Catching the Tommies tonight

Georgetown just shot 1/23 from the field in the second half of its 56-50 loss at DePaul. Shot just 22.3 percent for the game.

Shout out to the guy who created a bsky account for the purpose of making this single post a few weeks ago.

Incredible final-possession play by Penn State out of the timeout.

This Boise State - San Diego State game is so dumb

Luke Littler is still him

I'm going to be kind of obsessed about average 2PA distance the rest of the season. GW (4th best in 2PA distance) and Houston (5th worst) are currently playing in separate games, and here's what their respective 1st half shot charts look like if you want to see what the extremes look like.

I'd like to report an insta-loss in Berkeley. (It was on an absolutely awful call for a four-point play to give the Cal the win, but nonetheless, it's part of the risk of giving a foul up three.)

Seattle U beat Gonzaga by 22 in their last meeting and is threatening to do it again, up 11 with 11:25 left. (Their last meeting was in 1980, but nevertheless.)

After a wedgie in the USC-Michigan game, John Fanta claimed it was unverifiable whether that was the first of 2026, but wedgies are (or can be, at least) recorded in PBP now! That was the 94th of the season and fourth of 2026.

Made some long-overdue updates to the graphics for 2026: -PPG replaced ORtg. -Now tracking avg 2pt attempt distance (bc @kenpom.com does). -Bar rankings are among 2022-25 NCAA Tourney teams. -Confusing Glass Cleaner archetype icon has been split into Pogo Sticks (bouncy rebound/dunk) and Swatters.

Diabolical timing for @kenpom.com to drop a new feature on the site — average 2-point attempt distance. Michigan ranks 27th in average 2PA distance on offense and (unexpectedly) 1st on defense.

George Mason committed zero turnovers in an 80-75 win against La Salle today, which is just the fifth time a team committed zero turnovers against a D-I team in the last 30 years.

Who can ever forget this banger. We lost a real one.

Baylor has landed an in-season free agent who was an NBA pick in 2023. The news set the college sports world aflame. I talked to Scott Drew this morning about why he did it, but more than that, laid out just how increasingly common rostering pros is becoming in college sports. Please read:

Starting to entertain the possibility of Duke, Duke Miles, and Duke Brennan all making the Final Four.

Campbell posted a program record 1.54 points per possession in their win over Green Bay today.

OK, neat thing about this Prairie View/LSU game is that there were 77 total free throws (that's not neat, can we go to quarters, please?). Among the 2,400 games in the last 30 seasons with at least 70 FTA, this game had the highest combined FT% (89.6)

THE SWAC IS BACK. With Prairie View giving LSU some mild stress tonight, the SWAC now has 6 teams in the top 300, an accomplishment that hasn't happened in over 20 years, when there were barely 300 teams in existence. People are saying the SWAC is "gaming the system" by playing so many buy games.

Joining @dlocke09.bsky.social and special guests including @deanolytics.bsky.social on tonight's JazzCast Nerd Edition against the Magic for Jazz+ subscribers. Our alternate broadcast is also available as a one-off purchase in qualifying markets here: www.segplus.com/utahjazzplus...

Regardless of what happens anywhere in sports tonight, the biggest upset will be 3-23 Jerome "not the RPI guy" Palm winning the opening tip against 20-3 Mohamed Wague, who comically whiffs on his attempt to gain control while Palm also barely connects.

Pleased to report that college basketball is still random enough where Duke can commit 15 turnovers on their first 32 possessions against Lipscomb.

Sundance Wicks once again making a mockery of my ratings. Wyoming now has the 6th best improvement over their preseason rating. In 2024, he led Green Bay to the 4th best improvement. And in '98, he led Gillette to a win over kp #1 Laramie in the Wyoming HS football 4A title game tinyurl.com/2vbyvbha

Today's Valpo-UNCW contest was the first game in history with four coaches challenges. All of them were successful!

On hand for a spicy matchup between Illinois State and Utah State at Delta Center.

Celebrate the Week 6 AP poll responsibly. johngasaway.substack.com/p/forecastin...

We're gotten the 'this season is wide open, no clear #1 team, etc.' the past few days, but idk man.

One was Missouri vs Minnesota... - made 3 - simultaneous off-ball defensive foul (should be an and-1 like NBA, but team gets possession in college) - made 2 with foul - missed FT - o-reb - made 3 The other appears to be PBP gremlins. So just this one.

Takeaways: - Despite scoring being at a 30-year high, it's still more likely than not that a possession ends up empty. If you are an old who longs for defense: pipe down, it still exists. - When a team is down 16, it's still a 2-possession game.

No games of note tonight, so let's do a dumb data dive. Number of possessions that have produced X amount of points this season: 0: 108059 (50.5%) 1: 9532 (4.5%) 2: 67696 (31.6%) 3: 28118 (13.1%) 4: 563 5: 118 6: 15 7: 2 8: 2

We officially have an epidemic in college basketball. With Arizona's pantsing of Auburn tonight, 8 out of 30 games between kp top 25 teams have been decided by at least 20 points. A rate which currently dwarfs previous seasons.

This game is restoring my confidence in the purity of college sports. Every reason for the ACC to make sure Virginia wins this and the officials don't call an obvious PI that would have set up a critical UVa TD.

Doug Gottlieb threw a chair tonight and for good reason: Green Bay was on the wrong end of the least likely comeback of the season, losing an 11-point lead (with the ball!) in the final 2:53.

Kipp Kissinger and Brooks Wells are the only remaining refs to work all 31 days this season. Only 11 games tonight, and one is in Hawaii. Probably has to be Robert Morris at Green Bay if they want to keep it going.

Another bananas scoring night, 5th highest of the past 30 years. 9 of the 13 highest-scoring days (min 50 games) now belong to this season

Calipari insists on having Nick Pringle (now 31-27 lifetime) instead of Trevon Brazile (38-15) take the opening jump this season and he just lost another one.

Tonight, Vandy and SMU meet with a combined 16-0 record. Last time unbeaten teams met with at least 16 combined wins: 1/1/22 Baylor vs Iowa State. Before that: 12/31/16 Villanova vs Creighton.

Me: How about rating every player that has taken a jump ball this season? Me: yes, ha ha ha, yes Thoughts on my exclusive jump ball ratings, ft. Ernest Udeh and Doug Shows: kenpom.substack.com/p/lets-talk-...

Conference play starts on Monday as McNeese takes on Incarnate Word. The first game of an absurd 22-game league schedule in the Southland.

Coming....

An insta-loss! You love to see it. www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBas...

Do you want to learn analytics from two of the smartest minds in basketball? Buy our analytics course, with a special $50 off deal for Black Friday. Use code “BF” at checkout. Sale only lasts through Monday. bballanalytics.com

Gonzaga should have to give their NIL prize money to Iowa State

It was a good run, Gonzaga. (Also, how did Wake Forest basically have Michigan beat, only to lose in OT?)

Gonzaga at No. 12? Time for my fellow pollsters to watch the Zags. Mark Few has a title contender again, one he feels like has a lot of room for growth. Impressive considering Gonzaga has been as good as anyone thus far. My column from Vegas: www.nytimes.com/athletic/683...

Greg McDermott, a model of perfection for all the 2-foul participation absolutists. Then again, Creighton has only had 34 seconds all season where a starter has had 2 fouls in the first half. It took them 8 minutes to commit their first foul against Baylor.

On hand for BYU-Wisconsin. Game number 3 for me, but game 19 for officials Kipp Kissinger and Brooks Wells, who have yet to take a day off.

On hand for the 10th best matchup of the night, Weber State and Campbell, who has the only coach that's also a H.U.M.A.N. poll super voter.

Southern and Washington going to double overtime and paying the ultimate homage to Pac-12 After Dark.

Some of my best memories are scoring a TD during recess and imitating the fun bunch with my friends. Kids inspired to hug the goalposts will never forget these times.