Champions Classic: What we learned from Kansas-Michigan State

Though the Champions Classic isn’t the official tipoff of the men’s college basketball season anymore, it’s still the first marquee event — and it always whets the appetite for Feast Week action in a few weeks. Getting Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and Michigan State in the same building for a doubleheader is always intriguing, but the 2024 edition, which took place in Atlanta, has some added pop, especially since the matchup featuring the No. 1 team in the country is considered the undercard.

Top-ranked Kansas took on Michigan State in the first game of the doubleheader, with the Jayhawks coming out at the end of an ugly game with a 77-69 win.

But the story of the night will be the nightcap, featuring the big-game debuts for Mark Pope as Kentucky’s head coach and Duke’s Cooper Flagg as the face of college basketball in 2024-25.

ESPN college basketball writers Jeff Borzello and Myron Medcalf, and NBA draft analysts Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo break down the games and draft prospects from Tuesday night’s showdowns, beginning with Kansas and Michigan State.

Does Kansas still look like the No. 1 team after this win?

The No. 1 conversation is always fluid this early in the season — it’s only the second week and we don’t have a lot of data. Tuesday’s lackluster effort — everyone not named Hunter Dickinson finished 6-for-26 in the first half — had the Jayhawks in a back-and-forth affair with a Michigan State squad at No. 34 in the KenPom rankings entering the game. At one point, the Spartans were shooting at a sub-20% clip. With 8:51 to play, the score was tied 52-52.

In the end, I don’t think this game means anything for KU’s future. Bill Self has a roster with undeniable depth, which is how the Jayhawks weathered the storm in Atlanta and still left with a win. Their competitors for that top slot also have had tough moments — or will have upcoming stretches — that can’t really help make their case. UConn won’t play a major opponent (Memphis) until Thanksgiving week. Alabama had to overcome a nine-minute scoring drought against McNeese on Monday.

That said, Auburn’s win over Houston and bludgeoning of Vermont are compelling. Gonzaga beat Baylor by 38 points. So, the Jayhawks might not have done enough to feel secure in their No. 1 ranking. Are they still the best team in America? They didn’t look like it throughout most of the victory over the Spartans, though the effort came days after a thrilling win over a top-10 North Carolina team. But this early in the season, no team has really separated from the pack. — Medcalf

Michigan State struggled for long stretches but stayed within striking distance of Kansas. What positives can the Spartans take from Tuesday?

The long droughts on the offensive end were obviously concerning, magnified by the fact the Spartans’ shooting struggles have been a theme in the early season. They routed Monmouth and Niagara, but shot just 9-for-36 on 3-pointers in both games. Their 3-for-24 3-point performance Tuesday brings those dismal numbers even lower.

But it wasn’t all bad. Michigan State’s defense is legitimately good. Kansas had its own shooting woes, and some of the credit has to go to the Spartans, who also defended very well in their first two games. Starting 6-foot-11 Xavier Booker and 7-footer Szymon Zapala makes it difficult for opposing guards to finish at the rim, and the perimeter players are aggressive.

Offensively, Jaxon Kohler showed flashes as a go-to low-post operator for the second straight game, and freshman guard Jase Richardson continues to look as if he’ll be a factor this season in East Lansing. I don’t know if Tuesday materially changed Michigan State’s season-long outlook, but hanging with the No. 1 team in the country for 40 minutes provides some optimism for Sparty. — Borzello

What does it say about the state of college basketball that this first game doesn’t have a projected draft pick?

It’s a clear sign of where college basketball is trending, especially in terms of what Hall of Fame coaches such as Izzo and Self think wins games in this era.

Michigan State hasn’t had a first-round draft pick since 2018, so it’s clear those aren’t the type of players Izzo is recruiting anymore. Players such as Richardson could get there, and Booker and Coen Carr could get NBA looks down the road, but unless a team has lottery picks (as Duke does), transfers and upperclassmen are what most college coaches think win games right now, as the results of the past few NCAA tournaments would indicate. That might limit the ceiling of a team such as Michigan State, which has looked pretty stale at times over the past few seasons, but it does give Izzo a pretty consistent floor.

Kansas has taken that veteran mantra to an extreme this season, with three 24-year-old starters and five of its top eight scorers plucked from the portal. The Jayhawks can invest significant resources in top-tier freshmen — already reeling in 2026 draft potential No. 1 pick Darryn Peterson for 2025-26 — but if they don’t land the cream of the crop, they’re more likely to build around backup freshman center Flory Bidunga.

The rest of college basketball, with few exceptions, would love to emulate that type of roster construction. — Givony

How valuable is the Champions Classic for draft prospects?

There is no catch-all answer here. Sometimes these games have a major effect on propelling a player’s draft stock (think Duke star Zion Williamson’s coming-out party in 2018) and sometimes they don’t (players such as Kentucky’s Tyrese Maxey in 2020 and Duke’s Grayson Allen in 2018 played well, but each fell out of the top 20 on their respective draft nights). Quentin Grimes broke out on the Champions Classic stage as a freshman for Kansas but needed to stay in college for four seasons and eventually transferred to Houston before becoming a first-round pick in 2021.

If nothing else, the Champions Classic can shape the narrative around a prospect. Though smart NBA front offices will always want to limit the impact of recency bias, there’s often an anchoring effect around early-season play in particular that keeps players in the draft conversation through the spring.

Still, as much as we want to trust our eyes and put weight on big games like these, history has shown time and again that a single showing hardly defines a player’s season, and more importantly, his draft outlook. For example, NBA teams have had four years to evaluate Dickinson and understand his strengths and weaknesses as a future NBA player. A productive night (28 points, 12 rebounds and 3 steals), while typical for him, probably doesn’t move the needle one way or the other. — Jeremy Woo