The WILD weekend in college hoops

Good morning! While college football muddled through its own bracket reveal, college basketball was busy delivering more upsets, awesome games, and some impressive performances.

Let’s get to it.

1. Kentucky pulls off remarkable rally vs. Gonzaga

For 20 minutes on Saturday night, Gonzaga made its case to be the nation’s No. 1 team.

It led No. 4 Kentucky by 16 points at halftime, a half in which point guard Ryan Nembhard sliced up the man-to-man defense, where big man Graham Ike looked like Zach Edey, and Khalif Battle was throwing down big dunks. In a previous era, it might’ve been a humbling defeat that prompted angst among #BBN, and cast doubts about the Wildcats’ season.

So coach Mark Pope decided a drastic change was needed. Without starting point guard Lamont Butler (out with an injury) to hound Nembhard, he flipped to a zone defense. And it paid off in a big way.

Kentucky limited the No. 7 Zags to 29 second-half points, 0-for-9 from deep, and pulled out a 90-89 overtime win — and one for the UK record books.

“It’s easy to make that decision when you’re getting cooked,” said Pope, who joined Adolph Rupp as the only Kentucky coaches to win their first two games against AP Top 10 opponents.

“Because right now what we’re doing is not working and we’re really blessed to have veteran guys to where we can change it up a lot. We tried some blitzing, we tried some morphing zone.”

That type of adjustment rarely happened under John Calipari, who detested zone defense (and offensive adjustments.) But it’s a credit to Pope, and his experienced group of players that they regrouped and delivered one of the more impressive wins of the season.

“He just pumps confidence into his players,” Otega Oweh told the After Dark crew. “He just really cares about his guys and believes in his players. When you have a coach like that, it’s hard to go out there and not believe.”

It also helped that senior guard Jaxson Robinson rebounded from miserable first half (1-of-8 from the floor, 3 points) to a second half and OT where he not only made 6-of-7 shots, but did it while running the offense because Kerr Kriisa left with an injury. (He’s out 3-6 weeks with a foot fracture.)

Between him and senior big man Andrew Carr (19 points, 7 rebounds and a critical defensive play in OT), it was enough offensive punch to offset Ike (28 points) and a Zags defense that allowed a season high 1.21 points per possession. And that was despite Kentucky shooting a miserable 28% from deep.

Maybe they’re used to it. The Cats (8-1) have shot below 30% beyond the arc in each of their last four games. There’s some positive regression coming on a team where four of its top six 3-pointer shooters are down from a year ago.

As for Gonzaga (7-2), it’s now lost twice this season, both in OT on neutral sites. There might some concern about being unable to close out a win (it had won 175 consecutive games when leading by at least 10 points), but this was as much about Kentucky’s adjustment and not Gonzaga’s play.

The Zags have two more “semi-neutral” non-conference games, including Saturday when it faces UConn at MSG. They’ll be slight favorites in that game, most because the Huskies’ offense is potent, but not quite as consistent (yet) as Gonzaga.

2. Kansas’ terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

Some historical context for Kansas after losing to unranked teams in Creighton and Missouri this week:

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