Welcome Back to College Basketball

Welcome back to college basketball, America. We’re 34 days away from Selection Sunday and 56 days away from the National Championship. Let’s get you caught up on what you’ve missed so far this season.

UConn is the No. 1 team in the AP Poll.

The defending national champions are very good (again). They’ve got five guys averaging 10 points or more per game and their leading scorer, Cam Spencer, seemingly makes all the right plays at all the right times. The Huskies are a legitimate threat to be the first team to go back-to-back since the ’06-’07 Florida Gators.

Zach Edey is still very tall and very good.

The reigning National Player of the Year is somehow playing better basketball than last season and he’s on track to win the award for the second year in a row. The name of the game this year has been efficiency. He’s scoring more points on less possessions and both his offensive rating and true shooting percentages are the highest of his career. He also gets fouled. A lot. It’s been a point of contention all season long – trust me, you’ll hear about it soon enough.

Dalton Knecht is this year’s appointment television bucket getter.

Tennessee hit the lottery in the transfer portal when they added Northern Colorado big guard Dalton Knecht. Knecht is averaging 20.3ppg and can score from anywhere inside the gym. He’s brought new life to a Tennessee team that was missing the offensive fire power necessary to make a deep tournament run last season. The Vols are still excellent defensively and with Knecht, have the potential to make their first Final Four in school history.

Indiana State is this year’s fun mid-major.

The Sycamores are led by third-year head coach Josh Schertz. They’re 22-3 and run one of the most efficient offenses in the country. Indiana State averages 85.6 points per game (5th in D1) with an effective field goal percentage of 60.7% (1st in D1). The Sycamores space you out and launch threes as often as they can. Everyone can shoot, too. It’s beautiful offense and it’s led by 6’10” dynamo Robbie Avila. Avila is not the most physically imposing player you’ll ever see, but man can he orchestrate some offense. The Sycamores will be a popular upset pick in March.

Indiana and Kentucky fans are mad at their coaches.

Indiana is 14-10 and no where near the NCAA Tournament conversation. The Hoosiers have had horrendous injury luck this season, but the biggest concern is their offense. Indiana simply refuses to take (and make) threes, which has caused some frustration among the fan base. Indiana has made back-to-back NCAA tournaments for the first time since ’15-’16, but fans want them to fire their coach. Tough gig.

Kentucky has the opposite problem. The Wildcats are playing extremely fun offense and actually lead the country in three-point percentage. Their issue is defense. The Cats can’t guard a traffic cone at times and Big Blue Nation is fed up! The calls for John Calipari’s job are louder than ever, though I think the Cats are good enough offensively to make a deep run in the tournament (like Miami did last year).

If you asked me today, I think both coaches are back next year. But these are two programs with big pockets and even bigger expectations, so we can’t rule out a change just yet.

Someone made a documentary about Providence.

A DePaul burner account made a documentary about Ed Cooley leaving Providence. I thought it was very well done for an amateur filmmaker and while it touched on some personal matters, overall it really wasn’t that big of a deal. But naturally, it caused a bit of a stir on the internet. The creator of the documentary @BlueDemonDegen shared some screenshots of DMs he received from college basketball insider Jeff Goodman. Goodman was NOT happy about it and ended up making an enemy of an entire ecosystem of Big East twitter accounts. Eventually Barstool Sports caught wind of the documentary and it went viral, amassing over 70k views on YouTube before it was removed from the site. That was a fun day on Twitter.

It’s going to be a fun eight weeks.

In addition to all the action on the floor, the transfer portal opens in 35 days and the coaching carousel is already starting to turn. There will be plenty talk to about when the ball stops bouncing in early April.

If you’re interested in catching up with all things coaching carousel and transfer portal, join my discord here.

Follow @trillydonovan on X (Twitter). Stay tuned to burnerball.com to keep up with all things coaching carousel and transfer portal.

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