College Basketball's Best of the Week: Arizona's Kylan Boswell impresses, Purdue fans get in sync

There are 362 Division I men's basketball teams, and in any given week, there are dozens of stories of intrigue that frequently don't get spotlighted -- or at least don't get enough attention -- to break through as big stories in the sport. Such is the case when there are so many teams, players and coaches, with stories behind every game and every individual.

We don't want to let things fall through the cracks, though. So today -- and moving forward the rest of the season -- I'll be bringing you College Basketballs Best of the Week, to delve into those stories. 

It will include some of the best highlights of the week, some fun stories, a social media element or two, and just some good, old-fashioned, fun. The aim will be to highlight some stories that deserve pub, and to bring to the fore individuals or incidents that either made me laugh, made me cry or made me furrow my brow a bit.

The first edition of this space is below. If you have submissions for this column, please find me on Twitter. Story tips are always welcome!

Best Assists of the Week: Kylan Boswell's double dishes

Boswell can't stop submitting pass-of-the-year candidates. The second-year guard for the Wildcats accounted for the two most creative and audacious assists of the week for Arizona, first on Thursday vs. Colorado then again two days later vs. Utah -- both of which were in huge blowout wins.

Here's the first.

And if you thought that was good, his dime drop vs. Utah might've been even better. No-look in transition fired on a rope for a cutting teammate. It was so good that even teammate Keshad Johnson briefly appeared taken aback by the perfect delivery.

Best Video of the Week: Purdue fans get in sync

Even with a huge chunk of the student population not on campus during winter break, Purdue's fanbase and student section showed out Friday night vs. top-10 opponent Illinois, leading to what might go down as the best social video of the season in college basketball. 

Can't. Stop. Watching.

Absolutely mesmerizing. 

The fans behind him are dialed in. The cheerleaders are in unison. Even Lance Jones is perfectly in beat as "Sandstorm" plays over the loudspeakers. 

Best Broadcasters of the Week: Mississippi Valley State 

The duo of Caleb Brunson and Andre Williams Jr. behind the headset gave us incredible entertainment last season, and Mississippi Valley State smartly brought the two back this week to be on the call for the women's and men's game vs. Alabama State. The results were, unsurprisingly, spectacular. 

MVSU's men's team lost the game 54-51 to fall to 0-14 on the season and remained dead last in KenPom's rankings of all 362 Division I teams -- but the entertainment on the Valley Sports Network's YouTube page brought by the two made it sting just a little less.

Best Chuckle of the Week: Opposites attract

No one loves a funny visual more than me, so imagine my delight when I noticed on Saturday that Tennessee guard Zakai Zeigler -- listed at 5-foot-9 -- drew defensive coverage from Ole Miss big man Jamarion Sharp -- who is listed 7-5. It's beautiful and hilarious.

Odds and ends

USF's Chris Youngblood's water bottle incident has happy ending

A video of Youngblood's attempt -- and failure -- to hydrate himself during the team's game last week vs. Temple went viral after he picked up the water bottle from the wrong end and sprayed it in the opposite direction of his face. Youngblood on video had a little chuckle at the incident, and USF coach Amir Abdur-Rahim showed he has a sense of humor, too, revealing the next day during film study an analysis of the mishap with a gift box and message from none other than "Bugs Bunny."

"Chris, saw you had a hard time with your water bottle last night. I just figured I would help you out," said Youngblood while opening a box that contained a special sippy cup just for him. "Glad your aim on your jumpshot is better than your aim with the water bottle. Sincerely, Bugs Bunny."

Youngblood, the team's leading scorer on the season, scored 17 points vs. Temple in the win Thursday and followed it up with a 17-point, five-rebound, two-steal performance Sunday in a close-shave road loss to UAB. 

Tom Izzo rails against analytics

Michigan State fell to 9-6 on Sunday with an 88-74 road loss to Northwestern, leading to an "old man yells at cloud" situation postgame in which he snarkily and sarcastically took credit for the disappointing showing.

"I thought we were very well-prepared," Izzo said. "I'm not going to take any negative to me or my staff on that. My guys didn't play as hard. That falls on me. Doesn't fall on the players -- because nothing falls on players anymore. Understand that. It falls on me. .."

Izzo also continued his postgame by railing against the boogeyman of "analytics."

"I hate analytics," he said. "They're phony. Sooner or later, you look in a guy's heart, you look in a guy's eye, and you find out about a guy. Everybody in the NBA and college now wants analytics. What does analytics mean? Does it mean we won the game? Analytics are crap. Sooner or later we have to just muscle up."

OK, then! But wait: there's more! Izzo was asked how he explains recent shortcomings, and he again got snide.

"It's bad coaching. Because remember: you're not allowed to blame a player. So it's bad coaching. I'm not being sarcastic. My guys didn't play."

Blows keep coming for Kenny Payne, Louisville 

As if the season for Louisville hadn't been fully derailed, the train jumped off the tracks and exploded into a fireball this week. The Cardinals lost both of their outings to start the 2024 calendar year -- at Virginia and at home vs. Pitt -- and from a personnel standpoint they also lost JJ Traynor to a shoulder injury and Dennis Evans due to not getting medical clearance. That leaves Louisville with just seven scholarship players, and Payne with a bleak reality check.

"If you've got a great walk-on, send him my way" Payne said last week. "We need players."

Bad basketball in Detroit

During a two-month stretch to close out the 2023 calendar year, Detroit lost an NBA-record 28 consecutive games, becoming in the process the laughingstock of the NBA. Things are not going much better for its Division I college program, either. Detroit Mercy is 0-17 (!) on the season and owns the most losses in all of Division I. Only the aforementioned Mississippi Valley State has zero wins like the Titans do, and what's worse: KenPom.com projects it to lose all but one of its 14 remaining games. An 0-31 season is very much in play.

Phil Martelli gets a Philly welcome

Michigan coach Juwan Howard on Sunday made Martelli, the Wolverines' associate head coach -- a Pennsylvania native who coached at Saint Joseph's -- the acting head coach vs. Penn State as the Wolverines played in The Palestra. But that wasn't the only sentimental Philly welcome the Philly legend got over the weekend. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Martelli and Michigan had a fire alarm go off at 3:30 a.m. the night before the game, which prompted the team and Martelli to evacuate out into the street, and then the most Philly thing of all-time happened ....

Hours later, the fire alarm went off at 3:30 a.m. Sunday, Martelli said. The whole team and staff were outside on Broad Street.

"There's a guy outside with a speaker," Martelli said. "When I came out of the hotel, he's hugging me. He puts me in a rap song with the players there."

A hug at 3:30 in the morning from a stranger and a name-drop in a freestyle rap. What a weekend for Martelli.