The first weekend of College Basketball is among us, and there were multiple big time ranked vs. ranked battles, along with some sneaky great games that you may not have heard about!

Top Games

Friday Night:

The best game BY FAR of Friday night and of college basketball thus far was #9 UNC at #1 Kansas. Kansas pulled it out by a score of 92-89, holding off a UNC comeback from down 20 in the first half. Zeke Mayo starred for the Jayhawks, scoring 21 points and dishing out 4 assists. Hunter Dickinson did his usual thing, with a 20 point, 10 rebound double-double. For UNC, they were hurt by an RJ Davis off game, with 16 points, but on 3/15 shooting. Seth Trimble led the team in scoring, dropping 19 points, including 10/10 from the free throw line. I thought the freshmen in this game were impressive, even if in limited minutes. Ian Jackson had 10 points on 4/5 shooting in only 15 minutes for the Tarheels, and big man Flory Bidunga had 8 points and 8 boards in only 10 minutes behind Dickinson.

In the last game of the night, New Mexico, despite losing 3 key pieces in last year’s team, came up with the win over #22 UCLA, 72-64. The Lobos are led this season by junior guard Donovan Dent, who scored 17 points and dropped 8 assists. Big man Nelly Junior Joseph is the other returning starter, and also put up an impressive 16 and 12 double-double. The final double digit scorer for UNM was North Texas transfer CJ Noland, who had 13 points and 3 steals. For UCLA, it was a rough shooting night, ending 5/23 from three. The leading scorer for the Bruins was Tyler Bilodeau, transfer from Oregon State, who had 23 points and 15 rebounds, but shot 2/7 from three, so he wasn’t exempt from the shooting woes. Junior guard Dylan Andrews had a rough performance, with 4 points in 30 minutes, on 2/6 shooting including 0/3 from three.

The final game I’ll mention is the most competitive game of the night, Northern Colorado at Colorado. Colorado pulled it out in double OT, 90-88. The Buffaloes basically all their pieces from last year, and project to be at the bottom of the Big12 this season, so this isn’t all that surprising. They were led by NAIA graduate transfer big Elijah Malone, who scored 27 points on 8/12 shooting, and grabbed 5 boards, in his 30 minutes of play. Two of the returners, Javon Ruffin and Julian Hammond III, also were in double digits, with Ruffin scoring 12 points on 50% from the field, and Hammond scoring 12, mainly powered by 8/10 from the charity stripe. For the Bears of Northern Colorado, it was a team effort, with 5 guys in double digits. Guard Jaron Rillie had a near triple double, with 16 point, 8 rebounds, and 7 assists, shooting 5/9 from three. Marcel McCreary also was a large contributor, dropping 13 points and 5 assists, while also snagging 5 steals. The last 3 double digit scorers were San Fran transfer Isaiah Hawthorne, and guards Zach Bloch and Langston Reynolds, with 19, 14, and 13 points, respectively.

Saturday:

Saturday is the big day for college basketball on most weeks, but given that this was week one, it wasn’t quite as many games. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t good ones though!

One of two ranked matchups, the #1 vs. #2 teams on KenPom, Auburn @ Houston. There was some drama before the game for Auburn, with their first flight having to turn around due to a fight involving freshman Jahki Howard and senior Ja’Heim Hudson, and neither of them made the second trip to Houston. However, the Tigers were still able to come up with the upset win 74-69 over the Cougars. My preseason favorite for national player of the year, Johni Broome, led the tigers with 20 points, 9 rebounds, 2 steals, and 5 blocks. He is a different beast, not sure how any team will slow him down. The real difference in this one, however, was the emergence of freshman Tahaad Pettiford. “Haad” had 21 points on 7/12 shooting including 5/8 from three. For Houston, all of their starters were pretty even contributors, all of Tugler, Roberts, Sharp, Cryer, and Uzan somewhere between 10-13 points, on varying efficiency. This was a spectacular game so I linked the highlights below! (V.C. Big 12 Conference)

The other two ranked teams that faced off were #8 Baylor and #16 Arkansas. Baylor, coming off a smacking by Gonzaga, was fired up, and won this one 72-67. The Bears were led by Miami transfer big Norchad Omier, who had 15 points and 12 boards, along with mainly defensive guard Jayden Nunn, who had a nice offensive game of 16 points including 4/7 from three, and 3 steals. Freshman VJ Edgecombe once again was underwhelming, shooting 3/12 from the field and 1/7 from three, but put up 11 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists, so wasn’t the complete negative he was in game 1 for the Bears. For the Razorbacks, Kentucky transfer guard, who followed Coach Cal, Adou Thiero, was the leader, dropping in 24 points on 10/15 shooting, along with 6 boards, 2 assists, and 2 blocks. Freshman guard Boogie Fland played 39 minutes of this one, dropping in 17 with 5 boards and 7 assists.

#12 Tennessee also played on Saturday, taking on Louisville under the new Pat Kelsey regime, with a team entirely of new players. Despite being favored to win, the Cardinals suffered a ROUGH 22 point defeat, 77-55. For Tennessee, Chaz Lanier is looking not quite Dalton Knecht level, but another spectacular portal recruit, scoring 19 in this one. Longtime point guard Zakai Zeigler joined him at 19, with 7 assists and 3 steals to add on to that. The only thing bad about his performance were the 11 turnovers, most of them caused by Louisville guard, a Wisconsin transfer, Chucky Hepburn. Chucky had 8 points, 4 boards, 4 assists, and a whopping 6 steals. The leading scorer for the Cards was Reyne Smith, a Charleston transfer who followed his coach to Louisville. The shooter was 4/12 from three, but ended with 18 points and 5 rebounds, which is better than any other Louisville player can say.

The final game I’ll mention here is Dayton’s win over Northwestern. It looks like the Flyers are legit once again, despite the loss of their great big man DaRon Holmes II. Enoch Cheeks had 16 points and 6 steals, shooting 7/10 from the field, in a really solid performance. Malachi Smith with 14, Nate Santos with 16, and Zed Key with 11 all joined him in double figures, all shooting very efficiently. For the Wildcats, it was the Nick Martinelli show, with Martinelli dropping 32 points and 14 rebounds! A spectacular performance from him, but sadly he was really the only one, with the exception of freshman guard Angelo Ciaravino, who had 12 points and 2 steals off the bench.

Other Top Performances

Friday:

• San Diego guard Kjay Bradley Jr. had a monster 28 point, 5 rebound, 7 assist, and 4 steal performance in a big win over BU, 74-60.
• I told you all that Kam Jones would be here a lot. He dropped 24 points, 5 boards, 8 assists, and 3 steals in an 82-63 win over George Mason, which was close for a while with George Mason up 1 at half.
• Ante Brzovic is a beast. He dropped 34 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 assists in a 15 point Charleston win over USF.
• Another one of my breakout candidates this year, Nique Clifford, dropped 31 points and 13 rebounds on 11/18 from the field and 4/5 from three, in an overtime win for Colorado State over Tennessee State.
• JT Toppin is here again, with no surprise. 25 points and 7 boards on 10/11 from the field in a Texas Tech demolition of Northwestern State.
• After missing all of last year, Rodney Rice transferred to Maryland, and his skillset is already on display. Rice had 28 points on 10/14 from the field in a big win over Mount St. Marys. Here’s his highlights below (V.C. Maryland Athletics)

Saturday:

• Stefan Todorovic had 33 points and 6 rebounds on 10/14 from the field and 6/8 from three in a Pepperdine loss to UC San Diego.
• RJ Luis Jr. is flying under the radar this year: The wing for St. Johns had 23 points, 13 boards, and 3 assists in a 96-73 win over Quinnipiac, despite being down 39-35 at half!
• Georgetown freshman big Thomas Sorber continues to impress, with another 20+ point game. The big ended with 25 points and 9 rebounds on 11/16 from the field in a win over Fairfield.
• Tennessee transfer to Arizona, Tobe Awaka, put up 18 points and 15 boards in a Zona thumping of Old Dominion, 102-44.
• Memphis guard transfer from Tulsa, PJ Haggerty, continued to impress, with 29 points on 10/18 shooting in a 80-74 win over UNLV, despite an impressive performance from UNLV guard Dedan Thomas Jr, with 22 points.

Sorry about the late post/ only one for the two days! It was a long and jam packed weekend, but I had to get something out for the few of you who do enjoy reading these! No best bets today, but I’ll be back tomorrow with those!

(P.C. Kansas Men’s Basketball)