The weekend’s already here? Okay, I’ll take it. Damn, that escalated really quickly!

–UPSET–No. 23 Xavier 69, No. 16 Dayton 43. Hate to call this one an upset, but I have to. Now, I’ve always thought that Xavier was the best team in the A-10 (easy to say now, I know), but I didn’t think they’d have such smothering defense against Dayton; the Flyers shot only 30 percent from the field. Now the Musketeers are in the driver’s seat in the conference (well, not really because other teams have only one loss as well—but they soon will be) and can start pushing for a 4 seed.

–UPSET–Arizona 76, No. 6 Washington State 64. The Cougars oblige many pundits who will/have deemed them overrated. Derrick Low’s (scoreless in the first half) anemic offense certainly was helping either. Arizona was wild and a little out of rhythm in the first half. Washington State played their ugly style to near perfection. What went wrong? Well, Jerryd Bayless and Chase Budinger decided to kick a little ass. Bayless and Budinger had 23 and 22 points, respectively. Washington State’s main problem will likely be their inability to go shot-for-shot with a lot of teams, come March. It was Arizona’s second Top 1o; they defeated Texas A&M, who was then No. 9, back in December.

–UPSET–Washington 72, No. 24 Arizona State 61. A home loss to Washington? Huh? Blame Sendek! (Kidding.) (Well, maybe not.) Jon Brockman, who is UW’s latest Beast on the Block, had 22 and 16 as he dominated the inside; ASU had nothing there. The Devils’ super frosh James Hardin was clearly suffering from his groin injury (only four second half points). So much for all of that Pac-10 consistency in the polls.

–No. 4 Duke 81, Virginia Tech 64. Virginia Tech (and specifically Deron Washington) played with a vengeance, but the wrong kind of vengeance. Duke had the steadier head (though there were many stupid fouls in this one) and the Hokies left hurting. I didn’t like a lot of the officiating in this one, but Virginia Tech clearly took the Dookies for granted and deserved the beatdown.

–No. 8 UCLA 80, Oregon 75. The much-abused (both on the floor and from the student’s mouths) Kevin Love (another ridiculous 26 and 18 performance) was hobbling after an errant pass caused a Duck to step up Love’s foot with about 14 minutes to go in the second half and it seemed as though everything was going Oregon’s way. ‘Twas not to be, as the Ducks had some miserable offensive sets and subsequent execution in the final 60 seconds of play that prevented them from stealing a much-needed win at home.

–No. 10 Michigan State 78, Northwestern 62. Nothing quite gets my eyes to stay on a channel like seeing Northwestern colors on the television. Raymar Morgan (the only Spartan not named Drew Neitzel that can do anything offensively) led the team with 23.

–No. 15 Butler 63, Loyola (IL) 50. Ho-hum win despite a weak shooting night for the Bulldogs. You want to have them against teams like these.

Notable:

Seton Hall 88, Providence 75. Seton Hall takes leapfrogs the Friars for Big East bubble supremacy.

St. Francis (PA) 92, St. Francis (NY) 84 (30T). Throw out the records—and the names—when these two play. Everyone knows the Pennsylvania punks are the real players anyway.

Utah State 71, Louisiana Tech 61. Utah State is now 5-0 in the WAC and I only hesitated to put them in “Dancing on the Bubble” segment because I wanted to see them reach at least 6-0 in the weaker WAC this year.

Southern California 68, Oregon State 44. Clearly Mayo’s ticket “scandal” had zero effect.

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