NEWS AND NOTES
Saturday was probably the single craziest/most exciting day of the year so far.
-Duke hit a 3 at the buzzer to knock off Florida State. It was only their second true road win of the year, and it may have also been their single best win on paper so far. They will assuredly hold on to the #1 ranking and remain on pace to get a #1 seed.
-Gonzaga picked up a road win against San Francisco, which was probably their toughest remaining game on the schedule. It was close for about 38 minutes, but Gonzaga finally blew it open in the latter part of the game. The road is pretty clear for Gonzaga to win out.
-Texas Tech picked up a nice road win at Texas, which was arguably their single best win of the year up to this point.
-Nevada bounced back from the blowout loss to New Mexico with a road win at Fresno State, which may have been their toughest remaining game of the season, although they still have to go to Utah State.
-Louisville blew out North Carolina. Just winning at North Carolina would have been somewhat of a surprise, but blowing them off the floor and through the roof was kind of shocking. It may be time to start paying some serious attention to a Louisville team that’s been good all season, and appears to be continuing to improve.
-Ole Miss picked up a huge win against rival Mississippi State on the road. This is a really big statement win for Ole Miss. They played two games this week against ranked teams, and won both of them. Their resume is suddenly a lot better than a team like Mississippi State, who’s best win to date is a road win at Dayton.
-Ohio State has hit a bit of a skid. They fell at Iowa, in what was a very big and very much needed win for the Hawkeyes.
-Kansas State picked up a win they desperately needed at Iowa State. It gives them their first road win, and their first win against a ranked team, and changes their resume from completely nothing into something.
-Oklahoma picked up a nice home win against TCU in another game that was a thriller.
-DePaul is suddenly 2-2 (10-5 overall) on the year with wins against Seton Hall, and now a road win against Saint John’s. It’s a bad loss for the Johnnies, but it’s also a very good win for DePaul. Had the Blue Demons been able to finish against Boston College, Xavier and at Villanova, their profile would look like a surefire NCAA Tournament team.
-Providence and Georgetown played a double overtime thriller that the Hoyas finally pulled out. Jon Teitel will have extensive coverage of this game later on today.
-VCU fell at Davidson. VCU had the best OOC resume of all A-10 teams, but it’s hard to say they’re a solid tournament team when they fail to win a road game like that.
-Alabama followed up their big home win against Kentucky with two consecutive lossee, the most recent being a home loss to Texas A&M.
-Georgia Tech went in to Syracuse and won rather convincingly. Syracuse is in the running for the most schizophrenic team of the year. They’ve won at Ohio State, and lost at home to Georgia Tech and Old Dominion.
-Some very surprising Under the Radar results. Eastern Michigan blew out what we thought was a good Kent State team, Texas State needed to sweat out Appalachian State, Georgia State barely beat UL Monroe in a thriller, UTEP won on a buzzer-beater 3 in which they had to inbound the ball the length of the court with 0.5 seconds remaining against Rice(thanks to our colleague Mike for flagging this game), Princeton has swept Penn in the Ivy League, and North Alabama beat NJIT in a complete shocker
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-BUTLER AT XAVIER (Big East). Butler is right on our bubble at the moment. Picking up a road win against a team like Xavier, who isn’t likely to make the tournament, is something that any team that’s solidly in the tournament should be able to do.
-VILLANOVA AT CREIGHTON (Big East). We currently have Nova in the field, but with quite a bit of room to improve, and Creighton behind the pack with a lot of catching up to do. A win for either team would certainly help.
-MISSOURI AT SOUTH CAROLINA (SEC). Neither team is anywhere close to our bubble right now, but South Carolina has suddenly come to life and can improve to 3-0 in SEC play with a win today, and Mizzou is quite a ways behind the pace, but will have the opportunities to catch back up if they can string together several wins. (Note: This was a rescheduled game from yesterday due to a winter storm that prevented Missouri from getting into South Carolina in time for yesterday.)
-MICHIGAN STATE AT PENN STATE (Big Ten). Michigan State is now solidly on our #2 line, and will have the chances to end up on the #1 line given how strong their schedule is the rest of the way. Penn State has been a total disappointment this year making this a very winnable road game for Michigan State.
-NORTHWESTERN AT MICHIGAN (Big Ten). We’ve got two different storylines. Can Michigan pick up the win and remain unbeaten on the season? and can Northwestern, who’s been very close on several occasions, finally pick up a season defining level win and completely change the complexion of their resume?
-USC AT OREGON (Pac Twelve). This is just a lead-in to the other Pac-12 matchup taking place tonight.
-UCLA AT OREGON STATE (Pac Twelve). The Pac Twelve has been a disaster this year, but there is a road for a team or two to land inside the bubble if they’re able to dominate conference play. UCLA and Oregon State are both unbeaten in league play, and they at least have a few decent things on their resumes as well.