10 Things Every College Basketball Fan Wants for the Holidays
This time of year tends to bring out the best and worst in people. Even Clark Griswold flew off the handle (and into a Wal-Mart parking lot).
Since Griswold lives in a Chicago suburb, maybe seeing Duke freshman standout and Chicago native Jahlil Okafor tear up the paint gives him a holiday cheer experienced only by Buddy the Elf.
As for your holiday wish list, there’s got to be something—whether it’s hoping Marcus Paige gets his groove back or the possibility of one or more undefeated teams heading to the Big Dance.
Hopefully you can unwrap some of these holiday packages this year. Read on to see what’s naughty and nice.
An Encore Campaign in Durham
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It’s too early to tell which of this season’s super freshmen will declare for the draft or stick around for Year 2. The way some of them are performing, it would be particularly nice to see some stick around for a sophomore season.
Take Duke. Okafor’s stat line is disgusting: 17.4 points per game, 8.9 rebounds per game and shooting 65 percent from the field. Sure, his free-throw percentage is an Elsa-frozen .511, but he can’t do it all, can he?
Tyus Jones is a nice lightning to his Okafor’s thunder. Jones nearly scores 11 points per game and adds a team-high 5.3 assists.
Duke is 10-0 with big wins over Wisconsin and Michigan State. Who knows? Maybe a championship season will make Okafor and Jones want to stay?
Or maybe it will be more incentive to move on.
One or More Unbeatens in the Tournament
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Only one team can finish the season with a win. But if there are unbeaten teams heading into the NCAA tournament, those stakes will be elevated.
There’s been lots of talk about Kentucky finishing undefeated. Some are believers; Pat Forde of Yahoo! Sports is not.
"I've said for years that a team will not run the table again the way Indiana last did in 1976. I believe that. It will take 40 games now, not the 32 those Hoosiers won. The tournament road is tougher and longer, the spotlight is 1,000 times brighter, the pressure is heavier.
"
That doesn’t mean he thinks they'll lose the one game that matters, though.
What would make for an even more charged tournament (especially when brackets break up worse than the Roman Empire) is having undefeated teams like Kentucky, Duke and Arizona carrying those records into single-elimination territory.
Last year, Wichita State carried its unbeaten record into the tournament, but that didn’t garner the type of attention a Duke or Kentucky would. In the end, few believed the Shockers would win the tournament.
Two unbeaten teams in the championship game? Let’s not get greedy.
Marcus Paige Finding His Shot
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Tar Heel fans can’t shame their team for losing to Kentucky. The Wildcats might be the first team in nearly 40 years to go undefeated.
But Tar Heel fans can and should pine for the day when Paige, their star guard, finds his shot.
A closer look reveals why Paige might be off, why UNC was overrated in the preseason and what could help Paige live up to that preseason ACC Player of the Year billing, per Rob Dauster of NBC Sports.
"Now the problem with this is that Paige is, by far, the best offensive weapon that North Carolina has on their perimeter. In an ideal world, he’s not the guy making the pass-ahead, he’s the guy spotting up on the wing. He’s the guy looking to finish in transition, not the guy sparking the fast break. He’s not bad at it, per se, but J.P. Tokoto and is not Rashad McCants. Justin Jackson is not P.J. Hairston. Theo Pinson is not Wayne Ellington.
"
What happens when your best scorer—and most-targeted player by opposing defenses—is supposed to be the facilitator, too?
This sounds like a recipe for a .347 field-goal percentage.
For Paige to break out, the other guards need to come into their own, thus providing more space for Paige to get clear looks. Without Paige, UNC could be in trouble in the ACC and beyond.
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A Tobacco Road Thriller
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Riding on the coattails of Paige, the mere thought of historically epic games on Tobacco Road makes even the most hardened college basketball fan reach for an extra bag of Fritos.
Coming down the stretch, there will be a thriller in Cameron Indoor Stadium or at the Dean Dome.
Looking at the schedule, Duke plays UNC twice in its last six games, including the season finale March 7 at UNC. By that time, Paige could have addressed his early season woes and Duke could still be unbeaten.
There will be a lot more on the line besides pride.
March 7 is a Friday; just mark your calendars now. Plan on ordering pizza, treating yourself to good beer and wearing your favorite sweatpants.
Stanley 'Stanimal' Johnson Steals the Show
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The Kentucky Wildcats merit much of the national attention, but there's another Wildcat out west who can't be ignored: Arizona's Stanley Johnson.
He’s earned a nickname—"Stanimal"—in his first season with Arizona. That’s what 6’7”, 245 pounds of shooting guard will do. Yes, a shooting guard averaging just under 15 points per game while shooting nearly 50 percent from the field.
We’ll hear much more about this special player as the season progresses, so it might be best to follow him now. This is a guy who taunted LeBron James at a skills camp, per Myron Medcalf of ESPN.com.
"The whole week when I'm playing during the games, he's there watching and I'm like, 'You're next.’ When he came on the court, I'm just ultra-confident with it. Super confident. ... He's the best player in the world but at the same time, he laces his shoes up the same way I lace my shoes up. Hopefully, one day I'll get to play against him [in the NBA]. ... LeBron James, to me, he's just a really good basketball player and I have to match up with him.
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Whatever knots they choose while lacing up their Nikes is fodder for other blogs, but Johnson is a beast. Better put: an animal.
A Champions Classic Final Four
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The Champions Classic in November featured a set of four teams that college basketball fans would pay good money to see in the national semifinals.
Those teams were Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and Michigan State. Three of these teams are ranked in KenPom.com’s top 10, while Michigan State sits at 21.
"It's possible the collection of teams is even better than most Final Fours," Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo said, via Nicole Auerbach of USA TODAY, of the tournament in 2013 (which featured the same four teams)—but it just as easily applies to this season.
Anyone who has followed the game long enough knows Izzo can summon the Kraken in the NCAA tournament and advance deeper than the Persians at Thermopylae.
Duke and Kentucky exited these games as winners (there was no championship game), but it would be an amazing collection of talent if these four arrived in Indianapolis together with their sneakers ready to climb the ladder.
A 2014-15 Wichita State Story
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Wichita State provided a nice treat for fans when it brought an unbeaten record into last season's NCAA tournament. What such storylines exist for this season?
If Duke, Kentucky and Arizona take undefeated records into the tournament, that comes with it its own amount of electricity the Shockers could not match.
No, somebody like Washington or TCU will have to pull off what Wichita State did a year ago. As much as that would be welcome, it simply won’t happen.
Washington still has two games against Arizona, a team eying 39 or 40 wins. TCU has to run into Kansas and Texas eventually, and that could keep the Horned Frogs from turning into princes.
Still, the mere thought of seeing teams from that level taking unbeaten records into conference play and beyond adds another layer intrigue to the season.
Standout Senior Play
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The precocity of the talented freshmen can get a bit nauseating. What fans need to see are standout performances from the tenured seniors.
Seniors get no love.
The most talented senior this year is Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky. He stands at 7-feet tall and can play in and out. He’s a matchup nightmare for opposing defenses and is a Player of the Year candidate.
There’s also Kevin Pango of Gonzaga, a guard averaging 10.1 points and 4.9 assists per game. Once healthy, Michigan State’s Branden Dawson and BYU’s Tyler Haws deserve attention.
Haws is averaging 23.8 points per game for the dynamically offensive Cougars. He’s also shooting .500 from the field, 89 percent from the free-throw line and .433 from the three-point line.
Yes, the freshmen combust like vodka over a flame, but these seniors are Crock-Pot specialties: simmering over time and producing a long-lasting, satisfying product.
Young vs. Old: Round 2
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There’s a race heating up, and it’s between a freshman and a senior—young and old.
Oh, and their teams are darn good, too, and they already gave us an early season tilt that lived up to the hype. This is Okafor vs. Kaminsky, Mike Krzyzewski vs. Bo Ryan, Duke vs. Wisconsin.
As it stands, Okafor and Kaminsky are one and two in the "Wooden Watch" hunt, via Sports Illustrated’s David Gardner:
"Okafor moves up to No. 1 in Wooden Watch largely because of his 25-point, 20-rebound performance against Elon on Monday, but his 12-and-8 performance against UConn on Thursday is just as an equally valid demonstration of how he can and will help Duke win.
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For Kaminsky, Gardner said, "His tempo-free stats are still almost identical to Okafor’s, and this 1-2 race will only heat up as conference play begins."
This battle will only increase as the season progresses. Will we see them face each other in March? April?
Continued Success of John Calipari's Platoons
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Continued success in John Calipari’s platoon system won’t revolutionize the sport, but it might just make Calipari—already the czar of recruiting—the most unbeatable force in the country.
There’s often this feeling among fans and viewers—and sometimes rightly so—that young studs the likes of which Calipari feasts on like an all-you-can-eat buffet are spoiled and incapable of team play. His platoon has proved that players of such ability can actually excel, thus proving team basketball isn’t as dead as some people might imagine.
"What you're finding out is that this doesn't hurt any players, it's helping players," Calipari said via the Associated Press. "What you have is two really good point guards, size on both teams and they're starting to figure everybody out."
Andrew Harrison, one of Kentucky’s star players, said, “You don't get the numbers you want or anything like that, but it makes the team better, keeps you fresh and wears the other team out. As long as we're winning, it's worth it."
And that’s the rub, isn’t it? Will this house of cards tumble at the first whiff of a three-game losing streak?
It’s exciting to watch, and maybe other coaches could employ a similar approach. It might not be with the 5- and 4-star players Calipari conjures, but platoons with 4- and 3-star players could beat a lot of strong teams.
It’s new. It’s fresh. And for now, it’s interesting.
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