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The Breakfast Buffet: Duke/Michigan, UConn begins a massive two-game stretch, Chris Cenac

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

Duke/Michigan
A Final Four caliber non-conference game in mid-February? You better believe it. Tonight’s massive showdown in Washington D.C. has the feel of a matchup that we might see on the first Monday night in April. The winner of this game will have the inside track to be the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament on Selection Sunday.

UConn begins a massive two-game stretch at Villanova
There’s not many Quad 1 opportunities in the Big East this season, but the Huskies have two of them back-to-back starting with tonight’s game in Philadelphia followed by next week’s rematch with St. John’s in Hartford. For a team that’s striving to be a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament, those are major chances to move the needle. Dan Hurley’s squad is giving up an average of 79.3 points in its last four games and needs to improve its defense to have a chance to go where it wants to go moving forward.

Chris Cenac steps up a weight class against Arizona
The 6-11 freshman grabbed 12 rebounds on Monday when Houston suffered a tough loss against Iowa State at Hilton Coliseum, but the level of competition up front reaches an entirely different level today against the Wildcats. Even with Koa Peat out of the lineup for Arizona due to a leg injury, Tommy Lloyd’s front line of Tobe Awaka (9.7 points, 9.6 rebounds) and Motiejus Krivas (10.8 points, 8.7 rebounds) is still beyond formidable. It will be interesting to see how Cenac handles both the size and physicality of the Wildcats up front.

On The Side

  • Arkansas’ Darius Acuff (22.3 points, 6.2 assists) has just two turnovers in his last 88 minutes.
  • Bryce Hopkins is averaging 17.0 points and 9.3 rebounds in St. John’s last three games. This is the player that we saw a few years ago pre-injury. The Red Storm will go for their 13th straight win today at MSG against Creighton.
  • Virginia is 23-3, only trails Duke by a game for first place in the ACC standings, and will play four of its final five regular season games at home, starting with today’s tilt against Miami in Charlottesville. Don’t sleep on Ryan Odom’s squad.
  • Four head coaches who have previously been to the Final Four — Shaka Smart (Marquette), Dana Altman (Oregon), Chris Beard (Ole Miss), and Porter Moser (Oklahoma) — currently have records of .500 or worse.
  • Houston’s Kelvin Sampson was Friday’s guest on INSIDE COLLEGE BASKETBALL NOW. To watch the full interview, click HERE.

Daily Specials

  • Arizona at Houston
  • Duke/Michigan
  • UConn at Villanova
  • Illinois at UCLA
  • Iowa State at BYU

Leftovers