Now that November is finally here, the best time of year has arrived for college sports; the playoffs are coming up for football, and basketball season has finally started. Let’s see who will make the most noise in the College Basketball scene on the Men’s side after the NBA draft, and with the arrival of the new class of freshmen.
There’s always the consistently star-studded teams: Duke, North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, UCLA, Syracuse, Kentucky, and Kansas. Then we have the teams on the rise, BYU, UCONN, Houston, Auburn, and Alabama. After the upset Houston pulled off in last season’s Final Four of March Madness, Duke lost its three star players, Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel, and Khan Maluach, but quickly reloaded with a lot of talent. With the nation’s back-to-back number one recruiting class gaining momentum, twin brothers Cayden and Cameron Boozer, sons of NBA veteran Carlos Boozer, as well as returners Isaiah Evans and Caleb Foster, are also on board. It’s almost as if Duke wasn’t affected by the NBA draft.
Florida has had a successful offseason after losing Walter Clayton Jr. and Alijah Martin, their two star guards, gaining transfers, Boogie Fland and Xaivien Lee from Arkansas and Princeton. Although they took a tough loss to Arizona in their season opener, the Gators put their early efficiency on display, hitting 11 of their first 16 shots, pushing their lead to 12 early.
On the other side of the country, Duke will have to worry about Arizona and BYU, later on in the season. Leading Arizona is five-star freshman out of Gilbert, Arizona, Koa Peat, who had a monstrous debut versus defending National Champions, Florida, with 30 points, leading Arizona to the upset, winning 93-87.
Up in Utah is five-star freshman AJ Dybansta, who had a very impressive debut as well, with 21 points against Villanova. BYU was only ranked 17 in the AP top 25 at the end of last season, and is now ranked number 8, below teams like Michigan, Purdue, Duke, and UCONN.
Two teams, I believe are heavily slept on are Baylor and Syracuse. I know it is early, but for the Bears to have four players over 15 points per game, and two over 20 points per game, is incredibly impressive. It seems like they would have a patchy year after losing VJ Edgecome, but they have freshman Tounde Yessoufou, who is the closest thing to VJ. Syracuse has NBA Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony’s son, Kiyan Anthony, who had a very impressive game in the Orange’s game versus Binghamton, scoring an impressive 15 points on 6 for 10 shooting. Alongside Naithan George, scoring 14 on 6 for 9 shooting.
All in all, only time will tell what teams are successful and live up to the hype, what teams underperform, and what teams shine bright when it matters.
