I realize watching a man who voluntarily left college basketball and played professionally return to college basketball and play in the SEC again — and all of the other nonsense connected to the NCAA these days, including another player now actively trying to do more or less the same thing — has damaged the sport in some folks’ eyes.
I get it.
But if you can get past that stuff and just focus on the actual games, college basketball really is a terrific product filled with awesome stories this season — and it’s overdue for Texas A&M to be added to the list of coolest things. Arizona is undefeated and elite. You know that. Miami (Ohio) is 22-0 and proof that success at the mid-major level remains difficult but attainable. We’ve been over that. Nebraska hasn’t won a regular-season conference championship since 1950 but could change that this season. You’re probably aware of that given that the Cornhuskers are 20-1 and didn’t take their first loss until last week.
Great stories, all of them.
So is Texas A&M.
Matt Norlander and I actually opened Friday’s episode of the Eye On College Basketball Podcast, after we discussed my snow/ice issues, on the Aggies because they’re such an out-of-nowhere story. After being picked 13th in the SEC’s official preseason poll, and while still unranked in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, Texas A&M — under first-year coach Bucky McMillan, a 42 year-old who was coaching high school basketball just six years ago — is now 17-4 overall, 7-1 in the SEC and on a four-game winning streak featuring two Quadrant 1 victories following Saturday’s 92-77 win at Georgia.
Are the Aggies the best team in the SEC? That’s debatable. But they are alone atop the SEC standings on the first day of February. That’s a fact. And the SEC is the highest-rated conference in the country, according to the NET. That’s also a fact. Which means McMillan, again, a 42 year old who was working at a high school six years ago, is now guiding the team that’s alone in first in the standings of the conference that put a record 14 schools in last season’s NCAA Tournament and still currently rates as the best.
What. A. Story.
Texas A&M is No. 24 in Sunday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings, where Arizona remains No. 1 for the 22nd consecutive day. The Aggies have six double-digit scorers on their roster, all of whom, just like their coach, are in their first year in the program.
Again, what a story.
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Eric Bossi
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