By Aidan Joly
It is not every year that the first weekend of the college basketball season gives us three games that were of the quality of the second weekend of the tournament, but that’s what happened.
Games between Kansas and North Carolina, Baylor and Arkansas, and Auburn and Houston all were thrillers that featured some of the best the sport has to offer.
On Friday night, Kansas led by as many as 20 points early in the first half but was able to hold on after squandering it, beating North Carolina 92-89 at Allen Fieldhouse.
Much was made going into the game about how the Tar Heels would defend Jayhawk big man Hunter Dickinson. In turn, a similar conversation was had about how the Jayhawks would defend the Tar Heel backcourt of Elliot Cadeau and RJ Davis, which is possibly the best in the country.
In the end it was Dickinson who won out. He finished with 20 points on 7-15 from the field, including a key layup with 1:15 to go that gave Kansas the lead for good.
Cadeau ended up getting the final shot for the Tar Heels, with the Jayhawk defense keeping the ball out of Davis’ hands, and Cadeau missed a shot to potentially send the game into overtime.
The two went a combined 6-26 from the field, which included 1-10 from three. Kansas defended the pair well.
Kansas did a lot to alleviate concerns from last season about its depth, something that plagued the team down the stretch when injuries happened. Kansas had seven players score and five of them in double figures, and neither of those numbers include David Coit, who did not score in 19 minutes. That likely won’t happen to Coit many times during the year. Zeke Mayo actually led Kansas with 21, while AJ Storr had 13 and Flory Bidunga had eight points and eight rebounds.
The Jayhawks looked the part of the number one team in the country, and that is where it stays for the week. It sees Michigan State in the Champions Classic on Tuesday night. UNC will play its next notable games in Maui during Thanksgiving week. A strong performance is to be expected.
Switching to the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, it was all about Baylor bouncing back nicely from a blowout loss against Gonzaga on Monday night, beating Arkansas 72-67 in Dallas.
It certainly felt like the Gonzaga game was more about the Zags winning and not Baylor losing and the Bears were still very capable. They were, with Jayden Nunn’s 16 points and Norchad Omier’s 15 and 12 on 7-10 from the field, Jeremy Roach had a solid 13 and VJ Edgecombe had a solid game after struggling in his debut, finishing with 11 points, eight rebounds and five assists. This is a team that will need multiple great players to be one of the best teams in the Big 12, and showed it. It looks like it has four.
Arkansas’ Adou Thiero was the best player on the floor though, finishing with 24 points on 10-15 from the field. He picked up the slack from Johnell Davis and Zvonimir Ivisic, who shot a combined 2-12 from the field and both looked lost during the game. That is a tad concerning for a team that needs Davis’ scoring and Ivisic’s interior presence in order to do the things it wants to do. Ivisic in particular seemed far away from being able to compete night in and night out.
Baylor will consider it a good bounce-back win after the brutal loss in the season opener. They will play two notable games at the Baha Mar, starting with St. John’s on Nov. 21 and then either Tennessee or Virginia the next day. Arkansas has four buy games to get right before playing Illinois on Thanksgiving Day.
Saturday’s nightcap was arguably the best of the three. Houston and Auburn gave a game maybe worthy of Final Four quality, with Auburn beating Houston 74-69 in what was a semi-home game for Houston.
The story of the game was the coming out party for freshman Tahaad Pettiford, who had 21 points on 7-12 from the field, including five three-pointers, willing his way to a Tiger victory. He played like a senior in his second collegiate game, and did it after not even scoring in 19 minutes in the team’s first game against Vermont (a game Auburn scored 94 points in). Johni Broome had 20 points and nine rebounds.
Houston has had a top-10 KenPom defensive rating in each of the past four seasons and currently ranks No. 1 in defense, even after this game. A freshman being able to do that kind of damage against Kelvin Sampson’s defense is wildly impressive. It would be tough for Pettiford to have that type of impact every night, but Auburn could be even more of an SEC threat if he is great.
The win also came after the team had to ground its flight on the way to the game on Friday night after it was reported that two players got into a fight shortly after takeoff.
Houston will be a good team as long as the defense holds up, which even with the loss there’s no indication to say it won’t. It will play meaningful games next in the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas the week of Thanksgiving.
The takeaway here with Auburn is that the size and perimeter shooting will make it tough for anybody to beat this team. And if it has repeat performances from Pettiford, that’s a weapon that many didn’t expect them to have.
Auburn, like North Carolina, is also headed to Maui. It will play its first game against Iowa State on Nov. 25.
To me, calling games, especially early in the season, NCAA tournament or second weekend level games is a little bit of a cliché, but these three games it was true. All six of these teams should be making deep runs in March, and could be seeing each other again.
AJ Hoops 