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Bracketology: Welcome to the top line, San Diego State

By Dave OmmenJan 20, 2020, 1:30 PM EST

Here is the latest NCAA tournament bracketology projection.

Welcome to the top line, San Diego State. The Aztecs join Baylor, Gonzaga, and Kansas as No. 1 seeds in our latest bracket update. SDSU remains the only unbeaten team in college hoops, buoyed by wins over tournament teams Iowa, Creighton and BYU.

The West-leaning geographical slate of top seeds means someone has to go East. As SDSU is the fourth overall seed, that adventure belongs to them. Several additional power conference teams are pushing for the top line, too – including Florida State, Michigan State and surging Seton Hall. And let’s not forget about Louisville, a preseason top seed. The Cardinals put together an impressive road win at Duke on Saturday.

The latest look at where our NCAA tournament bracketology projection stands …

UPDATED: January 20, 2020

FIRST FOUR – DAYTON
EAST REGION	Virginia Tech vs. Georgetown
WEST REGION	NC State vs. VCU
SOUTH REGION	PR VIEW-AM vs. NORFOLK ST
WEST REGION	MONMOUTH vs. ST. FRANCIS (PA)

SOUTH – Houston		WEST – Los Angeles
Omaha		Spokane
1) BAYLOR		1) GONZAGA
16) PV-AM / NORFOLK ST		16) MONMOUTH / ST. FRANCIS (PA)
8) Arkansas		8) Illinois
9) Memphis		9) HOUSTON

Tampa		Sacramento
5) Colorado		5) Arizona
12) EAST TENNESSEE ST		12) NC State / VCU
4) Maryland		4) Iowa
13) S.F. AUSTIN		13) NEW MEXICO ST

St. Louis		Greensboro
6) Marquette		6) Michigan
11) NORTHERN IOWA		11) Saint Mary’s
3) LOUISVILLE		3) Duke
14) NORTH TEXAS		14) LITTLE ROCK

Albany		Spokane
7) Wisconsin		7) LSU
10) USC		10) Oklahoma
2) SETON HALL		2) Oregon
15) WILLIAM-MARY		15) UC-IRVINE

EAST – New York		MIDWEST – Indianapolis
Sacramento		Omaha
1) SAN DIEGO STATE		1) Kansas
16) RADFORD		16) MONTANA
8) Rutgers		8) Indiana
9) STANFORD		9) Florida

Albany		Cleveland
5) Kentucky		5) Creighton
12) LIBERTY		12) YALE
4) Villanova		4) DAYTON
13) AKRON		13) VERMONT

Greensboro		St. Louis
6) Penn State		6) Auburn
11) Virginia Tech / Georgetown		11) BYU
3) West Virginia		3) Butler
14) COLGATE		14) WRIGHT STATE

Tampa		Cleveland
7) Ohio State		7) Wichita State
10) DePaul		10) Texas Tech
2) Florida State		2) MICHIGAN STATE
15) AUSTIN PEAY		15) NORTH DAKOTA ST

BUBBLE NOTES
Last 4 Byes	Last 4 IN	First 4 OUT	Next 4 OUT
USC	Virginia Tech	Purdue	Washington
DePaul	NC State	Minnesota	Saint Louis
Saint Mary’s	Georgetown	Arizona State	St. John’s
BYU	VCU	Xavier	Richmond

Top Seed Line
Baylor, Gonzaga, Kansas, San Diego State
Seed List

Breakdown by Conference …
Big Ten (10)
Big East (7)
ACC (5)
SEC (5)
Big 12 (5)
Pac 12 (5)
American (3)
West Coast (3)
Atlantic 10 (2)
Mountain West (1)

College Basketball Top 25 Power Rankings: Baylor and Gonzaga lead the way

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By Rob DausterJan 19, 2020, 12:23 PM EST

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A new college basketball top 25 is now live.

Baylor is not the No. 1 team in my poll, and I suspect that they are going to be the No. 1 team in the country when the AP poll is released on Monday morning. The only reason they weren’t No. 1 last week is because four people (like me) had Duke at No. 1, stealing votes from the Bears. That … did not go well, so here we are.

I also want to talk through something else: Last week, I wrote extensively about why I think that it’s foolish to allow the result of one possession games to have a significant impact on the way that you view a team. One shot in a 70 possession game that is just one of more than 30 games that will be played this season is insignificant when determining the quality of a team, and I truly believe that.

But I also think it is important to consider how and why teams are winning close games, not just games that are one-possession games.

So let’s use Duke and Baylor for this example once again.

One thing that the Bears have proven over and over this season — at Texas Tech, at Kansas, at Oklahoma State — is the ability to close out a tough game, particularly on the road. That’s because they have a number of players on the roster that are capable of taking and making clutch shots. Against Tech, it was Jared Butler. Against Oklahoma State, it was Devonte Bandoo. The Bears may not look as good in the metrics because they haven’t obliterated the mediocre teams they have played, but they are 15-1 because they come through in the clutch.

Now, some of that may eventually regress. I believe in the clutch gene because I think life — not just sports, but everything every human being does — is confidence. Baylor has confidence in clutch situations, as much as anyone in the country. They do not get rattled by the moment, and they have a number of different options they can go to down the stretch.

Duke, on the other hand, does not. Their three losses this season have all been close games where the Blue Devils have struggled to find an outlet for offense in the final minutes. Maybe that will come with more experience — Duke is loaded with freshmen, Baylor is as old as anyone in the country — but as it stands, that’s the difference between these two teams.

Baylor won their close games.

Duke did not.

And I don’t think that’s a fluke.

The other thing that I want to discuss in this space is where I have San Diego State and Dayton ranked in the college basketball top 25. They are currently sitting and eighth and ninth in my poll, exactly where they have been for a couple of weeks now. And that is where they are going to stay for the foreseeable future.

The reasoning for me is simple: I don’t want to fall into the trap where I’m bumping a team up in the rankings simply because they keep winning in a league that is not as tough as the leagues where the rest of the teams in consideration for the top ten are playing, and losing.

I’m sure there are going to be people in San Diego and Dayton that call me a hater for this, and that’s fine. Maybe I am being a hater.

But the truth is this: I love both of these teams. SDSU is so tough defensively and Malachi Flynn has proven himself to be a flat-out winner at the point, while Dayton runs a pro-style, aesthetically-pleasing offense heavy on three-balls and Obi Toppin.

I just don’t believe they are one of the top six or seven teams in the country, and beating the likes of Nevada and Saint Louis is not going to change my mind.

Anyway, here is the rest of the NBC Sports college basketball top 25.

1. BAYLOR (15-1, Last Week: 2)
2. GONZAGA (20-1, 3)
3. KANSAS (14-3, 6)
4. FLORIDA STATE (16-2, 12)
5. LOUISVILLE (15-3, 13)
6. SETON HALL (14-4, 15)
7. DUKE (15-3, 1)
8. SAN DIEGO STATE (19-0, 8)
9. DAYTON (16-2, 9)
10. MICHIGAN STATE (14-4, 7)
11. BUTLER (15-3, 4)
12. AUBURN (15-2, 5)
13. OREGON (15-4, 10)
14. KENTUCKY (13-4, 11)
15. WEST VIRGINIA (14-3, 14)
16. TEXAS TECH (12-5, 17)
17. VILLANOVA (14-3, 18)
18. IOWA (13-5, 22)
19. ARIZONA (13-5, NR)
20. HOUSTON (14-4, NR)
21. MEMPHIS (14-3, 25)
22. MICHIGAN (11-6, 20)
23. MARYLAND (14-4, 21)
24. ILLINOIS (13-5, 24)
25. CREIGHTON (14-5, 23)

NEW ADDITIONS: No. 19 Arizona, No. 20 Houston
DROPPED OUT: No. 16 Ohio State, No. 19 Wichita State

Ten Things To Know: Recapping a wild Saturday in college hoops

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By Rob DausterJan 5, 2020, 12:45 AM EST

1. FLORIDA STATE MIGHT BE THE SECOND BEST TEAM IN THE ACC

I’ll go on the record saying that Duke is the best team in the ACC this season, and at this point, I don’t that is a controversial opinion in the least.

They have the best point guard in the conference. They probably have the best big man in the conference. Their wings are starting to figure things out.
Hell, I think you can make a pretty compelling case right now that they are the best team in college basketball, and nothing about their blowout win at Miami changes my mind.

The question I have is who the next-best team in that conference is, and that question is not so easy to answer. We know it’s not North Carolina — more on them in a bit — and until Virginia figures out what they are doing on the offensive end of the floor, I can’t in good conscience call them the second-best team in the league. I thought it would be Louisville, but on Saturday, the 7th-ranked Cardinals lost, 78-65, to No. 18 Florida State in the Yum! Center, yet another example of the issues this team has scoring against defenses that can pressure them.

Jordan Nwora scored 32 points, shot 11-for-15 from the floor and 5-for-6 from three, and in the process answered the doubters that didn’t think he could compete against elite competition. And all it did was keep the score respectable, because the rest of the Cards were 13-for-47 from the floor, 3-for-13 from three and finished with just 33 total points.

The credit for that has to go to Florida State, because the Seminoles suddenly look really, really dangerous. They go nine-deep with versatile, positionless athletes that can switch everything, pressure full-court and just make life miserable for the teams they play. There’s a reason they’re fourth nationally in defensive turnover rate, and if they can get anything close to these kind of play from M.J. Walker, Trent Forrest and Devin Vassell moving forward, they will make plenty of noise in this league.

2. KANSAS TURNED TO FRESHMAN CHRISTIAN BRAUN AGAINST WEST VIRGINIA

The No. 3 Jayhawks’ 60-53 win over No. 16 West Virginia was just about as ugly as we expected it to be.

West Virginia shot 32 percent from the floor and had more offensive rebounds than field goals made. Kansas was 3-for-17 from three and turned the ball over 14 times, 10 of which came in a first half where they mustered all of 24 points. It was a tough, physical battle, and the guy that made all the difference was … freshman guard Christian Braun?

Braun played a career-high 30 minutes on Thursday. He started the second half. He scored six points, he grabbed five boards (second on the team to Azubuike) and he collected two steals. He provided a measure of defensive toughness — something that the likes of Tristan Enaruna and Isaiah Moss have struggled with — while giving Kansas a player on the perimeter that was a threat to make a three.

Raise your hand if you saw that coming.

3. IS IT TIME TO QUESTION JUST HOW GOOD MEMPHIS IS?

No. 9 Memphis lost their second game of the season on Saturday afternoon, as they dropped a home game to a Georgia team that seems like a long shot to get to the NCAA tournament on a day when their best player – Anthony Edwards – shot 4-for-17 from the floor.

It was not a great performance by the Tigers, and that is somewhat understandable. Memphis struggles to score in the halfcourt when they are at full strength, and D.J. Jeffries — their second-leading scorer and the guy that is the best at creating for himself — did not play because of what was dubbed “an illness.”

So the fact that the Tigers struggled for 40 minutes to score should not really surprising.

But it does beg the question: Are we sure that Memphis is a team that deserves to be ranked in the top 20?

Here’s what they have done this season: They won at Tennessee, who has proceeded to fall off of a cliff and does not look like they will be making a return trip to the NCAA tournament. They beat Ole Miss at home by a point, the same Ole Miss that was drubbed by 20 at Wichita State on Saturday. They beat N.C. State on a neutral floor. N.C. State lost on Saturday to Clemson, whose only win since Nov. 24th came at home against Jacksonville.

Put another way, Memphis is really talented, enough so that blindly assuming they are a top 20 team isn’t crazy, they just haven’t really done anything on the court that would prove this to be true.

4. PENN STATE PLAYING AT THE PALESTRA IS ELECTRIC

The most exciting game of the day in college basketball was between Iowa and Penn State, a battle of top 25 teams (I know, right?) that was played at the Palestra in Philadelphia.

Penn State ended up winning, 89-86, despite the fact that Lamar Stevens was battling some foul issues and Iowa’s Luka Garza went for 34 points and 12 boards.

But what blew me away more than anything else was just how electric the Palestra was for what was essentially a Penn State home game. I don’t think there is any doubt that it was a better environment than whatever building Penn State normally plays in; I honestly don’t even know the name of it. I’d be willing to bet that this was the single wildest crowd that a Penn State team has ever played in front of in a “home” game.

I say all that to say this: That should not be the case, not this season.

The Nittany Lions are really, really good. They are really, really fun. And Penn State fans really, really should show up to watch them play.

It will be worth the money. I promise.

5. WE ALL OWE TEXAS TECH AN APOLOGY

Back in the first week of December, when Texas Tech had just finished off a three game losing streak with a 65-60 overtime loss at DePaul, we all fired off our takes on the Red Raiders. They weren’t talented enough, the newcomers weren’t as good as last year, they couldn’t guard the same way, this team will struggle to get to the tournament.

Two days later, Texas Tech beat then-No. 1 Louisville in Madison Square Garden without Jahmi’us Ramsey, their leading scorer. After that game, I spoke with Chris Beard, who told me that his team was one or two possessions away from winning each of those games, that he wasn’t worried about what he has on his roster this season.

We should have listened.

Now healthy, the Red Raiders opened up Big 12 play on Saturday with an 85-50 mollywhopping of Oklahoma State. Those three losses? They came against a ranked Iowa team, a tournament-bound Creighton team and a DePaul team that is far more talented than a typical DePaul team.

Watch out for this team the next three months.

6. SAN DIEGO STATE HAS A VERY REAL CHANCE TO ENTER THE TOURNAMENT UNDEFEATED

Malachi Flynn went for 22 points, five boards and four assists and Matt Mitchell chipped in with 19 points of his own as No. 13 San Diego State remained undefeated by going into Logan and knocking off Utah State, 77-68.

The Aztecs remain one of just two teams in college hoops with an undefeated record, and there is a very real chance that is the case when the NCAA tournament starts.

There are two reasons for this:

SDSU is really, really good. Like, Final Four good. Legitimately. They are a nightmare to play against defensively, and Flynn is exactly the kind of point guard you want come March. Should I mention that they won this game at Utah State — with Neemias Queta playing — despite missing starting center Nathan Mensah?
This was the toughest game that the Aztecs have left on their Mountain West schedule. There are only three other teams in the league that are in the top 100 on KenPom: Utah State (57), Nevada (86) and New Mexico (97). Anything can happen on any night in league play, but rest assured, the Aztecs will be favorites in every game they play from now until the NCAA tournament.

Does that mean that they will pull a Wichita State and enter the NCAA tournament undefeated?

Of course not.

But there is a real chance — 2.7%, according to KenPom — that this group can make that happen. For comparison’s sake, the other undefeated team in college hoops, Auburn, has a 0.1% chance of going undefeated.

7. WICHITA STATE IS OFFICIALLY BACK

The Shockers improved to 13-1 on the season, their only loss coming against a very good West Virginia team, with a 74-54 win over Ole Miss on Saturday.

Erik Stevenson led the way with 29 points while Jamarius Burton chipped in with 16 points of his own.

The Shockers don’t necessarily have any great wins this season, but they have put together a handful of wins that are impressive enough that we need to take note. They won at Oklahoma State, they beat Oklahoma, they beat VCU and this Ole Miss team they whooped up on is pretty good.

The Shockers may turn out to be the class of the American this year.

On Thursday, they host Memphis. We’ll know then.

8. ASHTON HAGANS HURT HIS ANKLE

Ashton Hagans, Kentucky’s starting point guard, second-leading scorer and leading in both assists and steals, hurt his ankle near the end of their win over Missouri. And yes, it appears to be his ankle, and not his achilles, but Hagans may not be available on Tuesday, when the Wildcats take on a Georgia team that just won at Memphis.

9. KAMAR BALDWIN, WE ARE ALL WITNESSES

Baldwin shot 0-for-9 in the first half and went scoreless against Creighton on Saturday afternoon.

He scored 20 points in the second half, including three straight buckets in the final minutes to stretch out what was just a four-point lead as the No. 11 Bulldogs won, 71-54.

10. NORTH CAROLINA GOT EMBARRASSED

North Carolina played arguably the worst game that we have ever seen that program play on Saturday night. The final score wasn’t awful — they lost 96-83 at home against Georgia Tech, which is not as bad as the loss UNC suffered against Ohio State earlier this year — but that score doesn’t do the performance justice. UNC trailed 30-6 at one point. They didn’t make a field goal for the first 13:10 of the game.

I’ll let Roy Williams sum it all up.

“I want to apologize to all the North Carolina fans, the people that care about our basketball program, former players, everyone that cares about us,” Williams said. “We stunk it up tonight, and it’s got to me my responsibility. It’s the most negative I’ve ever felt about myself. The most negative I’ve ever felt about any team. We weren’t ready to play.

“If I had any idea what caused that I would have already changed it. It’s the most disappointed and most upset I’ve ever been in my life coaching a basketball game, and it’s not even close.”

College Basketball’s All-Decade Team

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By Rob DausterDec 31, 2019, 9:00 AM EST

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More college basketball all-decade team content here.

The 2010s are coming to an end, which should make you feel incredibly old.

We’ve now gone a full decade with John Calipari in charge of the Kentucky Wildcats. We’re more than a decade removed from the existence of Psycho T on a college basketball campus. In the last ten years, we’ve seen Kentucky and Duke win titles by playing as young as possible, Virginia win by playing as slow as possible, Villanova win by shooting as many threes as possible and UConn win a pair of titles by hoping a star point guard can carry them through a six-game tournament.

We’ve experienced Jimmermania. We survived Zion Williamson’s Shoegate. We watch Louisville win a national title and then had the NCAA erase it from our collective memory because an assistant coach like to turn dorm rooms into the Champagne Room.

It’s been a wild ride.

And over the course of the next two weeks, we will be taking a look back at some of the best parts of the decade.

Today, we are taking a look at the best college basketball all-decade players.

Doug McDermott (Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

The criteria for picking the all-decade teams was kind of tricky with the one-and-done rule in effect.

On the one hand, some of the very best players that we have ever seen in the collegiate ranks spent all of six months playing college basketball. How do we weigh that against guys that had sensational three or four year careers without ever reaching the heights that some of those one-and-dones reached.

It was difficult to balance, and after spending too many hours thinking about it, I’ve come to the decision that there is no right answer.

And that that is OK.

So without further ado, here is college basketball’s All-Decade team for the 2010s.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL ALL-DECADE SECOND TEAM

ALL-DECADE FIRST TEAM

PLAYER OF THE DECADE: Doug McDermott, Creighton

McDermott’s path to becoming one of the greatest college basketball players of a generation, not just the decade, was not typical.

He played his high school ball in Ames, Iowa, where he was completely overshadowed by his teammates, Harrison Barnes. His father, Greg, was the head coach at Iowa State at the time, but Doug committed to play for his dad’s old school, Northern Iowa. He eventually left Iowa State and took the head coaching gig at Creighton. Ben Jacobson let McDermott out of his letter of intent so that he can play for his pops at a league rival, and that turned out to be a costly decision.

Doug played in the Missouri Valley for three season. He averaged 14.9 points and 7.2 boards as a freshman, seeing that number jump to 22.9 points and 8.2 boards as a sophomore and 23.2 points and 7.7 boards as a junior. As a senior, when the Bluejays made the jump to the Big East, he led the nation by averaging 26.7 points.

He left Creighton as the fifth-best scorer in Division I history, amassing 3,150 points; he’s since been surpassed by Chris Clemons from Campbell. He was the first player in 29 years to be named a first-team AP All-American for three consecutive seasons. He is one of just three players in the history of men’s basketball to record 3,000 points and 1,000 rebounds, and he owns an NCAA record by scoring in double figures in 135 games. He only played in 145 games for the Bluejays.

Not bad for a kid that was the second-best player on a public high school team in Ames.

Jalen Brunson (Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

JALEN BRUNSON, Villanova

If things had gone the way that the Brunson family had wanted them to go, Jalen never would have ended up at Villanova. He would have played for their city rival, Temple. That’s where his father, Rick, played, and where he was going to get a job as an assistant before a legal issue ended that dream.

So Jalen went to Villanova, where he would become a starter that averaged 9.6 points and 2.5 assists, an integral piece of a team that won the 2016 national title. He was a first-team all-Big East player as a sophomore, but it was his junior season that is the real reason he is a first-team All-Decade player. Brunson would average 18.9 points and 4.6 assists, putting together one of the most efficient seasons in college basketball history en route to a National Player of the Year award and a second national title in three seasons for the team we named as the best in college basketball this decade.

In three seasons with Villanova, Brunson went 103-13 with a 45-9 record in the Big East. He won two Big East regular season title, two Big East tournament titles and two national titles. That’s decent.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL ALL-DECADE THIRD TEAM

Kemba Walker (Chris Trotman/Getty Images)

KEMBA WALKER, UConn

“Cardiac Kemba does it again!”

That is the line that I will always remember about Kemba Walker’s 2010-11 season, which is wild when you really do think about it.

Because that line was delivered by Dave Pasch in the quarterfinal of the Big East tournament. Granted, the line was justified. Kemba had just dropped Pitt’s Gary McGhee to give UConn, the No. 9 seed in the Big East tournament, their third win in three days over the league’s regular season champs. He would go on to lead UConn to eight more wins in a row, taking home not only the Big East tournament title but the national title as well.

Which leads me to one of the most incredible information nuggets that I’ve come across in my years as a college basketball writer: After averaging 23.5 points, 5.4 boards and 4.5 assists for a team that became the first to win a major conference tournament title by winning five games in five days before leading that same team to a national title as a No. 3 seed, Walker did not win any Player of the Year awards.

There are six major college basketball Player of the Year awards, mind you. And not a single one of them determine that Kemba was the best college basketball player that season.

In hindsight, I think that was a miss.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL ALL-DECADE LEGACY TEAM

Zion Williamson (Lance King/Getty Images)

ZION WILLIAMSON, Duke

Zion makes this list despite playing just 33 games in his college career thanks to Duke’s Elite Eight exit and a knee injury that stemmed from a shoe that exploded in the middle of a game against North Carolina. No one on any of these teams will have played fewer games.

But I didn’t think I could justify have the best player that I have ever seen in the college ranks not on the list. He finished the year averaging 22.6 points, 8.9 boards, 2.1 assists, 2.1 steals and 1.8 blocks. No one has done that since at least 1992-93, which is as far back as basketball reference’s database goes, and he was a freshman playing in the ACC. He holds the record for the highest PER in college basketball since 2009-10, which is as far back as that data goes.

We’ll never see anything like Zion Williamson ever again, so I have no problem making an exception to get him on this list.

Anthony Davis (Robert Willett/Getty Images)

ANTHONY DAVIS, Kentucky

I love the Anthony Davis story because I love the trajectory of his career.

When he was a sophomore in high school he was a goofy, 6-foot-2 guard that wore rec specs and was completely inconsequential. When he was a junior he grew to 6-foot-6 and got an offer from Cleveland State, but he was only part way through his growth spurt, as he eventually sprouted to 6-foot-11 without losing any of those guard skills while adding a 7-foot-5 wingspan, making him just an absolutely perfect player for modern basketball.

Suddenly, the dude that looked like this when he was a sophomore is the No. 1 recruit in the country and putting up 14.2 points, 10.4 boards and 4.7 blocks to lead Kentucky to their first national title since 1998 before becoming the No. 1 pick in the draft and, eventually, LeBron’s running buddy in LA.

But that’s jumping ahead.

Because in college, Davis was an absolute game-changer to the point that everyone that saw the Wildcats play immediately knew who their best player was despite the fact that he took the fourth-most shots on the team.

Monday’s Overreactions: St. John’s, McKinley Wright and why Kentucky and Arizona are overrated

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By Rob DausterDec 23, 2019, 12:04 PM EST

PLAYER OF THE WEEK: McKinley Wright, Colorado

It’s probably not a coincidence that, in the first game that the Buffaloes played where they legitimately looked like a team that could contend for the Pac-12 title, McKinley Wright was the best player on the floor.

In what will likely go down as the biggest game of Colorado’s non-conference slate, Wright finished with 29 points and 10 boards to lead the Buffaloes past No. 13 Dayton in overtime. Colorado desperately needed that win, too. Entering Saturday, the best win that the Buffaloes had this season came in the season-opener, when they picked off Arizona State. The Sun Devils are only marginally better, according to KenPom’s metrics, than Clemson.

That’s unless you want me to be impressed with wins over the likes of UC Irvine or Colorado State.

And while the Pac-12 is improved this season, there are still four teams that rank outside the top 100 on KenPom in the league and just two teams currently in the top 40. As weird as it sounds, beating Dayton gave Colorado their marquee non-conference win.

TEAM OF THE WEEK: St. John’s Red Storm

I don’t know how many coaches are the country have had a better start to the season than Mike Anderson.

He entered St. John’s without a shred of expectation this season, and while I was more bullish than the field on Anderson long term, I didn’t expect this: On Saturday, the Johnnies flew across the country to play a neutral site event against Arizona in San Francisco to honor Chris Mullin, the head coach they fired in April.

And they won despite the fact that their best player, Mustapha Heron, was injured.

It will go down as the second top 25 win of the season for the Johnnies, who also picked off West Virginia this month.

We’ve seen this St. John’s program land big wins before disappearing in recent years – anyone else remember when they won at Villanova and then beat Duke in back-to-back games after starting Big East play 0-11? – so I’m not going to overreact to this just yet, but rest assured, the Johnnies are now on everyone’s radar.

MONDAY’S OVERREACTIONS

1. IT’S OK IF YOU STILL THINK KANSAS IS THE BEST TEAM IN THE COUNTRY

On Saturday, Kansas went on the road in their last game before the Christmas break, played in front of 20,000 Villanova fans and lost, 56-55, to a program that has won two of the last four national titles because Devon Dotson missed this shot:

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Down goes No. 1!

A post shared by Rob Dauster (@rob.dauster) on Dec 21, 2019 at 11:22am PST

If you believed heading into this game that Kansas was the best team in college basketball, than you are more than justified in keeping the Jayhawks at No. 1 today. If your opinion of a team boils down to what happens on the final possession of a one point game, than you probably shouldn’t be allowed to rank teams.

That’s not to say that it shouldn’t impact the way that NCAA tournament bracket projections work.

Wins and losses should matter there. There should be some tangible impact on whether or not that last second shot goes in. It should lower Kansas a bit in the No. 1 overall seed pecking order.

But if it has an impact on the way you view Kansas in the longterm, or whether or not you buy into them as the best team in the country, you’re doing this wrong.

2. KENTUCKY IS NOT FIXABLE

Kentucky more or less invented the superteam era in college basketball, so it would be awfully ironic if the team that has thrived in the one-and-done era as much as any program in the country had their season saved by a grad transfer fro Bucknell.

And that may end up being the case this season.

Nate Sestina came back from injury on Saturday and scored a team-high 17 points while hitting five threes. That’s important for a couple reasons. For starters, the Wildcats have been just atrocious shooting the three this season. They entered Saturday making just 27.5 percent of their shots from beyond the arc, and if you take Sestina’s shooting on Saturday out of the equation, the rest of the roster was just 2-for-15 from deep against Ohio State.

Getting someone on the floor that will punish defenses for selling out on drives is pretty important. Sestina does that.

But just as important is that Sestina provides some scoring pop at the four. E.J. Montgomery and Nick Richards have had some good moments this season, but most of those moments have come against the bad teams that the Wildcats have faced. Combined, those two are averaging 10.5 points and 8.0 boards against the four high-major opponents Kentucky has faced. Keion Brooks has had some flashes of potential, but that’s about it. Kahlil Whitney has looked less like a lottery pick and more like a guy destined to be in Lexington until he transfers because he’s sick of being recruited over.

Sestina has his limitations physically, but he plays hard, he provides some leadership and he does the thing none of those guys have been able to do: Provide some scoring pop.

And with him back in the fold, it does feel like Kentucky is getting closer to figuring this thing out. Tyrese Maxey’s making shots again. Ashton Hagans has really been the one guy that has consistently performed for the first seven weeks of the season. The execution wasn’t there against Ohio State – that has as much to do with Ohio State and Chris Holtmann as it does Kentucky and John Calipari – but the effort was there. The fight was there.

Editor’s note: Need tickets to Saturday’s Kentucky-Louisville game? Click here

I don’t think Kentucky is ever going to look like a top ten team, and I doubt Cal is ever going to feel comfortable about what’s going on at the five, but the good news is that given the landscape of college basketball this season, you don’t have to be great. You just have to give yourself a chance.

3. ARIZONA AND DAYTON HAVE THE MOST OVERRATED RESUMES IN THE COUNTRY

Dayton is objectively good this year. They’ve blown out Virginia Tech, they’ve blown out Georgia and they have a convincing win over Saint Mary’s on a neutral court. That’s before you consider how well the Flyers can shoot and the fact that they are built around a future lottery pick in Obi Toppin. They’re legit.

Their biggest issue is that they lost to Kansas and Colorado in overtime. Those might end up being the two best teams that they play this season, and while those losses shouldn’t affect how you view the Flyers, they assuredly will affect how they are seeded come Selection Sunday. Results matter on a resume, and right now, Dayton’s resume does not match where they (deservedly) are being ranked.

The same can be said about Arizona, but I have much less conviction about this team actually being good. Arizona has now lost three of their last four games. The losses are by a total of 12 points, but in each one of those games, Arizona rallied late to make the final score respectable. They were down double-figures in the second half of all three.

And as it stands today, their best wins are Illinois at home, New Mexico State at home and Wake Forest on a neutral. That’s not exactly worthy of a No. 1 seed.

4. SAN DIEGO STATE IS 2014 WICHITA STATE

At this point, it is undeniable that San Diego State is a good basketball team. I’m not sure why any one would argue against one of the three remaining unbeatens being good, but if you are, you’re wrong. The Aztecs are 12-0 with wins over Creighton, Iowa, at BYU and by 28 against a Utah team that, just three days earlier, beat Kentucky. They’re good. I promise.

The question, however, is just how good they actually are, and that’s somewhat up for debate. I think that Iowa and Creighton will end up being tournament teams, but there’s no guarantee that will happen. I think BYU is good, but generally speaking, WCC teams with four losses in non-conference play aren’t making runs for at-large bids. Could all three end up being NIT teams? That’s certainly in the range of outcomes.

Which leads me to my next point: There really aren’t any great wins available in the Mountain West this year, not if Utah State’s actually the 48th-best team in the country, as KenPom says they are. The only other top 100 teams in the league are New Mexico (who just lost a pair of starters) and Nevada (who may or may not have last season’s success baked into their rankings right now). Is it crazy to think that the Aztecs, like the 2014 Shockers, can climb to the very top of the polls as the nation’s last remaining unbeaten even if their body work doesn’t necessarily justify it?

5. THE STATE OF COLLEGE HOOPS IS PROVEN BY THE IRRELEVANCE OF UNC-UCLA

We spoke about this on the podcast in each of the last two weeks, so I’ll be brief here.

I never would have thought that a Saturday afternoon tip off between UNC and UCLA would be a complete afterthought nationally for college hoops, but that is precisely what it was this Saturday. This epitomizes a point that I’ve made repeatedly – and one that was backed up by both Jay Wright and Bill Self on Saturday: College basketball is down this year. The talent level is down, the quality of the teams is down and, as a result, the level of play is down.

In total, these two teams lost six players to early entry. That’s part of the problem. Cole Anthony being injured is another part of the program. UCLA going through a coaching change certainly doesn’t help.

But the simple fact of the matter is that two of college basketball’s bluebloods were playing on Saturday, and it was overshadowed by Utah State-Florida and Butler-Purdue, which tipped at the same time.

Ten Things To Know: Injuries pile up, Ohio State wins, No. 1 Kansas goes down

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By Rob DausterDec 22, 2019, 12:29 AM EST

1. INJURIES HAVE TAKEN A TOLL ON KANSAS …

Kansas watched as starting guard Marcus Garrett had to be helped off the floor with an injured right ankle on Saturday afternoon. He did not return to the game in the second half.

“He’s our toughest kid. So if he says he can’t play, it’s probably not good,” Self said. “I don’t think that it is going go to be something that, hopefully, drags out to conference play, but we don’t know yet.”

Garrett is averaging 9.0 points, 4.5 assists and 4.0 boards for the Jayhawks this season and has developed into a critical piece for the Kansas rotation. He’s a secondary ball-handler that takes some of the pressure off of point guard Devon Dotson, he is shooting 38.9 percent from three, he is their best perimeter defender and, perhaps most importantly, he is the piece that allows them to play with four guards on the floor. It’s tough for the Kansas coaching staff to trust Ochai Agbaji, Tristan Enaruna and Isaiah Moss to be able to guard when one of them is forced onto a bigger player.

Should I mention that the Jayhawks, the No. 1 team in the country, lost as a result?

I probably should, right?

2. … AND TENNESSEE

Star point guard Lamonte’ Turner’s season is over.

After struggling to play through a shoulder issue for two years, Turner told reporters after Sunday’s win over Jacksonville State that he is going to get season-ending surgery. His season is done, and since he is a fifth-year senior that has already played in too many games for a medical redshirt, his Tennessee career is over, too.

That’s a terrible way to end a career.

3. … AND UTAH STATE

The health of Aggie center Neemias Queta has been a concern all season long. He injured his knee while playing with the Portuguese U-20 national team over the summer and had to sit out the first eight games. He only returned to the starting lineup two games ago. On Saturday, in a win over Florida in the state of Florida, Queta hurt his knee again and did not return after leaving the game.

He’s Utah State’s second-best player. He is a 7-foot defensive anchor with NBA potential. He cleans up a lot of mistakes at the rim for a team that is not great at keeping people out of the lane. I’m not sure just how good Utah State can be without him.

4. DID YOU EVER THINK A UCLA-UNC GAME WOULD BE AS IRRELEVANT AS TODAY’S WAS?

Be honest with me: Did you know that UCLA and UNC played today?

Because they did. They are part of the CBS Sports Classic. They played the opener in Vegas, the game that tipped off right before the Ohio State-Kentucky thriller. On a day where there were more than 100 college basketball games played, I’m not sure that this was even in the top 20.

It’s hard to believe that is possible.

These are two of college basketball’s bluebloods, and the 3 p.m. ET tip was completely overshadowed by Butler vs. Purdue and Utah State vs. Florida despite the fact that it was on network television.

And it’s understandable. UCLA is in the midst of another coaching change while North Carolina lost their top five players from last season and had their star freshman hurt his knee and get arthroscopic surgery. It happens.

I just didn’t think it could happen to these two programs, this badly, and at the same time.

5. DAYTON’S RESUME IS NOT AS GOOD AS YOU THINK

The Flyers lost a thriller to Colorado on a neutral court on Saturday, and while the Buffaloes are hardly a bad team – they currently sit at 40th in KenPom’s rankings – this is a tough loss to take.

The reason I say that is because Dayton’s resume doesn’t quite match what the eye test tells us. When you watch the Flyers, what you see is a team with a top ten pick surrounded by shooters and playmakers. They took Kansas to overtime. They took Colorado to overtime. No one is questioning whether or not this team is objectively good.

The problem is that they don’t necessarily have the wins to prove it.

As of today, the Flyers have three top 100 wins. Two are against Georgia and Virginia Tech, which are fine and came by an averaged of 23 points but those teams aren’t getting to the NCAA tournament. It’s like beating Rhode Island, at least in how it is going to look in the NET nitty gritty sheets. The win over Saint Mary’s is nice, especially if they somehow find a way to keep shooting 45.7 percent from three, but that’s really it.

And since they play in the Atlantic 10, not only are there going to be a limited number of quality wins available, they are going to play every single game as the targeted team. The way I figure it, there are six other teams in the league (VCU, Richmond, Duquesne, Saint Louis, Rhode Island and Davidson) that are going to have some chance of playing their way into the NCAA tournament with an at-large bid. Dayton plays those six teams ten times, and every one of those ten games are going to be make-or-break games for their opponent.

I trust the Flyers to get the job done, but I do think that there is a better chance than some realize that Dayton is going to end up with something of a disappointing seed on Selection Sunday.

6. SAINT LOUIS WINNING AT KANSAS STATE IS GOOD FOR THE ATLANTIC 10

Not for nothing, but it is worth noting that Saint Louis went into Bramlage Coliseum and landed themselves a nice win over a regional rival in Kansas State. I don’t think Kansas State is all that good, but given the way that Big 12 league play drives up the computer numbers of everyone in that conference, that’s a nice chip for Travis Ford’s team to have.

7. D.J. CARTON HAD HIS COMING-OF-AGE GAME

Carton scored a team-high 15 points and led No. 5 Ohio State to a win over No. 6 Kentucky on Saturday. Here is a column on how impressive he was and what makes that performance so important for Ohio State.

8. WHAT HAS ARIZONA DONE THAT SHOULD IMPRESS US?

Let me preface this by saying that I think No. 15 Arizona is a pretty good team. In theory, they should be. They have Nico Mannion and Josh Green and Zeke Nnaji. The talent is there.

But through the first seven weeks of the season, the results haven’t been. Arizona’s best win right now came at home against an Illinois team that is currently sitting at 8-4 on the season. They also beat Wake Forest on a neutral and picked off New Mexico State at home. The most impressive thing they’ve done is, what, hang with Baylor on the road? Rally to make a blowout home loss against Gonzaga look respectable?

After losing to St. John’s on a neutral court, the Wildcats are sitting at 10-3 on the season with as many sub-75 losses as top 75 wins.

That’s not a good place to be with league play starting.

9. BUTLER CAN WIN WHEN KAMAR BALDWIN STRUGGLES

Baldwin has been Butler’s best player this season, but he has not always played well for the Bulldogs.

Take Saturday, for example. He shot 2-for-9 from the floor, committed for fouls, turned the ball over five times and finished with just five points. The Bulldogs still won fairly easily. In their win over Florida earlier this season, Baldwin had just 12 points on 4-for-13 shooting. He has 13 points on 4-for-12 shooting in a win over Missouri.

That is a good sign for Lavall Jordan moving forward.

10. SAN DIEGO STATE WHIPPED UTAH

It was time to start taking San Diego State seriously a while ago. If you’re just now jumping on the bandwagon you’re probably jumping on a little bit late.

They’ve won at BYU. They beat Creighton by 31. They beat Iowa by ten. They’re now sitting at 11-0, one of just four teams left in college basketball without a loss to their name, after they went out and beat Utah, 80-52, on Saturday evening.

That’s the same Utah team that just beat Kentucky on Wednesday night.

So yeah.

You might want to start familiarizing yourself with these Aztecs.