Last week in men’s college basketball was one of the most enjoyable weeks for early season play with all of the tournaments featuring teams playing in back-to-back days and top teams in the rankings taking each other on providing a lot of movement up and down the top 25. This week, we get two major conference showdowns — the ACC/SEC Challenge and the Big East-Big 12 Battle. Both showdowns will feature a slew of top-25 teams taking on each other with several teams seeing their first big test of the season. Here are the top five games of the upcoming week in men’s college basketball.
No. 8 Miami at No. 12 Kentucky
Miami has moved up from No. 13 to start the season to crack the top ten at No. 8 despite Kansas State being the best team it has faced this season. This will be a prove-it or move-down game for Miami. On the other side, the Wildcats have officially bounced back up after suffering their lone defeat of the season a couple of weeks ago to the former No. 1 team Kansas. They will look to win their fourth game in a row and crack the top ten in the process.
No. 10 Tennessee at No. 17 North Carolina
The matchup of Dalton Knecht and RJ Davis will be a great feature of this game. It is also a game of two teams who are coming off their first defeat of the season. Part of the key to college basketball is being able to put hard losses behind you and challenge on. North Carolina has a high-powered and quick offense when it gets going. Four of the top five scorers for Tennessee are all guards, the key for this undersized team is going to be stopping the double-double machine that is Armando Bacot.
USC at No. 11 Gonzaga
The Trojans suffered a tough loss last week at the hands of unranked Oklahoma 72-70 which makes their second loss of the year. They dropped back out of the Top 25 and could use a win against a high-profile team to put its university back on the college basketball map. The Bulldogs have lost one game this season as well, though it was to the No. 1 team in the nation, Purdue. They haven’t moved from the No. 11 spot all season and have since beaten Syracuse and UCLA.
No. 7 Duke at Arkansas
Tyrese Proctor and Kyle Filipowski are a hard duo to come by in college basketball and Duke possesses their talent. The Blue Devils are back up two spots in the rankings since last week. They lost their only game of the year to No. 2 Arizona before beating Michigan State a few days later. They have since won four games in a row as well and look as on fire as ever. Arkansas has now lost three games including two back-to-back last week against Memphis and North Carolina. Like USC, they will need a high-profile win like this to have a chance to get back into the rankings. They might also be without their leading scorer in Tramon Mark.
No. 4 UConn at No. 5 Kansas
The most anticipated game of the week features a top-five battle between UConn and Kansas. The Huskies have continued to rise, especially after getting a win against No. 15 Texas last week. Cam Spencer, the Rutgers transfer, is leading the team in scoring and proving to be an unforeseen star. The Jayhawks dropped four spots from the No. 1 overall team to No. 5 after suffering a loss to now No. 3 Marquette last weekend. They did bounce back and beat No. 10 Tennessee which saved them from falling further. A win here could do big things to this team’s morale.
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