Monthly Archives: January 2018

Social norms and Trae Young

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(Josh Gateley, soonersports.com)

It appears increasingly likely that Trae Young will turn out to be the most interesting player of my “writing about college basketball” career so far.

Here’s a freshman who started the season ranked as the No. 23 recruit in the country, yet who then proceeded to out-Curry Curry. (Literally.) That was, frankly, amazing to behold, and we all said so.

Now, as if that weren’t enough, Young has sparked one of the better basketball conversations to come down the pike in a long while, courtesy of his 48-point, 14-of-39 effort in Oklahoma’s overtime loss at Oklahoma State. Depending on whether one focuses on the “48” or the “14-of-39,” I suppose Young might be rendered as either a Prometheus or a problem. Continue reading →

The Big East could turn out to be the most entertaining conference ever

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Scoring 1.31 points per trip? That’ll do. (Eric Hartline — USA TODAY Sports)

It’s early in the season, but, with 21 percent of its conference games already in the books, it bears mention that the Big East is playing historically entertaining basketball. We can’t know if this is going to continue, of course, but the salient present-tense point is that the games we’ve seen so far have been outrageously high-scoring.

Teams in the league are simultaneously playing at a fast pace and scoring with a high degree of efficiency on each possession. Val Ackerman, I salute you!

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This combination of speed and effectiveness has put the Big East on an entirely different level in terms of scoring. Continue reading →