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:

Just When You Thought a Week Couldn’t Get More Bonkers

Last week’s Trabs Files consisted of many a word about how historically legendary the Tuesday and Wednesday men’s college basketball slates of that week were in terms of the number of highly ranked sides upset by unranked opponents. The law of averages was nowhere to be found as that week was somehow showered with an additional five upsets of squads in the Associated Press Top-25 Poll at the hands of unranked groups on Saturday.

Rather unsurprisingly, much of that carnage a handful of days ago came from the almost unfathomably deep Atlantic Coast Conference. After getting thumped by unranked Georgia Tech by 22 points three days prior, many expected the sixth-ranked team in the country at the time in Florida State to go into the Carrier Dome angry and dominant. Syracuse led the Seminoles by eighteen points at the halftime break en route to taking it in the end by ten tallies. The pair of graduate transfers for the Orange in Andrew White III (Nebraska, Kansas) and John Gillon (Colorado State, Arkansas at Little Rock) combined for 45 points and five steals in the victory. That was the game Gillon solidified himself as Syracuse’s starting point guard.

The ninth-ranked team in the country at the time in North Carolina being defeated by Miami (FL) was not as big of a shock as the one above because the Hurricanes have been one of the best unranked squads in the country throughout this entire season. What upped the shock value of the outcome though was that the Tar Heels were rocked by a hearty fifteen points when it was all said and done.

Later in that Saturday slate, overachieving Georgia Tech pulled off its second bonkers upset of the week by dispatching of the fourteenth-ranked team in the country at the time in Notre Dame at the final buzzer. Freshman star Josh Okogie – who combined for 88 points and 23 rebounds at 6-4 in the victories earlier in the season over a couple of ranked opponents in North Carolina and Florida State on top of North Carolina State – only put up eight points in that one, but he was the Yellow Jacket that supplied the game-winning basket.

Colorado came into its contest that day against the tenth-ranked team in the country at the time in Oregon with a dismal 1-7 record in Pac-12 play, but downed the Ducks by a score of 74-65. Resurgent Georgetown also squeaked by the eleventh-ranked team in the country at the time in Butler behind twenty points on 3-of-3 shooting from downtown and three blocks off the bench by sophomore Humvee in a man costume Jessie Govan.

Watch Your Back, Goliath (Upset Predictions)

No. 6 Louisville at Boston College--Sat., Feb. 4, 3:00 PM ET

The last three Atlantic Coast Conference wins for the Cardinals were by a combined 112 points over Clemson, Pittsburgh and North Carolina State. Louisville may not have a player in the top-250 nationally in rebounding, but Rick Pitino’s club currently finds itself seventh in the country in the statistic on a general team basis. The first part of that last sentence should change next season when Dwayne Sutton becomes eligible to play in games for his new men’s college basketball team after transferring over from North Carolina at Asheville. When Louisville’s top-four frontcourt rebounders in Jaylen Johnson, Mangok Mathiang, Ray Spalding and Deng Adel combined for seven rebounds against Duke five games ago, improving Egyptian Anas Mahmoud picked up the slack with a career-high eleven rebounds. The Cardinals went on to win that contest versus the seventh-ranked team in the country at the time in the Blue Devils.

If the Eagles are going to pull off this massive upset, it will probably happen via taking advantage of Louisville being without the services of its top-two point guards in Quentin Snider and Penn graduate transfer Tony Hicks at the moment. The red-hot Ky Bowman – a freshman for this Boston College squad despite committing to North Carolina to play wide receiver back in 2014 – is technically the starting point guard for the Eagles, but a pair of sophomores for Jim Christian and his staff presently have more assists under their belt this campaign than him. Leading scorer Jerome Robinson’s impressive size for his position seems to have NBA scouts swooning. 6-7 forward A.J. Turner is sixth nationally in assist-turnover ratio right now. Former Brigham Young Cougar Jordan Chatman shot a combined 13-of-17 from downtown against Wake Forest and previously ranked Virginia Tech in Boston College’s last two ballgames. The Eagles may have lost their last six times out, but the final threesome of that stretch was by a cumulative deficit of just twelve points.
 

Wake Forest at No. 20 Notre Dame--Tues., Feb. 7, 7:00 PM ET
 

Notre Dame has come back down to earth over the last couple of weeks to the tune of falling in four of its last five outings. The side placed smack dab in the middle of the preseason poll coming into this year for the Atlantic Coast Conference at seventh place started conference play this time around rattling off five victories in a row. If you look past a 1-of-10 from the field performance against Virginia a couple of Tuesdays ago, Notre Dame’s most talented player in V.J. Beachem is currently in the mightiest and most consistent two-week stretch of his senior season. Mike Brey’s forces are still top-65 in the country in scoring offense, but this current three-game losing streak they are mired in featured not being able to score over sixty points versus both Virginia and Georgia Tech – well below their season average thus far of 78.8 points an outing.

Despite being two games back of Notre Dame in the Atlantic Coast Conference standings at this point, Wake Forest is a superior 27th nationally in scoring offense. 6-10 sophomore sensation John Collins has come away with five straight scoring performances in the twenties. Collins had five double-digit scoring outings in the entire conference play portion of his freshman season last year – none of them reaching the twenties. This most recent Saturday, in a game where they somehow came away with a loss after leading the seventeenth-ranked team in the country at the time in Duke by double figures with under four minutes left in regulation, it looked like the Demon Deacons were going to have injury added to insult as Collins went down hard storming towards the tin in the waning seconds of the contest. He showed he was just fine next time out with 26 points on 9-of-14 shooting from the field, sixteen rebounds and three blocks versus Boston College.
 

Stat Tease
 

California, Los Angeles at Washington: Shot-Blocking
 

The Bruins and the Huskies are two of the whopping four Pac-12 teams in the top-fifteen in the country in shot-blocking right now. In that range, California, Los Angeles is tied for fifteenth nationally. Lonzo Ball and TJ Leaf are the freshmen for the Bruins that get most of the press, but Ike Anigbogu and his 1.4 blocks per contest have had their moments as well this season. Leaf has also averaged over one block an outing thus far.

Washington is third in the country in shot-blocking at this time. 6-9 senior Malik Dime was slapping back 2.6 opposing shots an outing – which would currently place him in the top-seventeen nationally in shot-blocking on an individual basis – before  he broke his right pinky finger in a collision with projected top-three 2017 NBA Draft pick freshman Markelle Fultz late in a January 7 battle with Oregon State. Speaking of Fultz, his 1.3 blocks an outing place him second in the country among true guards in rim protection – first being Iowa State redshirt senior Deonte Burton. Fultz has drawn comparisons to Ben Simmons in terms of being expected by many to be the first overall pick in the NBA Draft after his single year in men’s college basketball despite being on a thoroughly disappointing and underachieving team.

Conference Play Juggernauts to Watch down the Stretch

Jacob Wiley--Sr., Eastern Washington

Most around the Eastern Washington men’s basketball program probably did not expect the Eagles to find a legitimate Venky Jois replacement so soon after the Australian’s graduation – especially in a player whose prior experience in Division I men’s college basketball consisted of averaging three minutes an outing for Montana in the 2012-2013 season. Wiley has taken the Big Sky by storm through being the second-leading scorer in national conference play so far. In just his last two outings alone, Wiley combined for 72 points, 21 rebounds and six blocks versus Montana State and Sacramento State.

Braylon Rayson--Sr., Central Michigan

Former Youngstown State Penguin Marcus Keene has become a national name by handily leading the country in scoring for just about this entire season, but a teammate of his in Rayson deserves plenty of recognition for the manner in which he is putting the ball in the basket during conference play up to this point. After scoring in the twenties in all of Central Michigan’s conference games thus far with the exception of the squad’s Mid-American Conference opener against Eastern Michigan, Rayson is eighth in scoring in national conference play at the moment.

Landen Lucas--Sr., Kansas

After the Jayhawks lost Udoka Azubuike for the rest of the season with a left wrist injury on top of Carlton Bragg Jr. recently being suspended indefinitely, Lucas became even more vital in the Kansas frontcourt. Lucas has come away with a double-digit rebounding performance in eight of the eleven Big 12 games his team has competed in so far, including a trio of double-doubles through the first four games of conference play. That is why he is presently eighth in rebounding in national conference play. Lucas started Big 12 play as a senior with fifteen points and seventeen rebounds against Texas Christian.

John Gillon--Sr., Syracuse

The conference competition prowess of the Colorado State graduate transfer mostly has to do with his exploits over the last week. With that being said, Gillon is currently ninth in assists average in national conference play. Last time out, Gillon detonated for 43 points on 10-of-13 shooting from the field, 9-of-10 shooting from downtown and 14-of-14 shooting from the charity stripe to go along with nine assists versus North Carolina State. In the game right before that, he went for a not too shabby 21 points and eleven assists in an upset victory over the sixth-ranked team in the country at the time in Florida State.