The second week of the regular season in men’s college basketball was far better than the first.
DePaul is 4-0, eclipsing last season’s win total where they had a 3-29 record. It may feel like forever since the Blue Demons were not the dead-last team in KenPom ratings. However, they were a better team than Georgetown during the 2022-23 season, finishing with a 10-23 record. The Chris Holtmann era is off to a strong start, but time will tell if DePaul has its first winning season since going 19-17 during the 2018-19 season.
Villanova head coach Kyle Neptune keeps digging himself into a deeper hole. On Tuesday, the Wildcats started the Big 5 Classic on the wrong note, losing at Saint Joseph’s 83-76. While forward Eric Dixon is a bright spot, averaging 24.8 points and 8.3 rebounds per game, the rest of the team seems to have already given up on their season. On Friday night, Villanova lost by 10 to Virginia, a team that lost head coach Tony Bennett due to retirement right before the season. Talk about a team that has quit already.
Seton Hall was expected to have a down year, with star guard Kadary Richmond transferring across the Hudson River to St. John’s. However, their expectations were much higher than what they are doing right now. The Pirates went into the Nassau Coliseum, seeking a neutral site win over Hofstra, but fell a point short, being held under 50 points. On the bright side, Seton Hall earned a big win for their confidence on Saturday, defeating Wagner 54-28.
Lastly, the week ended with a Pitino vs. Pitino matchup. New Mexico, led by head coach Richard Pitino, came in to face the Rick Pitino-led St. John’s Red Storm. The Johnnies came out on top 85-71.
Weekly Awards
Player of the Week: Kam Jones, G, Marquette (20 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 4.5 apg, 2 spg, 51.8 FG%, 50 3P%, 63.6 FT% in two games)
Jones is one of the top scorers in college basketball. This has shown so far, averaging 24 points in the four games he has played in. That scoring average is 13th in the country. The senior from Memphis, Tenn. may have picked a few tips from former teammate Tyler Kolek about leading Marquette’s offense. Kolek was the nation’s leader in assists the last two seasons. While Jones is only tied for 72nd in the country in assists per game, he is averaging five per game, more than double what he averaged last year (2.4). He showed off his passing ability last Monday, recording eight assists in an eight-point win over Central Michigan. Jones stepped up scoring-wise in a massive road test against Maryland, scoring 28 points on 55.6% shooting in a 78-74 win.
Freshman of the Week: Liam McNeeley, F, UConn (vs. Le Moyne: 15 pts, 3 reb, 1 blk, 1 stl, 5-10 FG, 3-8 3PT, 2-2 FT)
There were few candidates for this week’s Freshman of the Week in the Big East. However, in UConn’s only game of the week, McNeeley came through. The five-star freshman from Richardson, Texas has averaged 14.3 points and eight rebounds per game, shooting 48.1% from the field, 41.2% from deep and 71.4% from the free-throw line.
Best games coming up
No. 6 Purdue at No. 15 Marquette (9 p.m., FS1)
Marquette just went neck-and-neck with Maryland, and now they are going head-to-head with the top-ranked team (AP Poll-wise) in the Big Ten. The two programs met almost exactly a year ago in Hawaii, where the Boilermakers came out on top with a 78-75 victory. However, Purdue does not have Zach Edey this time, who ended his career as one of the greatest players in program history. On the other hand, Marquette lost Kolek to the NBA as well. The guard matchup of Jones and Purdue’s Braden Smith will be the key to the game. However, Trey Kaufman-Renn has found his groove and is coming off a 26-point performance in a massive win over Alabama on Friday night.
No. 13 Baylor vs. No. 22 St. John’s (Thursday, 7 p.m., CBS Sports Network)
One word to describe this matchup: theater. Expect this game to come down to the wire as two national championship head coaches go head-to-head in Nassau, Bahamas on Thursday. Baylor can be the best team in the Big 12, while St. John’s has one of the best backcourts in the country with Richmond and Utah transfer Deivon Smith. The winner of this game will take on the winner of the Virginia-Tennessee matchup later that night, with the losers facing each other too.
Villanova vs. Maryland (Sunday, 1 p.m., ESPN)
No team in the Big East has started more disappointing than Villanova has. If they take care of business tonight against Penn (and they should, but would not put it past them to drop this game as well), they will go into the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. with a chance to increase their winning percentage above .500 for the first time since defeating NJIT on Nov. 8. The situation in this game that should pique your interest is who Neptune assigns to guard Maryland star freshman Derik Queen, who has become a go-to guy for the Terrapins. He has a two-inch advantage over Dixon, which may force Neptune to use the taller Enoch Boakye.