By Aidan Joly
We are officially in the back half of Feast Week. The Maui Invitational wraps up early Thursday morning and the Battle 4 Atlantis began on Wednesday. The Fort Myers Tip-Off came to a close on Wednesday night.
Here are some thoughts on things that have happened throughout the week so far.
Auburn arrives as national title contender
Auburn won the Maui Invitational for the first time in program history, winning games against Iowa State, North Carolina and Memphis en route to doing so.
By winning Maui, the Tigers have solidified themselves as a true national title contender. The opening game against Iowa State was a two-point win, but neither of the other two games were ever truly in doubt. The 90-76 win against Memphis in the title game wasn’t even that close.
Johni Broome officially arrived as possibly the best player in the country. He averaged 21.6 points and 15 rebounds across the three games, the best performance we have seen in Maui in a long time. In Auburn’s 7-0 start, he is averaging 20.7 points and 12.3 rebounds per contest.
On top of that, Chad Baker-Mazara and Dylan Cardwell have proven themselves as great sidekicks, while other role guys such as Miles Kelly, Denver Jones and Tahaad Pettiford have proven themselves.
This is a team that can win a national title. Period.
Memphis’ very solid week
Despite losing in the Maui title game, Memphis raised a lot of eyebrows this week. It out-lasted UConn in an overtime game on Monday, beating the two-time defending national champions 99-97 before beating Michigan State 71-63 on Tuesday.
This feels like a team that a lot of us underestimated coming into the season, especially so after coach Penny Hardaway replaced his entire staff in September.
On the court, the backcourt of PJ Haggerty and Tyrese Hunter has quickly become one of the best guard combinations in the country. Colby Rogers has been better than expected, and Dain Dainja has been very productive as a forward for Memphis.
Memphis, who is now 6-1, should enter the AP rankings on Monday. It will certainly deserve it.
UConn’s tough stretch
Staying in Maui, UConn has yet to play its third game there as of writing, but figures to win the seventh-place game considering it plays the weakest team in the tournament in Dayton.
However, it’s a stunner that the Huskies are there in the first place. It lost to Memphis and Colorado by a combined three points on Monday and Tuesday. It is the first time UConn has lost back-to-back non-conference games since late 2017, when Kevin Ollie was still the head coach and the program was in the American Athletic.
Dan Hurley has gotten some negative attention in the past few days due to his sideline antics, something that earned him a technical foul during the overtime period in the Memphis game.
Foul troubles haunted the Huskies in both games and they have paid the price for it. Solo Ball, Samson Johnson and Tarris Reed fouled out against Memphis, while Liam McNeeley and Aidan Mahaney had four. Johnson and Reed fouled out again against Colorado.
The Huskies need to clean it up against Dayton. It’s a get-right game for sure.
Kansas wins while losing Dickinson
Elsewhere, Kansas picked up a gritty win, beating Duke 75-72 in Las Vegas on Tuesday night.
It played the final 10:26 of the game without its best player in Hunter Dickinson, who was ejected from the game on a Flagrant 2 for kicking Maliq Brown in the face while the two were tied up on the floor.
The Jayhawks had several different players combine to replace his production. Dajuan Harris, Zeke Mayo, Rylen Griffen and Flory Bidunga all came up with big baskets in the final moments of the game. Griffen stole the ball from Duke’s Kon Knueppel in the final seconds to secure the victory. Knueppel missed a potential game-tying shot at the buzzer.
Duke threw Cooper Flagg into the fire late again, and Kansas flustered him all game. He turned the ball over four times but did finish with 13 points on 5-9 from the field.
The Jayhawks should remain No. 1 in the nation on Monday.
Signature win for West Virginia
West Virginia and first year coach Darian DeVries picked up an early signature win on Wednesday, beating Gonzaga 86-78 in overtime in its first game in the Battle 4 Atlantis.
Wednesday’s win was the biggest win for the program in a long time and definitely the biggest in the post-Bob Huggins era.
Javon Small was the best player on the floor in the game, scoring 31 points on 9-18 from the field while making a trio of three-pointers. Amani Hansberry and Tucker DeVries both played great for the Mountaineers as well.
West Virginia will have plenty of chances to grab great wins in Big 12 play, but getting one as big as this in non-conference play certainly does not hurt.
Arizona bounces back after a few losses
Arizona went into its first game in the Battle 4 Atlantis coming off back-to-back losses to Wisconsin and Duke, and especially did not look great in the loss to Duke in Tucson.
The Wildcats did it in a big way on Wednesday night with a 104-71 beatdown of Davidson. Granted, Davidson is easily the weakest team in the tournament, but Arizona took care of business the exact way it needed to and looked great doing it.
After not scoring in just four minutes against Duke, Anthony Dell’Orso was great for Arizona, scoring a game-high 21 points in 18 minutes on 8-11 shooting, and did it all while coming off the bench. Caleb Love had 20 points on 7-13 from the field after only scoring 14 combined points in the two losses and going a combined 5-26 from the field. He bounced back well.
Arizona will play Oklahoma on Thursday in the semifinals, another great chance for it to pick up a win against a quality team. The Sooners are undefeated and beat Providence in the first round.
Indiana gets blown out, Mike Woodson’s seat gets warmer
Staying in the Bahamas, Indiana got the doors blown off by Louisville in the first game of the day 89-61.
I personally missed this game while doing Thanksgiving travel but by all accounts it was as bad as the stats show. The Hoosiers shot just 33.3% for the game and from what social media says, looked wildly uninterested throughout the day.
I had praised Indiana after its 3-0 start and a win over South Carolina on Nov. 16, but the Hoosiers came crashing down on Wednesday. It will lead to more speculation about the job status of coach Mike Woodson, who was already on somewhat thin ice coming into the season.
We will see how it does the rest of the week, with less than two weeks until the first game of Big Ten play.
AJ Hoops 