By Aidan Joly
The SEC putting itself head and shoulders above the rest of the leagues in the country, buzzer beaters and the back-to-back defending champions exorcising some demons from last month highlighted what was the best Saturday of college hoops we have seen in a long, long time.
Let’s get into everything that happened around the country on Saturday.
The SEC is ridiculous
The SEC is the best league in the country and it is not close. We already knew it, but the weekend reinforced it.
The league went 13-1 on Saturday and picked up another win on Sunday (albeit it was just Texas beating Arkansas-Pine Bluff), but the league is now head and shoulders above the rest.
Thanks to some research done at ESPN, the league is 144-20 to start the season, is 18-7 against AP top 25 teams – the best of any league ever – is 55-17 against major conference teams, including 42-6 against the ACC and Big 12, and as of Monday, all 16 of its teams are ranked within the top 68 in KenPom.
It certainly has a shot of breaking the record of 11 teams from the same league making the tournament. Right now, you can fairly confidently say that 12 are deserving. It will be one of the major storylines the rest of the season.
High profile games coming up this week for the league include Florida playing North Carolina in Charlotte and South Carolina hosting Clemson, both on Tuesday, Oklahoma playing Michigan in Charlotte on Wednesday and Mississippi State going to Memphis, Auburn playing Purdue in Birmingham, Kentucky playing Ohio State at MSG, all on Saturday, and Missouri hosting Illinois on Sunday.
Auburn is best team in the country
If you are the best league, it’s only fair that you have the best team. Auburn beat the brakes off of Ohio State on Saturday in Atlanta 91-53.
Johni Broome, perhaps the best player in the country went for 21 points and 20 rebounds, while tacking on six assists, while Denver Jones had 14 points and Jakhi Howard had 11 off the bench.
Now 9-1 with wins over Houston, Iowa State, North Carolina and Ohio State and a close loss against Duke, Auburn should be the clear best team in the country. It is No. 2 in the AP rankings on Monday, but as soon as Tennessee loses, the Tigers should be the top dog. It’s a shame we have to wait over a month to see these two play each other (Jan. 25).
Texas A&M gets a nice win
Texas A&M was another SEC team that picked up a very good win, beating Purdue 70-66 in Indianapolis.
The Aggies dominated the rebounding battle in this game, winning it 29-19. On offense it was Pharrel Payne who came up big, scoring 16 points off the bench on 6-6 from the field and grabbed nine rebounds along the way. Zhuric Phelps had 16 as well, while Wade Taylor IV had 15 points and five assists. Taylor is becoming one of the most fun guards to watch in the country.
Texas A&M is now 9-2 and just picked up its best win of the season so far, and also has wins over Ohio State, Creighton, Rutgers, Wake Forest and Texas Tech. It has two tune-up games before beginning conference play on Jan. 4.
Florida continues unbeaten run
Staying in the SEC, Florida is now 10-0 for the first time since the 2005-06 season after an 83-66 win against Arizona State in Atlanta.
Coming into the season it was expected that the Gators would be taking a next step under coach Todd Golden, but Florida has exceeded expectations thus far by a wide margin.
Walter Clayton has developed into one of the most talented guards in the country to the tune of 19.1 points per game, Alijah Martin has come into his own and has 15.2 PPG, while Alex Condon and Will Richard have also become weapons for the Gators.
It has both one of the best offenses and defenses in the country, allowing it to wear down opponents on both sides of the ball. It also plays up-tempo, fun basketball. It has a real chance to win a ton of league games and go deep into March.
It will play a very tough litmus test game on Tuesday against North Carolina, then a pair of tune-up games, then goes to Kentucky on Jan. 4.
Tennessee beats Illinois at the buzzer
The No. 1 team was seriously on the ropes against Illinois in Champaign, but Jordan Gainey went coast-to-coast in the final seconds and dropped the ball in as the buzzer sounded to give the Volunteers a 66-64 win.
It put a cap on Gainey’s career day, where he scored 23 points on 6-14 from the field and made a trio of threes. It was far and away his best game of the season. Chaz Lanier had 17 points, and Igor Milicic Jr. had a bad shooting night with seven points on an ugly 2-13 from the field and an even uglier 0-8 from three, but he made up for it by grabbing 14 rebounds.
This Tennessee team is 10-0 and could stay undefeated for a while. It has the number one KenPom defense in the country, led by Lanier, Gainey and Milicic Jr. as well as Zakai Zeigler. Felix Okpara has become a good defensive center as well.
The Vols will win their next three games before conference play begins. A huge matchup with Florida in Gainesville on Jan. 7 looms in the coming weeks.
Memphis looks strong
After a really bad loss to Arkansas State on Dec. 8, Memphis bounced back in a big way, going to Clemson and beating the Tigers in overtime 87-82.
Memphis is 8-2 with wins against Missouri, UConn, Michigan State and now Clemson, securing one of its best resumes at this point in the season since Penny Hardaway took over the program in 2018.
PJ Haggerty has become one of the most important additions in the country. He has averaged 21.9 points per game and has shot 39% from three and also averages 6.0 rebounds per contest. Tyrese Hunter, Colby Rogers and Dain Dainja have also done well to create a very formidable group.
Memphis is back in the AP rankings this week at No. 16.
The theme the past few years has been a collapse at some point during conference play. This year, confidence is growing that that will not happen.
It has three more opportunities to boost its resume before conference play begins on Jan. 2. It plays Virginia on the road on Wednesday, Mississippi State at home on Saturday, and Ole Miss at home on Dec. 28. Lots of chances here for the Tigers to really get something going heading into AAC play.
Rutgers stuns Seton Hall at the buzzer
After losing four of five between Nov. 24 and Dec. 7, a stretch that included a three-game losing streak it seems like Rutgers is back on track.
It beat Penn State on Dec. 10, and then stunned Seton Hall at the buzzer in the in-state rivalry on Saturday, with Dylan Harper playing hero in making the game-winner.
The much anticipated duo of Harper and Ace Bailey has been terrific, but as with all freshmen there have been some growing pains. Remember, this is a team that has four losses, one of them to Kennesaw State. What Rutgers needs is a third option to make itself truly clear, whether that be Jordan Derkack, Jeremiah Williams or Lathan Sommerville, it needs to be someone. We will see if it can happen heading into Big Ten play.
Rutgers will face Princeton and Columbia in its final two non-conference games.
Dayton’s huge win
How about those Dayton Flyers! Dayton picked up the program’s biggest win since the Maui Invitational in 2019, beating No. 6 Marquette at home 71-63.
Dayton is now 9-2 with wins over UConn, Northwestern and now Marquette, and Saturday’s win was enough to get it into the top 25 for the first time this season, debuting at No. 22 in the rankings.
The Flyers can hurt teams. Enoch Cheeks has been one of the best mid-major players in the country, while Nate Santos and Zed Key fit in very nicely. Malachi Smith has been great as well after only making one appearance all of last season.
The Flyers are clearly the best team in the Atlantic 10. With its resume, it helps the league a lot. The most important part here is that this win helps in that if Dayton needs an at-large bid should it not win the Atlantic 10 tournament, it certainly has a very, very good shot at one.
Dayton will host UNLV on Tuesday and then travel for what is all of the sudden a ranked matchup against Cincinnati (nice win for the Bearcats in the Crosstown Shootout, by the way) on Friday. After that, A10 play begins on New Year’s Eve.
UConn has officially exorcised Maui demons
I have wrote about this before in recent weeks, but it’s fair to say that UConn has officially gotten rid of the Maui demons.
It is 4-0 since the Maui debacle, three of those wins against very good teams, and capped it off with a 77-71 win against Gonzaga in New York City on Saturday.
Liam McNeeley had the best game of his collegiate career so far, scoring a game-high 26 points on 7-13 from the field while adding eight rebounds. Tarris Reed Jr. had 12 points and Jalin Stewart had 10, both off the bench.
There were rightfully a lot of concerns about UConn after it went 0-3 Thanksgiving week, but those concerns have now gone away. Its defense is still slightly shaky at times, but for the most part it has done well. McNeeley is really beginning to find his way after not playing a huge role at times.
The Huskies have now finished the conference slate. It will open league play on Wednesday against Xavier.
Syracuse’s struggles
Much is being made of Syracuse losing to Georgetown in Central New York for the first time since 2016, dropping Saturday’s game 75-71.
Syracuse is 5-5 on the season and does not have a high-major win. Its best win so far is against Cornell on Nov. 27.
The Orange really struggle to make shots and don’t play particularly good defense. Leading scorer JJ Starling has missed the past four games and Syracuse has lost three of them. Freshman Donnie Freeman has been inconsistent, Chris Bell has taken a step back, as has Eddie Lampkin.
Albeit Syracuse did struggle in its final years under Jim Boeheim, things have not gone particularly well in Adrian Autry’s second season with the program. It’s very tough to be the guy after the guy. Kyle Neptune has struggled at Villanova. Hubert Davis has not truly taken the leap at North Carolina. Ron Sanchez has Virginia at just 6-4.
Autry isn’t on the hot seat yet, but it could be something to begin to monitor a little bit.
AJ Hoops 