Five Burning Men’s College Basketball Questions That Will Shape Rest of the Season

Saturday’s men’s college hoops slate looked just decent on paper but produced some of the best games we’ve watched all season, namely an epic meeting in Nashville between Florida and Vanderbilt that should go down as one of the best games of the season to date. We saw significant upsets, some concerning losses for top-tier teams as well as an amazing finish that kept one of the sport’s best stories this season undefeated.

To best break down a chaotic Saturday in the college hoops world, Sports Illustrated answers five burning questions that could shape the season’s final eight weeks.

How worried should we be about North Carolina?

North Carolina’s first Bay Area trip since Stanford and Cal joined the ACC was a disaster, dropping a thriller Wednesday against the Cardinal before trailing wire to wire against the Bears on Saturday to drop to just 2–3 in ACC play. Despite a 13–1 start, North Carolina is now lower on KenPom (No. 36 nationally) than where it finished last season.

At the core of the Tar Heels’ recent struggles have been defensive woes. Since the calendar flipped to 2026, North Carolina has been the worst defensive team in high-major basketball per T-Rank, giving up 80-plus points in four straight games. The Heels have gotten absolutely torched from three in that stretch, giving up 14-plus made threes in all four games with all four teams shooting at least 40% from distance. That’s not a sustainable figure for opponents, but North Carolina has experienced plenty of lapses on that end of the floor that have undoubtedly helped contribute to its struggles of late.

Perhaps the bigger issue at the moment is North Carolina’s guard rotation, where Hubert Davis seems to be grasping at straws for the right combination. High-priced portal pickup Kyan Evans has been a nonfactor of late and played a season-low 11 minutes against Cal. Freshman Derek Dixon gave them a lift in Berkeley, but struggled at Stanford and generally has been quiet of late. Davis took top international addition Luka Bogavac out of the starting lineup starting in the Wake Forest game, and the Montenegrin bucket-getter has scored in double figures just twice in his last eight. Finding a consistent answer for the two spots next to Seth Trimble in the Tar Heel backcourt is a must if North Carolina has any real aspirations of making a run in March.

Is Florida the SEC favorite again?

Just two weeks ago, Florida was 9–5 after losing its SEC opener at Missouri and looked destined for a disappointing follow-up to its national title campaign in 2025. Now, the Gators look reinvigorated and in the pole position for the SEC title after four straight wins, capped by a monster win Saturday at fellow SEC contender Vanderbilt. This one was a thriller, but Xaivian Lee’s devastating stepback three sunk Commodore hearts and gave Todd Golden’s team a huge leg up in the SEC race.

The biggest difference of late for Florida has been its guard play. Lee played his finest game as a Gator on Saturday with 20 points (capped by the clutch go-ahead three), while Boogie Fland looked rejuvenated last week with 23 against Tennessee and 15 against Oklahoma. The Gators are historically good on the glass, and Rueben Chinyelu’s emergence as an offensive weapon further strengthens this elite frontcourt. When Florida simply gets decent guard play, there aren’t many teams that can beat it. And with a favorable schedule the rest of the way in the SEC, the Gators seem well-positioned to take full control of the regular-season title race.

Have consecutive comeback wins woken up Kentucky?

There’s an alternate universe where Kentucky is 1–4 in SEC play, having been blitzed in first halves against LSU and Tennessee on the road this week and staring down an uphill battle just to make the NCAA tournament. Instead, the wounded Wildcats have shown some serious moxie this week, rallying from 18 down at LSU and 17 down at Tennessee in consecutive thrilling wins after losing starting PG Jaland Lowe for the season with a shoulder injury. All that raises the question: Is Kentucky more lucky or good?

The most positive development has been the play of Denzel Aberdeen, who has turned in consecutive stellar outings taking over full-time point guard duties from Lowe. While not a traditional floor general, Aberdeen is a gifted enough shot-creator to lead the Kentucky offense the rest of the way. Around him, six different Wildcats scored in double figures in the two road wins, a nice sign of the type of balance you’d hope to find with the Wildcats’ on-paper depth.

Wildcats guard Denzel Aberdeen during a game. — Wildcats guard Denzel Aberdeen took over full-time point guard duties after Jaland Lowe injured his shoulder. | Jordan Prather-Imagn Images

This upcoming week is critical, with winnable home games against Texas and Ole Miss before the schedule ratchets up. Win those two, and Kentucky should be well-positioned to, if nothing else, go dancing. The momentum off two emotional road wins like the ones they added this week should help.

Can Wes Miller save his job?

Few coaches in the country have been feeling the heat quite like Wes Miller at Cincinnati, who earlier this week had Bearcats fans so downtrodden that a “brown paper bag” game was proposed by fans of the team. That made the implications of Cincinnati’s win over Iowa State on Saturday unbelievably significant, clearly the best win of Miller’s five-year tenure with the Bearcats.

Against what’s usually one of the toughest defenses to crack in college basketball, Cincinnati’s backcourt of Jizzle James and Day Day Thomas combined for 34 points and made plenty of tough twos in key spots to keep the Cyclones at bay. Stacking up 15 offensive rebounds against an excellent Iowa State team on the glass was also massive.

It’s still an uphill battle for the 10–8 Bearcats to make the NCAA tournament (especially after a brutal loss to Eastern Michigan earlier this season), but a win like this one can totally change a season. That said, the road ahead is brutally tough, with road trips to Arizona and Houston coming up before the end of the month.

Will Miami (Ohio) ever lose?

We’re kidding … mostly. But the RedHawks increasingly give off “Team of Destiny” vibes after moving to 19–0 in a thrilling OT win against Buffalo. It took a little luck to keep that streak alive Saturday, with Brant Byers’s desperation tapback landing right in the hands of Eian Elmer to allow Miami to tie the game at 88 and force overtime. And in overtime, Peter Suder scored the final of his 37 points on a three for the win with fewer than five seconds to go.

Tuesday’s game against Kent State will be a serious challenge; Kent has the size and physicality to bother Miami up front, all while having one of the toughest mid-major point guards out there in Cian Medley. But Miami’s offense is electric, leading the country in effective field goal percentage and shooting nearly 40% from distance. Keeping up an undefeated season wears a team, with a win over Kent would set up the RedHawks quite well to potentially be college basketball’s final unbeaten squad.

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