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The Breakfast Buffet: Kansas visits TCU, Duke is set up for a strong finish, North Carolina

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

Kansas visits TCU
Who is the best team in the Big 12? We’ll have a better idea after tonight’s tilt in Fort Worth. The Jayhawks are currently tied with Texas for first place in the Big 12 standings and have a three-game lead on the Horned Frogs, but that fact is very deceiving because TCU has played for three weeks without All-American guard Mike Miles, who was out with a knee injury. Miles — the Big 12 Preseason Player of the Year — returned on Saturday against Oklahoma State and had 15 points in a 25-point win. In the first meeting between the Jayhawks and TCU this season, the Horned Frogs beat Kansas 83-60 on Jan. 21st at Allen Fieldhouse. Tonight’s matchup feels like an Elite Eight caliber game.

Duke is set up to have a strong finish
Three of the Blue Devils’ final four regular season games will be played at Cameron Indoor Stadium — where Duke (19-8) is 13-0 season — starting with tonight’s matchup against Louisville (4-23). That’s a good sign for Jon Scheyer’s team, who has played very good basketball over the past few weeks with the exception of a 22-point loss at Miami seven days ago. The Blue Devils are also getting healthier. Five-star freshman Dariq Whitehead is averaging 11 points in his three games since returning from a leg injury and is 12-21 from the field and 9-14 from three-point range during that span. After tonight’s game against Louisville, Duke will host Virginia Tech and NC State before concluding the regular season at North Carolina on March 4th.

Time is running out for North Carolina
Are the Tar Heels going to be the first team ever to miss the NCAA Tournament after being ranked No. 1 in the preseason? It’s starting to look like it. North Carolina still does not own a Quad 1 win on its resume and fell to 16-11 overall after Sunday’s loss at NC State. The Tar Heels will close the regular season with road games at Notre Dame and Florida State along with home games against Virginia and Duke. Anything less than three wins will make it awfully hard for this team to earn at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament barring a deep run against the right opponents in the ACC Tournament.

On The Side

  • Kansas’ DaJuan Harris has 18 assists to just two turnovers in his last two games. That’s utterly ridiculous. Harris has also already made three more three-point shots than he did during all of last season.
  • For the first time this season, Xavier (20-7) has held three consecutive opponents to 70 points or fewer.
  • Creighton (18-9) had 20 points off the bench in Saturday’s win over St. John’s. It had 20 points combined from its reserves in its previous three games.
  • Oklahoma (12-13) is 4-7 this season in games that have been decided by five points or fewer. The Sooners would be firmly in the NCAA Tournament picture if they had two more wins.
  • Vermont (17-10) has clinched at least a share of the America East regular season title for the seventh consecutive season. That’s the second longest streak in college basketball only behind Gonzaga. John Becker has done as good of a job during his tenure in Burlington as any mid-major coach has done anywhere.

Daily Specials

  • Oklahoma State at West Virginia
  • Louisville at Duke
  • Kansas at TCU
  • Minnesota at Illinois

Leftovers