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This weekend, we have 5 ranked-on-ranked matchups across college basketball. On Saturday, a top-10 showdown between Florida and Tennessee opens the day while a battle between North Carolina and Duke closes out the evening. Kansas and Michigan State are both going on the road against unranked teams. And John Calipari returns to Lexington for the first time since taking the Arkansas job.
Below, you’ll find a rundown of some of the more interesting notes (at least to me) across college basketball through the first 13 weeks of the season.
Tahaad Pettiford is the most impactful sixth man in basketball
According to Evan Miyakawa’s player ratings, Auburn freshman guard Tahaad Pettiford is the best sixth man in college basketball this season. Among players who see no more than 25 minutes a night, Pettiford’s BPR is No. 1.
The first-year man from Jersey City is averaging 11.7 points, 2.6 assists, and 1.2 steals a game for Auburn with an effective field goal percentage of 54.9%. When Johni Broome went down with an injury against South Carolina, Pettiford stepped his game up, supplying 24 points in a 2-point road win at Georgia. He made 5 of his 7 triples that day — the fourth time this season Pettiford has made at least 4 treys in a game.
He’s been outstanding as a first-year man. In addition to the 3-point shooting, Pettiford also has 6 games in his first 20 appearances with multiple steals. And he has more than 2 turnovers only 3 times this year.
Auburn certainly doesn’t survive the non-Broome games without Pettiford’s theatrics, but he hasn’t just been a microwave player for the Tigers in a pinch; he’s been a gamer in the brightest spots.
Auburn has played 8 ranked (at the time of the game) opponents this season. In those 8 games, Pettiford has averaged 15.9 points, 2.6 assists, and 1.5 steals while shooting 50% from the field, 47% from the 3-point line, and 76% from the foul line.
According to Miyakawa’s player ratings, Auburn has 3 of the 11 most effective players in college basketball — Broome, Dylan Cardwell, and Chad Baker-Mazara. But we know guard play determines just how far you can get when March rolls around and the season comes down to one day at a time. With Pettiford performing at this level already, Auburn looks to me like the most dangerous team in basketball.
Bet worth considering: Auburn still has plus value at DraftKings to reach the Final Four. You can get the Tigers +100 to make the Final Four and +500 to win the NCAA Tournament. It will be highly dependent on how the bracket shakes out, but it would be a significant upset if Auburn doesn’t advance to the national semifinals.
Auburn loses to Tennessee without Johni Broome
There’s no shame in knowing you beat a team because the best player in the country did things the best player in the country should do.
Johni Broome, in his first game back from a 2-game absence with an ankle injury, was limping around the court in the first half against Tennessee last Saturday and morphed into Iron Man late in the second half. In the final 3 minutes of a game that would be decided by 2 points, Broome had a block, an offensive rebound that led to free throw attempts, an assist on a go-ahead 3-pointer, and a defensive rebound that iced the game. Auburn’s National POTY candidate finished with 16 points, 14 rebounds, and 4 blocks in 33 minutes off the bench. Auburn’s 5 starters in the game provided 29 total points on 30 shot attempts.
Auburn doesn’t win without Broome. But rather than focus on what that says about the Tigers, or what happened in the final few seconds with the UT offense, my biggest takeaway from the game was Tennessee’s ability to go into Neville Arena and play the game Tennessee wanted to play.
Per KenPom, Auburn is top-150 nationally in average offensive possession length. Out of 364 Division I teams, Tennessee plays at a pace that ranks 335th. Auburn wanted to make Tennessee uncomfortable with an offensive game. The Tigers took a 3 less than 10 seconds after securing the opening tip. Tennessee knew it could give itself a chance late by turning the game into a slugfest.
This was the best defense in basketball prior to Tuesday’s loss to Kentucky, according to KenPom’s adjusted efficiency ratings. (The Vols rank second now, behind Houston.) That defense showed up in Neville Arena and made Auburn uncomfortable.
Tennessee is held back by the offense… still
Even despite the defense, it’s hard to get behind Tennessee as a title favorite. What has changed with this group from recent years? Without Lamont Butler, and with only 1 minute of action from Andrew Carr, Kentucky went on the road and put 78 points on Tennessee. The Wildcats’ point total at most books prior to the game was 67.5. Tennessee was holding its previous 3 league opponents to fewer than 55 points a game inside Food City Center. Few expected Big Blue to approach 80 against the Vols. But the Wildcats shot 50% from the field, made 12 triples, and outscored Tennessee by 8 over the game’s final 20 minutes.
And yet a large portion of the blame for Tennessee’s fourth loss in 8 league games belongs to the UT offense. Tennessee was 7-for-16 on layups. Per ESPN’s Jeff Borzello, the Vols went 13-for-41 on all uncontested shots and 8-for-33 on uncontested 3-pointers.
On the season, the Vols rank 118th in effective field goal percentage and 182nd in 3-point percentage. They have a top-35 offense, per KenPom, in large part due to a top-10 offensive rebounding rate. Does Tennessee have the shooting to win big games deep into the season?
Tennessee is 15-for-67 from 3-point range over its last 2 games — both losses. The go-to, gotta-have-it play Tennessee drew up in the closing seconds of the Auburn loss was a corner 3 for a 5-foot-9 Zakai Zaigler who is shooting 28% from deep on the season. After Chaz Lanier’s triple with 30 seconds drew Tennessee within a point of Kentucky on Tuesday, Jordan Gainey (31% shooter over his 2 seasons at Kentucky) and Zeigler fired off the final shots of the night for the Vols — both triples, both misses.
Tennessee has had a top-5 defense in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency metrics in each of the last 5 seasons. None of those defenses have been paired with a top-25 offense.
Mark Pope can beat anyone, any night
In his first 20 games in charge, Kentucky’s first-year head coach has the following wins: Duke on a neutral floor, Gonzaga on a neutral floor, Louisville, Florida, Mississippi State on the road, and Tennessee on the road.
All 6 of those teams that were just mentioned currently sit in the top 25 of KenPom’s adjusted net rating. Four of them are in the top 10. So far, Kentucky is 7-1 against KenPom top-25 teams.
John Calipari had 7 total wins over KenPom top-10 teams over his last 3 seasons in Lexington. The Wildcats went 9-14 against KenPom top-25 teams over that same span.
Arizona is 8-1 in Big 12 play
Long believed to be the best conference in college basketball before the SEC sprinted out ahead this season, the Big 12 was supposed to be a step up in class for Tommy Lloyd and his Arizona Wildcats. Following Monday’s 86-75 overtime win over No. 3 Iowa State, the Wildcats have 8 wins in 9 tries against Big 12 competition. They’ve beaten ranked Cincinnati and West Virginia teams on the road, they’ve beaten Baylor at home by double-digits, and their only conference loss is a road defeat to Texas Tech.
Caleb Love and Tennessee transfer Tobe Awaka have led the way. Awaka leads the nation in offensive rebounding rate. He had at least 4 offensive boards in 5 of his first 7 games, and he has done it in 3 of his last 4. Awaka had a 17-point, 12-rebound double-double in the win over ISU.
Love was the star of the show, though. He hit a halfcourt heave at the buzzer to tie the game and force overtime, then scored 8 of his game-high 22 points in the extra period to power Arizona to the win.
The former Carolina man is Arizona’s leading scorer, its leading shot-taker (by a wide margin), and its leader in usage rate. Love consumes a fourth of Arizona’s possessions this season, and he’s scoring 19.4 points per 40 minutes. He’s having a very Love-like season, shooting under 40% from the field for the fourth time in 5 years and making just 30.6% of his triples on high volume (the highest of his career).
Yet Arizona is winning anyway.
Guards Jaden Bradley and KJ Lewis are combining for 21.6 points, 7.2 assists, and 3.6 steals a game. Both are shooting north of 45% from the field. In spite of Love’s streaky shooting, the Wildcats have the second-best adjusted offensive efficiency in the Big 12 since conference play started. Steals and blocks are fueling part of that. Arizona is 38th nationally in steal rate on defense and Henri Veesaar ranks inside the top 75 players nationally in block rate. Defense to offense. Running has been in Lloyd’s genes since arriving in Tucson and this team has been executing the vision beautifully through the start of conference play.
Kansas has a complicated relationship with closing
The Jayhawks opened their season 7-0. In those first 7 games, they beat North Carolina by 3 points, Michigan State by 8 on a neutral floor, and then Duke by 3 on a neutral floor. The MSU win was a 2-possession game with 45 seconds to play and Kansas made its free throws.
Since that 7-0 start, the Jayhawks lost consecutive games decided by 6 points or less. And in the 9-point loss to Mizzou on Dec. 8, Kansas trailed by just 2 points with 2:20 to play before giving up a 7-0 run.
They lost a 1-point game at home to West Virginia on Dec. 31, then things came to a head last Saturday when Houston won 92-86 in double-overtime inside Allen Fieldhouse. The Cougars trailed by 6 with 1:31 to go in regulation. And they trailed by 6 with 28 seconds to go in the first overtime period.
With 20 seconds to go in the first overtime, Kansas had a 99.6% chance to win the game, per KenPom. The Jayhawks had the ball up 2 scores. Dajuan Harris missed 2 free throws and Kansas gave up a triple with 8 seconds left. Out of a timeout, Houston got a steal off the ensuing inbounds pass and knocked down another triple to tie the game and force the second OT period.
Of course, the argument could be made that Kansas, rather than forgetting how to close games, hadn’t learned to do so at all this year. The Jayhawks had a 15-point lead at the break on North Carolina and were outscored by 12 in the second half. They led Duke by 9 points midway through the second half and went more than 4 minutes without a made shot from the field to let Duke back into the game.
Then, on Tuesday night, the Jayhawks trailed by as many as 9 points early in the second half against Central Florida at home. A 12-2 run midway through the half tightened the screws on the game before Zeke Mayo and KJ Adams Jr. closed things down.
Mayo hit a 3 with 2:56 to play that extended the Kansas lead to 2 scores. In a 2-point game with around a minute to play, Adams secured an offensive board that led to free throws for Hunter Dickinson. Adams got a steal with 4 seconds remaining and knocked down 2 free throws to bump the Kansas lead from 1 point to 3. Mayo then drilled a pair of free throws with 2 seconds left to move the Kansas lead from 2 points to 4 — effectively killing the game.
The pair combined for 36 points, 14 rebounds, and 7 assists. Dickinson added 24 points and 7 boards while making 10 of his 12 free throws. That trio has 13 years of collective experience and more than 11,000 minutes played at the college level. Add in guard Dajuan Harris (130 career starts for Kansas) and the Jayhawks have no excuse to be spotty in late-game spots.
Kansas is the oldest team in basketball in terms of Division I experience. Normally, you’d expect regular-season tests like this to prepare a team for the gauntlet of the postseason. But given the makeup of the Jayhawks, the Houston result was jarring and maybe even a little scarring.
On Nov. 1, Kansas was +1100 to win the national championship (via BetMGM). Today, the Jayhawks are +2200 — the eighth-shortest odds of any team. Houston and Iowa State are considered bigger threats to win the title.
Kansas and the under
Houston and Kansas combined for 132 points in regulation. The total for the game was 128 points. Even had the game ended in regulation, it became just the third time this season an over cashed in a Kansas game. Tuesday night’s thriller against UCF was the fourth over of the year.
The under has hit in 16 of the Jayhawks’ 20 games thus far. Kansas is 1 of only 9 teams in Division 1 whose games have cleared the point total fewer than 5 times all season.
Related: Missouri sports betting launches later this summer, and we’re keeping residents up to date with everything they need to know ahead of that launch with guides on the best Missouri betting promos. We’ve also got a DraftKings Missouri promo code ready for you to take advantage of when the state goes live.
Oregon State and Florida are among the most profitable ATS teams in basketball
The Beavers opened the season with 9 straight ATS victories, then they lost 4 straight against the number, and they’ve since won 6 of 8 against the spread. The Beavs got obliterated by Gonzaga on Tuesday night and will get more than a week’s rest between games before taking on Washington State at home next Thursday.
Florida is 12-3 ATS in its last 15 games. And since Nov. 22, Florida is 7-2 as a double-digit favorite. That includes a 30-point win as an 11.5-point favorite against Georgia last Saturday and a 24-point win as a 10.5-point favorite over Texas the week prior.
Miami is the worst ATS team in basketball
On the other end, Miami has the most ATS losses of any team in the country this season. The Hurricanes are 4-17 in lined games. Prior to last Saturday’s 4-point overtime loss at Cal, Miami had failed to cover the spread in 9 straight games.
Since starting the season 3-0 straight up, Miami is 1-17 SU. It has endured a 7-game losing streak and a 10-game losing streak, with a 19-point over Presbyterian sandwiched between them. The Hurricanes have lost 5 consecutive games SU as a favorite, and they’re 1-11 ATS as a favorite over the course of the season.
In Miami’s 17 ATS losses, it has been more than 15 points per game worse than expected. The ‘Canes lost by 4 points as a 25-point favorite, they lost by 4 points as a 16.5-point favorite, and they lost by 11 points as a 9-point favorite.
This might be one of the worst teams we’ve seen in years in major college basketball. Over the last 10 years, the 2020-21 Arizona State squad is the only team from a top-6 conference that ended a regular season with a sub-25% cover rate.
With an interim head coach and one of the worst defenses in college basketball, Miami’s outlook is bleak going forward. Per KenPom, the Hurricanes rank 344th in defensive efficiency, 359th in effective field goal percentage defense, and 362nd in 3-point defense.
According to KenPom, Wednesday night’s home game against Virginia was projected to be one of just two remaining wins on Miami’s schedule. The Canes, a 2-point favorite, lost that game by 11. Fade Miami, regardless of the number.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
