According to a report from TMZ, LaVar Ball has withdrawn LiAngelo Ball from UCLA.
LiAngelo was, obviously, one of the three UCLA players that was arrested in China for allegedly shoplifting from three high-end retail stores. The TMZ report states that LaVar is upset with UCLA for the punishment that they have handed down, quoting people close to LaVar as saying, “There’s no need to break down a kid’s spirit for making a mistake.” LiAngelo had been suspended from the program since the incident.
LiAngelo never played a game for UCLA, and with LaMelo Ball – the youngest of the three Ball brothers – having been pulled out of Chino Hills High School by LaVar, it seemed clear that he was never going to end up at UCLA, either.
What that means is that this is the end of a marriage that had become uncomfortable in recent weeks, and it’s probably the best-case scenario for UCLA.
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Put another way, LaVar just did Steve Alford a favor nearly as big as allowing Lonzo to don a UCLA jersey.
The uncomfortable truth is this: At this point, the Ball family is nothing more than a distraction for UCLA. Lonzo was good enough that the distraction was worth it. There’s an argument to be made that he saved Steve Alford’s job. He turned the Bruins from a 17-15 team into a top ten team that had a real chance to get to the Final Four in last year’s NCAA tournament. He was a first-team all-american and deserving of all the attention he got.
LiAngelo is not Lonzo.
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He’s not good enough for the baggage that he brings. That sounds harsh, but it’s true. It was unclear what, exactly, his role was going to be on the Bruins this season, but it was unlikely that he was going to be anything more than a role player. Aaron Holiday, Jaylen Hands, Kris Wilkes, Prince Ali, Chris Smith. There is more than enough talent on UCLA’s perimeter to overcome the loss of LiAngelo, and I don’t think it’s that crazy to say that he was the sixth-best perimeter player Alford had at his disposal.
And it was his presence on the roster that turned what would have been a big story in the college basketball world into a topic that was discussed on every news network in America. What I mean is this: UCLA players getting arrested for shoplifting in China is the biggest story in college basketball. LaVar Ball’s son getting arrested for shoplifting in China turns into a twitter feud with Donald Trump and nets a 23-minute interview, followed by a 20-minute panel discussion, on CNN.
Without the promise of potentially bringing LaMelo into the fold, this was always going to be the way this story ended.
And UCLA didn’t even have to be the one that cut ties.
Duke remained the No. 1 team in the latest Coaches Poll, receiving 30 of a possible 32 first-place votes.
Kansas, who slotted in at No. 2, and Michigan State, who stayed put at No. 3, each received a single first-place vote.
Three SEC teams remained ranked in the top 10 – No. 5 Florida, No. 7 Kentucky and No. 9 Texas A&M – while the highest-ranked program in the Pac-12 is now No. 17 Arizona, as USC fell all the way to No. 25. They didn’t take the biggest plunge of the week, however, as Louisville fell all the way out of the poll.
Here is the full coaches poll:
1. Duke (30 first-place votes)
2. Kansas (1)
3. Michigan State (1)
4. Villanova
5. Florida
6. Wichita State
7. Kentucky
8. Notre Dame
9. Texas A&M
10. North Carolina
11. Miami
12. Virginia
13. Gonzaga
14. Xavier
15. Minnesota
16. West Virginia
17. Cincinnati
17. Arizona State
19. Seton Hall
20. TCU
21. Purdue
22. Baylor
23. UCLA
24. Nevada
25. USC
Notre Dame won the Maui Invitational with an impressive comeback against Wichita State.
The Fighting Irish didn’t fare as well against another top 10 team, leading a shuffling at the top half of The Associated Press Top 25 poll .
Duke (10-0) received all 65 first-place votes in the poll released Monday after a pair of easy victories, its second straight week as the unanimous No. 1. The next three spots also remained the same from last week: Kansas, Michigan State and Villanova.
Notre Dame was No. 5 last week, but dropped to No. 9 following its 81-63 loss to the Spartans.
“They come at you with fresh bodies, they just keep coming at you and it takes its toll,” Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said of Michigan State.
Florida moved up to No. 5 despite not playing last week, followed by Wichita State, Texas A&M, Kentucky and Miami at No. 10 behind the Irish.
Notre Dame (7-1) pulled off an impressive comeback in Maui to beat Wichita State for its first title in paradise.
The Irish were no match for Michigan State last week, taken out of rhythm by the Spartans while falling into an early hole. Notre Dame did make a push in the second half, but Michigan State pushed back to run away with it.
The Irish bounced back to beat St. Francis Brooklyn on Sunday despite the ejections of preseason All-American Bonzie Colson (flagrant two foul) and Brey. The pair ended up in the locker room watching the rest of the game on Colson’s phone.
“That’s new territory for me,” Brey said. “That was very unusual.”
PACK ON THE RISE
Nevada has made big strides in Eric Musselman’s three seasons and this was expected to be his best team yet.
A year after making it to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2007, the Wolf Pack were picked as the favorites to win the Mountain West Conference title behind Jordan Caroline and Lindsey Drew.
Nevada has lived up to expectations so far, winning its first eight games for its best start as a Division I program (since 1970). The Wolf Pack were No. 22 in this week’s poll for their first ranking since finishing the 2006-07 season at No. 15.
“It’s great to see that we have that record now, but we have to keep improving and don’t want to stop now and be 8-1 or 8-2,” Caroline said after the Wolf Pack shook off an ugly first half to beat UC Irvine 76-65 last week. “We’re rolling and we have to keep moving along.”
RISING FAST
Xavier had the biggest rise in this week’s poll, moving up eight spots to No. 13 after a pair of Top-25 wins. The Musketeers beat No. 16 Baylor 76-63 and No. 11 Cincinnati 89-76 last week.
Arizona State moved up four spots to No. 20 after being ranked last week for the first time since 2009.
LONGEST SLIDE
Louisville dropped out of the poll from No. 17 after losing to Purdue and Seton Hall.
USC is down 11 spots to No. 25 following consecutive losses and Baylor fell seven places to No. 23 after losses to Xavier and Wichita State. Cincinnati was down six spots to No. 17 following its loss to Xavier.
NEWCOMERS
No. 19 Seton Hall, No. 21 Purdue and No. 24 Tennessee joined Nevada in moving into the poll this week.
DROPPED OUT
Texas Tech dropped out from No. 22 after losing to Seton Hall, Alabama dropped from No. 24 after losing to UCF. Creighton is out from No. 25 following a lopsided loss to then-No. 15 Gonzaga. The Zags moved up three spots to No. 12.
Here is the full top 25 AP Poll:
1. Duke (65 first-place votes)
2. Kansas
3. Michigan State
4. Villanova
5. Florida
6. Wichita State
7. Texas A&M
8. Kentucky
9. Notre Dame
10. Miami
11. North Carolina
12. Gonzaga
13. Xavier
14. Minnesota
15. Virginia
16. Arizona State
17. Cincinnati
18. West Virginia
19. Seton Hall
20. TCU
21. Purdue
22. Nevada
23. Baylor
24. Texas
25. USC
1. PURDUE’S DAKOTA MATHIAS IS THE NATION’S MOST UNDERRATED PLAYER
It’s time to give this kid the credit he is due.
Let me just lay the stats out, because they speak for themselves: Mathias is averaging 15.5 points, a team-high 4.9 assists and 4.5 boards while shooting 53.7 percent from three and posting an extremely ridiculous 146.7 offensive rating. He’s turning the ball over just a little more than once per game. His shooting splits are, currently, 59 percent from two, 53.7 percent from three and 81.5 percent from the line. It’s generally considered elite when a player’s shooting splits at up to 180; Mathias is getting up towards the 200-club.
But that’s not all that he’s doing for this Purdue team.
Mathias also happens to be Purdue’s best perimeter defender. He may be the best perimeter defender in all of the Big Ten, and there are only a handful of players in the country that are better than he is on that side of the ball. Carsen Edwards gets the headlines because he’s the guy with the ball in his hands and Purdue’s leading scorer. Vincent Edwards gets the hype because he’s the NBA prospect. Isaac Haas gets the attention because he’s 7-foot-3 and college basketball’s version of Mr. Incredible.
Mathias, however, is not only Purdue’s best player, but he’s currently on the very short-list for Big Ten Player of the Year and in the mix to be named an all-american at season’s end. Eventually, his shooting and efficiency numbers are going to regress to the mean, and when they do, make sure you remember just how good, valuable and important he is to the Boilermakers when his stats no longer jump off the page in the same way as they do now.
2. WHAT HAPPENED IN XAVIER-CINCINNATI IS GOOD FOR COLLEGE BASKETBALL
I don’t really have too strong of an opinion on the postgame dust-ups from the Crosstown Shootout this weekend. (For a recap of all the events, go here.)
J.P. Macura does what he always does: he spent 40 minutes trying to get under the skin of Cincinnati’s players and coaches, and he succeeded in doing so. He probably shouldn’t be talking to an opposing coaching staff, and he certainly shouldn’t be telling that coaching staff to “f- off,” as Mick Cronin alleges, but it is what it is.
Cronin is certainly in the wrong for going after Macura, but he’s also a human being. There’s only so many times another adult – and Macura is an adult after all – can tell a person to “f- off” before that person reacts, and if you’ve never wanted to fight J.P. Macura you’ve probably never played basketball again J.P. Macura.
Chris Mack should probably reprimand Macura in some way, but if you thought that, after a rival head coach ripped his player in the media, he was going to do anything other than go into that press conference and defend his guy then you’re out of your mind.
But here’s the larger point: This was all harmless. It was also what makes the Xavier-Cincinnati rivalry one that is so great. Those two programs despise each other. They play a game once a year that is essentially meaningless beyond earning bragging rights in a city where the campuses are less than three miles apart. The brawl is always going to be the memory we have of this rivalry, and that was certainly a bad look for everyone involved, but playing rivalry games with the kind of intensity that could end up leading to a brawl is a good thing.
Everything about the Crosstown Shootout this weekend was terrific theater.
If only someone told Kansas and Missouri, or Kansas and Wichita State, or Wichita State and Creighton, or Georgetown and Maryland, or Duke and Maryland, or UConn and Providence, or … sigh.
3. WE NEED TO START LOOKING AT MIKAL BRIDGES AS A POTENTIAL TOP TEN PICK
I’m really not sure how much more definitive I can be about this.
In an era where length, positional versatility and floor-spacing defenders have become some of the most important and valuable pieces on an NBA roster, Mikal Bridges is one of the few guys in college basketball this season that checks all of those boxes. He’s 6-foot-7 with a 7-foot-1 wingspan. He’s shooting 50 percent from three while attempting more than five threes per game. He’s a defensive playmaker – he averages 1.4 blocks and 2.5 steals – that can defend guards, wings and small-ball fours. He’s averaging nearly 18 points.
In a draft class without many players at that position, how many NBA teams are going to be able to overlook a player that can do those things while playing that position?
Think about it like this: The way that basketball is trending, lineups look something like this:
- Point guard
- Smaller wing
- Normal wing
- Big wing
- Center
Bridges can play three of those positions, and based on the early returns this season, he probably can play them pretty well at the NBA level.
4. THREE UP
- GEORGIA: The Bulldogs have quietly put together a terrific start to the 2017-18 season. They’re now 6-1 and can claim a road win at Marquette and a neutral court win over Saint Mary’s. Their only loss to date came against a San Diego State team that is going to be in the mix at the top of the Mountain West this season. Given the losses that both have taken of late, the Bulldogs probably need to beat both Georgia Tech and Temple at home, but they’re putting together a non-conference slate that will get them into the bubble conversation.
- TENNESSEE: Speaking of the SEC and the bubble conversation, Tennessee is playing like an NCAA tournament team. They’ve beaten Purdue. They’ve beaten N.C. State. They won at Georgia Tech. Their only loss on the season came by nine points against No. 4 Villanova. They’re in the top 25 conversation right now. A Dec. 17th showdown with No. 13 North Carolina will be a good gauge game.
- VIRGINIA TECH: Has there been a weirder loss this season than the Hokies falling to Saint Louis? The Billikens have fallen off a cliff since, capped by a 30-point loss to Butler, while Buzz Williams’ club has looked the part of a top 25 team in literally every other game they’ve played this season. On Saturday, they came from 16 down to win at Ole Miss in overtime.
5. THREE DOWN
- LOUISVILLE: Maybe, just maybe, losing one of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport hurt Louisville. Not only did the Cardinals blow a lead at Purdue during the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, but they followed that up by losing at home to Seton Hall on Sunday. With the rest of their non-conference schedule looking iffy – Indiana and Memphis and not much else – the Cards are putting themselves behind the eight-ball.
- USC: The Trojans took their second-straight double-digit loss on Saturday night. One was to Texas A&M. The other was to SMU. Maybe stop playing teams from Texas? Anyway, we went deep on USC on the podcast this week. Give it a listen here.
- UCONN: Another topic we covered on the podcast this week was UConn. Coming off of a drubbing at the hands of Arkansas, UConn was promptly taken to overtime at home by both Columbia and Monmouth. At what point is it time for UConn to start over?
Xavier needed a good week.
Coming off of a loss to Arizona State where the Musketeers were flat out run out of Las Vegas, Chris Mack’s club turned around and beat a pair of top 25 teams at home, both of which came by double-figures.
It started on Tuesday night, when the Musketeers took out No. 16 Baylor, 76-63, and continued over the weekend as they thoroughly dominated their Crosstown Shootout rival, No. 11 Cincinnati. The final score was 89-76, but the game wasn’t really that close for much of the second half.
Perhaps more importantly, Xavier was able to bust all-american forward Trevon Bluiett out of the slump that he had been mired in for a couple of games. He struggled against Arizona State. He also struggled against Baylor. But on Saturday, against a Bearcat team that had embarrassed Xavier last season at Fifth-Third Arena, Bluiett was the best player on the floor. He finished with 28 points, the majority of which came as the Musketeers were building their lead.
Put it all together, and Xavier landed two top 25 wins, they earned bragging rights in their city for the next year and they got their all-american back to playing like an all-american again.
All in all, that’s a pretty damn good week.
THEY WERE GOOD, TOO
- WICHITA STATE: The Shockers landed their first top 25 win in nearly two years on Saturday afternoon, and they did it by going to Waco and picking off No. 16 Baylor, 69-62. I wrote a column on this here, but in summation: We’ve known for years that the computers think Wichita State is one of the best teams in the country. Our eyes tell us similar things. What they need are the wins to back that up, and they got one on Saturday.
- BOISE STATE: The Broncos not only helped out their non-conference résumé by winning at Oregon – assuming Oregon finds a way to actually be good this season – but they got Chandler Hutchison back from a concussion. He rewarded them with 20 and 10 at Oregon and a triple-double on Sunday.
- SMU: The Mustangs landed another potentially elite win over a struggling opponent on Saturday, as they picked off No. 14 USC by 16 points. SMU also owns a win over then-No. 2 and now-unranked Arizona. As good as those wins looked at the time, SMU is going to be rooting for both of those teams to avoid a collapse this season. If they stink, SMU’s non-conference résumé goes down the toilet.
- SETON HALL: The Pirates picked up two key wins this week, knocking off No. 22 Texas Tech on a neutral court before going into the Yum! Center and beating No. 17 Louisville on a last-second shot from Desi Rodriguez. Villanova is still the best team in the Big East, but Seton Hall is proving that they are right there with Xavier as the second-best team in the league. The Big East is going to have some absolute wars in conference play.
- MIAMI: The Hurricanes staked their claim as the second-best team in the ACC with an emphatic win at No. 10 Minnesota on Wednesday night. Jim Larrañaga’s club jumped out to a lead that was double-figures for long stretches of the second half. Bruce Brown has finally found his shooting stroke and Dewan Huell looks like the McDonald’s All-American he was in high school.
Seton Hall had themselves an impressive week.
It started on Thursday night, when the Pirates picked off No. 22 Texas Tech in Madison Square Garden. It continued on Sunday, when Seton Hall went into Louisville and knocked off No. 17 Louisville.
In both games, Rodriguez was the best player on the floor. He had 24 points, seven boards and four assists in the win over the Red Raiders, following it up with a 29-point outburst at Louisville that included the game-winning shot with eight seconds left.
The striking thing about this Seton Hall team is that their two best players this season have been Rodriguez and Myles Powell, and that’s not a knock on Angel Delgado or Khadeen Carrington, two guys that were thought to be potential first-team all-Big East players. Delgado hasn’t gone a game without facing a double-team while Carrington is learning a new role and a new position.
The Pirates haven’t lost a step, however, because Rodriguez has become one of the most potent scorers in the Big East. A 6-foot-6 lefty, he’s a powerful slasher with three-point range that has learned how to operate in ball-screens. If you talk to people around the program, they’ll tell you that their success is a direct result of the fact that there is no jealousy. Everyone on the roster likes each other. They’re happy for their teammate, happier for the wins and know that they’ll be able to get their’s soon enough.
And that right there is what winning teams are built around.
THE ALL-‘THEY WERE GOOD, TOO’ TEAM
- DEVONTE’ GRAHAM, Kansas: Graham popped off for 35 points and five assists not once, but twice this past week. One of those performances came during a neutral court win over Syracuse in Miami. Graham started out the season in something of a slump, but after Saturday’s win he’s now averaging 18.6 points and 8.0 assists on the season.
- DEWAN HUELL, Miami: Huell has quietly turned into the presence in the paint that Miami desperately needed this season. Well, it was quiet until Wednesday’s 23-point outburst at Minnesota. Playing against one of the best front lines in college basketball, Huell proved to be the best big man on the court.
- LUKE MAYE, North Carolina: Maye looked like, well, Luke Maye when North Carolina got embarrassed by Michigan State in the title game of the PK-80 event in Portland. In the three games since, he’s returned to being Kevin Love’s mini-me. In wins over Michigan, Davidson and Tulane, Maye averaged 24.3 points, 11.0 boards, 2.3 assists and 1.7 blocks. Not bad for a three-star recruit.
- CHANDLER HUTCHISON, Boise State: It was a big week for the Broncos, as they they won three games, including a victory in Eugene over Oregon. That win could end up looking good come March. Hutchison probably had the best week of anyone on the roster. Not only did he return from a concussion, but he had 20 points and 10 boards at Oregon before exploding for 20 points, 10 boards and 10 assists in a win over Portland.
- SHAKE MILTON, SMU: Milton put together arguably the best performance of his college career on Saturday night, as the Mustangs picked off No. 14 USC in Moody Coliseum behind Milton’s 22 points and nine assists. Long a name on NBA Draft boards, the junior point guard finally had a breakout performance against an elite opponent.
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