Since the college football bowl games are beginning this weekend, we thought it might be a fun exercise to take the top bowl games and make them special college basketball matchups. With this being a fun exercise just intended to look at some good games (and fanbases), we didn't adhere to any rules when it comes to conference ties to certain bowl games, and we tried to make it like a draft system that starts at ...

Kentucky is trying to figure out how good it can be in this stage of the season as it heads into its Saturday meeting with North Carolina. It's clear playing fast is effective for the Wildcats, their backcourt is super talented and the defense has some dominant characteristics. But whether the Wildcats are national championship good or simply SEC-champs-and-maybe-a-Final-Four good comes down to one question: What exactly is freshman Bam Adebayo? Is he an athletic specimen who ...

More than a month of college basketball is in the books, but is it enough time to definitively judge how the 2016-17 season will go? Nope, but it is quite adequate for the purposes of assessing how well things have gone so far and enough to figure if certain trends can continue. Some teams are excelling in a certain statistical area or struggling to live up to what we thought they'd be so far. The same goes ...

With the 2016-17 men's college basketball season roughly 25 percent complete, the projected No. 1 seeds for the NCAA tournament are Villanova, Duke, Baylor and UCLA. It has been about six weeks since our preseason projection of the 2017 NCAA tournament field, and quite a few things have changed. Back then, Texas and North Carolina State were both projected as No. 5 seeds. Neither one is even in the projected field at this point. On the ...

Kansas Jayhawks head coach Bill Self announced Carlton Bragg Jr. was reinstated to the basketball program Wednesday after a battery charge against the forward was dropped, per Bret Strelow of the Winston-Salem Journal. Self also said he was proud of the way his player handled the situation, per Strelow. Bragg called it "a difficult and humiliating experience," adding, "I'm glad I can put this behind me and move forward." Strelow shared the full statements from the coach and ...

There aren't many big men who've created waves yet in the early 2017 NBA draft discussion. Arizona's Lauri Markkanen is one of the exceptions, though his skill set doesn't reflect a traditional big man's game.  "This kid is a stud," an NBA executive told Bleacher Report. "I've watched him over seven times—his skill level and soft touch from outside are things one can't teach. Get guys to have him lower so we can steal him." A 7-footer ...

PHOENIX — College basketball's top division has 351 members for the 2016-17 season, an increase of nearly 11 percent since 2000. But even the most diehard fan would be hard-pressed to know much about the newest Division I entrants, most of whom toil in anonymity for a few years until they do something noteworthy like make the NCAA tournament and pull off an upset. Grand Canyon University is trying to change this perception. It's unwilling to ...

Just a few short weeks ago, Connecticut, Syracuse and Texas were comfortably ranked in the Top 25 and expected to compete for their various conference titles. If only we had known how disappointing they would be. Some of these teams have been ravaged by injuries. Others have played well, though not well enough to live up to the hype. But several of these teams are just plain bad. Rankings for the following slides were determined by comparing current* KenPom.com ...

Basketball coach Sean Woods was charged with misdemeanor battery Tuesday after two Morehead State players said he assaulted them during a Nov. 19 game against the University of Evansville, according to WKYT. On Thursday, CBSSports.com's Jon Rothstein, citing a source, reported Woods resigned. Citing court documents, WKYT reported "Malik Maitland told police that Woods backhanded him in the chest during halftime, causing pain." The report also states forward Soufiyane Diakte told police that Woods shoved him at ...

The 2016-17 freshman class may rival the 2007-08 class (Derrick Rose, Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, O.J. Mayo) and the 2013-14 class (Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid, Aaron Gordon, Julius Randle) as the best freshman class in college basketball history. That's how it stacks up after the first four weeks. Things can change considerably when conference play begins, as some freshmen thrive in those intense situations while others may wilt. Duke freshman Harry Giles, the No. 2-ranked ...