 This is covering the spread part of the Fandall podcast network Conference play is just around the corner for the men's college basketball season Which means it is time to check in with one of our favorites here John Rothstein swinging by for today We're talking about the landscape across men's college basketball for the opening part of this year breakdown the top of the nation Breakdown key takeaways and much more to get our first check in across the nation for this year This is covering the spread right here on the Fandall podcast network and number fire calm My name is Jim Sonis I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire calm joined here as mentioned by John Rothstein check him out on Twitter Add John Rothstein find his work over at CBS Sports and of course you're on some fatal sports book stuff as well John happy holidays to you how you do its day great Jim great to be with you happy holidays my friend Appreciate it. Appreciate you swinging by we had John on last year before the final four to break down those games I'm talking about once a month throughout this season to get some thoughts on the college basketball Landscape gets a macro takeaways and his read on teams across the nation But now John because it's the first time we've had you on this year I want to talk broad takeaways from the opening month and a half And I kind of want to check with you when you're observing all these games What have been the biggest storylines for you in terms of the landscape of men's college basketball? We don't have a truly great team in the sport this year I think there's a couple of teams at the top that have separated themselves Purdue has had a terrific start to the season They have obviously the front-runner for National Player of the Year in Zach Eady Yukon under Dan Hurley has been sensational But at the same time we saw Yukon last night get tested and taken to the wire against the Georgetown team That has a losing record and also gave up a hundred and two points to Xavier last week at home So this is not going to be a season like we had a couple of years ago where Baylor and Gonzaga pushed out from the rest of the pack Let's stick on the top of the the top of the nation here and talk about those that those best teams because it sounds like you Believe there's kind of a cluster at the top right now Houston is the odds-on favorite to win the national championship at Fandall Sportsbook They are seven to one which teams do you believe? Belonging that discussion that top cluster for the top of the nation. I think it's still evolving Obviously, we talked about two of them Purdue Yukon You obviously throw Houston in there as well But we're also seeing teams come to the forefront that maybe a week or two ago Didn't look like they had an opportunity to be mentioned among the top teams in the country and you know, Jim The person I put obviously you know the team I put obviously in that category is UCLA UCLA was a top 10 team to start the season did not play well Especially defensively and back-to-back losses in Las Vegas to Illinois and Baylor, but we're dominant defensively last week Against Maryland and Kentucky and Jim I'll tell you this the first time that I felt that this UCLA team under Micron and Resembled the teams that he had at Cincinnati defensively was last week in back-to-back wins Against Maryland Kentucky, which were two games that were played away from Westwood the Bruins held their opponents Just 56.5 points per game Now I want to ask you about this because you've been observing college basketball for a very long time at this point So you kind of have a good read on the undulations of the season the way things break down How do you keep yourself from overreacting to what you see in non-conference play when you're trying to extrapolate what they'll do when The intensity of these games cranks up. Well, this is two things you have to remember last year after 23 games St. Peter's was 12 and 11. Here's another thing you have to remember Last year in the final AP top 25 before the NCAA tournament North Carolina was not ranked and another thing to add to that There's been so much panic obviously at elections in Kentucky after Kentucky only scored 53 points against UCLA on saturday You have to give UCLA's defense credit for that and you also have to keep in mind that john calipari's teams Always make their biggest jump directly after christmas. So jim as somebody has said before this is only december I can't imagine that somebody would somebody would possibly Be there now you talked about UCLA as a team that had high expectations Struggled a bit and then bounced back when you look across a nation It could be UCLA which teams that you had high expectations for that may be disappointed so far Which of those teams do you think had the potential to bounce back as a year goes along? I still believe in cretin I still believe in cretin because they had showed promise in Maui of being a final four caliber team Beat texas tech beat arkansas lost by two points against arizona They then went to texas did not have a great shooting game still almost won that game Creighton has had this slide Without ryan calprenner at the five who was the biggie's defensive player of the year Started to feel ill against Nebraska Which was an inexcusable loss and didn't play in subsequent losses to byu arizona state and marquette So the issue for me with creighton is ryan calprenner's health and also creighton's lack of depth They need more off the bench from guys like francisco farabello and also Fredrick king, but I still think creighton has the chops So let's see you're digging in you're looking at teams like creighton UCLA trying to determine what their outlook is When they've been underwhelming are you looking primarily at health to decide if they have the potential to bounce back? Is it youth Coaching, you know, what are you looking forward to decide whether a team can buck early assistant struggles? Well, you know for me the creighton part when you look at health is a bigger factor than other teams because creighton does not get a lot Off its bench, you know, I was going over my numbers and I wrote this in my Daily column the breakfast buffet at college shoots today dot com for today creighton's five starters ryan calprenner and ryan nemhard. I always say andrew nemhard Trey alexander baler shireman arthur kaluma combined to average over 82% of creighton's points So if you take away one starter like ryan calprenner who again is the big east defensive player of the year You are going to have a hard time replacing that type of production So you're just trying to analyze team by team basically and decide, you know Can this team withstand injuries can how much would an injury matter to them as the guy gets back and stuff like that And uh, it does seem like it's a team by team basis now Obviously everyone wants to look for okay. This is a team that's done well so far But they're gonna regress, you know, we talk about regression a lot But I want to flip that a little bit and talk to you about teams that have been good so far You think are legit So when you look at the the teams that have been Surprises in the positive sense so far this year, which ones do you think of the staying power to be legitimate contenders as a year goes along Well, you know, I think we've seen can's just kind of figure out their small ball lineup here In the last couple of weeks during their four game winning streak, you know, they're assisting on over 60% of their made field goals They have really leaned in to being a great passing team I also think, you know, tennessee's defense being the top defensive team in the sport Even though they lost on saturday against arizona We saw tennessee have a so far shooting game But still have a chance to win at the macael center without getting great shooting from its starting backboard of tyreeky and Santiago vescavi So I think those two teams for sure and other teams, you know that are in the mix Obviously, I think, you know have flaws Behind that group like I think, you know, we've seen moments from alabama We've seen moments from baler, but it goes back to the overarching theme There is no great team this year in college basketball So when you look at that and you look at how the fact there has not been a team that separated, um What are you looking for to identify that team that can't separate? You know, what do you will be like the signifier that okay, this team is legit This team should be the favorite right now How good are you when you're not playing on your home court against elite competition? And that's what really stood out to me last week against ucla I have been on this beat now jim close to 20 years The two loudest places I have ever been for a game are the xfinity center at maryland and assembly hall at indiana For ucla to go into college park and have maryland down 37 and look I think maryland who's you know being coached by kevin willard did a great job at seat and hold on I was on a great job this year at maryland Probably played a little bit better than it's capable of in terms of sustaining it during the first month of the season But for ucla to have maryland down 37 on its home floor that caught my attention and for ucla to hold Kentucky to just 53 points and again ucla talking to their staff after the game after the game does not feel like they played their best Offensively, you know to me that got my attention So i'm looking really really close to see who can go away from their home court and beat good competition on the road Is that part of why it's tough to decipher which teams might be elite this year because we've seen obviously We haven't seen a lot of conference play we've seen some but not a ton yet And we've seen some like neutral psyching with the invitations and all that is that what makes it tougher to decipher Which teams can separate from the pack? No question And I think another thing you have to keep in mind too is that you know things in life in terms of success are very fleeting It's the same in college basketball. I was courtside at madison square garden Illinois came back beat texas had a great win and then came back a couple days later and got blown out in Champagne by double figures against a rock solid penn state team So things can change on two or three days notice and we're going to see more of that as we move forward into conference play So let's uh shift our focus forward beyond conference plan talked about the conference championship market We can talk about the futures market right now We talked about houston uh being the favorite seven to one uconn is 10 to one and then arizona and ucla Which talked about a lot are 14 to one now it could be the championship market It could be conference outright anywhere you want to go Are their teams you think are undervalued in the in the betting markets right now john based on what you've seen thus far Yeah, I would take a look at zavier I think that zavier is a team who you know is obviously coached in his second stint But first year under shone miller that has a chance to get better and better as the season progresses You know jim. It's interesting You know i talked to shone miller last week and he was telling me that you know One of the things he worked on last season when he was out of coaching was getting better offensively as a coach So he studied film of perdu of ginsaga of what tomie loy did at arizona to become more intricate offensively And this zavier team is kind of the polar opposite of the teams that shone miller has coached throughout his career Because it's been a lead offensively and not as good defensively But zavier has a team remember that almost beat indian at home They were a layup away and missed you know in the final seconds and had an eight point lead against ginsaga in the pk 85 and blew the game, but you're starting to see now I think them settle into a rhythm suley boom the transfer from utep is I think the best transfer in the big east along with Providence's brice hopkins So zavier is a team that I think you know has the requisites If they can get better defensively to be one to monitor as we get in the conference play And zavier is going to come to new york next week to play st John's and then new year's eve Will host ucon at the syntos center. So you know how I feel who needs the colorful football playoff That's right. That's right zavier right now 75 to 1 to win it all 7 to 1 To win the conference when you look at zavier, do you think they have the upside To win it all or is this more so looking at them as a potential conference contender? Yeah, I don't have them ranked yet, you know in the top 25 They're just outside But I think when we look at the landscape of the big east, you know I'm looking at them. They won a close game last night against synton hall. Obviously, they have a very very complete starting five They're well coached I'm really looking closely to see how zavier can continue to evolve, you know from a defensive perspective because look Marquette lost to providence last week. I don't think marquette is going to be in a position So, you know compete for big east regular season title Although I do expect them to make the nc double a tournament and then ucon's ucon So I think zavier creating ucon marquette that quartet on good footing for the big east Now I want to before you go john I want to ask you one thing because I'm going to snow it in for the next week or so So I've got downtime. I got downtime to burn. So when you look at the schedule I know there's a bit of a lull here in the schedule coming up But when you look at the schedule like through new years Which are the key games you want to see to determine If you know how good these teams actually are right now What are the key games you're watching the next week or so, you know I think any conference game in a power conference is one that you want to You know carve time out on your schedule for I also think there's going to be games around the holidays Where if you are a true college basketball junkie, you want to dive in and get a glimpse Utah state lost to weber state earlier in the week, but they go to the diamondhead classic A field that also features rick patino and iona one of the best mid majors in the country That field's also going to have washington state who looks obviously vastly improved Since jade mullins got back on the floor the transfer from st. Mary's can really open up the offense with his ability to shoot the basketball And you know, then we'll really get into things at the end of december a ton of great big 12 Conference games are going to be played on new year's eve and then new year's day as well We've got some conference games. UCLA is going to go on the road to the great northwest You know to start pack 12 play after christmas washington and washington state on the road So you know how the saying goes some people of hobbies. I watch college basketball That's right. And uh, it'll be a great hobby for next week or so John I appreciate the time happy holidays to you Stay safer in the holiday season and i'm looking forward to talking to you once again here very soon Thanks, jim. We sleep in may all righty That is john rostin checking out on twitter at john rostin Like I said, I love him on a couple times throughout the season to get his read on the men's college basketball Landscape talk about futures markets and much more you can find john on twitter for you to somehow not follow you at john At john rostin. He is of course a men's college basketball insider for cbs sports Now, this is not a lone podcast for today here on covering the spread because coming up later on today We're gonna have our nfl week 16 preview austin swamble joined me to break down his thoughts on nfl week 16 talking weather talking the biggest games in the slate and getting you ready for that to get that as It is posted make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast We of course aren't up a podcast spotify stitcher google podcast wherever you get your podcasts You can find us and while you're there If you like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well Looking to get more out of the nfl season Well now is the perfect time to download fadwell america's number one sports book because new customers getting no sweat first bet Up to $1,000 that's free bets back if your first bet doesn't win Just download the fadwell sports book app. It is safe secure and super easy to use Then you can get bet on everything from the money line to touchdown scores to over under yards plus fadwell Even lets you combine your bets for a chance at a bigger payout with the same game parlay So don't miss the chance to get your no sweat first bet up to $1,000 of free bets when you join fadwell Make every moment more with fadwell an official sports betting partner of the nfl Must be 21 plus in select states first online real money wager only Bonus issue refund issue is not on those trouble free bets that expire in 14 days Restricts his apply see terms at sportsbook dot fadwell dot com gambling problem call 1 800 gambler or visit fadwell dot com Slash rg in arizona 1 800 next step protects next at 5 3 3 4 2 in connecticut 1 8 8 8 7 8 9 7 7 7 7 7 Or visit ccpg.org slash chat in indiana 1 800 9 with it in cancels in wyoming 1 800 5 2 2 4700 and in cancels ks gambling health dot com Louisiana 1 8 7 7 7 7 0 stop in maryland md gambling health dot org in new york 1 8 7 7 8 open wire text to open Y or in west virginia 1 800 gambler net Once again, big thank you to john rosting for swinging by for it today Breaking down his thoughts on the men's college basketball landscape find john on twitter at john rosting We are back once again later on today talk nfl week 16 our final show of the week due to the holiday schedule We'll have three shows next week tuesday wednesday thursday to get you set for nfl week number 17 We'll talk to you once again later on to break down this blustery blustery nfl slate This has been covering the spread right here on the fan duel podcast network