College Hoops Week in Review: Five Thoughts

Rotnei Clarke’s progression to the point: Butler knocked off Temple in Rotnei Clarke’s return to the court on Saturday night. Clarke was the savior, spurring the Bulldogs on to a win after Temple erased a big second half deficit. Clarke finished with 24 points, but that statline will mislead you, because all-in-all Clarke had an off night after the first couple of minutes. He was 4-14 from the floor and 3-10 from three.

No, the way that Clarke won that game for Butler was through his distribution of the basketball. The most dangerous sharpshooter in the country finished with nine assists on the night, many of which came down the stretch as he was able to draw the attention of the defense and find his open teammates. The biggest concern for Butler heading into the season was whether or not Clarke would be able to succeed as a point guard, and while he’s done a fine job through the first two months of the year, Saturday was the best that he has played the position all year long.

What’s wrong with VCU?: The Rams are 16-5 on the season, but heading into this week they were 16-3 with a top 25 rankings. That’s likely gone, after Shaka Smart’s club lost back-to-back games to Richmond and La Salle this week.

So what happened?

It’s simple, really. VCU’s defense stopped creating turnovers. You see, the Rams run a system called ‘Havoc’ which, more or less, means they are going to press for 40 minutes and try to force as many live-ball turnovers as possible. Those turnovers lead to transition, which gives VCU open layups and good looks from three. They lead the nation in defensive turnover percentage — their opponent’s turn the ball over 29.3% of the time — and steal percentage. VCU is 16-0 when they force at least 15 turnovers.

But they’re 0-5 when they don’t. In fact, in VCU’s five losses, their defensive turnover percentage is 19.0%, which would be good for 250th in the country. That’s not all that havocy.

56% of the Top 25 lost this week: We said this season was going to be a wild ride, and this week may have been the best example of it to date. There were 14 teams in the top 25 that lost this week. Of those 14, ten of those teams lost to unranked opponents while four of them lost to another ranked team. There were also four ranked teams that lost twice this week — No. 5 Louisville, No. 11 Kansas State, No. 12 Minnesota and No. 19 VCU. Three teams earned wins over top five teams — Miami over No. 1 Duke, Villanova over No. 3 Syracuse and No. 5 Louisville, and Georgetown over No. 5 Louisville.

O.D. Anosike’s big day: O.D. Anosike is a name that most hoops heads are going to recognize because of his ability to hit the glass. He led the nation in rebounding last season and is well on his way to doing the same this year. On Sunday, he put together one of the most impressive performances of his career: 20 points, 21 boards, five assists, two steals and two blocks in a win at Marist.

That’s a statline you don’t often see. The last time a player went 20/20/5/2/2 was on February 11th, 2012, when Tony Mitchell of North Texas had 22 points, 21 boards, five assists two steals and six blocks.

Mason Plumlee’s dunk was nicer: Alex Len and Mason Plumlee traded poster dunks in Duke’s 20 point win over Maryland on Saturday. Count me in the Plumlee camp here:

Who you got?