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The Champions Classic has come and gone with its usual assortment of conclusions.
Yes, that room full of former strangers wearing Kentucky uniforms seems to already be meshing remarkably well.
Yes, Kansas is still No. 1, and the man with his name on the fieldhouse is no longer the winningest coach in school history.
Yes, Duke’s kids — most, but not all of them, old enough to vote — are clearly talented and Cooper Flagg’s court presence at the age of 17 indeed can be a wonder to behold. But some lessons must be absorbed, such as how two turnovers in the last 12 seconds can kind of throw a cloud on the 26 points that came before.
And yes, the 3-point arc can still be the Bermuda Triangle for Michigan State.
Matter of fact, we can pause after college basketball’s woosh of a start to consider some of the things the raucous early days have shown.
Good numbers, bad numbers, baffling numbers . . .
591 — We could sit here all day and bring up mighty feats for Bill Self at Kansas, but let’s start with his victory total after Tuesday’s 77-69 win over Michigan State. That pushed him above Phog Allen to the top of the Jayhawks’ all-time list. There must be something surreal about coaching in a building named after the legend whose record you just passed. “I’m certainly proud about it, but Phog Allen is still going to be the all-time greatest coach at Kansas,” Self said.
What’s striking is that it took Self only 734 Jayhawks games to get there. It took Allen 809. Also part of the historic total includes a 25-4 record at home against top-10 opponents, which was added upon the other day when the Jayhawks blew a 20-point lead against North Carolina and revived in time . . . and that the win over Michigan State was Kansas’ fifth in a row and eighth in nine games in the Champions Classic among all its fellow heavyweights . . . and that he is only the eighth Kansas coach — not counting interims — since 1898. There is but one losing record in that bunch, the Canadian with the peach basket. Dr. James Naismith, inventor of the game.
0 — The number of official games the entire Kentucky roster had played in a Wildcat uniform before last week. Nine days later, they are the first Kentucky team in 46 years to open the season by breaking 100 in its first two games, and then outgritted Duke in their first night on the main stage. They won their opener by 41 points for a new coach who wore No. 41 when he played for Kentucky.
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Once upon a time, John Calipari brought in five-star freshmen by the railroad car and hoped everything fit. Mark Pope’s starting lineup against Duke included four graduate transfers and his roster is built on balance and savvy-fed chemistry. The youngest Kentucky starter was older than Duke’s oldest. The Wildcats should eventually have seven players this season who are 1,000 point-scorers in their college careers, and the fact they’re experienced, talented, deep and seem to be as happy as clams playing together — 70 assists the first three games, 108 points off the bench — would suggest there is every chance of the March rebirth that Big Blue Nation is so desperately seeking.
“When it can be about us (as a team), that’s when it’s magic,” Pope said. “That’s the gospel. That’s life. This team has really adopted that.”
Forward Andrew Carr, the Wake Forest transfer who led with 17 points Tuesday, seconded that. “It’s really cool being a part of a brand new team just because everybody didn’t know anybody else. Everybody had to have the same amount of effort to get to know and love and serve and care for your teammates in the same way because you didn’t know any of them.”
45 — The average point production for Duke’s three freshmen starters. Flagg, Kon Knueppel and Kahman Maluach went for 50 against Kentucky on their first night under the bright lights. And yet there is a process that must be continued. Knueppel needed 20 shots to get 14 points Tuesday and Flagg had the two late turnovers when he was trying to make something happen against a Kentucky team determined to stop him. A lot to ask of a 17-year-old, but he was the Blue Devil with 26 points and 12 rebounds and owns a future that looks like Mt. Everest.
“We’re going to grow and learn from this. I promise you that,” coach Jon Scheyer said. His last-second strategy was direct: “Put the ball in (Flagg’s) hands. They knew that was happening too, and I’m okay with that. We’re going to be in these moments a lot together, and I trust his instincts. I probably could have put him in a better position, to be honest. But he’s got to touch it and trust that good things will happen. I wish you could say that every time it will work out, and that’s not reality.”
3-for-24 — Michigan State’s 3-point shooting in the Kansas loss, which put the Spartans at .200 percent for the season. We have a theme here. This time last year they labored to overcome .16 percent shooting from the arc after three games. Jaden Akins, expected to be the Alpha Spartan, scored two points and missed seven of eight shots. He is 1-for-11 in 3-point shooting this season, with the burden of being the marked Michigan Stater. “He’s going to have to work his way through it,” Tom Izzo said.
19 — The quartet of bluebloods in the Champions Classic are vivid examples of the radical change in the college basketball landscape. A total of 33 players scored for the four teams Tuesday night, 19 of them transfers who were playing for someone else last season.
3 — Nominations for national player of the year are now open. Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner has taken 32 shots this season. He has missed three. His 20-for-22 shooting created 49 points in the Bluejays’ 99-86 win over UT Rio Grande Valley, which was more than the entire teams from Oakland, Vermont and Alcorn State scored that night. The last Division I player to have 20 field goals and shoot 90 percent in a game was UCLA’s Bill Walton nearly 52 years ago in the 1973 national championship game. Kalkbrenner is averaging 36.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 3.0 blocked shots.
46 — We have had our first story that nobody could make up. An in-flight squabble among the Auburn Fightin’ Tigers caused the pilot to land. Guys will be guys, but not at 30,000 feet. They eventually made it to their Houston destination, and then of course promptly shredded the Cougars’ normally fearsome defense for 46 points in the second half to beat No. 4 Houston ,74-69. That’s as many points as the Cougars allowed nine opponents in an entire game last season, including Kansas.
BIG WIN: Auburn takes down Houston in thriller
38 — Gonzaga over Baylor by how much? It was the largest winning margin over a top-10 opponent in school history and the largest by anyone against a top-10er since 2016. The Zags have zoomed up to No. 4 in the latest AP rankings and are one of five teams to get a No. 1 vote. Gonzaga hasn’t gone anywhere. Again.
0 — Here’s the first banging from the mid-major section. That was the number of all-time wins before this season for North Florida against either the SEC or the ACC. But the Ospreys opened the season with a 74-71 upset of South Carolina and four days later took care of Georgia Tech, 105-93.
0-4 — Villanova’s record its past four games against Philadelphia’s Big 5 competition after Tuesday’s 83-76 loss to Saint Joseph’s. The 2-2 Wildcats also opened the season by losing to Columbia. The golden days seem longer and longer ago, and for a program badly in need of a second wind, so far this isn’t it. “They did what they did better than what we did offensively, unfortunately,” coach Kyle Neptune said after the Saint Joseph’s game. “We’ve just got to get better.”
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38 — Purdue’s regular season winning streak against non-conference opponents going back to 2020. As of Friday, the Boilermakers will have not lost one of those games in 1,439 days. But here comes No. 2 Alabama, and there’s another number to ponder: 50-24. Yale outscored Purdue in the paint by that stunning gap the other night in pushing the Boilermakers before losing 92-84. Zach Edey isn’t protecting the rim anymore. And his 7-4 heir apparent, Daniel Jacobsen, broke his tibia in the first minute of the second game and is probably lost for the season.
48-3 — The record through Tuesday of Associated Press top-25 teams against unranked opponents. Texas A&M, Texas and UCLA have been the three victims, courtesy of UCF, Ohio State and New Mexico.
37.5 — Connecticut’s margin of victory after two games. You remember the Huskies, repeating as national champions last spring by blowing through the NCAA tournament by an average of 23 points a game. UConn has already swatted 23 opposing shots, including 11 by Alex Karaban — which is more than 204 teams have. It must be noted this blastoff has come against Sacred Heart and New Hampshire with Le Moyne and East Texas A&M next. The appetizer course will be over soon, however. Check back in two weeks when the Huskies head for Maui where they’ll begin with Memphis and then see the possible likes of Michigan State, North Carolina, Iowa State and Alabama.
3-0 — Gerry McNamara never missed a start in 134 career games at Syracuse. His head coaching career has taken off OK, too, with Siena 3-0 for the first time in 21 years. The first two wins were in overtime. “I’d love to have a regulation game,” he said after the second. The Saints did Tuesday and beat American, 74-66. Leading the way has been Justice Shoats with 31, 23 and 18 points. He’s a 5-11 Division II transfer from Lock Haven whose bio says he is afraid of heights.
2-1 — Detroit Mercy’s record after beating Niagara 84-78 in overtime. Coming off a 1-31 season, the Titans passed last year’s victory total on Nov. 10.
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4 — The universe seems a tad twisted. Four of the top five teams in the most recent College Football Playoff rankings are from the Big Ten, only one from the SEC. But in the latest AP basketball poll, the Big Ten doesn’t have a team in the top 12, while the SEC has Alabama at No. 2, Auburn at No. 5 and Tennessee at No. 11. Getting tougher to sort out the basketball conferences from the football conferences.
59 — UNC Wilmington shot that many free throws in a 92-84 win over Georgia Southern, with 45 of the Seahawks’ 92 points coming from the line. They tried nine more free throws than field goals. Hey, that can’t all be classics, but after the first week and the Champions Classic, the college season is rolling. And the November tournament buffet will be put out soon.