City of Basketball Love

Matt Trabold (@TrabsMatt)
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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:

Does the A in ACC Stand for Anarchy?

This week, the Big 12 Conference saw third-ranked Kansas need a traveling-aided buzzer beater from Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk to down overachieving in-state rival Kansas State. Later that night, Texas Tech pulled off the nearly impossible task of winning the turnover battle against seventh-ranked West Virginia en route to pulling off the upset by a single point in overtime. The combination of those wild moments paled in comparison to the craziness that went down in the first week of Atlantic Coast Conference play this season.

On the first full day of the conference play slate in the Atlantic Coast Conference on Saturday, fifth-ranked Duke felt the suspension loss of controversial superstar Grayson Allen in a major way by getting thumped by unranked Virginia Tech by fourteen points. What was considered a day of humiliation for the program by many fans of the team had an exclamation point slapped upon it with 1:02 left in regulation against the Hokies as Chris Clarke threw down a one-handed off-the-backboard alley-oop in transition.

Also on that Saturday, Duke’s storied rival in North Carolina came away with a bewildering defeat of their own. The loss that the Tar Heels sustained that day could even be considered the more head-scratching of the two. North Carolina fell by double figures against a Georgia Tech team that Las Vegas oddsmakers thought it would beat by more than seventeen points. Georgia Tech freshman guard Josh Okogie combined to score 23 points against Georgia, Wofford and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State over the three games directly before the tussle versus the Tar Heels, but exploded for 26 points against Roy Williams and company.

Something happened to Syracuse on Sunday that made it look like its nosedive could be something the squad would not be able to climb out of at any point in the rest of the season. The Orange were dispatched by fifteen points by Boston College in a game in which the Eagles were allowed to shoot over 57% from the field. Boston College came into that weekend with victories over Auburn and Providence, but were still picked fifteenth and last in the preseason poll coming into the season for the Atlantic Coast Conference. Looks can be deceiving. Syracuse picked up a fifteen-point conference win of its own on Wednesday night versus one of the best unranked teams in the country in Miami (FL).

Virginia Tech went from unranked in the Associated Press Top-25 Poll to being the 21st-ranked side in all the land on Monday afternoon after that drubbing of Duke. In their first ballgame at that spot in the rankings, the Hokies were drubbed themselves by 26 points against North Carolina State. The Wolfpack shot over 64 percent from the field in that one.

Watch Your Back, Goliath (Upset Predictions)

North Carolina State at No. 14 North Carolina--Sat., Jan. 7, 8:00 PM ET

Men’s college basketball followers are now finally seeing a North Carolina State team at full strength this season. Prized Turkish freshman and projected first-round NBA Draft pick Ömer Yurtseven seems to be at least close to being fully acclimated to this level of hardwood when he stays out of foul trouble now that he has six games for the Wolfpack under his belt. Sophomore wing Maverick Rowan is seven games removed from another seven-game stretch earlier this campaign in which he was sidelined due to concussion issues. Missing four games early this year due to eligibility problems is now becoming a distant memory for another darling of North Carolina State’s current freshman class in Ted Kapita. The Wolfpack’s second outing in Atlantic Coast Conference play this time around on Wednesday night saw Mark Gottfried’s club throttle a ranked Virginia Tech group by 26 points. Freshman starting point guard Dennis Smith Jr. recorded a triple-double of 27 points on 9-of-16 shooting from the field, eleven assists, eleven rebounds and five steals in that one.

The Tar Heels did not have an ideal start to Atlantic Coast Conference competition this season. North Carolina, the ninth-ranked team in the country at the time, lost by twelve points in its conference play opener to a seemingly much inferior Georgia Tech side. As part of the Tar Heels losing the turnover battle in that one, Joel Berry II had a career-high six turnovers and a season-low one assist. In his defense, Berry II rebounded in a major way against Clemson Tuesday night with 31 points on 7-of-10 shooting from downtown. 6-10 freshman Tony Bradley has only managed to score a combined three points in the team’s last two contests after beginning his men’s college basketball career with six double-digit scoring performances in a row.

No. 22 Cincinnati at Houston--Sat., Jan. 7, 9:00 PM ET

The Cougars got a scare in American Athletic Conference play Wednesday night by surviving against the arguably worst Tulsa team in a half-decade by just three points. The biggest question mark going into Houston’s meeting with the ranked Bearcats probably pertains to whether or not leading scorer Rob Gray Jr. and former Indiana Hoosier Devin Davis are able to play. Neither could go versus the Golden Hurricane. Gray Jr. was dealing with an illness, while Davis was sidelined by a left foot injury. The former scored at least twenty points in six of his last eight ballgames. 6-10 senior Danrad Knowles is currently in the midst of his best men’s college basketball season after seeing his production take a hit as a junior last year. Kelvin Sampson’s men are one spot out of the top-twenty nationally in scoring defense. As part of that, the Cougars held Connecticut to a season-low 46 points in the conference play opener for both sides.

Cincinnati also impressed in the first game of its American Athletic Conference slate this campaign by outlasting a Temple squad with two victories over ranked squads already this season by six points. The Bearcats have shown they know how to take care of the rock this year by currently finding themselves tied for seventeenth in the country in fewest turnovers average and thirteenth in the country in assist-turnover ratio. Troy Caupain is seventeenth nationally in assist-turnover ratio on an individual basis. Cincinnati has not been quite as good at refraining from turning the ball over so far in conference competition though. Mick Cronin’s forces had a combined 29 turnovers against the Owls and Tulane in the two games they have played in since the non-conference part of their schedule wrapped up. That places them sixth in the eleven-team American Athletic Conference in turnover margin at the moment. First-year North Carolina State transfer Kyle Washington has not reached double figures in scoring in just about four weeks after posting double-digit point totals in his first eight games as a Bearcat – five of those outings being double-doubles.

Stat Tease

Rutgers at Iowa: Rebounding

The Hawkeyes had to replace the likes of Jarrod Uthoff and Adam Woodbury with all sorts of youth this season, but the squad is still finding a way to perform better on the glass in comparison to last year’s 22-11 group thus far. Iowa is currently thirtieth nationally in rebounding average. Former walk-on Nicholas Baer is leading the team right now with 6.3 rebounds an outing. Leading scorer Peter Jok already has nine more rebounds as a senior than he did in his entire sophomore campaign on top of only being fifteen boards away from surpassing his rebounding total from last year.

Rutgers has been even better on the boards than the Hawkeyes so far. The Scarlet Knights are sixth in the country in rebounding average and fifteenth in the country in rebound margin at this point. In his first season at the helm in Piscataway, Steve Pikiell has led his new group to a pretty surprising 11-5 record thus far – with none of those losses being glaring by any stretch of the imagination. Deshawn Freeman has only mustered eight rebounds over his last three contests, but the 6-7 junior already has six double-doubles this campaign.

Players that Shined in the First Week of National Conference Play

Keon Johnson--Sr., Winthrop

No player in the country that has competed in more than one conference game so far this season is averaging more points in conference play than Johnson. In a win over High Point Wednesday night, Johnson went 7-of-8 from downtown and 6-of-6 from the charity stripe for 27 points. In the game before that, he recorded 37 points, seven rebounds at 5-7 and 10-of-11 shooting from the charity stripe against Radford.

Grant Williams--Fr., Tennessee

Williams is definitely a major candidate to be considered the best freshman down low in the country this season thus far. He has been this brilliant in the trenches to start off his men’s college basketball career despite standing only 6-5. In Tennessee’s impressive double-digit win over Texas A&M to begin Southeastern Conference play, Williams had six blocks to go with his twelve points. Tuesday night versus Arkansas, he had a double-double of fifteen points and eleven rebounds.

Ismail Ali--Sr., Bowling Green State

Ismail’s older brother in Hameed Ali ended last season second in the country in steals as a senior at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. In a slight loss for the Falcons against the Mid-American Conference’s preseason favorite and the team in this conference with the best record at the moment in Akron in their conference play opener, Ali had five steals to go along with his season-high sixteen points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field and five assists.

Erick Neal--Jr., Texas at Arlington

When most people think of the roster of 12-3 Texas at Arlington, they think of double-double machine Kevin Hervey. The one-man skills Neal has displayed especially of late has his name on the lips of plenty of folks though. In the conference opener this year for the Mavericks, Neal recorded eleven assists and thirteen points versus a new Sun Belt Conference squad in Coastal Carolina. Neal followed that performance up with twelve points, seven assists and six steals against Appalachian State.