Kansas Escapes, Auburn Dominates, Hurley Whines: Racing Through An Epic Tuesday in College Hoops

Monday was such an awesome day of college hoops, I thought nothing could top it. Then Tuesday happened. There’s no history book that could quantify this, but I would venture to say there has never been a regular season weekday that was as compelling, exciting and bizarre as what we witnessed yesterday.

I spent the day, night and early Wednesday morning at the TNT Sports studios in Atlanta, where I helped cover the games being played at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas. My seat behind the desk (and in the green room) gave me the perfect view to soak in all the action. Here are my primary takeaways from an unforgettable day around the sport we love.

• Before I get to the games, I feel compelled to address the bizarre antics of UConn coach Dan Hurley. No one can doubt Hurley’s coaching acumen, but I am genuinely befuddled by his unhinged behavior, not just on the sidelines but in the postgame press conferences at the Maui Invitational. It’s unbecoming, not to mention counterproductive. Hurley’s UConn Huskies lost to two unranked teams in Memphis and Colorado not because the officials were bad, but because UConn’s defense was atrocious. It’s one thing to lose your cool in the heat of the moment, but for Hurley to blame those losses on the refs in his postgame remarks is inaccurate and enormously disrespectful to his opponents. He’s smarter than that. I hope for his sake and the sake of his team that he adopts a more even keel moving forward. Look, this is the second straight year that UConn has lost a lot of players. Unlike last season, it’s clear — at least at this early stage — that the replacements are not of the same caliber. For example, Aidan Mahaney, the 6-foot-3 junior guard who transferred from Saint Mary’s, has been a defensive liability. The lone returning starter, 6-foot-8 junior forward Alex Karaban, is having predictable difficulty adjusting to being the primary scoring option. (He had six points on 1 for 8 shooting against the Buffalos.) And there is no Adama Sanogo or Donovan Clingan in sight to protect the rim. That’s why Memphis and Colorado were able to carve up UConn during the first two games in Maui. As I noted in my Top 25 column on Monday, I am probably ranking UConn lower (No. 12) than any other AP voter. So I’m not as shocked as most people that they are now playing for seventh place at the tournament. (It should be noted they only lost those two games by a total of three points.) Their problems are fixable, but not if their head coach can’t keep his cool when it matters most. 

• As for the games, I gotta start with Kansas’ 77-75 instaclassic win over Duke in Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena. The most memorable play came with 10:25 to play when Jayhawks senior center Hunter Dickinson was ejected for a Flagrant 2 foul that was assessed after he kicked Duke forward Maliq Brown in the face when the two were scrambling on the floor. As I watched the replay, it never occurred to me that Dickinson might get a Flagrant 2. I thought the refs got it wrong, but given that the Jayhawks were only up by one, it seemed almost an automatic assumption that the lead would not hold up. It took a total team effort to hold off the Blue Devils, but two players stood out. The first was 6-foot-9 freshman forward Flory Bidunga, who came into the game when Dickinson went out and held down the defensive post the rest of the way. The second was K.J. Adams, who might be pound-for-pound the best defender in the country. Adams was assigned to harass Cooper Flagg most of the night and he did a good job holding Flagg to 13 points. Adams also did a superb job blanketing Duke frosh Kon Knueppel on the game’s deciding play. Bill Self brought Wisconsin transfer A.J. Storr off the bench for the first time this season and Storr responded with 11 points and two assists. Self said last season he needed to build more depth and this game showed why that is so important. It wasn’t pretty, but the Jayhawks showed the requisite resilience and demonstrated yet again why they deserve to be ranked No. 1.
• As for Duke, the game was eerily similar to the Blue Devils’ loss at Kentucky, only this time the freshman who committed the decisive turnover was Knueppel, not Flagg. Knueppel had one more chance to be a hero on the game’s final possession, but his deep three-point shot bounced off the backboard and the rim. For me, the issue isn’t whether Knueppel or Flagg made poor decisions on those possessions, it’s the fact that Scheyer once again did not trust his point guard Caleb Foster to initiate the offense in these situations. It’s impressive that this young Duke team is playing really good teams close and have an impressive road win at Arizona. But this has now happened twice and I have to wonder if the Blue Devils’ susceptibility at point guard will be their undoing in the end.
• Half a mile away at the MGM Garden Arena, Alabama and Houston were also staging a Final Four-caliber battle. This Crimson Tide team is different, man. Bama was not nearly as proficient on the offensive end as we’ve been accustomed to seeing (36.7 percent from the floor) but it was able to prevail 85-80 in overtime by out-Houstoning Houston. That means defending (they held the Cougars to 36.9 percent shooting) and rebounding (20 offensive rebounds on 38 misses, an astounding 52.6 percent). That spells bad news for the SEC, not to mention the rest of the country. Keep in mind that the Tide has another gifted two-way guard in Chris Youngblood, a 6-foot-4 super senior transfer from South Florida, who is out another few weeks because of an ankle injury. I also liked that even though Mark Sears had another rough shooting night (he did not score in the win over Illinois and was 4 of 13 from the floor against the Cougars), he never stopped playing hard. Sears made 12 of 14 from the foul line and had four rebounds and three assists in 41 minutes. That’s what winners do.

• Losing is never fun, but there’s no doubt that Kelvin Sampson can walk away from this game knowing his team has everything it needs to win a national championship. The fact that Houston could take Alabama to overtime in the first place was impressive considering that its starting point guard, Milos Uzan, fouled out with 6:29 to play. He only had five points and one assist. Keep in mind that Houston’s two previous All-America point guards, Marcus Sasser and Jamal Shead, spent four years in the program. Uzan transferred in from Oklahoma and has very big shoes to fill, to say the least. The Cougars’ leading scorer, junior guard Emmanuel Sharp, also fouled out at the end of regulation. I like that L.J. Cryer scored 30 points; I don’t like that it took him 26 shots. Houston came into the game leading the country in three-point percentage (48.8 percent). It shot 6 for 19 against a great team and still lost in overtime. Like I said, it wasn’t a win, but it was a heck of an effort.
• Iowa State came back from a nine-point deficit in the first half to knock off a plucky Dayton team, 89-84. The loss has to be very frustrating for Anthony Grant’s Flyers given that they also blew a 21-point second-half lead to North Carolina on Monday night. The Cyclones blew their own 18-point lead to Auburn on Monday night and lost by two. I think this is the best team T.J. Otzelberger has had during his four seasons in Ames. (Keep in mind that the season before he got there the Cyclones won two games all season and were winless in the Big 12.) I love the addition of Glue Guy Josh Jefferson, a transfer from Saint Mary’s, but my main takeaway on Iowa State is that Keshon Gilbert is evolving into an All-America caliber guard. The 6-foot-4 senior from Las Vegas, who originally committed to Otzelberger when he was the coach at UNLV, had a combined 43 points in these two games and only made one three-pointer.  
• As I said, I will continue to rank Kansas No. 1 until they lose, but if you want to argue that Auburn is the best team in the country, I promise we can still be friends. The Tigers never trailed en route to an easy 85-72 win over North Carolina, setting up a date with Memphis in the Maui Invitational championship game. I also won’t argue with you if you say that Tigers senior forward Johni Broome is the frontrunner for national player of the year. That’s a pretty astounding thing to say about a guy who spent his first two college seasons at Morehead State, but Broome was absolutely sublime against the Tar Heels, going for 23 points (18 in the first half), 19 rebounds, five assists (to two turnovers) and three blocks. Five other Tigers scored in double figures as this team made 11 three-pointers to North Carolina’s six. This comes a day after Auburn came back from 18 points down against Iowa State and three weeks after the Tigers won at Houston. 
• Memphis’ surge in Maui is one of the real surprises of the early season. Penny Hardaway’s team has somehow emerged yet again from tumultuous off-court distractions to stage back-to-back wins over UConn and Michigan State. Hardaway is the center of attention as always, but the biggest reason the Tigers are playing for the Maui Invitational championship is the play of Tyrese Hunter. The 6-foot senior guard played one year at Iowa State and two at Texas, where he performed well but was plagued by inconsistent shooting. Hunter made 34.3 percent of his three-point attempts at Texas last season, but he is currently shooting 52.6 percent and scored a combined 49 points on 12 of 20 three-point shooting in Maui. Another transfer, 6-3 sophomore guard P.J. Haggerty from Tulsa, has been the Tigers’ best all-around player. We knew Memphis had some good players, but it was unclear when (or if) they would gel, especially with the various controversies surrounding the program. (Hardaway fired three assistant coaches in September for alleged NCAA violations.) Regardless of what happens in the title game against Auburn, Hardaway and the Tigers can leave Maui far more optimistic than they were when they arrived.

• It’s tempting to say “same old San Diego State” after the Aztecs dominated Creighton, 71-53, but this team has a different look and feel than the last two versions, which won a total of seven NCAA Tournament games. In the first place, this is a young group — SDSU is ranked No. 327 in experience, per KenPom. Part of that is because its most experienced player, 6-foot-6 super senior guard Reese Waters, is out with a foot injury and won’t be back anytime soon. The Aztecs do, however, have a pair of rising stars in sophomore guards Miles Byrd and B.J. Davis, who combined for 34 points on 5 of 9 three-point shooting. Their starting center, 7-foot redshirt freshman Magoon Gwath, was playing in his fourth college game after missing all of last season with an injury. He had seven points, four rebounds and two assists and made his third three-pointer on the season. The Aztecs do have a senior guard in Nick Boyd, their leading scorer, but he’s a transfer from FAU so he’s new to this team and this system. On the other hand, this team does have a familiar look on the defensive end. The Aztecs rank fifth on KenPom in defensive efficiency and first in block percentage and they held Creighton to 33.9 percent shooting (19.4 from three). Frankly, I was surprised that San Diego State won so easily given how much they were dominated by Gonzaga at home last week. That should show us just how good the Zags are.
• It didn’t help Creighton’s cause that it had to play without senior point guard Steven Ashworth, who injured his ankle in the final minutes of the Bluejays’ home loss to Nebraska last Friday. Ashworth took off his protective boot and tested the ankle in warm-ups, but he decided he wasn’t healthy enough to play. That made it that much easier for the Aztecs to deploy multiple defenders around 7-foot senior center Ryan Kalkbrenner, who finished with 11 points. In the loss to the Cornhuskers, Kalkbrenner had just four points and only attempted one field goal. There’s only one way to counter a team that is crowding your center and that’s sink outside shots. Unfortunately for Creighton, they were terrible from behind the arc for the second straight game. They shot 6 of 31 from behind the arc against the Aztecs and 12 of 42 against the Huskers. Ashworth’s absence is putting even greater pressure on Texas Tech transfer Pop Isaacs to run the team, but that’s a big spot for someone who is new to the program. Isaacs shot 2 of 10 from three but he did have five assists to two turnovers. Freshman forward Jackson McAndrew showed some range on his shot (4 of 11), but the fact that this game was never really competitive is cause for concern because the schedule is not getting easier. After Creighton plays Texas A&M tomorrow and a third game on Saturday, it faces Kansas and UNLV at home followed by a road game at Alabama on Dec. 14. 
• If Jackson Shelstad was playing for a more visible program on the East Coast, he’d be on everyone’s radar. Oregon’s sophomore point guard has struggled shooting the ball this season (he missed 15 of his first 16 three-point attempts), but when it comes to crunch time, he wants the ball and knows what to do with it. Shelstad rescued the Ducks from a potential loss last week at Oregon State and he did the same on Tuesday against Texas A&M at the Players Era Festival. The Ducks trailed by 10 midway through the second half but ended up winning, 80-70. We’ll see today how they fare against another strong defensive team in San Diego State.
• Tuesday night actually ended on Wednesday morning as Rutgers edged Notre Dame, 85-84, in overtime. It was a highly entertaining and somewhat bizarre game. Notre Dame’s leading scorer, Markus Burton, injured his knee three minutes into the game and did not return. Yet, the Irish were still able to hang in due in large part to the heroic shooting of 6-foot-4 senior guard Matt Allocco, a transfer from Princeton who had 24 points and made three three-pointers inside 90 seconds towards the end of overtime. The last one tied the game and would have likely sent the game into a second OT except Irish freshman guard Cole Certa mistakenly thought his team was trailing and fouled Rutgers guard Dylan Harper on the ensuing possession. Harper made one of two free throws to give his squad the winning margin, which was finalized at 1:48 a.m. Wednesday morning. Harper was brilliant with 36 points, six rebounds and six assists, but his fellow freshman phenom Ace Bailey only had 10 points (on 12 shots) to go along with four rebounds. Still, Rutgers lost its previous game at Kennessaw State and then needed overtime to beat a mediocre team that was playing without its leading scorer. Harper and Bailey will be fun to watch, but by my lights Rutgers has a long way to go to be considered an NCAA Tournament team.

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