Once Upon A Time, there was a category called “Last Ten.” This appeared on the so-called team sheets that were utilized by the NCAA men’s basketball committee for selecting and seeding the NCAA Tournament. Besides weighing good wins, bad losses, strength of schedule and the like, the committee was asked to give greater consideration to how teams played over those last ten games.

In 2008, that category was amended to “Last Twelve.” Two years later, it was eliminated altogether. Thus, a very important principle was reinforced by the people who matter most: Every game counts exactly the same.

The reasons for this were threefold. First, the committee believed in the principle of competition. If each game counts the same in the standings, it should count the same on the team sheet. Also, they ran the numbers and found that there was zero correlation between the way a team finishes the season and the way it performs in the tournament. It might sound right to assume that the better a team plays down the stretch, the further it goes in March. But it just ain’t so.

But there was an even more important factor at play — namely, the need to create compelling games in November and December. This is crucial because it’s so hard for college basketball to command the public’s attention during football season. So year after year, the committee placed a strong emphasis on a team’s nonconference strength of schedule. Just scheduling the games isn’t enough – you have to win at least some of them — but if you don’t play good teams outside your league, you are reducing your margin for error should you drop some bad losses during league play.

This is why from the very moment college hoops tipped off on Nov. 4, we have been treated to great non-conference matchups most every night. It’s been one big party that could be called NonCon. The league-to-league challenges, the home-and-home series, the multi-team events, the doubleheaders in venerable neutral courts like Madison Square Garden — they have all come about by design. Saturday’s Hoopapalooza, which was one of the best NonCon days in recent memory, was the latest manifestation.  

NonCon is fun and it’s not over. We’ve got another couple of weeks to enjoy it (this Saturday in particular) before conference play gets into full swing. Allow me to catch you up on some of the most notable things that happened over the weekend.

  • Memphis’ win at Clemson didn’t generate as much buzz as its wins over UConn and Michigan State in Maui, but it was the Tigers’ most impressive win of the season. That’s because six days earlier, they lost at home to Arkansas State, 85-72. To be sure, Arkansas State (whose most famous alum is Arthur Agee of “Hoops Dreams” fame), is a solid team that’s ranked No. 108 on KenPom and overcame a 27-point second-half deficit on Sunday to beat UAB in overtime. But clearly the Tigers were not emotionally prepared to compete. Memphis coach Penny Hardaway admitted as much to me when I spoke with him on Saturday. “Our guys took that team for granted,” Hardaway said. “You can just tell our guys relaxed and felt like, we’re gonna win this game whenever we get ready.”

    Hardaway told me he didn’t rip into his players when the game was over. “I knew that wasn’t my team,” he said. He was disappointed that the loss dropped Memphis out of the rankings and used that as motivation. “We had a good week,” he said. “I told them, we need to get back to being the hunter again.”

    On Saturday, the Tigers were able to do something Kentucky couldn’t – win at Clemson. Memphis was especially tenacious on the glass, holding Clemson forward Ian Schieffelin, the nation’s leading rebounder at 12.0 per game, to six boards. Nor did the Tigers come unglued when Clemson pushed out to a 69-63 lead with just over two minutes to play. Super senior guard Tyrese Hunter, a transfer from Texas who was terrific during the Maui Invitational, sank seven three-pointers and finished with a game-high 23 points. The win should put Memphis back in the rankings (I ranked the Tigers No. 21), but more importantly, it was a huge boost for their NCAA Tournament resume and a major shot of confidence on the eve of conference play.

    “The difference was we matched Clemson’s energy,” Hardaway said. “It’s not fair to the guys because we have 12 new players and I put together this hard schedule. I think they understand that we’ve gotta be warriors. We’ve learned our lesson from the Arkansas State game. The boys are definitely more on edge now.”
Penny Hardaway’s Team Is a Work in Progress. So Is He.
Penny Hardaway’s Team Is a Work in Progress. So Is He.
 In an exclusive interview with Hoops HQ, the Memphis coach admits he made a lot of mistakes. “The last few years have been a struggle.”
  • The biggest win of the weekend was turned in by UConn, which knocked off Gonzaga, 77-72, at Madison Square Garden to prove once again that it’s a championship contender. You can read Alex Squadron’s report from the Garden here, but the thing that impressed me most is that the Huskies got the win even though their best player, 6-foot-8 junior forward Alex Karaban, was 0 for 7 from three and their starting center, 6-foot-10 senior Samson Johnson, played just six minutes because of a head injury. That shows depth and resilience, which a team needs in ample supply when it’s hunting for a threepeat.
  • How bad are things at Arizona? The Wildcats, who dropped out of the rankings for the first time since November 2021, blew a 13-point second-half lead against their former Pac-12 rival UCLA to drop to 4-5 – and it wasn’t even the worst thing that happened to them last week. A few days before, Tommy Lloyd made the difficult decision to shut down Montiejus Krivas because of chronic pain in his left foot that has plagued the 7-foot-2 sophomore forward from Lithuania since the summer. Lloyd said after the UCLA loss that there is no timetable for Krivas’ return.

    Meanwhile, super senior guard Caleb Love is still mired in a long shooting slump (although when it lasts for two months, I’m not sure we can call it a “slump” anymore). And Arizona is about to embark on its first season in the Big 12, which is several grades more arduous than the old Pac-12, both in terms of competition and travel.

    There’s plenty of time for Arizona to get right, but it’s worth noting that in three years as this team’s head coach and 21 years as an assistant at Gonzaga, Lloyd has never been part of a team that missed out on the NCAA Tournament. That streak is very much in jeopardy.
  • On the flip side, Alabama got a major boost on Saturday when 6-foot-4 senior guard Chris Youngblood made his season debut in an 83-75 home win over Creighton. The transfer from South Florida and former AAC  co-player of the year missed the first nine games because of an ankle injury. Youngblood looked predictably rusty while scoring five points on 2-of-6 shooting in 17 minutes, but his return was critical given that the Tide’s best three-point shooter, senior guard Latrell Wrightsell Jr., was recently lost for the season because of an Achilles injury he sustained over Thanksgiving. Senior guard Mark Sears is back to his old self after a sluggish start, so once Youngblood gets up to speed, the Tide should be plenty formidable.
  • The remarkable thing about Kentucky’s 93-85 win over Louisville isn’t the fact that senior guard Lamont Butler was a perfect 10 for 10 from the floor and scored a career-high 33 points. It’s that Butler didn’t play against Gonzaga because of an injured ankle and the Wildcats were still able to overcome an 18-point deficit to beat a top 10 team in a semi-road game. This team doesn’t have any surefire pros that I can see, but the Wildcats are remarkably resilient considering none of them ever played together before this season. Mark Pope has to be the clear front runner for national coach of the year to this point.
  • On top of everything else, Auburn’s 12.7 turnover percentage, which ranks fourth nationally on KenPom, is the lowest of any team that Bruce Pearl has ever coached. That doesn’t seem fair.
  • Say this for Indiana: when the Hoosiers are bad, they’re really bad. They got embarrassed at the Battle 4 Atlantis by Louisville (28 points) and Gonzaga (16) and on Friday Indiana got blown out at Nebraska, 85-68, after trailing by just one point with 6:51 to play. This is particularly problematic given that a) everyone knows Mike Woodson is on the hottest of hot seats and b) the program filled up its NIL bag to sign a highly-rated (and tres expensive) group of transfers. Alas, Indiana is still a soft defensive team and it remains one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the country. The Hoosiers were 8 of 35 from behind the arc on Friday and allowed the Cornhuskers to score 1.23 points per possession. Indiana has won eight games thus far with the best one coming over South Carolina at home.
Payne’s performance in Texas A&M’s win over Purdue was the latest indication that this could be Buzz Williams’ best team in College Station
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  • Texas A&M started the season with a loss at UCF, but the Aggies have been playing solid, Buzz Williams-like basketball since then. That means excelling at defense, offensive rebounding and slowing the pace. The formula worked beautifully on Saturday during a 70-66 win over Purdue in Indianapolis. It was the Aggies’ fifth straight win (all over good teams), and it happened largely due to the emergence of Pharrel Payne, a 6-foot-9 junior transfer from Minnesota who had his best game of the season, finishing with 16 points and nine rebounds in 24 minutes. It’s pretty clear this is the best team Williams has coached during his six seasons in College Station.
  • Quick aside: Most of you probably know I’m a big “foul up three” guy. The data I’ve seen indicates that a team basically doubles its chances of avoiding overtime if it commits a non-shooting foul while owning a three-point lead. But here’s the caveat: It needs to happen with under five seconds to play. I’ll often hear broadcasters discuss this situation towards the end of a game, but that last point is often missed. But you read Hoop Thoughts, so you don’t miss anything.
  • Kansas got a nice win over N.C. State at home on Saturday, but I’m telling you, this thing with the free throws is going to bite the Jayhawks in the end if they don’t fix it. KU won the game by 15 points but it only shot seven free throws (at home no less!) while the Wolf Pack shot 15. The Jayhawks rank 361st nationally in offensive free throw rate on KenPom. Remember, they got outscored 26-9 from the foul line in their loss at Missouri. This is weird because Kansas has one of the best post scorers in the country in Hunter Dickinson as well as one of the best point guards in Dajuan Harris. It may not seem like a big deal in mid-December, but I’ve seen too many close NCAA Tournament games get decided at the foul line to overlook this potentially fatal flaw.
  • I’ve been saying for many years that one of the most overrated things in basketball is the importance of size when it comes to rebounding. A team that has smaller, quicker players with elite timing and aggressive pursuit will beat a bigger team on the boards every time. Exhibit A is Michigan, which ranks seventh on KenPom in height but 278th in defensive rebound percentage. The Wolverines also rank 334th in turnover percentage and coughed it up 17 times during their loss to Arkansas last Tuesday. So Dusty May has some fixing to do.
  • Some other injury updates for ya. Providence forward Bryce Hopkins, who just returned on Dec. 3 from the ACL injury he sustained on year ago, sat out Saturday’s game against St. Bonaventure because he was experiencing pain in his surgically repaired knee. The Friars lost the game, 74-70, but their coach, Kim English, told me that Hopkins was held out for precautionary reasons and he should be back in the lineup shortly.

    Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Michigan forward Terrance Williams, a 6-foot-7 senior transfer from Michigan who had surgery on a broken wrist he sustained during a Dec. 4 loss at home to Oregon. Williams is going to be out for a while, which is a major blow to a rebuilt squad that is prone to long scoring droughts.

    And TCU’s leading scorer, 6-foot-1 senior guard Frankie Collins, broke his foot in the Horned Frogs’ loss to Xavier on Dec. 8 and is done for the season.
  • I thought it was very cool that Missouri coach Dennis Gates invited his local media to hear a presentation from the analytics company HDI Intelligence, which supplies Gates’ staff with the data they use to formulate their game plans. Gates did it so the writers who cover his team will have better information as to the decision he makes, both in terms of whom he recruits and how he coaches them. Of course, if a coach wants to get better media coverage, what he really needs to do is win a bunch of games, which is exactly what the Tigers are doing this season, most notably their 76-67 win over their bitter rival Kansas last weekend. Sunday’s Braggin’ Rights game against Illinois in St. Louis will tell us a lot about how good this team is, but given that the Tigers were winless in the SEC a year ago, a 9-1 start and No. 49 ranking on KenPom is pret-tay … pre-tay … good.
  • DePaul finally got its first top 100 win on Saturday when the Blue Demons beat Wichita State, 91-72, at home. DePaul plays road games at St. John’s and Northwestern this week so maybe the rubber is about to hit the road, but given how putrid this program has been over the last decade, first-year coach Chris Holtmann has to be pleased with the 8-2 start.
  • Finally, it didn’t get a whole lot of attention on Saturday because a) there were a lot of compelling games around the country and b) the programs have been down for a while, but there was a definite whiff of nostalgia in the air when Georgetown and Syracuse met for the 100th time on Saturday in the JMA Wireless Dome (formerly known as the Carrier Dome). Both coaches said afterward they hope the series between former Big East rivals will continue. For Georgetown, the delicious irony was that its 75-71 victory came courtesy of a 2-3 zone which Hoyas coach Ed Cooley used for much of the second half. Jayden Epps, a 6-foot-2 junior transfer from Illinois, had 27 points in the win.

    Among other great memories, this rivalry calls to mind perhaps the best example of trash talking in the history of the sport. It happened on Feb. 13, 1980, when Georgetown snapped Syracuse’s 57-game home win streak in the final game to be played at the old Manley Fieldhouse. When the game ended, Hoyas coach John Thompson came into the press conference and crowed, “Manley Fieldhouse is officially closed.” Man, those were some good ol’ days.