News, Notes, and Highlighted Games: Monday, Dec 6

NEWS AND NOTES:

-Northwestern is now 6-2 on the year after winning their Big Ten opener at Maryland.  Maryland is hardly a world-beater, and after changing coaches last week probably doesn’t have a highly successful season ahead of them, but still…this Northwestern team is better than expected and worth keeping an eye on.

-Minnesota is also far better than expected this year.  They improved to 7-0 and picked up their second true road win of the season after knocking off a good Mississippi State team 81-76.

-Richmond won at Northern Iowa in a game that went from looking like a good opportunity for a big win back in November to a game that neither could afford to lose.  Both still have potential, but Northern Iowa may already be completely out of strikes, and Richmond needs to really play well the rest of the way to be on the board come March.

-Keep an eye on Belmont.  They beat Samford 85-73 on the road yesterday afternoon.  They have played in some tough games and have won a few of them, and while Samford isn’t expected to be great this year, they did have a good record coming into yesterday and it was their first home loss.

-Xavier picked up a really nice road win at Oklahoma State, which was their first true road win of the season.  They are sitting at 7-1 with some pretty good wins, and the only loss being to an Iowa State team that is MUCH better than expected this year.

-Kansas State got a nice win in Wichita against Wichita State.  It was not at the Round House (and I admit that I didn’t realize it wasn’t on Wichita’s campus until the game started, so I missed that in the write up yesterday), but it was still a good win away from home against a good team in front of a pro-Shockers crowd.

-Arizona State got a very surprising win at Oregon 69-67.  This prompts the question…WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH OREGON!!??

HIGHLIGHTED GAMES:

-ILLINOIS AT IOWA (Big Ten).  Iowa is coming off their first loss of the season.  They’re still in reasonably good shape, but they could still really use a notable win.  Illinois has gotten off to a slower start that expected and could really use a win in a game like this too.  In short, both team could use the momentum of winning this game as much as they could use it on paper right now.

-NEW MEXICO STATE AT NEW MEXICO.  It’s Part Two of this annual home-and-home!  Hopefully the lights stay on this time.  New Mexico State may be strong by WAC standards this year, but they haven’t really shown (yet) that they are strong by inside-the-bubble standards.  Having said that, New Mexico is currently unbeaten at home, so this is a win they’d get some credit for if they can pull it off.

-Texas Southern @ Florida
-Alcorn State @ Houston