Wolf of Ball Street: Blue Bloods and The Barn

Yesterday, the NBA financial market opened (not you Top Shot) with everything ranging from the DeAndre Jordan P&R to the Knicks’ schedule. I also discussed things that did not occur in New York City, but you’ll just have to trust me on that.

Today, our market opens at the college level. A good February Saturday of CBB is a blast, with storylines galore from countless teams. I’ll go through some of those, as we figure out what to buy and what to sell.

VOLATILITY WARNING: If you invested in my fandom mood swings tonight, you’d be in full Sean Miller mode. I was on Cloud Ten (yep, I experienced so much joy I went up a cloud, if that’s how it works) after Duke’s upset (rare to type those words) of Virginia. My investors went full Jim Valvano. 

I upgraded to Cloud 11 after seeing the score of my beloved Warriors, up double digits in the fourth quarter in Charlotte. Then, over the final 10 seconds, they pulled out a spectacular choke, punctuated by Draymond Green’s ejection and Terry Rozier’s game winner at the horn. At that point, those with a financial investment in my emotions plunged to Chris Beard against WVU.

BUY: BLUE BLOODS

Contrary to popular belief, the Champions Classic is made up of champions, some of the best teams around the country in Kansas, Kentucky, Duke, and Michigan State. That’s the insight that keeps people coming back to this column.

Combined, they own 18 NCAA Tournament trophies. In conference play last season, the quartet achieved a total record of 61-15.

As you may have heard if you’re reading this column on Earth (or the Milky Way for that matter), 2020-21 hasn’t been nice to blue bloods. That’s how people will remember the past year: very difficult for a few college basketball teams.

This can be attributed to the lack of practice that COVID-19 allows. Plus, throw in paltry recruiting classes, with one mock projecting one first-rounder from the four schools (a junior pegged to go 26th), and it truly becomes an Armageddon for CBB’s usual dominators. 

As a result, heading into Saturday’s slate, their conference record deteriorated to 27-27, and that doesn’t even account for Kentucky’s 1-7 start in non-conference. 

This was a customary day for many years of the hierarchy of the sport, but the most extreme of anomalies for the success of these schools. 

Michigan State defeated Indiana to open the strange yet normal day. As many well-recruited Tom Izzo teams do, they have more solid contributors than Jason Pierre-Paul has fingers. In fact, the number of strong rotation players may exceed this dude’s quantity of fingers. 

Despite ranking second in the Big Ten in assists, with the ball movement culture that Tom Izzo instills, it doesn’t translate Sparty scoring, weighing in at 11th in PPG in the conference. 

Aaron Henry took over, with 27 points. Perhaps, that’s what the Spartans needed: a reliable first option to carry them to victory. At the end of the day, that’s where the passing will come from. Take Iowa, first in scoring and assists in the B1G, whose offense on every possession, regardless of who touches it, starts and ends with Luka Garza. Unfortunately, Rocket Watts hasn’t been able to blast off this year at PG (been waiting to use that for so long). If Aaron Henry can seamlessly step into that lead guard role, it will give the other 4 able East Lansingers (roll with it) room to work.

Then, Kentucky handed it to Tennessee in the Keion/Keon battle. Have you heard of the name Keon? Probably not. However, you should, because it’s taking over the SEC, between Keon Johnson of Tennessee and Keion Brooks from Kentucky, plus Keon Ellis for the Crimson Tide.

The first time they faced off, Kentucky wielded a double digit second half lead, yet saw an 11 point deficit when the clock hit zero. For the record, both Keion/Keons led their teams in scoring in that matchup. 

This time, the Wildcats turned the tables, marching into Knoxville and humiliating the Volunteers and holding them to 55 points, which sounds like stellar defense, but against a UT team that struggled to crack 60 against an LSU group that allowed multiple 100 point games, it’s just very good. Kentucky, even in a down year, still brings in some of the best recruits in the nation. 

Seeing John Calipari on the opposite sideline would bring fear into the eyes of some of the best coaches in the sport. A finger for their failure can also be pointed at dumb luck, with KenPom giving Kentucky the second worst luck in the SEC. Kentucky still carries no chance of an at-large bid, with one site valuing their at-large hopes at a 0% chance, but remain a threat to win the SEC tournament and take the automatic bid if talented, but streaky, freshmen like Devin Askew and Brandon Boston put it together. 

Root against Boston making the tourney for 2 reasons: 1. Approximately 50% of the CBB sphere calls him BJ, and the other half by his first name, and that confusion on which to say is exhausting. 2. I’m setting the Over/Under line at 9.5 times you hear that he played with Bronny James and Sierra Canyon in HS. If you thought hearing about the Matt Stafford/Clayton Kershaw connection was excruciating, just wait for this…

Then, Kansas defeated Texas Tech. Kansas is a decent team, as you can tell from their #23 spot in the AP Poll. They enjoy Marcus Garrett, one of the best defensive guards in the nation, Ochai Agbaji, a skilled shooter prone to bouts of inconsistency, and I’m falling asleep. That’s the Jayhawks in a nutshell - relatively uninteresting, but a trustworthy team, unlike the other 3. They even lost Silvio De Sousa, the dude who swung the chair last year! Unfortunately, given their lack of outstanding talent, it isn’t easy for me to visualize Bill Self making a deep tournament run this year, with TourneyCast giving only a 35% chance of making the Sweet Sixteen, and 14% of advancing to the Elite Eight.

In recent weeks, drama was more abundant than wins in Durham. The Blue Devils took losses against unranked ACC teams like Louisville, Pittsburgh, Miami, North Carolina, and Notre Dame. Not to mention, 5-star freshman Jalen Johnson left the program to pursue his NBA Draft hopes. 

Finally, they got a great win on Saturday, defeating Virginia, the #7 team in the country who totally didn’t get blown out by Florida State on Monday, not sure what you’re talking about. 

With more than two and a half minutes to go, DJ Steward hit a jumper to go up a point. Jordan Goldwire slapped the floor, Duke’s emblem for playing lockdown defense, and Virginia never scored another point. 

They are beginning to carve out an identity as an offensive team, with the 13th best adjusted offensive efficiency in the nation, and the third most points a night in the ACC. The success comes via Matthew Hurt, their shooting big man with 56-47 splits, and passing, where they rank 4th in the ACC in assists, and lie 0.6 away from the lead. Like Michigan State, they possess the many weapons, but unlike the Spartans, the Blue Devils have harnessed it. 

This is the perfect time to buy low in the blue bloods. These rosters are littered with talent. Duke, Michigan State, and Kentucky may have slim at-large hopes, but all have an extremely feasible shot in the conference tournament.  

SELL: VIRGINIA

Virginia’s loss at Cameron Indoor vs Duke served as the intervention that I, along with several other college basketball fans needed. Before that game, I let the Cavaliers’ deficiencies slide, ignoring their lack of quality wins.

Virginia is 1-3 against Top 25 teams (at the time of the game), not a horrible margin, but that doesn’t tell the entire story. All three losses came by at least 14 points. The lone win, against Clemson, came by 35 points and saw them post the best one game adjusted offensive efficiency of anyone in college basketball. Sadly, that one now looks like a potpourri of stuff aging worse than Dwight Howard’s location declarations.

Going into Littlejohn Coliseum, Clemson carried the reputation of one of the best defenses in the nation. Virginia’s 85 points opened the floodgates for a lot of scoring by their opponents, losing 3 of the next 4 by at least 18 points while allowing at least 79. 

So, that’s the key issue with Virginia. With losses to teams like Duke and San Francisco, I’m not sure if I can trust them in the first round while filling out my bracket. Also, given their abysmal record against quality opponents, I can’t bet on them defeating Top 25 opponents.

The key may be Kihei Clark, who will now be known as Key-hei Clark because as I mentioned, he’s the key. A 5’9  PG like Clark commands the “glue guy” label from every announcer alive, but this stereotype is true. 

Virginia has 3 lights out shooters at forward in Jay Huff, Sam Hauser, and Trey Murphy all shooting north of 44% from deep. The question is giving those guys, all less adept ball handlers, the open looks they need. Clark’s 4.4 assists per game are very good, but may need to increase if this Virginia team is interested in a deep March Madness run. (Stay tuned for next week’s column, when I’ll write a few hundred words on whether the Hoos do want to go deep in the Big Dance)

BUY: MILITARY SCHOOLS

You may know the college basketball front-runner, who pays attention to Kansas and Kentucky, but not Drake and Loyola-Chicago. Even more despicable is the military school frontrunner, who monitors Army and Navy, yet gives VMI and The Citadel the cold shoulder. Fortunately, I am not one of those fools. 

Yesterday was the ultimate duel of two mid-major military schools, with Virginia Military Institute and The Citadel. VMI is fascinating because they made up their mascot name - a Keydet is just someone who attends their school. The Citadel is neat because they receive these super cool rings. Both are interesting on the basketball court, each posting Top 65 adjusted offensive efficiency. This reputation rang true Saturday, with a total 149 points.

The game was equally as interesting as the teams. It ended 75-74, with The Citadel’s Hayden Brown hitting the go-ahead basket with under a second to go. Now, both teams lie in the middle of the pack in the SoCon. Can one make a Cinderella run to the NCAA Tournament? Time will tell.

There was one disappointing thing about this game. At the end of the game, only one player had a buzz cut, some of the worst news in days. This is not acceptable. Our military academies were created for the sole goal of keeping the hairdo alive. Good game to, and only to, The Citadel’s #13.

SELL: THE BARN

The Barn has been the dominant college basketball venue all year. With the home success of Penn State, I tried to make Bryce Jordan Center rival the building officially known as Williams Arena. That plan happened to run out of steam just as the Nittany Lions lost to lowly Nebraska, with the Cornhuskers picking up what will likely go down as their only win of Big Ten play. 

All year, The Barn has been a safe haven for Golden Gophers against the Spartans, Lions, Boilermakers, and even Billikens. When Michigan and Ohio State faced off in a hyped game Sunday, Richard Pitino and his team were all but chuckling at the media’s excitement over the #3 and #4 squads in the nation, with Minnesota defeating both in Minneapolis.

This came with one exception heading into the week: a fairly mediocre Maryland team was struggling to succeed on offense, ranking 10th in the Big Ten (that’s not last, despite how it sounds) in adjusted offensive efficiency and failing to find a single 15 PPG scorer. Those scoring struggles did not appear to exist against Minnesota, with the Terps scoring 72 to win by double digits.

Compared to Saturday’s demolition, that game against Mark Turgeon’s guys appeared to be a nail-biter. Illinois marched into The Barn and burned all evidence of its magic. Ayo Dosunmu had a triple-double and Illinois, with their spectacular scoring ability, totaled 94 points to 63 for the Golden Gophers.

The one constant in both Barn losses? Jamal Mashburn led the team in scoring. That’s problematic, because A. Jamal Mashburn isn’t very good in comparison to do it all stretch 5 Liam Robbins, who can shoot on one end and swat on the other, or Marcus Carr, the clutch scoring point guard who drained a clutch bucket to sink Purdue at you-know-what-building. B. More importantly, his name is Mashburn. It is not a smooth sounding name to pronounce. It is the verbal equivalent of having a tortilla chip stuck in your throat. That’s why the key to victory, the next time a hotshot team comes into Williams Arena, is less Mashburn. 

Rest In Peace, The Barn