College Hoops Today

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The Breakfast Buffet: Bucky McMillan has a big week, Utah State/New Mexico, Johnny Dawkins

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

Bucky McMillan has a big week
Texas A&M’s first-year head coach has willed the Aggies to a 17-4 start and is currently in first place in the SEC standings, but the next few days will represent his toughest stretch yet since he’s been in College Station. Texas A&M will be in Tuscaloosa tonight to face Alabama and then return home on Saturday to host Florida. This is the type of two-game stretch that can determine whether or not this team will have a legitimate chance to win an SEC regular season title after losing its most talented player — Mackenzie Mgbako (10.4 points, 4.9 rebounds) — to a season-ending injury.

Utah State/New Mexico
The game of the night in college hoops may very well be in Albuquerque at The Pit. Both the Aggies and Lobos are firmly in the NCAA Tournament picture, but both do not have a surplus of Quad 1 wins and that’s what’s on the line tonight for both teams. A fascinating 40 minutes lies ahead in one of college basketball’s best venues. Utah State enters tonight’s tilt at 18-3 while New Mexico checks in at 18-4.

Johnny Dawkins is doing his best coaching job yet
The Big 12 has six different teams — Arizona, Iowa State, Kansas, Texas Tech, and BYU — that all possess the requisites to get to the Final Four in Indianapolis, but the league also boasts another team — UCF — that’s quietly writing an incredible story. That’s a credit to Dawkins, who after taking Stanford to the Sweet 16 in 2014 and the Knights to within inches of beating Duke — his alma mater — in the second round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament, is doing the best coaching job of his career. UCF is 17-4 entering tonight’s game at Houston and already owns home victories on its resume over Kansas and Texas Tech as well as a road triumph at Texas A&M. The most impressive part of this? Dawkins is dealing with an entirely new roster from last season and even lost several players from a year ago — Keyshawn Hall (Auburn), Jaylin Sellers (Providence), and Moustapha Thiam (Cincinnati) — who are having primary roles at power conference programs. If he can finish the job and get this team to the NCAA Tournament, it may mark the finest accomplishment of Dawkins’ head coaching career.

On The Side

  • Luka Bogavac is averaging 12.3 points off the bench during North Carolina’s current four-game winning streak.
  • Seton Hall has not beaten Villanova on The Main Line since Feb. 26th, 1994. That’s 11,666 days ago! The Pirates will try and reverse the trend tonight at Finneran Pavilion.
  • Georgetown is just 1-4 at home in Big East play entering tonight’s game against Creighton in Washington D.C. It may be time for the Hoyas to consider building an on-campus venue and minimize the amount of times that they play in Capital One Arena during the season.
  • Syracuse is just 120-114 (51.3 percent) in ACC regular season games since joining the conference in 2013. By comparison, the Orange were 136-68 (66.7 percent) in Big East regular season games in their final 12 years in the old Big East.

Daily Specials

  • UCF at Houston
  • Michigan State at Minnesota
  • Texas A&M at Alabama
  • BYU at Oklahoma State
  • Utah State at New Mexico

Leftovers