For Part 2 of Jon Teitel’s photo essay of the Wooden Legacy – CLICK HERE
NEWS AND NOTES
-The Big East had itself quite a day yesterday. It started in the Big East/Big 12 battle that saw St. John’s pull off a mild upset at the Garden against previously unbeaten West Virginia. The Mountaineers were down 9 with 3 minutes to go and managed to tie the game in the final minute of regulation, but a pair of free throws from the Johnnies put them up for good and WVU’s prayer at the buzzer went unanswered.
-Marquette also got a nice road win at Kansas State – this now means that the Big East has a 4-0 lead against the Big 12 in their inaugural Battle series.
-Butler did get off to a slow start at home against Florida, but they blew open the game in the second half and ended up with a convincing win against the Gators. Butler now has the nation’s longest nonconference home-court winning streak of 56 games.
-Georgetown has 3 of their best wins away from home – one of those was last night in which they jumped out to a big lead right out of the gates against SMU and never allowed the Ponies into last night’s game. As for the rest of the Big East, Creighton, Villanova and Xavier all won their rivalry games against Nebraska, Saint Joe’s and Cincinnati respectively.
-It was not a good day for unbeaten teams; there were 16 at the start of the day but only 9 remained at the end of the day. In addition to West Virginia and SMU, other teams that fell included Arizona (at Baylor), Delaware (at GW), Colorado (at Kansas), Indiana (at Wisconsin) and Arkansas (at Western Kentucky).
-Maryland did survive what could have been their first loss of the season, and I do mean survive at home against Illinois. The Terps trailed almost the entire game, but a deep three-pointer from Anthony Cowan Jr. tied the game with a minute remaining, and a late loose ball foul by Illinois led to a game-winning free throw from Maryland. It was a tough week for Illinois in which they had two close losses that included games in which they had to come from behind AND to come from ahead to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
-Ohio State is making a case themselves for #1 in the country – right off the heels of a blowout win at North Carolina, they smashed Penn State and took what was a 9-point lead and turned it into a 32-point blowout after Lamar Stevens fouled out for the Nittany Lions.
-Boston College is 2-0 in the ACC. You heard that right – not only did they win their opener against Wake, they also won at Notre Dame for the first time since their Big East days. Now Notre Dame is 0-2 in the ACC and have yet to win a game, home or away, against a team outside of the UTR conferences.
-As for UTR teams, yesterday was a mixed bag. Arkansas State got a decent win at Tulsa, and Bowling Green survived in a back-and-forth game against Oakland at home yesterday. Wright State was upset at home against Indiana State and New Mexico State had a bit of a surprising loss at Washington State yesterday. Even UC-Irvine had a home loss against California Baptist yesterday.
-East Tennessee State also had a stumble yesterday at North Dakota State. While the Bison are 3-1 at home and a leading contender to win the Summit, it is nonetheless a strike against the Bucs as they look for a potential at-large NCAA resume.
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-HOUSTON AT SOUTH CAROLINA. I still think this could end up being a very good Houston team, but they have been slow out of the gate so far. This would be a nice road win for their resume if they’re able to pick it up. South Carolina isn’t expected to be inside the bubble come March, but they are at least decent and are off to a 6-3 start on the year.
-SAINT LOUIS VS TULANE (Game in Phoenix AZ). I know no one is all that excited about either team, and as the season continues to play out both of them may fall off the radar, but for now both teams are coming into this game with 7-1 records, so there is a reason to sit up and take notice.
-CLEMSON AT FLORIDA STATE (ACC). Florida State is looking to bounce back after their loss to Indiana earlier this week, and a winnable home game against Clemson is a good way to do it. Clemson will certainly have the opportunities to land inside the bubble if they can string together some wins, but that’s easier said than done and it has been a while since Clemson beat a tournament caliber team away from home.
-SOUTH ALABAMA AT RICHMOND. A win for the Spiders gets them to 8-1. South Alabama should make quite a bit of noise in the Sun Belt this year, but is probably overmatched today.
-WICHITA STATE AT OKLAHOMA STATE. This is a really good game between two teams that are (probably) better than what they’ve gotten credit for up to this point. Oklahoma State is coming off a somewhat surprising loss to Georgetown, which was their first of the year, but they looked really impressive in the NIT Season Tip-Off blowing out both Syracuse and Ole Miss, and they get a shot at a Wichita State team that’s very close to playing their way back into national relevance as well.
-SAN JOSE STATE AT SAN DIEGO STATE (Mountain West). If this wasn’t a conference game, it would be listed down with the buy games.
-TEXAS A&M VS TEXAS (Game in Fort Worth). I’m just glad this rivalry is resuming!! Granted, you kind of hate that the first edition of the revamped rivalry appears to be so one-sided with TAMU being in such a rebuilding mode, but it should still be fun seeing these two go at it again. They met one time previously down in the Battle 4 Atlantis a few years back, but this is the first time the two have met in the state of Texas since the series stopped when TAMU left for the SEC.
-NORTH CAROLINA AT VIRGINIA (ACC). North Carolina is really getting beaten up in the press after they were blown off their own court by Ohio State. Virginia was blown out even worse at Purdue earlier this week, so both teams are kind of looking to pick themselves off, lick their wounds, and bounce back.
-DAYTON VS SAINT MARY’S (Game in Phoenix AZ). This is one of the more important games of the day because both teams are good, but both also have limited opportunities to build up their resume. This game is one of those opportunities. Dayton looks to be more proven than SMC, but even still their best wins were against Georgia and Virginia Tech and it’s hard to say for sure if either one will be solidly inside the bubble come March. SMC’s win over Wisconsin has also lost some of its sparkle as the season has played out, so it isn’t crazy to say that this would be the biggest win of the season on paper up to this point for whoever pulls it out.
-BUFFALO AT DEPAUL. Buffalo has improved as the season has gone on, but they are coming off a rather unimpressive showing in a loss to Vanderbilt. DePaul remains unbeaten and the hype around them is continuing to build. They are riding a huge momentum wave coming into this game, and if they can get the win then they may find themselves in the rankings on Monday.
-NORTHWESTERN AT PURDUE (Big Ten). Purdue is suddenly red hot having won four of their last five, including a win over VCU and a blowout win against Virginia. Their only loss was an overtime thriller against Florida State. They shouldn’t have too much trouble with Northwestern tonight. Yet we just never know which Northwestern shows up on a day-to-day basis.
-LOUISIANA TECH AT SAM HOUSTON STATE. LA Tech is coming off a huge win against Mississippi State and just needs to avoid the hangover loss against a Sam Houston State team that, quite frankly, isn’t very good. This would be the third true road win of the season for LA Tech if they’re able to pull it off.
-LIBERTY VS GRAND CANYON (Game in Phoenix AZ). Liberty is 10-0, but this is by far their biggest test of the season so far. GCU has been rather unimpressive, but going on the road and winning there is still tougher to do than what Liberty has faced in their previous games. This game is actually being played in the Suns’ arena as part of a tripleheader (the Jerry Colangelo Classic) that includes SLU/Tulane and UD/Saint Mary’s.
-GONZAGA AT WASHINGTON. Simply put, this is a huge rivalry game between two ranked teams. It would look good both on and off paper. Both teams have been tested this season as well, but this would still probably be the biggest win for either one of them up to this point, especially when you consider that it would be a true road win for the Zags. Gonzaga did beat Oregon last week, but that was on a neutral floor.
-RUTGERS AT MICHIGAN STATE (Big Ten). Rutgers is improving, and Michigan State has faced more adversity than many were expecting up to this point. Having said that, this still appears to be a huge mismatch.
-SETON HALL AT IOWA STATE (Big East/Big 12 Battle). This is a really fun OOC game between two likely tournament teams (although Iowa State does need to start picking up some wins), and it will look good on the winning team’s resume.
-EASTERN KENTUCKY AT NORTHERN KENTUCKY. Not quite a buy game, but a game nonetheless that the Norse should be expected to win at home.
BUY GAMES
-Southern @ Akron
-SC Upstate @ Furman
-Northwestern State @ LSU
-Denver @ UCLA