INDIANAPOLIS — It’s so easy to have knee-jerk reactions to Champions Classic games.

It’s early in the season, it’s a chance to check out some of the nation’s best teams, and often there’s something that happens that seems to project the path of the rest of the college basketball season.

Remember Frank Mason III’s buzzer-beater that beat Duke and launched the Kansas guard into the national awards conversation two seasons ago? How about Grayson Allen’s 37-point blistering of Michigan State last year? Mason went on to win National Player of the Year. Allen made third-team All-ACC.

2011-12 and 2014-15 Kentucky made statement wins that foretold massive seasons. Last year’s Kansas team looked so ugly in missing shots that ESPN portended doom, listing the Jayhawks as the event’s worst team (though Kansas did win its game, a close contest with Kentucky). All the Jayhawks did was win another Big 12 title and make a Final Four, getting the furthest of any team from the classic and beating ESPN’s top team from the event, Duke, to do so.

The point is, don’t overreact. Having said that …