- Kentucky‘s starting trio of guards closed out the Wildcats win against Louisville, showing why they were such highly-regarded recruits. It has been a largely inconsistent first two months for the Harrison twins and James Young, with some good moments and some bad. But with Julius Randle out of the game and Louisville taking the lead in the second half, the trio took over. CBSSports‘s Jeff Borzello writes, “The shooting numbers won’t look great (16 for 45 from the field, 3 for 12 from 3, 11 for 21 on free throws), but one has to look past that in order to see the impact the Harrison-Harrison-Young trio made in the final 20 minutes. Those three scored 25 of the Wildcats’ 30 second-half points — including 14 points during a game-changing 15-4 run after Jones’ three-point play.” This collective performance comes just weeks after the Wildcats attitude and “togetherness” was questioned. It’s thus encouraging for John Calipari and Big Blue Nation that it was in a close rivalry game with Randle on the bench that the Widlcat guards took over. If they can show that sort of resolve in a situation like that, there’s no reason they can’t show it in March too.
- True road wins were hard to come by for Missouri last season, as the Tigers only picked up two of them. Frank Haith is already halfway to that total this season after Missouri’s win at North Carolina State on Saturday night. Most impressive was that the Tigers executed (for the most part) down the stretch and won a close game. They were not able to do this in a similar situation against Illinois the week before. “Our guys showed great character and great toughness after getting down 10 in both halves,” Missouri coach Frank Haith said. “Everything wasn’t pretty, but I thought we were gritty and we made big plays.” This isn’t the first time the Tigers have shown resilience this season, as they fought back from several big runs and ten plus point deficits to beat UCLA. It’s definitely been an overall positive non-conference season for Missouri.
- Anthony Hickey moved to 11th all-time on LSU’s assists list in the Tigers win against McNeese State last Saturday. The guy he passed was the one giving him directions from the sideline, Johnny Jones. “I’m not exactly sure where I was on the list, but he better get a lot better because I was probably down the list,” Jones said with a proud smile. “Anthony has done a tremendous job for us leading our basketball team.” Hickey has indeed quietly had a solid season alongside the great starts from Johnny O’Bryant and Jordan Mickey. Hickey has kept his assist numbers consistent (3.5 per game, 21.3% assist percentage) while turning the ball over less than he did last season (1 per game this season v. 1.8 last season). He’s also doing a good spacing the floor for LSU’s bigs by hitting a career best 39% from three.
- Mike Anderson must be having fun this season. Not only is Arkansas 10-2, but he has the Razorbacks playing fast (32nd in the country with 75.2 possessions per game) and is using nearly every able body on his bench. Anderson played 12 players at least 12 minutes in the Razorbacks’ win against High Point last Saturday. The “40 Minutes of Hell” system presents a number of interesting angles. On one hand, players that go to Arkansas will play fast and often get playing time early in their career. But on the other hand, that playing time may be limited, and by nature will generally be less than it would be elsewhere. Sophomore guard Michael Qualls is having a break out season, but is only playing 25 minutes a game. That’s still a significant chunk, but should he be playing more? Or are his solid numbers a product of not being over-exposed? Again, there are a lot of interesting aspects to Anderson’s system.
- There was a moment late in Alabama’s loss to UCLA that it appeared Trevor Releford (34 points) was about to will the Tide to a win. He sunk a three-pointer to pull Alabama within two, then stole the ball and tied the game with a layup. But the Tide wouldn’t score again and lost yet another close game to a good team. Anthony Grant’s team sits at 5-7 (the first time that Grant has been two games under .500 at Alabama) and has to be considered the biggest disappointment in the SEC. Hard-fought losses to Oklahoma, Duke, Drexel, Wichita State, and now UCLA are commendable, but nothing more than losses in the end. Given their talent and Releford’s ability to take over, the Tide should threaten in games against the conference’s upper tier. But it doesn’t appear they will threaten for a NCAA Tournament invite after how the non-conference season has unfolded.