News, Notes, and Highlighted Games: Sunday, Jan 15th

NEWS AND NOTES

-For Chad Sherwood’s UTR Game of the Day – CLICK HERE

-All and all it was a pretty chalky Saturday with the teams that were expected to get the wins got the wins.  UCLA held on to win by a single point at Utah.  The thing to take away from that game is probably how well Utah played.  It was a missed opportunity at a huge win, which their profile needed, but there will be other opportunities for them in the future and given how they’ve been playing it looks like they’ll pick up the wins they need to impress the committee.

-Louisville took down Duke and North Carolina took down Florida State.  Both won as lower ranked teams, but they weren’t ranked lower by much and they were at home, so it’s not all that surprising that they picked up the wins.

-Xavier and Butler went back and forth in a top fifteen match up that, unlike the games from earlier in the week, was actually very exciting.  Butler held on to pick up the win at home, which is their fourth against teams that are currently in the rankings.  They also have wins over Indiana, Northwestern, and Utah, which are impressive.  Xavier, while good, is still looking for a signature win so you can’t help but feel that they missed a huge opportunity yesterday.

-Minnesota failed to pick up a road win at Penn State.  The Gophers are still in relatively good shape for now, but not as good of shape as they were at this time last week.

-Miami FL picked up what was clearly their most impressive win yesterday when they went into Pitt and absolutely blew them out.  It was probably the most noteworthy result of the day that involved likely tournament teams.

-Seton Hall lost their second straight road game when they fell to Providence.  The Pirates are still okay, but perhaps aren’t as high up the seed list as they would have been had they won at least one of those games.

-VCU fell at Davidson.  VCU is in trouble.  Their margin for error, which was already small, is now smaller.

-TCU picked up a nice home win against Iowa State, and actually looked pretty solid.  Slowly but surely, TCU is growing their profile and making a stronger case for themselves.  They still have some work to do, but their resume no longer consists only of a bunch of home buy wins.

HIGHLIGHTED GAMES

-RUTGERS AT INDIANA (Big Ten).  Indiana has fallen backwards a little bit and needs to take advantage of what is perhaps their most winnable remaining game.

-MICHIGAN STATE AT OHIO STATE (Big Ten).  Michigan State has improved a ton, whereas Ohio State keeps falling backwards and at this point would have to string together several big wins just to get back into the discussion.

-CINCINNATI AT EAST CAROLINA (American).  Cincinnati clearly looks like the class of the league and should take care of business on the road today.

-SMU AT TULANE (American).  SMU is coming off a close loss at Cincinnati and should be able to rebound with a very winnable road game today.

-GEORGIA TECH AT NC STATE (ACC).  Both teams have a lot of work to do to play their way into the discussion, but I suppose it is still within the realm of possibility that one or both of them could do it.

-IOWA AT NORTHWESTERN (Big Ten).  Iowa has improved as the year has progressed, and Northwestern is perhaps having their best season in school history, which is to say it looks like they’ll make the NCAA Tournament this year.  Iowa really needs a road win if they want to start making some noise, and Northwestern really needs to hold serve at home.

-USC AT COLORADO (Pac Twelve).  USC has hit a skid and could use a road win to pull themselves out of it.  If they don’t pick this up you have to start wondering if they’re in a little bit of trouble.