Tournament: DIRECTV Wooden Legacy
When and where: Nov. 26-27, Cal State Fullerton; Nov. 29, Honda Center, Orange County, California.
Teams involved: UC-Irvine, Boise, Arizona, Evansville, Michigan State, Santa Clara, Providence, Boston College
Initial thoughts: If there are drawbacks to early-season bracket events, chief among them is the need to split the best two teams in each field on opposite sides of the bracket. That's how tournament seeding works in general, of course (except in the NBA, anyway), and there are obvious reasons why it holds true of many early season tournament formats. These things are supposed to entertain. Shoe-horning a field's best potential matchup into the first round would burn off any single-elimination suspense before viewers have a chance to settle in. The championship should feel like a big deal. Why undercut the climax?
So, yeah, we get it. But we also really want to see Michigan State play Arizona.
The Spartans and the Wildcats -- two extremely well-coached, marquee programs coming off deep tournament runs, and the only two obvious top 25 teams in the bracket -- comprise the best potential matchup the 2015 Wooden Legacy has to offer. Actually seeing that matchup, however, will require both teams to win two games in two days. Granted, their respective chances of doing so seem strong. Arizona should have little trouble with Santa Clara in the first round, and Providence, even with future lottery-pick point guard Kris Dunn back for a healthy junior season, looks too shallow at every other position to challenge Sean Miller's deep, flexible roster. With Boston College and then (probably) Boise State in the second round, Michigan State has a slightly tougher -- but still entirely manageable -- path.
Then again, you never know. Upsets happen, and all it will take is one November slip to rob us of the most entertaining possible outcome, and cost both programs a game that would buttress their RPI résumé through early March. Or, maybe, neither team is as good as their current projections? It's possible! In that case, disregard everything I just wrote. But if both MSU and Arizona are as good as we think -- which is, like a Spartans-Wildcats Wooden Legacy title matchup, the most likely outcome -- then it would be nice to guarantee that meeting up front. Oh well.
Why you will want to watch: Which is not to say your interest in the Wooden Legacy should be limited solely to its two biggest names.
To wit: Evansville. The Purple Aces won 24 games a season ago, some of which came via a mostly dominant CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament title run. That competition was super soft, sure. But rising senior guard D.J. Balentine was one of the 2014-15 Missouri Valley's best five players, and the only one not at either Northern Iowa or Wichita State. Center Egidijus Mockevicius, at 6-foot-10, was an efficient low-post finisher -- he shot 57.2 percent and posted a 116.5 offensive rating -- and grabbed a higher share of his team's available defensive rebounds than any other player in the country (33.3 percent). The three other starters are also back. This is a quietly intriguing group. It might not leapfrog Northern Iowa as the chief challenge to Wichita's MVC hegemony, but it could be a challenge. The Wooden Legacy will help us sort it out.
The same goes for Evansville's first-round opponent. Providence is fascinating. Dunn was one of the 2015 NBA draft's most surprising absences: After two injury-riddled years, 2014-15 was Dunn's first fully healthy campaign, and he responded by posting the highest assist rate (50.0 percent) and the fifth-highest steals percentage (4.9) in America. He was a surefire first-round pick. He was expected to leave. He didn't. Instead, Dunn bet on college as the best place to expand his game -- to become more than just the nation's best passer.
Which is all good, save one problem: It's not clear whom, exactly, Dunn will be passing to. After losing leading scorer LaDontae Henton and forward Carson Desrosiers to graduation, the Friars also waved farewell to two transfers: rising senior forward Tyler Harris (Auburn) and 7-foot center Paschal Chukwu (Syracuse). In tandem, those transfers decimated Ed Cooley's front line. The result is likely to be even more minutes and touches for Dunn in a guard-heavy, small-ball rotation with few proven options outside its star. Dunn already used 30 percent of his team's available possessions a season ago; a 35 percent usage rate is entirely realistic moving forward. Whether or not that will work -- for Providence or for Dunn's draft stock -- is completely up in the air. But it sure sounds fun to watch.
Then there is Boise State, which is basically Providence's inverse reflection: The Broncos lost their high-usage lead guard and retained (almost) everybody else. Derrick Marks ranked No. 1, No. 3, and No. 1 in usage in Mountain West Conference play as a sophomore, junior, and senior, respectively. What distinguished his excellent senior season was how much Marks improved his outcomes in 2014-15. His assist rate went up; his turnovers went down; he became a potent 3-point threat; and he had the tightest defensive season of his career to boot. That improvement will make a player once derided as a blind gunner one of the toughest to replace in college basketball. The good news for Boise is the return of Anthony Drmic, a senior who missed most of 2014-15 with a medical redshirt after an ankle injury in December. Drmic is already the Broncos' sixth-leading scorer all-time, and his return will add another floor-spacing scoring threat to a team chock full of potent shooters. If any team is likely to prevent Michigan State from meeting Arizona in the Wooden Legacy final, it's this one.