Day 1 Overreactions

1. The ACC might be bad again this year. The Citadel thumped Pitt and it wasn’t close. Pitt was within single-digits for less than 5 minutes. Jeff Capel’s seat is hot. Miami (OH) beat Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Navy won at Virginia despite being 15.5 point dogs. They hadn’t beaten a ranked opponent since David Robinson was there 30 plus years ago.

2. On a pleasant note, Duke did manage to beat Kentucky in Coach Al’s final trip to MSG. A case is being made they have the number 1 player in the next NBA draft in Paolo Banchero.

3. The other game at MSG saw Kansas mop the floor against Michigan State. Tom Izzo already has a technical on the young season and given how his defense looked, many more await. Kansas looks as deep as they’ve been in awhile. The Big XII may be for naught but the league should be a battle all season.

4. On the local side, Brad Davison got a flop warning 12 minutes into his 76th season, proving you can’t teach new tricks to old dogs. Marquette unveiled a new, pressure-based defense and looked uneven at best in beating SIUE who lost its exhibition opener to a DII school a week ago. Marquette managed to score 88 but teams that get them into the half court will have the advantage as the Golden Eagles lack any consistent outside scoring.  How they progress with such a radical change in coaching will be fascinating to watch. Patrick Baldwin had 21 in his Panthers debut as UWM defeated North Dakota. UWM will get more coverage this year than in any recent time with Baldwin on the roster.

5. Michigan has 51 at half. Moussa Diabate is a name to know.