NEWS AND NOTES
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-We saw back to back top 10 (well, top 11) match-ups last night and neither game disappointed. Gonzaga and West Virginia seesawed back and forth with the Zags finally getting control in the final minutes of the game and picking up yet another big time early season win. There was a scary moment when Jalen Suggs suffered an injury and had to leave the game, and at the time no one was sure how serious it was. Fortunately…not very. He was able to reenter the game in the second half and all vital signs are positive.
-Baylor pulled away from Illinois in the second half and picked up what is so far, the biggest win of the year in regards to the rankings. Illinois was ranked 5th, and no one ranked higher than that has lost a game yet. The Bears are for real, and they will face Gonzaga this weekend. We are lacking fans, but we don’t seem to be lacking quality early season match-ups!
-Texas got a big win over North Carolina, which was their third notable win of the season, and it allowed them to take home some hardware. Texas may finally be having the season that we’ve been waiting for under Shaka Smart.
-Missouri knocked off Oregon in Omaha last night in a game that was somewhat surprising. We weren’t expecting much out of Mizzou at all, and on the flip side were expecting quite a bit out of Oregon. But, one early season game can entirely change the view that you have of any given team, and I guess that’s what happened with Mizzou yesterday.
-Penn State remains unbeaten after hitting a three at the buzzer to knock off VCU. It had been a really rough offseason for the Nittany Lions and we were kind of expecting a long and frustrating year, but it’s been anything but that out of the gate.
-Duquesne picked up their first win of the year against (what we think) is a pretty good UNC Greensboro team. I do think they’ll be able to make some noise in the A10 this year. UNCG still has a good team, but they’re off to a bit of sluggish 1-2 start.
-South Dakota State had a nice bounce back win at Iowa State, which is something they kind of needed if they want to end up inside the bubble this March, which we still think they are good enough to do.
-Rhode Island got an impressive win against a Seton Hall team that had been playing well going into yesterdays game. We need to keep paying attention to the Rams this year as well.
-San Francisco has been somewhat inconsistent this year. At times they’ve looked fantastic and at other times you can’t believe it’s the same team. Last night they looked fantastic and totally blew Nevada off the court.
-Indiana picked up a really nice neutral floor win against a pretty good Stanford team. Stanford had played really well in their first two games, so it was a little surprising to see them struggle so much yesterday.
-Florida got a big scare from Army, but held on for the win. This Army team has been fun to watch this season and I think will make quite a bit of noise once they get into Patriot League play.
-BYU bounced back from their blowout loss to USC and handed Saint John’s their first loss of the season yesterday.
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-WINTHROP VS LITTLE ROCK (Louisville, KY). These are two really good UTR teams. Winthrop already managed a big win against UNC Greensboro in their first game and have the chance to pick up another one today against a Little Rock team that will be one of the frontrunners in the Sun Belt.
-WASHINGTON AT UTAH (Pac 12). It’s the season opener for Utah, which is just another odd situation that we’ve seen this year with a team playing a conference opponent in its first game. Washington was not expected to do much this year, and so far they are living up to that.
-UCONN VS USC (Mohegan Sun). Both teams are unbeaten, and both have looked good. USC is coming off a very impressive blowout win against BYU and can keep that momentum going if they’re able to pick up another big early season win today.
-SEATTLE AT UCLA. This is a buy game, but with Seattle coming in at 3-1 and UCLA having struggled in their first two games we will go ahead and highlight it.
-FLORIDA VS BOSTON COLLEGE (Mohegan Sun). The Gators really struggled in their opener against a pretty good Army team yesterday and will face another test today against a BC team that’s just 1-2, but that has played well against some pretty good teams and could use an early quality win of their own.
-ARIZONA STATE AT CALIFORNIA (Pac 12). Arizona State has looked pretty good early on and should be able to pick up their conference opener on the road tonight.
BUY GAMES (or games that will look that way on the team sheets)
-UMass Lowell vs NC State (Mohegan Sun)
-Saint Francis U @ Liberty
-Western Illinois @ Iowa
-Washburn (nondiv1) @ Kansas
-VMI @ Virginia Tech
-Niagara @ Syracuse
-Omaha @ Drake – a win for Drake gets them to 3-0
-UTSA @ Oklahoma
-Northwestern State @ TCU
-Saint Katherine (nondiv1) @ Pepperdine
-Texas Southern @ Saint Mary’s
