Monday's Overreactions!
Gonzaga is going undefeated, Rutgers is a top ten team, Davion Mitchell is a pro and Iowa ... can make a Final Four?
It didn’t really hit me until today.
Because, truthfully, we’re used to having the college basketball that’s played during football season happen in sterile environments.
Sometimes it’s because selling tickets that are too expensive to see a team you bought get 30-pieced is hard. And sometimes it’s because the non-conference matchups that everyone cares about take place neutral court venues in places that only the boosters that can front the cash for a coach’s buyout can afford to go.
There are exceptions, of course.
The Maui Invitational is a bucket list event for every college basketball fan. The Champions Classic is always packed because it’s the first night of the season, and it features four of the sport’s biggest, nationally relevant programs and fan bases. Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and Michigan State can fill an NBA arena in Chicago, in New York, in Indianapolis. Hell, they could probably sell out in Reykjavik.
But those are just two events and 14 total games for 12 different teams. College basketball has 357 teams at the Division I level; 90 or so of those are considered high-major, depending on the definition du jour that we are using. That is, and has been, one of the fundamental issues plaguing this sport. The overwhelming majority of the games that are played during the first seven or eight weeks are so irrelevant that it’s hard for anyone to care all that much.
(I know the reasons why it happens, so I don’t need anyone explaining it to me. But knowing why something happens a certain doesn’t make that thing any less problematic.)
Which brings me back to this season.
The free sample of The Rebound’s 2020-21 college basketball coverage will continue until New Year’s Day. If you do enjoy the content that you read here, please consider subscribing to the newsletter for full access during the season for just $7/month or $70 for the year. Come 2021, it will all be behind the paywall.
We have had some good games scheduled. Most of them have been played. But it really doesn’t feel all that out of place that, say, West Virginia and Gonzaga played in a BankersLife Fieldhouse that was mostly empty, or that Villanova and Arizona State played in Mohegan Sun Arena without a raucous crowd.
It is what it is.
But Sunday, when I’m writing this, felt like the first day of conference play. UConn played their first game in seven years as a member of the Big East Conference, going to overtime against No. 9 Creighton at home as James Bouknight dropped a 40-burger. Rutgers erased a double-digit deficit and beat No. 11 Illinois in The RAC. We had a ridiculous buzzer-beater in the Cintas Center as Xavier remained undefeated with a win over Marquette. Seton Hall and Providence went to overtime in Newark, where the game was decided by A.J. Reeves hitting a three with 3.1 seconds left and Takal Molson missing an incredible look at the buzzer that would have tied it. Oh, and No. 4 Michigan State went into Wintrust Arena and lost to Northwestern, who might actually be good again.
It was a wild and thoroughly entertaining day of college basketball. It totally and completely overshadowed Saturday’s slate, which was supposed to be the best day of hoops that we would get during this young season.
And I couldn’t help but think about just how much we were missing without the fans there.
It’s not right that the best game of Bouknight’s life didn’t happen in front of 11,000 Nutmeggers desperate to get their Huskies back in a league they care about.
It’s not right that on Rutgers’ official coming party, the nation didn’t get to see just how insane The RAC can get on the right night.
It’s not right that 17,000 Musketeers fans missed a chance to go berzerk together after Kunkel’s game-winner.
It’s not right that Newark’s finest missed out on the collective gasp that comes every time a game-winning shot is in the air as the buzzer sounds.
No one goes to Northwestern games.
So much of the college basketball experience, both in going to games and watching them on TV, involves the environment the games happen in. It’s unlike anything else in American sports because of the insanity of student sections and the proximity they have to the actual game.
And it wasn’t until Sunday that I really felt it.
So put on a mask. Get a vaccine. Do your part, because the world won’t be right again until 20,000 hammered Maryland fans are yelling at Luka Garza about his eyebrows again.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Greg Brown, Texas
It took him a while to really get going this season, but it seems like he has.
On Saturday, in the Big 12 opener for the Longhorns, Greg Brown had his best game as a collegian, finishing with 24 points, 14 boards, three blocks and three threes while completely taking that game over for a stretch in the second half. This comes of the heels of averaging 17.5 points, 6.0 boards and 2.5 steals in his previous two games.
This is huge for Texas, as it gives them two of the most athletic and versatile forwards in college basketball in Brown and Kai Jones.
But it’s big for Brown himself as well. He’s a top ten recruit. He’s projected as a potential lottery pick. The longer it took him to get going, the more pressure that would have built up on him.
He doesn’t need to worry about that anymore.
TEAM OF THE WEEK: Northwestern Wildcats
Is Northwestern good again?
Well, they lost at home to Pitt. And their three wins entering Sunday came against two of the worst teams in Division I as well as something called Quincy, but on Sunday, they sure did make themselves look good again.
Boo Buie went for 30 points and four assists while hitting five threes to lead the Wildcats to a 79-65 win over No. 4 Michigan State in Wintrust Arena. It’s Northwestern’s first win over a top five team since 1979.
That’s a long time ago.
MONDAY’S OVERREACTIONS
1. GONZAGA IS GOING TO GO UNDEFEATED
That got your attention, didn’t it?
Truthfully, that is not a prediction that I can actually make in an era where all it takes is one player to catch a virus and spread it to his team to have everything go belly-up.
That said, it is very hard not to be incredibly impressed with the Zags four games into their season. I’ve written about why they have a chance to be special this season, so I’m not going to rehash that right now, but looking through their schedule, I just don’t know who is going to be able to hang with them.
I can’t see Virginia doing it regardless of how good they are defensively. San Francisco, Saint Mary’s and BYU are all top 100 teams this season, but none of them have near enough athleticism to deal with Jalen Suggs in the backcourt. Now, if a matchup with Baylor ever materializes, then we’ll have to revisit this discussion; the Bears are actually rated higher on KenPom than Gonzaga is.
But as of right now, I do not think there is a very realistic chance that any of Gonzaga’s 23 remaining games end in an L. Based on KenPom’s projections, there isn’t a single game on their schedule where they are projected to win by less than seven points. The only two in single-digits are at Saint Mary’s and that matchup with Virginia.
Anyway, Da’Sean Butler and I spent about 30 minutes talking through Gonzaga and Iowa on today’s podcast. You can get your full fix of content on that showdown here:
2. SPEAKING OF IOWA, THEY’RE STILL FINAL FOUR GOOD
I mentioned this on the podcast, but the craziest part of Gonzaga’s win over Iowa to me was just how easy the Zags had it offensively. They got whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted it.
Have you ever played a pickup game or in a men’s league where the team you were going up against was so overmatched and tired that you almost felt bad taking wide-open shots? That you made passes and ran offense because it felt like that was the right thing to do even though the only thing it took to get those wide open looks was walking down the court?
That’s what the second half felt like watching the Zags.
So Iowa is just as bad defensively as I thought they were going to be this season.
But they’re actually more dangerous than I thought they would be this season. As of today, I think that Iowa is more likely to get to the Final Four than I did back in the preseason, when I went through and detailed just how bad the Hawkeyes can be defensively.
The difference is that they are so ruthlessly efficient offensively. Think about it like this: They just put on 88 points on Gonzaga on a night where they shot 4-for-22 from three. Luka Garza is just unstoppable when he’s 1-on-1 on the block, and if you send help, the Hawkeyes will get an open look from three. They’re not going to shoot 4-for-22 all that often.
As weird as it sounds, I actually feel better about seeing Iowa get run by Gonzaga than I did before they got run by Gonzaga.
3. DON’T FORGET ABOUT BAYLOR
The Bears have kind of slid into the background in recent weeks, as we all got excited about this Gonzaga-Iowa showdown and Baylor had to spend some time in a pause due to positive tests.
But this is still one of the very best teams in the country, and based on the way that they’ve played through the first month of the season, I’m not entirely ready to concede that Baylor isn’t the best team in the country.
The problem with this team last season was that, far too often, their offense devolved into “let Jared Butler try to do something, then go get an offensive rebound.” That’s not the case this year. Butler is the best shooting team in college hoops through their first five games. They’re leading the nation in effective field goal percentage. They’re leading the nation in three-point percentage and taking more than 38 percent of their field goal attempts from beyond the arc.
The addition of Adam Flagler has certainly helped. Jared Butler has taken a step forward, and MaCio Teague has been just as good as advertised, but the guy I want to talk about here is Davion Mitchell.
Through five games, Mitchell — who is known as the best on-ball defender in college basketball — is averaging 14.0 points and 6.0 assists while shooting 58 percent from three.
It changes things for Baylor when he’s shooting like this. It gives them another ball-screen threat when he is making plays like this:
4. RUTGERS IS A TOP TEN TEAM*
Yeah, I said it.
The Scarlet Knights are just so tough, so well-coached, so balanced.
The thing that I love about this team is two-fold:
Everyone is bought into the role that they are being asked to play. They all know what their job is, and they all execute it. Take, for example, Paul Mulcahy. He knows that his role is to go out there and be a pest, and he spends 30 minutes a night doing nothing other than that.
Steve Pikiell is so good at finding ways to exploit the teams he’s coaching against. I thought this quick-hitter from Sunday’s win over Illinois is the perfect example. Instead of putting Kofi Cockburn in a ball-screen. He has Ron Harper Jr. ghost a ball-screen and uses Myles Johnson, who Cockburn is guarding, to set a flare on Coleman Hawkins knowing full well that neither player would be able to get close to Harper:
For my money, Iowa is still the best team in the Big Ten right now, and after seeing what Wisconsin did to Louisville, I don’t think the Badgers are all that far behind.
But this Rutgers group is not all that far behind them.
It’s a sight to behold.
I’ll also add: Ron Harper Jr. is one of my favorite players in the country mostly because he does not look like a guy that should be as fluid or as good at getting to the rim as he is. He’s built like a first-baseman, not a wing that has a very real chance of finishing this season as an All-American and playing in the NBA.
*This could change if Cliff Omoruyi’s knee injury is serious. Here’s to hoping it is not.