The Watchlist Tune o' the Week
First: hope you enjoyed our weekend primer, which is a collaborative effort for a team. Any changes you'd like to see? Let us know.
Second: there's a pretty big primer for MTEs, preseason tournaments, and Feast Week(s) coming later this week. Prepare yourselves! Also the Lions game went late last night. Also also, went to Chicago this past weekend. America's best city? I say so. Fire away in the comments.
- A Games are obvious: the best of the best. We have one A+ Game every week, which is the Game of the Week under a different name. If you’re near a TV you should be watching this game at this time.
- B Games are good games that perhaps don’t quite have star power. I recommend keeping these on your periphery and flipping to them during commercial, or perhaps exercising them as a second screen if you’re into multi-view.
- C Games are clear undercards that could become a certifiable Situation if things break correctly, but in general these are mostly just games to be aware of in case your top options fall through. I’ll give these a sentence at most.
- We hope to never get to D or F Games this season. No need.
All lines and game information are via KenPom unless otherwise noted. All lines for women's games are via Bart Torvik.
Monday, November 17
No A games today, rough slate. Also a pretty weak MNF game. Hang out with your friends and/or family!
B Game
#64 VCU at #20 NC State (-9), 7 PM ET, ACC Network. This counts as some sort of a revenge game, I guess, as Will Wade left VCU after two seasons but continues to repay the favor by happily scheduling these games long after he's actually required to. VCU looks thoroughly fine to me so far. I worry they don't have a Guy, but rather a loose collection of a few guys that rotate. I think you need a Guy to pull off the upset here, so we'll see if one generates.
C Games
#138 Saint Joseph's (-6) at #289 Penn, 7 PM ET, ESPN+. Second Big 5 game for St. Joe's this year, Penn's first. Penn is about what I expected so far: not good, highly entertaining, and very chaotic. I'm aware they've an interim but it feels pretty important for the Hawks to not lose this game, particularly since they've won five in a row against the Quakers.
NCAAW: #4 LSU (-26) at #108 Tulane, 7 PM ET, ESPNU. Mostly a novelty for LSU to play this one on the road, but I appreciate that they do. LSU men's basketball hasn't played Tulane period since 2008 and has played them away from home once since 1980.
NCAAW: #96 Houston at #119 Stephen F. Austin (-1), 7 PM ET, ESPN+. This is an in-state game where the team with way less money is correctly favored, which is a bad sign for the power program. Houston's defense looks exceptional, though their offense is abhorrent.
#121 Southern Illinois (-2) at #194 North Dakota State, 8 PM ET, Midco Sports Plus. I don't think many people reading this subscribe to Midco, so perhaps only three people can see it. But if you can see it, this is a good game between two fine teams.
#186 Rice at #13 Tennessee (-22), 8:30 PM ET, SEC Network. An intriguing, surprising development in the first three Tennessee games, all against tomato cans: points! From 2020-21 through last year, Tennessee's 32 games where they were favored by 20+ points resulted in an average combined total of 136 points...or fewer than all three games they've played thus far. Combined totals of 137, 151, and 165 points through three. Why? Tennessee's averaging 72 possessions a game, with the North Florida game being their fastest since February 2024. Maybe nothing, maybe something.
#108 Loyola Marymount at #122 UC Santa Barbara (-1), 9 PM ET, ESPN+. The only two 5-0 teams in college basketball at the time of writing are Loyola Marymount and South Alabama, only one of which was expected to be 5-0. The reason here is former UCLA recruit Jan Vide, one of five players in a top-10 conference to post a 115+ ORtg on 25%+ Usage% to go with a 40%+ Assist%. (Braden Smith, Mikel Brown Jr., Robert McCray, and Northwestern's Jayden Reid are the others.)
#137 Oregon State at #56 Oregon (-13), 10 PM ET, FS1. Rivalry! Oregon finally had their first decent outing of the year, beating a good South Dakota State team by 14...but, frankly, I'm not encouraged that they took 65% of their shots from three (?!?!?) and seem no closer to consistently generating anything inside the perimeter outside of Shelstad and Bittle.
Tuesday, November 18
A Games
#4 Kentucky (-7) vs. #33 Michigan State, 6:30 PM ET, ESPN. Champions Classic night at MSG. A fun and funny thing to do is to remove all preseason priors. Let me know which team you think is on the top and on the bottom, based on what you've seen and heard.
The top is Kentucky. Seriously! That huge eFG% gap, mostly accumulated against Q4s, is covering up a turnover margin MSU or Illinois usually puts their name to and a rebounding gap MSU does have their name to. Despite one coach being Tom Izzo and the other very much not, Kentucky is playing Izzo-ish basketball at the moment. If that remains here, I don't think you want to get into an Izzo battle when the other sideline has Izzo on it. Also, Kentucky will almost certainly be down Jaland Lowe for this game, so a team already short on great shooting is probably short on playmaking, too. Gotta win ugly for a while.
#1 Duke (-6) vs. #26 Kansas, 9 PM ET, ESPN. This one also has an injury factor. Darryn Peterson is out for some unknowable amount of time per Bill Self, which obviously hasn't been an issue in any of their Q4 battles but would be a real problem here. No-Peterson Kansas plays very differently, reorienting heavily to inside-out basketball focused on Flory Bidunga, with Tre White (P&R operator) and Melvin Council (shooter) rounding out a Medium Three.
Duke looks the part of an elite defense, but they've strangely been just okay at defending bigs cutting and/or rolling off of screens. Of all teams, Indiana State seemed to have Duke's hard-hedge spinning with quick hits to the short roller, creating little power plays like these:
Bidunga has mostly been used as a lob threat in P&R, but his passing is significantly improved this year. He could be the key to a fun night with the Ewing Theory, or he could be a footnote in a Duke 12-point win.
B Game
NCAAW: #59 UNLV (-1) at #81 Montana State, 9 PM ET, ESPN+. This is probably one of the few times Montana State may ever host a team I expect to be in the top 50 by year's end, so that alone is fun. They're also two conference favorites and two teams that should lose two or fewer games in their conference slate. Get to know MSU's Taylee Chirrick, who is going to be a star by season's end.
C Games
NCAAW: #83 Murray State at #68 Illinois (-5.5), 12 PM ET, BTN+. Day hoops and a game Illinois really needs to get back on track for March purposes.
#230 Radford at #96 South Carolina (-13), 7 PM ET, ESPN+. Radford's mega-budget roster is horrendous on defense, but their -14.4% 3PT% gap is absolutely not gonna hold. I'm highly interested in this as a potential MM > HM upset, as South Carolina is 3-0 and falling at KenPom with their own +16% 3PT% gap. I will simply call my shot! Why not.
NCAAW: #75 Troy at #51 Kansas State (-8), 7:30 PM ET, ESPN+. Post-Ayoka Lee Kansas State doesn't look like a Tournament team to me, as a home loss to South Dakota and a near-loss to SMU implies maybe the 10th or 11th-best team in a seven-bid Big 12. Troy has a great opportunity this week to get a P5 road win, with this game plus Missouri on Thursday.
#213 Little Rock at #115 Murray State (-9), 8 PM ET, ESPN+. I like this game because it's two defenses that funnel everything to the rim. Murray's been the better team at the rim so far, but a healthy UALR with Tuongthach Gatkek can be lethal.
#114 Rhode Island at #73 Yale (-8), 8 PM ET, ESPN+. Here is an indicator of program health in year four of a tenure: being a near double-digit underdog to a program who's never gone beyond a 12 seed. I think Archie might be podcasting with us next year.
#98 Wichita State at #54 Boise State (-8), 9 PM ET, Mountain West Network. Let's give it up for Wichita State, who is back inside the KenPom top 100 for the first time since December 17 of last year. Let's also give it up for Boise, who...might be okay? Since their D2 disaster against Hawaii Pacific, they're 3-0 with two demolitions of top-200 opponents and a survival against Montana State despite shooting 10-37 away from the rim. They're grading out as roughly a top-70 team performance-wise.
#123 Troy at #30 San Diego State (-16), 10 PM ET, Mountain West Network. Odd thing about San Diego State non-conference home games like this one: they don't really play that well on average. Over the last four-plus seasons, they're 18-0 straight-up when favored by 10+ at home in a non-conference game...and 6-11-1 ATS. Median outcome is a 14-15 point win.
Wednesday, November 19
The A+ Game of the Week
#11 Arizona at #7 UConn (-5), 7 PM ET, FS1. I mean, yes. War is NOT over. War is beginning again!
I have a lot of respect for Dan Hurley, because you can ignore the antics and all the off-court stuff when the coach says "we would like to schedule BYU, Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, and Florida in a three-week span." That's how I know that coach is nuts. No normal person is saying yes to that.
Anyway, the nuts guy will provide viewers a tremendous battle of frontcourts and a strange battle of stats. UConn is 101-12 over the last four-plus seasons when winning the 2PT% battle, which is something Arizona lost just once (Wisconsin) in their entire non-conference slate last season. Florida got them by 3.5%, but barring a three-point shootout it's all about the interior battle for me.
A Game
#21 Alabama vs. #6 Illinois (-6), 9 PM ET, FS1. Rematch of last year's bonkers November game, which Alabama won 100-87 thanks to decimating Illinois via pick-and-pops. In the average game last year, the Tide ran that set roughly three times a night; against Illinois, nine.
Bama can achieve this again by using either Houston Mallette or Taylor Bol Bowen as the screener for Philon. (Oats has also used Aiden Sherrell, London Jemison, and Noah Williamson for these. I don't advise the latter two.) The Mallette sets can be particularly fun, as it's a 1-3 screen that creates some strange moves for the defense to counter. The flipside of this is that Illinois was phenomenal attacking downhill against Bama last year in P&R, and this year's Bama doesn't look meaningfully better at rim protection. So: round two of 100-87 or something like it? Sign me up.
B Games
NCAAW: #13 Minnesota (-6.5) at #49 Kansas, 7:30 PM ET, ESPN+. Every year, a surprise contender emerges from the mid-level of women's college basketball. Can I submit Minnesota for 2025-26? They've looked basically perfect through four games, are demolishing opponents on the boards, never turn it over, have shot it very well, and beat a top-60 Marquette team by 43 last week. Totally plausible to me that they could make the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 2005.
#79 South Florida at #55 Oklahoma State (-7), 8 PM ET, ESPN+. If you like fun, you should like this game, as Torvik gives it a projected final score of 91-84. That may be too conservative, as this is a USF team that will attempt 40 threes against an Oklahoma State defense built to allow 40 threes. Likewise: an Oklahoma State offense that's great in transition and on post-ups against a USF defense that stops neither of those things.
C Games
NCAAW: #77 Harvard (-1) at #109 Boston College, 6 PM ET, ESPN+. BC sports are in a very bad place right now. Losing this would not make it meaningfully worse, but it would be another data point.
NCAAW: #34 Oklahoma State (-4) at #67 St. John's, 7 PM ET, ESPN+. Oklahoma State's point totals through five games: 109, 97, 105, 112, 105. All five of those games are against Q4s or non-D1s, but matching that with incredible efficiency (all five games 1.31 PPP or better) is impressive even against air. This may just be an elite offense, or maybe St. John's will change that narrative.
#43 Villanova (-11) at #215 La Salle, 7 PM ET, CBSSN. My advice for Kevin Willard: win the Big 5 Classic. Kyle Neptune never did. Do it once and you're off to a fine start no matter what else happens before Big East play.
#74 Dayton at #60 Marquette (-5), 7:30 PM ET, TruTV. Marquette's hope to rebuild the natural way appears to be a bad bet early, as a team full of previous also-rans has not immediately asserted themselves into new roles. As such, this is an NIT team...but so might be Dayton, who has looked thoroughly average through four games. A -12.1% 3PT% gap implies better days ahead for the Flyers.
NCAAW: #58 James Madison at #5 Texas (-23), 8 PM ET, SECN+. Texas is likely well too athletic for this one to be close, but you never know. Then again, a similar comp for JMU might be Richmond, a top-40 team that just lost by 29 at Texas 10 days ago.
#136 UC Irvine at #125 Utah Valley (-4), 8 PM ET, ESPN+. These are two outstanding defensive programs, though UVU's defensive performance has been stunningly bad so far while UCI's offense has been a disaster. As such: no idea how this one's gonna go!
#161 Arkansas State at #24 Saint Mary's (-18), 10 PM ET, ESPN+. Saint Mary's is one win away from completing a 5-0 start to the season with five wins over teams that genuinely believe they can win their conference this year. None of them have even been close. Randy Bennett is even better than you believe he is.
Thursday, November 20
A Game
NCAAW: #26 Baylor vs. #16 Iowa (-2.5), 9 PM ET, ESPN2. The Jan Jensen era is off to a good start. I thought last year's Iowa was perfectly fine (6 seed, Round of 32) and this year's looks to be a better version of the same thing. This is a really intriguing neutral court affair with a Baylor team that's surprisingly pedestrian on offense but has been near-untouchable defensively, particularly down low. If Iowa gets Ava Heiden going early in P&R and cracks that defensive scheme, they'll win.
B Games
#76 Memphis vs. #5 Purdue (-12), 6 PM ET, CBSSN. The stats about Underdog Penny (that he's amazing) are well-known, but maybe a lesser-known item is that Memphis is 5-5 against top-10 offenses over the last four years. That's a genuinely very good win rate! This also applies to the Settle Down Juice that I gave out last week for both Purdue and Alabama, as Purdue's coming off their huge win. (I think Purdue wins a close one.)
NCAAW: #41 Florida State at #43 Florida (-3), 6:30 PM ET, SEC Network. I was ready to declare that Florida might be ready to break out this year...then they lost by 15 at Navy. Not great! Anyway, it feels like one of these teams but not both can make the 2026 Tournament. This feels like a potential deciding piece for that.
NCAAW: #46 Mississippi State at #30 Texas Tech (-6.5), 7 PM ET, ESPN+. It's four games, but two have been against top-100 opponents, so I think Texas Tech holding opponents to 32% from two and blocking 20% of opponent two-point attempts might be fairly legitimate. They may only be matched by State, who blocks 20.1% of attempts. This should be a 40-minute war on the interior.
NCAAW: #89 Gonzaga vs. #52 South Dakota State (-6), 8 PM ET, Midco Sports Plus. Not the best version of either of these programs, but they're still going to have a great shot at playing in the Tournament. South Dakota State's Brooklyn Meyer is going to be an All-American, by the way: three top-100 opponents so far, yet averaging 26, 9, and 4 blocks a game.
#16 Texas Tech (-6) vs. #52 Wake Forest, 8:30 PM ET, CBSSN. It seems the Wake Forest mantra is to show up when it matters, which would explain taking Michigan to overtime but farting around with an awful UMass Lowell team for a full half. As such, I see the spread here and...well, I think Wake probably finds a way to stay in this one.
C Games
NCAAW: #87 Saint Joseph's at #74 Columbia (-4.5), 11 AM ET, ESPN+. I went with my dad and a couple friends to Northwestern/DePaul last Friday. Great game, fun finish, DePaul kinda got screwed. More importantly, one thing happened that made me extremely thankful: my father was zoned out, reading an article about YouTube TV/ESPN, when DePaul hit 67 points and every kid at the game went nuts. Another day goes by where I don't have to explain the unexplainable to him, and for that, I thank Bob Iger.
NCAAW: #75 Troy at #65 Missouri (-5.5), 12:30 PM ET, SECN+. I bring the above up because these two games are almost certainly field trip games for kids. Missouri has recovered from losing to a D2 in an exhibition game to be pretty potent offensively, while Troy could really use a signature win.
NCAAW: #61 Davidson vs. #45 Miami FL (-2.5), 6 PM ET, ESPNU. No real thoughts here: just a garden-variety good basketball game.
#80 Pittsburgh vs. #68 UCF (-4), 7 PM ET, ESPN2. Well, it's another year of UCF being awful defensively after that was their entire identity for half a decade. I do not trust the Knights whatsoever because they aren't going to shoot 52% from deep for the entire season. The problem with my plan: Pitt's offense is also terrible. Stoppable forces, movable objects.
#41 Nebraska (-7) vs. #101 New Mexico, 7 PM ET, Peacock. New Mexico looks very well-rounded to me defensively, and this is a weird schedule spot for Nebraska, this being what looked like a warm-up game for either Mississippi State or Kansas State the next day. Maybe, maybe not.
NCAAW: #14 Tennessee (-17.5) at #145 Middle Tennessee, 7:30 PM ET, ESPN+. Fun in-state game. This is not a particularly good edition of MTSU, though.
NCAAW: #6 Duke (-14) at #71 South Florida, 8 PM ET, ESPNU. With all preseason priors removed, Duke is still a top-20 team, but they're 106th in offensive efficiency, with nothing in the way of obvious shooting regression looming. A large chunk of it comes from horrific finishing: 53.1% at the rim, 39th-percentile nationally. When your second-best 2PT performance is 22-42 against Liberty I have real questions.
#45 Mississippi State (-1) vs. #62 Kansas State, 9:30 PM ET, Peacock. Another fun game at the T-Mobile Center. At least this one has a team based nearby. Chris Jans' team is not as messy as they look. They're still funneling a lot to the rim as usual; they just need better rim protection, whether that comes from freshman Jamarion Davis-Fleming or should-know-better senior Quincy Ballard.
#123 Troy at #18 USC (-18), 10 PM ET, BTN. I think Troy may set some sort of record for a Sun Belt team, as their first six D1 vs. D1 games will all appear in the Watchlist somewhere. This is the way you schedule!
#82 Arizona State at #94 Hawaii (-1), 11:59ish PM ET, ESPN+. I think this is the second year in a row Hawaii gets a P5 at home thanks to said P5 participating in the Maui Invitational. Good deal all around for them, honestly, and this will be very winnable. Arizona State is more or less what I expected: unable to score outside of occasional perimeter bursts, pretty decent defensively, altogether disorganized.
Friday, November 21
A Games
#15 BYU (-3) vs. #17 Wisconsin, 4 PM ET, Peacock. This oddly-timed game is due to a Utah Jazz game occurring later that night, which is going to make for a truly insane day for Delta Center staffers. Pray for them, because event production is already a difficult job for a normal neutral-site game.
This is a rematch of the 91-89 Round of 32 game last year, which wasn't quite as exciting or tense as that implies but was pretty entertaining nonetheless. No John Tonje this year, obviously, yet I think Wisconsin can make hay in a similar way they did in March. The Badgers got a ton of open kickout looks through isolating Tonje (or another wing) and letting them go to work. John Blackwell was the recipient of a few in March but could be the driver of it here, alongside Nick Boyd.
NCAAW: #11 USC (-1.5) at #24 Notre Dame, 6 PM ET, ESPN. Notre Dame has some serious issues beyond the amazing Hannah Hidalgo, who posted 16 steals in a game last week. She cannot do it alone, as they found out in a beatdown at the hands of a Michigan team I'm increasingly believing in as a top-5 group.
The good news for them is that USC has a pretty finite upper range of outcomes, too. Londynn Jones has been awesome but this is pretty obviously a defense-first squad, one that can't shoot and has gotten rocked on the boards by their two good opponents. This is still a very good game but it's a classic "wish it was last year" affair.
NCAAW: #2 UConn (-9) vs. #8 Michigan, 8 PM ET, FOX. This was very nearly the A+ Game of the Week and I'm not convinced it shouldn't have been. Actually, one second.
The Other A+ Game of the Week
NCAAW: #2 UConn (-9) vs. #8 Michigan, 8 PM ET, FOX. That's better. Michigan is making The Leap in Year Two of a fantastic freshman class, with all of Mila Holloway/Olivia Olson/Syla Swords/Te'Yala Delfosse playing some range of All-Big Ten to All-American. Arguably, they have the best starting five in the Big Ten, which is high praise considering it's a conference they share with UCLA. (Honorable mention to Minnesota, who would be #3 right now.)
Post-Paige UConn does look different, as they don't yet do a great job of creating rim pressure and have gotten jumper-reliant at times against better competition. But they're dominant on the boards, are incredible defensively, and have the best player in the sport in Sarah Strong. This is a tremendous test for both. If Michigan can hold up in transition defensively and can avoid having to double the post, they can pull off a program-changing win.
B Games
#44 Northwestern vs. #38 Virginia (-1), 5 PM ET, CBSSN. Did you ever picture a world where this would be a genuinely fun game to watch? Well, here it is. Northwestern is awful at rebounding, as evidenced by somehow getting out-physicaled by DePaul, and that can't hold here if they want to beat a UVA team currently second in OREB%.
#9 Louisville (-5) at #42 Cincinnati, 6:30 PM ET, ESPN2. You can't fool me; I'm familiar with your game. This is a Big East battle. This is Big East basketball. This is not anything else, unless it is Conference USA basketball. I would not be fooled by that. It is not anything else. Anyway, Cincinnati is 1-10 under Wes Miller when they lose turnover and rebound margin with an average MOV of -12.8. I would suggest they do not do that here against a Louisville team currently only outpaced by Florida and Arizona in my schedule-adjusted shot volume metrics.
C Games
#46 Utah State (-11) vs. #142 Tulane, 1 PM ET, ESPN2. Game one of the Charleston Classic. This Tulane team is notable solely because Ron Hunter's 2-3 matchup zone is forcing an average possession length of almost 21 seconds, the longest in America. Is this zone actually successful? Sometimes!
#260 Alabama State (-5) vs. #319 IU Indy, 2 PM ET, who knows. It's on something. Find it.
NCAAW: #57 Syracuse vs. #42 Utah (-2.5), 5 PM ET, FS2. Syracuse is not fun to watch but they just held Wagner to 29 points, and I do think that's something to point out. Three of their four opponents have gone for 0.42, 0.65, and 0.67 PPP, and Canisius's 0.98 PPP effort came at the hands of a 3PT heater and 17-22 at the line.
#193 Iona vs. #78 Akron (-11), 5:30 PM ET, ESPN+. Just a good game. Akron did suffer their first loss to Purdue but there's obviously no shame in this. Also, Torvik's projected score is 97-88. How many times are you gonna see 97-88 in your life? Actually, don't answer that.
#63 West Virginia vs. #27 Clemson (-4), 6:30 PM ET, ESPN2. I like the push-and-pull of this one: #1 in TO% Clemson versus 30th in forcing TOs WVU.
#133 UNC Wilmington (-3) at #230 Radford, 7 PM ET, ESPN+. There are so many basketball games. This may officially be A Little Too Much this year for Zach Chu, whose team is 285th-best in America with all priors removed. Still think they're due some serious positive regression on threes.
#202 South Alabama at #107 UAB (-11), 7:30 PM ET, ESPN+. No team in college basketball may have more confusing results than UAB: 51-point demolition (admittedly of Mississippi Valley State), 24-point road loss to NC State where they gave up a 74% hit rate on twos, home loss to Alabama State, 17-point beatdown of a very good High Point team that they held to 54% from two. I'm not sure the coaches have any idea which version of their team will show up, let alone a writer.
#34 Georgia (-10) vs. #110 Xavier, 9 PM ET, ESPN2. Kinda feels like it's on you if you're watching this. Yes yes, Georgia has fooled the metrics because they beat three bad Q4s by a billion points, they nearly lost at home to Georgia Tech and needed 44 free throw attempts to escape. I'll wait.
NCAAW: #80 Colorado State at #91 Oregon State (-1), 9 PM ET, ESPN+. Scott Rueck's Pac-12 funding is obviously gone, but the guy just keeps winning, including beating Illinois at home last week. College basketball is a great sport because both hyper-aggressive and hyper-conservative defenses are able to succeed at similar-ish rates.
