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Every weekday, a panel of our college hoops experts discusses the biggest issues, trends and themes in and around college basketball.
1. Kansas freshman Kelly Oubre Jr. appears to have cleared the freshman wall. What clicked?
Andy Katz: Bill Self never made this about Oubre. Self thought there was too much pressure on him to start with in the preseason. It appears he went through a normal maturation process.
C.L. Brown: Had Self thrown Oubre on the floor early in the season, when he wasn't ready, there's no telling where his confidence would be right now. Credit Self for bringing him along slowly and allowing him to grow.
Jeff Goodman: Self made him earn it. He didn't hand Oubre the minutes -- and it has worked out well for everyone. Oubre came in as a highly touted guy, and from what I was told, he fought it when he arrived in Lawrence. Now he has bought in, practicing hard, playing hard -- and now he's living up to expectations. Oubre is making shots and also running the floor much better.
Katz: They can't very well. No one could block shots like he did for the Huskies. Washington will need to alter its defensive approach without a stop-gap defensive presence on the back line such as Upshaw's. This will actually put more pressure on the guards to prevent the opposing team from getting into the lane.
Brown: To Andy's point about shot-blocking, I'm not sure they can compensate for his rebounding, either. Their frontcourt was already thin before Upshaw's departure; now it's downright decimated. With forward Jernard Jarreau still out with a knee injury, freshman Donaven Dorsey is going to have to play big minutes.
Goodman: They can't. The Huskies are done. Upshaw completely changed U-Dub from a below-average defensive team to one of the better defensive teams in the Pac-12. Take away the best shot-blocker in the country, and UW will become below-average again.
3. What can Notre Dame do to neutralize Jahlil Okafor's presence?
Katz: Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said the Irish aren't huge fans of doubling. So they must limit the entry passes to Okafor. He can't get set. If he does, and he gets the ball, then it's over. The guards must do a great job of ball pressure farther out on the perimeter.
Brown: Marco Killingsworth dropped 34 against Duke's Shelden Williams in a 2005 game because Mike Krzyzewski didn't want a double-team to leave Indiana's 3-point shooters open. Duke won the game in Bloomington because of it, despite Killingsworth's career game. I could see Brey using the same strategy: living with a big game from Okafor while trying to nullify Duke's array of shooters.
Goodman: Put him in ball screens defensively, and make him work on that end of the court. Notre Dame can really spread teams out, and that will be difficult for Okafor. That's where he struggles -- and that's where Duke struggles. There's not much Notre Dame is going to be able to do when Okafor gets the ball in the post, but Zach Auguste has to be careful to avoid foul trouble.
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