The first hot take of the decade is that Tom Brady is, shockingly, a mere mortal after all.
Here are some other toasty takes that I believe I can prove.
The Blue Devils are the biggest threat to the "no great teams" theory
Duke is ranked No. 2 in the nation, so it's hardly controversial to suggest that this team could win the national championship. Nevertheless, Mike Krzyzewski's team seems relatively under-discussed. Blame it on our mode of discussion this season.
Rather than pointing at a particular rotation and saying it's outstanding, in 2020 we prefer to repeat that there are no great teams. That has certainly appeared to be the state of things so far (look at all those top-10 teams losing), and it most definitely seemed to be the case when this same Duke team lost at home, in overtime, to Stephen F. Austin.
That loss, however, is the only one Duke has suffered to this point in a season that has included wins at Michigan State, Virginia Tech, Miami and on a neutral floor against Kansas. Moreover, Vernon Carey Jr. has emerged as a legitimate Wooden Award candidate, multiple 3-point threats have suddenly appeared for a program that hasn't had a 3-point threat since Grayson Allen, and oh, by the way, Tre Jones is still a tremendous on-ball defender who doubles as an elite point guard.
Are we sure there are no great teams this season? The Blue Devils are, for what it's worth, pulling away from the rest of Division I at kenpom.com, and this group has several statistical similarities -- overall shooting and turnover percentage, to name two -- to the 2018-19 team that seemed to impress a lot of people.
Not to mention that this is, so far, the third consecutive season in which Duke is playing outstanding defense, a trend that would have amazed everyone who was yelling at the Luke Kennard and Jayson Tatum team to start playing defense. The Blue Devils' three ACC opponents have scored 0.81 points per trip, and those teams have been committing a high number of turnovers and recording a very low number of offensive boards.
The really big development in Durham this season, however, has been the emergence of Carey as an overshadowed superstar. The 6-foot-10 freshman won't be as good this season as Zion Williamson was last season, but he might turn out to be the best player in the nation in 2020.
Carey's combination of post scoring, rebounding and, especially, low-foul rim defense is unlike the mix that any one Duke superstar of the recent past has supplied. He's also improving as the season progresses.
Add it all up, and the Blue Devils might yet shoot holes in our "no great teams" narrative. If so, Stephen F. Austin will be the happiest team of all.
The Tar Heels are on track to miss the NCAA tournament
Meanwhile, on the other half of a certain storied ACC rivalry, North Carolina is mired in its worst season in 10 years. Saturday's 96-83 loss to Georgia Tech in Chapel Hill dropped UNC to 8-6 this season. Keep in mind that the Tar Heels entered the game ranked a lowly No. 83 in the NET.
While it's true that the NCAA's metric is still rounding into form this early in the season, it will in fact round into form with surprising speed over the next couple of weeks. A spot in the 80s is no place to be making the case for an at-large bid. In short, it's quickly becoming more probable than not that North Carolina will miss the NCAA tournament.
That isn't a completely unthinkable scenario, after all. UNC was left out of the field as recently as 2010, but that also happens to be the only time Roy Williams failed to take a Tar Heels team to the tournament.
Cole Anthony has missed the team's past five games, and in his absence, this group needed a 20-point effort from Brandon Robinson to beat Yale by three at home. What's even more troubling for North Carolina fans is that even when Anthony was healthy, this team was not following the standard Tar Heel script.
For years, UNC has succeeded in part by generating far more shot attempts than its opponents could record. Now, early in ACC play, the unthinkable has happened: North Carolina is getting fewer scoring chances than its opponents. The Heels are still great on the offensive glass, mind you, but that hasn't mattered because this offense gives the ball away so often.
This was supposed to be the easy portion of the ACC schedule for UNC, but now Williams and his men are 1-2 in conference play with nine road games to be played. What's more, running the table in Chapel Hill does not appear to be a likely prospect -- not after losses there to Ohio State, Wofford and the Yellow Jackets. The Heels' tournament hopes are in deep trouble.
Azubuike remains curiously under-hacked
Kansas big man Udoka Azubuike catches another lob and slams it against West Virginia.
Why aren't Kansas opponents fouling Udoka Azubuike more often? The senior happens to be an amazingly effective 2-point scorer (shooting 80%) who is also historically ineffective at the free throw line (35%). We've never seen a more extreme dichotomy or, for that matter, a more ideal "Foul me!" situation. What's the hold up?
First, a disclaimer: Azubuike was actually 5-of-10 at the line in Saturday's 60-53 win over West Virginia in Lawrence. That qualifies as respectable, and the Mountaineers as a team made a lower percentage of their foul shots than the Jayhawks did.
Who knows? Maybe the senior has turned over a new leaf and this business of shooting a percentage in the low-30s from the line has become a thing of the past. The suggestion here isn't that Azubuike can't possibly improve on his free throws. It is instead that opponents are likely to fare much better with the senior shooting from 15 feet away than they are taking their chances with Azubuike from point-blank range.
Kansas hedges against this strategy, in part, by funneling an inordinate number of alley-oop opportunities Azubuike's way. A fair portion of his 2-point attempts are thus highly immune to opponents' fouls. Even so, he quite often is fouled in the process of converting alley-oops, thus creating and-1 opportunities.
Just the same, Azubuike doesn't and can't get all of his looks on lobs to the rim, and the fact that Bill Self yanks his senior from offensive possessions late in close games would seem rather conclusive on this matter. Self plainly doesn't want opponents to hack Azubuike. So why not hack him when you can? The mystery lives on.
"Run the table" talk will now focus on the Aztecs
The nation's two remaining undefeated teams, Auburn and San Diego State, both won on the road on Saturday. The Tigers emerged victorious at Mississippi State, and the Aztecs notched a win at Utah State.
While Auburn will be tested in a rugged SEC, however, SDSU has already won what was, on paper, its toughest test: the road game in Logan, Utah. As a result, there might be ample opportunity for excitement to build as Brian Dutcher's men go deeper into the season with a zero in the loss column.
That is quite separate, of course, from San Diego State actually running the table all the way to the NCAA tournament. The Mountain West might not have a particularly formidable opponent for the Aztecs this season, but it is nevertheless a conference that is typically inhospitable to long winning streaks.
No MWC team has ever gone undefeated in conference play, and even this season's SDSU team was taken to the 40th minute at home by San Jose State. The Aztecs are far better than anyone expected (Coach Dutcher, we salute you), and the Mountain West this season indeed appears to be a good environment in which to go undefeated. Just the same, running the table will be really difficult.