College Basketball Mailbag: Andre Curbelo’s Impact on Illinois, NET Rankings Debut and More

Plus, answering your questions on a mid-major matchup we’d like to see, coaches as ‘Seinfeld’ characters and more.

Welcome to Sports Illustrated’s weekly college hoops mailbag with Kevin Sweeney. Here, Kevin will field questions submitted via Twitter and email about a variety of topics in the sport. Have a question you’d like answered in a future mailbag? Send it to @CBB_Central on Twitter or Kevin.Sweeney@si.com (questions around either men’s or women’s basketball are welcome!). Without further ado, let’s get to your questions, which have been lightly edited for grammar and clarity ...

Greg asks: What should Illinois do with Andre Curbelo when he is available again? They’ve really turned a corner without him, centered around Kofi and a bunch of shooters.

Indeed they have, Greg. In the four games that Curbelo has been out of the lineup with a neck injury, Illinois has figured out a lot of its offensive issues from early in the season. It’s scored 1.2 points per possession or better in all four games, put up 80 or more points in all four and most importantly, won all four. The main guy who has stepped up in Curbelo’s absence is Alfonso Plummer, a shoot-first scoring guard averaging 24 points and shooting 49% from the field in the four games without Curbelo.

Personally, I still think the best version of Illinois will be with Curbelo in the lineup, but it needs to be in a different role than what he was asked to do early in the season. Curbelo was used on 36% of Illinois’s offensive possessions when in the game to start this season, a mark that would rank in the top five nationally if he had played enough games to qualify. That’s too much on a team with this many offensive weapons. That said, it’s hard not to believe a healthy, confident Curbelo wouldn’t be an asset in ball screens like he was last season. The whole offense just needs to not revolve around him.

Curbelo last played on Nov. 23 :: Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/USA TODAY Network

Illinois was a team in transition its first few games of the season. Curbelo was learning to play in a more featured role, Cockburn was out due to his suspension and then a flu outbreak hit the team to wipe out other key cogs. This stretch without Curbelo could be great for Plummer’s confidence long-term and allows Brad Underwood to tweak things heading into the meat of conference play.

Bob asks: Should they even bother with NET rankings this early in the season?

The NET’s debut this week created, as it does every year, an uproar about where teams are ranked. That reaction is the problem, not letting the NET out into the open right now. I’d argue the NET should be more accessible: Make the formula public for everyone to understand so teams can have a better understanding of what they need to do. Because everything is done in the shadows and then revealed randomly a month into the season, everyone gets confused when the rankings don’t make sense.

The problem with any computer-generated ranking this early is that it will be incredibly volatile until more results are public. The only way of fixing this is baking in preseason expectations (like KenPom does) and slowly removing those expectations as more data points come in. I think it would be inappropriate for an official ranking tool used for NCAA tournament selection to have any data that isn’t based entirely on this season.

But while there’s an argument to be made that any ranking system that moves a team 78 spots based on one game (as Butler did after its road win at Oklahoma) is relatively useless at that point, I don’t have an issue with the rankings being out there. It’s up to everyone to take the rankings with a grain of salt until there’s enough data to remove the volatility.

Lukas asks: What would be your ideal mid-major vs. mid-major matchup if you could add one to the schedule for this weekend?

How about Loyola Chicago vs. Colorado State? I’ve watched both of these teams a bunch so far this season and they are incredibly entertaining.

Each squad is in the top 20 in KenPom’s offensive efficiency rankings. They’re both loaded with high-level shooters and really share the ball. The battle of point guards between Isaiah Stevens and Braden Norris would be great to watch, and Loyola has one of the better defenders in the country in Aher Uguak to throw at CSU star David Roddy.

These two teams have the talent, experience and coaching to win not just one but multiple games in the NCAA tournament. If I were in charge of starting a new Bracket Busters event, this is the marquee game I’d try to schedule.

Matt B. asks: Is Cincinnati starting to look like a dark horse tournament team with the strong start under Wes Miller? Will AAC have enough quality win opportunities to build a solid résumé?

Wes Miller has Cincinnati looking something like the Cincy teams under Mick Cronin that went dancing annually. The Bearcats really get into you on the defensive end and can send body after body at you on the interior to make it tough to score on the inside. Freshman big Viktor Lakhin has been a nice surprise, joining transfers Abdul Ado, Ody Oguama and Hayden Koval to make up a frontcourt that beats you up for 40 minutes. This is a solid team that passes my eye test right now, even if it won’t wow you on the offensive end.

From a résumé standpoint, the Bearcats have a nice neutral court win over Illinois that could continue to age well and only one questionable loss, a home defeat to Monmouth. This weekend’s rivalry tilt at Xavier feels critical, particularly with the lack of high-level résumé opportunities in the AAC. Get that Xavier win, and I’d feel a lot better about Cincinnati’s tournament hopes.

That said, the five top teams in the AAC not named Cincinnati (Houston, Memphis, UCF, Wichita State and SMU) all have the potential to be Quad 1 or Quad 2 opportunities in conference play. The bigger issue is the league’s soft bottom, which creates several “land mines” of sorts. Avoid the bad losses and steal a big road win or two, and I like the Bearcats to go dancing.

Matt Z. asks: What seems real and what seems temporary (likely to change significantly), one month into the season? Can be a team, a coach, or a conference, anything.

What feels most real right now is the fact that no one is establishing itself as far ahead of the field in the national conversation. I felt after the Gonzaga vs. UCLA game that Gonzaga was going to be the dominant team in the sport this season. Now, after the Zags’ losses to Duke and Alabama, I think that game said more about where UCLA is compared to the true contenders than it did about Gonzaga’s standing. Purdue, Duke, Gonzaga, Baylor, Kansas and more feel like they can win a national title. There is no dominant team in men’s college hoops right now.

On the “temporary” front, I think the SEC’s rise has been a bit overplayed so far and will fade as these teams play more games. LSU and Arkansas are good teams, but they’ve played such soft schedules that we still haven’t learned a lot about them. Arkansas in particular has struggled to blow teams out it should be able to overwhelm. Florida’s hot start has already faded fast, and the home blowout loss to Texas Southern the Gators took this week was a disaster. Tennessee’s offense hasn’t shown up in its two biggest games of the year. Even Kentucky hasn’t been seriously tested since its season opener, so the general consensus opinion of the Wildcats as a top-10 team feels like it could change rather quickly. I don’t necessarily think the SEC is bad, but its top isn’t as strong as it looks right now.

Andy asks: You've been tasked with producing a Seinfeld reboot, but you can only cast Division I basketball coaches.

This is the question I didn’t know I needed.

Those who know me know I am a devoted Seinfeld fan, so why not give this one a shot? These don’t fit perfectly, but we’ll do our best.

Louisville’s Chris Mack will play Jerry Seinfeld. Casting Jerry was the hardest task of the project, but then I remembered a video Mack posted last year during the pandemic, a message to John Calipari about finding a way to schedule that year’s rivalry game with Kentucky.

To Cardinals’ fans everywhere.... pic.twitter.com/vBMgnduWaD

— Chris Mack (@CoachChrisMack) September 29, 2020

You can’t tell me this guy doesn’t have the delivery of a comedian. Plus, his Twitter is littered with Seinfeld gifs. He’ll take to the part well.

Saint Mary’s Randy Bennett will play the role of George Costanza. He’s short, bald and has a short fuse. Last week’s postgame argument with Utah State coach Ryan Odom was definitely a George move.

Arizona’s Adia Barnes will play Elaine Benes. Benes is equal parts funny and fiery, unafraid of any moment. That sounds a lot like Barnes, who became a national sensation during Arizona’s run to the national championship game last season.

There were plenty of options to play Cosmo Kramer, but I went with Ron Hunter from Tulane. Hunter is one of the great characters in the sport, and falling off a stool before calling out the president’s bracket was a great audition tape.

And for one bonus character, we’ll cast Tom Izzo as Frank Costanza. You never know what Frank’s going to say when he opens his mouth, and you can say the same about Izzo.

How’d I do? Let me know on Twitter.