The Rauf Report breaks down the top takeaways from the NCAA Basketball weekend, headlined by a look at a trio of Big 12 programs.
The first NCAA basketball weekend following the college football regular season certainly didn’t disappoint. Saturday’s slate may end up being the most loaded of the season and it more than lived up to the hype with a plethora of close games and impactful results.
No result was more noteworthy than Purdue’s 92-84 victory over Arizona in Indianapolis. It was a battle between arguably the two best teams in the nation and the Boilermakers used that stage to make a major statement. They led by as many as 15 points in the second half as outstanding performances from Zach Edey, Fletcher Loyer and Braden Smith propelled Purdue to an easy victory.
Matt Painter’s squad knows what it’s going to get from Edey on a nightly basis. At this point, it will be a shock if he doesn’t win National Player of the Year for a second consecutive season. Smith has taken a step forward, too. Loyer has been the one who has been the most inconsistent this season. This game served as a reminder that, when all three of Purdue’s best players are on their game, it is the clear best team in the country.
What else stood out from the weekend? Here’s a look at the other top takeaways in a new Rauf Report.
Major concerns about Baylor’s defense
Baylor surged into the top 10 nationally behind a 9-0 start that came to a crashing end on Saturday. Yes, we knew the Bears were likely to suffer their first loss sooner or later — there’s a reason no team has finished the season undefeated since the 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers — but we did not expect them to be blown out by a struggling Michigan State team.
The Spartans’ offensive struggles have been well documented, yet they looked like the Globetrotters against Baylor, leading by as many as 30 points on multiple occasions. Michigan State’s defense has (rightfully) received a lot of praise for its performance, but I think the more telling aspect moving forward is Baylor’s defense.
The Bears were elite defensively at their recent peak, ranking in the top 25 in adjusted defensive efficiency in five of the six seasons from 2016-17 through the 2021-22 season. That stretch included three top-three seeds in the NCAA Tournament (it would’ve been a fourth had the 2020 NCAA Tournament been played), two Sweet 16 appearances and — of course — a national championship.
I point out that stretch because that’s when Jerome Tang had his biggest impact on the Baylor program. He spent 19 seasons as an assistant on Scott Drew’s staff and was in charge of the defense during that stretch. Since he left to take the head coaching job at Kansas State, the Bears have not been the same defensively.
Baylor ranked outside the top 100 in adjusted defensive efficiency last season and currently ranks 88th this season, per Torvik. In fact, despite their 9-1 record, the Bears have a similar profile to last season.
The magic number for Baylor appears to be 106.5. The Bears have won every single game (26-0) in which it posted an adjusted defensive efficiency number at that mark or below since the start of the last season. That is not a high bar to clear — the Division 1 average is 104.6 and 214 teams have a mark of 106.5 or better on the season.
However, Baylor has posted a worse mark in 18 of the 44 games it has played in this stretch — the Bears are just 6-12 in those games.
Scott Drew’s squad is good enough offensively to mask and overcome a lot of issues, yet Saturday’s loss served as a reminder that Baylor is not currently good enough on that end of the court — which is not a good thing with the loaded Big 12 slate looming.
Kansas State is very limited
Speaking of Jerome Tang, I think it’s time we temper expectations for his second season at Kansas State. Last year’s surprise run to the Elite Eight was incredible and the job he did was worthy of National Coach of the Year honors. There’s still time for this team to turn things around, too.
However, Sunday’s blowout loss to Nebraska showed the range of this team’s offensive limitations.
The Wildcats shot poorly from 3-point range (4/30), had more turnovers than assists and managed to score just 12 points as a team in the second half. These struggles have been indicative of the dropoff K-State has experienced on that end from last season, especially against its better opponents.
Kansas State had a winning record in Quad 1 games a year ago and was 23rd nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency against top-50 opponents. This season, it has yet to play a Quad 1 game and is just 2-3 against Quad 2 opponents.
Replacing Markquis Nowell was always going to be tough given how electric and productive he was. Tylor Perry has been really good since transferring from North Texas, yet he hasn’t been on quite that level. He also doesn’t have much help around him. Nowell led an underrated roster last season (Keyonte Johnson was actually K-State’s leading scorer!) while this year’s group struggles with depth and offensive options aside from Perry. Creighton transfer Arthur Kaluma was supposed to fill the role Johnson did a year ago, but he has been a disappointment.
This isn’t necessarily indicative of how the rest of Tang’s tenure in Manhattan will go, but it is a reminder that program-building rarely follows a linear trajectory. With its toughest games still ahead, I think it’s safe to look at this group as a mid-Big 12 team at best that will struggle to make the tournament without significant offensive improvement.
Are we sure Houston is elite?
This feels like a weird thing to ask about a team that’s 11-0 with a recent track record of high-level success, yet I think it’s clear this Cougars squad is a step behind the other elite teams in the sport this year.
Houston was very impressive for the first 25 minutes in its victory over Texas A&M on Saturday, building a 21-point lead. It looked like it would cruise to an easy victory over the shorthanded Aggies, who did not have Tyrece Radford available. But then the Aggies went on a 31-10 run over the next 14 minutes to tie the game.
The Cougars did what they needed to late to win thanks to a pair of big shots from Emanuel Sharp but the late run from Texas A&M exemplifies why I still have questions about this group.
We know how good Houston is defensively and its metrics didn’t change much after this game. However, Wade Taylor gashed this backcourt for 34 points, almost all of which came in the second half. You typically don’t see that kind of performance against Houston, as the Coogs have almost always had the backcourt advantage in recent years. I don’t think that’s as much the case this year.
LJ Cryer and Jamal Shead are veterans who have been good throughout their careers and were supposed to elevate Houston offensively. That hasn’t happened to this point in the season and certainly wasn’t the case when the Cougars went on a cold streak in the second half.
Houston is a very good team that I still expect to finish near the top of the Big 12. The fact this program has expectations of competing for conference championships and Final Fours is a testament to the job Kelvin Sampson has done. But in that conversation among teams at that level, I have questions about Houston’s offense and the ability of its backcourt to play at the level necessary to advance deep in March. Saturday’s performance against Texas A&M hammered home those concerns, even in a victory.
Ian Schieffelin determines Clemson’s ceiling
Clemson fell from the unbeaten ranks on Saturday, losing to a very good Memphis team on the road. Penny Hardaway’s squad has proven to be legitimate and looks to be capable of challenging Florida Atlantic for the American conference title.
However, I left that game feeling even more impressed with Clemson big man Ian Schieffelin than I have been.
He’s the glue guy for the Tigers with PJ Hall, Joe Girard and Chase Hunter serving as the stars, but it’s clear that he’s the one who connects everything with his do-it-all skill set. Schieffelin is one of the nation’s best rebounders, averages 2.0 assists per game, is currently shooting 66.7 percent from 3-point range and has scored in double figures in each of the last three games.
The stat line he put up against Memphis — 11 points, 11 rebounds, six assists — was the perfect summary of the way he has been impactful for this team.
“Some guys just have better feel than others,” Brad Brownell told the Charleston Post & Courier when discussing Schieffelin earlier this week. “They just see things, and the game slows down in front of them. They can see what needs to be done, and he’s one of those guys. There were some things like, ‘Can he do this? Can he do this at this level? Will he be able to do this?’ But when a guy has feel and a guy has competitiveness, they usually figure it out. I don’t think we’re surprised by what he’s doing.”
Those three stars will continue to receive a majority of the praise for Clemson’s performance this season. However, if the Tigers are going to continue playing like a top-20 team nationally, Schieffelin’s play will be key.
Terrence Hargrove Jr.’s historic finish
Given all that was happening this weekend, it’s OK if you didn’t pay much attention to Saturday’s game between Saint Louis and Louisiana Tech. However, that’s where the most impressive finish of the weekend happened.
The Billikens trailed LA Tech, 70-64, with less than 30 seconds on the clock. Senior guard Terrence Hargrove Jr. had been a relative non-factor with just two points.
Then, he caught fire in a way that few people had ever caught fire before. Hargrove proceeded to score 11 points in just over 28 seconds to close the game, including the game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer.
“It’s a dream come true,” Hargrove told reporters. “I always dreamed of hitting a game-winning shot one day. That was my first-ever game-winner. I’ve hit big shots, but never a game-winner. That moment and feeling is different. It’s surreal. It felt so good. All the energy on me, and it just felt like this is what I work so hard for, this is what I put extra work in for. Times and moments like these.”
That kind of performance is worthy of a mention in the same vein as Tracy McGrady’s famous performance against the Spurs when he scored 13 points in the final 35 seconds. I’ll be shocked if we see a better closing stretch from any player this season.
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