The Rauf Report breaks down the top takeaways from the week of NCAA Basketball, headlined by a look at the biggest question facing Purdue.
Weekends like the one college basketball just had don’t happen in any other sport.
Seven teams ranked in the AP’s top 21 have all lost since Friday, including three of the top four and four of the top seven. It was a weekend of carnage that is sure to shake up the rankings while also serving as a reminder of the importance of home court in this sport.
Most neutral-court MTEs (multi-team events) are in the rearview mirror. This past weekend gave us our first look at conference games along with other high-profile home-and-home nonconference showdowns. (Thank you, Kansas and UConn).
And guess what? Those four teams in the top seven all lost in true road games. Winning on the road is still hard!
There will be a new No. 1 team atop the polls — HeatCheckCBB has Arizona at the top spot in our rankings — following Purdue’s shocking loss to Northwestern. It’s the second straight season in which the Boilermakers have lost in Evanston, and their play on Friday has many asking questions.
We’ll start this Rauf Report with a look at the biggest one.
Is this year’s Purdue team different?
It sure didn’t look like it against Northwestern!
I’m not saying this Purdue team is going to lose to a 16-seed again, or even that it would’ve on Friday night. I am saying the issues that caused the loss are also what caused Purdue’s late-season slide a year ago.
Zach Edey was absolutely incredible and will be every time he steps on the court. He also turned it over a few times when Northwestern collapsed on him, and Purdue turned it over trying to force him the ball. Braden Smith turned it over a season-high six times, many coming in crucial late-game situations. Lance Jones went cold from 3, and the bench was a collective non-factor offensively.
These are exactly the issues that Purdue worked to fix. Matt Painter and the staff brought in more shooting to help with spacing — and then shot 26.3 percent from deep against its first Big Ten defense. They also brought in more defensive help on the perimeter — yet got burned routinely by dynamic guards, especially Boo Buie. Turnovers were a problem.
I know it’s just one game. I get it! But now that the afterglow of the Maui Invitational has worn off, let’s look at those games again:
- Gonzaga is a good win. Is it a great win?
- There were approximately 8 million fouls called in the Tennessee game. What might have happened had the game developed any kind of flow?
- Purdue was incredible in the first half against Marquette. Then the Boilermakers nearly gave away a double-digit lead — the same way they nearly did in every victory last March.
This Purdue team is perfectly constructed to dominate the Big Ten. The Boilermakers have the nation’s most unstoppable post presence and a good backcourt in a league without many good guards. But the Northwestern loss showed there are still flaws, and they’re the same ones that hurt Purdue a year ago.
Pac-12 struggles
I think Arizona is the best team in the country. Whether they’re ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll or end up falling from that spot eventually, I think this team is the one best suited to win a national championship with the way it’s playing right now.
But that’s not the only reason I have a hard time seeing the Wildcats pile up losses at any point this season. I also don’t know who they’re supposed to be scared of in the Pac-12.
Besides Arizona, every team in the league has either struggled to meet preseason expectations or proven why they didn’t have any in the first place.
Arizona has faced two teams ranked in the KenPom top 100 (Duke and Michigan State) and won both games. The other 11 teams are a combined 9-23 in such games, and only Oregon has a winning record (thanks to a Jackson Shelstad game-winner).
It has been a dreadful November for the Pac-12 on the hardwood, especially with other programs on the West Coast having breakout starts. BYU and Gonzaga are both in the KenPom top 10, while Mountain West stalwarts Colorado State and San Diego State are in the top 26. Not until No. 31 (Colorado) does another Pac-12 team enter the picture.
The conference was rejuvenated last year with Arizona and UCLA being among the best teams in the nation. However, in its final year, the Pac-12 appears to be going out with a whimper.
Donta Scott’s regression
I wrote about Maryland’s offensive issues in a Rauf Report earlier this season, and those issues have only gotten worse since. The Terrapins put up a brutal offensive performance in a loss to Indiana on Friday in Assembly Hall, raising the question of how bad things could potentially get in College Park.
Still sporting a top-20 defensive rating in KenPom, Maryland ranks 176th in adjusted offensive efficiency. The Terps can’t shoot (359th nationally from 3-point range) and are turning it over at a high clip.
It’s hard to see where things went wrong! Maryland returned three key pieces from a 22-win team that made the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament and brought in some high-profile players from high school and via the portal. However, those newcomers have provided next to nothing — but fifth-year senior Donta Scott has also taken a step back.
Scott was Maryland’s second-best player last season behind star guard Jahmir Young, and he had several games where he was unstoppable. Recall his 24-point, eight-rebound performance against a Miami team that made the Final Four.
He was expected to take another step forward. Instead, he has gone the other direction. Scott hasn’t been as productive or efficient, and he’s having significantly less of an impact on games.
I don’t know how Maryland fixes itself, to be honest. You have to assume its shooting will improve at some point — it would be a statistical anomaly for it not to — but the Terps won’t have a legitimate shot at turning things around unless Scott turns things around individually.
South Carolina is worthy of your attention
Speaking of turning things around, Lamont Paris has done that in Year 2 as South Carolina’s head coach. The Gamecocks are 7-0 and are up to No. 54 in KenPom after finishing No. 221 a season ago. They already have wins over a pair of ACC foes in Virginia Tech and Notre Dame.
South Carolina’s most impressive performance of the season, however, came on Friday when it made a program-record 18 3-pointers in an 89-67 win over George Washington.
Shooting has become a strength for this group after struggling so much last season. The Gamecocks currently rank 45th in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency metric after sitting outside the top 200 a year ago, and they’re one of just 16 teams in the country making over 40 percent of their shots from 3-point range.
“It’s a fun brand of basketball,” Paris told reporters recently. “It’s a fun group of guys to rally behind. That’s what I want to stress more than anything to anyone who’s within earshot or eyeshot of this.”
South Carolina will get its biggest test yet on Wednesday when it travels to Clemson to take on the undefeated Tigers. No matter what happens, though, it’s clear this program is headed in the right direction.
The Gamecocks didn’t win their seventh game until Dec. 30 last season. The last time South Carolina started a season 7-0 was the 2016-17 season — which ended with the Gamecocks making the Final Four. (And no, I’m not just saying that as an alum trying to put something in the universe. I’m just stating facts here.)
Appalachian State is a sleeper to monitor
James Madison was the only Sun Belt team that got a lot of national love in November, and rightfully so. But Appalachian State showed it deserves to get some, too, following its victory over Auburn in Boone on Sunday.
The Mountaineers have won five games in a row and are a superb defensive team, which the Tigers found out about. App State limited them to just 11.1 percent shooting from 3-point range (3-of-27) and won the turnover battle, all while dictating tempo and the style of play. It was an impressive performance from Dustin Kerns’ crew.
This is a team that has depth, has shooters, has experience and has an elite defense. The UNC Wilmington team that went and knocked off Kentucky at Rupp Arena? These Mountaineers beat those Seahawks by 30 points two weeks ago. Since then, Appalachian State has been absolutely rolling and is showing no signs of slowing down.
The Mountaineers are a legitimate challenger to JMU in the Sun Belt — making their first matchup on Jan. 13 a must-watch affair.
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