NCAA Basketball: Texas Christian at Arizona
USATSI

I can't think of a better way to ring in 2025 than a fresh batch of Ten Trends. Let's dive right in. 

1. The absurdity surrounding Arizona's offense

Arizona's biggest preseason question has turned into an outright disaster. Arizona is on pace for its worst 3-point shooting season in school history since the 3-point line was adopted ahead of the 1986-87 season. The Wildcats are shooting a meager 30.8% from downtown.

It's impossible to say no one saw this coming. Arizona's roster-construction decisions have not aged particularly well. Arizona misses the 3-point threat that Kylan Boswell presented. It could use freshman Joson Sanon who was initially committed to Arizona before dipping for Arizona State after Caleb Love returned for a second season in Tucson.

Mixing a low-volume shooter like KJ Lewis with a low-volume shooter like Jaden Bradley with a low-volume shooter like Trey Townsend has not coalesced. Try as they might, Bradley, Townsend and Lewis have not made strides in that department. That trio is shooting 15 of 62 (24%) from downtown. 

Tommy Lloyd has tried just about everything so far. He's quietly quit playing Lewis, Bradley and Townsend together very often. That trio played just six minutes and 46 seconds together against TCU, per CBB Analytics, which was easily the lowest mark of any of Arizona's seven games against the seven highest-rated opponents.

Sophomore center Henri Veesaar is getting major tick now that Motiejus Krivas is out for the season to try and get a stretch big on the floor to clear the paint a tad. Freshman forward Carter Bryant has gotten some run, and he might be a big part of the problem-solving moving forward if he continues to shoot it with confidence. It isn't going in yet at a high clip, but it looks good out of the prized recruit's hand. Anthony Dell'Orso, a 6-foot-6 Campbell transfer, has a clean shooting stroke, but Arizona's defense has been 17 points per 100 possessions worse with him on the floor, per hoop-explorer. Dell'Orso's offensive impact is negated by the defense.

Even with historically bad 3-point shooting, Arizona is 16th in the country in offensive efficiency after Monday's 90-81 win over TCU.

How?

Rim dominance.

Arizona averaged 1.38 points per possession on a night when everyone other than Caleb Love went 2-for-11 from downtown because it scored a whopping 42 points in the paint and shot 18-23 at the rim. The Love rollercoasters are here to stay. It's Year 5. It is what it is at this point. But while Arizona's lead guard flummoxes between a seven-point clunker and a 33-point explosion, the rest of the squad has to continue to win the math in other ways. 

Arizona has to win the shot-volume game if it can't make 3-pointers. It has to make more free throws than its opponents attempt. It has to be a monster on the glass and keep assaulting the rim by any means possible.

Don't look now, but Arizona has a path to 6-2 in Big 12 play if it handles its business. Saturday's road matchup against No. 16 Cincinnati won't be easy but it's not impossible. It's catching West Virginia at a good time with star wing Tucker DeVries still on the mend. UCF and No 25 Baylor at home should be victories. Texas Tech on the road is probably a loss but Arizona will be favored on the road against Oklahoma State on Jan. 21 and a double-digit favorite at home against Colorado four days later.

The roadmap to a 6-2 Big 12 start is right there. Rim dominance is the way. 

2. UNC's high-flyin' Jackson

Ian Jackson played just 12 minutes in North Carolina's sweaty season-opening win over Elon.

A whole lot has changed in eight weeks.

Jackson has transformed into one of college basketball's scariest sights in transition. Jackson is averaging a whopping 5.6 points per game in transition which ranks 19th-best in the nation, per Synergy, and every qualifier ahead of him is a full-time starter. 

Jackson earned a spot in UNC's starting lineup in Sunday's win over Campbell only because Seth Trimble was nicked up, but the five-star freshman has to have starter-caliber minutes regardless. RJ Davis is still UNC's best player, even though his 3-point jumper has been uncharacteristically off-kilter this year. Trimble is No. 2 in the pecking order. Jackson looks every bit the part of UNC's third-best player at this point.

He scored 24 points last week against then No. 18 UCLA with 15 coming in transition. He followed it up with 26 against Campbell including12 more in transition. 

A little shooting variance helps. Jackson is up to an absurd 9 of 13 from downtown on transition triples, but he's only turned it over on two of his 49 transition possessions. Jackson is either generating a high-quality shot or earning a trip to the free throw line thanks to his absurd combination of blazing speed, above-average length and the dexterity to uncork nifty euro-steps to leave defenders in the dust.

Being a menace in the open floor has kept Jackson's game remarkably simple but wildly effective.

UNC restarts ACC play this week against Louisville on New Year's Day before Saturday's tilt against Notre Dame (12 p.m. ET on CBS and streaming on CBSSports.com, CBS Sports App and Paramount+ with Showtime).

That Notre Dame clash will be strength-on-strength. Jackson has proven to be one of the best pure transition scorers in the country. Notre Dame's transition defense is a fortress. Micah Shrewsberry's group allows just 8.4 transition points per game which ranks 17th nationally.

Check ball.

3. Baylor's turn to self-scout

Baylor has had just one game since Dec. 12. That's a ton of time to rest, recover and self-scout. If Baylor wants to stay alive in the Big 12, it has to clean up the 3-point defense. Opponents are shooting 39.5% from downtown against Baylor which ranks 355th nationally.

This is trending to be Baylor's worst 3-point defense since Scott Drew took over in 2003.

Baylor might be due for some positive shooting regression, but not every 3-point jumper is created equally. It's who is taking them that's killing Baylor.

It didn't matter if it was big games or buy games, far too often, the opposing team's best shooters were getting free regularly against this Bears defense.

That's a concerning trend, but Baylor has had a ton of time to get healthy and tinker with some stuff defensively. Drew hasn't been afraid to switch up defenses this year, but better attention to detail defensively would go a long way.

We'll see how much progress Baylor has made in Tuesday's Big 12 opener against a 3-point happy Utah club. Senior wing Gabe Madsen is a career 38% deadeye who has attempted at least eight treys in nine of 11 games this season. Can Baylor limit his attempts? 

The same thing applies to Saturday's skirmish against No. 3 Iowa State (2 p.m. ET on CBS and streaming on CBSSports.com, CBS Sports App and Paramount+ with Showtime). If Baylor cannot keep Curtis Jones or Milan Momcilovic from getting free from downtown, it's in hot water in a venue (Hilton Coliseum) where road teams routinely get pulverized.

4. DePaul's new and improved version of Gunn

CJ Gunn, a 6-7 junior wing, has turned into a completely different player at DePaul after two roller-coaster seasons at Indiana.

Gunn is averaging a career-best 9.7 points in just 18 minutes for DePaul, and his efficiency inside the arc has completely spiked.

Last year, Gunn was tasked with being a bucket-getter for Indiana's second unit. Gunn has a nearly identical job description for DePaul this year, but his shot diet has been revamped.

Gunn took 120 shots at IU last year. 30 of them were midrange jumpers. DePaul's coaching staff has almost completely removed that shot from Gunn's arsenal. Just 10% of his attempts have been midrange jumpers. Instead, Gunn's rim rate has spiked. Gunn has embraced being a cutter and his chemistry with DePaul's uber-unselfish point guard Conor Enright has gotten better and better.

Gunn is shooting 57% at the rim for DePaul, a far cry from his 38% rim efficiency last season for the Hoosiers.

The change in both mentality and shot selection has helped Gunn's offensive efficiency rating jump from 87.2 (bad) to 108.1 (more than serviceable). 

Finding DePaul has been objectively a career-saving move for the former four-star recruit.

Up next: DePaul hosts No. 11 UConn on New Year's Day (2 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network and streaming on CBSSports.com and the CBS Sports App).

5. Kansas State's Hawkins puts it all together

Coleman Hawkins has endured a choppy first two months in Manhattan, Kansas. Hawkins' jumper was AWOL and there have been moments where Jerome Tang has not been pleased with Hawkins' attention to detail on the glass, notably against an ultra-physical St. John's club.

Monday was a completely different story and offered some encouraging signs of progress. Kansas State upset No. 16 Cincinnati 70-67 in a game it just needed to have thanks to a game-high 20 points and 10 rebounds from Hawkins.  

Cincinnati turned it over 15 times and finished with a 21.9% turnover rate –– easily a season-high for the normally sure-handed Bearcats –– and Hawkins was in the middle of all of it with four huge takeaways.

Even amid a slow start offensively, the Illinois transfer is quietly playing some of the best defense of his career. Hawkins is just one of nine players in college basketball with a block and steal percentage north of 4.0, per Bart Torvik. 

Kansas State uses Hawkins in a ton of different ways. Against Cincinnati, he served as a roamer who played way off Dillon Mitchell and tried to clog up other gaps. He also had some stretches guarding the Bearcats' best perimeter scorers like Jizzle James, Simas Lukosius and Dan Skillings, all while handling a major role offensively as a pseudo-point-forward. 

There were moments against Cincinnati where Hawkins had guarded all five positions.

A defense that turns takeaways into buckets has to be the recipe for Kansas State moving forward in 2025 to get its season back on track. The Kansas State point-of-attack defense might not ever be excellent with offense-tilting guards like Dug McDaniel and Brendan Hausen on the floor, but Hawkins and fellow senior David N'Guessan are two terrific, multi-positional forwards who cause so many problems defensively with on-point rotations. Hawkins and N'Guessan are constantly able to douse fires defensively and kickstart fastbreak opportunities.

That's money in the bank for McDaniel who is a blur in the open court and Hausen who can shred the nets from downtown. 

K-State doesn't beat Cincinnati without the 15 huge points it scored off turnovers. It needs to execute that same gameplan Saturday against TCU (4 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network and and streaming on CBSSports.com and the CBS Sports App).

6. Potential sell-high spot on Oklahoma 

It's been utterly phenomenal work by Porter Moser to navigate non-conference play without a blemish, but there's a chance this could get ugly in SEC play. In No. 12 OU's six toughest games, it's getting bludgeoned at the rim and on the offensive glass. Opponents are shooting over 60% at the rim against the Sooners. That is not a winning recipe in the ultra-physical, highly-athletic SEC where rim dominance matters more than ever. 

The Sooners have also gotten a bit fortunate from downtown. In those six games against high-major teams, Oklahoma is shooting 40% from 3-point range and its opponents are shooting just 25%. That 15% gap is way, way, way too wide and ridiculously unsustainable. For reference, last year against top-150 teams, Oklahoma shot 33% from 3 and its opponents shot 30%. That 3% gap is much more realistic. 

Oklahoma travels to No. 5 Alabama on Saturday.

7. Elite transition defenses who are also elite offensive rebounding clubs

One way a team can get way better on both ends is if it can marry two seemingly opposite strategies: offensive rebounding and transition defense.

In theory, great offensive rebounding teams usually can be susceptible to transition buckets because they are hunting those second-chance opportunities and don't get back in time. But there's a delicate balancing act that some teams have been able to execute where they're elite at both sections. Offensive rebounds lead to kickout treys which is one of the most efficient shots in basketball. A bunch of the best offenses are great offensive-rebounding teams. That's no coincidence. But transition buckets are also one of the things many programs are trying to generate. Stopping those easy buckets in the open floor is essential for most great defenses.

Transition defense can be a bit of a noisy stat that's buffed up by 3-point variance, especially against buy-game competition in non-conference play, but there are 11 teams that rate in the top-30 in fewest transition points per game allowed while also securing over 34% of its misses. 

  1. SMU
  2. Tennessee
  3. UConn
  4. Iowa State
  5. Utah
  6. Drake
  7. Clemson
  8. Duke
  9. Missouri State
  10. Utah State
  11. Saint Mary's

If you're on the same list as Rick Barnes, T.J. Otzelberger, Randy Bennett, Ben McCollum and Dan Hurley, you're probably doing something right. 

8 A hat-tip to San Diego State's internal development program

Miles Byrd was San Diego State's eighth man last year who played 20 or more minutes just a handful of times. BJ Davis just played in blowouts as a freshman. Magoon Gwath had ankle surgery and San Diego State opted to redshirt him despite his huge showings in practice after he got healthy in December.

Each part of that seldom-used trio has emerged as key cogs for a San Diego State club that enters Saturday's road tilt against Boise State as a real Mountain West contender.

Byrd, a 6-7 toolsy wing, looks every bit the part of one of the top players in the Mountain West. He's putting up absurd defensive numbers, and he can pass it, dribble it and shoot it at a high level. He's what they look like on the wing. Davis is instant offense, especially in transition. The 6-2, 175-pound guard can just get buckets, even if he can be a tad erratic. Gwath looks like a complete monster. He has more tools than a handyman. The 7-footer ranks second in all of college basketball with an absurd 16.6 block percentage, but he moves differently. He's fluid defending out on the perimeter, and he's got a silky-looking jumper. The decision-making has to be refined a little bit, but he's quickly emerged on NBA radars for good reason.

It wasn't supposed to be like this, but after Reese Waters' stress fracture, San Diego State has had to lean on its youngsters so much more than initially expected. San Diego State ranks 312th nationally in minutes continuity which is the lowest it's been in that department in over a decade. Of course, the growing pains have been there, like blowing a seven-point lead with less than two minutes to go on Saturday against Utah State, but the flashes have been so evident for this club.

This version of San Diego State is an ode to the old-school approach to internal development. 

Up next: San Diego State travels to Boise State on Saturday (4 p.m. ET on CBS and streaming on CBSSports.com, CBS Sports App and Paramount+ with Showtime).

9. Gonzaga's Huff has ridiculous runner

Gonzaga's Braden Huff is certainly in the running for the best backup center in the country right next to UConn's Tarris Reed. Huff tortured Pepperdine for 19 points on 9 of 10 shooting Monday, and he's averaging 12.4 points in just 18 minutes. No backup center tops those offensive numbers.

Huff owns an exceptionally soft touch. The lefty big man drained three more of his patented runners against Pepperdine. It adds another layer to his already-deep offensive bag. 

This bucket was nifty.

Huff's defense isn't a massive strength right now. Opponents shoot 62% at the rim when he's on the floor and there are some breakdowns in pick-and-rolls, but his offense more than makes up for all of it. Huff can stretch the floor, post up on the block and make reads and he's always finding room in the middle of the paint for the unguardable runner. He's shooting a whopping 75% at the rim, and the handle is all the way legit, too.

Huff would likely be an All-American candidate this year if Gonzaga didn't have Graham Ike in the mix. 

I'm already circling him for my preseason All-American team next year when Ike exhausts his eligibility.

10. A quartet of head-scratching stats

  • Grand Canyon star wing Tyon Grant-Foster went 0-24 from 3-point range in December.
  • Illinois' starting 4-man Ben Humrichous has taken 30 shots in his last six games. Just one of them was a two-pointer. 
  • Alabama's Aden Holloway attempted 19 3-pointers on Sunday against South Dakota State. "It's kind of crazy, because he gets mad when I don't shoot," Holloway told reporters in the postgame press conference. Holloway's eruption is a crazy dichotomy when you compare it to another good team like St. John's who has not attempted 19 3-pointers in five games this year.
  • Old Dominion's Rob Davis is shooting 41% on 95 attempts from 3-point range and just 22% on 27 attempts from 2. Because sure.