This is the first Monday since then college football season ended. By definition, more attention is now being paid to college basketball. And the schedule makers met the moment with a fun doubleheader set for Monday night.
* 7:00 PM ET: Louisville at Duke
* 9:00 PM ET: Arizona at BYU
I don’t think so technical the best doubleheader we can have, but it’s pretty awesome. These four schools are No. 1 (Arizona), No. 4 (Duke), No. 8 (BYU) and No. 20 (Louisville) in the updated CBS Sports Top 25 and 1 daily college basketball rankings Monday morning. Each team has a five-star freshman. In Arizona it’s Koa Peat and Brayden Burries. At Duke it is Cameron Boozer, Dame Sarr and Nikolas Khamenia. At BYU it’s AJ Dybantsa. In Louisville it’s Mikel Brown Jr. And yes, they are all healthy and expected to play Monday night. And in Boozer and Dybantsa you have, in my opinion – and with all due respect to everyone else, especially Iowa State’s Joshua Jefferson – the two leading candidates for the CBS Sports National Player of the Year award.
Let’s call Arizona at BYU the Game of the Night.
Matt Norlander and I discussed it at several points Sunday episode of the Eye On College Basketball Podcast. (He’ll be at the Marriott Center on Monday, by the way, so be sure to check back with CBSSports.com for his words after the game.) So, as you hopefully know, Dybantsa is coming off the best game of his college career. In Saturday’s 91-78 win over Utah, the 6-foot-1 freshman took 24 shots, made 15 and finished with a career-high 43 points, six rebounds, three assists and a block. That performance pushed his season averages to 23.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists. In most people’s eyes, he’s still behind Boozer in the NPOY race. But, at least in my view, the gap has closed somewhat and is clearly still closing.
Top 25 and 1 rankings
#Top #Arizona #heading #BYU #Dybantsa