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The Breakfast Buffet: Trevion Williams, Baylor, ACC has work to do

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

Trevion Williams needs to be celebrated
The top prospects in the NBA Draft will have their time and place to be showcased, but from now until the first weekend of April, let’s hope that stories about guys like Williams are the things that are being pushed to the forefront. An All-Big Ten player last season, Williams moved to the bench at the start of this season when Matt Painter opted to go with 7-4 sophomore Zach Edey as Purdue’s starting center. Williams never flinched. Instead, he’s using the situation as an incubator to what currently looks like a memorable senior year. The 6-10 big man had 22 points, 12 rebounds, and nine assists in Sunday’s comeback win over NC State at the Barclays Center and was the epicenter of everything for the Boilers down the stretch. Williams is averaging 18.8 points and 13.7 rebounds in his last three games. This guy is a symbol to everything that college sports should represent.

Baylor continues to sustain success
This program lost four starters — Jared Butler, Davion Mitchell, MaCio Teague, and Mark Vital — from last year’s team that won a national title and will still be ranked first in this week’s AP Top 25. That’s simply incredible. Scott Drew has done one of the great building jobs in the history of college sports during his tenure in Waco, but respectfully, Baylor also doesn’t have the pedigree, history, or tradition of blue blood programs like Duke, North Carolina, or Kentucky. None of that seems to matter. The Bears are again elite defensively, as evidenced by their 57-36 win over Villanova on Sunday. Baylor also have enough offensive firepower with James Akinjo, Adam Flagler, Matthew Mayer, and Kendall Brown to win games in the 70s and 80s. Staying power is a real thing in this program.

The ACC has work to do
Who is the third team in this league behind Duke and North Carolina? Nobody seems to know. Aside from the two programs that play on Tobacco Road, the ACC doesn’t currently possess many known commodities. This league has failed to performed well during the first month of the season and the conference’s “other 13 teams” currently have a combined overall record of 79-50. The ACC needs more wins over the next few weeks like Notre Dame had over Kentucky on Saturday in South Bend.

On The Side

  • UCLA’s win over Marquette on Saturday in Milwaukee was the first time that the Bruins truly resembled last season’s team that reached the Final Four for an entire 40 minutes. Mick Cronin’s squad held the Golden Eagles to just 56 points on their home floor and just 33.3 percent shooting from the field. It also out rebounded Marquette by 11. This team is going be really interesting when Cody Riley (knee) gets back into the lineup.
  • Michigan fell to 6-4 after Saturday’s home loss to Minnesota. The Wolverines didn’t have four losses last season until they lost to Ohio State in the semifinals of the Big Ten Tournament on the day before Selection Sunday.
  • Kentucky has now lost to the only two power conference opponents — Duke and Notre Dame — that it’s played this season. The Wildcats are better than they were last year, but it still remains to be seen if they’re on the level of teams like Auburn and Alabama atop the SEC. John Calipari’s squad is 7-2 and will next face Ohio State on Saturday in the CBS Sports Classic in Las Vegas.
  • J’Wan Roberts looks like he’s emerging as Houston’s “identity guy”. The 6-7 sophomore has 29 rebounds in his last three games — 12 were on the offensive end of the floor. Roberts is averaging 8.1 rebounds.
  • Looking for an under-the-radar transfer? Try Creighton’s Ryan Hawkins. The 6-7 forward played last season at Northwest Missouri State (Division II), but is seamlessly transitioning to life at the Division 1 level. Hawkins is averaging 25 points and 6.5 rebounds in the Bluejays’ last two games against Iowa State and BYU.

Daily Specials

  • Cleveland State at Oklahoma State
  • Rhode Island at Milwaukee
  • Albany at Boston College

Leftovers