College basketball podcast: How Kentucky beat (and humbled) Tennessee at Rupp Arena
Matt Norlander was inside Rupp Arena late Saturday to document Kentucky’s impressive 86-69 victory over Tennessee. So, naturally, we opened this episode of the CBS Sports Eye On College Basketball on that development that caused movement in the Top 25 And 1 — but only after I asked Norlander to explain why he was actually recording in Terminal B at Indianapolis International Airport.
After that, the conversation went like this:
- 12:30: I’ve had Gonzaga ranked ahead of Duke for weeks with little pushback from anybody. But now that I have Gonzaga No. 1 and Duke No. 2 in the Top 25 And 1, it’s suddenly a big deal for some reason, according to my Twitter mentions. As I’ve explained before, if you want to argue Duke should be No. 1, it’s very easy to argue and I understand the argument. But there’s nothing bananas about having Gonzaga No. 1 considering Gonzaga is A) 12-2 vs. top 100 KenPom teams with a neutral-court win over Duke, B) in possession of a national-best 16-game winning streak featuring 16 double-digit wins coming by an average of 31.3 points per game, and C) the owner of the nation’s best offensive-efficiency rating. There’s nothing unreasonable about having that team No. 1. So we discussed the Zags for a while — and also why I have Kentucky No. 6.
- 27:30: The Big 12 is super-interesting again. Kansas State still has a one-game lead in the loss column of the league standings. But, more than likely, we’re going to have co-champions. And, yes, I still believe Kansas — which is now starting four freshmen — will be one of them.
- 43:00: Campbell’s Chris Clemons became, on Saturday, just the ninth player in Division I men’s basketball history to score 3,000 career points. So shouts to him. And South Dakota State’s Mike Daum should join the club soon. So shouts to him too.
- 45:00: We closed by looking ahead to a few games scheduled for Monday and Tuesday — among them Virginia at Virginia Tech, Kansas State at West Virginia and Purdue at Indiana.
The latest Eye on College Basketball podcast is below. Give it a listen. If you’re not already subscribed, please subscribe via iTunes. And if you’ve already done that, thank you. #ShoutsToDevanDowney.