The November interim between the splashy start of the season and onrush of Feast Week basketball is customarily somewhat calm. Not this season. We've already seen James Wiseman make a startling departure of indefinite duration, while Myles Powell recorded a surprisingly fast return. Therefore, my first hot take is that November 2019 has been wild.
Here are some other such takes that I think I can prove ...
Rick Barnes is on a multiyear tear that few saw coming
When Tennessee tipped off Rick Barnes' third season in Knoxville with a home game against Presbyterian on Nov. 10, 2017, the head coach's record with the Volunteers stood at 31-35. Since that day, however, Barnes has gone 60-15, with win No. 60 coming Saturday afternoon by the score of 75-62 on a neutral floor in Toronto against No. 20 Washington.
Who saw this two-season-plus reign of excellence coming? Not too many people. At the SEC media day prior to the 2017-18 season, the Vols were picked to finish No. 13 in the 14-team league. Instead, you might recall, Tennessee shared the conference title with Auburn that year, as both teams finished 13-5 in league play. The Volunteers followed that up with a 15-3 run through the conference and an NCAA tournament No. 2 seed last season.
Both of those years were powered in no small part by Grant Williams, Admiral Schofield, Jordan Bone and Kyle Alexander, so it was natural to think Tennessee would take a step back this season with those players having all departed. Perhaps that is indeed what we'll see in 2019-20. The season is young. So far, however, the 3-0 Vols have looked like a team ready to contend for an SEC title.
Barnes' team held Washington to 62 points in a 72-possession game, as highly touted freshman Jaden McDaniels shot just 6-of-17 from the floor for the Huskies. For the season, the Vols have limited opponents to 44% shooting on their 2s.
On offense, Tennessee's John Fulkerson and Jordan Bowden have been hitting their shots from inside and outside the arc, respectively. Those open looks often come courtesy of a Lamonte Turner assist. Turner has connected on just 19% of his 3s on the young season, but fortunately for Barnes, Turner's teammates have collectively hit no less than 58% of their tries from 3-point land. The new line has been no problem early for Tennessee.
Again, it's early, and the Vols will face challenges as large or larger than the one Washington posed, just in the month of November. Tennessee will face Florida State on a neutral floor in the Emerald Coast Classic, and the next opponent after that will be either Purdue or VCU.
Flip the calendar to December and you'll find a home game against No. 13 Memphis and a road test at Cincinnati.
The Volunteers might drop a game or two in the near future, but recent history is fairly insistent on a more fundamental point: It is unwise to underestimate Rick Barnes.
Tony Bennett might force us to rethink performance prerequisites for Final Four runs
Ordinarily, it would be mere common sense to say a team that can't even score a point per possession or that is making just 20% of its 3s on the season won't make any noise in March. Who knows, that might turn out to be a commonsensical evaluation of Virginia in 2019-20, a team that really does answer to the above descriptions of ultra-low scoring. After all, the roster Tony Bennett had in 2017-18 at least performed slightly above the level of the ACC average on offense, and those Cavaliers lost to a No. 16 seed by 20.
Just the same, this latest UVa group clearly has the potential to challenge our traditional mode of thinking on team performance. That standard mode rests on an assumption of prequalification and is typically bedecked in phrases like, "No Final Four team has ever ranked lower than" X for some measure of offense or defense; or, "No national champion has ever shot lower than 32.9% on its 3s." That last bit is true, by the way, courtesy of UConn in 2011.
Now look at Virginia this season. The odds are against the Hoos continuing to shoot 20% on their 3s all the way through 2019-20, because, well, no major conference team in the past decade has done worse than 26.8% over the course of a full season. (Take heart, Virginia fans.) Still, it's a safe bet that this particular rotation isn't going to blossom suddenly into a fearsome swarm of perimeter marksmen. The Cavaliers are going to have to win games, we think, without that particular arrow in the quiver.
Which, of course, is exactly what 3-0 Virginia has done thus far. UVa has outscored its first three opponents by 0.34 points per possession, a perfectly normal margin of November supremacy for a Final Four-track team. What we really mean when we say no team that shoots this poorly from the outside has ever done much in the tournament is simply that we've never seen a team win this way before.
We've also never seen a defense that can hold opponents to roughly 0.60 points per possession for any appreciable length of time. The Hoos have now done just that for three games, and, of course, one of those contests was an ACC road test at Syracuse. If Virginia continues to play defense at or near an unprecedented level of effectiveness, we might need to revisit some assumptions about what an offense "has" to do in order to make a team a threat to reach the Final Four.
Zeke Nnaji's incredible shooting accuracy might be unsustainable, but even 'his' normal is likely abnormal
Arizona is in the enviable position of having a battle on its hands for the title of most amazing freshman. Nico Mannion, for example, has been sensational, scoring 23 points on 9-of-15 shooting in the Wildcats' impressively easy 90-69 win over Illinois in Tucson.
Still, when recognizing outstanding first-year performances on Sean Miller's roster, it's awfully tough to look past the guy who is shooting 84% on his 2s.
Yes, 84%. Eat your heart out, Zion Williamson. Zeke Nnaji scoffs at your pitifully pedestrian 75% shooting inside the arc last season.
Now, will Nnaji continue to make 84% of his 2s? Why must people always be so skeptical? But no, probably not. The only thing even more incredible than connecting 84% of the time inside the arc is to record a 77% success rate specifically on 2-point jumpers. That is precisely what the 6-foot-11 freshman has done after his first three games. Conversely, a more typical level of accuracy for that particular shot type in Division I is something around 36%.
So yes, Nnaji might be looking at a correction in both his 2-point jumper accuracy and his overall 2-point success rate. Nevertheless, the early indications are that his level of production is no accident. So far, Nnaji has recorded 58% of his 2-point attempts at the rim. That's not quite on the same insane level as what we saw from Williamson last year (86% of his 2-point tries occurred at the tin), but it is still outstanding.
Nnaji and Mannion might indeed prove to be one of the better inside-outside freshman duos we've seen in recent years.