Did y’all know we’re about six weeks from college basketball season? Yeah! I swear to God!
It’s coming up fast, and yet with college football in full swing, the shooty-hoops are getting even less love than normal. Obviously, this is not a problem at Sons of Pepe Sanchez (or else we’d probably be called Sons of Pisa Tinoisamoa) but it is worth bearing in mind that the cognoscenti have run out of space on the dance card to devote to basketball.
So until the season tips, we’ll tackle one big question for each of my own personal preseason top-10. For previous editions, we have:
No. 10 Kentucky: Can youth be served in Lexington this time?
No. 9 Purdue: What happens if Zach Edey’s supporting cast isn’t enough?
No. 8 Texas A&M: Was the post-New Year Texas A&M the rule or the exception?
No. 7 Tennessee: Is this the year the Vol offense does its part?
And now, for a Midwestern Night’s Dream:
How, exactly, can Creighton get over the hump?
I’ll start with the short answer, which is “I don’t know.” Last year’s Creighton was the best version of Creighton I’ve ever seen, and I’m old enough to remember a Missouri Valley Creighton, a Dana Altman Creighton, a Creigton that caved in the occasional big-daddy school skull thanks to Rodney Buford or Kyle Korver. The 2023 season marked a decade since the Blue Jays jumped from the Missouri Valley to the Big East and all Creighton has done since is win games at a 65 percent clip and routinely challenge for regular season and tournament championships, even winning the regular season in 2020, when the Big East Tournament and many others, including the NCAA, were canceled (thanks, COVID)… it makes it kind of hard to find a place to go up. Creighton is very good! Perhaps great! Routinely the third-best team in the Big East, which I think they’ll be this season!