It’s buy, sell or hold week at the Top 25.
Last week’s multi-team events (MTEs) provided a lot of results to process, as teams that really couldn’t be judged yet due to their quality of competition finally played somebody. Looking at you, UConn, Iowa State and Indiana.
Some quick thoughts on the big moves this week.
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Bless you, Feast Week. You delivered! Takeaways from a fun week below.
Reminder: Below my Top 25, I give nuggets on an unspecified number of teams each week. So if a team appears in the table but not the text below, that’s why. Scroll on for notes on Auburn, Kansas, Iowa State, Duke, Purdue, Florida, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Oregon, Illinois and Oklahoma.
Auburn’s offense has a lot of old-school flex concepts, and one reason it works so well is that big men Johni Broome and Dylan Cardwell are such good passers. The play that got all the attention in the Tigers’ 83-81 win over Iowa State in Maui was Broome’s last-second tip-in, but what made that possible was this dime from Cardwell that tied the game:
Look at where Miles Kelly (No. 13) is when Cardwell releases that pass:
That’s a gutsy pass to throw in the final minute, down two, with the cutter still behind the defender, but it was the right read. The defender (Joshua Jefferson) had his head turned.
Broome is getting a lot of his assists when drawing double teams, which creates a real dilemma for opposing coaches because he feasts on one-on-one matchups, too. Auburn’s movement and spacing make it difficult to decide where to bring the double from, almost inviting the defense to commit. Broome is often set up by his flex cuts, and the play below shows why it’s so tough to double him.
As soon as Cardwell sees his man is going to double, he runs to the rim and Broome throws it up nonchalantly. Whenever doubled, Broome never panics and patiently waits for one of his teammates to break open.
Broome is the best all-around player in college basketball right now, and Auburn continues to crush with its two-big lineup. In 77 minutes on the floor together, the Broome-Cardwell combo is plus-68 and scoring 1.464 points per possession, per CBB Analytics. Next up will be the duo’s greatest challenge yet, as Auburn travels to Duke on Wednesday to take on the Blue Devils’ talented frontcourt duo of Cooper Flagg and Khaman Maluach.
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KJ Adams was the Cooper Flagg stopper in Kansas’ win over Duke. With Adams guarding him, Flagg went 1 of 4 from the field — Adams blocking his shot twice — and had three turnovers. Adams is one of the best defenders in college basketball because he has the lateral quickness of a guard and is built like a linebacker. Screening him is almost impossible, and Flagg could rarely shake him.
When Adams was either the primary defender or the help side defender at the end of the possession, Duke went 3 of 10 from the field and had five turnovers. Adams finished with a solid line — eight points, two rebounds, three assists, three blocks and three steals — but the box score does not fully capture his value. As Bill Self said on Tuesday, “I think KJ showed a lot of people tonight that you can be an elite player at this level and not be a prolific scorer, because he did it all.” Adams followed that up by showing he can score, too, tying his career-high with 22 points in a blowout win over Furman.
In T.J. Otzelberger’s first three seasons in Ames, Iowa State has finished ranked 171, 114 and 52 in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency. Before the season, Otzelberger told me he was well aware that needed to change. “You can’t play to the analytics, but very mindful of offense outside of the top 30 makes it really, really hard.”
So far, so good. Iowa State is up to No. 4 in adjusted offensive efficiency, and last week at the Maui Invitational, every opponent — Auburn, Dayton and Colorado — gave up its highest efficiency mark all season to the Cyclones.
Otzelberger’s theory on why his team would be better was that its 3-point percentage would go up. It has instead dipped slightly — from 35.8 to 33.6 — but the Cyclones have gotten more efficient by scoring at the rim more frequently. Take a look at these numbers, via Synergy:
| % shots at rim | FG% at rim | |
|---|---|---|
|
2021-22 |
21.1 |
57.1 |
|
2022-23 |
22.2 |
59.7 |
|
2023-24 |
23.5 |
58.4 |
|
2024-25 |
27.7 |
63.9 |
Iowa State’s 3-point rate is also up — from 31.7 to 37.2 — and although Otzelberger may not preach a strictly analytical approach, Iowa State’s shot profile certainly appears to be going that direction when you compare last season’s shooting chart to this year, via CBB Analytics:
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Earlier this season when Kentucky won their Champions Classic showdown against the Blue Devils with a Otega Oweh steal, behind-the-scenes footage of Mark Pope showed that the Kentucky coach called his shot in a timeout huddle: “If I get Cooper on an iso, we’re coming and we’re rotating down. Go two hands and take the ball. If Cooper goes to work and spins, we should have a body there to take the ball.”
Flagg has pretty much been as good as advertised — 15.9 points, 8.4 rebounds, 4.1 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.4 steals per game — but he has been turnover-prone, and playing in a crowd has been his kryptonite. Out of his 22 turnovers, 12 have come on plays like the one above against Kansas, in which he was doubled and didn’t recognize a second defender coming early enough, or just wasn’t strong enough with the ball.
This will be something to watch on Wednesday against Auburn. The Tigers usually rely on their ability to defend one-on-one and not bring help. Will they adjust against Flagg?
Over the last three games, Matt Painter has gone to a new small-ball starting lineup, with Trey Kaufman-Renn surrounded by four perimeter players. The new starters are plus-17 over 50 minutes and scoring 1.292 points per possession, per CBB Analytics. The spacing with four shooters really puts defenses in a bind in Purdue’s middle ball screens. Myles Colvin, who scored a career-high 20 points and had the buzzer-beating putback against Ole Miss, was the beneficiary.
Even though the sophomore is a career 41.9 percent 3-point shooter, his man was the guy often cheating over to help. In this pick-and-roll coverage, for instance, Dre Davis should be the tag, because he’s guarding Foster Loyer in the left corner, making him the bottom defender on the two side. Braden Smith smartly realized that Jaylen Murray was also sliding over to help against the roller and found Colvin in the right corner for the easy catch-and-shoot 3.
Had Murray stayed attached, Smith could have skipped the ball to Fletcher Loyer, and either Loyer (shooting 58.6 percent from 3) would have had a shot or he could have one-mored it to Camden Heide (shooting 55 percent from 3). And when Kaufman-Renn is in the post, defenses either have to defend Purdue’s leading scorer one-on-one or cheat off one of four 40-plus-percent 3-point shooters.
The risk of the smaller lineup is that Purdue’s defense may suffer, but Heide, at 6-7, is capable of guarding fours, and considering Heide and Colvin have better defensive rebounding rates than Purdue’s backup bigs, it made a lot of sense to make the change for the offensive potential.
Florida is winning with a strategy that coach Todd Golden implemented last season, making offensive rebounding a priority.
“My first year we played a lot of five-out with (6-10 center) Colin Castleton,” Golden said before the season. “We played him out on the trail and so we were not in offensive rebounding position very often, whereas last year, we’re playing two bigs relatively consistently. And just the way we played offensively put us in better position to rebound.”
Golden was intentional in the transfer portal, going after two bigs (Rueben Chinyelu and Sam Alexis) who were strong offensive rebounders and rim protectors. Once again, Florida is dominating on the boards (sixth in offensive rebounding rate) with a four-big rotation. Both sophomore returners (Alex Condon and Thomas Haugh) have improved and seen their offensive rebounding rates go up. Florida dominated the glass in two blowout wins over Wake Forest and Wichita State at the ESPN Events Invitational, with an offensive rebounding rate of 43.8 percent in those two wins. The added rim protection has also helped. Florida ranks 13th in defensive 2-point field goal percentage and is 22nd in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency, up from 94th last season.
A week ago, Xavier was leading college basketball in assist rate. Against Michigan, Xavier had only seven assists on 20 baskets. With its ability to switch, Michigan often forced Xavier into going one-on-one, and Wolverines coach Dusty May has excellent on-the-ball defenders. That often went something like this:
Michigan is the eighth-tallest team in college hoops, per KenPom, which is a luxury May did not have at Florida Atlantic. The best shots Xavier could get were against drop coverage with Vladislav Goldin on the floor, but most of those did not fall. Michigan finished the game on a 19-2 run over the final seven minutes, and Xavier went 0 of 9 from the field during that stretch — including three missed shots against the drop — and had only one assist opportunity. The Musketeers also finished the game with 19 turnovers, and Michigan now ranks eighth in defensive turnover rate. This is an all-around elite defensive team. Michigan’s early turnover issues gave me pause, but I’m back ready to drive the hype train.
Duke’s biggest challenger in the ACC appears to be Pittsburgh, which got a huge overtime win on Friday at Ohio State. Sophomore point guard Jaland Lowe is one of the smoothest pick-and-roll operators in the country and plays the game at his pace. He made two clutch plays to beat the Buckeyes.
In regulation, Lowe made this ridiculous scoop shot that ended up forcing overtime:
That’s an extremely difficult shot that Lowe makes easy. He’s one of the best at figuring out a plan when he’s lost his dribble and looks like he’s not in an ideal spot.
With 6.6 seconds left in overtime, Lowe raced the ball up the floor but didn’t get sped up. He knew all along he was going to pass back to Zack Austin, and he took enough dribbles to engage both his and Austin’s defenders, giving Austin the space for a great look:
That’s great execution under pressure, stealing a win on the road that will likely look great on the resume come March.
So far Oregon has won games after…
The Ducks have seven seniors in their rotation and a sophomore point guard in Jackson Shelstad who has better than a six-to-one assist-to-turnover ratio. From each point in the scenarios above to the end of the game, a total of 38 minutes, 38 seconds, Oregon has committed just six turnovers. We’ll see if the Ducks can keep this up, but this appears to be a group that doesn’t get rattled.
It feels like freshman center Tomislav Ivisic will determine Illinois’ ceiling. The Illini will be extremely hard to guard if Ivisic can hit pick-and-pop 3s. He came into the Arkansas game shooting 28 percent from 3, then went 6 of 9 against the Razorbacks, making them immediately regret letting him slip free:
With this kind of spacing, the Illini will be really hard to guard.
The super-early favorite for National Coach of the Year should be Porter Moser, who lost his three starting guards to the transfer portal, had his team picked to finish 15th in the 16-team SEC and is now 7-0 after the Sooners won the Battle 4 Atlantis. Moser has leaned into his team speed and adopted a much more aggressive defensive attack, forcing ball handlers to play in a crowd.
The move has Oklahoma turning opponents over at a much higher rate: 22.8 percent of possessions, compared to 16.5 percent last season. The Sooners forced 40 turnovers in three games on their way to the Battle 4 Atlantis crown that no one saw coming.
Dropped out: UConn, North Carolina, Indiana, Texas A&M, Xavier, Mississippi State, Arizona.
Keeping an eye on: Maryland, Utah State, Drake, Louisville, West Virginia, Arizona State, BYU, Dayton, San Diego State, Clemson, St. John’s.
(Photo: Joseph Maiorana / Imagn Images)
