We're now a week into the college basketball season, and we've seen some great games. Duke-Kentucky, Villanova-UCLA, Gonzaga-Texas, and more have lived up to the hype and given us a great first week of hoops. However, there have been a lot of great under the radar games, and I have some takeaways from those as well. So, I decided to highlight some of what I've watched in the first week of the season, and give my thoughts on some teams that you may have missed in the craziness of the first week. If you want more college basketball thoughts, be sure to follow me on Twitter @ThreePointRange where I'm constantly tweeting out thoughts on games I'm watching, and I'll have a ton of thoughts as we get into Feast Week. Without further ado, here are some things you may have missed in the first week of the college basketball season.
- I watched Iowa State play Oregon State, and I was very impressed by what I saw from Iowa State's freshman point guard Tyrese Hunter. He came into the season as a top 50 prospect, and it's easy to see why. He's a dynamic athlete who can make things happen with the ball in his hands, especially in the open court. I was also impressed by his willingness to pass and his vision, and he looked very comfortable operating out of the pick and roll. He's got 12 assists through two games, and is averaging 10 points a game thus far. He's also a good defender, showing a willingness to get after it on that end, even though he is slightly undersized at 6'1". He had four steals in the season opener against Kennesaw State, and played well on that end against an Oregon State team that has some really solid guards. Is Hunter a finished product? No, absolutely not. He had five turnovers in his performance against the Beavers, and he currently isn't the best shooter from deep. Now, I don't think he's a liability from behind the arc, and his shot is fine when he's left open, but he took some contested pull up jumpers, and that's just not his game right now. But decision making and shot selection are things that I think are fixable, especially for a freshman just two games into his college career. As Hunter gets more comfortable in TJ Otzelberger's offense and the college game in general, I think those issues will begin to correct themselves and he'll continue to improve. Only the truly elite point guards, think Jalen Suggs or Cade Cunningham, are really able to enter college with no adjustment period. Hunter will have his struggles this year, but he has all the makings of a player who will have a strong career in Ames and be a star as soon as next season.
- Speaking of Oregon State, Wayne Tinkle has some work to do. He's clearly still searching for the Beavers' best combination of players, and it showed against Iowa State. He played 13 different players in a game that was relatively close throughout, showing he doesn't have a grasp on the rotation just yet. Nine players played double figure minutes, and Tinkle was desperate to find an offensive spark for a team that scored just 50 points and didn't have a player in double figures. Obviously, some credit goes to Iowa State, who played well on the defensive end, but OSU clearly has some questions they need to answer. The major issue for Tinkle's team is the three point arc. On their run to the Elite Eight last season, the Beavers were making it rain from deep. Starting with the Pac-12 tournament, they made 9 or more threes in four straight games, and shot over 37.5% from three in every game but one throughout their postseason run. Against Iowa State, they were 3-22 from deep. For those of you without a calculator handy, that's just 13.6% from beyond the arc. The Beavers desperate need Jarod Lucas to return to his form from that stretch, when he was making 2.8 threes per game and shooting 38% from deep. Tinkle needs to tinker with his team to find his best squad if he hopes to return to the NCAA Tournament in 2022.
- Elsewhere, even though West Virginia handled Pitt relatively easily, my biggest takeaway was that they are going to miss Miles McBride this year. His ability to create shots not only for himself, but for others, is sorely missed on this team. He was obviously one of the better players in the Big 12 last season, and replacing his 15.9 points and 4.8 assists was always going to be a challenge. But watching the Mountaineers, I didn't think their guards did a good enough job in shot creation. A lot of it ended up being Taz Sherman or Sean McNeil taking a contested jumper late in the shot clock. Those two guys are good players, but they really thrived last year when they could get spot up opportunities, typically set up by McBride. Taz Sherman shouldn't be shooting the ball 20 times a game, especially when he only makes 6 of them. I didn't think Kedrian Johnson, a senior point guard stepping into a bigger role, was particularly impressive, and neither was Old Dominion transfer Malik Curry. They're solid, especially defensively, but they lack the explosiveness that McBride possessed. Maybe freshman Kobe Johnson comes on strong as the season progresses, but as I mentioned earlier, it can be tough for a freshman point guard to adapt. They also miss the post presence of Derek Culver, who could get buckets with his back to the basket, something this West Virginia team also lacks. Jalen Bridges looks to be improved, but he's more of a wing than a big. I'm going to be monitoring West Virginia's offense in the games to come to see if I'm making too much out of this, or if it is an issue that will be an Achilles heel for this team.
- If Minnesota wants to make some noise in the Big Ten this year, then Jamison Battle and Payton Willis need to bring it every night. In the three games the Golden Gophers have played this year, Battle, a transfer wing from George Washington, has scored 18, 20, and 24 points, while Willis, a transfer from College of Charleston who has made previous stops at Vanderbilt and played at Minnesota under Richard Pitino, has gone for 13, 19, and 29. Each guy had a double double in their last game against Princeton as well. Those two guys have been a godsend early for Ben Johnson as he's started off his coaching tenure 3-0, as the rest of the roster is... unimpressive. Eric Curry is looking to stay healthy this year and is a proven Big Ten play, and EJ Stephens looks solid, but overall this roster looks pretty thin. Battle and Willis are both proven scorers, Battle has scored in double figures each of the first two seasons in college, including 17.3 PPG last season, while Willis put up 13.4 last year and is a career 36.1% shooter from three. It's going to be tough sledding through the brutal Big Ten schedule, but if these two guys can keep scoring like this, Minnesota will be able to hang around.
- I can't imagine this is how CJ Walker saw his college career going. A five star prospect coming out of powerhouse high school program Oak Ridge Academy, Walker had his pick of schools. He ended up committing to Oregon over LSU, Alabama, Arizona, and Miami, among others. However, things never clicked for him with the Ducks, averaging just 4 points and 2.5 rebounds a game, and he decided to transfer, heading back home to Florida to play for UCF. He averaged 7 and 5 last year, but the uber-athletic forward looks to finally be putting things together this year, and we could be in for a breakout season from the junior. In a game against Miami, the same school he could've gone to out of high school, Walker put up 14 points and 11 boards, and looked far more impressive than any of the players in Miami's front court. His emergence would be big for the Knights, as they already have some strong guards in Darius Perry, Darin Green, and Brandon Mahan, so a nice piece in the front court would help them make some noise in the American this year. Walker also had 12 and 8 in a season opening win over Robert Morris, and I'm going to be checking box scores religiously to see if the former five-star is truly putting things together.
- On Monday night, I was transported back to right when I was really getting into college basketball as I watched Shaka Smart sliding around in a defensive stance and slapping the floor on the sidelines as Marquette upset Illinois. The Golden Eagles played with the defensive energy that Shaka's VCU teams used to, and they created havoc for Illinois. Sophomore point guard Andre Curbello was supposed to have a breakout season for the Illini, and he still might. But he was clearly rattled by the defensive pressure of Marquette, turning the ball over 7 times. As a team, Illinois coughed it up 26 times, and the Fiserv Forum was eating it up. I think one of the most underrated things in college basketball is how much a crowd loves defense. When a team strings together a few stops in a row, and the opposing team is visibly rattled, the fans start to really get into it and the energy in the building is crazy. Shot clock violations are one of the bigger pops you can get in my experience. Marquette fans will have plenty of defense to cheer for because Shaka has his team fully bought in on that end. Led by Maryland transfer Darryl Morsell, who is an absolute lockdown defender of guards, the Golden Eagles play with so much energy and intensity defensively. Indeed, it was Morsell who poked the ball loose for Tyler Kolek to pick up and run down the court to make the game winning layup. And the guards can afford to be a little overaggressive, because they have human eraser Kur Kuath in the paint behind them. The Oklahoma transfer lives to block shots, sending 5 back against Illinois, and averaged 1.5 a game each of the past two season. Marquette needs this defense too, because their offense isn't the best. Morsell and sophomore forward Justin Lewis can get buckets, but beyond that, the talent level offensively is a bit bleak, so they'll need their defense to keep them in games, which it is more than capable of doing.
- Perhaps the team I came away most impressed by was the Washington State Cougars. They are off to a 3-0 start in Kyle Smith's third season, and they look like one of the best teams in the Pac-12. I watched as they dominated UC Santa Barbara, one of the favorites in the Big West, in a game that wasn't as close as its 73-65 final score would suggest. The Cougars led by 16 at the half and had leads in the 20s in the first half, and were up 15 with 2 minutes to play. I was just very impressed by how well this team has gelled. They have two great bigs in Mouhamad Gueye and Efe Abogidi, plus Dishon Jackson, Tyrell Roberts and Michael Flowers can really shoot it from the perimeter, and Noah Williams is an excellent slasher from the wing. Add in TJ Bama and DJ Rodman as depth, and there's a really solid eight man rotation. Plus, they've bought in on the defensive end as well, and the team just feels like it gels really well. A lot of credit has to go to Smith, who has done a great job rebuilding this program to the point where they are a legit NCAA Tournament contender just three years into his tenure, given where they were when he took over. I'm actually excited for the next time I sit down to watch Washington State play.
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