Overreacting? Arizona, Tennessee and

  • Jeff Borzello, ESPN Staff WriterNov 16, 2023, 09:00 AM ET

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    • Basketball recruiting expert.
    • Signed up with ESPN in 2014.
    • Graduate of University of Delaware.We’re about 10 days

into the 2023-24 men’s college basketball season, so it feels like the ideal time for sweeping narratives and overreactions across the sport, right?The first week of the season featured 2 top-five groups losing at home and more than 15 power conference groups suffering losses to groups from outside power conferences, while the Champions Classic and Arizona’s trip to Duke offered a take a look at some possible championship game contenders going head-to-head. We don’t have sufficient data or evidence to support lots of viewpoints at this point, and it’s still prematurely to really gauge teams and players, however narratives are certainly forming.A year ago in this column, we properly called Brandon Miller as the very best freshman in the nation and Villanova taking a step back in its very first season post-Jay Wright, but hints of a breakout season for Mady Sissoko didn’t rather come to fruition.Let’s see how we do this season.Here are 6 significant storylines to keep track of after a week and a half of guys’s college basketball action.Arizona is a national championship competitor What’s going on?Arizona made arguably the greatest statement of the first 10 days of the

season by going into Cameron Indoor Stadium and knocking off then-No. 2 Duke. The Wildcats looked

like a drastically different attire than the last number of years: Harder,

more physical, much better defensively. That’s noteworthy since in those last number of years they won 61 games and got a 1-seed and 2-seed in the NCAA competition. San Diego State transfer Keshad Johnson has actually included a different measurement to the frontcourt, while Kylan Boswell and North Carolina transfer Caleb Love provide Tommy Lloyd a pair of playmakers with size at the guard spots.Will it last?If Arizona continues to protect like it has through 3 games, it should be near the top of the rankings the entire season. Johnson was one of the very best defensive players in the Mountain West before he transferred, while Boswell and Love have actually revealed a various level of physicality on the protective end

compared to the

departed Kerr Kriisa. Offensively, too, things are going to look various. Going from Azuolas Tubelis to Johnson is probably a bottom line in a vacuum, however the latter supplies more flexibility. And, Boswell and Love are 2 guys who can go and get their own shot– something Arizona has dealt with in postseason play.What they’re saying

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