College basketball early trends: Buy or sell – Does anyone want to be No. 1?

A little over a month into the college basketball season we’ve seen some trends develop and now it’s time to determine if these will list all season or not.

The best Virginia defense

The old saying in sports is defense wins championships. In college basketball, it was proven true last year as the national title game featured two of the best defensive teams in the country (Virginia and Texas Tech). Tony Bennett’s team emerged victoriously and the pack line was crowned champion.

With the departures of De’Andre Hunter, Kyle Guy, and Ty Jerome, the Cavaliers took a massive step back offensively. However, through seven games, this crop of Wahoos is on pace to become one of the best defensive teams in NCAA history.

So far, only one team — the Vermont Catamounts — scores more than 50 points against Virginia. That includes holding three teams below 35 points, Syracuse (34), James Madison (34), and Maine (26).

Bennett has utilized the pack line defense for a long time and yet this current team has been the most effective at running it in the early season. 282 points allowed is the lowest total of any Bennett-coaches team through seven games, and their 0.668 points per possession allowed in that same time frame would make them the stingiest defense since KenPom debuted in 2002.

The sport of basketball is currently in the midst of an offensive revolution. Teams are playing faster and shooting from deeper. However, in Charlottesville, the focus remains on defense. Right now, this team looks able to stop any team that steps on the court against them.

VERDICT: Buy

Arkansas slowing down

It’s customary in nearly every introductory press conference for the new head coach to utter these five words, “we’re going to play fast.” Sometimes it’s true, sometimes it’s not, but without failure, nearly every new hire will say some variation of that sentence. It’s easy to see why uptempo basketball is fun. Fun brings in fans. Fans give money. Everyone is happy.

Eric Musselman left Nevada to take over as Arkansas’ head coach this year. In Las Vegas, and at his other previous stops, Mussleman’s team has always looked to push the pace on offense. During his four years with the Wolfpack, they played at an above-average tempo every season.

The quote from Mussleman’s press conference reads, “hopefully our style of play — we call it pace and space — is going to be pleasing to fans.” Currently, the Razorbacks are undefeated but they are not getting up and down the court as quickly as expected. They rank 220th (out of 353 Division 1 teams) in pace.

This is even more confusing when looking over the roster, with Isaiah Joe (career 39.8 percent 3-point shooter) and Mason Jones (career 36 percent 3-point shooter) back again it would seem that the “pace and space” style would suit them perfectly. Getting Joe and Jones in transition and letting them stretch the floor with their perimeter shooting should’ve been the easiest installation in the country.

Arkansas isn’t a stranger to playing fast. When Norm Richardson unleashed “40 Minutes of Hell” on the nation, his team was consistently operating at breakneck speed. Part of that was the persistent full-court press defense they used. Musselman isn’t likely to bring that back but he should be able to get the team higher in the pace rankings by season’s end.

Verdict: Sell

No. 1 keeps losing

We are already five weeks into the season and in that time we’ve already seen four different teams be ranked number one overall. It started with the Michigan State Spartans who were the preseason number one. Next up was Kentucky, then followed by Duke and now Louisville sits atop the AP Poll.

In this decade, the highest number for different teams ranked number one in an AP Poll is six (2016-17 and 2017-18). There are still 15 weeks left of polls, and we’re only two shy of tying the record.

Part of the reason for the consistent change is that for the first time in a few years, there is no one dominant team in the sport. As Feast Week tournaments showed, this year any team can beat another — especially when the game is played on a neutral court.

Could this year possibly see the total amount of teams ranked as the best in the nation cross into double digits? There are 20 weeks in the college basketball regular season, that would mean a new team would have to become number one every other week. Currently, we are above that pace, the Spartans and Wildcats only held on to the top ranking for a week. The Blue Devils lost it after two and unless the Cardinals are upset by Pittsburgh they’re likely to remain on top of the AP Poll for a second week too.

Maryland (No. 3), Virginia (No. 5), Ohio State (No. 6), Arizona (No. 12), and Auburn (No. 14) are still undefeated and could potentially rise to the number one spot if they continue to win. That doesn’t even account for Kansas (No. 2) and North Carolina (No. 7) either. College basketball is wide open this season and with an upset seemingly assured weekly this year, there will be a lot of movement in the rankings.

Verdict: Buy

Anti-flopping rule helping

One of the biggest criticisms of modern basketball, at all levels, is the amount of flopping done by defenders. The NBA instituted the ability to hand out fines to players who committed egregious flops and the result has been mixed at best. The NCAA decided to take matters into their own — or should I say the referees — hands and create a new anti-flopping rule.

The rule defines flopping as, “faking a play, likely on a block, charge, 3-point shot or any other tactic to fool the official.” The first time a player flops they are issued a warning (the referee with place both hands in front of himself and make a ”get up” gesture) and any more flops committed by that team will result in a Class B technical and the opposing team will receive one free throw and the ball.

On paper, it might look harmless enough but there’s a reason flopping became so prevalent, to begin with, it’s really hard to officiate. The definition provided by the NCAA remains too vague and leaves coaches and players alike with questions over what exactly is a flop.

We’ve already seen the new rule has an impact on the outcome of a game. Missouri State went to the then-No. 18 Xavier and gave them fits all night. With less than a minute left, Missouri State was whistled for their third flop violation of the night. The game was tied at 56 and the referees deemed Keandre Cook exaggerated being hit on a 3-point attempt. The Musketeers were awarded a free throw and possession and held on to win. The problem though, was that Cook actually was contacted by a Xavier defender on his shot.

Though their intent was in the right place, as is, this rule is not the fix it was supposed to be. Imagine the uproar if an NCAA Tournament game was decided in a similar fashion. There would be much more uproar over that than there ever was about flopping.

Verdict: Sell

A season of vacated wins

The Memphis Tigers fought back against the NCAA initially when they reversed course on their decision to clear freshman superstar, James Wiseman. Deemed ineligible due to an $11,500 loan given to his parents by Penny Hardaway in 2017 — who in the eyes of the NCAA was a booster for the university at the time — the Tigers opted to play Wiseman for two games after a court-ordered junction allowed him to still suit up.

In the end, the lawsuit by Wiseman was dropped and the NCAA ended up suspending him for 12 games, meaning he will not be back on the floor for Memphis until the middle of January. So far the Tigers have been able to keep things afloat without the nation’s consensus number one overall recruit but their opponents haven’t exactly been the best of the best.

It may feel like this whole thing is settled when in fact it may just be beginning. Sure, Wiseman will be cleared after his suspension ends but would the NCAA come down on Memphis for daring to play him when his eligibility status was uncertain? We’ve seen them come down harsher for much less in the past.

We also have the whole Adidas and AAU situation that was never directly handled. The Kansas Jayhawks look to be the biggest program that could potentially be impacted. But, like Memphis, the Jayhawks have seemingly turned their noses up at the NCAA. I mean, Bill Self hasn’t batted an eyelid. They even went as far as to have strippers perform during their midnight madness practice this year.

The NCAA gave Kansas a notice of allegations in September, it is possible that their punishment could potentially include a postseason ban of some sort when it is announced, which means there’s a chance that anything the Jayhawks wins this season will be vacated in the future.

However, Kansas wasn’t the only team caught up in the alleged “pay-for-play” scandal. Arizona, Oklahoma State, and USC all had assistant coaches that were charged and put on trial as a result. It is very unlikely that the NCAA doesn’t impose some type of violations on those programs as well. Could the 2019-20 season ultimately be remembered as the year of vacated wins?

Verdict: Buy

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