Four Point Play Weekend College Basketball Review - Jan. 8

10 Most Important Results from the Weekend

Kansas St. 75, Missouri 59 – All of Missouri's warts were on display in this road game. And all of them have to do with either a lack of height or a lack of depth. The Tigers have just seven scholarship players and very little inside. When things start going bad on the road against a team with good post players (and Kansas St. has good post players), it can spiral out of control quickly if the Missouri three point shooters are even a little off their games.

Notre Dame 67, Louisville 65 (2OT) – We have more proof Louisville was way overrated at number four a couple of weeks ago. We also have proof Notre Dame remains a tough out now that it has adapted to playing without injured Tim Abromitis.

West Virginia 74, Georgetown 62 – As sure as the sun rises, Georgetown gets stomped in Morgantown. Consider the Hoyas among the happiest parties once West Virginia actually gets to the Big 12. Georgetown is likely sick of being West Virginia's stepping stool to its annual January-February run from the bubble to five or six seed in the tournament.

Michigan 59, Wisconsin 41 – And the Wisconsin collapse continues, this time with a listless and generally bad effort at Michigan. For Michigan, it is a quality win (for now) that helps in the bounce back from losing at Indiana.

Syracuse 73, Marquette 66 – Another game, another 23-1 Syracuse run and another win for Syracuse. If the Orange can bottle the effort and energy of its every game big run for the entire game, it will win the National Championship. Yes, Syracuse looks that good for stretches of most every game.

Arkansas 98, Mississippi St. 88 – The jury is now out on both teams. Mississippi St. has a good resume, but it appears as thought the Bulldogs will struggle in road games again. Arkansas hasn't been tested away from home, but winning this game at least makes it relevant in the SEC.

Xavier 67, Fordham 59 – Only important because Xavier remembered the feeling of winning. That said, Tu Holloway is still playing badly (as evidenced by his goose egg in the scoring column in this game) and he will need to be better to get Xavier to the NCAA Tournament.

LSU 81, Ole Miss 55 – With this result, we can extinguish what remaining at-large hopes Ole Miss had. We can also say that LSU at least has a chance if it can continue to play this well.

Seton Hall 66, Providence 57 – Providence had a golden opportunity to pick up a very high value win against a team coming off a big win at home. Instead, the Friars were beaten fairly soundly by the biggest surprise in all of college basketball this season.

3 Worst Losses from the Weekend

Tennessee 67, Florida 56 – A second appearance here in recent weeks doesn't bode well for Florida, a team that lacks inside players and is especially prone to streaky shooting.

Rutgers 67, Connecticut 60 – A second appearance here as a winner in recent weeks bodes well for the future at Rutgers. For UConn, this second road loss in a week shows the road will be incredibly difficult again, just as it was last season (remember that UConn finished 9^th in the regular season Big East standings mostly because it struggled mightily in road games) before catching fire on neutral courts.

Wake Forest 58, Virginia Tech 55 and Clemson 79, Florida St. 59 – And thus the ACC below the top three begins its best Pac-12 impressions.

3 Biggest Games of Tomorrow

LSU vs Alabama in BCS Football National Championship Game – Yes, it's football, but it's also big for basketball. In recent years, top football schools have been using the football programs to help boost the recruiting of the basketball programs. Most notable among them are Florida and Ohio St. who followed up their national title game showdown in football with one in basketball as well. Obviously, both of these schools are a long way away in basketball, but both seem to be back on the right track this season after a few years in the wilderness. Winning here in football won't guarantee basketball success, but it certainly won't hurt at all.

Georgetown vs Cincinnati – Cincinnati also took a bad loss over the weekend to St. John's. Now, it needs to bounce back and quickly or risk falling off the bubble. Despite its recent hot streak since the Xavier brawl, Cincinnati is still the same team that lost to Presbyterian and was blown off the floor by Xavier before the brawl.

Connecticut vs West Virginia – For West Virginia, it got its annual home win over Georgetown last game. Can the Mountaineers continue the run as it has the last few seasons on the road? For Connecticut, getting home is a chance to get back on track after a lost week on the road. Both teams need this game in the muddled Big East race.

Final Thought on the weekend in College Basketball

Both now and when the NCAA Tournament roll around, there are always arguments about which system is better for crowning a champion: the BCS or the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Most come down on the side of the NCAA Tournament. That said, why can't both sports just be different. That is ok. The NCAA Tournament is great for college basketball, even if it nearly invalidates the whole regular season. The BCS is great for college football, even if it doesn't give us the neat little controversy free ending we say we want (we don't really because if that were the case, why are we still discussing BCS controversies years later while never mentioning the great NCAA Tournament finals played over the last few years). Both systems have their flaws that many would like to see improved (more restrictive field in basketball, blow the whole system up in football), but why not leave it as it is? Since the advent of the NBA age restriction, college basketball has begun to thrive once again while college football has continued its growth to become a monolith dwarfed only by the NFL in American sports. Once again, why not leave everything alone and be happy with that?

Weekend in Review – Non-College Football Edition

The top things in sports from the past weekend that did not include college football

Thor Hushovd took the World Road Race Championship and the Rainbow jersey that goes with it in a sprint finish. That said, we can thank pre-race favorite Philippe Gilbert and defending world champion Cadel Evans for making the race exciting with a series of incredible attacks over the final two laps. Evans in particular was great and likely would have won on a harder course to defend he title won in Switzerland last year.

The Colts will be fine in the NFL. IT took a 59-yard field goal and most of the league is right with them at 2-2. There is no need to panic. The streak of 12 wins seasons may end, but the Colts will be in the playoffs and are every bit the Super Bowl contender they normally are.

The US Ryder Cup team was undone by one really bad session and that is all. Too ad that session was so bad that the team needed domination instead of simple ones in all of the others.

Nice effort by the San Diego Padres, but the season was lost with that 10 game losing streak earlier this season. The collapse and fight back just to fall short harkens back to the 1995 Angels (though this wasn't nearly as bad as that) collapse to lose the AL West to Seattle.

Weekend Review: Non-College Football Edition

Things here at aubievegas tend to get skewed heavily towards college football, especially in season. That said, there are other things going on that are important. Here are some things that caught my eye outside of college football over the weekend.

The scoring of the Evan Dunham-Sean Sherk fight at UFC 119 was terrible, but its not entirely unexpected. Cecil Peoples was a judge and he has been involved in more high profile judiging screw up and controversies than any other judge in MMA. For the record, Peoples was one of the two judges that gave the fight to Sean Sherk over Dunham and he is also the only judge who I can identify by name because he has been involved in so many issues including the Bisping-Hamill and Machida-Rua fights that went to controversial decisions. It's too bad too because the judging ruined what might have been the only truly good fight of the night.

The baseball pennant races are missing something. We have an all-out sprint to the finish between three teams in the NL West and a close race in the AL East. The problem is there is no urgency yet. In the Al East, the outcome only matters for which team hosts game seven of a potential LCS between the Rays and Yankees. Nothing more. In the NL West, the wildcard fallback along with the Braves involvement in that race actually takes away something from the race. As long as there is a wildcard, we will never see another race like the San Francisco-Atlanta pennant race in 1993.

Why did the Chargers kick to Leon Washington again? He had already taken one back for a touchdown. Once a guy takes one back in a game, the rule should be to kick away from him for the remainder of the game. Instead the Chargers kicked to him again and paid for it with a 1-2 start that might actually hurt them since they have already lost a game to the 3-0 Chiefs.

The main event of UFC 119 between Frank Mir and Mirko CroCop was atrocious. Nothing happened at all during the fight except Mir's knee to finish the the fight and the boos were loud and warranted. It was so bad that Dana White didn't give Frank Mir a Knockout of the Night bonus despite being the only knockout of the night.

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Weekend in Review - July 4 Weekend

Yes I know the weekend isn't over but that doesn't matter to me. The only things left are baseball and the Wimbledon mens final and I will be in Mexico by that time and unable to watch.

Top three weekend stories

1. European revival at the World Cup - Coming into the quarterfinals, the talk had been South American teams this and South American teams that and some were starting to look forward to an inevitable Argentina-Brazil final. Oops. The South Americans finally found their match in the three remaining European powers that had looked fairly strong entering the tournament. The Netherlands don't play traditional Dutch 'Total Football' but they win. Spain finally slayed the quarterfinal bogeyman and Germany suddenly looks like an offensive powerhouse the likes of which we haven't seen at the World Cup in quite some time.

As for the South Americans, the Brazilians needed to finish the job when they had the chance in the first half. Paraguay was outgunned and Argentina finally met a team with some offensive firepower and a defense to match. Only Uruguay survived and it took the most insane of events to do it as will be examined in story number three.

2. Brock Lesnar - The UFC heavyweight champion evidently has a granite chin too after surviving the onslaught in round one from Shane Carwin. Many referees would have stopped the match and credit to Josh Rosenthal for not stopping it when Lesnar was still defending himself but was being dominated. Lesnar submitted Carwin in round 2, improbably to retain his title and move to number one in the heavyweight rankings.

3. Uruguay-Ghana - What a game and what a heartbreaking ending for Ghana. Props to Luis Suarez for his game saving save even if he misses the next game because of his redcard. He did exactly what he should have done. At that point in the game, saving the goal and giving yourself a chance, even a small one is better than being finished off. Poor Asamoah Gyan with his stunning penalty miss. I can't think of a more pressure packed penalty, even in a shootout and he wasn't up to the task.

Weekend in Review - June 26-27

The three big stories of the weekend past

1. Fedor loses - For those who don't follow MMA, let me give you an idea how big this is. This is the MMA equivalent of Notre Dame beating UCLA basketball to end the winning streak in the 1970s, Buster Douglas over Mike Tyson in boxing or Appalachian St. over Michigan in college football. Fedor put together a winning streak that will never be matched with 27 wins in a row all as a heavyweight and finishing most of the fights. Props to Fabricio Werdum for managing to be the guy to finally beat Fedor, but the big story is Federo's loss and what it does to the MMA landscape (a topic for a much larger post)

2. USA out of the World Cup - USA gave a good effort against Ghana, at least once Ricardo Clark was out of the game after the first half hour and really deserved better in the second half but a lack of quality finishing in front of net did them in. While coach Bob Bradley made good adjustments in this game (and every other), his starting lineup was unforgivably bad. Robbie Findlay should not have seen the field except maybe as a sub where his legs could have been even more useful and Ricardo Clark is completely useless as an offensive player at his position combined with bad giveaways and occasional defensive lapses. Had those two been relegated to the bench to start, I think we get a different result.

3. World Cup Referees - The only reason Sunday wasn't a terrible day to be a referee is because the refs are so protected by FIFA that they don't have to answer for their calls after matches. England, while not the better team and beaten mercilessly in the second half should have had a goal and that might have changed the game. Mexico gave up its first goal because Argentina was two yards offside. Then the video screen in the stadium showed the goal and the Mexicans went ballistic. Then the Mexicans melted down after a promising start to that point. With both incidents, the referees had a bad day. This isn't higher on the story list in part because the right team won both games anyway.