Another Feast Week, another buffet of elite nonconference matchups that offers college basketball teams the chance to pad their NCAA tournament résumés with high-quality wins.
The best action has come out of Las Vegas, where 18 of the nation’s top teams — including eight of the AP Top 25 — competed in the Players Era Festival, which culminated in a dominant performance for No. 7 Michigan.
There are more notable matchups to wrap Thanksgiving week. ESPN’s Myron Medcalf, Jeff Borzello and Joe Lunardi preview the must-watch contests below, and analyze results as they happen.
All times Eastern.
Jump to analysis of top results: Thursday | Wednesday | Tuesday | Monday
Friday games to watch
12:30 p.m. | SentinelOne Showdown
Two of America’s supreme offenses will face off at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Black Friday. Sign me up. Each suffered its first loss of the season last week, with UConn falling at home to Arizona and Illinois dropping one to Alabama in Chicago. How healthy will the Huskies be for this one? Tarris Reed Jr. missed the Arizona loss with an ankle injury, while Braylon Mullins (ankle) hasn’t played this season. UConn is capable of exploiting Illinois’ defensive issues, while the Huskies could be vulnerable to the Illini’s offensive rebounding prowess. — Borzello
Thursday results
Fort Myers Tip-Off
Jeremy Fears Jr. has been the consummate point guard for Michigan State all season, but at his core, he’s a pass-first lead guard — as evidenced by him leading the nation in assists entering Thursday. Harken back to last week’s win over Kentucky at the Champions Classic, and he was arguably the best player on the floor despite taking just three shots.
That wasn’t the case in Michigan State’s win over North Carolina, as Fears came up big throughout the second half when it felt like UNC was generating momentum. After the Tar Heels scored six straight to cut the lead to three, Fears responded with a basket. A couple of possessions later, he buried a 3 to extend the lead to eight. Then Fears got another bucket after a Caleb Wilson dunk a few minutes later to end any hopes of a Carolina run.
He finished with 19 points — 15 in the second half — to go with 7 assists and just 2 turnovers. Fears is the perfect Tom Izzo point guard and continues to prove it in big games this season. — Borzello
Cameron Boozer continues to make the case that he’s the best player in America. John Calipari put an extra defender on him nearly every time he touched the ball, but Boozer still managed to finish with 35 points and nine rebounds — and his dominance allows the Blue Devils to control every game. With Duke down in the second half on Thursday, Boozer willed his team out of a funk. He kinda does whatever he wants and Duke won — again — as a result. He might be the most unstoppable individual force in the country.
Darius Acuff Jr. (21 points) played some beautiful basketball and gave his team a chance to win. Again. But the Razorbacks have to be a better defensive squad against talented big men going forward. The same issue cost them in a loss to Michigan State earlier this month. — Medcalf
Wednesday results
Players Era Festival championship
Michigan put forth one of the most dominant Feast Weeks we’ve seen in recent memory. The Wolverines simply overwhelmed three straight opponents by a combined 110 points, averaging 99.0 points in the process.
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Perhaps it’s telling that each of the teams run out of the arena by Michigan this week still leave Las Vegas with positives on their résumés.
San Diego State responded to its blowout loss by beating Oregon by 17. Auburn turned around and beat St. John’s 24 hours after losing to Michigan. Gonzaga beat Alabama by 10 two days earlier. We know these teams are good. They’re all likely NCAA tournament teams. And none landed a single punch on Dusty May’s group.
Most strikingly, the Wolverines jumped out to huge leads almost immediately in each game. They led San Diego State by 10 points six minutes into the game. They were up 16-4 on Auburn within five minutes. They took a 10-point lead on Gonzaga 190 seconds after tipoff.
Gonzaga scores in the paint as efficiently as any team in college basketball, behind an elite frontcourt. But the Bulldogs couldn’t finish against the Wolverines’ length around the basket, finishing 5-for-18 on layups. Typically, teams with the Wolverines’ size can’t run or shoot the way they did. They went 13-for-27 from beyond the 3-point line after making 14 of those shots against Auburn.
As Auburn coach Steven Pearl said after his team’s loss, “When they shoot the ball at that rate, nobody’s beating that team.” — Borzello
Players Era Festival third-place game
Kansas entered this week unranked in a November AP poll for the first time in 20 years. The Jayhawks already had losses to North Carolina and Duke, and didn’t seem as if they had the firepower to compete for 40 minutes at a high level without star guard Darryn Peterson — or Jayden Dawson, who hurt his wrist dunking in warmups Monday.
Bill Self’s team exits Vegas with three straight wins, including Wednesday’s comeback victory over Tennessee. The Volunteers led by as many as 12 points in the second half, but Elmarko Jackson and Melvin Council Jr. scored a combined 23 points over the next nine minutes to spark the comeback.
Kansas’ ability all week to find players to step up at various times was impressive. The efforts from Jackson and Council came after Tre White was the team’s best player in the first half and Bryson Tiller averaged 14.0 points in wins over Notre Dame and Syracuse. Meanwhile, Flory Bidunga has developed into a legitimate focal point of Kansas’ offense, scoring in double figures in each game in Las Vegas.
Self now gets to add Peterson back into a team with far more options than it seemed to have at the start of the season. The Jayhawks might not be national championship good, but a spot in the Top 25 all season seems like a safe bet moving forward. — Borzello
Tuesday results
Players Era Festival
This was as comprehensive and dominant a performance as we’ve seen from any team in the country this season. Michigan jumped out to a nine-point lead before the first media timeout and never let up from there. Simply put, teams with the size the Wolverines have shouldn’t be able to shoot or get out in transition and score like they did on Tuesday. They went 14-for-35 from 3-point range and had a 29-3 edge in fast-break points.
There’s no team in America that can beat Michigan when it is that effective on the offensive end — especially when combined with its No. 1 ranking in defensive efficiency, not allowing any easy buckets around the rim. Auburn was 9-23 on layups and shot 31.6% inside the arc. — Borzello
Players Era Festival
Near the five-minute mark of the second half, Tennessee’s Bishop Boswell shadowed Houston’s Kingston Flemings as he drove by. Flemings looked like he saw an easy bucket until Boswell poked the ball from his hands, leading to a turnover and points on the other end of the floor. Those gritty defensive plays swayed the game in the Vols’ favor as they forced the Cougars into a 1-for-15 stretch in the last 20 minutes.
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Tennessee won ugly, with the team’s leading scorers Nate Ament and Ja’Kobi Gillespie finishing a combined 6-for-24 from the field. That might be the way the Vols have to win this season, especially when their best players struggle — and they have proved that’s enough.
Meanwhile, Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said Monday’s overtime win against Syracuse would be valuable experience for his young players, but the Cougars’ bigger concern could be the lack of consistent synergy with their top three perimeter players — Milos Uzan, Emanuel Sharp and Flemings — in Las Vegas. Their collective significance was clear when the trio couldn’t connect on shots during that cold stretch in the second half, and Houston didn’t have other ways to score. The Cougars have what it takes to be a great team, but only if Flemings, Uzan and Sharp can play well together in those stretches that change games.
Still, Flemings — the Cougars’ leading scorer on Tuesday (25 points) — has a chance to be one of the best young players Sampson has coached at Houston. — Medcalf
Players Era Festival
We’ll never know what Rick Pitino said to light a fire under St. John’s after Monday’s loss to Iowa State, but it clearly worked. The Red Storm came out aggressive on defense against Baylor on Tuesday, flying around and putting the Bears on their heels immediately to set a physical tone that Baylor struggled to match. The offensive rebounding issues that Pitino harped on after the Iowa State loss were still there (Baylor had 26 second-chance opportunities), but that was the only negative on the Red Storm’s ledger in this one. Bryce Hopkins had his best game since transferring (26 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists), and the Red Storm made a season-high 11 3-pointers, paced by Oziyah Sellers’ five in a second consecutive game. — Borzello
Monday results
Players Era Festival
Tyon Grant-Foster (21 points), who is gradually finding a role after missing summer workouts because of his eligibility case, could be the X factor for Gonzaga’s national title ambitions.
As dominant as Gonzaga was against Alabama, especially in the paint, it’s important to remember that the Bulldogs have had Grant-Foster in the fold for only about a month. Monday’s win was the first time the former WAC Player of the Year looked fully comfortable this season. His 6-foot-7 frame gives them a defensive boost with his ability to guard multiple positions, and he creates offensive mismatches when paired with big men Graham Ike and Braden Huff. Few opponents have an extra 6-foot-7 defender they can throw at Grant-Foster. He’s a unique problem for opponents, which changes Gonzaga’s ceiling.
For Alabama, the loss was more proof that the Crimson Tide will have trouble against top opponents if Aden Holloway isn’t the maestro they need him to be. In the first 38 minutes, he missed 9 of 15 field goal attempts and registered only one assist. Labaron Philon Jr. (29 points) could be the front-runner for SEC Player of the Year, but he can’t do everything for Nate Oats’ squad. That much was clear on Monday. — Medcalf
Players Era Festival
For Auburn to consider this trip to Las Vegas a success, the Tigers needed two things: for Tahaad Pettiford to snap out of his early-season slump, and for Keyshawn Hall to recover in time to suit up. They got both of those in Monday’s win over Oregon.
Pettiford had his best outing of the season, finishing with 24 points, four rebounds and four assists. He came out ultra-aggressive, with five shots in the first six minutes, and consistently put pressure on the defense. His perimeter shot still isn’t falling (he’s 8-for-41 from 3 this season), but he still found ways to make plays. And Hall was not only healthy, but healthy enough to start — and make his usual impact. The UCF transfer posted 18 points and six boards, looking like one of the most productive players in the SEC.
In order to avoid going 0-2 in the desert, Oregon needs to take much better care of the ball against San Diego State on Tuesday. The Ducks gave the ball away to the Tigers 18 times and rank in the bottom third nationally in turnover rate. The Aztecs, meanwhile, force turnovers at a top-10 clip. — Borzello
Players Era Festival
It was billed as a battle between two of the best defensive teams in the country, two teams that force turnovers at a high rate — specifically, in the case of Iowa State, at the highest rate. But the first half was more up-tempo and back-and-forth than expected, before the defensive grind-it-out affair commenced down the stretch. Iowa State’s frontcourt duo of Milan Momcilovic (23 points) and Joshua Jefferson (17) caused problems for St. John’s defense, and the Red Storm really struggled to generate clean looks down the stretch without a consistent playmaker at the point of attack.
All eyes for Iowa State are on Tamin Lipsey, who left the game in the final minutes and went straight back to the locker room with his jersey over his face. — Borzello
