The busiest week of school basketball’s opening two months is within the books, and per ordinary, there was a ton of transferring and shaking.
Listed below are three of the largest winners and three of the largest losers from a jam-packed Feast Week:
By almost one month of play, there are 25 undefeated groups remaining in faculty basketball. Seven of these groups — Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska, Purdue and USC — play within the Huge 10.
The Wolverines have been arguably the largest total winner of Feast Week, rolling to the Gamers Period Pageant championship in historic vogue.
On account of their dominance in Vegas, the Wolverines are No. 1 within the first NET Rankings and are with out query the “eyeball take a look at” champions of the season’s first 5 weeks. However they weren’t alone in wowing the school basketball world throughout Thanksgiving Week.
Certain it was a depleted discipline, however profitable the Maui Invitational nonetheless issues, and that’s precisely what USC did. The Trojans moved to 7-0 on the younger season with consecutive wins over Boise State, Seton Corridor and Arizona State.
Michigan State proved its triumphs over Arkansas and Kentucky weren’t flukes by hammering East Carolina by 33 after which topping No. 16 North Carolina by 16 to seize the championship on the Fort Myers Tip-Off.
Iowa beat Ole Miss and Grand Canyon to win the Acrisure Traditional. Indiana pummeled Kansas State in its hardest take a look at of the 12 months so far. Prime-ranked Purdue gained by 47 in its solely recreation of the week. Nebraska prolonged the nation’s longest profitable streak to 12 video games.
So, yeah, fairly stable week for the Huge 10.
Perception that Florida may comply with UConn’s lead and repeat as nationwide champion this season took one other early hit on Thursday with an 84-80 loss to unranked TCU on the Rady Kids’s Invitational in San Diego. The Gators then adopted that efficiency up with a lower than stellar win over Windfall within the occasion’s comfort recreation a day later.
Whereas the case can nonetheless simply be made that Florida has one of the best frontcourt in America, the play of the Gator backcourt continues to be troubling. Level guard Boogie Fland’s taking pictures numbers are woeful, and his help fee isn’t anyplace close to the place it was final season when he was a freshman at Arkansas. Maybe extra worrisome is the play of prized Princeton switch Xaivian Lee, who’s averaging 9.0 ppg, taking pictures 26.7 % from the sector, and easily has not look reduce out for this degree of basketball.
The Gators have two large alternatives — this Tuesday in opposition to Duke and subsequent Tuesday in opposition to UConn — to show that concern over how they appeared in November was an overreaction.
The A-10 despatched greater than two groups to the NCAA Event for 11 consecutive years between 2007-08 and 2017-18. It hasn’t despatched greater than two groups to the NCAA Event in any season.
That may very well be about to alter.
The A-10 has eight groups within the prime 100 of the primary NET Rankings, which have been launched on Monday morning. That’s three greater than the Huge East and 4 greater than the Mountain West.
George Mason, though comparatively untested, is 8-0 and has the nation’s second-longest lively profitable streak. Dayton blasted beforehand unbeaten Georgetown and almost knocked off No. 9 BYU to win the ESPN Occasions Invitational. The Flyers at the moment are 6-2 with their lone losses coming in opposition to the Cougars and at Cincinnati. VCU has three losses to high quality opponents (Vanderbilt, Utah State and NC State) and a pair of spectacular wins over Virginia Tech and South Florida. George Washington, Saint Louis and Rhode Island have additionally pieced collectively non-conference resumes have them within the prime 65 of the NET.
If the convention can keep away from consuming itself in January and February, this ought to be the primary time in what seems like ages that the A-10 gained’t want a bid thief to win its convention match with a view to ship a number of groups to the Huge Dance.
Aztec followers have been irate when San Diego State didn’t pop up in anybody’s preseason prime 25 a month in the past. Their predominant level of competition was that Brian Dutcher was returning 76.2 % of his scoring from a crew that gained 21 video games and earned an 11-seed within the NCAA Event final season.
SDSU has not completed job of creating its detractors look foolish up to now.
Already hurting from a double time beyond regulation house loss to Troy the week earlier than, the Aztecs went 1-2 on the Gamers Period Pageant in Las Vegas. A pleasant win over a reeling Oregon crew was sandwiched in between a 40-point loss to Michigan and a 10-point loss to Baylor.
San Diego State sits all the best way down at No. 123 within the first NET Rankings. Whereas it’s extremely early to be speaking about such issues, it’s notable the Aztecs solely have one non-conference recreation left — a semi-away contest in opposition to Arizona on Dec. 20 — that would actually bolster their resume earlier than beginning league play in a Mountain West Convention that isn’t going to supply as many alternatives for high quality Ws because it has prior to now.
Winner: Duke/Cameron Boozer
The most important faculty basketball recreation of Thanksgiving Day was Duke’s 80-71 overcome Arkansas on the United Middle in Chicago. The Blue Devils truly trailed by seven with simply over 10 minutes to play, however appeared to make each large play down the stretch to drag away and win pretty comfortably.
The sport additionally marked the largest efficiency of the season so removed from freshman celebrity Cameron Boozer, who scored 35 factors and grabbed 9 rebounds inside the identical constructing the place his dad, Carlos, performed for the Chicago Bulls for 4 seasons.
Boozer’s numbers have been spectacular all season lengthy, however it was notable that his worst performances had come in opposition to the 2 most proficient groups (Kansas and Texas) that Duke had performed earlier than their matchup with the Razorbacks. Any issues about Boozer’s skill to complete over size or compete with elite athletes was closely silenced on Thanksgiving evening. This wasn’t simply an outrageous statistical efficiency, it might have been the primary main step in the direction of a Picket Award.
The Golden Eagles’ robust begin to 2025-26 continued on Friday with a brutal 75-74 loss to Oklahoma in Chicago. The defeat dropped Marquette to 4-4 and marked the primary time within the 109-year historical past of this system that it has misplaced 4 video games earlier than the month of December.
A 12 months in the past, Shaka Good was being hailed as a shining instance of the right way to obtain roster retention and tradition continuity on this age of perpetual turnover. Now he’s being broadly referenced as a cautionary story in the case of the hazards of not embracing the switch portal.
