00:00Welcome back to Newswire. Well, Michael DeCourcy is not watching his Pittsburgh Steelers. It's hard to pull him away from college basketball, so that's why we're bringing him on the show today to talk some college hoops here. Mike, the season, of course, now off to a rousing start. We'll break down some of the games that happened last night. Also take a look at some games coming up. Thanks for coming on once again. All right, so here we are. Another team, another Duke team ranked inside the top five. They improved to 5-0 on the year. They beat Kansas 78-66. Luggest start for Kansas.
00:30They're ranked inside the top 25, Mike, but I have a feeling next week they will not be. Cameron Boozer, 18 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 7 of 17, and here we are again. Another year where the Blue Devils are ranked inside the top five. Another year where they have the favorite to potentially even win the Wooden Award at the end of the season as well.
00:49Interesting thing about Duke that I discovered. I had been aware of it, but not aware of the numbers. Since 2019-20, Duke has had five consecutive seasons in which they did not have a single player average even five assists a game.
01:09They have been pointless in a way. They just have not had the level of point guard play that carries, say, the Paolo Banqueiro team to the championship in 2022 or last year's Cooper flag team to the championship.
01:25And so now have they addressed that? And I thought last night was the first glimpse we've seen of a true Duke point guard since Trey Jones finished in 2020.
01:36I thought Caden Boozer looked really good and really in command when he was on the floor.
01:41And I think it's time for Duke to consider playing two Boozers, not just Cameron, the fantastic power forward prospect that we all knew about coming in.
01:51But his younger brother looks like a legit point guard, and he's definitely the best chance Duke has of mastering that position.
01:59And right now, Cam Boozer is the favorite to win the Wooden Award very early on in the season, naturally.
02:04But Cooper flag, of course, best player in the country last season, number one overall pick in the draft, followed by Brayden Smith, JT Toppin of Texas Tech.
02:12And then certainly there's some other options there, but not the favorites to win the Wooden Award at the moment.
02:17All right, another season of Tom Izzo basketball in Michigan State off to a good start, 83-66.
02:22They end up beating Kentucky, who was ranked higher than them, going into this game.
02:27Jeremy Fears, eight points, 13 assists, six rebounds, his plus-minus, plus-19.
02:33Does Tom Izzo have another team this season, Mike, that's, I mean, it seems like at least ranked better than they were at the start of last year.
02:40I know that team had to kind of scrounge to get into the tournament.
02:43Yeah, you see the value of having a point guard like Jeremy Fears, 13 assists.
02:49And I think he's had no fewer than eight assists in any game so far this season.
02:54And that's with a team that began the year struggling to make shots.
02:57Last night at the Garden, Kentucky found out that what was on the scouting report wasn't on the floor.
03:03Because all these guys that hadn't made any shots at all started draining threes.
03:08Kurt Ang being the most obvious of that group.
03:11But they had a lot of different guys come out and make threes.
03:15And some of that was Kentucky being too compliant on defense.
03:17But some of it was the confidence that built up with Michigan State through the course of that game.
03:23And also, as I mentioned, Fears getting the ball to guys when they were open and in great position to shoot and putting it in the shooting pocket so that they could get off the shot before the defense was able to close.
03:35Fears is a tremendous player.
03:37They've got great power up front.
03:39Cone Carr is the most dynamic player in all of college basketball.
03:43And I'm not even sure it's close.
03:46He's a future.
03:47If they ever have the slam dunk contest again, Craig, and I'm not sure whether they will.
03:52If they do, he's a future slam dunk champion.
03:55The guy's above the rim the whole game.
03:57But what Tom has done is built, is continued to address the culture of his program.
04:04This is how Michigan State's going to be.
04:06Will he dabble in the transfer portal?
04:08Yes.
04:09But he's not going to turn over his whole roster from year to year.
04:11He wants guys who want to be Spartans.
04:14And so far, it's looking pretty good.
04:16Let's get to tonight's game.
04:187 p.m. Eastern.
04:19Two teams searching for a national championship this season.
04:22UConn came up just short against the Gators in the national championship.
04:25But they're bringing a ton of their guys back this year.
04:28Five and a half point favorites.
04:29They're undefeated after beating BYU by close margin over the weekend.
04:34The Huskies are five and a half point favorites over Arizona tonight.
04:38Total of 156 and a half.
04:40Arizona, of course, has that season opening win against Florida.
04:43So two really strong teams squaring off this evening.
04:47Yeah, Arizona also defeated UCLA last Friday in L.A.
04:52I didn't like that Arizona performance quite as much.
04:56They really struggled against the UCLA defense.
04:59So what kind of D can UConn present tonight?
05:03I think that's going to be the key for the Huskies.
05:05How good are they defensively at this stage of the season?
05:07Offensively, UConn's going to be fine.
05:10I think you're going to see them continue to advance and progress.
05:14But they need to be exceptional defensively to deal with all the physical power that Arizona brings to the game.
05:21As well as here we are on the point guards again.
05:24Jaden Bradley, who was fantastic down the stretch against the Bruins, made the difference in that game.
05:30Otherwise, Arizona would be coming into this game off a loss.
05:35Alabama takes on Illinois tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern.
05:38Alabama's lone blemish this season is losing to one of the best teams in the country in Purdue.
05:43They're on the road tonight against Illinois.
05:46Another great matchup here tonight.
05:47And we know, Mike, when Alabama plays, it's all about tempo.
05:50So, 181.5 is the total tonight.
05:54And you're going to see this all season long.
05:57We'll probably hit a 200 like we did last year in the NCAA tournament.
06:01But Illinois, I know on paper, a little bit better here.
06:03But you kind of know when you're betting this game very early on if you have a shot with Alabama, don't you?
06:08Yeah, I think some of the favorite aspect of this is that the game will be played in Chicago.
06:15So, it's a two-hour ride on a nice bus for Illinois.
06:19And Alabama's got to jet up from the south.
06:22So, I think that has something to do with it.
06:23And obviously, most of the fans in the building will be rooting for the Illini.
06:28I think one of the things that's interesting is that Illinois still isn't whole or hasn't been whole.
06:33Mihailo Petrovic, who was to be their starting point guard, hasn't played yet.
06:37Not sure about his status for tonight.
06:40In his stead, the Illini have been very good.
06:44Kylan Boswell has been running the point for the most part and has been fantastic, averaging 18 points a game.
06:50I think they want to get him back to being off the ball so that they can see what Petrovic can provide.
06:56They did a really nice job of going to Europe and bringing in a couple of Merkiewicz and Petrovic,
07:01as well as the size of the Avisich twins.
07:04So, they've got a lot to offer.
07:05And it'll be very interesting to see how they match up with all that firepower that Alabama brings.
07:11Thanks again, Mike, for coming on.
07:13Enjoy the games and, of course, football this weekend.
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