Helping No. 2…
–UPSET–Iowa 43, No. 6 Michigan State 36. How. Awful. Rough day for a lot of ranked road teams, but this one takes the cake. A 36 point effort will immediately drop you out of my Top 15 for the BlogPoll. I hope other voters follow suit. Now, let’s not get too crazy over this and start bringing up MSU’s terrible non-regular season loss to Division II Grand Valley State, but maybe the Spartans aren’t the contender we thought they could be. The Big Ten is just terrible. That’s the moral here.
–UPSET–Cincinnati 69, No. 19 Villanova 66. Very tight game throughout—the largest lead for both clubs was six—but the road was just not the place to be for quite a few ranked clubs this weekend. With the loss, ‘Nova undoubtedly falls from the rankings and will have to earn some respect again, despite only three losses.
–No. 2 Memphis 68, Marshall 45. An alarming, mild 68 points for Memphis.
–No. 3 Kansas 79, Nebraska 58. Thought that Nebraska might have a chance in this game, though I was flat out silly and, honestly, completely forgot about the two beatdowns that KU laid on the Cornhuskers last season. I was rooting for Jacksonville to take down The Perfects, but kept an eye on this one during the whole game and saw Brandon Rush play pretty smoovely. Guess the coach is really motivatin’ him!
–No. 8 Tennessee 80, South Carolina 56. Smith leads team in pretty much all categories for the Vols.
–No. 11 Texas A&M 86, Colorado 69. DeAndre Jordan is a DE-LIGHT to watch and will single-handedly win them at least three or four more games this year. He plays for A&M, in case you hadn’t checked your rosters recently. A&M got some separation early, then effectively kept Colorado at bay for the remainder of the game.
–No. 16 Mississippi 74, Louisiana State 71. A close loss on the road at Tennessee (ending their perfect season) and a close win at home against 7-9 LSU…let’s just call it par for the course for the Rebs this week.
–No. 17 Dayton 68, Saint Louis 57. Just days after their historic futile offensive performance against George Washington, the Billikens take Dayton to overtime? And score 57 points?! Brian Roberts dropped 30, by the way.
–No. 18 Clemson 97, Florida State 85 (2OT). Clemson gets a win they really needed, but it took 50 minutes to do it AND Florida State should have had this game by the end of regulation. They blew a 12-point lead (did the Tigers) and shot only 64 percent from the line, so you could say this was an escape. A 19-7 difference in the second OT for Clemson, Tiger fans can thank Terrence Oglesby for sinking three 3s then, securing the win.
Notable:
Saint Mary’s 76, Santa Clara 45. The Gaels have hit a steady speed and are now 14-2 overall.
Baylor 74, Iowa State 67. The Bears are 13-2 and still have plenty of sneak-up-ability at this point in the season.
Drake 65, Missouri State 54. The Motherfucking Drake is now 14-1!
