Zach Edey, at this point, is guaranteed to be a First Team All-American for the second straight year. There’s no debating that. The only question is which four players will join the Purdue star.
Dalton Knecht has to be one of them, right?
The Tennessee standout certainly continued to strengthen his case Wednesday with an incredible performance in a 92-84 victory over Auburn. The 6-foot-6 guard took 21 shots, made 12 of them and finished with a career-high 39 points, three steals and two rebounds in 33 minutes. With 12:02 remaining, Auburn was up 63-55. From there, Knecht outscored the Tigers by himself, 25-21, and flipped an eight-point deficit into an eight-point win.
“The last 12 minutes was one of the great performances I’ve been able to see,” said Tennessee coach Rick Barnes, who, by the way, once coached Kevin Durant at Texas.
“Dalton is terrific,” added Auburn coach Bruce Pearl. “We thought we had guys who could guard him.”
They didn’t, though.
In reality, Auburn mostly only had guys who couldn’t prevent Knecht from getting where he wanted to go without fouling, which is among the reasons the Northern Colorado transfer went to the free throw line 12 times. The big performance means Knecht is now averaging 20.8 points on the season — but an eye-popping 26.6 points in UT’s past 14 games, all of which were SEC contests. In other words, Knecht has gotten better as the season has progressed and competition increased. If he and his teammates remain on anything close to this pace, the projected lottery pick in the 2024 NBA Draft will soon be named the Southeastern Conference Player of the Year.
Tennessee remains No. 4 in Thursday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings, if only because there’s really nowhere for the Vols to go. At least from a body of work perspective, Purdue, UConn and Houston have undeniably separated from the rest of the sport. Barring an unexpected collapse by one of them, those three schools will be No. 1 seeds on Selection Sunday. So we’re really just searching for the fourth No. 1 seed. And, right now, I’d make the fourth No. 1 seed Tennessee.
Top 25 And 1 rankings
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