College Basketball Musings

It’s business time! The college basketball season kicked into high gear with the ACC/Big Ten Challenge (won by the Big Ten this time, ending a decade of futility) and the championship game rematch between Michigan State and North Carolina. But there have been plenty of other enthralling stories. Kansas remains the clear No. 1 team, and I don’t see that changing. The other contenders (Texas, Villanova, Duke, Purdue, West Virginia) all have significant holes, but the Jayhawks have NBA-caliber talent at every position and a fantastic coach and point guard.

However, several teams have started out hot and significantly increased their national cachet. Syracuse was knocked for losing Jonny Flynn, but Scoop Jardine has handled the point guard role effectively, and last year’s role players like Andy Rautins and Arinze Onuaku are becoming key contributors. Jim Boeheim is known for rarely needing to rebuild, but I don’t think anyone expected the Cuse to be this good right now. Gonzaga is a similar case, always consistently good but coming off serious losses (Heytvelt, Daye, Pargo). No problem. Elias Harris and Robert Sacre have become serious post scorers, and with Demetri Goodson is one of the best perimeter defenders I’ve seen this year. Finally, UNLV is undefeated and nationally ranked after toppling Louisville and Arizona, as Lon Kruger continues to rebuild the Rebels. I doubt they’ll ever reach Tarkanian levels again, but this is clearly a program that can sustain this kind of success.

Hard to stop a Train: I’m not exactly sure why I liked Purdue as a kid. I do recall spending much time pondering how a man could come to look like Gene Keady. Regardless, the Boilers are still one of my favorites, so it clearly goes deeper than one man’s hilarious comb-over. The lack of Tournament success makes them sympathetic, since they always field tough, intelligent teams that play hard. This year it’s all coming together, Purdue’s best chance to make that elusive Final Four since the Big Dog was getting them elite seeds on the regular. Much is made of Robbie Hummel’s return to health, and for good reason. He’s the closest current Boilermaker to Glenn Robinson, with his size and eclectic skill set, only lacking that pure scoring ability. Luckily Purdue has plenty of other weapons like E’Twaun Moore (excellent dribble-drive point guard) and JaJuan Johnson (super-athletic big man).

On defense, the team’s bona fides come from head coach Matt Painter, who orchestrated a swarming man-to-man at Southern Illinois that stifled the Missouri Valley for years. (He can also be seen tossing Robinson a sweet alley-oop in the highlight video below.) Chris Kramer doesn’t contribute a lot on offense, but he is a prototypical Painter swingman, always the first after a loose ball, always moving off the ball and looking for cuts to the basket, and always keeping his hands in the opponent’s passing lanes. Purdue isn’t level with teams like Kansas and Michigan State (because of depth questions), and they lack a true go-to scorer like the Big Dog. However, plenty of teams have succeeded despite a lack of either, and this team may have the chemistry, versatility, and desire to do the same. I like them as a potential contender to Michigan State’s Big Ten perch, and as a serious Final Four darkhorse in the right bracket.

Weary in Westwood: The Bruins are having trouble beating the Big West, raising fears of a major collapse this season. It’s too early to jump that far with Ben Howland at the helm, but UCLA is nonetheless undergoing a painful transition period. The last holdovers from the core of what I’ll call the Early Howland Era, savvy point guard Darren Collison and effort-guy Alfred Aboya, have finally left campus. In their wake is a collection of under-experienced youngsters and veteran role players, with no true leader. A down year seems inevitable now, but sometimes this kind of season can rejuvenate a team for the long haul. Really, the whole UCLA program seems spent after making the Final Four so many times and not winning it.

When a team is competitive at the highest level, the best players tend to dominate the practice reps and the minutes, and the younger guys don’t develop the same way they might on a lesser team. Then when the core group of championship players leaves, the new guys struggle when they take over. Role players from the past couple seasons are asked to take on more responsibility, and they are often stretched too thin. But of course, it’s not as if these fresh players are scrubs. My favorite UCLA newcomer is Reeves Nelson, a member of the dwindling Two Last Names Club. He’s a bit undersized for a post scorer, but his arsenal of moves is beyond his years, and he brings energy to the game. Also, Nelson should get a chance to play more minutes sooner than expected, as starting center Drew Gordon announced plans to transfer. Once he and the others get up to speed, the Bruins will be back at the Pac-10 summit. The question is how long that will take.

Rave on Trevon: Wisconsin’s Trevon Hughes has become an all-conference player in his senior year. He carved up Duke’s stingy man-to-man defense and carried the Badgers during the second half of a monster victory, coming up with all kinds of slinky-like shots in the lane and burying some key 3-pointers. On one drive, he spun into the lane and stepped back to release what I’d describe as a “teardrop fallaway” over a Duke big man. I had a feeling the shot was going in, even as I simultaneously recognized its ridiculousness, which illustrates how amazing Hughes had been to that point. I’m hoping that this kind of performance becomes a trend, because Hughes has never lived up to his potential as a scorer. Such a development would put the Badgers right up there with Michigan State and Purdue in the Big Ten.

Elsewhere in the Kohl Center was Wisconsin’s stellar defense against Kyle Singler with talented freshman Ryan Evans, who seems a natural successor to Marcus Landry as the team’s stopper. The Badgers are one of few teams with the chops to rotate properly against such a quick motion offense, and Duke was unable to return the favor. I think they struggled because the Devils couldn’t adjust to a team that plays a very similar style, and most of their customary advantages were gone. I find it hard to believe that at 4-1 with the loss to Gonzaga, Wisconsin wasn’t ranked before this game. That will obviously change, but they ought to just put this team in the Top 25 every preseason and call it good. I don’t know if a Bo Ryan team will ever have a true down year.