Rauf Report: What Jayden Reid's emergence means for Memphis, concerns with Purdue, and more

Florida, Duke and Illinois were the only teams to receive first-place votes in the preseason AP poll, and it wasn't hard to see why. Florida brought back an elite frontcourt, Duke returned several key pieces from a No. 1 seed, and Illinois is coming off its first Final Four since 2005. UConn, which ended Illinois' season in that Final Four, opened at No. 4 without a single first-place vote.

After Friday night in Boston, I don't think much separates the Huskies from that group.

The rematch with Michigan was supposed to show how much UConn had lost, given it started the season without the two first-round picks who carried them to the title game. On Friday, Silas Demary Jr. and Braylon Mullins took over from the opening minutes and finished with 44 points between them in an 85-77 win, with Mullins needing just 12 shots for his 23.

Demary said afterward that he feels they're "the best backcourt in the country," and I'm not ready to argue with him.

The most impressive part of the performance is how UConn won. This looks like a Dan Hurley team at its core, one that defends and plays through contact. UConn held Elliot Cadeau, the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player, to eight points on 3-of-11 shooting with five turnovers, and Michigan went 7-of-28 from three. When the Wolverines pushed in the second half and cut the lead to nine, UConn answered at the line.

Hurley still found something to grumble about, joking that his team is one of the best in the country at taking "a game you should win by 15" and winning it by eight. To be fair, this isn't the Michigan team that beat UConn in April, but that's the point of Hurley's complaint. A team that belongs in that top tier expects to beat a ranked opponent comfortably, and for most of Friday night, UConn did.

UConn wasn't the only team that told us something in the season's first weekend. Here are five more things that stood out.

What Jayden Reid's emergence means for Memphis

Jayden Reid averaged 10.1 points per game at Northwestern last season. Two games into his first year at Memphis, his third school in four seasons, he's averaging 29.0, and both Tigers wins have come down to what he did in the final minutes.

The opener against No. 18 Iowa State was the season's first upset. Reid scored 17 of his 26 points after halftime, and after the Cyclones' 7-0 run tied it at 69, he scored Memphis' final 11 — including a three with 38 seconds left that made it 78-73.