12 Most Important Results from the weekend (with Monday being a Holiday, there were extra games so I chose to make it part of the weekend too)
Northern Iowa 61, Missouri St. 60 – Huge win for Northern Iowa as it tries to recapture its early season form. For Missouri St., this loss was likely at at-large deathknell. 8 losses is too many in the Missouri Valley with so far to go in the season.
San Diego St. 69, UNLV 67 – Great game though the better team didn't win. UNLV shot poorly, especially in the first half and nearly salvaged a tough road win anyway. For San Diego St., this was a needed win after a month playing patsies and creampuffs. Now a trip to The Pit awaits.
Northwestern 81, Michigan St. 74 – Northwestern got the one back that it gave away with the home loss to Illinois. Now it needs some road wins. Michigan St. won't be hurt much and should learn from the experience. Its defense overplayed the perimeter all game long and paid for it on back door cuts all game long. Consider this a learning experience in case the Spartans run into a Princeton style offense down the road (like say Georgetown...)
Connecticut 67, Notre Dame 53 – Big road win for a UConn team that has struggled on the road. Snapping Notre Dame's 29 game home winning streak is a nice accomplishment.
Mississippi St. 56, Alabama 52 – Another slog in the SEC. Alabama normally wins these though the loss really doesn't hurt in the long run.
Oklahoma 82, Kansas St. 73 – Oklahoma might have life yet in the second best conference in the country. Kansas St. is still in good position, but it quickly falling out of the conference title chase with a 1-3 start (how brutal is this opening to conference play: at Kansas, Missouri, Baylor, at Oklahoma).
Dayton 79, La Salle 75 – Dayton is still up and down, but it appears to be one of the two best teams in the Atlantic 10 (along with reviving Xavier). La Salle has a chance to join that group and still is an upper echelon team, just not a title contender.
Colorado St. 95, TCU 89 (2OT) – Survive and move on. Colorado St. still has a shockingly high RPI of 22. If it can hold home court in Mountain West play against UNLV, San Diego St. and New Mexico, a surprise run at an at-large bid could be in the cards.
Ohio St. 80, Indiana 63 – Expected blowout. Indiana on the road is not nearly as good as Indiana at home and Indiana seems to be coming off cloud 9 of late (struggled against Penn St., lost to Minnesota and then blown out at Ohio St.).
Wichita St. 75, Indiana St. 65 – With how well Wichita St. is playing, the Missouri Valley looks like it has two solid at-large teams now (Wichita St. and Creighton).
Kansas 92, Baylor 74 – Everyone knew this was coming. No way is anyone ever making through the Big 12 undefeated other than maybe Kansas itself. The environments are way too difficult to run the table, as Baylor learned tonight.
Marquette 74, Louisville 63 – Louisville looks like a team in the throes of collapse. It shoud have never given up 74 points to Marquette considering it normally plays stout defense and everyone else in the country has figured out that Marquette's point guards can't shoot and when Marquette's point guards can't penetrate because the defense lays off them and makes them shoot, Marquette can't score. The Cardinals just don't have it right now and look like this years candidate for Big East team to go from top 10 to miss the NCAA Tournament entirely.
5 Worst Losses from the weekend
South Florida 56, Seton Hall 55 – Conference road games are tough, especially when the travel is as long as this game was.
Florida St. 90, North Carolina 57 – Normally this would go in the above category, but losing by 33 to a team that sometimes feels like it won't score 33 in a game is just awful. Given this result, I hesitate to call North Carolina a National Title contender. There is no way it can win six straight NCAA Tournament games if a game like this gets thrown in.
Boston College 61, Virginia Tech 59 – And here lie the NCAA hopes of Virginia Tech and Seth Greenburg. At least we won't have to hear him complain on the ESPN Selection Special this season.
Richmond 76, Temple 65 – Since beating Duke, Temple has gone in the tank. It seems to be like Dayton right now: up and down and all over the place.
Bradley 78, Northern Iowa 67 – Remember that big Northern Iowa win from the first entry above? This invalidates I and probably another big win too. Just a terrible loss.
3 Biggest Games of Tomorrow
Michigan vs Michigan St. - There are only four ranked teams playing tomorrow and the other two won't be heard from on this blog tomorrow unless they lose in some bizarre fashion. Thus, the other two get top billing since they are playing each other. Michigan has a chance to really jumble the conference standings in a league that looks as balanced as any in the country while Michigan St. can put some distance between itself and a couple of the contenders.
Florida St. vs Maryland – Bubble battle. Florida St. has traditionally used its big January home win over Duke or North Carolina (it seriously beat one at home every year) as a springboard to a nice run. Doing that again will be a tough assignment as Maryland has quietly become one of the better teams in the ACC.
Purdue vs Iowa – Which Iowa will show up? If good Iowa shows up, it could win, even on the road. If bad Iowa shows up, maybe Fran McCaffery will destroy another chair like he did against Ohio St. last week.
Final Thought on the long weekend in College Basketball
Baylor lost tonight (as expected). That leaves two undefeated teams. These two seem to have a better chance than nearly all the others in recent years to actually run the table in the regular season and its for far different reasons. The reasons for Murray St. are well chronicled. The Racers play in the OVC, home of exactly nobody, especially with Morehead St. down after losing Kenneth Faried from last season's surprise NCAA Tournament game winner. For Syracuse, the reasons are much more nuanced. For one, nobody in college basketball can match the depth of the Orange. For another, the Big East schedule makers did Syracuse a big favor (unknowingly). Looking at the conference schedule, Syracuse has managed to avoid road games with Seton Hall, West Virginia, Marquette and Georgetown. Combine that with a down year in the league and you get a schedule tailormade for success. Do I think Syracuse will go undefeated? No. They will lose one of the three game stretch of Georgetown, Connecticut, at Louisville in February or the road game at UConn after that. Still, its amazing that the possibility is even being considered.
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