NCAA Basketball 25-26 Season

[JMarkJohns]

Reigning champ Florida flew to Vegas for the Hall Of Fame kickoff with its entire Title core frontline and brand new shiny scoring/shooting guards and Arizona behind their senior PG and freshman PF held their own, and, in fact, dominated that frontline inside as the pair went for 57 points without a single 3FG attempt.

Koa, the freshman PG, made NCAA history with a debut, becoming the first known freshman to go for 30-5-5 with 4 stocks in a debut in the “modern” era since 1980, and, some reports say maybe ever thanks to older rules regarding freshman redshirts.

He finished with 30 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, 1 block on excellent shooting, got to the line for 12 FTA, and in general controlled the lane with his down hill off the dribble attacks. By my tally he should have had 7 assists.

His game and frame remind me of Corliss Williamson, maybe mixed with a little loser Julius Randle, absent the 3-ball.

Interesting prospect.

BYU escaped late, UCLA escaped late, Auburn survived OT, so outside of Florida I think most ranked teams won.

 

[JMarkJohns]

Y’all better start paying attention to Arizona!

Just went into Storrs and took a hard fought win from #3 UConn!

#3 Florida
#11 UCLA
#3 UConn

All away from Tucson.

Should be ranked #1 next week if the voters care about resumes.

 

[JMarkJohns]

Ok, so that #1 vote thing took a few extra weeks, but after routing #22 Auburn by 29, in a game that would have been 40 points had the refs not gone foul/FT happy in the final 10 minutes, and with Purdue getting waxed, I think Arizona is finally getting the top-spot.

With Alabama looming in a second true Road Game vs a top-10(ish) team. Great matchup next Saturday. Contrast in styles with Arizona a physical beast and lane dominator and Alabama straight chucking from deep all game.

 

[JMarkJohns]

Been an interesting season thus far. To me there’s 4 teams who look head and shoulders above everyone else:

Arizona
Connecticut
Duke
Michigan

Of them, Duke and Arizona are undefeated with 4 ranked wins each, Arizona’s average ranked win is around 11 (3, 3, 15, 22) and Duke’s is 17 (7, 15, 20, 22).

One common opponent between them is Florida. Arizona won by 6 in a neutral Away, and Duke won by 1 at Home.

Michigan has been murdering teams lately, but also barely survived a very .500 stretch early on with close wins by like 1 and 4 points over Wake and TCU. They share a common opponent with Arizona in Auburn… Michigan won by 30 at Auburn, Arizona won by 29 at Arizona. But Michigan has just two ranked wins on the year, 12 and 20.

UConn has played really well, with the one home loss to Arizona by 4, but 3 ranked wins as well over 7, 13, 21…

Houston has looked solid, but beatable in a few wins before their bad loss. Purdue has been a bit hot and cold. Their only ranked wins are at 8 Alabama and 15 Tech, and they killed Tech, but they struggled with An Oakland team Michigan murdered and with a ver mid Memphis team before losing by a billion yesterday to Iowa State.

Those feel like the top-6, with Houston and Purdue legit 2nd Tier. Maybe ISU sneaks in there as well. Will be pushing a top-5 rank at 9-0 but only have 2 ranked wins, however, they are over 1 and 14, both Away games.

Feels like this will be the JMJ talking to himself thread until February. Haha

 

[Biggems]

Texas Women are ranked 2, but based on resume they should be 1.

UConn is 8-0, 2-0 against ranked teams....beating 20 Louisville and 6 Michigan

Texas is 9-0, 4-0 against ranked teams.....beating 24 Richmond, 3 UCLA, 2 So Car, 11 UNC

 

[JMarkJohns]

it’s always tough to overcome the preseason program bias.

I’ve snuck a few glances at SMU Ladies now that Adia is head coach. Curious if she’s learned from her mistakes at Arizona. There’s a lot of talent there if she can get out of her own way. She is good enough to recruit and coach a Title team.

 

[JMarkJohns]

Arizona dominates Alabama in Birmingham, winning by 21 despite foul trouble on Koa and Bradley.

Arizona is now the first team in 30 years to have have 5 Non-Conference Top-25 wins. Four of them are Away, and all four are vs Top-15 teams.

Last two ranked wins by 29 and 21.

Different freshman than Koa dominated, as Brayden Burries went for 28 after starting PG Jaden Bradley had to sit early in 2nd.

Sr PG Bradley
Fr 5* CG Burries
Fr International 5* SF Kharchenkov
Fr 5* PF Peat
Jr International 4* C Krivas

Sr SG Dell’Orso
Fr International 5* Aristode
Sr PF/C Awaka

Craziest part is neither Krivas or Aristode have hit a stride yet, as both missed last year with injury. And Burries has only recently turned the corner in the last 4 games.

Also have another International 4* PF in Sidi Gueye who barely plays plus they have a Sr PG via Harvard for just in case minutes.

 

[JMarkJohns]

#2 Michigan (but number 1 in all the Metrics’ hearts) goes down at home to a nearly 20 point underdog Wisconsin.

#1 Arizona takes care of TCU on the road, tripling the margin of victory by Michigan over TCU, but losing its 10 game streak of 19+ wins, winning by 13.

If Arizona isn’t a near unanimous #1 in both polls as Undefeated with 5 Top-25 Wins, the polls are clearly rigged.

 

[ace3g]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2011820690719072688

 

[ChrisC21209]

Texas got back to back quality wins against ranked opponents! Hope that helps their chances to get into the big dance in March!

 

[JMarkJohns]

Texas got back to back quality wins against ranked opponents! Hope that helps their chances to get into the big dance in March!

Rooting for Sean. I know he had to call out some of the team and I think benched some starters to send a message on effort. Knowing Miller, playing hard is the most important thing, especially as guards and wings.

 

[benefactor]

With football winding down I'm starting to catch up a little bit on college basketball. Really great couple of wins by Texas. They have had some inconsistency starting out but it looks like they are starting to put it together and this coach is getting the message across to this team

 

[JMarkJohns]

With football winding down I'm starting to catch up a little bit on college basketball. Really great couple of wins by Texas. They have had some inconsistency starting out but it looks like they are starting to put it together and this coach is getting the message across to this team

Sean Miller made Elite 8 early first stint with Xavier, second year with Arizona (and that was a complete rebuild), and made Sweet 16 first year second stint with Xavier. I’m optimistic he can springboard these wins (and some close losses) into a 75% consistency of winning that should get them to Tourney with a tough SEC schedule.

Want to see how he works with NIL in offseason. He was always at the forefront of transfers with Arizona.

 

[JMarkJohns]

Arizona with its 9th Quad 1 Win of the season, staying undefeated on the road vs Top-25 opponents winning at BYU to improve to 21-0. Dominated up until final minutes when they combined to take foot off the gas and make a couple blunders which when combined with several reffing blunders allowed BYU to cut a 12 point lead to 1 plus ball for a go-ahead basket when leader heralded freshman capped off one of the best overall freshman games of any freshman this season by blocking the BYU shot attempt, snatching the deflection, sinking two FTs.

Arizona is now #1 in Poll, KenPom, Net ranking.

Their schedule is about to become hectic with games on the road at Kansas, Iowa State, Houston and home vs Kansas, Tech, BYU.