🏀 The weekend in college hoops

UConn adds to its stellar recruiting class, plus thoughts on the upcoming season for San Diego State, Kentucky and more

September 19, 2022

During college football season, it’s always fun to see which fanbases start clamoring for basketball first. Though UConn followers probably never, not even for a second, looked forward to watching the Huskies on the gridiron. Still, a 59-point beatdown surely accelerated their longing to watch Adama Sanogo and the crew on the hardwood.

Luckily for them, in the middle of their pain, the basketball program brought some good news over the weekend. We’ll start there.

THREE POINTERS

1. Crossing the rubUConn

Dan Hurley added to his impressive 2023 class on Friday, snagging a commitment from 4-star wing Jaylin Stewart. The Seattle native fits the “big guard” prototype that has brought the Huskies success throughout Hurley’s tenure.

Undoubtedly, UConn fans should expect Stewart to thrive under their coach’s defensive blueprint. At 6-6 and 210 pounds with long arms, he’ll overwhelm smaller guards with his length.

But perhaps more important will be Stewart’s contributions on the offensive end.

As the EYBL highlights show, he flashes on-ball creativity, cerebral passing and a pretty 3-point stroke. For a team that sometimes stagnated last season in the half-court, Stewart’s commitment gives hope — Hurley wants to put offensive woes behind him and is recruiting in a manner to do so.

In the ongoing 2023 recruiting race, only Duke and Michigan State boast better recruiting classes.

In addition to Stewart, the coach has landed commitments from 6-6 combo guard Stephon Castle (No. 20 in 247Sports’ composite), 6-3 guard Solomon Ball (No. 41) and 6-7 wing Jayden Ross (No. 131). Rob Dauster wants the world (read: Jeff Goodman) to take notice.

Other recruiting tidbits

2. The brilliance of Matt Bradley

The Field of 68’s Twitter account continues its reveal of The Almanac’s Top 100 players as part of the magazine’s promotion. Here’s the latest installment:

Few will be surprised to see a highly-touted Duke freshman crack the top 40. Then, there’s the $800,000 man, Nijel Pack, followed by fifth-year guard Will Richardson, a model of consistency in the Oregon backcourt.

But Matt Bradley might be the one most ready to turn into a household name.

For starters, San Diego State will be awesome this year — so for my fellow east coasters, don’t sleep (literally) on the Aztecs! Consider the following: In 2022, San Diego State finished with the second-best defense in the country, per KenPom. More notably, its efficiency on that side of that ball surpassed that of the 2020 team that started 26-0. This season should be more of the same, as San Diego State returns four starters and adds a two-way phenom in Seattle’s Darrion Trammell.

But Bradley functions as the centerpiece of Brian Dutcher’s attack. The 6-4, 220-pound lefty can do just about everything on the court — he ranked top-60 in the country in usage rate last season, and his KenPom page underscores the breadth of his skill:

Of all the statistical categories that Bradley dominated, that 48 percent from 3 in conference play sticks out the most — especially factoring in the difficulty of some of his shots.

Having that type of shot creator could take San Diego State to sights unseen. Maybe the program’s first Final Four is on the horizon?

3. Big Blue Sleepers?

“Kentucky” and “underrated” are rarely — if ever — uttered in the same sentence. But that’s exactly what Terrence Oglesby and John Fanta argued in the latest Dauster, TO and Fanta podcast. See for yourself below:

The two made a compelling case that Kentucky isn’t getting enough preseason buzz as national championship contenders.

Oglesby’s petition focused on the excellent offensive output of Kentucky last season: first in the SEC in both effective field goal percentage and 3-point percentage during conference play. Here’s one more notable metric: per BartTorvik, the ‘Cats ranked 15th in the country in dunk attempt rate. With Oscar Tshiebwe back, along with the ultra-bouncy Jacob Toppin, that number should stay in the top tier.

But Kentucky’s season-long outlook likely comes down to shooting. Despite canning 36.9 percent of its triples in league games, the ‘Cats hit just 29.0 percent from distance in their final six contests (and went 3-3 during that stretch). Moreover, they must replace their best marksman in Kellan Grady.

Perhaps CJ Fredrick steps up in his stead. If not Fredrick, Toppin must either prove himself as a shooter or Daimion Collins must live up to the stretch-big reputation he boasted coming out of high school.

If Kentucky can get anywhere close to last season’s mark, Calipari may get that elusive second title.

(Also, don’t forget to subscribe to The Field of 68 on YouTube here and to the DTF podcast.)

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Football schools?

Speaking of Kentucky, its football team, along with Kansas, North Carolina, Duke, Syracuse, UCLA and Indiana sit at 3-0 almost a month into the season. Who says blue bloods are one-dimensional? (College Gameday missed its chance next weekend).

THE FAST BREAK

Links to click as you scope out some Savannah Bananas tickets:

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