NCAA basketball scores: Luke Kennard is saving Duke while everyone else is injured

The Duke team that faced Rhode Island on Sunday afternoon is a shell of the one that entered the season as the consensus No. 1 in the polls and the heavy favorite to win the national championship. Duke has played without three-fifths of the country’s top-ranked freshman class throughout its 4-1 start, proving along the way they’re not yet the superteam many presumed they would be.

What’s scary is that even without Jayson Tatum, Harry Giles, and Marques Bolden, Duke still looks like it’s capable of beating anyone in the country. That was evident even as it fell by two against a loaded Kansas team in the Champions Classic, and it was clear again during a 75-65 win against No. 21 Rhode Island on Sunday.

Rhode Island was impressive in outlasting a tough Cincinnati team on Saturday in the opening round of the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame tip-off. The Rams have real athleticism and few holes in their lineup. This is probably the best Rhode Island has been since Lamar Odom powered the program’s last NCAA tournament trip in 1999, but they still couldn’t make it close in the second half as Duke pulled away for a convincing win.

There might not be greater evidence of Duke’s overwhelming talent than Luke Kennard’s start to the season. The 6’5 sophomore was a McDonald’s All-American out of Ohio in high school, but was thought to be the seventh man on this team given Mike Krzyzewski’s mix of one-and-done freshmen and upperclassmen. But with the freshman trio hurt, Kennard has started every game and proven to be Duke’s most consistent player.

With Grayson Allen slowed by a toe injury, Kennard went for 24 points on 8-of-11 shooting from the field and 4-of-5 shooting from three. He’s now the team’s leading scorer at 18.2 points per game.

Over the course of five games, Kennard has gone from a rotation piece to Coach K’s most indispensable player. He’s making 52 percent of threes and posting a 69.4 percent true shooting percentage while playing 90 percent of the available minutes, per KenPom.

This was a game Duke could have lost without a big effort from Kennard, but he delivered. Tatum, Giles, and Bolden will still have big roles when they return to the court, but Duke needs to make sure Kennard remains a focal point. He’s too good to be anything less.

UCLA has become one of the most fun teams in the country overnight, and they owe much of that to freshman point guard Lonzo Ball. Ball went off for 20 points and 11 assists on 8-of-11 shooting in a 114-77 win over Long Beach State, moving UCLA to 4-0 on the year.

UCLA had six players score 12 points or more, and it was fellow freshman T.J. Leaf who led the team with 21 points on the night. It’s clear that Ball has injected excitement into the team that looks like it could challenge Oregon in the Pac-12.

Just a cool 130 points for Iowa State in its win over The Citadel, the most ever in school history. The Cyclones can thank Monte Morris for that, who popped off for 17 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists as Iowa State moved to 3-0.

The Cyclones are now averaging 105.3 points per game this season. Before you ask: yes, that’s good.

NC State is the team with the potential top-five NBA draft pick in Dennis Smith Jr. and the team with former top 100 recruits up and down the roster, but that mattered little to Creighton during a 112-94 beatdown at Paradise Jam. The Bluejays shot 60.6 percent from the field and 48.1 percent from three as they moved to 4-0 on the season.

Creighton already had one of the early season’s most impressive wins by beating Wisconsin. Thumping a good NC State team is more evidence the Bluejays will be a factor in the Big East alongside Villanova and Xavier. They have an elite backcourt in Mo Watson and Marcus Foster, they share the ball and they have shooting at least four spots on the floor. This team looks like no fluke.

The short of it: Florida Gulf Coast was down one at Michigan State inbounding under its own back with 1.6 seconds left. The refs started the clock when the pass was thrown, not when the ball was caught, but decided not to redo the possession after a review because they said the shot would have counted had it gone in. MSU escapes 78-77.

The bigger takeaway from this game: the Spartans are a wreck right now. It shouldn’t come down to the final possession at home against a team from the Atlantic Sun, no matter how much we all love Dunk City.

Kentucky 93, Duquesne 59

Villanova 67, UCF 57

Virginia 62, Yale 38

Xavier 67, Northern Iowa 59

Cincinnati 71, Penn State 50

Maryland 71, Towson 66

Davidson 68, Arizona State 60

Oklahoma 70, Clemson 64

Ole Miss 81, St. Joseph’s 68