CHICAGO — The second game of the Champions Classic wasn’t quite as “artistic” (using Bill Self’s words for the first game) as Duke’s statement win over Michigan State but the clash between college basketball bluebloods still showed us a few things about two intriguing top-ten teams.
1. Kansas needs more help for Devonte’ Graham when it comes to creating offense
One of the major issues for Kansas on Tuesday night was creating effective offense in the half court. Last season the Jayhawks could rely on Frank Mason, Devonte’ Graham, and to a lesser extent Josh Jackson, to create offense. This current Kansas group is lacking players who can create their own shot in the half court.
The numbers that Kansas put up on the offensive end on Tuesday indicated the struggle. The Jayhawks finished shooting 35 percent (24-for-68) from the floor while their three-point percentage (28 percent on 8-for-28) was even worse.
The length, athleticism and depth of Kentucky’s defense wearing down a team that effectively played only six players definitely had something to do with it. But Kansas looked like they really needed some help for Graham out there. There are only so many times that the preseason All-American floor general can run pick-and-roll with Udoka Azubuike. Especially since Azubuike seemed to be at his best when he could seal and score on post touches.
Malik Newman (4-for-14 shooting for 12 points) struggled to score over length at the rim as he was often trying to do too much on the offensive end. Newman is still a potentially lethal three-point shooter, if he gets hot, but he doesn’t look like a shot creator for himself or others in the half court at this current juncture. Newman really struggled scoring over length at the rim against Kentucky.
Svi Mykhailiuk (17 points) hit some momentum-shifting shots from the perimeter, but he also had an average night on the offensive end creating for himself as catch-and-shoot jumpers remain his most consistent mode of offense. Lagerald Vick might actually be the second best shot-creator for the Jayhawks at the moment. That’s not really saying much. Vick also struggled to a 4-for-13 night from the field.
It will certainly help the Kansas offense to get Arizona State transfer guard Sam Cunliffe at the semester break. Freshman forward Billy Preston is also a noted offensive threat, but Kansas has a long way to go if they’re going to be an effective offensive team. Let’s just keep it simple: Graham needs more help.
2. Kentucky freshman Kevin Knox looks like the real deal
We’ve grown to expect Kentucky freshmen to immediately contribute and become key players since John Calipari has masterfully worked the one-and-done recruiting landscape over the last decade.
There were also some serious questions as to whether freshman wing Kevin Knox, rated by some services as the best Kentucky freshman, could be an effective and potential go-to guy for the Wildcats. The 6-foot-7 Knox answered many of the those questions with his stellar play on Tuesday night. Knox buried three first-half three-pointers as he finished with a game-high 20 points on 8-for-13 shooting.
Consistent perimeter shooting was always a major question mark for Knox throughout his high school career. But a hot hand early for Kentucky was a pleasant surprise. Looking like he was ready to play in a huge spotlight game while other Kentucky freshmen struggled, Knox carried the Kentucky offense at times despite not getting nearly enough shot attempts until late in the game.
When Kentucky found themselves down by two points with 33 seconds left, they put the ball in Knox’s hands, letting him go to work as his tough runner along the baseline rimmed out. Even though Knox missed a tough and contested look, just the fact that he looked comfortable the ball in his hands in a critical spot is an important development for a young Kentucky team that needs a takeover guy.
While Knox’s perimeter shooting could ebb-and-flow at times this season, he certainly seems ready to play during big moments. The development of Knox as a potential go-to bucket-getter this season will be fascinating to watch.
3. Udoka Azubuike needs more post touches for a struggling Kansas offense
Kansas was completely overmatched on the interior in terms of sheer bodies on Tuesday night. That didn’t prevent sophomore big man Udoka Azubuike from having a very solid night for the Jayhawks.
Facing four or five different Kentucky big men, many of them former McDonald’s All-Americans, Azubuike finished with 13 points and eight rebounds on 5-for-5 shooting, severely outplaying his Wildcat counterparts.
Looking slimmer and more mobile than last season, the power-based Azubuike is still at his best when he can manhandle lesser opponents in the paint. Besides for the interior buckets, Azubuike was also effective as a screener while doing a great job of walling up on the defensive end without getting into severe foul trouble. This game would have been very ugly if Azubuike got in foul trouble. Thankfully, Azubuike did an admirable job of defending without fouling as the Jayhawks didn’t have a lot of size without Preston in the lineup.
For as good as Azubuike was, one of the big problems for Kansas was getting him enough effective opportunities to make plays in the post. It seemed like only Devonte’ Graham was doing a good job of working the ball inside for post touches as the other players on the floor for Kansas often hunted their own offense while basically ignoring their lone post target.
Azubuike is never going to be a major scorer commanding double teams based on his post skill. But his power post game is a major asset for a Kansas team that needs all the easy buckets they can get at this point in the season. If Kansas is struggling on offense like they did tonight, they need to get Azubuike more touches to put pressure on opposing defenses.
4. Kentucky’s depth will still create issues and keep them in games
Kansas wasn’t the only team to struggle on the offensive end on Tuesday.
Kentucky’s offense looked just as ugly as they shot 41 percent (23-for-55) from the field and 23 percent (3-for-13) from three-point range. Point-guard play was also an issue for Kentucky as they turned the ball over 18 times — including six alone from freshman Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Despite all of the offensive issues and only one player on the roster, Kevin Knox, making a three-pointer, Kentucky still found themselves with a chance to tie or take the lead with under 30 seconds left against a top-five opponent.
It’s a testament to how Kentucky can still wear opponents down by throwing body-after-body at them in all facets of the game. The Wildcats were able to stay in this game in the second half by hitting the offensive glass hard and scoring whenever they could in transition.
Even with freshman big men Nick Richards and P.J. Washington combining for only one field goal and 11 combined rebounds in 37 total minutes, Kentucky was able to throw talented depth like Sacha Killeya-Jones and Wenyen Gabriel on the floor to give another look.
Killeya-Jones, who spent most of his freshman season stuck on the bench, was particularly solid for Kentucky as his length and perimeter shooting helped the Wildcats. Finishing with eight points and nine rebounds, while blocking three shots, Killeya-Jones looked like another intriguing development for Kentucky to come out of this game.
It’s part of what makes Kentucky so dangerous. It’s a collective group with a lot of promise and potential that is still figuring everything out, and yet, they’re still staying close against a top-five team like Kansas. Like many Calipari one-and-done operations, we probably won’t understand Kentucky’s identity or personnel until the calendar rolls over into the new year.
CHICAGO – No. 1 Duke knocked off No. 2 Michigan State behind a 37-point explosion from Grayson Allen on Tuesday night.
They won despite losing Marvin Bagley III to an eye injury midway through the first half.
Those two things are facts. Here are five things we learned in the process:
1. DUKE’S ZONE LOOKS LIKE IT HAS SOME STAYING POWER
Duke surprised a lot of people when they came out in a 2-3 zone to start Tuesday night’s game. Mike Krzyzewski has been a proponent of an extended, half-court man-to-man that it is weird to see the Blue Devils doing anything other than denying passing lanes, extending out to half court and daring an opponent’s ball-handlers to try and beat them one-on-one.
But that’s not what we got in the United Center on Tuesday night, and it worked.
“I thought they were just playing 2-3 against lower-major teams and when they played higher-major teams they’d go back to man,” Miles Bridges said. “They were deflecting almost every pass. I guess I had five turnovers, Cash had four turnovers, Josh had five turnovers. We couldn’t even get the ball moving like we wanted to.”
Duke didn’t necessarily come into this game thinking that they were going to play only zone, but it was hard to get out of it once they saw how effective it could be. Michigan State had just 14 points with seven minutes left in the first half. They were down 38-34 at the break, and of those 34 points, 13 came in transition and nine came on three straight possessions in a one minute span where the Spartans buried a three. For the most part, that zone took away everything that Michigan State wanted to do.
And it makes sense when you think about it.
Duke has as much size, length and athleticism along their front line as they’ve had in years, and the combination of Trevon Duval and Grayson Allen at the top of the zone causes havoc. It’s the method that Jim Boeheim has used so successfully over the last 40 years.
“We were worried about fouls,” Krzyzewski said. “In man, they were deeper than us and would wear us down. The nervousness of the game, we might get some dumb fouls.”
And they did.
But in the end the zone ended up being enough.
2. TREVON DUVAL IS A HELL OF A PLAYER
Entering the season, Duval was the biggest question mark on this Duke roster. We knew Grayson Allen had an all-american season under his belt. We know that Gary Trent was a scorer. We knew that Marvin Bagley III and Wendell Carter would be able to anchor the front line.
What we were unsure of was whether or not Duval was the answer to Duke’s woes at the point guard spot.
He sure looked that way on Tuesday night, finishing with 17 points, 10 assists, six steals and three boards while sparking Duke’s transition game and finding a way to create offense when the Blue Devils needed a bucket.
He’s still not a shooter – 7-for-20 from the floor, 0-for-4 from three, 3-for-7 from the line … that’s not good – and that certainly is a concern for the kind of NBA prospect he can be in the long-term. And to be frank, Duval was at his best after Bagley was out of the game, when he didn’t have to worry about running offense through the most talented player on the Duke roster.
But that’s neither here nor there.
Duke just beat the No. 2 team in the country without Bagley, and Duval was the second-best player on the floor in the game. That means something.
3. MICHIGAN STATE HAS THEMSLEVES A PLAYER IN JAREN JACKSON
Miles Bridges did everything he could to bring Michigan State back in this game, and Nick Ward was a bastion of productivity, as he always is.
But the guy that made a name for himself on Tuesday night was Jaren Jackson, a five-star, 6-foot-11 freshman forward that has the talent to be a top ten pick whenever he decides to enter the NBA Draft. He finished with 19 points and seven boards, but more important was the fact that he went 3-for-5 from three and blocked three shots. Players that provide rim protection on end and floor-spacing on the other are, quite literally, the most valuable commodity in basketball when it comes to role players, and Jackson may be the best at that role in the country this year.
He’s the perfect four-man to play alongside Bridges and Ward, and while Michigan State is leaving Chicago with a loss, they should sleep well knowing that their front line made Bagley and Carter look normal.
4. JAVIN DELAURIER IS GOING TO PLAY A MAJOR ROLE FOR THE BLUE DEVILS
DeLaurier didn’t play much as a freshman and didn’t get much attention heading into this season. He may have been a top 50 prospect coming out of high school, but when you’re behind three five-star players on the depth chart a year after failing to crack the rotation, it’s hard to get too excited.
But DeLaurier proved who he can be on Tuesday night, finishing with four points, seven boards, four assists, three steals and two blocks. He’s not all that skilled, but he is long and athletic, and he plays hard. Those are things that are incredibly value to a team that has a plethora of scorers in their starting lineup, particularly when that team is going to be playing quite a bit of zone this year.
In fact, DeLaurier made arguably the biggest play of the game on Tuesday. With just over three minutes left, he grabbed an offensive rebound and kicked the ball out to Grayson Allen, who gathered an assist by swinging the ball to a wide-open Gary Trent. Trent buried a three that broke a 75-all tie and gave Duke a lead they would never relinquish.
DeLaurier isn’t ever going to be a star, but he’ll thrive in the role he’s asked to play.
5. MICHIGAN STATE’S BACK COURT IS STILL A QUESTION MARK
Cassius Winston had 11 assists on Tuesday night. He also had five turnovers, shot just 1-for-5 from the floor and finished with just three points. Josh Langford made some plays in transition, but he was 3-for-9 from the floor and missed some critical shots in the second half.
Those were the major question marks with this team heading into the season.
Could Winston protect the ball? Would he and Langford be able to provide a scoring punch in the back court? If they couldn’t, would there be someone off the bench that would be able to find a way to chip in?
On Tuesday night, the answer was … not really?
It came against the No. 1 team in the country, yes, and their performance was certainly far from bad, but it wasn’t enough for them to get a win over Duke. They need to be better.
CHICAGO — Kansas used a late three-pointer from Malik Newman and some clutch free-throw shooting to outlast Kentucky, 65-61, on Tuesday night in a disjointed second game of the Champions Classic.
With both teams struggling to score in the half court for much of the night, Newman’s trey with 2:10 left proved to be a critical bucket for the No. 3 Jayhawks (2-0) as the redshirt sophomore also knocked down two important free throws late in the game. Svi Mykhailiuk paced the Jayhawks with 17 points to lead an ugly offensive effort while big man Udoka Azubuike tallied 13 points and eight rebounds on 5-for-5 shooting. Newman finished with 12 points.
Preseason All-American Devonte’ Graham had a sluggish 3-for-14 shooting night for Kansas but he iced the game with two free throws with 7.1 seconds left as he finished with 11 points and five assists.
The No. 7 Wildcats (2-1) had a solid effort from freshman Kevin Knox as the five-star wing looked like he was ready to play in a high-pressure game. Knox finished with a game-high 20 points as his perimeter shooting and ability to create his own shot were a bright spot for Kentucky.
Freshman guard Hamidou Diallo was the only other double-figure scorer for Kentucky as he ended with 14 points. Kentucky’s interior struggled much of the night as freshmen P.J. Washington and Nick Richards provided little-to-no help on either end of the floor.
George Washington went into Tallahassee and lost to Florida State, 87-67, on Tuesday night, but it wasn’t totally a lost cause for the Colonials.
Or at least for Terry Nolan, Jr.
The 6-foot-2 freshman threw down a vicious one-handed dunk over the Seminoles’ 6-foot-9 forward Mfiondu Kabengele to at least leave with quite the memory.
Nolan had 18 points on 8 of 12 shooting on the night.
CHICAGO – It was not a good night for Grayson Allen Haters.
Duke’s senior star scored 23 of his 37 points in the second half and Trevon Duval added 17 points, 10 assists and five steals as No. 1 Duke knocked off No. 2 Michigan State in the opener of the Champions Classic on Tuesday night, 88-81.
Allen, who scored six points in the final minute of the first half as well, finished with seven threes on the night and carried Duke in the second half of a game where the Blue Devils were on the ropes. They were playing without Marvin Bagley III for the final 30 minutes of the game, and their front line struggled against the massive Michigan State Spartans.
All the while, Allen made big shot after big shot down the stretch.
And in the end, it didn’t matter that the top recruit in the Class of 2017 was sitting on the bench with his right eye swollen up, and it didn’t matter that two of Duke’s three remaining elite freshmen were struggling to play up to their potential.
The Blue Devils left the United Center with a win over the No. 2 team in college basketball.
That’s a scary thought.
But not quite as scary as the idea that Grayson Allen is the man that’s here to save college basketball.
Tuesday night is a night that we desperately needed in a sport that has spent the past six weeks dealing with the fall out of the biggest scandal in the sport’s history: An FBI investigation into corruption in recruiting, both by colleges and agents looking to land clients, that has left four assistant coaches and ten men in total facing federal charges. It’s what we needed for a sport whose opening night was dominated by headlines of players being held out of competition and quasi-celebrities on the UCLA roster spending time in a Chinese jail.
Hell, at halftime of the opening game of the double-header Kansas released a statement that said that their star freshman, Billy Preston, was being held out of competition while they investigated how he paid for a car that he crashed last week.
We needed a night to talk about the games, only the games and nothing but the games, and the man to do that was the center of controversy himself, Grayson Allen.
How about that?
In the big picture, the story of this game for Duke is the health of Bagley. After getting poked in the eye by a teammate midway through the first half, Bagley spent a few minutes on the ground – appearing to mouth the words “I can’t see” – before heading back to the locker room. He returned to the court during halftime, but he did not even warm-up with the team let alone return to the court, and Coach K referred to the injury as a “scratched eye,” and everyone that I spoke to on the Duke staff did not believe the injury to be serious.
Without Bagley on the floor, Duke’s half-court offense sputtered initially. Trevon Duval took some ill-advised shots and Gary Trent struggled to find a rhythm while Wendell Carter was flat-out bad for roughly the first 30 minutes of the game. Duke did enough to get easy offense in other ways – they had 15 offensive rebounds in the first-half and forced eight Michigan State turnovers – but without Carter and Bagley to run sets through, the Blue Devils looked bogged down in the half court.
Duval managed to settle down, however, and proved himself to be one of the best players on the floor. He was an absolute menace on the defensive end, got to the rim at will and ignited Duke’s transition offense. When he figures out his shooting stroke, he’ll have a shot to be a very, very good player.
He was a big reason that Duke’s 2-3 zone was so effective, as was Javin DeLaurier, a sophomore that came off the bench and was terrific for the Blue Devils, his length and activity causing havoc for Sparty. Michigan State was able to figure things out in the second half, as Miles Bridges found his shooting stroke and Michigan State started pounding the ball into the paint. They made their run, they answered the barrage of Allen threes by trying to foul out every big man on the Duke roster.
But, again, Duke had an answer.
It was Allen.
“He’s not a good shooter,” head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “He’s a great shooter.”
Duke’s roster is loaded with freshmen and sophomores, and not all of those highly-regarded freshmen and sophomores played well on Tuesday. Bagley was injured and did not return. Trent struggled to find his shooting stroke, although he did hit a massive shot down the stretch. Duval was terrific, but Wendell Carter was relatively ineffective until the final 10 minutes of the game. Marques Bolden is … Marques Bolden, and as well as DeLaurier played, he’s a role player. He’s on the floor to be long and athletic and full of energy, and he was long and athletic and full of energy.
Put another way, in a game that was pitted as a battle of the front courts, Michigan State won that fight.
And Duke won the game.
Because Allen put together what may end up being the best performance we see on a college basketball court this season. Two season ago, in this very same building, Michigan State’s Denzel Valentine went for 29 points, 12 boards and 12 assists as Michigan State landed a come-from-behind win against then-No. 1 Kansas. That performance put him in the driver’s seat for National Player of the Year, and while Buddy Hield did Buddy Hield things all season long, Valentine ended up splitting the National Player of the Year awards.
Allen could very well end up on that same trajectory.
“I’ve played in 90 more games than the four teammates out there with me,” Allen said with a laugh. “So I feel a little bit more comfortable and calm and confident.”
For all the stick he gets, for as much as he is demonized in the media – much of it deserved, some of it over-the-top – Allen is a helluva basketball player when he is healthy.
When we talk about how valuable talented veterans are on these one-and-done superteams, that is what we mean.
CHICAGO – Kansas announced at halftime of the first game of the Champions Classic that star freshman Billy Preston will be held out of the game due to what the school is calling a ‘single-vehicle incident on campus’.
There were no injuries, according to the release, but Preston’s car sustained damage. He is being held out of action as the school attempts to determine a ‘clearer financial picture’ in regards to the car that Preston was driving.
Without Preston available in the season-opening win against Tennessee State, Kansas started four guards, with Svi Mykhailiuk and Lagerald Vick playing the three and the four.
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