Men's Feast Week lessons: Michigan No. 1? St. John's, Florida in trouble?

The 2025 edition of men's college basketball Feast Week did not disappoint.

Michigan tore through a stacked Players Era Festival field, beating two Top 25 teams (Auburn and Gonzaga) by 30-plus points en route to winning the championship of the 18-team event. Cameron Boozer continued his hot streak in Duke's win over Arkansas. And UConn had a very different experience than last Thanksgiving week.

Now what did we learn? ESPN's Jeff Borzello and Myron Medcalf react to five key storylines from the past seven days, from whether Michigan and Duke's star freshman played themselves into new tiers to which preseason top five team should be worried after surprising results.

Should Michigan be the new No. 1?

Borzello: The Wolverines are my No. 1.

We've never seen a team dominate three good opponents in three consecutive days the way Michigan they did last week in Las Vegas. Three straight wins over three potential NCAA tournament teams by a combined 110 points? Are you kidding?

Dusty May's team lost some of its preseason luster in the first two weeks of the season when it needed overtime to beat Wake Forest and had to hold off TCU down the stretch, but both of those teams might be better than expected -- and preseason injuries to a couple of key players meant Michigan needed a couple of games to fully find its rhythm.

At full strength in Vegas, this team was a machine. The Wolverines are mature, deep, huge, have arguably the best defense in college basketball and made 38 3s in three games at Players Era. Future opponents will have to hope that shooting performance was a blip; otherwise, Michigan looks extremely tough to beat.

Medcalf: I would rank them No. 1 this week.

I still contend that Arizona has the best win of the season with a true road victory over UConn. I also think Purdue has done its part to validate its preseason standing as the No. 1 team in the country. But I don't think another team has had a more dominant stretch than what we witnessed from Michigan in Las Vegas.

The metrics prove this team is on another level. May's obsession with playing multiple big men in a small-ball era seems counterproductive, but he is having the type of success with a lineup we rarely see. Michigan is 28th in average height on KenPom and yet 21st in adjusted tempo. This gigantic squad is also one of country's fastest. How? Michigan also boasts arguably the best defense in the country and the Wolverines are also top-10 in adjusted offensive efficiency.

With Yaxel Lendeborg as a Wooden Award contender, Michigan is the best in the field right now.

Which preseason top-five team should be worried: Houston, Florida or St. John's?

Medcalf: Florida.

St. John's has serious concerns, and Houston's young stars need more time to find a rhythm with their teammates, but Florida's early issues are the most concerning.

The reigning champions have the same frontcourt from their title run, but face real questions about the makeup of their backcourt. Pairing Boogie Fland and Xaivian Lee as point guards hasn't worked so far -- Lee's offensive rating on KenPom is dramatically lower (113.1 vs. 96.8) than it was a season ago at Princeton, while Fland's turnover rate is up and his assist rate is more than half of what it was at Arkansas last season.

It doesn't help that the Gators are also committing turnovers on nearly one-fifth of their possessions and connecting on only 27.7% of their 3-point attempts.

Borzello: St. John's.

The Red Storm's most obvious issue is their lack of a consistent playmaker at point guard. Ian Jackson isn't a traditional point guard and can struggle with his decision-making, and Oziyah Sellers is far better off the ball. Dylan Darling is solid but doesn't offer as much explosiveness as the other two. A lot of offensive initiation for St. John's is coming through its frontcourt playmakers, but the bigger concern is on the other end of the court.

St. John's isn't guarding consistently and is getting annihilated on the defensive glass. The Red Storm have played four games against high-major opponents and are allowing 1.21 points per possession in those contests -- that would rank around No. 342 nationally over a full season. They also rank in the 300s of defensive rebounding percentage.

I expect Rick Pitino to figure things out, but there are real worries right now.

Is Cameron Boozer playing himself into his own tier?

Borzello: Yes.

Boozer's calling card throughout his high school career was his extreme production. Even when players such as Cooper Flagg or AJ Dybantsa or Darryn Peterson were considered to have higher ceilings than Boozer, his numbers still kept him neck-and-neck with those players in prospect rankings. So there was strong evidence to indicate he would be productive at the college level, but not to this extent -- and not this quickly.

His numbers are legitimately absurd for a freshman. He is averaging 22.9 points (sixth in the country), 9.8 rebounds (top 30 in the country) and 3.9 assists while shooting 58% from the field and 39% from 3. He's No. 1 by a huge margin in KenPom's Player of the Year rankings, and Stats Perform posted that he's the only Division I or NBA player in the past 30 seasons to have an eight-game span with 175 points, 75 rebounds, 25 assists and 10 or fewer turnovers without losing a game.

To do that in the first month of his college career is remarkable.

With Peterson sidelined by an injury and Dybantsa sharing the stage with two other top players at BYU, Boozer has clearly established himself as the favorite for Freshman of the Year -- and perhaps Player of the Year.

play

0:23

Boozer finishes the fast break with a massive jam for Duke

Cameron Boozer takes flight on the fast break and finishes with a big dunk for Duke.

Medcalf: The simple answer is yes.

Somehow, Jon Scheyer has signed another prolific freshman a year after Flagg won Player of the Year for one of the most dominant freshman seasons in recent memory. He quickly separated himself from the competition. That's what makes Boozer's start so remarkable. He has Flagg-like numbers.

Per 40 minutes -- an estimate of a player's numbers if they played an entire game -- Flagg would have averaged 25.0 points, 9.8 rebounds, 5.5 assists, 1.8 steals and 1.8 blocks last season. Boozer's per-40 minute numbers would rival -- and even surpass -- those of college basketball's biggest star a year ago: 31.6 points, 13.4 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.4 steals and 1.6 blocks.

Flagg was in a different dimension before he was the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA draft. So far, Boozer also is in his own stratosphere.

How important was UConn's win over Illinois?

Medcalf: Important.

A year ago, the Huskies lost three consecutive games in the Maui Invitational, which stripped the team of its national contender status following back-to-back titles. But those losses also highlighted a bigger issue: Dan Hurley had missed on some roster additions.

Isaiah Abraham and Ahmad Nowell, a pair of four-star recruits, were either injured or struggling to find a role with the team at the time and transferred after the season. And Aiden Mahaney, a two-time all-West Coast Conference standout at Saint Mary's, also failed to find his footing at that level and entered the portal after the season. But this season's group has early chemistry that last season's team lacked at this time.

Since the Big East could regress this season, the win also strengthened UConn's résumé.

Borzello: Important.

It was the first time we got to see UConn at full strength this season, and for long stretches against Illinois, the Huskies looked as if they belonged right in that top tier of national title contenders alongside Michigan, Purdue and Arizona. A healthy Tarris Reed Jr. is one of the best big men in the country, capable of posting 20 points and 10 rebounds any given night. And freshman Braylon Mullins, who sat out the first six games of the season, was considered the best shooter in the 2025 high school class and is a projected to be a first-round pick. Hurley having those two guys back in the fold is a huge boost entering a stretch that includes upcoming games against Kansas, Florida and Texas.

The win over Illinois also showed the depth of UConn's roster. Solo Ball and Silas Demary Jr. struggled in the second half, and Reed and Mullins couldn't play a full allotment of minutes -- not a problem. Malachi Smith came off the bench to post 14 points and nine assists, and Eric Reibe had another strong performance with eight points and seven rebounds. The offense wasn't firing on all cylinders? Not an issue when you can hold a top-10 offense to 61 points.

At full strength, this team is as complete as it gets.

Is the Players Era criticism warranted?

Borzello: Depends on the specific criticism.

The primary issue was how the third-day matchups, apart from the championship and third-place game, were set. Pitting a 2-0 Iowa State team against a top-10 Alabama team and creating a top-15 matchup between Houston and St. John's would have given the event a few more marquee matchups. Instead, not only were the Cyclones the only 2-0 team not to get a chance to play for extra money, they were given Syracuse as their third opponent in a game that will do very little for their résumé.

An 18-team field leaves few options for an effective tournament structure, but brackets would solve a lot of issues, especially if it expands to 32 teams.

The crowd critiques weren't right or wrong, I just don't think playing in 12,000- or 17,000-seat arenas ever lends itself to a great neutral-site environment. You're not going to replicate the feel of the Maui Invitational without playing the game at, say, Coronado High School in Henderson, Nevada.

From a media or in-person perspective, though, Players Era offers the best field and the best players -- and it's in the continental United States.

Medcalf: The criticism about the format was valid.

Players Era had an incredible field for the second year in a row and the popularity of the event continues to grow. That said, fans need an easier gateway to this decorated field, not the convoluted formula preceding the title games. Those criticisms were valid. The rest were not.

Worried about half-empty arenas? Well, visit the first couple days of every conference tournament in the country and tell me what you see.

Backlash about the affect on other Feast Week events seemed to come from people who are able to afford trips to Hawaii and other islands. The Maui Invitational is a beautiful event but is far less accessible to the average fan than Las Vegas. The Players Era Festival could become the closest thing we have to an NCAA tournament-like event before March. The criticism ignored that part.