College basketball's much-needed return on opening night is Christmas Day … until it starts to get hairy in the second half of a buy game. Just ask North Carolina's Michael Malone, who had to bench his starters midway through the middle of a second-half collapse against Western Carolina. UNC, with help from an untimely technical on the Catamounts, avoided disaster in Monday's 80-72 win, but it was a pucker-worthy showing from a $20 million roster that looks far from the top of the ACC pecking order.
The Field of 68 also garners some well-deserved recognition for bringing back the opening day marathon! Grambling State and Northern Illinois played one of Monday's best games in a 4 a.m. banger. The Tigers of Grambling State won 89-87.
Let's dive into the rest of the winners and losers from Monday's slate. The Illini are in the middle of changing their offensive gameplan, pivoting from a team that played slow and relied heavily on pick-and-rolls into a zoom-zoom transition attack that basically has no plays. The 75-point margin of victory was the largest for Illinois at the State Farm Center, which opened in 1963.
The Illini fell seven points short of tying the school record for points in a game. The Illini drained a program-best 19 3-pointers in a 120-45 romp over FDU. They went 26-for-31 on layups or dunks. 30 of the 46 buckets were assisted.
These stat lines were bonkers: Seven different players deposited multiple treys. Offensive coordinator Tyler Underwood remains at the top of his craft, and Brad Underwood's willingness to change may be his strongest attribute. Even stronger than excellent evals of guys like Brown, who was a three-star recruit with no high-major offers and all of a sudden looks every bit the part of a multi-year Big Ten starter.
Illinois' performance was even more impressive considering the Illini were playing without CBS Sports First Team All-American David Mirkovic, who is recovering from early August foot surgery and underwent an appendectomy Saturday and is out indefinitely. – Isaac Trotter Thomas Haugh has two games with four 3-pointers made in his Florida career: In the Elite Eight against Texas Tech in 2025 and on Monday against Miami. Haugh shot a respectable 32.6% on 5.9 attempts from beyond the arc last season, but one of the best shooting nights of his career came in the first game of the new season. And it wasn't just the shooting that stood out.
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