Here are the biggest takeaways from the past week in NCAA basketball, including a look at Tyrese Maxey, Tennessee’s struggles, and much more.
The Christmas holiday brought about an extremely light week on the NCAA basketball calendar.
The Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic were virtually the only games on Monday and Wednesday (Christmas Day), while there were no games on Tuesday and Thursday. Friday only brought about two games – Loyola (MD) knocking off UMass Lowell and Mt. Saint Mary’s beating Coppin State.
Because of that light schedule, we’re cutting this week’s Rauf Report in half – but that doesn’t mean there weren’t meaningful results this week.
Virginia suffered another disappointing loss, this one at home to South Carolina, while Houston knocked off Washington on their way to winning the Diamond Head Classic and Kentucky snapped their two-game losing streak by beating Louisville at Rupp Arena.
While the victory was certainly great for the Wildcats (more on them in a second), Louisville’s problems were on full display. As I discussed here following their loss to Texas Tech, Louisville’s offense is over-reliant on Jordan Nwora to score at a high clip and produce for others.
Kentucky did a great job limiting Nwora’s effectiveness, limiting him to just eight points on 2/11 shooting. Louisville’s offense stalled out in the first half because of it. Chris Mack made the smart adjustment to run everything through Steven Enoch in the second half and overtime, and the Cardinals nearly won the game.
This is the Catch 22 for Louisville – they need Nwora to play like the National Player of the Year candidate he is for them to be at their full capabilities, but they need other players to step up and take some of the pressure from him. Nwora was unable to get back into the game and Kentucky ended up with the victory.
Of course, the Wildcats found some answers to their own problems in the win as well. That is where we start this week’s Rauf Report, covering the biggest takeaways from the past week in college hoops.