One of the things that has impressed me the most this early in the men’s college basketball season is how dominant both Kentucky and Duke have appeared to be.
Kentucky is the overwhelming choice to win the championship based on the starters they have returning (4) and four impact recruits. This has enabled them to go to a platoon / reserves system-not substitute, as John Calipari refuses to call them. This system has thus far allowed him to play essentially ten players slightly over fifteen minutes. Each player receives the same amount of time both on and off the court. They “should” go all out in the time they are on the court, as they know it will be for about five minutes each time. This system does require the players to put the egos off to the side. However, as Jay Bilas commented, the time the player s have on the court isn’t always going to be give minutes. Someone might get hot, someone else might have foul trouble. So far the system has worked well
Duke also appears to be a contender for the national championship. Recently they played Wisconsin, another team in the top five. The game featured a marquee matchup between Frank Kaminsky and Jahlil Okafor, two post players who can also shoot from behind the three point line. The teams played a rather close game, and the game mirrored the production of both men, who had roughly equal numbers of points and rebounds. Duke would go on to win by ten.
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UConn, by contrast, is driven by Ryan Boatwright. The rest of the team is largely unproven and the recruits were not as highly numerically sought out as Okafor for Duke or Kentucky’s incoming group. UConn has played well in spurts and lost two last second shots before rebounding against Columbia. While they may not look like the best team out there, it is still early in the season and last year’s team didn’t look much better and still won the title. Someone has to win six games to win the title - it might as well be UC
