Welcome back, college basketball.

In the past few years, as many players exercised additional years of eligibility granted by the NCAA’s COVID-19 waiver, it has been harder than ever for freshmen to make an impact. No longer. One week in, this is already shaping up to be one of the best freshman classes in a long time. And it’s not just guys we expected to be awesome like Duke’s Cooper Flagg. Some off-the-radar first-years have popped, and two international newcomers — BYU’s Egor Demin and Illinois’ Kasparas Jakucionis — could be among the best guards in the country.

A reminder that below my weekly Top 25, I dive deeper on some teams in the rankings, but not all of them. Please read that before you ask in the comments why I didn’t write about your team. Having said that, everyone please behave themselves in the air, and let’s get to it.

After a fight on its team plane on the way to Houston, the Tigers composed themselves and posted the most impressive win of the first week, taking down Houston 74-69 in a a semi-road game that was played at the Rockets’ home arena.

Auburn sealed the win late by scoring on four consecutive possessions against a set Houston defense. The likelihood of doing that against a Kelvin Sampson-coached team is comparable to winning the lottery. One area that makes Houston so hard to score against is its pick-and-roll coverage. The Cougars are aggressive with their center, making sure he gets to the level of the screen — Sampson calls this the “line of scrimmage” — which forces defenders on the two-side (the top side of the screen) to help against the roller. Auburn burned this coverage four straight times with some nifty actions and heady plays by freshman point guard Tahaad Pettiford.

On the first play, Auburn distracted the two-side defenders with a screen that took their eyes off the ball until it was too late, leaving Johni Broome with an easy roll to the bucket.

The next set was a similar action, except this time Pettiford was the one switching sides of the floor and setting the back screen, then coming off another screen and receiving a pitch from Broome. This time Jojo Tugler, fearing Broome’s roll, didn’t get to the line of scrimmage. Pettiford realized right away he had space and buried his fifth 3 of the game.

The next read was the type of heady play you’d expect from a veteran and not a freshman. This time when Pettiford came off the dribble hand-off, Tugler hedged and Milos Uzan tagged the roller, but Pettiford saw the mismatch and lobbed the ball in to Broome.

On the final trip of the sequence, Auburn went back to the same action as the first play, and Houston guarded it pretty well. Tugler got to the line of scrimmage, Uzan stayed with Broome for a tick, but this time Pettiford spun and passed to Chad Baker-Mazara. That pulled Uzan out and had Tugler racing to get back, but not in time.

The timing of these actions was flawless. In a matchup of two of the best (and most physical) defensive teams in the country, getting open looks was hard throughout the game, but Auburn’s execution down the stretch won out. The Tigers were the subject of some skepticism coming into the season, breaking in new guards and coming off a first-round loss to Yale in the NCAA Tournament, but Bruce Pearl’s group was the most dominant team in the country in the season’s first week, blowing out a Vermont team that had just beat AAC favorite UAB and then winning this semi-road game. And the guard play, especially Pettiford, looks promising.

The Jayhawks look way better on the offensive end thanks to the additions Bill Self made in the portal, but they have work to do defensively, which is how they built a 20-point lead against North Carolina on Friday and then gave it all back.

But Self has the luxury of a sixth-year point guard in Dajuan Harris Jr., who helped KU’s offense get good shots down the stretch and then won the game with a smart defensive play on the Tar Heels’ final possession, switching onto R.J. Davis and then face-guarding the All-American as UNC tried to set a flare screen to get him open.

Another promising sign for Kansas here: Hunter Dickinson switching onto Elliot Cadeau and contesting the final shot. Dickinson struggled guarding the pick-and-roll in the second half, and he’s still working on getting back in shape after an ankle injury, but the fact that Kansas has depth now meant he didn’t need to play 35-plus minutes and allowed him to finish strong. He’ll be hearing about that final sequence from Self.

“Hunt on that last possession actually screwed up, because he showed us that he can actually get out there and guard,” Self said. “So we should probably expect that moving forward.”

The worry for the Vols was whether they could replace the scoring of Dalton Knecht and the defense of center Jonas Aidoo, who transferred to Arkansas. You could argue Ohio State transfer Felix Okpara looks like an upgrade on Aidoo so far, and although no one can expect North Florida transfer Chaz Lanier to replicate Knecht, he’s off to a terrific start, averaging 18.5 points through two games.

Lanier’s tape was impressive, but I was a little skeptical about his up-transfer because of his numbers prior to last season. In his first three years at North Florida, he averaged 1.7 points, 4.5 points and 4.7 points. Then he broke out to average 19.7 points per game last year. The weight room and good old-fashioned development have helped Lanier get here. He was listed at 175 pounds in his first two years of college, and now he looks like a grown man at 207 pounds. He’s shooting it great — 7 of 12 from 3 after shooting 44 percent last year — and he’s scoring at all three levels.

Tennessee smacked Louisville 77-55 on the road on Saturday. The Vols have finished in the top 10 in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margin for three straight years. I’d bet they make it four this year, with Lanier and Okpara being a big reason why.

No. 13 Marquette

Go ahead and start the National Player of the Year campaign for Kam Jones. Through two games, he’s averaging 28 points, has made 16 of his 18 2-pointers, is 7 of 12 from 3 and has 11 assists with just one turnover. The rest of the Golden Eagles are 13 of 54 from 3 through their first two games. The others need to shoot it better for Marquette to be a Top 25 team this season, and one guy who will be key is center Ben Gold. Outside of actually making shots, Gold looks the part so far, and he has good chemistry in the two-man game with Jones, who is a magician with the ball just like Tyler Kolek, the man who dominated the ball the last few years for Marquette.

Just watch this dime while tight-roping the sideline:

That’s one of the shots Gold has made, and considering he shot a solid 35.9 percent from 3 last season, you’d expect he’ll start shooting it better, because he’s going to get great looks playing off Jones.

After getting carved up by Gonzaga on opening night, Baylor bounced back with a 72-67 win against Arkansas in Dallas on Saturday. Baylor tried to play a switching man-to-man defense against Gonzaga, and coach Scott Drew totally abandoned that against Arkansas, opting to play a zone that kept the ball out of the middle of the floor and often had Arkansas settling for perimeter shots without much ball movement. Drew mostly went away from his zone a few years ago when Davion Mitchell told him the Bears wanted to play man-to-man, and Baylor eventually won a national championship running a no-middle defense. But after two consecutive years of sub-70 finishes in adjusted defensive efficiency, it might be time for a change in approach. I’m not sure the Bears can lean exclusively on the zone, but with the length and speed of guys like VJ Edgecombe and Jayden Nunn on the wing, it could be an effective curveball. Arkansas certainly wasn’t ready for it.

Keeping an eye on: Ohio State, BYU, Xavier, Mississippi State, Oregon, VCU, Texas A&M, North Florida.

(Photo: Alex Slitz / Getty Images)