PC and How6rd's CBB Corner: Week 3

Dude…

“Feast Week” is over and we had some games with huge stakes early in the season amongst the best teams in the country. There are teams who currently have a lot more problems than solutions at this point that need to be fixed while others had a bounce-back week in an eventful part of non-conference play. PC and How6rd will give you the rundown on big games and events that took place that you might’ve missed for the holiday week as there’s a lot to dig in on!

PC’S CBB CORNER

Purdue is playing the part- Purdue had the hardest route to the Maui Invitational Championship and did it with style. First, they beat a highly ramped up Gonzaga team. They beat them 73-63 in a dominant performance by Zach Edey. In round 2, they faced #7 Tennessee. With outside shooting in Vescovi it seemed like a tough challenge. Yet again, the Boilermakers prevail and win 71-67 in a gutsy performance. Then the red hot Golden Eagles of Marquette came in beating the piss out of #1 Kansas. However, yet again Zach Edey dominated and was in control of the entire game up until they almost had a complete meltdown. Now, the Golden Eagles have Tyler Kolek and company which is a team that I love. However, this Purdue team is just as good, if not better than last year’s team. Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer are a year older and Edey continues to play at the National Player of the Year level. This team is almost looking unbeatable. They will eventually slip up, but I don’t know when that will be. If you're looking to watch a good basketball team, go watch this team. Hopefully come March, they can make it out of the first round.

The Big 12 is still the best conference- This conference has been known as one of the best conferences in college basketball for a long time. With the expansion of 4 teams, some people thought the league would have a bad bottom half and may not be the best conference anymore. That simply isn’t the case. Yes, #5 Kansas and #6 Houston was supposed to be good. #9 Baylor was supposed to be good, but I didn’t think Ja’Kobe Walter and RayJ Dennis had the Bears clicking in the early season. #16 Texas did falter a little bit, but still remains another dominant threat. The bottom half that was supposed to finish there is actually playing well. BYU has a win over SDSU which was way better than everyone thought. They are currently ranked #19 in the Nation. How about Oklahoma beating out USC and becoming the #25 team in the nation!!? Are there some bad teams? Of course. Oklahoma State has looked pretty bad and ever since the Bob Huggins incident that led to him getting fired, the West Virginia Mountaineers are BAD. Even with these faulty teams, the Big 12 has looked like an even deeper league than everyone expected. 

The Curse of the Shirtless Coach- The Muss bus hasn’t been challenged ever since he’s been at Arkansas. Well, with a 4-3 start to the season, it may be the most difficult challenge Eric Musselman has ever faced. Now, Arkansas is known for going out and grabbing transfers and somehow making it work. Their leading scorer has been Tramon Mark who has been averaging 18 a game. However, everyone else around him has been lacking. Trevon Brazille doesn’t look like the player he was last year before his injury. It looks like he’s lost a little bit of his bounce. Khalif Battle has averaged 15 points a game, but hasn’t really looked like a complete threat out there this year. Their guys who were supposed to help in El Ellis and Davonte Davis haven’t lived up to their expectations yet. Now, it’s early. I wouldn’t hit the freakout button yet. A bad loss came to UNC Greensboro which was a killer. Then, they went 1-2 in the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament. If the Muss wants to be able to take his shirt off again in celebration, they need to figure some things out.

How6rd’s Big East/Mid-Major Roundup

Marquette is special, but some tweaks are still needed-  The Maui Invitational took place this past week, and although they didn’t win the whole invitational they definitely the Marquette Golden Eagles exceeded expectations the most beating UCLA, dominating Kansas, and putting up a close battle until the end with the now number one team in the nation being Purdue. What showed in all three of these games, especially against Kansas, is that this team is very deep in depth and whether it’s the starters or players coming off the bench anybody can put up a solid number of points, assists, rebounds, steals, blocks, etc. Shaka Smart has a solid team to coach this year with more talent than his squad last season had and that’s saying a lot having seven players with at least 15 minutes a game and playing in every game this year. The downside I’d say is needed for improvement is more from players who are expected to have bigger roles on the team such as David Joplin who was supposed to take a huge leap this season after winning Big East Sixth Man of the Year, but so far his shooting percentage is one of the worst on the team and crashed hard after a solid showing against UCLA. Shaka Smart himself needs better end-game management as he needs to get his players not playing undisciplined and messy basketball as they did late in both the UCLA and Purdue game which he ended up losing the latter after not using his final remaining timeout and rushing the situation. By the countries standards this team is surely amongst the best and a scary threat for the rest of their schedule, but with how intense the Big East is set to be this season they have to clean the visible errors now before a bumpy road ahead awaits them.

Villanova's roster is loaded with talent, but Kyle Neptune is still questionable- After a really bad loss from the expectations this team had against Penn not too long ago this team has 100% turned around and showed out this last week. In the Battle 4 Atlantis Invitational this past week they ended up going all the way and winning the championship giving Texas Tech, North Carolina, and Memphis their first losses of the season in the process. This is the exact jump many people who had faith in this ‘Nova squad before this season started wanted to see from this squad, as the duo of Justin Moore and Eric Dixon are showing what two talented and experienced players staying at one school can be capable of to everyone else in the nation. As the chemistry of this team seems to be finding itself, it shouldn’t be easily forgotten that Kyle Neptune is still growing and tough competition looked to be very scary after his complete blunder of a game and showing in the loss to Penn. Meanwhile, this was easily the toughest stretch Kyle Neptune has underwent as a coach facing some talented teams outside of the Big East in this invitational and going undefeated in doing so. This team is very deep and has both players that can go out and score from anywhere past the halfcourt marker and players who can lock up any player put in front of them overall showing great play both ways down the court. If Neptune is able to grow into a solid coach and make good adjustments as the game goes on as he was partially able to do in the Atlantis Invitational then this team can go VERY far this year.

Losing to Bryant was surprisingly what FAU needed- From the solid first two-game showing from the Owls their loss at home against a shaky Bryant basketball team caused a lot of attention in how ready FAU would be for the new pressure. Fortunately, the huge upset was a blessing in disguise for them as they look to be adjusting into their new role as a mid-major powerhouse very nicely handling the ESPN Events Invitational nearly in dominant fashion. They went against Butler, Texas A&M, and Virginia Tech and outside of the Butler matchup they looked twice the better team than their opponent in the last two games. With huge showings from last year’s star players in the NCAA Tournament Johnell Davis, Vladislav Goldin, and Alijah Martin all being the team’s leading scorer in different games through the stretch this team can get a spark from any of those three players. As I said last week that high expectations and national attention were both new aspects for this squad they definitely handled it with little to no pressure against some solid Power 6 programs. Many questions were asked after this team had such an embarrassing loss just over a week ago now, but now this team is showing exactly why the AP poll should’ve put them in the top-10. With an interesting matchup against a nice looking Liberty squad coming on Friday back in Boca Raton we shall see how they perform back at home looking much more sound this upcoming Thursday.

Colorado State looks to emerge as the new Mountain West powerhouse - As the Aztecs are looking very questionable, following their loss to BYU and close calls against shaky PAC 12 opponents in Washington and California, the real threat that is catching everyone’s attention this year are the Colorado State Rams who destroyed all competition in their way all season long so far including the ranked number eight Creighton Bluejays. After a decent loss of their top talent last season the Rams have looked to find themselves again this year from the 2021-2022 season as Isaiah Stevens (who happened to be one of the top scorers on that team) has been lighting it up dropping a game high 20 points against Creighton and has the second most assists per game in the country averaging 7.8 points a game. The missing piece that this team was in need of last season was solid big man play which they have in Division II transfer Joel Scott who is a workhorse on defense if he’s not having a good scoring game as he did against Creighton, but when he’s able to put the ball in the basket it’s trouble for the other team in stopping Colorado State. This team plays with a pace on offense that tires any team defensively and a hustle on defense that’s nearly impossible to make more than a few clean passes at a time let alone an open shot. If you had to pay attention to one team this season that’s not playing on national TV every night or talked by the media often this Colorado State team is deep and could be a lethal squad come March.