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The Breakfast Buffet: Tyrese Martin, Davidson, Arizona hits the road

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

Tyrese Martin is officially UConn’s go-to guy on the wing
The questions about how the Huskies are going to replace James Bouknight on the wing offensively need to officially stop. That’s because Martin is emerging into one of the best scorers in the Big East. The 6-6 senior torched Marquette for 25 points and six rebounds in Tuesday night’s 74-67 win in Milwaukee and continues to look the part of an all-conference caliber player. Martin has scored in double figures in eight of the nine games that he’s appeared in this season and is averaging 14.4 points. Dan Hurley’s squad will next visit Xavier on Dec. 28th.

Davidson put the Atlantic 10 on the map
This entire conference should send Bob McKillop a Christmas gift. The Wildcats’ 79-78 win over Alabama on Tuesday night in Birmingham is exactly the type of non-conference win that the Atlantic 10 desperately needed heading into league play. In November, St. Bonaventure beat Marquette on a neutral floor, but that victory doesn’t move the needle nationally quite like this win does. Dayton also had a big for the Atlantic 10 when it beat Kansas a month ago in Orlando, but the Flyers’ home losses to Lipscomb, Austin Peay, and UMass Lowell ultimately offset that tremendous triumph. Davidson’s win over Alabama — a team that has already beaten both Gonzaga and Houston — instantly raises opportunities for programs like St. Bonaventure and Richmond, who hope to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. At 9-2 with losses to San Francisco and WAC favorite New Mexico State, the Wildcats have built a strong early resume that makes them an unexpected contender at the top of the Atlantic 10.

Arizona hits the road
And the Wildcats are going to stay there for a very long time. Arizona’s game tonight against Tennessee in Knoxville is the first of four consecutive road tilts for Tommy Lloyd’s squad, who is currently 11-0 and ranked fifth in the ROTHSTEIN 45. Following tonight’s game against the Vols, Arizona will play back-to-back games against UCLA and USC — who are also ranked in the Top 11 of the ROTHSTEIN 45 — in Los Angeles followed by a road tilt against in-state rival Arizona State in Tempe on Jan. 8th. That’s four games against capable competition in a row. Lloyd has been one of the early favorites in college basketball for National Coach of the Year and has a team that looks Final Four caliber, but this is going to be the most taxing stretch in his young career as a head coach.

On The Side

  • John Calipari is 5-0 against Rick Stansbury entering tonight’s game between Kentucky and Western Kentucky at Rupp Arena, but the games have been very competitive. Calipari’s five wins against Stansbury have come by an average of five points, including a one-point overtime victory in the 2010 SEC Tournament title game when Stansbury was at Mississippi State.
  • Duke (10-1) does not have an opponent on its schedule for the rest of the regular season that is currently ranked in the AP Top 25. The road to a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament is wide open for the Blue Devils, who host Virginia Tech tonight at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
  • As of Tuesday, four schools from the WCC — Gonzaga, BYU, San Francisco, and Saint Mary’s — were ranked in the Top 51 of the NET. This conference still has a legitimate chance to have four of its teams in the 2022 NCAA Tournament.
  • Richmond’s Tyler Burton is starting to show why he’s one of the top non power conference players in college basketball. In his last four games, the 6-7 Burton is averaging 22 points and 8.3 rebounds while shooting 54.9 percent from the field and 48.1 percent from three-point range. You should have bought stock a long time ago.
  • Multiple conferences in college basketball are prudently reexamining COVID-19 forfeit policies, multiple sources told College Hoops Today on Tuesday. The initial policies were put in place when the pandemic was in a much different place.

Daily Specials

  • Murray State at Auburn
  • Western Kentucky at Kentucky
  • Arizona at Tennessee
  • Virginia Tech at Duke
  • Illinois/Missouri

Leftovers