My 5 Favorite Things in College Basketball This Week
It's time to feast
We spent the latter half of this week feasting on non-conference tournament action (and standalone games that just so happened to be played in the Caribbean Sea). No, Feast Week is not just the Maui Invitational and the Battle 4 Atlantis; the Charleston Classic, Paradise Jam, Cayman Islands Classic, Greenbrier Tipoff, and Myrtle Beach Invitational are all incredibly fun and deserve to be watched. The point I’m trying to make isn’t that you should have a favorite tournament, but that it’s one of the most active times of the entire college basketball season, and if you’re waiting for the big name tournaments to watch, you’re missing out. So without futher ado, here are my favorite things from the week:
1. Thursday, the 21st of November
Thursday was one of those days that just kept getting better and better. Let’s start in the Bahamas, where Baylor and St. John’s were playing in a double overtime thriller. Baylor found itself down five points with fewer than 20 seconds to play. VJ Edgecombe hit a clutch triple to cut the deficit to two. Missed free throw by the Johnnies. It’s a one-and-one. Offensive rebound. Another foul. Missed free throw again. Jeremy Roach from distance. Baylor win. Hysterics. We aren’t done. Let’s head out to Brooklyn, where we find St. Joe’s and Texas Tech locked in a battle for the ages. They find themselves tied at 77 with about 12 seconds left in the game. When Justice Ajogbor finds himself with the ball, it’s natural for TTU to foul him; he’s a sub-50% free throw shooter and the Hawks’ best rebounder. It’d give the Red Raiders the best chance to get the ball with a chance to win the game. He missed the first one. Still tied, one shot to go. He has a 48% chance to sink it and force TTU to win the game themselves. The man has ice in his veins there’s nothing else I can say. So a timeout is called, obviously—the game is on the line. I’m not sure what Billy Lange drew up defensively because there was a complete defensive breakdown for St. Joe’s that left Darrion Williams wide open. Hysteri- he clanked it. Saint Joseph’s wins the basketball game. Vanderbilt and Nevada played a nailbiter, too; one that was ultimately decided by a Kobe Sanders missed game winning attempt from the logo, Memphis and San Francisco came down to the last possession as well, Syracuse’s comeback attempt against Texas ultimately wound up unsuccessful by four points, and Seton Hall went to overtime with VCU—though that game wasn’t the most fun (insert my rant about how sloppy this game was here). It was a fun day of basketball.
2. Kam Jones is an All-American
Purdue spent its Tuesday evening getting shoved into a locker by Kam Jones. Marquette was at home in a ROCKING Fiserv Forum, yes, but Jones still put on the performance of the season. He put up 17-13-10, and the astute among you might notice that those numbers constitute a triple-double. Marquette’s first since Dwyane Wade was a Golden Eagle. Stevie Mitchell had a great game, but this was the Kam Jones show. He didn’t put up the best performance against Georgia on Saturday, but he went down pretty early on and was playing through it. I don’t want to be rash, but it seemed pretty clear to me that Kam Jones is better than Braden Smith, someone people are predicting to be a First Team All-American. Let’s put Kam Jones up there.
3. The Draft Lottery vs. 10th Place CUSA
Rutgers had a shocking recruiting cycle this year. Steve Pikiell has seemingly picked up a reputation as a guy that players really want to play for. And so Rutgers found themselves with Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper. You can say one is better than the other, but it’s too close to call (so I went alphabetically). These guys are projected to both go in the top three of the NBA Draft behind Cooper Flagg, and Rutgers is ranked because of that. They have other talent, but Bailey and Harper are the main pieces. For whatever reason (and I cannot come up with one), they agreed to go play a road game against Kennesaw State, the team picked last in Conference USA. Maybe it’s because Bailey played high school ball in Georgia and it was a recruiting draw to play a game in the Atlanta area, but it had “TRAP” written all over it in capital letters. And the Kennesaw State Owls prevailed just like nobody (but everybody) predicted. It was so obvious but so amazing.
4. Mark Byington Should Change His Last Name to Edwards
Last year at James Madison, Mark Byington found much of his success through star Terrence Edwards, who decided not to follow Byington to Vanderbilt this offseason, instead going to Louisville, where he hasn’t exactly been lighting it up this year. Byington felt the hole of not having a guy named Edwards on his team, so he picked up North Texas transfer Jason Edwards… who has been absolutely phenomenal this year, especially during the Charleston Classic this week. He scored 16 against Nevada in the first round, also picking up three steals in that game. In the next round against Seton Hall he wasn’t really needed and found himself in some foul trouble, only playing 15 minutes, but still scoring double figures, and then Edwards picked up 26 points in the finale loss to Drake. If you play basketball and your last name is Edwards, you should give Mark Byington a call. And with his history, he’ll answer.
5. Let’s Just Play More Basketball
LSU and UCF must really love basketball, because they tried as hard as they possibly could to play more and more basketball. Now don’t get me wrong, I love basketball, I consume copious amounts of it. UCF and LSU seemed like they weren’t really into the whole idea of playing basketball. LSU struggled to get started, and found themselves behind 15 to UCF at the half, who seemed content to runaway with the contest. They then decided, in the locker room (or wherever they run off to playing a game in a West Virginia Hotel Ballroom) at halftime that they wanted to play more basketball. So LSU came storming back and UCF looked anemic, knotting the game at 70. Overtime! It was still tied. So they went through another overtime. It was still tied. At this point, I wanted them to just go for an hour, but of course, they wanted me to write with uneven, non-round numbers. LSU won in 55 minutes, 109 - 102. It makes sense that this UCF team wouldn’t do well in a luxury hotel. Apologies to poor Cam Carter who had to play 52 minutes. Hopefully he gets the next few days off.
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