Hoops HD

NEWS AND NOTES:

-For John Stalica’s UTR Game of the Day, which is a good one between UT Martin and North Alabama – CLICK HERE

-Arizona State, who had shown no signs of real life in their first two games (even though they did win them) somehow hung with, and damn near beat, a Gonzaga team that had just gotten through blasting a top ten team off the court in their previous game. The Zags won 88-80, but my biggest takeaway was…WOW! Arizona State got A LOT better over the last couple of days!! They may be worth keeping an eye on.

-North Florida has been a great story this season!! They are now 3-0 with wins at South Carolina and at Georgia Tech! I know neither of those teams are likely tournament teams, but to go on the road and get two wins in road buy games is still a notable accomplishment, and it’s more than what the vast majority of teams around the country have been able to accomplish up to this point. The Ospreys were picked to finish 7th in the ASun preseason standings. Perhaps they’re better than that!

-Wake Forest held off Michigan 72-70 in a game that was close throughout and that went back and forth. Michigan didn’t get the win, but they hung with a likely tournament team on the road, which is a sign that they are VERY much improved.

-Princeton is now 3-0 after their 79-76 win against Northeastern. That’s the good news. The concerning news is they’ve won those games by 1, 7, and 3 points, and they weren’t playing against good teams. Princeton was a team I thought would be top 40 this year and inside the bubble, and they still might end up being that good, but despite winning all three games they really haven’t shown it yet.

-A team that has shown out is UC Irvine! They are off to a very impressive start. They went on the road against a pretty good Northern Iowa team and absolutely blew them off the floor 80-60. They’re now 3-0 on the season with two true road wins against failry decent teams. That’s not a bad early season profile!!

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HIGHLIGHTED GAMES:

-MCNEESE AT ALABAMA. McNeese has had this game circled for a while. They are a good team (or we think they are) with limited chances at big wins that will impress the committee, but this is certainly one of those chances. Having said that, they are sort of shooting at the moon. They’re not playing a team ranked in the mid-teens on a neutral floor. They’re playing the 2nd ranked team in the country in a true road game. They also already have a loss on their profile. If they are able to pull this off it goes without saying that it would be a massive win, but that’s far easier said than done.

-CHATTANOOGA AT AUSTIN PEAY. I know these are UTR teams, but Chattanooga competed with Saint Mary’s in their last game, and Austin Peay is a big story coming off their win at Butler. A win for the Govs gets them to 3-0 and off to a really good start.

-IDAHO AT WASHINGTON STATE. Folks, this is one of the great rivalries in all of sports!! These two teams are just eight miles apart!! And as incredible as this may sound, they’ve NEVER met in the NCAA Tournament!! (I got so sick of hearing that a hundred times a year about another rivalry that I won’t mention, so I always like to point out that the same is true about these two). Wazzu can (and should) get to 3-0 with a win.

-Youngstown State @ Ohio State – both teams 1-0
-Grambling @ Florida – Grambling gave Ole Miss a hell of a game over the weekend, and Florida is dealing with some off the court stuff
-Saint Peter’s @ Rutgers
-Gardner Webb @ Pittsburgh
-Buffalo @ Notre Dame – both teams unbeaten
-Western Michigan @ Butler
-Florida A&M @ Maryland
-Winthrop @ Virginia Tech – both teams unbeaten, and Winthrop has looked tough so far
-Coppin State @ Virginia
-Alcorn State @ Tulane – Tulane can get to 3-0
-Kansas City @ Iowa State – both teams unbeaten
-Lamar @ Texas A&M
-Yale @ Purdue
-Northwestern State @ Oklahoma
-UNC Greensboro @ SMU
-Central Michigan @ Marquette
-Mercer @ DePaul – both teams unbeaten
-Boston U @ UCLA
-Pacific @ Hawaii (Rainbow Classic) – both teams are unbeaten

NEWS AND NOTES:

-I think it is safe to say we are through the first couple days of the season where all the games seem like they were ordered off the pastry cart.

-Yesterday, on November 9th (not Feb 9th or March 9th), Auburn and Houston gave us a game that was played at a high level between two of the best teams in the country. There have been Final Four games that didn’t feature two teams as good as that who played as well as that. And, congratulations to Auburn on going into the city of Houston (albeit not Houston’s home court) and getting a win against a legit top 4 caliber team. Granted they had some issues on the flight over, but once they got there they were amazing to watch! Considering that it was a (mostly) road game against a team that could still end up as a #1 seed, this may turn out to be one of the most impressive singular wins that any team manages to put on its resume all season long! And, it’s November 9th! But, both teams played great, and made big plays, and it was close all the way down the stretch. It was just a fantastic college basketball game! I still think Houston is really good, and I still think they can win it all. This loss will probably just make them better.

-Baylor also bounced back from getting pounded at Gonzaga with a really nice 72-67 win over Arkansas. Suddenly Baylor’s resume is this…a lost at Gonzaga (not bad at all), and a neutral floor win against Arkansas (very good!). The Bears will be just fine. I expect that Arkansas will be similar to many previous Kentucky teams we’ve seen. They’ll start off okay, then get really good over the winter break, and then be high in the rankings and in the protected seed range by the end of the year.

-Louisville fans were as excited for their game against Tennessee yesterday as they had been for just about any home game they had played since before Covid. And for about 90 seconds it was a hell of a game! It was 10-0 just a couple minutes in and I don’t think it was ever below double digits after that as Tennessee won handily on the road 77-55.

-Fordham got a nice 57-56 win at Seton Hall. Having said that, I think this says more about how Seton Hall is bad than it does about how Fordham is good.

-Memphis went on the road and got a really nice win against UNLV. I have been very skeptical of this Memphis team (and to be honest I still am). I know they are talented, but my question is can they play together? Well, they’re off to a great start! To go on the road and win at UNLV is a very good early season win for a team that’s trying to play its way inside the bubble.

-Northwestern hung tough with what we think is a very good Dayton team for about 30 minutes, and managed a double digit lead into the second half, but the Flyers rallied, came back, got control late, and ended up with a nice 71-66 win. I think both teams will go on to have pretty good years, so it was a good early season game for both of them to have on their schedules.

-I said Richmond might be a dark horse in the Atlantic 10 before the start of the season. Last night they lost at home to Marist 79-72. I now need to go find where I said that and delete it.

-I said Vermont would be a top level Under the Radar team before the start of the season, and after their win at UAB I said they may have a shot at landing inside the bubble. They were blown out by Auburn right after that, but I still wasn’t overly concerned. Yesterday, they lost 65-51 to Merrimack. I am now concerned. I now need to go find where I said that and delete it.

-Grand Canyon was without two starters, and trailed Western Kentucky at home for seemingly the entire game, but they kept it close. Then, in the final minute, they made some big plays and escaped with a buzzer beating shot to win 74-72. I’ve been saying for a while that I think Grand Canyon is a top 25 team. While they did struggle more than you would expect yesterday, they were without two of their key players, and WKU is a talented team, and the Lopes still won the game. So, I won’t be going back to delete anything I said about them! At least not yet.

-Boise State is a team we think can (and still will) make the NCAA Tournament. We knew they’d be tested yesterday on the road at San Francisco. They failed the test 84-73. And before I get attacked about how it was a tough road game, I know it was a tough road game! But…THAT’S THE POINT! NCAA Tournament teams are expected to be able to win tough road games. And while winning at San Francisco is admittedly tough, it’s not like they were playing at Gonzaga or Arizona. It was a tough game that a good team should have been able to win. I still like the Broncos, but the loss gives me a little bit of pause.

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HIGHLIGHTED GAMES:

-MICHIGAN VS WAKE FOREST (Greensboro, NC). This is the first real test for either of these teams. Michigan is expected to be much better this year under head coach Dusty May, and Wake is someone that we think can be an NCAA Tournament team. It’s both an early test and an early opportunity to add a notable win to their profiles.

-UC IRVINE AT NORTHERN IOWA. These are two really good UTR teams that we expect will do very well in their conferences. I actually picked both these teams to win their conferences, so it’s fun to see them square off against each other. These are the kinds of OOC games that you want to see the top UTR schools play. It’s probably a long shot to think either of these teams can end up inside the bubble, but a win today would likely end up looking good on either team’s profile and would be a step in the right direction.

-ARIZONA STATE AT GONZAGA. Both teams come in without a loss, but given how Gonzaga blew out Baylor and how Arizona State struggled to get by Idaho State in their opener, this looks to be a big mismatch. Arizona State did beat Santa Clara in their last game, and that may turn out to be a really nice win, but whereas Santa Clara might be an NIT team, Gonzaga might be a Final Four team. They are on a much higher level.

-Eastern Illinoins @ Indiana
-Appalachian State @ Wisconsin
-SEMO @ Vanderbilt
-North Florida @ Georgia Tech – both teams unbeaten
-Stephen F Austin @ Drake – both teams 1-0
-Princeton @ Northeastern – Princeton has won their first two games, but both have been a struggle
-Eureka (nonD1) @ Loyola Chicago
-Binghamton @ Miami FL
-Saint Thomas @ Oklahoma State
-SELA @ UAB
-Texas Southern @ Georgia
-Tennessee State @ Wyoming – Wyoming can get to 2-0
-Alivia (nonD1) @ Saint Louis
-Fairleigh Dickinson @ Creighton
-Alabama State @ LSU
-San Jose State @ Hawaii (Rainbow Classic)

NEWS AND NOTES:

-North Carolina came from 15 down at the half and actually had a lead in the final few minutes of the game at Kansas, but the Jayhawks held on for a thrilling 92-89 win. I was every bit as impressed with the Tarheels as I was with the Jayhawks considering it was a true road game and they almost knocked off the #1 team in the country. It’s a big early win that will almost assuredly look good on Kansas’s profile come March, but UNC showed that they’re good enough to pick up some big wins of their own between now and the end.

-Alabama had to sweat out Arkansas State and led by just 2 with less than 6 minutes to go, but they finally got control at the end and held on for an 88-79 win. Still, an impressive showing for Arkansas State, who we think will be a very good Under the Radar team this year.

-Ole Miss narrowly escaped an upset against Grambling. That’s right! GRAMBLING!!! We really like this Ole Miss team, but they didn’t exactly show out last night in what should have been a cakewalk for them. It’s not like Grambling is expected to be a top level UTR team. Still, the Rebs managed to escape with a 66-64 win.

-New Mexico made a big splash last night as they beat 22nd ranked UCLA 72-64. The Lobos were in control for pretty much the entire game and showed us that they’re probably better than what many people were expecting coming into the season. This is a win that will likely look really good on their resume come March. UCLA should still end up having a big year and will show improvement as we get further into the season.

-Butler was one of my personal dark horse teams coming into the year. As of now they have yet to leave the starting gate. They struggled to win their season opener, and last night fell to Austin Peay 68-66. This was a really good win for the Govs and gets them to 2-0 on the season, and I don’t want to overlook how good Austin Peay might be, but I also need acknowledge that Butler hasn’t exactly looked like the team I thought they’d be so far.

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HIGHLIGHTED GAMES:

-TENNESSEE AT LOUISVILLE. This is the first real test for both these teams as both teams blew through home buy games in their openers. Expectations are super-high for Tennessee and this will be a good road test against a Louisville team that appears to be much improved under Pat Kelsey. As for Louisville, it’s a big opportunity to land back in the national spotlight after being about a hundred miles away from it during the past several years. I’m actually looking forward to this one and think it should be fun.

-TOLEDO AT MARSHALL. This is clearly an Under the Radar match-up, but it’s between two pretty good UTR teams that can pick up a somewhat notable win early on. Marshall won their opener whereas Toledo fell to Troy and is looking to bounce back, but it won’t be easy on the road.

-MEMPHIS AT UNLV. Both teams won their season openers, but neither were really tested. Memphis did beat Missouri, but Mizzou is awful so that hardly qualifies as a test. Both teams appear to have quite a bit of potential due to their talent, but there are also big question marks as to whether either of them can play up to the collective level of their talent. We should learn something about both of them today.

-BAYLOR VS ARKANSAS (Dallas, TX). Baylor was absolutely smoked on opening night out at Gonzaga, and they’ve got another super-tough test against a very talented Arkansas team tonight. Both teams are incredibly talented, but both also consist of rosters that are still getting used to playing together. This is a great early season game, but I expect both of them to improve as the season goes on. On paper, it’s a chance at a notable win early on, which is why these games are so good for the teams that actually choose to go out and play tough teams in the first week.

-NORTHWESTERN AT DAYTON. Both teams are potential NCAA Tournament teams, and even though it’s early in the year both teams could really benefit from having a win like this on their resume. In short, it is a really interesting early season match-up where there is something at stake. This win will look good on either team’s profile.

-AUBURN AT HOUSTON. I’ll start by saying I don’t know what happened on Auburn’s plane or why it had to turn back, but I don’t really care because I don’t think it will matter. Both teams are ranked really high, and I actually think both should be ranked even higher. I think Houston is the best team in the country and they are my pick to win it all. They’re at home tonight, so this will likely be the toughest game for Auburn to win all season long. Having said that, I think Auburn is a Final Four caliber team. They blew what is actually a very good Vermont team off the floor earlier this week, and I’m curious to see what they can do against a very strong Houston team.

-WASHINGTON AT NEVADA. Both teams are sort of going through transitions, but both won their openers and the team that wins this tonight will have some early momentum built up.

-BOISE STATE AT SAN FRANCISCO. I think Boise State is a tournament caliber team. Tonight is a test. This is not an easy game to win, but tournament teams are supposed to be able to win games that aren’t easy to win, so we’ll learn something about Boise tonight.

BUY GAMES (and other games worth mentioning):

-Little Rock @ Winthrop – both teams 1-0, and it’s a road test for a Little Rock team that should do well in the OVC
-Fordham @ Seton Hall – Seton Hall can get to 2-0
-Colgate @ Drexel – both teams 1-0
-Delaware State @ Columbia – Columbia is coming off a big road win at Villanova and can get to 3-0 on the season
-Jackson State @ High Point – we really like High Point and they can get to 2-0 today
-Quinnipiac @ Saint John’s – the Johnnies should roll and remain unbeaten, but Quinnipiac is probably one of the better teams in the MAAC
-Arkansas Pine Bluff @ Tulsa – Tulsa is 1-0
-Omaha @ Minnesota – both teams unbeaten
-Old Dominion @ Arizona – Arizona is 1-0
-Bucknell @ Kentucky – both teams are unbeaten
-UTEP @ Utah Valley – both teams unbeaten
-Coastal Carolina @ East Carolina – both teams 1-0
-Charlotte @ Utah State – both teams 1-0
-Fairfield @ Georgetown – Georgetown is 1-0
-Cleveland State @ Kansas State – K State is 1-0
-Louisiana Tech @ UT Arlington – both teams 1-0
-James Madison @ Norfolk State – both teams unbeaten, and it should be a winnable road game for a pretty good JMU team
-UC Santa Barbara @ Portland – both teams 1-0
-Marist @ Richmond – Richmond is 1-0
-Stonehill @ Providence
-Middle Tennessee @ Abilene Christian – both teams 1-0
-Vermont @ Merrimack – Vermont can pick up their 2nd road win of the year
-Montana State @ Wichita State – I almost highlighted this one. Montana State lost their opener, but should be strong in the Big Sky, and Wichita may be one of the better teams in the AAC
-Florida State @ Rice – Both won their opener, but Rice will be tested more tonight
-New Hampshire @ UConn
-Western Kentucky @ Grand Canyon – we really like this GCU team and think we will see them in the top 25 before the end of the season
-Bethune Cookman @ Nebraska
-Kennesaw State @ California Baptist – both teams 1-0