Author: Aidan Joly

By Aidan Joly

On Tuesday night, Kansas State snapped a seven-game losing streak against Kansas. Coming in, the Wildcats had won just one of the past 16 meetings between the two programs.

But Tuesday wasn’t an upset.

With the Wildcats’ 83-82 overtime win against Kansas last night at Bramlage Coliseum, the program and first-year head coach Jerome Tang made a major statement that the program is back as a force in the Big 12.

They did it despite one of the best individual performances we’ve seen all season in Kansas’ Jalen Wilson, who put up a game-high 38 points on 12-25 shooting and grabbed nine rebounds. Kansas State countered with a two-headed attack from Keyontae Johnson and Desi Sills, who scored 24 points each while Johnson also had eight rebounds. Nae’Qwan Tomlin added 15 points and 10 boards of his own.

Kansas State got this win with grit and toughness. It took Kevin McCullar completely out of the game as he ended up fouling out without scoring and held Gradey Dick to 4-13 from the field. It also got KJ Adams to foul out in the closing minutes of regulation after a 6-6 performance from the field that netted him 17 points. Kansas was also forced to be without Dick for the last 1:31 of overtime after Kansas State forced the freshman into three fouls in just over three minutes after he came into overtime with just two against him.

Not to mention, doing it against a fierce rival, who also happens to be the defending national champions, and on national TV, only adds to the sweetness of this win for Kansas State.

Jerome Tang took over this program less than a year ago, with the Wildcats having won only 13 Big 12 games over the past three seasons. The 56-year-old from Trinidad and Tobago had spent nearly two decades as Scott Drew’s right-hand man at Baylor and waiting for an opportunity as a head coach. Tang was already known as one of the top recruiters and one of the savviest assistants in the country.

He went to work and grabbed Johnson from Florida as a grad transfer, a player who had not played outside of a ceremonial start since December 2020, when he collapsed on the court during a game and had to go into a coma. He’s now the team’s leading scorer.

He also got Tomlin, who came from JUCO Chipola College in Florida. He has blossomed into 11.1 points per game so far this year. He also got Sills from Arkansas State and David N’Guessan from Virginia Tech, both of whom have been key contributors, N’Guessan being one before he went down with a foot injury and has missed the past six games, but is expected to be back soon.

By using a grab bag of sorts for players, this Kansas State team is now 16-2 on the season and 5-1 in the Big 12 and is ranked No. 13 in the country in this week’s AP Poll, sure to move up next week assuming the Wildcats are able to take care of business against Texas Tech on Saturday. As tough as the conference is, Kansas State has a chance to eclipse the number of league wins this season as it had the past three years combined. It is a lock to make the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2019 and has a very real chance to go to the second weekend, something the program has only done once since 2010.

Tang’s speech after the game on Tuesday night after the court storm struck me as well. This is a guy who is all-in on this program and loves it, his players and the fans. This is a match made in heaven.

Kansas State has arrived.

By Aidan Joly

Ever since former Texas head coach Chris Beard was fired on January 5 amid domestic violence allegations, speculation has run rampant over who could be the next coach in Austin.

Call me crazy, but it seems that the speculation that Kentucky head coach John Calipari could take the job is gaining traction.

In the head of this blogger, there’s two schools of thought, one saying he could do it and another saying it doesn’t make sense.

As for he could do it, there’s no doubting that things are the worst they’ve ever been, especially in the last two years, since Calipari was hired ahead of the 2009-10 season.

Kentucky had a good season in 2019-20 and was sure to make a run in the NCAA tournament, but that obviously did not happen. After that, the Wildcats were putrid in 2020-21, finishing 9-16 and 8-9 in conference play, the first time the program finished a season under .500 in either mark since 1988-89, a season that was marred with an NCAA scandal and coach Eddie Sutton’s resignation after the season. 2021 was also only the second time in Calipari’s tenure that Kentucky missed the NCAA tournament.

Come the 2021-22 season, Kentucky was good enough to earn a No. 2 seed in the tournament but lost to St. Peter’s in the first round of the Peacocks run to the Elite Eight.

Now, things in Lexington have seemingly never been worse. The team currently sits at 10-6 and 1-3 in the SEC. Things seemingly came to a head on Tuesday night when it lost to sub-200 in KenPom and sub-250 in NET South Carolina at home. That qualified as the program’s first Quad 4 loss since it lost to Evansville at the beginning of the 2019-20 season. It’s worth noting that in South Carolina’s previous game, it got doubled up by Tennessee and lost by 43.

Historically, the program has not won a national championship since 2012, hasn’t made a Final Four since 2015 and hasn’t even won an NCAA tournament game since 2019. When you think of Kentucky, those are mind-boggling numbers.

It’s clear that Calipari has not done a good job the past few years despite having some of the best rosters in the country. Calipari has seemingly been more and more frustrated in recent years, and the fans have done the same in turn.

Texas has to go all-out with this hire. Calipari may be the right guy, he may not be. Time to take a look as to why it could be appealing for him to stay at Kentucky.

When Calipari signed that “lifetime” contract in 2019, a big part of it was that after he was done coaching, he could stay around the program as an “ambassador” and make just under $1 million a year for doing that. According to 247 Sports, when is the earliest he could do that?

After the 2023-24 season.

Calipari is 63 years old and will be 64 by the time this season comes to an end. After the 2023-24 season, could he decide to hang it up and do that? Will Kentucky softly push him out the door if he sticks around and struggles for another year? Maybe a combination of both.

If he were to take the Texas job, he’s probably only doing it for no more than 8-10 years. It’s easy to say the Texas administration would be okay with that, but it comes down to the decision that Calipari could potentially make.

Another reason he could stay is the recruiting class coming in. Kentucky has signed four of the top eight in ESPN’s top 100 for the class of 2023, including No. 1 DJ Wagner and No. 2 Justin Edwards. This is Kentucky’s best recruiting class in several years and far and away the best class in the sport heading into next year. Kentucky has utilized the transfer portal more in recent years to pick up veterans, so it could be very easy for Kentucky to have a roster that can contend for a national championship next year.

With all of these things in mind, would it make sense for Calipari to leave and/or Kentucky to let him go without much of a fight? It’s too early to tell, but the possibility exists and is an intriguing one.

By Aidan Joly

It’s no secret that the Big 12 is the best conference in college basketball this season. It feels like any night, any team can beat any other team in that conference and every single game is a war between two heavyweights.

So, just how many teams can this league send to the NCAA tournament come March?

We’ll dive into this first by examining the teams in the Big 12, and then how the 36 at-large bids will be dispersed across all of the other leagues.

In Tuesday morning’s KenPom rankings, all 10 teams in the Big 12 rank in the top 41 teams, with Texas Tech being the lowest team in that No. 41 spot. Kansas is the highest at No. 5, followed by Texas at No. 8, a much-improved West Virginia sits at No. 23. Baylor, Kansas State, Iowa State and Oklahoma State make up Nos. 26-29 in that order, then Oklahoma is 31st and TCU is 32nd. So if you’re keeping score at home, 90% of the league is within the top 32 in KenPom, which in today’s college basketball is simply unheard of.

Putting it this way: on Wednesday night, Baylor and West Virginia will face each other in Morgantown. No. 23 against No. 26 in KenPom. The loser of that game will drop to 0-4 in conference play. But does it matter? Both of these teams are still very good and should both easily make the tournament, despite a poor start in conference play.

On the other end of this spectrum you have Kansas State, which is an interesting case study. The Wildcats went 14-17, 6-12 in Big 12 play last year and coach Bruce Weber resigned at seasons’ end. Bring in Jerome Tang, who has led Kansas State to a 14-1 record thus far and a 3-0 start in conference play, all three of them wins against then-ranked teams, including scoring 116(!) points on the road(!) against Texas on January 3. It followed that up by dropping 97 on Baylor, again on the road, four days later. It was rewarded in this week’s AP Poll by moving all the way up to 11th in the country after being previously unranked. And there’s the power of the Big 12 this year.

As part of the KSU tidbit, shoutout to Keyontae Johnson. It’s a miracle he’s playing again and he’s become a star.

You don’t even have to mention the likes of Kansas, Iowa State, TCU and Texas, who are all already tournament locks. You can throw Oklahoma in the “should be in” category as well.

As for the entire conference, it has a conference rating of +18.27 on KenPom, meaning only 21 teams in the country would be projected to finish over .500 in this league. Texas Tech, the team lowest in KenPom as previously stated, has an adjusted efficiency margin (the KenPom analytic most commonly used to evaluate teams) of +15.24, a number that would project the Red Raiders to win 22 of Division I’s 32 conferences.

Now, an examination of the other leagues and how many teams each of those should and can send to March. The Big Ten is strong and should send eight or nine teams. Of course, and with all of these leagues, one of them will get the automatic bid. The numbers here include that bid. I’d be willing to mark the SEC at seven. The ACC is once again down and probably won’t send more than six. Put the Big East down for at least four, maybe five. The Mountain West is good enough for three, possibly four bids. But probably three. PAC-12 is only two or three, believe it or not. Gonzaga and St. Mary’s both get bids from the WCC. Potentially give the American Athletic an extra bid.

With all of those, I have a low end of 26 at large-bids taken up and a high end of 30. For our purposes, I’ll meet in the middle and say 28. So, that would leave eight at-large bids available for the Big 12, on top of the automatic bid, which gives us nine teams making it out of the 10, leaving an odd one out, which right now would likely be Texas Tech. Part of this is worth noting that Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are both squarely on the bubble, so the performance of those two teams over the next two months matters. However, there is obviously no shortage of chances for quality wins.

Conferences have only sent nine or more teams to the tournament four times: 2018 ACC (9), 2017 ACC (9), 2012 Big East (9) and the 2011 Big East, which sent a record-breaking 11 teams to the tournament out of 16 in the league at the time, which is a number record. As for percentages, the Big 12 has sent seven teams to the tournament several times, most recently in 2021, for a percentage record of 70%. The Big 12 would have to send eight teams to the tournament this year to break that record, which seems very possible with seven already solidly in.

Kansas, Texas, West Virginia, Baylor, Kansas State, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma and TCU, as of now, welcome to history.

By Aidan Joly

On Thursday, Texas officially parted ways with head coach Chris Beard amid domestic violence charges.

Assistant coach Rodney Terry, who has been running the team since Beard’s arrest on December 12, is now set to take over for the remainder of the season.

The Texas job is one of the most attractive jobs in the country. Whoever lands this job will have no shortage of resources, top-of-the-line recruits in a basketball-rich state, some of the best facilities in the country and tons of alumni support. Expect the administration to swing for the fences.

Here’s seven candidates that could make sense for this job.

Rodney Terry, interim head coach

Obviously, the list has to start with the guy running the team right now. Since Terry took over, the Longhorns are 6-1. He is from the state and was on Rick Barnes’ staff at Texas from 2002-2011 before having a pair of head coaching jobs at Fresno State and UTEP. He knows what winning at Texas looks like. At this point, this is probably Terry’s job to lose.

Jamie Dixon, TCU head coach

Dixon’s name was one of the first ones that was thrown around on social media as a possibility. Dixon has been at TCU and in the Big 12 since 2016 and has led the Horned Frogs to a pair of NCAA tournaments and this year’s squad looks to be the best he has had in his time in Fort Worth. Dixon knows how to win and is probably worth a call. But will Texas be able to lure him away from his alma mater? We will see.

Jerome Tang, Kansas State head coach

This is Tang’s first year as a head coach, but he has the most Big 12 experience out of anyone that is on this list. He was Scott Drew’s right-hand man for one of the most impressive program turnarounds in the history of the sport, culminating in a national championship for Baylor in 2021 after he joined the staff with Drew in 2003. In his first year as a head coach, he has Kansas State off to a 14-1 start. It’s rare that head coaches leave after one season, but maybe it happens here.

Royal Ivey, Brooklyn Nets assistant

This is one that would fire up the fanbase. Ivey was a star guard for the Longhorns in the early 2000s before turning it into a 10-year NBA career and has been in coaching since. Currently, he is an assistant coach for the Brooklyn Nets and recently served as the head coach of the South Sudan national team. However, he has never coached college basketball, which could be a drawback. It’s worth noting that he has interviewed for this job before, when he was passed over for Beard in 2021.

Chris Holtmann, Ohio State head coach

On paper, this would be a lateral move. Ohio State, similar to Texas, has a lot of the things mentioned in the introduction. Near-unlimited resources, fan support, recruiting, top-notch facilities. You wonder if Holtmann could make more money at Texas and perhaps more important, if Holtmann has gotten all he can get out of the OSU job. He may be someone who is up for a new challenge, and Texas may be a good fit. It may be a situation where he decides to get out before OSU can make a decision on him, similar to how Shaka Smart left Texas for Marquette in 2021.

Eric Musselman, Arkansas head coach

There probably aren’t too many jobs across the country that Musselman would leave Arkansas for, but this may be one of them. Things are going really well for him right now, but Texas giving Musselman a call is a call worth making. Would he do it though? Not sure. But this is the type of job that just about anyone would consider. Which leads to the final candidate…

John Calipari, Kentucky head coach

Believe it or not, Kentucky has not won an NCAA tournament game since 2019. It likely would have won at least one or two in 2020, but that’s not the world we live in. Kentucky missed the NCAA tournament in 2021 with a historically bad season by program standards and then lost St. Peter’s in the first round last year. It hasn’t gotten much better this year, with a 10-5 start and 1-2 in the SEC. Calipari has only one national championship at Kentucky (2012) and hasn’t made the Final Four since 2015, with one of the best rosters in the sport nearly every year.

Kentucky fans are getting restless and the noise is getting louder that the Calipari-Kentucky marriage may have run its course. Maybe a move to Texas would be beneficial for all three parties?

Prediction: As long as the Longhorns keep winning, administration takes the interim tag off of Terry after the season and gives him the full-time job. It’s undoubtedly the easiest thing to do and he might even be the best guy for the job.

By Aidan Joly

The Mountain West Conference has always been one of those leagues that is on the outside of being looked at as an elite league, but is trying to be.

This year’s edition of the league might be as good as ever and as deep as ever.

The simple facts lay in the analytical rankings. As of Thursday, every team in the 11-team league ranks in the top 170 in KenPom, seven of them ranking in the top 100. When you look at the NET rankings, six teams rank in the top 60. Putting it frankly, this is the best the league has been in quite some time.

Most of the time, you see one or two teams in that league sticking out – whether it be San Diego State, New Mexico, Nevada or Utah State most of the time – and the rest treading water, but that’s not the case this year.

New Mexico right now is the best team in the league record-wise, sitting at 13-0 as one of the three remaining unbeaten teams in the league and found itself ranked in the AP Poll this week for the first time since the 2013-14 season. Second-year head coach Richard Pitino deserves a ton of credit for putting together a team this strong this early in his tenure, having already matched the team’s win total from last year. This is a program that hasn’t even finished above .500 in conference play since 2017-18 and has not made the NCAA tournament since 2014. Surely, both of those things will change this year.

However, two teams sit above the Lobos in KenPom, with San Diego State sitting at No. 26 and Utah State at No. 39, ahead of the No. 58 Lobos. It is worth noting that Boise State sits at 59th.

San Diego State sits at 10-3, which includes wins against Ohio State, Stanford and BYU. Meanwhile, Utah State sits at 11-2, its only losses coming by three points to Weber State and SMU. Boise State is 10-4, Nevada is 11-2 and UNLV is also 11-2 to round out most of the teams at the top of the league.

Heck, even perennial basement-dweller San Jose State is getting in on the success. The program got a bit of a shot in the arm when it hired former Nebraska and Colorado State head coach Tim Miles ahead of last season, but it’s probably fair to say nobody thought it would happen this quick. It had a lot of growing pains last year with an 8-23, 1-17 record, but has 10 wins already, already clinching the program’s first double-digit win season since 2016-17. In fact, with a 1-0 conference start, it is above .500 in conference play since it joined the Mountain West in 2013.

The last time the Spartans had an overall winning record was a 17-16 season in 2010-11. That may or may not change, but the Spartans are off to the right start. Miles’ familiarity with the league from his time with Colorado State (2007-12) certainly helps. When at CSU, his team went 0-16 in league play, then went to the NCAA tournament four years later. San Jose State has not made the NCAA tournament since 1996.

It remains to be seen how the rest of league play will go and more importantly, how the NCAA selection committee will evaluate this league come March. But right now, every night in this league will be a battle.

By Aidan Joly

One of the slowest weeks of college basketball is here, Christmas week. The blog went dark last week as I dealt with an illness that turned out to be a case of mono, but here are five college basketball teams I’m thinking about as the holidays hit.

Miami

The Hurricanes are 12-1 on the season (3-0 ACC) after picking up its biggest win of the season on Tuesday night, a 66-64 home win against No. 6 Virginia to hand the Cavaliers their second loss in as many games. Isaiah Wong is now a star for a top-25 team and had 24 points, six rebounds and five assists in Tuesday’s win. The Canes have done it through good perimeter shooting and its plethora of experience. Miami certainly looks like an NCAA tournament lock as of now and will be a dark horse in the ACC as January and February roll on.

Wisconsin

The Badgers are this year’s Providence. Similar to last year’s Friars, Wisconsin plays a lot of close games but wins most of them as it sits at 8-2 so far and 2-0 in Big Ten play. It also has nonconference wins against USC and Marquette. Because of those close wins, the advanced metrics aren’t a huge fan of this group – despite being No. 17 in the country in the AP poll, it sits 35th in KenPom on Wednesday. However, this is a Badgers group that knows how to get it done and will certainly go through plenty of tests in the ringer that is the Big Ten.

Alabama

It’s probably fair to say that there is no reason that the Tide should have been this good this quickly. The idea of winning in college basketball is getting old and staying old through the transfer portal, but Alabama has won young this season. Freshman Brandon Miller is one of the most underrated players in the country and has led Nate Oats’ group to a 10-2 start, good for No. 9 in the country at this point. Another pair of freshmen in Noah Clowney and Jaden Bradley have both had big roles, while sophomore Nimari Burnett has been great as well. This is a young team that will have a lot of success in the SEC and in March.

Marquette

Despite a fairly pedestrian 9-4 start, there’s a lot to like about this Golden Eagles team. Marquette is 1-1 in Big East play after a win against a shorthanded Creighton team and a double overtime 103-98 loss to Providence on Tuesday night. Kam Jones has taken a huge jump in year two to be the team’s leading scorer, while Olivier-Maxence Prosper and Oso Ighodaro have also made jumps to become key pieces in the rotation. Tyler Kolek has shown potential to have huge games too. Don’t forget, this is a team that hammered Baylor by 26 a few weeks ago. The Big East might have the best team in the country in UConn, but Shaka Smart’s squad could certainly make themselves the second-best in that league.

TCU

Believe it or not, the Horned Frogs are a one-point inexplicable loss to Northwestern State over a month ago now from being undefeated and being a top 10-15 team in the country. TCU doesn’t really have that resume win yet – its best wins are against Iowa and Providence, but it has gone out and do what it has to do since the Northwestern State loss. It is ranked No. 41 in KenPom as of Wednesday afternoon and ceiling seems high for this group.

By Aidan Joly

The first month of the college basketball season is in the books. To put it lightly, lots has happened. Here’s some of the things we have learned through the first month of the season.

Top preseason teams vulnerable

No team has said this more than North Carolina. The Tar Heels were the preseason No. 1 team and have already dropped out of the rankings, the fastest a preseason No. 1 team has dropped out of the rankings in the 25 team era. The No. 2 team, Gonzaga, has fallen to No. 18 after going 6-3 in its first nine, including two blowout losses. It also had a close call against Kent State on Monday night. The No. 4 team, Kentucky, has fallen to No. 16 after a pair of losses.

In turn, this has allowed Houston (9-0) to jump to the top spot. UConn, who started unranked, is up to No. 5 after a 9-0 start. The preseason No. 18 team, Virginia, is up to No. 3 after an 8-0 start and Purdue, who also started unranked, is up to No. 4 after an 8-0 start.

Bubble is weak

A lot of teams in major conferences such as the ACC, Pac-12 and Big Ten have struggled, creating a weak NCAA tournament bubble through the first month of the season. It may prove to be a challenge for the committee to find 34 deserving teams from high-major conferences. This might create some opportunities for mid-major leagues to have more bids. A great example is Iona, who picked up what is right now a Quad 2 win against St. Louis at home on Tuesday night.

The ACC is down

Expanding on the last point, the ACC may be the worst power conference in the country. Virginia, Duke and Miami have been good, but it hasn’t been smooth sailing for the rest. As stated before, North Carolina has dropped out of the rankings and has lost four in a row. Syracuse has losses to Colgate and Bryant. Notre Dame has a loss to St. Bonaventure. Boston College has losses to Maine, Tarleton State and New Hampshire. Florida State is 1-9. Louisville is 0-8 and looks like one of the worst power conference team in recent memory. The league has been down in recent years, but a good chunk of the league is borderline unwatchable right now.

New stars emerging

As with any other season, we have a crop of new stars emerging across the landscape. Purdue’s 7-4 center Zach Edey has emerged into a household name with his sheer size and his 23.3 points and 12.8 rebounds per game for a top five team. Kansas’ Jalen Wilson has blossomed from a role player the past two seasons to a superstar this season for the Jayhawks. Die-hards have known about Indiana’s Trayce Jackson-Davis for a few years now, but now he’s doing his thing for a top-ranked Hoosiers team. UConn’s Adama Sanogo has taken a jump with the Huskies, now the best player on a top-five squad.

Of course, you have the freshman. Kansas’ Gradey Dick is a game-changer. Keyonte George has made a huge impact at Baylor. Nick Smith missed Arkansas’ first six games, but has been great in his first three games. Kentucky’s Cason Wallace has made an impact for what is a generally older Wildcats team. Kyle Filipowski is Duke’s leading scorer and rebounder. Finally, Amari Bailey has been a stud for UCLA.

Coaches on the hot seat

Yes, we have to talk about this too. The coach with the hottest seat right now is California’s Mark Fox as his Golden Bears sit at 0-9 this year. Georgetown’s Patrick Ewing has been on the hot seat for a few years now, a 4-5 start with losses to Loyola Marymount and American has not helped matters. That might be a situation that ends in a “mutual parting of ways” after the season. After a surprise Elite Eight run in 2021, Oregon State’s Wayne Tinkle won just three games last year and went 1-19 in Pac-12 play and has lost five of the past six right now. Fred Hoiberg may have bought himself some more time at Nebraska with a win against Creighton earlier this week, but it’s tough to see him in that job after this year.

Will any of these coaches lose their jobs mid-season? There always seems to be one or two changes mid-season, so maybe that will happen. If there is one, my money is on Fox.

Chaos reigns supreme

This year seems more chaotic than year’s past. It seems like a ranked team is losing to an unranked team almost every day. In fact, it has happened 19 times already in the first month of the season. Expect many, many more to come as we get into conference play in the coming weeks. Expect the unexpected.

By Aidan Joly

With Sunday night’s win against Stanford, the Arizona State Sun Devils are 2-0 in Pac-12 play for the first time since the 2012-13 campaign.

With the league just having finished up its opening weekend of conference play and with no more conference games to be played until much later in the month, the Sun Devils sit in a four-way tie at the top of the 12-team league with UCLA, Utah and USC. (It’s worth noting that Arizona fell victim to an upset from Utah on Thursday.)

Overall, it now sits at 8-1, which included the conference wins against Colorado and Stanford as well as a couple good non-conference wins, including an 87-62 thumping of Michigan on a neutral court last month. Last year, Bobby Hurley’s squad didn’t score its eighth win of the season until February 12 en route to a 14-17 season overall. This is the first 2-0 league start for the Sun Devils in the Hurley era.

As this piece was being written, the December 5 AP Poll was released, with Arizona State receiving 20 points. This effectively puts it at No. 30 in the country.

Hurley and the Sun Devils have done this by utilizing the talent in the transfer portal. Hurley was able to grab Frankie Collins, a former Michigan guard who played sparingly in his freshman year in Ann Arbor and has transformed him into the team’s leading scorer at 12.6 points per game. The Cambridge brothers, Devan and Desmond, have become formidable players in their first years at ASU. Devan, who spent three years at Auburn and didn’t have much of a role, has scored at least 12 points in each of the Sun Devils’ past four games. Desmond, a Nevada grad transfer, has seen his stats dip a bit compared to last year, but is still a solid role player.

Desmond Cambridge’s teammate at Nevada, seven-footer Warren Washington, has joined him to the tune of a team-leading seven rebounds per game and just under eight points per game.

A key returner, DJ Horne, has also played well, albeit a little inconsistent. The Sun Devils have had this level of success without the services of Marcus Bagley, who has not played since the second game of the season after being benched after having a run-in with Hurley and then later suspended for a social media post about the incident, which was a bit of a mess last week. Bagley is probably unlikely to play another game in a Sun Devils uniform, but if they get him back by some stroke, that just adds to what they can do.

Now to talk about the Sun Devils’ chances at making the NCAA tournament. In the Pac-12, Arizona and UCLA are the two locks right now. Arizona is likely to be in the conversation for a 1 seed. USC and Oregon are in the “should be in” category right now. That probably leaves room for one more, maybe two, Pac-12 teams.

Will Arizona State be one of those one or two teams? Right now, it sits fairly firmly on the bubble. It has a couple good nonconference tests coming up, a true road game against SMU on Wednesday and a neutral site game against Creighton on December 12. A true road game against potential fellow bubble team San Francisco on December 21 looms as well.

The Sun Devils need to just rack up wins in games they should win, and a first NCAA tournament trip since 2019 may be in the cards.

By Aidan Joly

On Tuesday, unranked Marquette upset No. 6 Baylor.

It wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill upset that came down the final few possessions, the Golden Eagles put a beatdown on the Bears, beating them 96-70, a 26-point rout.

It was a stunning result and one of the larger upsets of the season, the top teams in the country losing to teams seen as inferior has become very commonplace in the first few weeks of the season.

Since the season began on November 7, 13 ranked teams have lost to unranked teams and there wasn’t any until Temple beat then-No. 16 Villanova.

Tuesday’s win was the third time this season we saw a team ranked in the top six in the country fall to an unranked team; Michigan State beat No. 4 Kentucky on November 15 and Iowa State took down No. 1 North Carolina in Portland last Friday.

A lot of the top teams in college basketball feel very vulnerable – the UNC loss seemed to have been a long time coming, even if it was just the Tar Heels’ sixth game of the season, it had not looked good. Two days later, it lost a 4OT thriller to No. 18 Alabama, which dropped them all the way to No. 18 when the latest AP poll dropped on Monday.

Gonzaga, who came into the season at No. 2 in the country, has suffered two blowout losses this season at the hands of Texas and Purdue. It has a nice 16-point win over Kentucky, but the Bulldogs are 1-2 against ranked opponents so far this season before a neutral site game against Baylor on Friday.

Duke has a pair of losses, one of them a 19-point loss to Purdue. Heck, three of the four teams that played in the Champions Classic all have multiple losses.

This has paid dividends for programs such as Houston, who now sits at No. 1 in the country for the first time since the Phi Slama Jama days in this week’s poll. Texas is in the top two in the country for the first time since 2010. Virginia is off to a hot start with wins against Baylor and Illinois and sits at No. 3 in the country. UConn is 8-0 and No. 8 in the nation. That same Purdue group is a top-five team and hasn’t lost a game yet.

We’ve heard for years now that the talent gap in college basketball is closing more and more by the year. So far this year, we are seeing that.

This all being said, it turned out that a lot of the teams ranked at the top of the polls early in the season turned out to more vulnerable than we thought. It’s showing and other programs are taking advantage.

By Aidan Joly

One of the best tournaments of the early season finished up Sunday night in Portland. 16 teams in two brackets, the Phil Knight Legacy and the Phil Knight Invitational. Here are some takeaways from the games that were played throughout the week.

North Carolina exposed

The preseason No. 1 team hadn’t impressed before the tournament, so it seemed like almost a definite that the Tar Heels would lose a game in Portland. It lost two, a 70-65 loss to Iowa State on Friday and then lost a 103-101 quadruple overtime game to No. 18 Alabama on Sunday. Losing to Alabama is fine, but the Tar Heels finally got beat against TJ Otzelberger’s Cyclones. The Cyclones did it thanks to a magical night from Caleb Grill, who finished with 31 points on 11-15 shooting and 7-11 from three. The offense of UNC seems fine, it’s the defense that needs work. It will be fine in the ACC, but is not close to the best team in the country. Right now, it sits at #21 in KenPom.

Duke not getting necessary production

Duke had the best recruiting class this year, getting three of the top four prospects via 247 Sports in Dariq Whitehead, Dereck Lively and Kyle Filipowski, and not to mention Mark Mitchell at #20 and Tyrese Proctor at #27. In Portland, Duke went 2-1, beating Oregon State by just three points and Xavier by seven, before a blowout 75-56 loss to Purdue in the Legacy bracket final. Filipowski has been great and Mitchell and Proctor are both serviceable, but Whitehead and Lively have been disappointing and have already seen their minutes drop. To be a national title contender with freshman, you have to have them perform. So far, that is not happening.

Villanova looks bad

Is the sky falling already? The Wildcats went 0-3 in Portland with losses to Iowa State, Portland and an Oregon team that had just six scholarship players available. That drops them to 2-5 on the season and 0-5 against top 200 KenPom teams. Shorthanded due to injuries or not, new coach or not, this is a jarring turn. The Wildcats are out of good non-conference opportunities too. Not saying Nova is done, but this team is in a bad place right now.

Shantay Legens stock is up

Having taken over a program that is traditionally in the basement of the WCC, Shantay Legens had the Portland program at 19 wins last year in his first season at the helm and went 7-7 in conference play. This week, one of the two host schools of this tournament grabbed a win against the aforementioned Villanova and kept it close in its two other games, hanging around for about 39 minutes against UNC before losing by eight. Then, it only lost by one to Michigan State on Sunday, 78-77. The WCC is always a four-dog race, but the Pilots could make themselves known as the “best of the rest” in that league. Legens, still only 41, is a rising star in coaching.

UConn is legit

After going 3-0 in Portland and winning the Invitational bracket to improve its record to 8-0, an argument can be made for UConn to be a top 15 team in the country. It rolled over Oregon 83-59 on Thursday before beating Alabama 82-67 on Friday night before putting a final 71-53 beatdown on Iowa State on Sunday. Adama Sanogo has taken that jump to be a star, East Carolina transfer Tristen Newton has been a fantastic addition, sophomore Jordan Hawkins has made a jump in year two and Alex Karaban is an impact freshman. The Huskies have a ton of good role players too. UConn should be the new favorite to win the Big East at this point.

Iowa State’s big week

The Cyclones had a big week, going 2-1 in the bracket and are now 5-1 on the season, including the program’s first win against a No. 1 team since 2016 and just the second since 1957. The aforementioned Grill had one of the best performances from any player on any team in recent memory against UNC, meanwhile a pair of St. Bonaventure transfers in Jaren Holmes and Osun Osunniyi have been great additions. Otzelberger, in his second year in Ames, has this program going in the right direction.

Purdue’s massive weekend, Edey is a star

Purdue was the other team that went 3-0 in Portland and won the legacy bracket with wins over West Virginia, Gonzaga and Duke. The Boilermakers are now 6-0 on the season. However, it was 7-4 center Zach Edey who has taken centerstage, having scored 24, 23 and 21 points in the three wins and has averaged 21.7 points and 12 rebounds per game so far. Matt Painter had limited his minutes through his first two years, but he now averaged almost 30 per game after never averaging more than 20 and it’s paying dividends.