NCAA Basketball: 10 hot takes after 1st week of 2024-25 season

It is one week into the season, and it is now time to make some lead pipe locks for the rest of the year. We can all do that after 1 week of games right?  This year I am starting a new project where I will give you 10 takes. Those 10 takes may be hot takes they may be things I have noticed throughout the year, and they are usually going to be based on what I see as opposed to empirical evidence.

We all love an eye test, and we all love a good hot take. In this series, nothing is off limits. I will be talking about teams, individual players, coaches, and frontrunners for National awards. The goal here is to start a discussion about college basketball. The main goal for me is to at least start a discussion and then have a reference point to come back to at the end of the year to review which takes I got right and which ones were way off. Keep in mind there are still roughly 30 games left for almost every team and a lot of the takes are not going to come true.

I plan to release one of these per month throughout the season and it will be interesting to see where the season takes us and how things are going to change as the season goes on. As you read on with the takes after the first week of the season lets all follow along and see which ones comes true and which ones were way off. Let’s get into it.

North Florida Is a Problem?

I figured the Osprey would be a problem in the Atlantic Sun, given they have most of their roster returning from last season. I did not know North Florida would go into South Carolina, beat them, and then blow out Charleston Southern. The Osprey have a fantastic offense using a ton of threes again, but they are defending at a high rate this year. The added shooting depth from Liam Murphy and star freshman Josh Harris has been the difference. The Osprey are dangerous and play a lot more power schools before the year ends.

Ryan Kalkbrenner is the frontrunner for the National Player of the Year?

When you all step back and think about this, is it really that hot of a take?  Kalkbrenner enters his final season in college, and he is going to go down as a Creighton legend when it is all said and done. He is the three-time Big East defensive player of the year and was always a defensive guy first before an offensive guy, but that appears to be changing. Against UTRGV, the big man scored 49  points and hauled in 11 rebounds. He made 20 out of 22 shots and tallied three blocks. He is on another level right now.