PC and How6rd's CBB Corner: Week 8

Dude…

Another slow week in college basketball so the article is coming out later than usual!! The holiday season has college basketball on a stand still. However, some major developments still happened and as always, there were upsets!! How6rd and PC have your New Year CBB Corner!!

PC’S CBB Corner

Arizona gets blown out… Arizona has looked like a National Championship contender. Until Saturday. Ok, that may be an over exaggeration. However, they got absolutely dismantled against a 5-6 Stanford team. It wasn’t just your average, nonchalant loss at the buzzer type losses. Oh no. They lost by 28 points… Like, it never seemed like Arizona could slow down the momentum of Stanford. When you need others to show up around Caleb Love, this is not the effort they need from their supporting roles. I mean the box score is terrible. Sure, Caleb Love played well, but the supporting cast completely fell apart. Oumar Ballo had 12 points and 7 rebounds, while on the court, he almost was nonexistent. Pelle Larsson only had 6 points. He couldn’t find his shot, so he started to pass the ball away. Even Kylan Boswell, who has shown massive strides in becoming Arizona’s number 2 guy, had 5 points. He went 1-7 from three and 2-11 from the floor. Two freshmen seem to come out of nowhere and lead this Stanford team to a huge victory. Kanaan Carlyle, who has seen some playing time, got control of the game and never gave it back. He went 6-8 from three and had 28 points to lead the team in scoring. Andrej Stojakovic also came off the bench and locked down any opponent that was put in front of him. Caleb Love, doesn't matter. Kylan Boswell, doesn't matter. He had 16 points and went 6-10 from the field. Senior Spencer Jones also had a great game with 21 points. This was a very weird game that may severely harm Arizona if they are fighting for a 1 seed in this year’s tournament. The Wildcats continue with a big game against Colorado on Friday, which they hope will bounce them back in the right direction.

North Carolina benefits from Caleb Love transfer Last year the Tar Heels were one of the worst North Carolina teams I’ve ever seen. After coming off a trip to the National Championship (only to lose to Kansas in the final) the Tar Heels were supposed to be good. They came into the 2022-2023 season with a pre season #1 ranking. The season played out horrifically for Hubert Davis and this team as they failed to even make the tournament. RJ Davis and Caleb Love fought for control over the basketball to the point where it harmed the team. Armando Bacot needed his touches as well, making it a hero ball style offense. This simply didn’t work. In the off season, Caleb Love decided to transfer. No one knew how great this would work for both parties. First, Caleb Love found himself at Arizona. Arizona is a top 10 team with wins over Duke, Michigan State, and Wisconsin. Caleb Love has become the main ball handler in this offense, which was desperately needed to move this offense from good to great. He is shooting the ball at a much better rate. He is shooting at a 42% clip from the field and 32% from three. Last year, he shot 37% from the field and 29% from three. He also has increased his points, rebounds, and assist per game averages. He is a leader for this top 10 team. On the other hand, North Carolina seems to be thriving as well. Without Caleb Love, RJ Davis can be the main ball handler. This allowed him to focus on pushing the ball inside to All ACC contending big man in Armando Bacot. He doesn’t have to worry about forcing the ball to another guard in Caleb Love. The rest of North Carolina are valuable role players that know their own roles. Davis has still been shooting terrifically from the floor at 43%. He has increased his points per game by 5. North Carolina now only has 2 weapons, which can be better than 3. The Tar Heels have key wins over Arkansas, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. Both squads benefited from the transfer, which has become a key part to the 2023-2024 season. Look for both of these teams to make far runs come March.

Is Illinois ok without Shannon Jr. Illinois was set up to be a final four contending team. With Terrence Shannon Jr. going off and the supporting roles playing well, it looked like they could compete with anyone in the nation. With wins over Missouri, Rutgers, and FAU, the Fighting Illini are a top 10 team. Right before the New Year, Shannon Jr. was suspended from the program. A rape charge had come his way from a woman in Kansas. Without their star player, I thought Illinois would start to drop games. They played Northwestern on Tuesday. Northwestern defeated the #1 team in the nation. This game wasn’t close. Illinois dominated from start to finish. Marcus Domask went off for 35 points and seemed almost unguardable for the majority of the game. Justin Harmon came off the bench and went 4-5 from 3 and 7-11 from the floor. He ended up with 20 points. Everything just seemed to click for the Illini. Northwestern is a very up and down team. They beat Purdue but then get a 30 bomb dropped on their skull. We will see how good this Fighting Illini team is without Shannon Jr on Friday when they enter the Mackey Complex to take on Purdue.

How6rd’s Big East/Mid-Major Roundup

Marquette gets a huge bounce-back win after a horrific start- This was an early litmus test for both teams in conference play after each side got off to losing ends to start their runs in the Big East. One of the final conference matchups of 2023 got off to a decent start for Creighton and a terrible one for Marquette as the Bluejays led 14-3 a little after the first five minutes of the game as the road team was on an 11-0 run for the time being. Creighton was letting Marquette shoot the ball from distance as the Golden Eagles only made one of their first 12 (!) three-point attempts of the game, and along with the turnovers and lack of defensive chemistry for Marquette the home squad was trending towards the wrong end of a potential blowout trailing 24-14 with under six minutes in the first half. After that point of the game is where Marquette actually started to look like the Marquette that’s thought of being the best in the country, as the Golden Eagles went on a 9-0 run and by halftime it was a 30-28 game with Shaka Smart’s group only being down by two. This was right where Marquette wanted Creighton as no other team in the country benefits from a halftime intermission in terms of adjustments and charisma overall like this team, and from then on the second half was nearly all Marquette as Sean Jones and the Golden Eagles’ defense completely denied Creighton from getting back into the game once they took the lead for the first time. Marquette has an interesting road matchup next week against a squad that took down the mighty out of conference UConn group, as for Creighton’s side who’s once again sliding down early in the season goes up against the hottest team in the Big East right now in Providence as that either will be what they need to bounce back or potentially fall further down a slippery slope.

When FAU is good they’re incredible, when they’re bad they’re BAD-  If you want to talk about a team with the most confusing resume you may have ever seen in college basketball so far, then allow me to introduce you to this year’s Florida Atlantic team. After coming off a gigantic win against Arizona in one of the best college basketball regular season games you will see this past week’s performance was the exact opposite of that against Florida Gulf Coast. Florida Gulf Coast wasted no time an from the jump looked like the dominant team against their ranked opponents as the defense was really solid as the favored Owls nearly didn’t make a single three-pointer in the first half while Florida Gulf Coast was hitting almost every shot from anywhere. As the game was led by Florida Gulf Coast 39-30 at the half something had to change for the seventh-ranked team in the nation, so the Owls went where they had the best matchup and let Vladislav Goldin cook in the paint nearly perfect in the second half as FAU tied the game with just under five minutes to go. Meanwhile, Florida Gulf Coast didn’t fold like many overmatched teams do at this stage in a college game and went on a shooting frenzy led by their healthy leading scorer Zach Anderson who knocked down three of FGCU’s nine three-pointers. With the game being tied back up in the end FAU had all of their focus just over a minute to play on Anderson who passed it out to a wide-open Dallion Johnson for three points and at that point that essentially ended the game as FAU missed three straight three-pointers off of offensive rebounds. This was a huge performance for Florida Gulf Coast on one end right before conference play, but the FAU Owls take way more of a detrimental hit as this is their second loss to a Quad-4 team this year, being the only current ranked team to even have one, as even with a win in their AAC season opener will probably need a huge run within the conference to stay amongst the top four seeds come time for the tournament.

American Gangster and the Bayou Bandits-  As I stated before the season started if you wondered where Will Wade had ended up after falling out of the LSU basketball run he was on from being let go, he’s now the head guy leading the charge at McNeese State University who just pulled off a huge upset against Michigan. Now say what you want about how the Wolverines have played this year but aside from their loss against Long Beach State this team hasn’t been a slouch at home or within the “terrible” part of the Big 10, but the Cowboys of Louisiana are very much no slouches themselves and really just looked like the actual power conference team overall last Friday. Between solid production from their lineup along when the bench players were on the court, they were shooting lights out in Ann Arbor in a nearly sold out environment led by a 30 point game along with 10 rebounds and six assists from Shahada Wells who is basically a high-major basketball player taking the charge of a mid-major team. Will Wade knows how to find the best in his players and aside from Wells the ultimate x-factor he has brought to light in this squad is sophomore guard DJ Richards who has averaged nearly 19 points in his last three games and almost couldn’t miss from the perimeter against Michigan. As McNeese pulled off the “upset” in this one 87-76, looking like a team competing for a Big 10 title themselves, if there’s a Cinderella team you’re looking to follow before tournament play starts then hop on Will Wade’s Cowboys hype train in 2024.