The most wonderful week outside of March and April is here: Feast Week!
This is the week where we start to actually get an idea of what everyone has around college basketball. Many teams that have been dodging real competition will finally test themselves. And speaking of competition dodgers…
You may notice that Tennessee jumped three spots, leaping past Iowa State and Connecticut. That’s a reward for actually winning games in impressive fashion against high-major opponents away from home. Tennessee has wins over Louisville, Virginia and Baylor by an average of 19.7 points. (The Louisville game was at Louisville, and the other two were in the Bahamas.) Out of 364 Division I teams, Iowa State and Connecticut rank 364th and 363rd, respectively, in strength of schedule at KenPom and have yet to leave their home arenas. Those two finally take off the training wheels this week at the Maui Invitational, where Iowa State opens against Auburn and UConn opens against Memphis on Monday. Maybe they’ll climb next week.
But three weeks in, the competition you’ve beaten has to start mattering, and it’s hard to say how good those two are because of who they’ve played.
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 Tennessee, Kentucky, Duke, Marquette, Cincinnati, Wisconsin, Xavier, Texas and Mississippi State.
The Tennessee defense is dominant once again, with Rick Barnes stocking his roster with physical wings and athletic, switchable bigs alongside a pest of a point guard in Zakai Zeigler. Outside of the 5-9 Zeigler, everyone in the rotation is at least 6-4. It’s extremely difficult to get a shot off against the Vols. Watch how they recover and are able to keep the ball in front of them on closeouts:
The first half against Baylor was total domination, jumping out to a 47-20 lead en route to a 77-62 win. Below, I charted Baylor’s offensive possessions in the first 20 minutes. A good shot is a clean jumper or lightly contested shot at the rim; a bad shot is anything highly contested.
| Baylor | |
|---|---|
|
Good shots |
9-14 |
|
OK shots |
0-7 |
|
Bad shots |
0-8 |
|
Turnovers |
9 |
|
FTs |
0-0 |
Tennessee ranks second in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency and looks primed to finish top five in defense for the fifth straight year. The one area in which the Vols are even better this season is avoiding fouls. Tennessee’s opponent free-throw rate is 24.6, down from 35.7 last year and ranking 43rd nationally. In seven of Rick Barnes’ first nine years in Knoxville, Tennessee ranked outside the top 200 in free-throw rate and never finished in the top 100. Something to watch as the year progresses.
Koby Brea is off to a bonkers start shooting the basketball. He leads Division I shooting 74.1 percent (20 of 27) from 3. His effective field goal percentage on jump shots (20 of 29) is 103.4 percent, which is No. 1 in college hoops, per Synergy. He’s 10 of 13 on shots off the dribble for a 115.4 effective field goal percentage, which is also No. 1 in college hoops.
I watched every one of Brea’s jumpers so far, and while he’s good off movement (5 of 8), he is automatic when he has his feet set. He’s 7 of 8 on catch-and-shoot spot-ups and has made all six of his 3s when he sidesteps a closing defender and stays behind the line, like this one against Wright State:
Brea’s ability to stay balanced and not rush in these situations is special. It’s early, but considering he shot 49.3 percent from 3 last season at Dayton, it’s possible we could be witnessing a record-breaking shooting season from the fifth-year senior.
Duke has the top adjusted defensive efficiency in the country, and one big reason is that it’s so hard to get into the paint against Duke’s length, let alone score there. The Blue Devils’ opponents are attempting only 29.8 percent of their shots at the rim, per Synergy, which is the 15th-lowest rate in the country. Arizona had five turnovers on plays in the paint in Duke’s 69-55 win in Tucson on Friday. If you do get off a shot from in close, Duke is really good at vertical contests and not fouling. The Blue Devils rank 19th in foul rate.
I charted Duke’s opponent’s shots at the rim in half-court offense when there’s a help defender contesting, like the clip above, and opponents have made only 7 of 27 (25.9 percent). Arizona finished 1-of-6. To beat this Duke defense, you’re going to have to hit jump shots and score in transition. Kansas gets the next shot on Tuesday in Las Vegas.
Marquette’s pick-and-roll defense against Braden Smith was a big reason the Golden Eagles were able to beat Purdue on Tuesday. Last season, most teams played drop coverage against Smith because they feared Zach Edey on the roll. Smith was a killer against that coverage with his pull-up jumper. Marquette was aggressive against Smith, blitzing when the 5 set the screen and trying to get the ball out of his hands. This is textbook, with the X-out on the weak side and Ben Gold sprinting back to his man:
In Smith pick-and-rolls, Purdue’s star was just 1 of 6 on his shots, and when he passed, Purdue went 4 of 12 and also had three turnovers. Marquette is flying around and causing a lot of turnovers. Opponents are giving it away on 24.9 percent of possessions, which ranks 11th-best nationally. That’s the highest defensive turnover rate for a Smart-coached team since his Havoc days at VCU — the 2013-14 Rams ranked No. 1.
The transfer portal is often written about in a negative light, but sometimes a fresh start can be healthy for a player. That has been the case for former five-star Dillon Mitchell, who transferred from Texas to Cincinnati in the spring. Mitchell has fit in beautifully for a much-improved Cincy team. He is averaging 12.4 points, 8.6 rebounds and 1.6 assists, all career-bests, and shooting a very efficient 74.4 percent inside the arc. Jumpers have never been his thing, but he did make his first 3 of his career on Saturday in a 81-58 win over Georgia Tech. Watch how excited his teammates are for him:
I’ll go deeper down the road on Cincy offense, which is much improved. Mitchell has played a part in that, in a role that is well-suited for his skill set.
John Tonje is this year’s Dalton Knecht, the All-American transfer who came out of nowhere. Knecht was a second-team All-Big Sky selection. Tonje has never made an all-conference team in five years of college hoops and scored 21 points in eight games during an injury-shortened season last year at Mizzou.
Tonje took over another game on Sunday in Wisconsin’s 81-75 win over Pitt, scoring 33 points and going 10 of 10 at the free-throw line after relentlessly attacking the rim. The Badgers scored 46 points in the paint and another 18 at the line. They are the best free throw shooting team in the country (86.5 percent) and rank 75th in free-throw rate. This is not what we’re used to seeing out of Wisconsin, which has not had a team rank in the top 100 in free-throw rate since 2014. Tonje and John Blackwell are aggressive drivers who can live in the paint, and even on an off shooting night (Wisconsin was 5 of 20 from 3), the Badgers offense still thrived, scoring 54 points in the second half.
Xavier has assisted on 77.3 percent of its baskets, which ranks No. 1 in the country. (Second-place Air Force is far behind at 73.6 percent.) It helps that Sean Miller starts four players who are shooting better than 40 percent from 3, giving Xavier excellent floor spacing and plenty of opportunities for kick-outs. The Musketeers are also really good hunting 3s in transition, averaging three per game (tied for fifth-best nationally, per Synergy). Look at how Ryan Freemantle, hanging in the paint, points out the open Ryan Conwell in the corner:
Everyone is willing to share it, too. Eight of the nine players in Xavier’s rotation are averaging at least one assist per game.
Texas has a star freshman in Tre Johnson, who is averaging 21.2 points and has made 19 3s at a 46.3 percent clip through six games. Texas had another freshman put up similar numbers a few years ago. The guy averaged 22.3 points and made 16 3s at a 45.7 percent clip through his first six games. Went by the name Kevin Durant. Think he turned out OK.
Chris Jans appears to have his best offense yet in three seasons in Starkville. A big reason why: The Bulldogs are taking care of the basketball, giving it away on only 11.9 percent of their possessions. Star sophomore guard Josh Hubbard is averaging 20.2 points and 3.6 assists per game and has zero turnovers through five games. That’s an assist-to-turnover ratio of infinity, if my math is correct. It’s very rare to go five games without a turnover for a high-usage guard.
Dropped out: Creighton, St. John’s, Illinois, Michigan.
Keeping an eye on: BYU, Drake, Maryland, Pittsburgh, Memphis, Utah State, Saint Mary’s, Georgia, Oregon, Penn State, Dayton, Ole Miss.
(Photo: Johnnie Izquierdo / Getty Images)
