NEWS AND NOTES
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-The showcase game of the night ended up being a blowout as Tennessee completely dump-trucked previously unbeaten Missouri. It was Tennessee’s biggest win of the season on paper, and perhaps their most impressive overall showing on the court. They looked like a team that could get a #1 seed last night.
-Furman handed Chattanooga their first loss of the season in the SoCon opener for both teams. Furman couldn’t quite capitalize on a few chances to get big OOC wins and put together a really strong tournament resume, but they are still a really good team that can make some noise in March.
-Winthrop really had to sweat, but they held on to beat Campbell and remain unbeaten on the season. The two will square off again today.
-Seton Hall went into Xavier and absolutely blew them out of the building. It was kind of a surprising result given how good Xavier had looked all year long, and while Seton Hall never looked bad, they never looked like the kind of team that would blow Xavier off their own floor either. Seton Hall is now suddenly 4-1 in Big East play.
-Dayton suffered a home loss to La Salle, which is extremely damaging to any NCAA Tournament hopes. The Flyers could have done without that
-Richmond rebounded from a rather surprising loss to Hofstra by picking up a nice road win at Davidson in a game that was close and back and forth all throughout.
-Georgia suffered their first loss of the season as they fell to Mississippi State at home in a game where they pretty much trailed the entire way.
-North Carolina isn’t as bad as they were a year ago, but they’re not as good as many were expecting them to be. They lost to Georgia Tech yesterday to fall to 5-4 on the year, and are now 0-2 in ACC play. Right now I’d say they don’t even look like a tournament team.
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-CAMPBELL AT WINTHROP (Big South). It was a bit of a battle when these two met yesterday and it could be again today. Winthrop is looking to stay unbeaten and keep their hopes of landing inside the NCAA Tournament bubble alive.
-MINNESOTA AT WISCONSIN (Big Ten). Wisconsin is coming off a rather surprising home loss to Maryland and looking to rebound. Minnesota is unbeaten on the year and has recently picked up some really big wins, but they’ve done it all at home. A win today on the road against a rival who is highly ranked would pretty much completely round out their resume. At least for now.
-UTAH AT UCLA (Pac 12). Utah is 4-1, but hasn’t beaten anyone that isn’t totally lousy yet. UCLA looks to have a good team and should get this win. It’s the first time that they’ve played since losing to Ohio State, so it’s a bit of a bounce back game.
-MICHIGAN AT MARYLAND (Big Ten). Michigan is unbeaten, but this will be just their second road game of the season, and their biggest road test so far. Maryland is coming off a huge win against Wisconsin so they should have a ton of momentum, but they’ve still got a lot of work to do. A win tonight would be another huge step forward for them, though
-ARIZONA AT WASHINGTON (Pac 12). This is Arizona’s first game since self-imposing a postseason ban. I guess it really doesn’t have any postseason implications after all. Moving on…
-BOISE STATE AT SAN JOSE STATE (Mountain West). It’s a conference road game for Boise State, but it shouldn’t be any more competitive than most buy games for the Broncos. They should get this win easily.
-CALIFORNIA AT OREGON (Pac 12). Cal appears to be a little better than we originally thought they’d be, but probably not good enough to go on the road and knock off an Oregon team that’s a probable protected seed caliber team.
-COLORADO AT USC (Pac 12). This is a resume building opportunity for two teams that appear to be NCAA Tournament caliber teams, but still have some work to do. A conference win in a game like this would certainly look good for either team.
BUY GAMES (or games that might as well be)
-Catawba (nondiv1) @ Wake Forest