College Hoops Today

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The Breakfast Buffet: Kentucky has a big week, Egor Demin visits Amica Mutual Pavilion, Big Ten play begins

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

Kentucky has a big week
Mark Pope won the hearts of the Wildcats’ passionate fan base when Kentucky beat Duke a few weeks ago in the Champions Classic. Things get a bit harder this week as he’ll coach his first true road game starting with tonight at Clemson in the ACC/SEC Challenge. A matchup with Gonzaga in Seattle will then happen on Saturday. Only one of the the Wildcats’ first seven games — Duke — was against a power conference opponent. Kentucky enters tonight’s game at Clemson at 7-0 and with six different players — Otega Oweh, Koby Brea, Lamont Butler, Jaxson Robinson, Andrew Carr, and Amari Williams — averaging in double figures. The Wildcats are also assisting on 61.1 percent of their made field goals.

Egor Demin visits Amica Mutual Pavilion
BYU’s talented freshman may still feel like a bit of an unknown commodity nationally, but that may change after he visits one of the sport’s top venues tonight in Providence. The 6-9 Demin enters this evening’s game averaging 14.3 points, 6.3 assists, and 4.9 rebounds while shooting 56.9 percent from the field and 44.1 percent from three-point range. BYU played against a pair of power conference opponents — Ole Miss and NC State — last week in the Rady Children’s Invitational, but both of those games may not have received optimum attention due to the high volume of games on the college basketball schedule during Feast Week. This is a major showcase opportunity for Demin and the Cougars and a major opportunity for Providence, who lost three straight games last week at the Battle 4 Atlantis after a 5-0 start.

The start of Big Ten play
The first league games to be played this season in a power conference will be occur tonight as the Big Ten has three league tilts on the schedule. Iowa hosts Northwestern in Iowa City while Michigan visits Wisconsin and Washington travels to UCLA. It’s the first-ever Big Ten conference game for both the Huskies and Bruins, who both previously played in the Pac-12. There seems to be a general consensus that Purdue is the best team in this league, but after that everything feels like a crapshoot. This is the first season that the Big Ten will feature 18 teams following the additions of UCLA, USC, Oregon, and Washington.

On The Side

  • Cincinnati’s Simas Lukosius (16.5 points) is 22-of-38 (57.9 percent) from three-point range entering tonight’s game at Villanova.
  • All three of Oklahoma’s wins last week in the Battle 4 Atlantis were by five points or fewer. The Sooners return to action tonight in Norman against Georgia Tech.
  • What’s up with Xavier’s lack of ball security? The Musketeers have 25 assists to 35 turnovers in their last two games.
  • The first NET Rankings of the 2024-25 college basketball season were released on Monday.
  • Scott Drew said on this week’s edition of the College Hoops Today Podcast that Baylor freshman VJ Edgecombe (hamstring) is “progressing well and hopes to be available” for Wednesday’s game against UConn at Gampel Pavilion. The 6-4 Edgecombe — who averages 11 points and 5.4 rebounds — only played 11 minutes in the Bears’ last game.

Daily Specials

  • BYU at Providence
  • Michigan at Wisconsin
  • Wake Forest at Texas A&M
  • Ole Miss at Louisville
  • Kentucky at Clemson

Leftovers