Thursday's Things To Know

Cade won. Luka won. Memphis rolled. We got the full Arizona State experience; West Virginia, too. But first, a conversation about cognitive dissonance.

Before we get into today’s college hoops action, I want to tell you about my son.

He’s five. In September, after being home every single day for six months, we enrolled him in a transitional kindergarten program at a school in our area three days. Class sizes at the school were capped at ten. The teachers in each individual classroom split those classes in half. They all have separate work spaces, separate markers, assigned seats at the lunch table. They don’t mix classrooms.

And they’re required to wear masks. All day, every day.

We knew he needed structure in his life again, but we only sent him back to school because of the precautions that they take. And despite those precautions, there were three positives tests at the school this week. My son will not be going back to school until at the second week of December, at the earliest.

I say all that to say this: I’m taking this pandemic seriously. I know the risks, I know what happens when it spreads, I know the dangers that creates, and I know there is so much we don’t know about the long-term impact of this thing.

And yet, I’m still sitting here, spending 12 hours on the day before Thanksgiving celebrating the fact that a bunch of unpaid, amateur student-athletes are shedding those masks to go out and play games against teams from different parts of the country in areas that are getting ravaged by this virus as we speak.

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There’s a level of cognitive dissonance that the rational half of our country must deal with in order to enjoy college basketball this season.

But I’ve made the decision that I am going to allow myself to enjoy it, and while some of that is, undoubtedly, self-serving — I was laid off due to COVID cutbacks at NBC Sports, and I’ve launched a business that is centered entirely around monetizing college basketball content; I need the games to be played to keep the lights on.

It’s not just that, though.

The kids want to play. The kids need to play.

Which brings me to Mike Flowers.

I’m not sure anyone that dealt with the mental stress and fatigue that the COVID era has draped over the planet quite Flowers. In March, Flowers opted to transfer out of the Western Michigan program after his head coach, Steve Hawkins, was fired. He committed to, and eventually enrolled at, South Alabama, where he was expected to be a major addition considering he had just averaged 17.1 ppg in the MAC and was joining a program that lost seven players from last year’s rotation.

But he didn’t get the waiver.

The NCAA denied it. Then they denied the appeal. It took USA filing a lawsuit and going public with this mess to get the NCAA to do the right thing. He was on campus for four months before he got the answered he deserved.

On Monday, Flowers’ father died, four years after he lost his mother.

On Wednesday, in the first basketball that he has played against someone other than his USA teammates in the last nine months, this happened:

Rob Dauster @RobDauster

Mike Flowers. Game-winner. Let's go!!!

How can you not feel good for that kid?

How can you be anything other than happy that he gets to experience something other than what he, what we all have been experiencing since the day the tournament died?

And while he’s the only player in the country that hit a game-winner to open the season two days after the death of his father, every other player that put on a uniform got a chance to do the thing that they love to do more than anything else.

There is so much about this that is problematic and complicated and morally ambiguous at the very best.

For now, I’m going to overlook all of it, knowing how much of a hypocrite it makes me.

HERE ARE THE NINE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

CADE CUNNINGHAM WAS AS GOOD AS ADVERTISED

Prior to the 21 points and 10 boards that Cunningham posted in his debut for Oklahoma State on Wednesday, there had been just one other freshman in the history of the Big 12 to go for 20 and 10 in their first game — Michael Beasley.

And Cunningham is a point guard. He’s 6-foot-7 and 220 pounds, but he’s a point guard.

The wild part is that he never really seemed to get out of second gear. He flashed a couple of times in the open court, he knocked down a couple of threes and he played solid-if-unspectacular defense, but we didn’t see many glimpses of his ability as a passer or the way that he can manipulate the floor in ball-screens. (Blame Chris Ogden. UT-Arlington’s zone was effective.)

Anyway, here’s a little highlight reel to get a feel for what he can do:

LUKA KEPT PACE

Granted, it came against an NC-Central team that has had all kinds of issues with COVID and contract tracing — LeVelle Moton told reporters that his team has not practiced for 18 days — but Luka Garza is still good.

He finished with 26 points and 10 boards on 11-for-14 shooting in just 24 minutes.

And I think we have a nickname for the Big Fella:

Rob Dauster @RobDauster

Dirka Garza

IS VILLANOVA’S PERIMETER DEFENSE A PROBLEM?

Villanova won in the end. They beat Boston College, 76-67, but it required the Wildcats to go on a 28-10 run to close the game to get it to that margin.

Where Villanova struggled was on the defensive end of the floor. Collin Gillespie, Justin Moore and Caleb Daniels just could not keep Boston College’s backcourt of Justin Heath and Makai Ashton-Langford fro getting into the lane whenever they wanted to get into the lane.

It was a problem.

Now, I’m writing this less than 24 hours before Villanova plays Arizona State.

So we will know FOR SURE if Villanova struggles keeping athletic guards out of the lane because Arizona State has roughly 37 athletic guards on their roster.

But I did think it was something worth noting here, if for no reason other than to alert you to the fact that there may be some value on the Sun Devils on Turkey Day.

If you can stomach it.

MEMPHIS IS GOING TO BE REALLY GOOD

I was high on the Tigers heading into this season, and after seeing what they did to Saint Mary’s in the opener of the Angry Lawnmowers in South Dakota (or whatever the hell that tournament is called now), I’m all the way in on them.

I’m not making any points here that I haven’t made before. They’re sophomores all got better. Moussa Cisse is a rim-running, rim-protecting force in the paint. Boogie Ellis seems to enjoy being the sparkplug off the bench; he finished with 24 points in the win.

They’re big, they’re athletic, they can really defend and they seem to be more cohesive offensively when they are forced to play in the halfcourt. The context here is that Saint Mary’s might be bad, but I’m not moving off of this take.

Memphis is a top 20 team in college basketball.

I SEE YOU, VIRGINIA

The Wahoos dropped 89 points on Towson.

I know it’s Towson.

But Virginia only scored more than 65 points in one game last season. One! So I certainly will not be ignoring this, not when a team that shot 30.3 percent from three last season made 15-for-29 from beyond the arc. Shoutout Trey Murphy III, who made six of those 15 threes, after getting eligible to play just days ago.

I SEE YOU TOO, GREG BROWN

fieldof68

A post shared by The Field Of 68 (@fieldof68)

ARIZONA STATE IS MADDENING

We got the full Arizona State experience in one two-hour window on Wednesday. They looked awesome for 15 minutes. They blew an 18-point lead to a team whose star point guard had four fouls in the first half. They had two technicals in a two minute span in the second half. They had a player miss a wide-open dunk and then decide that running back on defense was beneath him. They made too many enfuriating and head-scratching decisions to mention.

And then, in the final 90 seconds, they made three huge defensive plays that allowed them to seal the win.

What a roller-coaster.

These tweets sum it up:

Rob Dauster @RobDauster

Arizona State drives me insane. Defensive lapses. Poor decisions on significant possessions. A penchant for hero ball. That said, they made three HUGE defensive plays on the final three possessions to lock up a win. They should have won by 12, but they still won. Baby steps?

Rob Dauster @RobDauster

The JayGup charge. Blitzing the ball-screen to force a pick-six turnover. Remy Martin's stripping a defender. If they lock in like that for 40 minutes a night, they can get to a Final Four. But they won't lock in like that for 40 minutes, which is why they could lose 1st round.

Remy Martin had 26 points, six boards and five assists.

ISAIAH JACKSON IS A DUDE

There is only so much that we can take away from watching a team as talented as Kentucky go up against a program like Morehead State, but it’s never a bad thing to see a team with literally an entirely new roster go out and win without really breaking a sweat.

Terrence Clarke was good. B.J. Boston was good. Devin Askew and Davion Mintz combined for 22 points and seven assists at the point. But for me, the biggest thing that I took away from this game as that Isaiah Jackson is an absolute freak. I knew about his length and explosiveness. I didn’t realize that he was coordinated and mobile enough to be able to point Kentucky’s 1-2-1-1 press.

WE ARE GOING TO LOVE ZACH EDEY

I don’t know where Matt Painter finds them, but he always does.

For what feels like the 673rd season in a row, Purdue has a 7-foot-4 center on their roster. This year, it’s Zach Edey, a 290 pound freshman that finished his first career college basketball came with 19 points on 9-for-10 shooting in just 16 minutes.

Zach Edey. Canadian Hero.

CBS Sports Network @CBSSportsNet

Zach Edey is pretty good at this whole basketball thing. Rebound on one hand the throw down on the other and @BoilerBall is cooking!