With Christmas just 10 days away, the college basketball season is preparing to gear up for its next phase: a full dive into conference play. This weekend offers the last real chance for most statements to be made outside of league play, and while some teams have seized the opportunity to boost their resumes (such as Seton Hall and Nebraska), others haven't added a top win to their resume, with NC State proving to be a prime example.
The Wolfpack acted boldly to hire Will Wade from McNeese despite watching Kevin Keatts take them to the Final Four a year earlier with the expectation that Wade could take the program to the next level. The early returns have not been good for NC State, which wasn't in the mix to get ranked this week in the AP Top 25 poll, and their failure to seize a signature victory outside the ACC makes the road ahead for them more complicated.
While the Wolfpack are unquestionably trending down in the college basketball stock watch, we'll kick off this week's edition discussing a program that did take advantage of their non-conference opportunities: the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
College Basketball Stock Watch: Risers
Nebraska
Fred Hoiberg has experience going deep into March from his time at Iowa State but he has yet to help the Cornhuskers break their inglorious distinction of being the only power conference program yet to win an NCAA Tournament game. That streak has a great shot to end this year with the Cornhuskers off to a perfect 11-0 start highlighted by a buzzer-beating victory against a ranked Illinois side over the weekend.
The momentum Nebraska built from winning The Crown last April has carried over to this season, with Nebraska's 15-game winning streak the longest active one in the nation. A strong front line buoyed by Rienk Mast and Pryce Sandfort, who combine to average 35 points and 11.5 rebounds per game, has made the Cornhuskers a force as they've stacked up six good wins (Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Creighton and New Mexico) to ensure they have a good chance to enter 2026 undefeated before the meat of Big Ten play begins.
Saturday's Schedule
An underrated holiday on the college basketball calendar is the Saturday before Christmas, which is the last major slate of non-conference showdowns prior to the holidays. Programs expecting to contend for March Madness usually put one final test on that day to set themselves up for success prior to a lighter holiday schedule, and this weekend is loaded with great games throughout the day on Dec. 20.
The CBS Sports Classic is stacked as St. John's takes on Kentucky, meaning a rematch for Rick Pitino against the Wildcats for the first time since he was coaching at Louisville, while Ohio State and North Carolina square off in the other matchup. Houston-Arkansas, Auburn-Purdue, Duke-Texas Tech and San Diego State-Arizona are also on the card as diehard college hoops fans can postpone their holiday shopping for a day of noon-to-midnight basketball goodness.
Arizona
There may not be a more impressive resume in the country right now than the one held by Arizona, which earned another ranked victory by topping Alabama in the C.M. Newton Classic on Saturday in Birmingham. The triumph was the fifth ranked win of the season for the Wildcats, who went to another gear in the second half that a very good Crimson Tide team couldn't match, which bodes well for their chances to stand out in a very competitive Big 12.
The conference has four teams inside the Top 10 right now with Houston, undefeated Iowa State and BYU joining the Wildcats up top while Kansas is a dangerous wild card if Darryn Peterson can stay on the floor. The strong non-conference work Arizona has done will have them quite battle tested ahead of league play while their stack of ranked wins over Florida, UCONN, UCLA, Auburn and Alabama should have them firmly in play for a 1-seed if they take care of their business inside the conference.
A.J. Dybantsa
Early success from the likes of Cameron Boozer and Koa Peat has taken a bit of the spotlight off Dybantsa, the presumed top pick in the NBA Draft entering the season, and that has worked just fine for him. Having a bit less attention has allowed Dybantsa to work in silence to improve his game and he put on a show at the Jimmy V Classic in New York, putting up a line of 28 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists on 9-of-17 shooitng to help the Cougars come back to win 67-64 over a solid Clemson team.
Dybantsa is averaging nearly 21 points per game for the Cougars, who have seen him learn to impact the game in more ways besides just scoring over the course of non-conference play. A quality Big 12 schedule will also be a positive for Dybantsa's development as he looks to earn the moniker of top prospect in this stacked class.
College Basketball Stock Watch: Fallers
NC State
The Wolfpack's loss against Kansas on Saturday was already the fourth of the season for NC State against power conference competition, which is not a good start to the program's NCAA Tournament resume. Defense has been an issue in these games as NC State has allowed 85, 102, 83 and 77 points in those defeats, with the Kansas game being a big alarming as they allowed Melvin Council, who had shot below 30 percent from the perimeter over the past two years, to hit nine threes in the game.
Wade has a game with Ole Miss on the schedule but its ability to positively impact the Wolfpack's resume has diminished with the Rebels off to a shaky start. The good news for NC State is that the ACC has improved, offering plenty of Quad 1 and Quad 2 opportunities inside league play, but the Wolfpack are behind the eight ball in getting themselves on the NCAA Tournament radar.
The Rest Of The Week's Schedule
While Saturday's slate is packed as we mentioned above, the rest of the week is very light on quality games. Tuesday night's showdown between Louisville and Tennessee is the only matchup between two ranked teams this week outside of Saturday, which makes sense as programs don't want to prepare for complicated games in the midst of final exams for the fall semester.
There is also an intriguing non-conference showdown between Oregon and Gonzaga on Sunday along with the start of Big East play but there aren't a ton of compelling matchups there either. Budget your time wisely for Saturday's showcase spotlights and use the rest of your week to catch up on holiday shopping or activities.
Darryn Peterson
No one will question how impactful a talent Peterson is when he is on the floor, but the ability of him to stay healthy is becoming an issue. Peterson aggravated his hamstring injury late in Saturday's win over NC State, checking out of the game with 2:30 to go for good as the Jayhawks found a way to win without him.
Hamstring injuries are very tricky and can linger if they don't heal correctly, so expect Kansas to treat Peterson with kid gloves. It would be logical to hold him out for their remaining non-conference games against Towson and Davidson, giving him a few weeks of rest before the start of Big 12 play against UCF on Jan. 3.
Florida
The reigning national champs came up just shy of scoring a big non-conference win again at Madison Square Garden, losing 77-73 to UConn at the Jimmy V Classic last week to drop to 0-3 against ranked opponents. All three of those teams (Arizona and Duke in addition to the Huskies) reside inside the Top 5 and count as Quad 1 results for the Gators' resume, but losing those games by a combined 11 points could be the difference of a seed line or two for Florida in March.
A loss to TCU also may not age well for the Gators, whose best win so far has come against a Miami team that has 9 wins but was projected to finish 8th in the ACC's pre-season poll. A stretch of three straight buy games to end the non-conference season gives Todd Golden time to clean things up, but the Gators are another team that squandered their chance to pick up a signature win in the early portion of the campaign.