Texas Tech Ends Duke’s Perfect Season in Stunning Rally and Finds an Emerging Threat

Plus more takeaways from a packed slate: Jayden Quaintance could be key for Kentucky, St. John’s continues to disappoint and Kingston Flemings shines in elite point guard battle.

Texas Tech forward LeJuan Watts controls the ball against Duke forward Cameron Boozer. / Brad Penner-Imagn Images

The final Saturday before Christmas featured tons of intriguing men’s college basketball teams as many squads wrapped up their nonconference schedules. We saw one of the nation’s best get shocked in the second half, an elite NBA prospect make his season debut in style and some of the sport’s top freshmen show out, plus plenty more from a 75-game slate. 

What did we learn from Saturday’s action? Here’s a look at some of the biggest takeaways. 

Texas Tech rallies to give Duke first loss 

For most of Saturday, it appeared Duke would take its undefeated record into Christmas and potentially a lot longer. Instead, Texas Tech surged back from 17 points down (with a minimum win probability of just 2.2% per KenPom) in the second half to beat the Blue Devils in an 82–81 thriller. 

This is a Red Raiders team that’s flawed, especially given the banged-up state of their current frontcourt. Finding five impact players to put on the floor at any given time has been a challenge. But Texas Tech has two of the elite players in the sport in Christian Anderson and JT Toppin, and the team’s third option in Washington State transfer LeJuan Watts continues to emerge. He followed up a 36-point outburst earlier this week with 20 points, six rebounds and three assists against the Blue Devils, bullying his way to the rim at will to lift the Red Raiders offense to by far the best performance any team has put on against Duke’s vaunted defense this season. If Watts consistently emerges as the third scorer, Tech will be a very tough out in Big 12 play. 

Jayden Quaintance is a game-changer for Kentucky

We wrote last week about Kentucky finding an identity with toughness and a defense-first approach in its win against Indiana. That made Saturday the perfect time for likely lottery pick Jayden Quaintance, who has the upside to be the most impactful defender in the country, to make his season debut after March knee surgery. Quaintance looked the part in his debut, tallying 10 points and eight rebounds as well as a pair of blocks. St. John’s offense sputtered with Quaintance on the floor, grinding down to a halt in the second half and turning it over as many times (eight) as it had made field goals in the game’s final 20 minutes. It’s unclear just how high Kentucky’s ceiling is playing this style, but a healthy Quaintance gives Kentucky a path to being one of the most vaunted defenses in the sport. 

Kentucky forward Jayden Quaintance made his season debut Saturday. / Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Disappointment for St. John’s grows 

The flip side of Kentucky’s win Saturday is yet another underwhelming showing for St. John’s, which entered the season with legitimate national title aspirations and will enter Big East play without a win over a surefire NCAA tournament team. Rick Pitino’s no-point-guard plan from the preseason hasn’t worked, but St. John’s has had poor guard play generally this season. High-profile portal additions Ian Jackson, Oziyah Sellers and Joson Sanon have underwhelmed offensively and lack the physicality and defensive edge that last season’s backcourt possessed. 

It’s early to worry about making the tournament, and you’d expect St. John’s to still post a strong win total in Big East play. But the résumé as league play approaches is lacking big wins, and there won’t be a ton of opportunities outside a ton of two games against UConn to really move the needle in conference play. 

Kingston Flemings outduels Darius Acuff in elite PG battle 

Perhaps the most interesting game of Saturday from an NBA draft perspective was Houston taking on Arkansas, a showdown of two elite potential one-and-done point guards in Kingston Flemings and Darius Acuff. While Acuff scored more (27 to Flemings’s 21), Flemings’s Houston squad won the game and shredded the Arkansas defense for 94 points in the process. It was another highly efficient offensive day for the freshman out of San Antonio, scoring his 21 on 15 shots and posting five assists to just one turnover. He increasingly looks like he could challenge Mikel Brown Jr. as the first point guard off the board. 

That said, Acuff did little to leave the large collection of scouts on hand underwhelmed, and continues to play at a very high level. The lack of consistent support up and down the rest of the roster is frustrating though, and could hold the Hogs back in their SEC title aspirations. 

Utah State stakes claim as nation’s best mid-major 

Utah State vs. Colorado State was supposed to be the best game of the day outside of the power conferences. Instead, the Aggies scored 16 of the game’s first 18 points, went up by 21 at the half and led by as many as 45 in a 100–58 win over the Rams. The win pushed Jerrod Calhoun’s team into KenPom’s top 30, making them the highest-ranked mid-major on the site. This is a much more athletic and longer team than the one whose wheels fell off defensively a season ago, and Vanderbilt transfer MJ Collins Jr. has been a gem. If the defense holds up, this group has serious Cinderella potential. 

Other notes from Saturday’s action 

• Seth Trimble’s return for North Carolina after being sidelined more than a month with an arm injury was a success, scoring 17 points in a win over Ohio State. His rim pressure and ability to guard the ball are skills this North Carolina team desperately needs to reach its ceiling. 
• Kyle Smith continues to squeeze every bit from the sponge at Stanford, now 10–2 after beating Colorado. Freshman Ebuka Okorie is a classic Smith recruiting gem, and the lore will only continue to grow after his 32 points (and 21 free throw attempts) in Saturday’s win. 
• Marquette is in a very bad place at the moment, but Creighton following up its 41-point drubbing of Xavier with a 21-point win against the Golden Eagles is quite the week. It will take some work to overcome the Bluejays’ bad nonconference, but the metrics bump from these two blowouts should help. 
• No one in college basketball stuffs the stat sheet quite like Liberty’s Zach Cleveland, who’s a point forward in the truest sense. His latest eye-popping day: 12 points, 16 rebounds, seven assists, three blocks and two steals in a road win at Dayton. He’s the sport’s top triple-double threat and the biggest reason the Flames seem primed to push for another CUSA title. 
• Dan Geriot was an unlikely hire at Iona coming straight from the NBA assistant ranks, but he has injected a spark into the Gaels program early. His biggest win yet came Saturday on the road at perennial northeast power Vermont. The 9–4 Gaels were without leading scorer CJ Anthony (a former Cincinnati walk-on), but got 26 points off the bench from Division III Brandeis transfer Toby Harris, if that illustrates how creatively the Gaels staff recruited this spring. 

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