I wrote more about Alabama in my Top 25<\/a>, which included this nugget: Alabama became just the second team to score 100 points in regulation against a Rick Pitino defense over the last 26 seasons. You\u2019re not supposed to be able to score that easily against a Pitino defense.<\/p>\nWe\u2019ll have a clearer picture of just how good Alabama is over the next few weeks than just about anyone in college hoops, because bless Oats, here are Bama\u2019s next three: Purdue, Illinois and Gonzaga.<\/p>\n
Why I\u2019m lower on Purdue and Duke<\/p>\n
For the Boilermakers, I worry about their athleticism in the frontcourt. It showed itself in the Kentucky exhibition game. Hopefully, we\u2019ll get to see Purdue at full strength with Trey Kaufman-Renn back against Alabama on Thursday. The Crimson Tide will be a good test for Purdue\u2019s perimeter defense. Alabama cannot overwhelm with big bodies up front like Kentucky can, but its speed from the one through four spots is elite.<\/p>\n
With Duke, I\u2019m worried about guard play. Cameron Boozer has been as good as advertised. Isaiah Evans had a great game in the opener against Texas as the secondary scorer, but when he\u2019s not making shots and opponents sell out to take away Boozer \u2014 Texas was able to do so in the first half of the opener \u2014 where does Duke turn? Caleb Foster has been efficient but is averaging just 8 points through two games. Maybe Cayden Boozer will be the answer.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going off the eye test right now, which is difficult with such a small sample size, but I\u2019d rather have the rosters of the teams in front of Duke. By the new year, after Duke plays Kansas, Arkansas, Florida, Michigan State and Texas Tech, I might be eating my words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The second week of the men\u2019s college basketball season begins with a second No. 1 team in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":369801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[8802,3918,8803,8804,3920,3909,3912,1372,1382,1384,4345,2500,3915,9443,8798,8797,8801,8795,1385,4739,7800,3910,4733,8796,1378,1383,358,8799,3187,8800,1427],"class_list":{"0":"post-369800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-alabama-crimson-tide","9":"tag-arizona-wildcats","10":"tag-arkansas-razorbacks","11":"tag-auburn-tigers","12":"tag-byu-cougars","13":"tag-connecticut-huskies","14":"tag-creighton-bluejays","15":"tag-duke-blue-devils","16":"tag-florida-gators","17":"tag-gonzaga-bulldogs","18":"tag-houston","19":"tag-houston-cougars","20":"tag-illinois-fighting-illini","21":"tag-indiana-hoosiers","22":"tag-iowa-state-cyclones","23":"tag-kansas-jayhawks","24":"tag-kentucky-wildcats","25":"tag-louisville-cardinals","26":"tag-mens-college-basketball","27":"tag-michigan-state-spartans","28":"tag-michigan-wolverines","29":"tag-north-carolina-tar-heels","30":"tag-ohio-state-buckeyes","31":"tag-purdue-boilermakers","32":"tag-st-johns-red-storm","33":"tag-tennessee-volunteers","34":"tag-texas","35":"tag-texas-tech-red-raiders","36":"tag-tx","37":"tag-ucla-bruins","38":"tag-wisconsin-badgers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}