Takeaways from the CBS Sports Classic

By Sam Federman (@Sam_Federman)

NEW YORK — On Saturday, inside Madison Square Garden, the CBS Sports Classic provided two teams a major lifeline to potentially jump-start and save their seasons.

North Carolina picked up a come-from-behind, 76-74 win over UCLA in the opener. The Tar Heels trailed by 16 points in the second half, but took advantage of the Bruins’ foul trouble to build back and grab the win behind a big performance from Ian Jackson.

In the second game, Ohio State demolished Kentucky, 85-65. That score came as a major surprise, as the Wildcats came in ranked No. 4 in the country. Bruce Thornton led the way for the Buckeyes.

UCLA is Tyler Bilodeau’s team.

If you looked at UCLA’s roster before the season, there were a few questions that you would’ve had. The first one was that of who would be the go-to scorers. Dylan Andrews and Sebastian Mack are good scorers, but neither of them is a true alpha. But Oregon State transfer Tyler Bilodeau has emerged to take that role.

He scored UCLA’s first 11 points of the game, helping build a big first-half lead. He emptied his bag with fadeaways, threes, finishes at the rim, and much more that displayed his soft touch. Through 12 games, he’s averaging a career-high 15.1 points per game on 51 percent from the field and 43 percent from deep. However, with ten minutes to play in the first half, he picked up his second foul, and sat the rest of the half while UNC charged back.

Eric Dailey, Jr., UCLA’s defensive presence on the inside, also picked up two fouls, and also a knock on the head that kept him out for nearly all of the second half, save the first 12 seconds.

Bilodeau scored another baker’s dozen in the second half, finishing with 26, but picked up his fourth foul with over ten minutes left, and didn’t return to the game for a while.

“Him going out changed the game,” Mick Cronin said. “If he doesn’t go out, if they call that a charge or a no-call, we’re having a different press conference.”

Cronin said he wanted to get to under five minutes left in the game before he put Bilodeau back, and while he held his word, it was too late, as North Carolina seized momentum and eventually, snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. 

North Carolina needs to go small

Every day after practice, Hubert Davis receives a text. It’s just two words.

“Coach Davis,” it reads.

He responds to the five-star freshman, “Player Jackson.”

Ian Jackson shoots back, “What can I do to get better?”

On Saturday, the Bronx native proved that he needs to be on the court more, as he scored 24 points, including multiple key jumpers to bring UNC back from the big deficit that it faced.

The Tar Heels are loaded with guards, with Jackson coming off the bench behind RJ Davis, Elliot Cadeau, and Seth Trimble, veterans who can all play. But in the second half, UNC decided to change it up and go with a four-guard lineup, and it completely unlocked the game.

“I felt like they were just loading up on RJ,” Hubert Davis said. “And Ian got it going offensively as well in the first half, so just having multiple scorers out there, I thought that would be really good for us, because it puts teams in a situation. Do you want to go big, or do you want to match up with that?”

He hinted at continuing to use that lineup throughout the season, which he absolutely has to do. I have been clamoring to see Davis commit to the bit and go small full-time, and admit that this UNC team doesn’t have the frontcourt to play the way that he typically wants to, and he’s close to doing it.

In games against Quad 2 or better opponents, UNC is 2-5, ranking 48th in offense and 130th in defense. The defense is already bad, and there’s no fixing that, so the Tar Heels need to improve the offense, and make sure that it is among one of the five or ten best in the sport, which they can strive toward with the four-guard lineup.

John Mobley, Jr. can score at all levels

Earlier in the week, Meechie Johnson left the Ohio State team. Johnson was predicted to be one of the leading scorers for the Buckeyes, as he left a good South Carolina team to come back to Ohio State for his senior year. However, it hadn’t been going as anticipated. Johnson struggled, averaging just 9.1 points on 35.6 percent from the field.

Bruce Thornton is the Buckeyes’ alpha, and he scored 30 points in the win over Kentucky, but Ohio State wouldn’t have dominated the game if not for the easy scoring ability of John Mobley, who has exceeded all expectations, and been the flamethrower that OSU needs. Even before Johnson left, Mobley was outpacing him in the scoring category, but he had arguably his most impressive all-around performance on Saturday.

If you know one thing about Mobley, it’s about how good of a shooter he is. He’s making 48 percent of his 5.3 attempts per game, but he struggled from deep on Saturday, making just one of eight attempts. It didn’t matter. He got to the rim at a much higher rate than usual, drawing a few fouls, and bursting past his defenders. Mobley finished with 15 points on 4-of-5 from inside the arc and 4-for-4 from the line.

Ohio State needs him to shoot better than 1-for-8, but the gravity that his shooting ability creates is enough to help him get to the rim as well.

“Off-night Kentucky”

The Ohio State game was easily Kentucky’s worst performance of the season. It’s not often that a team with as much offensive firepower as the Wildcats will have an effective field goal percentage of 33.3, and to compound that, they couldn’t stop Ohio State from getting to the rim either.

So why did Kentucky have such an off-night?

“They rejected (their ball screens) a ton,” Mark Pope said of how Ohio State penetrated the rim so easily. “I’ve been fighting and pushing out bigs up to the point of the screen thinking we can manage it. So when you push your bigs up, and you’re getting rejecting, the lane is wide open. We tried a bunch of different scheme changes, but they were just too good for us today.”

Sometimes that will happen, and Kentucky isn’t fully there yet, so there will be bumps in the road, but Pope also recognizes the mentality that it puts his players in when they struggle. Down by an increasing margin, with nothing falling, UK had some bad offensive possessions, which held the Wildcats back from pushing forward.

“We just fell to pieces offensively,” he said. “We just went to our default, and our default is still bad habits. It’s not that it’s coming from a bad place in guy’s hearts. It’s coming from a great place, a desperation to help the team, but we don’t do that by ourselves. We do it through discipline, we do it the way we need to, making plays for each other, and that’s still not our default.”

If Kentucky can get to that default, it will make the off nights easier.