College basketball week 8: 5 biggest takeaways

Here’s your weekly dive into what we took away from the last seven days of college hoops.

The heart of the college basketball season got underway this week as conferences across the country kicked off the league play that will make up the bulk of the next several months. On Friday, the Big 12 showcased its top three teams as Baylor, Kansas and West Virginia all won on the road against conference foes.

On Saturday, the Big East and the ACC took center stage with both Duke and North Carolina suffering road defeats and Creighton and Villanova delivering a statement game for that conference. Sunday rounded off the weekend with a plethora of Big Ten matchups, including Minnesota’s road upset of Purdue late in the evening.

With all of that action, there were plenty of opportunities to learn about those teams best positioned to make the NCAA Tournament or better in March. Here’s a look at our biggest takeaways.

1. What’s the matter with the Duke Blue Devils?

The Duke Blue Devils opened ACC play by getting blown out by the Virginia Tech Hokies as junior Grayson Allen served the first game of his indefinite suspension on Saturday afternoon. After the game, head coach Mike Krzyzewski and multiple players lamented a lack of “continuity” among the Blue Devils. Others noticed as well.

This is the second straight game where Duke’s inability to play together offensively has been raised as a concern. In the midst of all of the Allen chatter after the junior tripped another player against the Elon Phoenix, there was a second Duke player making lesser headlines. After the Blue Devils’ assisted on just seven of their 23 made field goal attempts against Elon, leading scorer Luke Kennard had this to say:

Over the last two games, the Blue Devils have assisted on just 29.4 percent of their field goal makes. That mark is down from an already low season long 46.4 percent assist rate (303rd nationally) and would rank dead last in the country by a wide margin were it to continue over a full season.

The impressive ball movement that characterized Duke’s offense early in the season seems to have given way to an increasing number of isolation plays that newcomers like Jayson Tatum feel comfortable with. For the Blue Devils to be at their best — to be the national title favorite that they were in the preseason — they’ll need to rediscover that old brand of basketball that can force teams into tough defensive rotations as they attempt to cover the plethora of weapons Duke can put on the floor.

2. Villanova has a real chance to repeat as national champions

College basketball hasn’t seen a repeat national champion since the Florida Gators pulled off the feat in 2006 and 2007. Before that, you’d have to go back to Duke in 1991 and 1992. And before that, you’d need to reach back into the 1970s and UCLA. This season, though, the sport could see the rarity pulled off once again as the Villanova Wildcats look poised as title contenders.

The Wildcats entered Saturday’s road clash with the Creighton Bluejays undefeated with wins over the Purdue Boilermakers and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish already under their belt. It already wasn’t difficult to imagine them hoisting the trophy again in March. With a victory over Creighton, though, Villanova solidified its title contender status as it answered one of the biggest question marks remaining on its resume. Entering the season, how sophomore point guard Jalen Brunson would replace departing senior Ryan Arcidiacono was a valid concern.

Brunson answered the call against the Bluejays by scoring 27 points and dishing out five assists in the 80-70 win. The 6-foot-2 guard doesn’t have the accolades of Arcidiacono and he’s playing alongside the consensus favorite to win National Player of the Year, Josh Hart, but he is capable of doing the things that are necessary to carry a team in March when others are struggling. His performance against Creighton made sure that nobody can question that.

Statistics via Sports-Reference.

3. Indiana is stumbling and doesn’t have an easy fix

After losing a home matchup to the Nebraska Cornhuskers and a neutral site contest to the Louisville Cardinals, the Indiana Hoosiers are on a two game losing streak heading into the heart of Big Ten play. The Hoosiers have been as bipolar as any team in America this season. They own big time wins over Kansas and North Carolina, but have already lost four games and look like they might be closer to the second tier of the Big Ten than the top of the league with teams like Wisconsin and Purdue.

The concerns for Indiana are two-fold. First, the Hoosiers are a questionable defensive operation despite having the versatile OG Anunoby. In three of their four losses (IPFW excluded), they have given up 1.17 points per possession or worse. Indiana doesn’t create turnovers (16.3 percent turnover rate, 311th nationally) and is therefore reliant on opponents to miss shots. When they don’t, the Hoosiers lose.

Second, Indiana is heavily reliant on being able to knockdown outside shots. The Hoosiers have attempted 40.3 percent of their total field goal attempts from behind the arc this season and although they’re generally a good shooting team they’ve struggled from deep in their losses. Indiana is shooting just 30.8 percent on 3-pointers across those four games.

Poor defense can be improved upon. Head coach Tom Crean got the Hoosiers playing better defense by the NCAA Tournament last season, but poor shooting nights are dangerous in the single-elimination environment of March if you’re heavily reliant on them to score.

4. Nebraska is building a decent NCAA Tournament resume

It’s not often that teams sitting at 8-6 after 14 games have a legitimate shot of making the NCAA Tournament, but so it is with the Nebraska Cornhuskers provided that things break their way. Nebraska had as good a week as anyone in the country outside of the Oregon Ducks last week, picking up a pair of road wins over Indiana and Maryland. Add in a neutral site win over Dayton and the Cornhuskers already have a trio of quality wins with the bulk of Big Ten play still to come.

The problem, of course, is in the loss column. Six losses is an awful lot at this stage, but five of them — Clemson, Creighton, Kansas, UCLA and Virginia Tech — won’t cause the Selection Committee to bat an eye. It’s the 70-62 home loss to Gardner Webb, though, that will stick out come March.

That bad loss means there’s more pressure on the Cornhuskers to pick up additional quality wins during conference play. With the likes of Indiana, Purdue and Wisconsin in the league, though, there should be plenty of opportunities.

KenPom currently projects Nebraska to finish with 8-10 in the conference and 14-16 overall, which certainly wouldn’t be enough to make the Big Dance, but if a few of those projected losses flip to the win column and the team can win a couple games in the Big Ten tournament, then the Cornhuskers could find themselves on the right side of the bubble on Selection Sunday.

5. Oregon is the Final Four contender we thought it was

The last we heard from the Oregon Ducks, Dillon Brooks was busy nailing 3-pointers to end the UCLA Bruins’ unbeaten start to the season. Well, on Friday, the Ducks added another scalp to the pile, demolishing the USC Trojans and their undefeated record, 84-61, at Matthew Knight Arena.

The best news for Oregon is that Brooks finally looks to be rounding into form after recovering from his foot injury earlier in the year. Over the two contests and 59 minutes of playing time, the 6-foot-7 forward scored 51 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and dished out seven assists while shooting 6-for-12 from behind the arc.

The Ducks biggest offensive shortcoming has been their inability to shoot it from deep, but against UCLA and USC, they converted 38.0 percent of their 50 3-point attempts. If that figure keeps up — or anything close to it — then Oregon will be a much more formidable opponent as the season goes on.

Next: What we learned from Villanova's win over Creighton

This is a team that entered the season ranked in the top five nationally, but fell sharply in the polls after a pair of early losses. As the Ducks have slowly figured out their new identity without Dwayne Benjamin and Elgin Cook, they have come to look like the Final Four contenders that everybody thought they could be.