Still less than one month into the 2021-22 men’s college basketball season, we’re already onto our third No.
The schedule does stiffen up after that, but this year’s Big Ten is not last year’s Big Ten, which featured two 1-seeds, two 2-seeds, another 4-seed and six teams ranked in the top 15 at KenPom.
Simply put, how do you stop that type of balance? Jaden Ivey is playing himself into the conversation for top-five pick, Zach Edey and Trevion Williams are the best low-post duo in the country and Matt Painter has surrounded them with capable shooters and role players.
Hours after their counterparts on the gridiron took down top-ranked Georgia in the SEC championship game on Saturday, Nate Oats’ Crimson Tide went to Seattle and knocked off No.
Alabama jumped out to a double-digit lead in the first half, and finished the first 20 minutes on a 15-2 run in what would become something of a theme for the second half.
Jaden Shackelford was outstanding in the first half with 20 points, and then made a couple of key baskets late in the game after a quiet start to the second half.
Aimaq was a revelation last season for Utah Valley, winning WAC Player of the Year honors and leading the nation in rebounding.
He’s now tallied double-doubles in all but one game this season, helping lead the Wolverines to a 7-1 start — and seven straight wins since their season-opening loss at Boise State.
Chris Holtmann might have also found another asset in Louisiana transfer Cedric Russell, who made three 3s and scored 12 points in 15 minutes after having played just 23 minutes until then this season.
Paolo Banchero couldn’t get shots to fall, and Ohio State held Duke without a point for the final four and a half minutes.
And after this past week, they look poised for at least a top-half — and perhaps much higher — finish in the ACC.
Forbes has Wake Forest pushing the tempo, scoring efficiently at all three levels of the floor and playing disciplined but aggressive defense.
Penny Hardaway spoke after both losses about chemistry issues, and the Tigers have also been really, really poor offensively: in their last four games, they have 48 assists, 67 turnovers and are shooting below 30% from 3.
John’s Red Storm: Mike Anderson’s team harbored NCAA tournament hopes coming into the season, and while the Red Storm can still get there, their schedule is going to be completely bereft of anything noteworthy entering Big East play.
They lost at home to Arizona State, which had lost five in a row and scored just 29 points in a home loss to Washington State earlier in the week.
Purdue had, by far, its worst offensive outing of the season in its win over Iowa on Friday, and the main culprit was its struggles inside the arc.
Iowa collapsed on Edey whenever he touched the ball with his back to the basket, while Williams was pushed further from the rim than he would prefer, forcing him to take contested shots instead of powering through defenders for easy finishes.
Offensive droughts and uncharacteristic play happens in true road games against good teams. But the one thing that might be worth monitoring is Duke’s perimeter shooting — which is something we’ve mentioned here before, even when the Blue Devils were winning games.
Banchero, Wendell Moore and Trevor Keels would all prefer to score going to the rim rather than from the perimeter, and Jeremy Roach isn’t a very good shooter.
How about this stat from ESPN Stats and Information: Baylor freshman Kendall Brown is the first player in Big 12 history to score at least 10 points on 60% shooting in each of his first eight games of the season.
Things get taken up a notch for the Bears this week, with Villanova coming to Waco on Sunday, and then a trip to Oregon next Saturday.
There’s been a lot of talk this season about the best point guard in the country, from Collin Gillespie to Marcus Carr to Andrew Nembhard to whichever player is next on the carousel.
So what’s going on with Gonzaga? It’s all relative, since the Zags still own blowout wins over Texas and UCLA and aren’t dropping too far in the rankings, but there are some questions worth asking.
And lastly, because Gonzaga hasn’t shot the ball consistently well from 3, teams are collapsing in the paint and Timme is having to really fight for anything he gets around the rim.
Perhaps shaking off some rust from the injury layoff, Gillespie took a few weeks to get back to last season’s form, and is now playing like the preseason All-American we all expected him to be.
Bill Self has such an advantage over most teams due to his veteran-laden lineup, which features three seniors in Ochai Agbaji, David McCormack and Remy Martin, and one junior in Christian Braun.
He had double-figures in his first two games of the season, but waited too long to become aggressive against Gonzaga, and then had three straight games with a combined 11 points on 4-for-14 shooting.
He had 19 points and four assists against the former, followed up by 11 points, four assists and zero turnovers against the latter.
After bursting onto the national scene last season with an impressive NCAA tournament at both ends of the floor, Davis entered 2021-22 with heightened expectations and a potential All-SEC campaign in his future.
Eric Musselman has plenty of scorers on the roster, but an in-form Davis gives the Razorbacks a different dimension, as he’s also one of the best defenders in the country.
Kentucky is mostly still here because of its preseason ranking, given it has yet to be tested — or even play a top-100 KenPom team — since its season-opening loss to Duke.
For the people that haven’t paid attention to Kentucky since the Duke game, touted freshman guard TyTy Washington has completely turned his season around.
Arizona has been one of the early-season surprises under new head coach Tommy Lloyd, and while clear improvements from the likes of Christian Koloko and Azuolas Tubelis are at the heart of that fast start, last season’s leading returning scorer Bennedict Mathurin is still capable of huge performances.
A five-star recruit coming out of high school, Davison relied mostly on his athleticism and open-court ability to make plays.
That’s a really good sign for Davison, who continued to show impressive two-way ability, locking in on the defensive end and turning that into transition opportunities going the other way.
USC was knocking on the door of the rankings last week and two Pac-12 wins — including a road win at Washington State on Saturday — brings it into the top 16.
He’s shooting nearly 64% from the field, has scored in double figures six times in eight games and is one of the best offensive rebounders in the country.
His best game as a scorer came in a road win against Colorado on Saturday, when he went for 27 points in Tennessee’s 15-point win.
Chandler hasn’t shot the ball consistently well from 3-point range, going 5-for-19 from the perimeter in the last five games, but he’s getting into the paint and finishing, while taking care of the ball and running the show for an experienced Tennessee team.
With the exception of games against Kansas and Baylor, Michigan State’s defense has been almost impenetrable — holding its other seven opponents to 0.90 points per possession or fewer.
One positive for Houston the last couple weeks has been the return of Tramon Mark; he missed the first three games of the season, but is working himself back into the mix and had 22 points against Bryant on Friday.
The Gators really struggled to stop the Sooners’ inside duo of Tanner Groves and Jalen Hill and had a dreadful night shooting the ball from the perimeter.
UConn Huskies: UConn is about to enter a stretch where it will play 10 straight opponents ranked in the top 90 at KenPom.
Iowa State Cyclones: If you were wondering whether Iowa State’s performance in Brooklyn during Thanksgiving week was a fluke, the Cyclones went on the road on Saturday and knocked off Creighton.