College Hoops Today

Serving College Basketball 365 Days a Year

The Breakfast Buffet: Tyler Kolek, Jayden Epps, UCLA begins a key road trip

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

Tyler Kolek is pushing for Big East Player of the Year honors
There’s many reasons why Marquette is in position to win an outright Big East regular season title for the first time in program history, but Kolek is one of the main ones. In his last seven games, the 6-3 point guard is averaging 17.2 points, 6.7 assists, 4.5 rebounds, and two steals. He also had the decisive basket in Tuesday’s dramatic win at Creighton. How much does Kolek mean to the Golden Eagles? If you took him off Marquette —- who is currently the best team in the Big East — and put him on Villanova, he’d regularly be compared to someone like Collin Gillespie. Providence’s Bryce Hopkins, Xavier’s Souley Boum, and UConn’s Adama Sanogo are also among the leading candidates for Big East Player of the Year honors.

Jayden Epps is emerging for Illinois
There is no better teacher in life than repetition. That’s what Epps is regularly getting for the Illini. After Skyy Clark left Illinois’ program, it opened the door for Epps to become Brad Underwood’s primary point guard. He’s responding very well. The 6-2 Epps has logged 28 minutes or more in eight consecutive games and is averaging 12.8 points during that span. His ball security has also been high level. Epps only has three turnovers in his last 94 minutes played entering tonight’s game against Northwestern (20-7) in Champiagn.

UCLA begins a key road trip
The Bruins have not won a Pac-12 regular season title since the 2012-13 season and that’s well within this group’s reach. UCLA (23-4) holds a two-game lead over Arizona in the Pac-12 standings with four regular season games remaining entering tonight’s tilt in Salt Lake City against Utah. The Bruins will also play a road game this weekend on Sunday against Colorado in Boulder. Both of these games are Quad 1 opportunities for UCLA, who was projected as a No. 2 seed in last week’s “Bracket Reveal” on CBS.

On The Side

  • One thing not getting enough attention to regards to Northwestern’s tremendous season? The Wildcats are currently in position to have a better NCAA Tournament seed than they had in 2017, when they played in the event for the first time in program history.
  • Villanova’s win at Xavier on Tuesday night clearly moved the needle, but things won’t get any easier down the stretch for the Wildcats. Kyle Neptune’s squad will host Creighton on Saturday and then travel to Seton Hall before concluding the regular season on March 4th at home against UConn.
  • Fardaws Aimaq has had a major hand in Texas Tech’s four-game winning streak. During his last three games, the 6-11 big man — who played last season at Utah Valley — is averaging 15 points and 10 rebounds. Mark Adams’ squad is now 16-12 overall.
  • Under Brian Dutcher, San Diego State is 46-6 against Mountain West opponents at Viejas Arena.
  • With a victory tonight against Pepperdine (9-19), Santa Clara (21-8) will have more wins than it had during all of last season. This all comes after the Broncos lost a lottery pick in Jalen Williams. Don’t dismiss Herb Sendek from pushing Saint Mary’s Randy Bennett for WCC Coach of the Year.

Daily Specials

  • Penn State at Ohio State
  • Michigan at Rutgers
  • Northwestern at Illinois
  • USC at Colorado
  • UCLA at Utah

Leftovers