November was for getting this college basketball season from zero to full steam in 28 days. From the 169 games on Opening Day to the Thanksgiving buffet table of tournaments. Amid all that, 55 overtime affairs, three of them involving Troy.
November was for hints about the future, with March still three months away. Is this team as dangerous as it looks (hello, Michigan and Arizona)? Might that team have concerns (good morning, St. John’s, Florida)?
November was for the first blemishes on the record. By the end of the month, the unbeaten list was down to 25 teams, seven of them from the Big Ten.
November was for the ranked teams to feast. They started 95-0 against unranked opponents, until Seton Hall broke the spell against No. 23 NC State in Maui. Later, California beat No. 18 UCLA for its first win over a ranked opponent in nearly six years. TCU knocked off No. 10 Florida, the Horned Frogs’ first victory over a top-10 non-conference opponent since 1986, back when current coach Jamie Dixon was playing guard.
November was for the SEC to keep flexing its depth, not to mention its firepower. By the last day of the month, 11 of the top 40 teams in the KenPom ratings were SEC card-carrying members. So were six of the nation’s top 16 scoring teams, starting with Georgia and Vanderbilt at No. 1 and 2.
The Bulldogs, putting up 99 points a game, had already hit 60 in three different halves and were averaging nearly 30 points a contest just on fast breaks, coming at opponents in waves. Eleven Georgia players were averaging double figures in minutes played. The only game they lost, they scored 94 points. Clemson scored 97 in overtime.
The Commodores offense had become the best show in Nashville this side of the Grand Ole Opry. It had been 54 years since they scored 100 points four times in a season, but they blasted off with 105, 105, 104 and 109 in their first five games. They rolled to the Battle 4 Atlantis title with a 96-71 rout of Saint Mary’s to go 8-0, the most points a Randy Bennett team had ever allowed in regulation in his 25 years.
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Missouri was 8-0 with the best shooting in the country, having topped 50% its first seven games for the first time in 43 years. Cleveland State got a frightening up-close look at the Tigers’ offense just this past Friday. The game started 23-0 and ended 86-59.
Alabama went through the fire of four ranked opponents in the first 22 days. The Tide beat St. John’s after 18 lead changes and lost to Purdue after 21. They defeated Illinois in Chicago’s United Center but lost in Las Vegas to Gonzaga. Once free of that slog, they scored 115 points against UNLV, 105 against Maryland, and won by 39 and 33 points respectively.
November was for the Big Ten to suggest its basketball is as championship-potent as its football. Or is that the other way around? By the last Sunday of the month, Ohio State and Indiana were 1-2 in the College Football Playoff rankings, while Michigan and Purdue were 1-2 in the KenPom basketball ratings.
The Boilermakers showed they are serious about the No. 1 spot in the AP poll. They barged into Tuscaloosa and beat No. 8 Alabama, their first top-10 non-conference win on the road in 43 years, featuring a 52-28 blowout in rebounds. They pancaked then-No. 15 Texas Tech, going on a 31-3 joyride.
But Michigan seized the national spotlight — and some No. 1 votes — by cutting the biggest swath through Las Vegas since the guys in Ocean’s Eleven.
In barely more than 50 hours at the Players Era Festival, the Wolverines turned San Diego State, Auburn and Gonzaga into a parade of the pummeled, thrashing them by 40, 30 and 40 points respectively. They trailed a total of 178 seconds, shot 53.6% from the field, KO’d the trio in the paint by a 118-66 count, and had nine different players score in double figures. They attacked like hungry sharks from the moment the lineups were introduced, leading the Zags by 15 points after five minutes, the Aztecs by 17 after 13 minutes and Auburn 59-31 at halftime. Dazed coaches were left in their wake.
Auburn coach Steven Pearl. “When they shoot the ball at that rate, nobody's beating that team.”
Gonzaga coach Mark Few: “We got just absolutely throttled. I've never been involved with anything like that.”
About the only problem the 7-0 Wolverines had was deciding what to do with the extra $1 million NIL reward the Players Era folks were offering the champion. An exchange in the postgame press conference clearly showed lobbying by the coach.
Coach Dusty May: “Annuities.”
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Nimari Burnett: “Christmas gifts. It's about that time of year anyway.”
May: “Roth IRA.”
Tournament MVP Yaxel Lendeborg: “I would say what I'm going to get (for gifts), but they're probably watching right now. You guys stay tuned, maybe you'll get to see it on social media or something.”
May: “Stocks and bonds.”
The players probably listen to their coach better when he’s talking about defense.
More Big Ten doings. November was for Michigan State to go 7-0, beating Kentucky by 17 points, North Carolina by 16 and running coach Tom Izzo’s home record for the month to 86-1. This with the nation’s top assist man — Jeremy Fears Jr. — putting his hands firmly on the steering wheel.
“Good quarterbacks get you to Final Fours, good quarterbacks get you to win championships,” Izzo said about Fears. “It's not good coaching, it's good quarterbacks. And I think I got one in the making.”
Nebraska finished the month with the nation’s longest winning streak at 12 games, and 8-0 for the first time since 1977. Indiana started 7-0, making the Hoosiers a combined 19-0 in basketball and football, with an average winning margin of 31.1. Southern California was 7-0 after seven days of thrills — outlasting Troy 107-106 in three overtimes, winning on a Jordan Marsh 3-pointer at the buzzer, then jetting to the Maui Invitational and beating Boise State by three points, Seton Hall by two and Arizona State by 13, after being up only three with nine minutes to go. There were 51 lead changes in those four games and the Trojans had to finish the job without Rodney Rice, who scored 26 against Troy State, 27 against Boise State and 13 in 20 minutes against Seton Hall before a shoulder injury shelved him the rest of the week.
November was for Arizona to demand notice. Picked fourth in the Big 12, the Wildcats beat two No. 3 ranked teams in Florida and UConn. Nobody had defeated two top-3 AP opponents in its first five games in 36 years. Arizona did that while making only four 3-pointers in the two games combined. The Wildcats also took care of then-No. 15 UCLA, and all three conquests of ranked teams were away from home.
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November was for Duke to prove what all the Cameron Boozer fuss has been about. He scored 35 points for the 8-0 Blue Devils against Indiana State and did it again in the win over Arkansas. No Duke freshman ever had multiple 35-point games before. By the end of his first month in college basketball he was averaging 22.9 point, 9.8 rebounds, 3.9 assists and shooting 57.8 percent. He looked more than capable of doing for Duke this year what freshman Cooper Flagg did last season, or maybe even a couple of wins better in April.
November was for some sturdy names to wobble.
St. John’s started No. 5 in the AP preseason poll but went 0-3 against ranked opponents, and in four contests against power conference opponents coughed up 88 points a game.
National champion Florida was No. 3 on opening day and promptly lost to Arizona and later to TCU, struggled with Florida State and at last check was tied for 309th in the nation in turnovers per game.
Houston started 7-1 and sometimes seemed as imposing as ever, but also gave up 70 points three times in four games. The Cougars did that six times in 40 games all last season.
Creighton began as the No. 23 team, but was ripped by Gonzaga by 27 points and did not lead for one second in losses to Baylor and Iowa State.
Kansas stumbled early and slid out of the polls, unranked during this month for the first time in 20 years. It didn’t help that freshman phenom Darryn Peterson has been hurt. But at the Players Era, the Jayhawks crunched Syracuse 49-29 in rebounding to win. They used 18 points, nine rebounds, five blocks and five assists from Flory Bidunga to beat Notre Dame — no Big 12 player had a line like that since 2010 — and came from 12 points behind to blow past Tennessee, which didn’t sound like one of those unranked teams upsetting a ranked opponent, but was.
So November ended with brighter skies in Lawrence.
“I think we came here doubting how good we could be,” coach Bill Self said in Las Vegas. “But what it should do is give us confidence that when we are whole, if we can learn to play together, that we can defend and rebound well enough to actually be pretty good.”
November was for great upsets that didn’t quite happen.
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Early on, Auburn went through 31 lead changes before finally disposing of Bethune-Cookman 95-90 in overtime, saved by a 38-9 gap in free throw attempts. The Wildcats nearly ended two eternal streaks — 0-28 against ranked opponents and 0-23 against current members of the SEC
Division II Chaminade led Washington State by 20 points in the first half in Maui until the game took a U-turn with a 37-point swing in 15 minutes, Washington State going from 20 down to 17 ahead, finally getting by 90-85.
Mississippi State banked in a 3-pointer with 1.9 seconds to avoid a second overtime, or else New Orleans might have had its first road win over an SEC team in 39 years.
Winthrop led Arkansas by five points with 75 seconds left but ended up losing 84-83, doomed by a 20-4 Razorback advantage in free throws. Winthrop had been 3-34 against the SEC. The game's final minutes had unrest on the court and four players ejected.
Georgia Southern has not beaten Georgia Tech on the road since 1958 but that streak nearly ended when the Eagles led the Yellow Jackets by 11. Georgia Tech won by two points.
Washington needed two overtimes to put away the SWAC’s Southern. The Jaguars led for 30:38 of the game.
November was for oddities.
Memphis led Purdue with six minutes left before giving way 80-71, then the next night lost at the buzzer on a 3-pointer tor Wake Forest’s Myles Colvin — who had transferred from Purdue.
Northern Iowa edged UC Irvine 70-69 when the two teams combined for seven points in the last eight seconds of overtime.
UC San Diego packed its bags and kept on winning. The Tritons are 7-0, even in the middle of a stretch with no home game in 33 days.
With 1:55 left in the game, IU Indy led Morehead State 78-71. Morehead State had shot 30 free throws. IU Indy had shot none. The team ahead by seven points had been outscored 23-0 at the line. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” IU Indy coach Ben Howlett said. His Jaguars eventually made seven free throws and won 85-80.
Southern California took the Maui Invitational with Chad Baker-Mazara named the tournament MVP. One year earlier, Baker-Mazara had played for Auburn and helped win the Maui Invitational.
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Cal Poly upset Utah for its first win over a sitting Big 12 member since 1949. The Mustangs did it with the United Nations — the roster has players from nine countries and six continents.
Pitt stunned Ohio State the day after Thanksgiving on a 3-pointer at the buzzer by Damarco Minor. One year earlier on the day after Thanksgiving, Pitt beat Ohio State on a 3-pointer by Zach Austin at the buzzer.
Utah State is 7-0 and two of its top four scorers have never started a game.
Troy might have had the liveliest month of anyone to go 5-4. The Trojans opened the season with a 103-97 overtime win over Kent State and later, within about 50 hours, beat San Diego State 108-107 in two overtimes and lost 107-106 to Southern Cal in three overtimes. Those two games included 35 lead changes and 172 free throws taken.
November was for the season’s first wondrous moments.
“I never would have dreamed this would have happened in a million years,” May said after Michigan’s Players Era rampage. “But it happened, and now it goes back to, how are we going to respond to this?”
That's November, addressing some issues, raising others. That’s what it’s for.
