For a sport that often struggles to stage marquee early-season matchups in abundance, college basketball’s opening month has been a good one. Beginning with the Champions Classic that headlined the season’s first night with then-No. 4 Duke trouncing then-No. 2 Kentucky, this young season has already seen three matchups between a pair of top-five teams (including Duke-Gonzaga last week in Maui and Kansas-Tennessee in Brooklyn) and a good number of other clashes between ranked contenders, among them Duke-Auburn, Michigan-Villanova, Kansas-Michigan State, Purdue-Virginia Tech, and Virginia-Wisconsin.
What this means, beyond college hoops fans getting a compelling slate of games to watch, is that we have a better sense than usual at this time of year about where various contenders stand.