Happy Holidays to all of you. I hope it's been a relaxing, reaffirming and joyous time with your loved ones. We here at CBS Sports appreciate your continued readership (and listenership, for those who subscribe to the podcast). It should be a pretty fun turn into 2019 on the college basketball court.

But, happy as I am to flip the calendar to a new year, I did want to take an opportunity to make this week's edition of The Court Report a different one. Given what the past 12 months produced, it warranted a look back at what was indubitably one of the most newsworthy years in the sport's history. Seismic upsets, federal trials peeling back the sport's underbelly, amazing games, record-setting performances and a paradigm shift in how college basketball is governed and operated. 

I'd be surprised if any year in the next decade can match it. 

Here's a somewhat succinct 2018 college hoops year in review. 

Jan. 2: In light of our own Kyle Boone predicting an 11-1 Auburn team to trip on its laces and go 4-14 in the SEC -- before the Tigers had played a league game! -- Auburn coach Bruce Pearl becomes a corporeal subtweet and wears a 4-14 shirt. The gag would get so big, ESPN did a television feature on Pearl's sartorial motivational technique. It must be noted that Boone was ... wrong. Auburn went 13-5 and finished atop the SEC.

Jan. 20: Zion Williamson shocks recruiting experts, commits to Duke. Think about where college basketball is right now due to the most famous prospect coming out of high school since LeBron James opting to attend the most nationally relevant program in the sport. Because of family connections and it being in his home state of South Carolina, Williamson was strongly believed to be headed to Clemson. But no. It was one of the more shocking commitments for a top-10 player in the past five seasons, and obviously changed Duke's trajectory for 2018-19.

Jan. 20: Trae Young's historic freshman season is encapsulated perfectly when he goes for a season-high 48 points in an overtime loss at Oklahoma State. When Oklahoma lost this game, it was ranked, 14-4 and very much one of the biggest stories in the sport. The Sooners would go on to lose 10 of their final 14 games. Young had an unprecedented campaign, but his OU career will be remembered as much for leading the country in scoring (27.4) and assists (8.7) as it will be for how the team had one of the more vexing twists and fizzles into and out of the NCAA Tournament. 

Jan: 25: Purdue beats Michigan 92-88 in arguably the best/most entertaining major-conference regular season game of the 2017-18 season. The teams shot a combined 42-of-75 from 2-point range and 24-of-43 from 3-point distance. Michigan averaged 1.35 points per possession, Purdue even better at 1.42. Michigan would only lose once more between that night and the national title game. Purdue would finish the season with 30 wins, the most in a season in program history. 

Jan. 26: An ESPN report paints Michigan State University's athletic department as inattentive, if not delinquent, on matters of sexual assault and in doing so brings about the most tumultuous stretch of Tom Izzo's career in the ensuing six weeks. The story attempted to sew together the disturbing details of convicted sexual assaulter Larry Nassar's time working at Michigan State with how the men's basketball and football programs mishandled multiple, separate allegations of physical or sexual abuse. The day the story broke, longtime Spartans athletic director Mark Hollis retired, while the aftershocks of the (criticized) piece clouded the remainder of Michigan State's season. In August, the NCAA determined no violations had occurred, clearing the men's basketball program and Izzo.

Feb. 20: In wake of investigation into escort parties and other nefarious activities previously on campus, the NCAA takes away Louisville's 2013 national title. It's the first time in NCAA history a major sport -- men's basketball or football -- has been stripped of a national championship. The school had to vacate wins from 2011-12 through the 2014-15 season, in addition to other financial punishments and the shame of taking down its title banner. The verdict signals a nadir for the Cardinals, who had already lost Rick Pitino prior to the season and would lose by 26 to Duke a day after this news came out.

Feb. 23: Maybe the most frenzied day of the year. First, a Yahoo Sports report published in the pre-dawn cited documents that many high-profile college basketball players (or their family members) were beneficiaries of various perks and benefits. The documents were compiled as informal bookkeeping by Christian Dawkins, an agent-in-waiting at ASM Sports and one of the men charged in the FBI's sting on college hoops. 

Duke's Wendell Carter, Michigan State's Miles Bridges, Alabama's Collin Sexton and Kentucky's Kevin Knox (either them or their family members) were purportedly afforded meals on ASM's tab. Other former college players, who had long since left school, potentially received tens of thousands of dollars worth of loans, per the document's figures. None of the players above missed significant time.

Then, in the evening hours of Feb. 23, ESPN publishes a story that cites sources familiar with a government wiretap, and reports that Arizona coach Sean Miller, in a conversation with Dawkins, "discussed paying $100,000 to ensure star freshman Deandre Ayton signed with the Wildcats." This story was seismic, and by the morning of Feb. 24, speculation was so casual and blatant, many thought Miller's career was done. (Yeah, he's still at Arizona.)  

Ayton remained eligible, said he never took money to play at Arizona and eventually went No. 1 in June's NBA Draft. Miller sat out for eight days, then held a press conference and emphatically refuted the details in ESPN's story. We still don't know what exactly is and isn't true from the original report or what that wiretap captured Miller saying to Dawkins. 

Feb. 27: Maybe the best night of regular-season college hoops of the 2017-18 season. First, there was Miami winning at North Carolina, which produced an incredible sequence. Tar Heel fans, you're free to quickly scroll past this. 

Good as that game was, it wasn't the best game of the night. St. Bonaventure, in the midst of building an at-large case, beats Davidson 117-113 in triple OT. It was probably the best game of the season. Davidson's Peyton Aldridge had 45 points. Bonaventure stayed alive because LaDarien Griffin's hit a layup as regulation wrapped. There were 30 made 3-pointers and five players who scored 31 or more. Olean was on fire that night. A true classic. 

March 1: March wastes no time and spares no person. Virginia beats Louisville after a once-in-a-lifetime exchange of events. The Cards led No. 1-ranked UVA by four points with six seconds to go. In a 66-64 game with less than two seconds left, Virginia gets called for a lane violation. Should be game over, but no. Louisville's Deng Adel was called for traveling on the inbounds pass, giving possession back to Virginia under its basket with 0.9 left. Then De'Andre Hunter kissed in a 3-pointer to win it.  

March 11: Providence coach Ed Cooley rips his pants at the Big East tournament and proceeds to coach the remainder of the game with a towel covering his keister. The incident gave birth to a top-five quote of 2018 in college basketball, as after the game Cooley said, "When I sat down I felt the great breeze in the crack."

March 13-April 2: The NCAA Tournament is held and, despite presumptions/conjecture/expectations/theories, the government's case and unprecedented investigation into college basketball does not matter or interfere one iota with the second biggest annual sporting event the United States. 

March 15-27: The five biggest coaching hires of 2018 become official: Georgia hires Tom Crean (March 15), Memphis hires Penny Hardaway (March 19), UConn hires Dan Hurley (March 22), Louisville hires Chris Mack and Pitt hires Jeff Capel (March 27).

March 15: A Donte Ingram straightaway 3-pointer, feet flicked to the right -- just from the edge of the MARCH MADNESS logo, oh the poesy -- sets off an all-time story. Loyola-Chicago wins 64-62 over Miami in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. 

March 16: History is made as No. 16 UMBC overwhelms No. 1 Virginia and becomes the first 16 to ever beat a 1 in NCAA Tournament history. It happened on a Friday night and came about really quickly. The 74-54 outcome signaled a violent repayment on behalf of all 16s who spent every tournament, dating back to the expansion of the field in 1985, getting romped, trounced, crushed, crunched, clobbered and creamed by 1 seeds. UMBC. Forever.

March 17: A legend starts to grow, but had Jordan Bone's 3 gone in for Tennessee in the second round, Loyola-Chicago doesn't become Loyola-Chicago. It didn't fall, though. Instead, Clayton Custer's winner a few seconds before was the jumping-off point for the Ramblers, who would beat Nevada in the Sweet 16 and Kansas State in the Elite Eight and conclude their run in the Final Four. Amid all of this, a 98-year-old nun would become one of the biggest sports-story sensations in America. 

March 17: Jordan Poole's splay-legged 3-pointer is the most memorable shot from a truly legendary NCAA Tournament. Poole's winner lifts Michigan over Houston, propelling the Wolverines forward to eventually make the national championship game.

March 25: The best game of one of the five best NCAA Tournaments ever -- thanks largely to the third-best opening weekend in Big Dance history -- has to get a mention. That's Kansas 85, Duke 81 in overtime in Omaha. Elite Eight. The final college game of Grayson Allen's career (and also, less memorably, true of Marvin Bagley III, Wendell Carter, Trevon Duval and Gary Trent Jr.). KU's Svi Mykhailiuk hit a 3 to tie the game at 72, pushing forth to OT. Malik Newman scores a game-high 32 for KU, while Duval has arguably his best game in Duke uni, putting up 20 and dishing six assists. 

April 1: The women's Final Four easily topped the men's in 2018, thanks to the clutchness of one Arike Ogunbowale. The Fighting Irish's ice-in-the-veins junior hit game-winning shots in back-to-back rounds, first over 1-seed UConn in the national semifinals and then against 1-seed Mississippi State in the title game. An amazing, unprecedented way to wrap a season and one of the coolest things to happen in sports in 2018. 

April 2: Villanova win's the men's national title in historic fashion, setting a record for most 3-pointers made in an NCAA Tournament and likely clinching a Hall of Fame induction down the road for coach Jay Wright. The night also provides the first example of a disturbing trend that would come to be in 2018: Donte DiVincenzo's problematic, years-old tweets are unearthed and become a postgame storyline. 

April 25: In wake of the FBI investigation, Mark Emmert's project to fix college hoops -- the Commission on College Basketball -- makes its formal recommendations to the NCAA and is largely lambasted across the media for its lack of innovative ideas and misguided attempts to clean up the sport. 

June 20: A personal milestone here if you'll allow it, as Marvin Bagley III's father goes next level -- and twice interrupts my questions regarding the Bagley family's decision to not sign with Nike -- by making a buzzer noise sound.

June 21: The top five of the 2018 NBA Draft unfolds with former Arizona player Deandre Ayton going No. 1, Bagley going No. 2, Luka Doncic going No. 3, former Michigan State forward Jaren Jackson Jr. going No. 4 and Trae Young going No. 5. But the story of the night is Michael Porter Jr., who after a season of injury setbacks and a spring of scuttlebutt that delivered dings on his reputation, fell from potential top-five pick all the way to Denver at 14.

July: The month of July, from college basketball's perspective, was dominated by speculation over how the recruiting calendar would drastically change and if the annual Nike Peach Jam would be taken away from coaches who use the event, the biggest of the year in grassroots hoops, to scout and recruit. Ultimately, the Peach Jam was kept, along with the first live weekend, but other major changes came, due in large part to the Commission on College Basketball and the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Looking back, July was fraught.

Aug. 8: The Commission's recommendations take form in official rule NCAA changes, some of the biggest in college basketball history. It's a major change in legislation for the NCAA that also reignites criticism over what actually will improve the state of college basketball. Major development.

Aug. 22: RIP, RPI. A decade's worth of panning, flak and meticulous critiques of the RPI lead to the formal demise of the ranking tool. The NCAA officially announces its new primary sorting metric for reference in seeding and selecting the men's NCAA Tournament: the NET.

Oct. 24: After three weeks in federal court, James Gatto, Christian Dawkins and Merle Code are all found guilty of wire fraud in a downtown Manhattan courtroom. The convictions ring loudly throughout the sports world, as many originally thought the crimes alleged in the case would not lead to actual punishment, given the government's argument (that the schools who were benefitting from adding highly touted prospects were not victims, as the government proposed) seemed, initially, as a tough sell. 

Nov. 6: The arrival of Zion Williamson and Duke comes in the Champions Classic on opening night of the season with a historic 118-84 defeat of No. 2 Kentucky. It's the largest margin of defeat for John Calipari in 26 seasons of college coaching. It also immediately causes every media member who ranked Duke anything below No. 1 or No. 2 in the preseason to question themselves. 

Nov. 17: Furman gives another glimpse at the regression Villanova will endure, as it wins 76-68 at VU in overtime. As we've come to realize, Villanova's adjusting to life without the four NBA picks it had last season. Meantime, Furman is 12-1, its most impressive start ever, and entered the AP rankings in December. 

Nov. 20: A paradigm shift occurs when No. 1 2019 prospect James Wiseman picks Penny Hardaway and his hometown Memphis Tigers over Calipari and Kentucky. It's the first time Calipari has lost out on a top-25 prospect to a school from an inferior conference.  

Nov. 21: Duke and Gonzaga, both undefeated entering the day, play a classic in the Maui Invitational title game, giving college basketball its best game of the season to date. Gonzaga wins 89-87, ending all the of the way-too-soon Duke-going-undefeated chatter. Maui almost always meets the hype. 

Dec. 9: Gonzaga's game against Duke is surpassed with its 76-73 loss to Tennessee, which now holds the title of the best game of the 2018-19 season so far. It was a great year for great games, and this one from Phoenix looks to be the last best one -- unless something bigger can come along in the next couple of days. 

I'd love for 2019 to be even bigger, but that's asking a lot. 

Roy Williams isn't bowing to pressure on playing Little

On Saturday at the CBS Sports Classic, I watched, up close, Kentucky finally get a win of consequence. The Wildcats won 80-72 over North Carolina, delivering a third loss to Roy Williams' Tar Heels. 

Going into that game, there was curiosity over it would finally be UNC freshman Nassir Little's time to shine. 

Not even close.

Little played 14 minutes, scored four points on eight shots and got caught in a few bad spots. It was a microcosm of Little's November and December. The projected lottery pick is averaging 10.8 points, 4.3 rebounds, 0.7 assists in 19.3 minutes. He's had flashes but is not consistent -- and as Williams told me in Chicago, he also happens to be playing behind two really good college veterans in Cam Johnson and Luke Maye.

If Williams could afford to get Little on the floor more often, he would. But defensively, the freshman is inconstant. UNC knew Little wasn't well-coached as a prospect in his years leading up to college, but this is a growing process. I spoke with the UNC staff after the game; Little's athleticism and ceiling is sky-high. But he's a project, plain and simple. 

nassir.png
The Tar Heels could use more out of Nassir Little. USATSI

After the loss, Williams was asked about Little's path to this point and the notion he's restraining Little.

"If I'm holding the guy back, why am I playing Coby (White)," Williams said of his other star freshman. "I think he is trying hard. I want him to have more time. That's why I'm playing him at the 3 and 4 both, and it's difficult for him. It's difficult for anybody, when you're crossing the line, whether it's a position at point guard, 2 and 3 is a position, 4 and 5 is a position. There's three spots but if you go across the line, it's really difficult. I'm trying to get him some more minutes out there." 

Williams told me Little is the most athletically gifted player he's ever had as a head coach. That's seriously high praise. Little is making gains behind the scenes, but his learning curve is just steeper at this level. This has become the storyline regarding UNC, though, and it's not going to go away with ACC play set to rev in the coming week. 

"I love the way he wants to be good," Williams said. "He wants to be better. He's willing to stay out there and shoot extra shots. He's willing to do the things. I don't know that there is a calendar or a schedule that you have on anybody, freshmen and big guys are about the same. ... But he's trying and I'm sticking with him. Again, when you're playing Gonzaga, Michigan, Kentucky, Texas, UCLA, it's a hard way to learn."

Buzzer-beaters

A few quick thoughts to wrap where we're at in college hoops right now ... 

  • Here's an early look at the best games of this weekend: Davidson at North Carolina (Saturday, noon ET), Kentucky at Louisville (Saturday, 2 p.m. ET), undefeated Nevada at Utah (Saturday, 2 p.m. ET), Butler at Florida (Saturday, 4 p.m. ET), Belmont at Purdue (Saturday, 4:30 p.m. ET), Wisconsin at Western Kentucky (Saturday, 5:30 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network), undefeated St. John's at Seton Hall (Saturday, 8:30 p.m. ET). And one more, the only one on Sunday to track: 9-3 Lipscomb at Clemson at 3 p.m. ET. That's an upset alert. 
  • TCU is a very quiet 11-1 at this point, given the Horned Frogs just won the Diamond Head Classic out in Hawaii on Christmas. Jamie Dixon's team will fight for inclusion in Thursday's latest version of the CBS Sports college basketball Power Rankings and look to be a top-three team in the Big 12 when fully healthy.
  • If I were to make a top-three for my Almost Midseason Player of the Year -- as I'm about to do right now -- Ja Morant would qualify. I'd slot him behind Zion Williamson at No. 1 and Markus Howard at No. 2. But Morant? He's been a killer for 8-2 Murray State, averaging 23.0 points, a college hoops-best 9.3 assists, 7.0 rebounds and 1.8 steals. See what he did recently against Auburn.
  • West Virginia (7-4) is probably not going to be in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2014. Bob Huggins announced earlier this week that star shot-blocker Sagaba Konate will miss the next 2-4 weeks due to a knee injury. 
  • If I asked you to guess which schools had the longest winning streaks at home, could you guess both if I afforded you 50 chances? I'm not sure you could. Houston, which is at 25 straight at home, leads the way. Second? Charleston. The Cougars have won 21 straight and dont' figure to get pushed at home until Valentine's Day, when Hofstra visits. 
  • A shoutout to Indiana's Juwan Morgan, who's one of the five best players in the Big Ten. Morgan had a triple-double in IU's 94-64 win over Jacksonville on Saturday. He had the bare-minimum triple-double, going for 10 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. If you think that's an oddity, you'd be off! It's the fourth time in the past seven season a player has gone for 10/10/10, most recently done by North Dakota's Drick Bernstine on Nov. 20, 2016. The other most common triple-double in that span? It's 14 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists, also done four times. (Hat-tip, Ken Pomeroy!)

Final shot

We'll wrap on 2018 with this instantly classic photo from Michigan's win over Houston in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, taken by Jeff Gross of Getty Images. 

Houston v Michigan
Michigan wins it at the buzzer and provides another memorable NCAA Tournament moment.  Getty Images