College Hoops Today

Serving College Basketball 365 Days a Year

The Breakfast Buffet: Marquette/Indiana, Alabama, Cameron Carr

Who’s hungry for college basketball?

Here’s today’s installment of “The Breakfast Buffet”, a daily column that can be found here every single morning getting you caught up to date on everything that’s happened from the day/night before and everything that’s going to happen in the next 24 hours.

Mangia!

Things To Sample

Marquette/Indiana
Can Shaka Smart lead the Golden Eagles to their fifth straight NCAA Tournament appearance? Can Darian DeVries lead the Hoosiers to March Madness in his first season in Bloomington? These are some of the questions we hope to get a better idea of after these two teams meet this afternoon at the United Center in Chicago. Marquette won a pair of buy games earlier this week while Indiana won one. Keep an eye Golden Eagles guard Chase Ross, who enters today’s game averaging an impressive 19.0 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 5.0 assists. This is the game of the day in college basketball.

Alabama did whatever it wanted against St. John’s
The Crimson Tide’s 103-point effort in Saturday’s seven-point win over the Red Storm at MSG was the first time that St. John’s has given up 100 points or more in a game under Rick Pitino. As much as it was an indictment on the Red Storm’s lack of perimeter defense, credit needs to be given to Alabama and its terrific troika of guards — LaBaron Philon, Aden Holloway, and Latrell Wrightsell — who combined for 63 of the Crimson Tide’s 103 points. Alabama shot a whopping 48.1 percent from the field as a team. Under Nate Oats, the Crimson Tide have advanced to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament in four of the past five seasons. The trajectory remains the same in Tuscaloosa in 2025-26.

Here comes Cameron Carr
The sport’s most under-the-radar transfer may indeed play for Baylor. The 6-5 Carr only appeared in a combined 18 games during the first year and a half of his college career at Tennessee, but he’s quickly making up for lost time. Now at Baylor, Carr looks like he’ll instantly be the go-to guy this season for Scott Drew as the veteran head coach aims to replace 100 percent of his scoring that he lost from a year ago. Carr had 28 points and five rebounds in Monday’s opener against UT Rio Grande Valley and looks like an All-Big 12 caliber producer. Baylor hosts Washington tonight in Waco in what will be a valuable litmus test for both programs.

On The Side

  • One early Big East observation: Georgetown, Providence, and Villanova all look tangibly better than they were last season.
  • Could Auburn’s Keyshawn Hall lead two different power conferences in scoring in back-to-back seasons? Don’t rule it out of the realm of possibility. Through two games with the Tigers, the 6-7 Hall is averaging 26.5 points and 9.5 rebounds. He averaged 18.8 points last season at UCF prior to transferring and led the Big 12 in scoring.
  • Is the light going on for Xavier Booker at UCLA? It’s a small sample size, but the 6-11 big man — who spent the first two years of his college career at Michigan State — is averaging 14.5 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 3.0 blocks through the Bruins’ first two games. His five blocked shots on Friday night against Pepperdine was a career-high.
  • Northern Arizona transfer Carson Towt has grabbed a combined 29 rebounds in his first two games at Notre Dame. Remember the name. 
  • Coach K will be Monday’s guest on INSIDE COLLEGE BASKETBALL NOW. To subscribe and not miss ANY episodes, click HERE. 

Daily Specials

  • Indiana/Marquette
  • Texas A&M at Oklahoma State
  • Washington at Baylor

Leftovers