City of Basketball Love

Matt Trabold (@TrabsMatt)

In his weekly Trabs Files, CoBL national analyst Matt Trabold takes a look around the national college landscape, both in the week that was and the week to come:

Three Questions for the 2016 Half of This Season

How will midseason eligible players help their teams down the stretch?
This season’s Louisiana State Tigers are very similar to those of the past couple of years in the sense that they have one of the country’s most remarkable NBA talent-filled rosters on paper despite their record oozing with underachievement. Former Arizona Wildcat Craig Victor II is helping to prevent this trend from carrying over into the second half of this season. Victor II has reached double figures in all five of his games as a Tiger, including a combined thirty points and fourteen rebounds his last two times out against Wake Forest and Vanderbilt.

Despite Northwestern’s top NBA prospect in sophomore Vic Law having his season ended by a shoulder injury before suiting up for a single contest this year, Chris Collins and his staff have the Wildcats at 13-2 and looking legitimately poised to finally make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history. 6-8 freshman center Dererk Pardon had his redshirt burned a few games ago with senior starting five-man Alex Olahalso getting bit by the injury bug. Pardon has exploded for a combined 42 points on 18-of-22 shooting from the floor and 22 rebounds in the first three games of his men’s college basketball career versus Loyola (MD), Nebraska and fourth-ranked Maryland.

After compiling a dismal 5-26 record last season, another ambush of Tigers in Tennessee State is in the midst of quite the upswing a game into conference competition largely due to the play of a handful of first-year transfers for the program from the junior college and Division I ranks. Dana Ford’s bunch is atop the Ohio Valley standings right now with a 10-4 record. The most anticipated member of the transfer recruiting class for the Tigers arguably was Binghamton swap and Philadelphia product guard Jordan Reed. Reed is maybe the top shorter rebounder in the country, but is still waiting to be cleared to play with his new program with the 2015-2016 campaign now in the semester break period. If his men’s college basketball career up to this point is any indication, Reed will be vital hopefully here soon in Tennessee State’s valiant quest to be included in the field for the 2016 NCAA Tournament.

Who will rise into the upper echelon of the Big Ten through their showing in conference play? 
The prevailing conversation entering Big Ten play recently was if any squad in the conference could contend with Michigan State, Maryland and Purdue for the top spot in the league. Iowa displayed immediately in its first two conference bouts it could do just that by handing the top-ranked Spartans their first loss of the season in the Big Ten opener for both sides followed by a spirited road win at fourteenth-ranked Purdue this weekend. Caris LeVert is currently on the temporary mend for Michigan, but the Wolverines may just have the most weapons in the true backcourt and on the wing of any team in the country to go along with an ever-improving trenches attack. Despite showing time and time again it can’t consistently stop the offensive attack of major opponents, Indiana still has one of the top offenses nationally themselves and the consensus is the Hoosiers have the easiest Big Ten schedule to traverse.

Is this smaller Big East just as good as some of the conference’s storied pre-conference realignment groups? 
Going into Villanova’s New Year’s Eve match-up with undefeated and sixth-ranked Xavier, the long-time head man for the Wildcats in Jay Wright mentioned how he believed the post-conference realignment Big East this season currently boasts the strongest competition it ever has in its illustrious history. Despite experiencing their first loss of the season by a staggering 31 points versus Wright’s boys and having electric, rangy redshirt freshman star starting point guard Edmond Sumner suffer a scary head injury in that one, the Musketeers rebounded in a significant way Saturday by clobbering ninth-ranked Butler by nineteen points. 12-2 Seton Hall has won seven games in a row and could easily find itself ranked come Monday afternoon. Despite dropping its first two Big East battles to those Pirates and Georgetown, 10-4 Marquette still had a nine-game winning streak this season that featured victories over then-ranked Louisiana State, Arizona State and Wisconsin.

Watch Your Back, Goliath (Upset Predictions)

No. 8 Arizona at Arizona State--Sun., Jan. 3, 2:00 PM ET

While the pleasant surprise Sun Devils have arguably been the Pac-12 team from the state of Arizona turning heads the most over the past month and a half by winning seven of their last eight games, including a thirteen-point victory over the eighteenth-ranked squad at the time in Texas A&M and the only loss being on the road at Kentucky after trailing by just a single point at halftime, the Wildcats have been victorious in seven of the eight contests since Kaleb Tarczewski was sidelined due to an injured left foot. Seven-foot sophomore Dušan Ristić was expected by many coming into this season to become a national name even if Tarczewski was able to play in every game. Ristić has really come into his own in the last four games of Tarczewski’s absence by averaging 13.3 points an outing on 69.2% shooting from the floor against Missouri, Northern Arizona, UNLV and Long Beach State.

Some of the biggest men’s college basketball news over this past week was Arizona head coach Sean Miller telling reporters on New Year’s Day that Tarczewski would finally return to action in a limited role for this one. Arizona State has also had a key front liner out for the last chunk of games with maybe the team’s best player this year in burly junior forward Savon Goodman missing the last four contests due to unspecified personal reasons. Saturday afternoon, another major announcement pertaining to this highly anticipated in-state rivalry battle emerged that Goodman will also get back on the floor for his club in this match-up. Similar to Ristić with Tarczewski having to sit out, former junior college transfer Willie Atwood has stepped up in the four games the Sun Devils have been without Goodman – granted, he was starting prior to that happening – with double-digit scoring performances in each one. Atwood averaged 13.8 points per contest with combined 24-of-26 shooting from the charity stripe versus UNLV, Houston Baptist, Stephen F. Austin and CS-Bakersfield.

Texas Tech at No. 11 Iowa State--Wed., Jan. 6, 9:00 PM ET

A conference doesn’t get to a combined record across all of its programs of 102-24 by the end of the first week of conference play if those in the lowest portion of its standings didn’t also hold their own in the non-conference slate. The Red Raiders are starting to transition from simply being one of the squads pegged with strengthening the depth of the Big 12 into the conversation of being a group with the potential to push for the mighty league’s crown. Texas Tech added a pretty dominant home victory against Texas on Saturday to a résumé that already included wins over Mississippi State, Minnesota and Richmond on top of handing Arkansas-Little Rock its first loss a week and a half ago. 6-8 verticality virtuoso Zach Smith was part of a frontcourt duo of freshman starters last season with mountainous Norense Odiase that turned many a head at times. Smith has rattled off five straight double-digit scoring performances in his sophomore campaign, including versus South Dakota State, the Longhorns, the Spiders and the 10-0 at the time Trojans.

Dropping a game Saturday night on the home court of an Oklahoma side that could easily find itself as the top-ranked team in all the land Monday afternoon is more than understandable, but being defeated by up-and-down Northern Iowa a few games prior displayed some early repercussions of a major injury loss for the Cyclones. Senior sharpshooter Nazareth Mitrou-Long and his expanded repertoire were lost for the season before the last five-game stretch for Iowa State due to lingering hip pain. Just one game after the Cyclones had to play for the first time in the 2015-2016 campaign without Mitrou-Long, premier power dunker Marquette transfer guard Deonte Burton became eligible for Steve Prohm’s forces due to leaving the Golden Eagles around the same time last season. 6-4 junior Matt Thomas and underachieving former Oregon State Beaver Hallice Cookemay be more conventional replacements for a perimeter threat like Mitrou-Long, but Burton has shot 6-of-7 from behind the arc – as part of 18-of-24 shooting from the floor for 48 points overall – over his last three contests against ranked Cincinnati, Coppin State and the Sooners.

Stat Tease

Southern California at Washington: Rim Protection

As the Trojans have amassed just as many victories through fourteen games this season that they did all of last year, Andy Enfield’s troops have added around two whole blocked shots per contest to their average in that statistic so far. For the squad tied for sixth nationally in shot-blocking, 6-11 freshman Chimezie Metu – and his 1.9 blocked shots an outing – is the only player for Southern California averaging one of them or more a game. Metu had five blocked shots a piece in two of the first three games of his young men’s college basketball career against San Diego and New Mexico. On the other hand, the Huskies are the top-ranked team in the country in shot-blocking. Top-eight junior college transfer Malik Dimewas touted as a rim protector supreme coming into the Division I ranks and has certainly lived up to that billing as the fifteenth-ranked player in the country in the statistic with nearly three blocked shots per contest through thirteen games. Also, Washington has two other new faces in freshmen Marquese Chriss and Matisse Thybulle averaging more than a blocked shot an outing.

All-New Year’s Resolution Team (Players that have Drastically Improved in a Facet of Their Game from Last Season)

Moses Kingsley--So., Arkansas

In addition to raising his scoring average from 3.6 to 16.5 points an outing so far from his freshman campaign, Kingsley is now putting that 6-10 frame to better use on the boards as well with over ten rebounds per contest thirteen tussles in after less than three of them a game last season. Kingsley’s eight double-doubles thus far is not much behind the national double-double leader in Georgia Tech’s Charles Mitchell.

Wes Washpun--Sr., Northern Iowa

For a Panthers team that graduated Seth Tuttle, Deon Mitchell, Nate Bussand and Marvin Singleton following last season, the springy former Tennessee Volunteer didn’t just have to step up to become the top scoring option for Northern Iowa as a senior. He also had to take the reins when it came to distributing the rock as well. Washpun has more than doubled his assists average so far this season. He combined for 19 assists in the squad’s marquee victories against top-five foes Iowa State and North Carolina.

Michael Carrera--Sr., South Carolina

The Gamecocks have risen to a national ranking and being one of just three remaining undefeated sides in the country in large part due to the strong veteran presence Frank Martin’s group possesses. The Venezuelan forward is right at the center of that with two more made triples through thirteen games as a senior than he had in his entire sophomore and junior campaigns combined. Carrera has nearly doubled his three-point field goal percentage from last season in his final South Carolina go-around to a 56.8% mark that currently places him fifth nationally in the statistic.

Jarrod Uthoff--Sr., Iowa

Not only has Uthoff more than doubled his shot-blocking average from last season so far, but he also has only ten less blocked shots through fourteen games as a senior than he compiled in his entire junior campaign. That aforementioned shot-blocking average of 3.3 blocked shots an outing has Uthoff currently fifth nationally in the statistic. In these last two wildly impressive wins for the Hawkeyes to start Big Ten play over top-ranked Michigan State and top-fifteen Purdue, he has combined for eleven blocked shots.