Kentucky and Duke Clearly the Two Best Teams in College Basketball
It has now been one month since the college basketball season started. Just a few weeks remain until the conference schedules begin which will start aligning the teams up for their eventual conference tournaments and March Madness.
It is not surprising that the Kentucky Wildcats are in the same spot they were at the start of the season a month ago. The No. 1 ranked Wildcats are 11-0 on the season and by far the best team.
The majority of experts projected this prior to the season’s start and the talented Wildcats under coach John Calipari have not disappointed.
The Wildcats are so deep a platoon system for playing has been installed by Calipari and with each game played it is easy to see just how talented this Kentucky team really is.
Kentucky thus far has faced three teams that have been ranked and has won those three games by an average of more than 19 points. Overall, Kentucky’s winning margin is 28.2 points. The Wildcats are holding their opponents to 48 points a game on 32.5% shooting.
No one player has stood out above the others due to the platoon system. Willie Cauley-Stein the junior forward has been dominant with a scoring average of 10.6 points per game and a rebounding average of 6.8 per game, in just 24.5 minutes of play per game.
Kentucky’s depth to start the season was 10 players, but some players such as Tyler Ulis and Devin Booker have missed some action. Alex Plythress a junior forward was lost for the season last week with a torn ACL.
The injuries have started to take their toll on the platoon system but Calipari seems to know how to best juggle his deep bench.
The Duke Blue Devils are clearly the best team after Kentucky.
Duke defeated Elon 75-62 on Monday. The win was not that impressive, but much of that was due to having 12 days between games.
Duke’s last game prior to Elon was a victory by 10 points over Wisconsin who at that time was No. 2 in the nation.
Duke has three true freshmen in its starting lineup, yet the young lineup does not look inexperienced since all three freshmen have played at the international level.
Leading the way in that trio is Jahlil Okafor who had 25 points and 20 rebounds on Monday. He became the first player at Duke to record a 20-20 game, since 1998 when it was accomplished by Elton Brand. The three freshmen were averaging a combined 39.5 points, 15.9 rebounds and 9.6 assists per game prior to Monday’s win.
Kentucky and Duke are clearly a notch above the rest, with Kentucky at this point a big notch above Duke.
The Wildcats could run the table during the regular season, but will have to be careful of injuries and complacency. If they can avoid both of those, the Wildcats could be the undefeated national champions come the beginning of April.
