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The Breakfast Buffet: Braden Frager, Tre Donaldson, Duke and North Carolina head to the West Coast

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

Braden Frager is emerging for Nebraska
Never heard of Frager? You will soon if the Huskers keep winning. Nebraska’s 16-0 start has become one of the great stories of the 2025-26 season and Frager is now playing a significant role. A Lincoln native, the 6-7 Frager is a redshirt freshman who’s quietly becoming a major scoring threat in reserve. He had 11 points and four rebounds in 19 minutes in Saturday’s win over Indiana in Bloomington and is averaging 13.4 points in Nebraska’s last five games. Remember the name.  

Tre Donaldson is the best point guard that not enough people are talking about
Jai Lucas has built an NCAA Tournament caliber team in his first year at Miami (14-2) and Donaldson is the heartbeat of that operation. After operating as the steward for a pair of teams that reached March Madness in each of the past two seasons — Auburn in 2024 and Michigan in 2025 — Donaldson is unequivocally playing the best basketball of his career in Coral Gables. He tallied 27 points, 10 assists, and just one turnover in Saturday’s win over Georgia Tech and is averaging 16.6 points, 6.9 assists, and 3.5 rebounds with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 3.4:1. As Donaldson goes, so will the Canes.

Duke and North Carolina head to the West Coast
The league’s two flagship programs will both head to Northern California this week for a pair of games against Stanford and Cal. It will be interesting to see how both the Blue Devils and Tar Heels perform for the first time in the Pacific Time Zone during conference play. Another thing to remember: Their competition doesn’t stink. The Cardinal and Bears both own identical 13-4 records and Stanford has beaten both Louisville and Virginia Tech in the past two weeks. An interesting few days await for both Duke and North Carolina in the Bay Area.

On The Side

  • NC State’s Darrion Williams is back on track. The ACC Preseason Player of the Year had been going through a bit of a slump, but averaged 21.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 3.5 assists in back-to-back wins for the Wolfpack last week over Boston College and Florida State.
  • I’ll say it again: Kansas is not a top-five team in the Big 12 with or without Darryn Peterson.
  • Remember when the entire college basketball world lost its mind a few weeks ago when Baylor added big man James Nnaji in the middle of the season after he had already been drafted by the NBA? He’s averaging just 3.3 points and 5.3 rebounds in his first three games with the Bears.
  • Miami (OH) is 17-0 for the first time in program history. A salute to Travis Steele, who’s doing a tremendous job as head coach of the Redhawks after beginning his career at Xavier.
  • INSIDE COLLEGE BASKETBALL NOW will again be on CBS Sports Network today at 1 PM ET. 

Daily Specials

  • Navy at American
  • Nicholls at McNeese

Leftovers