-Western Kentucky is the nation’s most schizophrenic team this year. They’ve got wins away from home against West Virginia and Arkansas, and picked up a huge win against Wisconsin yesterday. They’ve also got losses to Missouri State and Troy. They may make the Sweet Sixteen, or they may lose in the opening round of the Conference USA Tournament. For Wisconsin it is a bit of a setback, but only a bit of one. They’re still a really strong team and will have more than enough opportunities to rack up big wins in conference play. Speaking of setbacks…
-Arizona State fell at home to Princeton. They had at least three shots to win it on the final possession with a missed shot where Princeton got the rebound but turned it over, a rebound after another missed shot, and yet another missed shot. Speaking of schizophrenic, let’s look at Arizona State’s last four games. They barely beat a Georgia team that isn’t good, they get crushed by a Vanderbilt team that will likely miss the tournament, they beat top ranked Kansas at home, and they lose to Princeton at home.
-Saint John’s suffered their first loss in their conference opener at Seton Hall, but I ended up being more impressed with the Johnnies than anything else. This was by far their toughest game of the year, and they ended up losing at the buzzer on the road to one of the better teams in the conference. If they play like that for the rest of the season they’ll win a lot of games and end up in the tourney.
-Iowa had to sweat out Bryant, but managed to hold on.
-Notre Dame had to REALLY sweat out Coppin State, who was winless, but finally got control of the game late.
-DePaul, who’d had a semi-successful OOC run, lost their home conference opener to Xavier. Both these teams still have a lot of work to do if they want to land inside the bubble.
-In one of the more surprising results of the day, Toledo absolutely blew out Penn. It’s not that Toledo won because we knew that they were good, but that they completely blew a very good Penn team off the court. Buffalo is not going to have a cakewalk in the MAC, and they may not be the only team MAC team that ends up in the NCAA Tournament.
-Congrats to Texas Southern who won yet another road buy game after knocking off Texas A&M. They clearly look to be the best team in the SWAC, and if they do play their way into the field they’re potentially more dangerous than what we’re used to seeing.
-Florida jumped out to a 21-0 lead on Butler, and basically led by that margin or more for the rest of the game. This was expected to be a good game. Too bad that Butler was unable to show up.
-Furman, the mostly deserved media darlings, were blown off the planet yesterday in their first conference road game at East Tennessee State. We’ve talked about how good we thought the SoCon was, and while that Furman had some big wins, we didn’t think they were even the best team in the conference. Yesterday’s result has us standing by those statements.
-A really nice win for Purdue at home over Belmont yesterday. It wasn’t the kind of win that drastically changes their resume, but it was a game where Purdue didn’t overlook a really strong Belmont team, and actually looked like a top 25 team themselves, which they haven’t always done this season.
-UCLA = Bad. Nothing against a Liberty team that’s gonna make quite a bit of noise in the ASun, but the Bruins are reeling right now and will need to pick it up just to end up in the NIT.
-The Fresno State team that we were all big on and all excited about!!….lost at home to Utah Valley yesterday.
-Kansas State won at home against George Mason, but barely. They nearly blew a huge lead and suffered what would have been a rather damaging loss to a George Mason team that’s nowhere close to the bubble.
-Stony Brook won their 7th true road game yesterday, which I believe leads the nation.
-LIPSCOMB AT CLEMSON. Both teams come into this at 9-3, but Lipscomb is actually the team with the more impressive resume up to this point. It’s been a bit of a disappointing start for Clemson, but they still have a high ceiling and are still good enough to land safely inside the bubble come March. They’ve still got work to do, though, and a win today would be a big start. As for Lipscomb, If they can pick up this win and then blow through the conference they may be in a position to make the field without needing the automatic bid.
-NEW MEXICO STATE AT COLORADO STATE. New Mexico State didn’t look all that strong in their last couple of games, but they still look like one of the bests teams in the WAC and should still be in a good position if they can blow through the rest of their season, which they are good enough to do.
-ALABAMA AT STEPHEN F AUSTIN. A rare type of road game that won’t be easy for the Crimson Tide. SFA hasn’t done much OOC, but they’ve also not gotten to play any teams like this at home for quite some time. They will likely be a strong force in the Southland once league play starts up.
-Binghamton @ Michigan
-Rider @ VCU
-Lehigh @ West Virginia – Lehigh has looked like one of the better Patriot League teams, but they’re probably overmatched today
-Appalachian State @ Saint Louis
-Mount Saint Mary’s @ Minnesota
-Drexel @ Hofstra (Colonial) – Hofstra can improve to 12-3 on the year
-Columbia @ Northwestern