The weekend after Thanksgiving was a slow one. So was Monday. But Tuesday will get college basketball back on track with the start of Big Ten play and a trio of games featuring six of the best programs of this century.
Here’s that trio of games:
- 7:30 p.m. ET: Florida at Duke
- 9 p.m. ET: UConn at Kansas
- 9:30 p.m. ET: North Carolina at Kentucky
As I noted in Monday’s Top 25 And 1, the six schools playing in those three games have combined to win 16 of the past 21 national championships. Put another way, in a sport with 365 schools competing for the national championship, Florida, Duke, UConn, Kansas, North Carolina and Kentucky have combined to win 76.2% of all national titles since 2003.
That’s incredible.
Tuesday night should be great.
The biggest question heading into things is whether Kansas freshman Darryn Peterson will play for the first time since Nov. 7 and just the third time this season. Unsurprisingly, KU coach Bill Self addressed the situation during Monday’s media availability.
“He has practiced — and he has gone up and down [the court],” Self said. “The hesitancy I have is that, before we announce anything, he has to test-out medically from a strength and flexibility standpoint. And we’ll know that [Tuesday] morning. … We’ll be able to say something definitively in the morning.”
Translation: As long as Peterson tests well, he should be in the lineup against the Huskies in what will be a matchup of top-15 teams in Tuesday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. UConn is No. 4. KU is No. 13.
Arizona remains No. 1 for the 13th consecutive day.
UConn opened as a 2.5-point favorite at Allen Fieldhouse, which means this is just the third time Self has been an underdog at home in 22 years at Kansas. The first time came Feb. 27 2021, when Kansas was a 4.5-point underdog at home to Baylor. The Jayhawks won that game, 71-58. The second time came Feb. 3, 2024, when Kansas was a 1.5-point underdog at home to Houston. The Jayhawks also won that game, 78-65.
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