The 2011-12 college basketball season got underway over the weekend, with 127 games played on Friday following abbreviated schedules on Monday and Wednesday.

Game of the Weekend: Duke 77, Belmont 76

In the second half of the Duke-Belmont game, the Duke crowd was chanting “Tyler Thornton” based on the freshmen’s unexpected performance. Thornton had his moments offensively, including a pair of critical threes early in the game, and a beautiful interior feed to Ryan Kelly early in the second half. But the crowd wasn’t chanting his name because of his offense. They were chanting his name because of his defense. Thornton was not only consistently shutting down the opposing ball-handler, he also forced some timely turnovers. And when one of his steals led to an Austin Rivers fast-break dunk late in the second half, it looked like Duke might have clinched the victory.

But Belmont refused to go away. Just as they did in a 2008 NCAA tournament game, where Duke had to hold off a Belmont charge to win by one point, the Bruins continued to make an incredible number of hustle plays. Brandon Baker had a terrible game by any normal evaluation. He was 0-4 from the field, and at one point he air-balled a free throw. But with 2:20 left in the game, there he was diving out of bounds, and throwing the ball off a Duke defender, to try to save a possession for his team. For every defensive play Duke made, Belmont made one too.

And that’s when Tyler Thornton made his most timely move of the game. With less than a minute to go, Thornton picked up his 5^th foul, which caused Mike Krzyzewski to reinsert Andre Dawkins into the lineup. And with the shot-clock winding down and 25 seconds left in the game, Dawkins buried a three pointer that effectively sealed the victory for the Blue Devils. Dawkins was cold coming in off the bench, and 0-4 from three at that point in the game. But Dawkins has been an assassin from deep in his career, and his shot was the game-winner.

For Duke haters, there were plenty of reasons to claim Duke was lucky in Friday’s game. At one point in the game Seth Curry was crossing half-court, lost his balance, and barely touched the Belmont defender as he fell to the ground. The Belmont player was whistled for the foul.

For Duke fans, there was plenty to be excited about. Mason Plumlee had a beautiful hook shot early in the game in the paint. And Andre Dawkins caught a fabulous give-and-go and finished around the rim despite being surrounded by four Belmont players. Seeing players expand their offensive games is always a positive sign.

But for Duke pessimists, there was plenty to discuss too. Ryan Kelly had a key bucket after Belmont had cut the lead to one point. But he mostly fell into his traditional position as a role player on the team. The Ryan Kelly who dominated the ball and the action in China was nowhere to be seen.

And while Dawkins made the clutch play, Seth Curry and Austin Rivers struggled late in the game. Curry had a pair of miserable turnovers late. And Austin Rivers made even more questionable decisions. Rivers step-back three with eight minutes left in the game was simply a dumb shot, and the kind of thing he needs to avoid doing in Duke’s efficient offensive scheme. And River’s offensive foul with 2:51 left in the game was why Seth Curry had the ball in his hands in the final seconds to begin with.

But this game was really not about Duke. This game was about the Belmont Bruins. At 19^th in the Pomeroy Ratings last year, they were last season’s efficiency darlings. But despite returning the vast majority of the lineup from last season, Ken Pomeroy in the Basketball Prospectus book, and yours truly in ESPN the magazine, did not project Belmont as a Top 25 team.

And we used the same logic. One season is a small sample size. My model looked at Belmont’s defense last year and concluded that last year may have been an unrepeatable fluke. Here are Belmont’s defensive ratings in the last nine years under Rick Byrd:

Belmont’s defensive ranking

2011-23^rd
2010-107^th
2009-166^th
2008-204^th
2007-124^th
2006-250^th
2005-216^th
2004-145^th
2003-195^th

Can an A-Sun team really produce a Top 25 defense two seasons in a row? If the Duke game was any indication, the answer may be yes. Belmont held Duke to 101.8 points per 100 possessions on Friday. That was Duke’s worst offensive performance in a non-conference game since Butler held them to 100.7 in the 2010 national title game.

And as Baker showed with his hustle play to save the ball from out of bounds late in the game, maybe Rick Byrd really has found the right formula to get his defenders to give every last bit of energy. Byrd has used a deep bench before in his career. But he now uses it to enforce 40-minutes of hell defensively. By getting his players to play smart, aggressive defense, Byrd has pushed Belmont’s defense to another level.

Perhaps it is shocking to see a coach with 26-years tenure with his team be able to implement a better defensive system. But all the great coaches never stop learning. Bob Knight who is considered one of the greatest basketball minds of all time, reached his level of success by seeking out the great coaches of the previous era and learning as much as possible. John Calipari has readily admitted he never stops learning about the game. And Rick Byrd has never assumed he has all the answers. Because of that, Belmont remains a program on the rise. 

Upset of the Weekend: Loyola Marymount 69, UCLA 58 

The story heading into the season was that UCLA had a ton of depth in the paint, but limited depth on the perimeter. No one questions that UCLA has talent, but without the right mix of players, some have questioned whether they can live up to their lofty pre-season ranking. And by opening the season with a home loss to a team picked to finish fourth in the WCC at best, those concerns were confirmed.

But thanks to the wonders of a Fox Sports Replay, I can say that is not quite as bad as it looks. Loyola Marymount was 10 of 15 from three in this game, and without that hot outside shooting, they certainly would not have prevailed. Thus the key question is whether LMU’s hot outside shooting was a bit of a fluke, or something UCLA should be concerned about long-term. My review of the game suggests it was a bit of a fluke. From Anthony Ireland’s three pointer as the shot-clock expired, to Ashley Hamilton’s key shots with David Wear’s hand in his face, LMU was simply making a number of tough guarded shots. Certainly there were plays where the UCLA big men were slow to rotate. But when you sag to take away penetration and leave a true freshmen forward wide open for the other team, I’m not sure you can call that a bad defensive decision. (UCLA had no way to know that LMU freshman forward CJ Blackwell was such a dangerous shooter.) There were a few poor defensive rotations, but not nearly as many as I expected when I first looked at the box score.

For the most part, UCLA was dominant defensively. “Zeke” Jones had a horrible offensive game, shooting just 1-for-11 from the floor. But he displayed lock down defense in the second half. He shut down dribble penetration, got a key tie-up, and deflected a number of balls out of bounds when LMU tried to drive the ball into the paint. Those defensive plays simply do not show up in a traditional boxscore. Similarly Josh Smith was a non-factor offensively, but he still had a number of incredible blocks defensively. I have to believe that the perimeter defense will get itself sorted out, and UCLA’s length will be giving opposing teams problems all season. 

The long-term concern was how incredibly inefficient the UCLA offense was in this game. The easy thing to say is that the team took too many perimeter shots. But that’s too simple. The real problem is that they did not seem to have the right spacing to get the ball in the post. LMU refused to respect David Wear as a perimeter shooter, and when Wear was on the opposite side of the floor, Josh Smith was constantly being triple-teamed. At one point one of the UCLA guards tried to feed it inside, and the LMU defender was so far off Wear, that he simply stepped across and stole the ball.

Part of this may be solved with some schematic adjustments by Ben Howland. Post feeds seemed to work better when Wear was feeding the post. But in this game, basically the only thing that worked offensively for the Bruins was Reeves Nelson running the floor. (His coast-to-coast dribble and basket was rather amazing for a big man.) But if UCLA can’t get the right spacing to get Josh Smith more one-on-one opportunities, this is going to be an incredibly long season.

Elsewhere

- Due to transfers and suspensions, George Mason is also heavily depleted at the guard-position. But they prevailed with their forward dominated lineup this weekend. Forward Ryan Pearson had 28 points and 12 rebounds in the team’s overtime win over Rhode Island.

- The Michigan St. – North Carolina Carrier Classic has been discussed in depth elsewhere. And even though other people have mentioned it, I want to concur that the Spartans dominance on the offensive glass was a silver lining in an otherwise tough loss. As great a passer as Draymond Green can be, he seemed to float too much on the perimeter last year. And with Delvon Roe out for the year, seeing Green re-assert himself on the boards was a positive and necessary development for the Spartans.

- The Carrier Classic produced some iconic pictures, but the bad video still outweighs the good video this time of year. Unfortunately, with all the college football teams still in action, far too many early season games are televised without the benefit of high definition.

- Speaking of the visual, Northwestern’s new floor looks better on TV than I anticipated. The faded purple is the perfect shade.

- Former Top-10 recruit Renardo Sidney was unimpressive in Mississippi St.’s home loss to Akron to open the season, and this weekend he sat out with a groin injury while Arnett Moultrie scored 28 points and grabbed 13 boards in the win over South Alabama. I know I am not the only person asking whether Sidney is worth the trouble at this point.

- Vanderbilt lost at home to Cleveland St., but at least their defense was not to blame. The Commodores have now forced 36 turnovers in two games. There won’t be many games this season where the Vanderbilt offense lets the team down like it did on Sunday.

- After sitting out the last two seasons, Iowa St.’s heavily-hyped transfer Royce White was impressive in his debut. He scored 25 points in Iowa St.’s victory.

- After tearing his ACL the last two seasons, Purdue forward Robbie Hummel also returned and scored 21 points. After everything Hummel has gone through in the last 18 months, basketball fans everywhere had to applaud that result.

- Utah St. has seen the WAC crumble around them in recent years as so many teams have departed for the MWC. Thus beating BYU in the season opener had to be all the sweeter.

- TCU beat Florida Gulf Coast by 1 point in the season opener. To say this team is going to struggle next year in the Big 12 is a massive understatement.

- The MVC’s quest to become a multi-bid conference again got off to a nice start as Northern Iowa won on the road at Old Dominion. The Monarchs shot just 30% from the field in the home loss. But then Southern Illinois went and lost to a Division II team which does nothing for the MVC’s perception. A few weeks ago, I said Southern Illinois coach Chris Lowery probably needs to be replaced, and this loss only adds more fuel to the fire.