the hands on Tennessee, both on Saturday.
The Cougar express kept rolling on Saturday, dispatching West Virginia 89-55 to improve to 14-0. It has road games coming up against Iowa State on Tuesday and TCU on Saturday before returning home on Jan. 17 to face Texas Tech. Its toughest stretch of the season with three road games against BYU (Jan. 23), Texas (Jan. 29) and Kansas (Feb. 3) in the span of four games lurks in the distance.
Another concerning FAU loss
Florida Atlantic took another bad loss on Saturday, falling to Charlotte 70-68 to drop to 1-1 in AAC play.
The Owls have now lost two of their past three and didn’t look the best while beating East Carolina. This team has looked shaky since beating Arizona back on Dec. 23. It’s tough to diagnose what the problem is, but it seems to be just this group having a tough time adjusting to the new level of play.
In this week’s AP poll, the Owls dropped to No. 24 in the country, its lowest mark of the season. If FAU keeps taking these types of losses, it may end up missing the NCAA tournament.
Arizona State is 4-0 in Pac-12 play
Sure, it hasn’t been against the best competition and the Sun Devils will likely need to either win 15+ games in conference play and/or grab a win over Arizona in one of the two meetings, but it has been a semi-surprising start to league play in Tempe.
The first three wins came against Stanford, California and Utah, but the best win came on Saturday with a 76-73 win against Colorado, a team that should be in the top half of the Pac-12 this season.
Adam Miller has been a nice revelation for Bobby Hurley’s group. He scored 18 points in the win against Colorado to up his average point total to 13.2 per game after he didn’t play until Dec. 16. Frankie Collins should be more consistent scoring-wise, but some other weapons such as Jose Perez and Jamiya Neal have done a nice job.
The Pac-12 is definitely weak, but ASU could find themselves on the bubble in two months.
Wake Forest proves to be legit
Wake Forest is a team on the rise in the ACC. It improved to 3-0 in league play with an 86-82 overtime win against Miami on Saturday.
Now at 11-3 overall, the Demon Deacons haven’t lost since Nov. 19 and are on a nine-game winning streak.
Wake Forest did start the season 2-3, but things changed when Gonzaga transfer Efton Reid got a waiver to play. He has become one of the best rebounders in the country, averaging 9.3 per game and has had three games with 11 or more boards. He had 11 in the win against Miami. At the beginning of the year Steve Forbes’ team didn’t have a true interior presence, but Reid, who stands at 7-foot-0, has solved that issue.
With Hunter Sallis playing like one of the best guards in the ACC, Kevin Miller having some huge games as of late and Cameron Hildreth being better than expected, Wake Forest has a very dangerous three-guard attack that can do well against any team.
UNC is very reliable
Staying in the ACC, gone seems to be the high variance North Carolina teams we have seen in the past couple of years.
This year’s edition of the Tar Heels is one of the most reliable teams in the country. It proved that once again by going on the road and beating No. 16 Clemson 65-55 at Littlejohn Coliseum.
What’s different about these Tar Heels? Defense and experience. North Carolina ranks 16th in the country in defensive efficiency after ranking 46th in the country in that stat last season. In its last three games, it has allowed just 57.3 points per game as well. On Saturday, UNC limited Clemson to 1-18 from three, the Tigers’ worst performance from three this season by a significant margin.
Experience is also a big part of this group. The Tar Heels ranked fourth in the country in KenPom’s D-1 experience. UNC was 24th in the country last year, but was 212th in the country in 2021-22 and 263rd in 2020-21 – which was Roy Williams’ final season in Chapel Hill. Hubert Davis seems to be figuring out that experience wins games and we are seeing the results this season.
More Michigan drama
Wolverine fans can and should be distracted by its football team playing in the national championship game on Monday night, but it was a bizarre Sunday for its basketball program.
Michigan was playing Penn State at The Palestra, where Penn State plays a home game every few years or so in Philadelphia.
Juwan Howard bizarrely had assistant coach Phil Martelli serve as the acting head coach for the game, citing that Martelli is a Philadelphia native and former St. Joe’s head coach. Martelli’s son Jimmy is an assistant coach at Penn State as well. Howard sat on the bench as an assistant coach for the afternoon.
The decision didn’t work. Michigan did lead by 10 at the half, but blew the lead and lost to Penn State 79-73.
I understand the nice gesture, but it makes little sense. This is a game you come into at 6-8 and had lost three in a row, including a loss to McNeese State and a loss to Minnesota, who was picked last in the Big Ten. You probably need a win here and it didn’t happen. It now falls to 6-9 overall and 1-3 in league play.
It encapsulates the drama that has been this Michigan basketball season. It’s tough to understand.
AJ Hoops 