You can’t really fault teams for letting their players head home for the holidays before the weekend started. That’s a very nice thing to do, especially after a lot of them spent Thanksgiving away from their families.
As a result, it’s kind of a quiet day of hoops on national television today. The highlight is clearly the CBS Sports Classic in New Orleans, but even that doubleheader isn’t as shiny as it could be. It’s a North Carolina team coming off a home loss to Wofford taking on an Ohio State team that’s still figuring themselves out a bit after a coaching change in June in the first game, then the powerhouse Kentucky squad squaring up with a UCLA team that’s clearly taken a step backwards from their status from last season.