The first weekend of the new year was the first of this men’s basketball season in which all five high-major conferences played league slates at the same time. With resume-building opportunities around every corner in the two-month sprint to the postseason, several teams took advantage of early chances to send a message about their place in the conference races to come.
What did we learn from an action-packed three days? To recap the action, our writers broke down one big storyline from each high-major league.
ACC: There’s Duke, and there’s everyone else
Duke’s results in nonconference play hinted at the Blue Devils residing in a tier of their own atop the ACC, and Saturday’s 89-62 rout of SMU on the road — without head coach Jon Scheyer, who missed the game with an illness — only confirms that hypothesis. KenPom.com now gives Duke better than a 25 percent chance at running the table in ACC play, which is both entirely believable and somewhat sad.
Clemson and Pitt, both of whom won by double-digits at home this weekend, are solidly in the tier below the Blue Devils; those three are the only ACC teams with top-45 adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency rankings, per KenPom. After that? Well… it’s kind of a mess. Louisville blasting Virginia by 20 points on the road was eyebrow-raising but hardly affirming. North Carolina’s one-point escape at Notre Dame was the opposite kind of eyebrow-raising. We’ve got to fill a 68-team bracket, so it’s likely that at least one of Louisville, North Carolina, Wake Forest and SMU will get in, but it’s also entirely possible that the ACC only gets four bids to the Big Dance, which would be the league’s lowest total since 2013. — Brendan Marks
Big 12: Here comes Houston
The best two teams in the Big 12 this season … were the best two teams in the Big 12 last season.
No. 3 Iowa State, which handled No. 25 Baylor 74-55 at home on Saturday, has emerged as a national title contender and conference frontrunner. And it might be time to include Houston in that first group again after Kelvin Sampson’s squad manhandled BYU 86-55 on Saturday to remain alongside Iowa State, Arizona and West Virginia atop the Big 12 standings through two games.
A 4-3 start raised questions about the Cougars’ legitimacy in the post-Jamal Shead era, but those losses look more than respectable in hindsight. Houston led Auburn by nine points in the second half of a close loss and then dropped overtime games to Alabama and San Diego State at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas. That’s two losses to top-five teams and another to a borderline Top 25 squad. To look at it another way, the Cougars are a few buckets away from being the No. 1 team in college hoops right now. Using Bart Torvik’s sorting tool, Houston ranks No. 1 in the nation since Dec. 1, with a ridiculous adjusted defensive efficiency of 79.6. That’s 5.6 points ahead of the second-best defense (Texas A&M) over that timespan.
Against BYU, Houston won with awesome defense, by making 3s (16 of 34) and rebounding its misses (15 offensive rebounds). “That’s our identity,” Sampson said after the game. “Has been for a long time.” — C.J. Moore
Big East: Can Creighton get on track?
The Big East has two NCAA Tournament locks, and that’s disappointing.
Creighton should be the third power team in this league, but the Bluejays stand at 9-6 after Friday’s 79-71 loss at Marquette, in which they controlled the action for much of the game but let it flip on them early in the second half.
They have a win over Kansas that will come in handy in March, and they looked the part in a hard-fought loss at Alabama, but a 24-point loss at Georgetown speaks to this team’s inconsistencies. Big man Ryan Kalkbrenner needs more help, but he also needs to be more assertive at times, such as late in Friday’s 4-for-11 outing.
Creighton should be there in the end. Others could emerge — keep an eye on the Hoyas — to help the Big East match or exceed last season’s three-bid showing, with St. John’s in the best shape right now. The league’s big two, Marquette and UConn, aren’t unbeatable. UConn had to come back from 14 down to beat Providence 87-84 Sunday, playing without No. 2 scorer Liam McNeeley, who is week to week with a high ankle sprain. — Joe Rexrode
Big Ten: Wisconsin’s sizzling shooting night
Wisconsin was due for a feel-good win after opening Big Ten play with a pair of close losses. Against Iowa, which sits third nationally in points per game, the Badgers turned in a historic offensive performance in a 116-85 win on Friday at the Kohl Center.
The Badgers’ 21 3-pointers set a Big Ten record, and their 116 points scored is the second highest total in school history and the most by any Big Ten team in league play since 1995. Sophomore John Blackwell led with 32 points, including six 3-pointers, and added eight rebounds and five assists. Wisconsin shot 64.5 percent from the field, which was its best performance since 1987.
Kamari McGee on Iowa “we just knew they didn’t wanna play defense” #Badgers pic.twitter.com/F9FxsXSwUs
— Andrew Bandstra (@andrewbandstra) January 4, 2025
The outcome followed an all-too-familiar script for Iowa. Among Big Ten teams, the Hawkeyes rank first in scoring offense (89.4 points per game) and last in scoring defense (77.1). Over the last eight seasons, Iowa has finished first in Big Ten scoring six times, but they’ve ranked last or second-to-last in scoring defense seven times. Of the 12 times a Big Ten team has made at least 19 3-pointers in a game, five have come against Iowa – all since 2018.
Fran McCaffery has produced multiple first-team All-Americans and a pair of first-round NBA Draft picks in his tenure, but Iowa’s perpetual defensive liabilities are a major reason why the program has failed to reach the Sweet 16 since 2000. Ninety-seven schools have made the tournament’s second weekend in that time. — Scott Dochterman
SEC: Mark Pope stays hot
The SEC’s stacked opening-weekend slate was largely a dud, with six of eight games decided by double-digit margins. However, there was one big winner: Kentucky coach Mark Pope. The Wildcats are familiar with big wins, but Saturday’s 106-100 win over previously undefeated No. 6 Florida felt a little different. Pope’s hire was met with some skepticism, and his team came in 23rd in the initial AP poll, the program’s lowest ranking since 2008. Yet here Kentucky is, 12-2 overall and 3-0 against top-10 teams this season.
It’s too early to say where Pope’s tenure will lead, but it’s clear he was ready for his homecoming and has a ton of momentum. His team is playing with confidence, and the Wildcats’ 2025 recruiting class ranks fifth in the nation. Right now it looks like Kentucky nailed its replacement for John Calipari, whose Arkansas team was routed 76-52 at No. 1 Tennessee on Saturday. — Kennington Smith III
(Top illustration photos: Jeff Hanisch, Jordan Prather / Imagn Images)
