10 must-watch men’s college basketball games for the opening weekend

Who says we have to wait for Feast Week for college hoops to really hit its stride.

Opening weekend is loaded with games whose impact will still be felt five months from now. Let’s count down the 10 best you will want to watch this weekend.

All times Eastern

10. Texas A&M at Oklahoma State (Sunday — 2 p.m./ESPN2)

The Bucky McMillan experiment in College Station gets its first real test on Sunday when the 2-0 Aggies hit the road to take on Oklahoma State. The Aggies have averaged over 100 points in their season-opening blowouts of Northwestern State and Texas Southern, but Steve Lutz’s team obviously should provide more resistance.

If the Cowboys have any hope of crashing the NCAA Tournament this season, this feels like a big early spot for them. Their non-conference schedule is extremely light, and this could very well be their only opportunity to notch a win over a team destined for March Madness.

9. Vanderbilt at Central Florida (Saturday — 4 p.m./ESPN+)

The computers LOVE this Vanderbilt team, but the humans aren’t quite sold yet. The Commodores get an early chance to turn some heads with a true road win over a fellow power conference opponent.

The expectations are raised for Mark Byington’s second season in Nashville, and if the Commodores are going to be more than a middle-of-the-pack team in the SEC this year (not the worst thing in the world, by the way), they need to flex a little bit in games of this nature.

8. Washington at Baylor (Sunday — 8:30 p.m./ESPN)

There are some (including your faithful narrator) who believe that not enough attention or credit has been paid to the roster that Danny Sprinkle has put together at Washington for this season. Injuries to USC transfer Desmond Claude (who could be back on Sunday) and Lipscomb transfer Jacob Ognacevic (likely out a couple more months) have tempered expectations even further, but there’s still plenty of reason for Baylor to be concerned about an early home loss here.

While the college basketball world has fawned over the early production of freshmen like Koa Peat, A.J. Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson, it has largely overlooked what 3-star international recruit Hannes Steinbach has done. Through two games, the 6’11 19-year-old from Germany is averaging 17.0 points, 11.5 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game. Is he for real? We’ll have a better sense after we see him go up against Scott Drew’s frontcourt.

7. Towson at No. 2 Houston (Saturday — 3 p.m./ESPN+)

Roster retention at the mid-major level is a damn near impossible task these days, but longtime Towson head coach Pat Skerry was able to convince a host of players — including his two leading scorers — to return to the program after a 22-win season a year ago. Chief among those returnees is mid-major All-American Tyler Tejada, who would start for just about every power conference program in America.

Houston will be a double-digit favorite in this game for good reason, but they’ll get far more out of this one than the average first week buy game. Towson is talented and well-coached, and they’ll be heard from at some point this season.

6. Georgetown at Maryland (Friday — 6 p.m./FS1)

Georgetown finishing in the top four of the Big East went from a hot take to an almost overly trendy prediction after the Hoyas knocked off Kentucky on their home floor in exhibition play last week. Ed Cooley’s squad can make his believers look awfully smart with a Friday night win over a Maryland squad that is currently favored to win by 7.5 points.

Buzz Williams certainly knows how to win a rock fight, and this game has all the makings of being just that.

Side note: These two teams have played 65 times over the years, but not once since 2016, which feels wrong. Thankfully, this is the first of a four-game series between the storied programs.

5. Indiana vs. Marquette (Sunday —1 p.m./ESPN)

The United Center in Chicago will be the site of the first major test of the Darian DeVries era at Indiana. The Hoosiers rolled past Alabama A&M in DeVries debut, with the head coach’s son, Tucker, canning four threes and scoring 18 points.

Marquette got two games under its belt before gearing up for the Waterkeeper Alliance Invitational. The Golden Eagles had little trouble with Albany on opening night and then hung 100 in an 18-point win over Southern two days later.

These games matter every bit in the metrics and on the team sheets as the games played in February and early March do. For two teams that many people believe could be destined for the NCAA Tournament bubble, a seemingly meaningless first week game played on a neutral court could wind up being the difference between dancing and staying home come tournament time.

4. Oklahoma at No. 21 Gonzaga (Saturday — 10:30 p.m./ESPN2)

You can’t consider yourself a true college basketball sicko if you aren’t staying up past midnight to watch The Kennel rock for a “Bad Boy Mowers Series” game on the first Saturday of the season.

No one is quite sure what to make of this year’s Gonzaga team. They don’t seem like a top tier national title contender, but we’ve all been wrong about that in the past. They also don’t seem like a team that would flirt with missing the NCAA Tournament, but we’ve also been wrong about that in the past.

Oklahoma at home will be a nice early litmus test for a team that will also face Creighton, Arizona State, Alabama, Kentucky and Maryland all within the next 28 days. After that, it’s safe to assume we’ll have a much better idea of what Mark Few is working with.

3. No. 14 Arkansas at No. 22 Michigan State (Saturday — 7 p.m./Fox)

The first of three top 25 versus top 25 matchups should be off-the-charts fun.

There will be athletes all over the floor in this one. The Hogs are loaded with next-level talent in the form of Trevon Brazile, Nick Pringle, DJ Wagner, Darius Acuff and Karter Knox (who missed the season-opener and might not play in this one). Michigan State counters with arguably the best athlete and likely the best dunker in the sport in Coen Carr.

Acuff looks like the next great John Calipari freshman point guard, but it will be extremely interesting to see what he does against a proven commodity in Spartan floor general Jeremy Fears Jr.

Michigan State has a history of slow starts under Tom Izzo, so it would be wise not to overreact if the Hogs leave East Lansing with a big early season win.

2. No. 19 Kansas at No. 25 North Carolina (Friday — 7 p.m./ESPN)

It doesn’t get much better than this on the first Friday of the season, and it’s even better with the game being played on campus and not in a sleepy neutral court setting.

The story of the first week of this season has been the out-of-this world production of the sport’s superstar freshmen. All eyes in this one will be on Kansas’ Darryn Peterson and Carolina’s Caleb Wilson, who both put up eye-popping numbers in their collegiate debuts. The inside matchup between KU’s Flory Bidunga and UNC’s frontcourt duo of Henri Veesar and Jarin Stevenson will also be fascinating to watch.

This is very clearly a prove-it season for UNC head coach Hubert Davis, and hurdle No. 1 is taking care of the Jayhawks in front of a home crowd at the Dean Dome that is desperate for some early season proof that the five months ahead could be special.

1. No. 15 Alabama at No. 5 St. John’s (Saturday — Noon, ESPN)

The season’s first top 15 showdown is going to be a doozy. You’ve got one of the best defensive coaches in the history of the sport going up against the head coach who has become most synonymous with explosive offenses.

Expectations couldn’t be higher for St. John’s, which put together a roster in the offseason that certainly appears to be capable of challenging for a national title. There are more questions surrounding Alabama, but the Crimson Tide do have one of the most explosive scorers in the sport in Labaron Philon, a player capable of almost single-handedly winning games of this magnitude.

The Garden feels like a proper venue for a showdown like this, even just five days into a season.

Source link