Zion Williamson’s monster dunk and the 9 other biggest things from the CBB weekend

If the first full weekend of conference play is any indication of what the next two months of college basketball have in store, then we’re all in line for a pretty stellar winter.

Here are the 10 biggest things you need to know about from the weekend that was:

Nevada’s quest to follow in the footsteps of the 2013-14 Wichita State Shockers and enter the NCAA tournament with an unblemished record came to a screeching halt in Albuquerque Saturday night.

The Wolf Pack were dominated from start to finish by an average at best New Mexico team, whose fans stormed the floor after a never-in-doubt 85-58 blowout.

Though Nevada entered the weekend with an unblemished record, a No. 6 national ranking and loads of national title contender hype, there were reasons to believe that a loss like this was coming at some point.

Too often the Wolf Pack had fallen into the same trap they set for themselves consistently a year ago: Digging themselves into deep early holes and then scrambling out of them with furious rallies. Thankfully, Nevada’s outside shooting had always seemed to show up when needed, especially against the opponents who were athletic enough to limit the Pack’s transition prowess.

A hole was dug again on Saturday, and when Nevada’s outside shots weren’t falling against the well-coached and much-disciplined Lobos, Eric Musselman’s team had no answers.

Nevada is undoubtedly one of the 10-15 most talented teams in the country, but if they aren’t able to avoid another slip-up or two like the one they suffered inside The Pit, their seed on Selection Sunday might not reflect that. The Wolf Pack is currently No. 14 in Ken Pomeroy’s rankings, but they don’t have a single win over a top-40 team from that same metric. To make matters worse, an abysmal Mountain West Conference leaves them with only three games left against teams that are in Ken Pom’s top 100.

All this means is that Nevada has a whole lot of games remaining for the Pack where they have significantly more to lose than they have to gain. Toss in the fact that many of those games are on the road against conference rivals who are going to build that game as their lone chance to make a national splash, and you have yourself a tough road to a top three seed in the NCAA tournament.

The easiest way to write off Kansas’ 77-60 loss at Iowa State on Saturday was to say the team was playing without Udoka Azubuike, and that KU had shown earlier that week how much better they are when they have the big man at full strength.

Unfortunately, they aren’t going to have the big man at full strength again in 2018-19.

Azubuike had previously missed four games because of an ankle injury, and the Jayhawks were shaky without him. They pulled out three-point home victories over both New Mexico State and Villanova, handled South Dakota, but lost on the road to Arizona State team that has lost four of its last six.

Kansas is still the favorite to win the Big 12 because Kansas will always be the favorite to win the Big 12 until it fails to do so. But when you’re the preseason No. 1 team in the country, conference championships are tier two goals.

KU’s game plan with Azubuike out has too often been: Rely on Dedric Lawson being a machine and hope Lagerald Vick is having one of those nights where everything he throws up goes in. It’s a fine strategy when both those things are happening, but when Lawson is off his game and Vick is 2-for-8 from the field with seven turnovers, it can result in 17-point losses.

For Kansas to be a serious national title contender come March, the first thing that has to happen is for its freshman backcourt to grow up significantly. Quentin Grimes has to become a consistently reliable scorer — an achievement he’s moved closer towards attaining in recent weeks — and Devon Dotson has to cut down on the turnovers and make better decisions with the ball. Getting more from Marcus Garrett and Charlie Moore would be a significant step in the right direction as well.

With Azubuike out and Silvio De Sousa (seemingly) sidelined for at least the rest of this season, the 2018-19 Jayhawks are going to look and play far more like Bill Self’s last two teams than any of us would have imagined. It can work, but it’s going to take multiple guys adapting to larger roles with little issue.

Duke went from Dec. 20 to Jan. 5 without playing a game, which means we were all deprived of stuff like this for way too long.

Duke took care of Clemson in its ACC opener, 87-68, and will almost certainly remain at No. 1 in both polls on Monday.

With all due respect to North Carolina-Duke, the most interesting in-state, in-conference rivalry series this winter might wind up being the one between Michigan and Michigan State.

Without Joshua Langford (ankle), the Spartans still managed to go into Columbus and take care of No. 14 Ohio State, 86-77, on Saturday. The Wolverines were expected to face a challenge at home on Sunday with No. 21 Indiana paying a visit, but their unbeaten record was never really in jeopardy as they rolled to a 74-63 win. The two Great Lakes State powers are now the only teams in the Big Ten with perfect 4-0 records in league play.

There has been some been some quiet discussion in recent months about whether or not John Beilein has usurped Tom Izzo as the state of Michigan’s coaching king. If these two teams continue to roll through a meaty Big Ten, you can expect that talk to heat up as we get closer to the first rivalry game in Ann Arbor on Feb. 24 and the return game in East Lansing on March 9.

Also, quick shoutout to Aaron Henry for maybe the best moment of the weekend.

When you know, you gotta let other people know too.

In the wake of its back-to-back wins over North Carolina and Louisville, the conversation around Kentucky had all revolved around the notion that the Wildcats had “turned the corner” and were ready to become the team that was picked No. 2 in the preseason AP poll.

That may have been premature.

Several of the same issues that nagged UK during the first five weeks of this season reared their head again during the Wildcats’ surprising 77-75 loss at Alabama on Saturday. Kentucky struggled to defend the perimeter, allowing the Crimson Tide to hit seven of its first 11 three-point attempts, and allowing Tevin Mack to connect on all six of his tries from beyond the arc.

On the other end, UK struggled with its own outside shot. After strong shooting performances from Tyler Herro and Keldon Johnson in the wins over UNC and U of L, the Cats were a dismal 5-for-18 as a team from three in the loss in Tuscaloosa.

Kentucky entered the weekend as the No. 1 offensive rebounding team in Division-I, but pulled down just six offensive boards against Bama. The Cats also lost the overall rebounding battle, 40-32.

It’s worth noting that talk about Kentucky “turning the corner” isn’t relative to them becoming a top-15 or even top-10 team, it’s relative to them becoming one of the three or four teams most likely to win the national championship. They can still get there, and recent history says John Calipari will have his team hitting its stride by the end of February, but it might not be the No. 1 or No. 2 seed behemoth we thought it’d be. That would be especially disappointing for the Wildcats in a year where the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville is hosting a regional final, presenting the opportunity for UK to have home court advantage in earnest for its Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games.

As a whole, the Big East is down fairly significantly from where it’s been the last few seasons. That doesn’t mean the league isn’t going to give us one of the most entertaining conference races this winter.

There have been just 12 total Big East games played so far this season, and already the league has just one remaining unbeaten team (2-0 Villanova) and just one remaining winless team (0-2 Providence). Villanova, Marquette, St. John’s and Seton Hall all seem destined for the Big Dance at the moment, but things could get muddy in a hurry if the league becomes an amorphous blob of six and seven loss teams come late February.

The weekend’s best shot came from one of the country’s best players who will likely never get the love he deserves nationally.

Hofstra’s Justin Wright-Foreman has scored in double-figures in 69 consecutive games, the second-longest active streak in the country. He reached that mark by dropping a career-high 42 points in the Pride’s 75-72 win over Northeastern on Saturday.

The final three came on this shot:

Averaging 26.7 points per game, Wright-Foreman is currently the third-leading scorer in Division I.

South Florida has been arguably the biggest surprise in the American Athletic Conference thus far. The Bulls were beaten just twice during the non-conference portion of the season and opened league play with a 76-68 win over UConn.

It looked like USF had a shot to improve to 2-0 before Curran Scott did this:

The Golden Hurricane is now 11-4 overall and 1-1 in the AAC.

South Dakota State star Mike Daum’s bid to be the nation’s leading scorer in his senior season took a hit on Sunday when rival South Dakota held the All-American to a career-low four points. Daum attempted just five shots in the game, which SDSU won, 79-61.

The victory for the Jackrabbits was a nice bounce-back performance after they were throttled by Purdue Fort Wayne, 104-88, earlier in the week. Daum and South Dakota State have represented the Summit League in the NCAA tournament in each of the last three seasons.

It’s not hard to make the case that the most exciting player in college basketball not named Zion Williamson is Murray State superstar Ja Morant. The sophomore potential lottery pick leads the nation in assists, is No. 12 in scoring, and has the freakish athleticism to do stuff like this:

Morant went for 34 points, eight rebounds, and 10 assists in Murray State’s 97-85 win over Eastern Kentucky.

— Few top-40 teams took a worse loss than Cincinnati (12-3, 1-1), which fell at East Carolina, 73-71. The win was the most significant yet for head coach Joe Dooley, who is in the first year of his second stint with the Pirates (8-6, 1-1). Dooley spent the past five seasons as the head coach at Florida Gulf Coast.

— Northwestern (10-5, 1-3) notched its first Big Ten win with a much too close for comfort 68-66 home win over lowly Illinois (4-11, 0-4).

This dude wore this hat:

— Tennessee (12-1, 1-0) is off to its best start in over a decade, hammered Georgia (8-5, 0-1) by 46 points on Saturday, and might be getting even stronger. For the first time in six games, reigning SEC Sixth Man of the Year Lamonte Turner returned to the floor, scoring six points and logging 15 minutes. Turner had been sidelined with a shoulder injury and has played in just four games this season.

— Wofford star Fletcher Magee broke Stephen Curry’s Southern Conference record for career three-pointers (415) in the Terriers’ 78-74 win over Mercer.

— South Carolina (6-7, 1-0) stunned Florida on its home court thanks to this Hail Mary pass to Chris Silva in the final seconds.

The play has sparked some spirited discussion amongst Gators fans about whether or not Silva pushed off, but those discussions aren’t going to change the final score. The fact is that a Florida team that most expected to be in the field of 68 currently sits at 8-5 without a stellar victory, and is now dealing with a gut-punch loss in what on paper was its most winnable SEC game.

— Western Kentucky raced out to a 21-0 lead over Old Dominion on Saturday but still somehow managed to find a way to lose the game, 69-66. Both teams are now 1-1 in Conference USA play.

— No. 4 Virginia (13-0, 1-0) dominated Florida State (12-2, 0-1) for 38 minutes on Saturday. In those final two minutes, however, the Seminoles pressed Virginia’s walk-ons full court to go on a 14-0 which made the final score (65-52) far more respectable than FSU deserved.

— Coppin State scored its first win of the season with a 73-67 triumph over Savannah State, leaving no winless teams remaining in Division-I.

— North Carolina’s Cameron Johnson scored 15 points in his first game at the Petersen Events Center since transferring from Pitt two years ago. The Tar Heels rolled past the Panthers, 85-60.

— Shamorie Ponds went off for 37 points as St. John’s outlasted Georgetown in a 97-94 overtime thriller.

— DePaul won.

— Loyola-Chicago’s non-conference performance may have been somewhat disappointing, but the Ramblers are off to a 2-0 start in the Missouri Valley for the first time since 2003-04. They took care of Drake, 85-74.

— Killian Tillie and Geno Crandall both made their season debuts for No. 7 Gonzaga, which blasted Santa Clara, 91-48. Tillie played nine minutes and scored five points, while Crandall, a grad transfer from North Dakota, scored eight points in 15 minutes.