Men’s college basketball top 25 rankings: Auburn’s clutch offense and other first impressions

Welcome back, college basketball.

With many players exercising additional years of eligibility granted by the NCAA’s COVID-19 waiver in recent years, it’s been harder than ever for freshmen to make an impact. No longer. A week later, this course is already shaping up to be one of the best courses for freshmen in a long time. And it’s not just guys we expected to be as great as Duke’s Cooper Flagg. Some unheralded freshmen have emerged, and two international freshmen – BYU’s Egor Demin and Illinois’ Kasparas Jakucionis – could be among the best guards in the country.

A reminder that below my weekly top 25, I dive deeper into some of the teams in the rankings, but not all of them. Please read this before asking in the comments why I didn’t write about your team. Anyway, everyone please behave on air and let’s get down to business.

After a battle on the team plane en route to Houston, the Tigers rallied and pulled off the most impressive win of Week 1, defeating Houston 74-69 in a half-way game played at the Rockets’ home arena.

Auburn sealed the win late by scoring on four consecutive possessions against a stout Houston defense. The probability of doing this against a team coached by Kelvin Sampson is comparable to winning the lottery. One area that makes it so difficult for Houston to score is its pick-and-roll coverage. The Cougars are aggressive with their center, getting him to the height of the screen – Sampson calls this the “line of scrimmage” – which forces defenders on either side (the top side of the screen) to go against the Scooter to help. Auburn has surpassed that coverage four times in a row with some slick moves and exhilarating plays from freshman point guard Tahaad Pettiford.

On the first play, Auburn screened the two defenders, distracting them from the ball until it was too late, and allowed Johni Broome to roll to the basket with ease.

The next set was a similar move, except this time Pettiford switched sides of the ground and fielded the back screen, then stepped off another screen and received a pitch from Broome. This time, Jojo Tugler didn’t make it to the line of scrimmage for fear of Broome’s throw. Pettiford immediately realized he had space and sank his fifth three-pointer of the game.

The next read was the kind of exhilarating play you’d expect from a veteran, not a rookie. This time when Pettiford blocked the dribble handoff, Tugler fought back and Milos Uzan marked the ball, but Pettiford saw the mismatch and threw the ball to Broome.

On the final drive of the sequence, Auburn reverted to the same actions as the first play, and Houston guarded them pretty well. Tugler reached the line of scrimmage, Uzan stayed with Broome for a bit, but this time Pettiford turned and passed to Chad Baker-Mazara. That drew Uzan out and Tugler ran back, but not in time.

The timing of these actions was impeccable. In a matchup between two of the best (and most powerful) defensive teams in the country, it was difficult to get open looks throughout the game, but Auburn’s performance down the stretch won out. The Tigers faced some early season skepticism, brought in new guards and suffered a first-round loss to Yale in the NCAA Tournament, but Bruce Pearl’s group was the most dominant team in the country through the first week of the season. knocking off a Vermont team that had just beaten AAC favorite UAB and then winning that half-way game. And the guards’ play, especially Pettiford, looks promising.

The Jayhawks look much better on offense thanks to the additions Bill Self made in the portal, but defensively they still have a lot of work to do, so they built a 20-point lead against North Carolina on Friday and then gave it all back.

But Self has the luxury of a sixth-year point guard in Dajuan Harris Jr., who helped KU’s offense get good shots down the stretch and then won the game with a smart defensive play on the Tar Heels’ final possession, switching to RJ Davis and then protecting the All-American’s face as UNC tried to set up a flare to open it up.

Another promising sign for Kansas: Hunter Dickinson joins Elliot Cadeau for the final shot. Dickinson struggled to defend the pick-and-roll in the second half and he’s still working to get back into shape after an ankle injury, but the fact that Kansas now has more depth meant he didn’t Had to play longer than 35 minutes and allowed him to finish strong. He will learn about this final sequence from Self.

“Hunt actually blew it on the last possession because he showed us he can really go out there and defend,” Self said. “So we should probably expect it to continue in the future.”

The Vols’ concerns were whether they could replace the scoring of Dalton Knecht and the defense of center Jonas Aidoo, who transferred to Arkansas. One could argue that Ohio State transfer Felix Okpara looks like an improvement over Aidoo so far, and while no one can expect North Florida transfer Chaz Lanier to emulate Knecht, he’s off to a great start, averaging through two games Scored 18.5 points.

Lanier’s performance was impressive, but I was a little skeptical about his rise before last season because of his numbers. He averaged 1.7 points, 4.5 points and 4.7 points in his first three years in North Florida. Then last year he averaged 19.7 points per game. The weight room and good old-fashioned development helped Lanier get here. He weighed 175 pounds his first two years of college, and now he looks like a grown man at 207 pounds. He’s shooting great — 7 of 12 from 3 after shooting 44 percent last year — and he’s scoring at all three levels.

Tennessee beat Louisville 77-55 on the road on Saturday. The Vols have finished in the top 10 in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margin three years in a row. I bet they make it for the fourth time this year, with Lanier and Okpara being a big reason why.

No. 13 Marquette

Launch the National Player of the Year campaign for Kam Jones. In two games, he averaged 28 points, made 16 of his 18 2-point shots, went 7 of 12 from 3 and had 11 assists with just one turnover. The rest of the Golden Eagles are 13 of 54 from three games in the first two games. The others will need to improve their performance for Marquette to be a top-25 team this season, and one who will play a key role in that is center Ben Gold. Aside from actually taking shots, Gold looks good so far, and he has good chemistry in the two-man game with Jones, who is a wizard with the ball, just like Tyler Kolek, the man who has been in the last few Marquette has dominated the ball for years.

Check out this dime as you rappel down the sidelines:

This is one of the shots that Gold has made, and considering he shot a solid 35.9 percent from 3 last season, you would expect him to start shooting better because he’s going to be in the Getting a great look against Jones.

After being blown out by Gonzaga on opening night, Baylor bounced back with a 72-67 win over Arkansas on Saturday in Dallas. Baylor tried to play a shifting man-to-man defense against Gonzaga, and coach Scott Drew completely abandoned that against Arkansas, opting for a zone that kept the ball out of the middle of the court and often caused Arkansas to rush with rim shots without having to settle for a lot of ball movement. Drew mostly left his zone a few years ago when Davion Mitchell told him the Bears wanted to play man-to-man, and Baylor ended up winning a national championship with a no-middle defense. But after two straight years of sub-70 rankings in adjusted defensive efficiency, it might be time to change the approach. I’m not sure the Bears can rely solely on the zone, but with the length and speed of guys like VJ Edgecombe and Jayden Nunn on the wing, it could be an effective curveball. Arkansas certainly wasn’t ready for this.

Keep an eye on: Ohio State, BYU, Xavier, Mississippi State, Oregon, VCU, Texas A&M, North Florida.

(Photo: Alex Slitz/Getty Images)