While nonconference scheduling has been about as good as ever this season, a few teams have still been hiding from real competition. That ends this week.
I’m in Las Vegas this week for an event that is taking Feast Week to another level. Eight of the Top 25 teams in college basketball will be at the Players Era Festival. Using my poll, as many as 15 ranked teams could play another ranked opponent this week. Eleven have guaranteed matchups against a ranked opponent.
The Maui Invitational and Battle 4 Atlantis fields are down — and the Players Era Festival has a role in that (we’ll have a story coming on that very topic soon) — but overall, it’s going to be a terrific week of college hoops.
This week, I dropped Ohio State because of a weak schedule and not quite dominant enough performances. Purdue, Arizona, Duke, Alabama, BYU and Michigan State all had noteworthy wins over the last week. More on them below, as well as thoughts on Florida, Kansas and Top 25 newcomer Nebraska.
Dropped out: Ohio State
Keeping an eye on: North Carolina State, Ole Miss, Missouri, Iowa, Georgetown, Auburn, Saint Louis, Utah State, Liberty
1. Purdue
Last week: Beat Memphis 80-71 and No. 15 Texas Tech 86-56
A year ago, Purdue ranked 53rd in adjusted defensive efficiency and allowed opponents to shoot 55.6 percent inside the arc, which ranked 332nd nationally. That kept the Boilermakers, who were awesome offensively, from being elite.
Well, it appears the defense is back. Purdue executed a good defensive plan to win at Alabama two weeks ago, then made Texas Tech look like a mid-major program in Friday’s 86-56 win. These were perfect early litmus tests to see where the Boilermakers are. Alabama and Texas Tech are two of the most difficult offenses to deal with in college basketball. The Red Raiders had their worst offensive performance in two-plus seasons under coach Grant McCasland.
Purdue can take away a team’s stars. Alabama and Texas Tech have All-American candidates in Labaron Philon Jr. and JT Toppin, respectively. Philon scored just 11 points on 14 shots against Purdue and is averaging 23.7 points in Alabama’s other three games. Toppin was averaging 23.5 points going into Friday and scored just 15 on 13 shots, many of those points coming when the game was already out of hand.
Purdue had a smart plan against Toppin, who arguably has the best jump hook in college basketball. (The competition is Purdue’s own Trey Kaufman-Renn.) The Boilermakers sold out on not letting Toppin get to his right shoulder:
This type of plan was executable because of the physicality of Oscar Cluff and length of Daniel Jacobsen. Not sure the Boilers could have pulled that off a year ago. It’s still early, but it appears Matt Painter has a defense good enough to win a national title.
2. Arizona
Last week: Beat No. 3 UConn 71-67
Arizona outrebounded UConn by 20. Coach Tommy Lloyd called that an anomaly afterward and referenced the absence of Tarris Reed as a contributing factor, but Lloyd also made several tactical decisions.
“We really wanted to lock in on the glass,” Lloyd told reporters after the game. “We had some certain shots we wanted to force them to shoot, and we hoped if they would miss, they’d be some shorter rebounds and we could kind of use our size and our athleticism and activity to corral those rebounds.”
Those shots were non-rim 2s. Arizona tried to get UConn to take those shots by playing its centers in a deep drop and fighting over screens to run UConn off the 3-point line. When it worked, it looked like this:
The Huskies struggled on these looks early but ended up making a respectable 8-of-16 against the drop, a combination of floaters and mid-range jumpers. But Lloyd’s logic worked as he hoped. Out of those eight misses, UConn only got one back, a ball that went out of bounds off Arizona. UConn finished with six offensive rebounds, a 16.7 percent offensive rebounding rate. That tied for the second-lowest in the last six years for the Huskies.
And while the percentage was solid on the non-rim 2s, they weren’t 3s. UConn attempted 25 from beyond the arc but made only eight, and only a few times did one of UConn’s intricate play designs generate those looks.
8. Duke
Last week: Beat No. 24 Kansas 78-66, Niagara 100-42 and Howard 93-56
Duke star freshman Cameron Boozer’s efficiency has dipped in two games against high-majors, partly because he struggles to finish over length. It’s the one flaw in his game. But what Kansas learned is that his passing might be his most valuable skill.
Kansas tried to take away Boozer by doubling him on every post touch. Bad idea. On nine post doubles, seven finished a possession. (One resulted in a on-the-floor foul and on another, Boozer had his shot blocked, which went out of bounds and remained with Duke.) On the other seven, Duke scored 10 points. That’s 1.43 points per possession. One empty trip was nearly a bucket, but Maliq Brown misfired a pass to Dame Sarr that was going to result in a dunk. Complete that pass and it’s 1.71 PPP.
Boozer is going to identify the open man quickly and make the right pass almost every time:
Eventually, KU coach Bill Self decided the double team just wasn’t working. Boozer had only one more post touch and missed a tough turnaround over Bryson Tiller.
My concern with Duke has been the absence of an off-the-dribble creator. Give the Blue Devils that player and this is a complete offense. Maybe Cayden Boozer becomes that guy, and what he did against Kansas was encouraging. Do not be surprised if Duke improves once coach Jon Scheyer replaces Caleb Foster in the starting lineup with Cayden, similar to what happened last year when Sion James became a starter in Duke’s eighth game. But even if that off-the-dribble creator never emerges, this offense is probably still going to score efficiently because Scheyer runs good sets and plays through his bigs, all three of whom are good passers.
9. Alabama
Last week: Beat No. 8 Illinois 90-86
Labaron Philon Jr. is one of the best downhill drivers in college basketball, and coach Nate Oats rocked with Philon down the stretch against Illinois on Wednesday, giving the sophomore point guard the ball four straight times with a ball screen each time. Philon put on a clinic, scoring all four times. Each situation was different and showed not only how adept Philon is at reading coverages, but also the importance of the screeners setting the right kind of screen.
The first is set up by a ghost (fake) screen from Houston Mallette, which creates a split second of indecision from the Illini’s Zvonimir Ivisic and Andrej Stojakovic:
Next time down, Alabama tried to get to the paint without any luck against the Illini’s switching defense. Finally, instead of screening Philon’s defender, Mallette screened his own, which almost acted as a double screen to free Philon:
The next one was simple. Philon had Ivisic on an island because of the switch, and when he saw Ivisic’s heels inside the semi-circle, he knew he was shooting:
After getting burned on three straight possessions, Illinois coach Brad Underwood said enough. He went zone, but Alabama still went back to the ball screen. Taylor Bol Bowen screened Keaton Wagler and took him away on the roll, giving Philon just a sliver of space to attack through the elbow:
That shot, a one-footed runner, stepping sideways on his final step, was ridiculous.
Philon is averaging 23.7 points in Alabama’s three wins and scored 11 in the one loss to Purdue. When Philon is on, Bama is tough to deal with.
11. BYU
Last week: Beat No. 23 Wisconsin 98-70
AJ Dybantsa is a foul magnet. In five games, he has already drawn 35 fouls, according to Synergy. BYU has encouraged Dybantsa to take midrange shots, even though that is an inefficient shot for most.
The reason the Cougars want Dybantsa shooting the midrange is not only because he’s elite at it. Defenses tend to foul him when trying to contest it. He has made 3-of-6 of his tries so far, but he has been fouled six times trying to attempt a midrange jumper. Adding the free throws he’s made, he’s scoring 1.36 points per possession on the 11 mid-range jumper tries. That would be a good efficiency for layups.
Dybantsa knows defenders want to crowd him and take that shot away, so in the last two games, he has hit them with this move:
So what’s the temptation? Bring a second defender, right?
Watch that last one with volume. You can hear BYU coach Kevin Young screaming, “Get the ball, AJ.” Smart man. You get Dybantsa isolated in the middle of the floor, and efficient things are going to happen.
12. Florida
Last week: Beat Merrimack 80-45
If there’s a reason to be skeptical of Florida early on, it’s guard play and, in particular, the 3-point shooting of Xaivian Lee (6-of-38) and Boogie Fland (4-of-20). That’s after Fland just went 2-of-3 in Florida’s latest win. Through five games, the Gators are shooting 25.7 percent from deep.
“People don’t remember this because we weren’t in the same position last year. But we couldn’t make a shot at the beginning of last year, either,” Florida coach Todd Golden said. “We just weren’t playing anybody, so nobody was really following us.”
Through five games last year, Florida was shooting just 28.8 percent from 3. Both Alijah Martin and Will Richard were struggling. Lee shot 36.6 percent from 3 last year at Princeton. Fland shot 34 percent. It’s possible their numbers normalize at some point, and replicating last year’s accuracy would allow Florida to have a very good offense. That’s because the frontcourt has been as good as advertised. Florida is elite at getting back misses with a 45.1 percent offensive rebounding rate.
16. Michigan State
Last week: Beat No. 12 Kentucky 83-66 and Detroit 84-56
I foolishly was a Sparty skeptic in the preseason because I was worried about 3-point shooting. I’m not sure the Spartans will have many shooting nights like they had last Tuesday against Kentucky, when they went 11-of-22 from 3, but it was dumb to bet against a team that returned four regulars from the Big Ten champs. Roster continuity, Tom Izzo and elite passing are a pretty good combo. So I’ll own that picking the Spartans ninth in the Big Ten was one of my worst predictions.
The passing, in particular, is what sets this group apart. As my colleague Brendan Marks hit on last week, Michigan State leads the country in assist rate (75.4), meaning more than three out of every four buckets the Spartans have scored have been assisted. Junior point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. has a ridiculous 56.1 percent assist rate, which is higher than 218 teams in college basketball. It’s unlikely he can maintain this pace, but if he could, it would be a record since Ken Pomeroy started tracking assist rate in 2003-04. The current record holder is former Northeastern guard J.J. Barea, who had a 54.2 percent assist rate in 2005-06.
If Fears can stay above 50 percent, he’d be only the second high-major player to hit that mark in KenPom’s database. Former Providence point guard Kris Dunn (right at 50) is the only other.
20. Kansas
Last week: Lost to No. 5 Duke 78-66
One reason to believe in Kansas once Darryn Peterson returns: Flory Bidunga is showing that he can play a strong Robin. Bidunga is playing with much more confidence and finishing at a high rate. On his seven opportunities as a roller, he’s 7-for-7 from the field, per Synergy. On his shots that have come off cuts (usually dump-offs from the guards), he’s 6-of-8. Peterson will miss at least three more games for KU because of a hamstring injury. But he is going to increase the frequency of these opportunities. He’s KU’s best pick-and-roll initiator and passer.
The Jayhawks are going through stretches right now where they struggle to score, but based on the Duke performance, it looks like there’s enough firepower there once one of the best guards in the country is part of the equation.
25. Nebraska
Last week: Beat New Mexico 84-72 and Kansas State 86-85
Fred Hoiberg has built an offense reminiscent of his days at Iowa State. He has a playmaking big in Rienk Mast and elite floor-spacing 3-point shooters. The Huskers are attempting 52 percent of their field-goal attempts from beyond the arc, and they’re elite at making 2s, shooting 65.2 percent inside the arc. They took that efficiency to another level on Friday against K-State, making 25 of 29 (86.2 percent!) of their 2s.
The Huskers are getting this done by getting to the paint — they attempted only 10 non-paint 2s — and using the 3-point gravity to get there.
Some really smart play design helps, too. Against K-State, Nebraska’s best shooter, Pryce Sandfort, was set up for five of his 14 3-point attempts by a Mast screen, including this one late:
Since the Wildcats were so used to seeing this, Hoiberg fooled them late by switching roles and having Sandfort set a back screen to free Mast:
That’s how shooting a lot of 3s leads to some easy buckets, and the Huskers are right up there with Purdue and UConn in their ability to run intricate sets that confuse the defense. Nebraska has never won an NCAA Tournament game. This could be the group to finally get it done.
