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The Breakfast Buffet: Donovan Clingan, RJ Davis and Caleb Love both flourishing, Auburn/Tennessee

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

Donovan Clingan is hitting his stide
A mid-season foot injury slowed Clingan’s progress in December, but now he’s starting to resemble that player that many envisioned he’d be following a breakout performance in last year’s NCAA Tournament. In his last six games, the 7-3 sophomore is averaging 12.3 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks in 24.3 minutes; those numbers don’t account for the number of shots that Clingan alters simply by standing in the middle of UConn’s defense. In the 11 games since he returned to the lineup in mid-January, the Huskies’ opponents are only averaging 61.9 points. There’s a lot of reasons why Dan Hurley has a real chance to lead this program to its second consecutive national title — Clingan is a primary one.

RJ Davis and Caleb Love are both flourishing
After teaming together at North Carolina for multiple years — which was highlighted by a trip to the 2022 Final Four— Love (19 points, five rebounds, 3.3 assists) opted to enter the transfer portal and commit to Arizona following the end of last season. Both players are now having tremendous success in their current spots. Davis (21.7 points, 3.7 rebounds, 3.4 assists) is on track to be the ACC Player of the Year and a first-team All-American while Love enters Arizona’s game tonight against Arizona State in the pole position to be Pac-12 Player of the Year. Breakups can be hard. Breakups can be cumbersome. Nevertheless, it’s terrific to see both of these young men flourishing. Kudos to both Davis and Love for having great seasons for a pair of teams — North Carolina and Arizona — who should be among the top seven or eight seeds in the 2024 NCAA Tournament.

Auburn/Tennessee
It’s always an enticing storyline when Bruce Pearl returns to Knoxville, but tonight’s game has even more sizzle. Both of these programs have the requisites to play deep into the NCAA Tournament and the Vols could very well be a number one seed in March Madness for the first time in program history. The Tigers currently trail Tennessee and Alabama by just one game for first place in the SEC standings. Rick Barnes’ squad is 6-1 at home in SEC play, with an average margin of victory of 25.8 points.

On The Side

  • Four of Baylor’s five starters — Yves Missi, Jayden Nunn, Ja’Kobe Water, and RayJ Dennis — were not in the Bears’ program last season.
  • Alabama is allowing an average of 89.1 points in SEC road games this season entering tonight’s matchup with Ole Miss in Oxford.
  • St. John’s is 2-8 against Butler at Hinkle Fieldhouse since the Bulldogs became a member of the Big East in 2013. Both teams are firmly in the bubble picture. Tip off for tonight’s game is at 8:30 PM ET on CBS Sports Network.
  • Auburn’s Jaylin Williams (knee) has traveled to Knoxville and is questionable for tonight’s game at Tennessee, Bruce Pearl told College Hoops Today on Monday. The 6-8 forward hasn’t played since Feb. 17th and is averaging 13 points and 4.7 rebounds.
  • Virginia will be on the wrong side of the bubble if it loses tonight at Boston College. The Cavaliers are averaging just 44.7 points in their last three games and are now just 47th in the NET.

Daily Specials

  • Auburn at Tennessee
  • Providence at Marquette
  • Oklahoma at Iowa State
  • Seton Hall at Creighton
  • Alabama at Ole Miss

Leftovers