Takeaways from College Basketball's Opening Night

Gonzaga, UCF and Duke's freshmen were standouts on the first night of the 2024-25 college basketball season.

College basketball schedule-makers opting to open the season with a Monday night slate on the eve of an especially nerve-racking Election Day was… well, it’s the kind of choice I have come to expect from the decision-makers in college sports.

If nothing else, at least the first set of games provides a moment of distraction on an otherwise tense Tuesday.

A docket heavy on buy games may not provide the most telling snapshots of the early-season landscape, but there are some potential storylines to keep an eye on from Monday. So, let’s get into it, shall we?

Gonzaga Looks Feisty

Preseason polls should always be viewed with skepticism, especially in this age of constant roster flux. Still, No. 8-ranked Baylor has been among the most consistently great programs for more than a decade, and there’s no reason to think Scott Drew won’t have the Bears contending in a loaded Big 12 Conference again.

Thus, Gonzaga taking Baylor to the woodshed in a 101-63 blowout commands your attention.

This shouldn’t need to be explicitly stated since it’s such an obvious point, but Gonzaga is one of those consistently great programs in the same vein as Baylor. It was Gonzaga that Baylor defeated for BU’s national championship in 2021, after all, and perhaps Monday night’s stomping was a small receipt for that game.

But, because the Zags have yet to win a title in their 25 uninterrupted years of reaching the NCAA Tournament, there’s a sect of people who like to call Gonzaga “frauds.” These people are dummies, but they’re also loud. And, they won’t shut up until Gonzaga’s the last team featured in an installment of One Shining Moment.

We’re coming off a 2023-24 season in which a UConn team that was clearly the best bunch in the nation all year won the national championship, so this isn’t always the case, but March Madness isn’t necessarily conducive to crowning the best team as champion. Measuring Gonzaga by that lone metric is silly — and measuring this year’s Zags’ NCAA Tournament prospects on a game played before Veterans Day is equally silly.

All that said, Gonzaga looked as balanced and deep as it’s ever been. More importantly, the Zags looked nasty. That’s perhaps been the quality most notably absent and enabling some of the more preposterous takes about the program.

To that end, it’s no coincidence that big man Graham Ike may be the pillar of this Zags team. The veteran Ike has been steady as a rock throughout his college career, averaging double-figure scoring all four years and earning both All-Mountain West and All-West Coast honors at Wyoming and Gonzaga.

However, he’s never been someone touted as a star. He reminds me a lot of former Zags interior presence Johnathan Williams in that regard. Williams’ willingness to do everything, including mix it up in the paint, was central to the 2016-17 Zags' run to the National Championship Game.

Baylor Loss Aside, the Big 12 is Scary

Conference realignment sucks and has made college football worse. I’ll get that out of the way upfront lest the following seem in any way an endorsement of college sports’ ongoing restructuring.

Big 12 football, in particular, survives as a reminder of how badly TV executives have maimed the game’s traditions. A league that came together from two outstanding football conferences — the Big 8 and Southwest Conference — is now a Frankenstein’s monster assembled from the leftover parts of three history-rich conferences killed off for table-scrap revenue.

One unintended positive of football-driven realignment was the previously bloated Big East regaining its identity as a basketball-focused conference made up of universities with similar qualities.

New-look Big 12 basketball is… not that. At all. There’s hardly a central theme that unifies its membership, aside from representing athletic departments with football programs deemed unworthy of the AFC or NFC — sorry, I mean the Big Ten or SEC.

Nonetheless, a Big 12 that was already arguably the best overall basketball conference, even before adding national championship contender Houston a season ago, now promises to be the college hoops equivalent of the Royal Rumble in one of those years when the WWE roster is especially star-studded.

I’m hardly broaching new ground with this observation, given the Big 12 opened 2024-25 with the nation’s No. 1-ranked team, Kansas, leading a contingent with three of the AP Poll’s top five and five of the top 10. The latter is a first in the history of the AP Top 25.

However, it was a game featuring an unranked Big 12 team — a Big 12 team that didn’t even check in among Others Receiving Votes — that stands out.

UCF’s 64-61 upset of No. 13-ranked Texas A&M provided one of the first shocks of the college basketball season. The Knights, picked to finish 11th in the Big 12 preseason poll, out-Buzz’d Williams with a defensive display that stymied the Aggies.

Darius Johnson, an entrenched veteran leader, played like a potential All-American with 24 points, five assists, three boards, and three steals. If this is the caliber of play we can expect from a UCF team pegged for the lower half of the Big 12, this league has the potential to fulfill the promise that the ACC hasn’t quite lived up to in the post-football expansion landscape.

Another high-profile game featuring a Big 12 newcomer slated near the cellar is one that you should absolutely keep an eye on Sunday: Arizona State vs. Gonzaga in Las Vegas.

Like UCF with Johnny Dawkins, Arizona State’s program is under the direction of one of the best point guards in Duke history. Duke’s relevant in the Sun Devils’ case because, in a pivotal year for Bobby Hurley’s future at Arizona State, both programs will lean heavily on freshmen in 2024-25.

Is Duke Going to Revive the One-and-Done Model?

It’s been 20 years since the NBA instituted its draft-eligibility age requirement, which in turn launched the One-and-Done Era in college basketball.

Generations of blue-chip prospects who would have previously jumped straight from high school to the NBA spent a year in college. In some cases, it made for some great entertainment; Kevin Durant’s 2006-07 season at Texas and Michael Beasley’s season at Kansas State the following year rank among the best examples.

But neither Durant’s Longhorns nor Beasley’s Wildcats advanced to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, and in that is an apt reflection of the One-and-Done Era overall. Yes, plenty of teams succeeded with rosters built around freshmen brought in with the expectation they’d be on campus for a single season.

However, in the 15 years between the implementation of the draft age requirement and the NCAA rules changes made in the wake of COVID-19, veteran-led teams continued to dominate the national championship.

There were two exceptions in that stretch: Kentucky’s Anthony Davis-led squad in 2012, and the last of Mike Krzyzewski’s five title-winning teams at Duke.

The 2014-15 Blue Devils were built around blue-chip freshmen Jahlil Okafor, Justise Winslow, and Tyus Jones, while fellow first-year guard Grayson Allen played an instrumental role in Duke’s National Championship Game win over upperclassmen-heavy Wisconsin.

Coach K returned to the one-and-done well to build a Final Four-caliber team in 2018-19, advancing to the Elite Eight with a lineup centered on Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett, and Cam Reddish. That Duke team was also arguably the last high-profile and successful lineup constructed around freshmen.

It’s also no coincidence it was the last season before the pandemic, when changes to transfer rules and extended eligibility made building rosters centered on breakout mid-major talent and established playmakers more feasible.

NBA front offices have also softened their approach in recent years, when the league hive mind viewed prospects with more than one, maybe two years of college experience as damaged goods. That college hoops veterans Zach Edey and Dalton Knecht have been two of the better rookies early in this NBA campaign reflects the evolving nature of going pro.

It’s this backdrop that makes this season’s Duke team so fascinating.

Anyone with an internet connection and an algorithm that feeds them basketball content knew all about Cooper Flagg before opening night. Flagg’s a viral sensation in the same vein as Duke predecessor Zion Williamson and 2023-24 NBA Rookie of the Year Victor Wembanyama.

He didn’t disappoint in his college debut, either, scoring 18 points with seven rebounds, five assists, and three steals against his native state’s Maine Black Bears.

However, Kon Knueppel’s 22 points and three made 3-pointers may have stolen the show somewhat. Kneuppel came in with 5-star billing, ranked the nation’s No. 18 recruit, but arguably the third-most prominent freshman of Duke’s kiddie corps. Flagg came in with top billing, and the surprising performance of South Sudan during the Olympic basketball season helped elevate 7-foot-2 center Khaman Maluach into the spotlight.

Maluach was solid on opening night, too, doing exactly what can be expected of his role this season with six points on 3-of-3 shooting around the rim, six rebounds, and three blocked shots.

The degree of difficulty picks up for the Duke youngsters soon: They draw Kentucky, travel to Arizona, and face Kansas all before Thanksgiving. We’ll get a more telling look at Duke’s freshmen in the coming weeks.