Call me crazy, but I don’t feel overwhelmed by all of the Super Bowl coverage. It’s a beautiful blessing. Ah…wait a minute here…it seems as though I’ve only had ESPN on the television for about seven total hours—all for college hoops indulgence—in the past three days. Yeah, that about does it.
–UPSET–No. 22 Kansas State, No. 2 Kansas 75. Since I already went all Big Picture on you, here are some stats: Beastley gets 25 and 6; Bill Walker gets 22 and 5. Kansas’ leading scorer was Mario Chalmers (22) and Brandon Rush provided a healthy 15 points and 7 boards.
–UPSET–No. 22 Texas A&M 80, No. 10 Texas 63. This was certainly a buzzsaw for the Longhorns. Man, Texas was done 120 seconds into this game! UT has really looked bad in some of their defeats (tonight’s along with the Missouri loss). They’ve still got great wins over UCLA (at Pauley) and Tennessee, though, so you can’t really say they’re that sketchy of a team. STILL, I want you to realize that you shouldn’t look so hard at the rankings in this type of game because, A) It is a road game in conference for UT and, B) A&M is probably the 14-18th best team in the country. Texas is likely in that same group as well.
–UPSET–No. 24 Mississippi 74, No. 19 Vanderbilt 58. Yeah, yeah, I hate calling this an “upset” but five poll points or more and I gotta abide by the rules. Hideous loss for the Commies, who were clearly hexed by Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy’s mini “YMCA” dance distraction throughout the game. And from the AP story: “Polynice was better off the dribble than we were about getting in front of him and he was a great finisher,” Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings said. “He had six layups in the first half and five came against one guy.” Shan Foster, you’ve been officially non-called out, called out by your head coach.
–No. 1 Memphis 89, Houston 77. Joey Dorsey is a freaking rhino. Yeah, that’s right—a rhino. The former Greg Oden smack-talker had 22 rebounds. I love how Memphis is entering their “tough” portion of the schedule now with gasp! schools like UTEP and in the near future. Please. The tough portion of Memphis schedule will come on the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Worth noting: CD-R had 30 on 9-of-13 shooting for the Tiggers. (No typo there.)
–No. 6 Georgetown 74, St. John’s 42. Things have been bad for the Johnnies over the past half-decade, but it appears they’ve hit an all-time low with this being their worst loss in the history of the program and its affiliation with the Big East. Bring back Louie, right!?
–No. 8 Michigan State 51, Illinois 41. And some people wonder why the Big Ten’s television ratings have been on a steady decline over the years. Do take notice that Michigan State is 19-2.
–No. 16 Drake 75, Creighton 65. Everyone’s just paying the rent in Drake’s world. Jeez, remember when I had that post just last week about Drake’s critical game at Creighton? Now this team is just snowplowing through the conference and only needs about three more consecutive wins (tough game at 15-6 Illinois State on Tuesday) to achieve “lock” status.
–No. 18 Pittsburgh 69, Villanova 57. The Panthers get revenge for their one-point defeat in Philly at the beginning of the month. Scottie Reynolds’ 26 wasn’t enough at The Zoo for Villanova, who only 38 percent from the floor and 57 percent from the line . (The Zoo, by the way, is one of the five toughest venues to win at in the country, IMO.) Now ‘Nova, once on cruise control towards a Tournament berth, is a bit of trouble and in need of some “show me something” wins. The Wildcats are 3-5 in conference and 13-6 overall.
Notable:
Arkansas 78, Mississippi State 58. So much for talk of how good Miss. St. is (they are ranked in the ESPN/Coaches Poll). Then again, this is only their first conference loss and Arkansas seems to have been on the edge of really getting some attention for the entire season.
Massachusetts 94, Duquesne 80. That puts the nail in Duquesne’s coffin. UMass remains a playa.
Purdue 51, Iowa 50. B’Makers squeak one out and avoid a bad loss on the resume.
Cincinnati 62, West Virginia 39. Commence the vomiting that remains from the hangover from the Georgetown loss, I guess. Ah yes, and in case you forgot: Huggins coached Kansas State last season! Last night he went to bed the coach of a team that only put 39 points on the board against mediocre Cincinnati.
Maryland 85, Virginia 75. The battle for the ACC representative as an 11 seed in The Tournament is now in Maryland’s favor. UVA’s a pathetic 1-5 in conference, by the way.
Seton Hall 84, Rutgers 71 (OT). The Hall wins the battle of the jersey schools in the extra session, remains very much in the at-large discussion.
First time St. John’s gets some attention its for their worst loss in Big East history….yikes. We do weekly predictions on my site one being a toss up game(2 ranked or similar opponents), Big East Guarantee(self explanatory), and Upset pick. Well majority of the people picked Georgetown over St. John’s and we all said the spread at 10.5 was too low but man we didn’t score a basket until 4 min left in the half and Hibbert barely played and Summers was out with injury. The calling for Norm Roberts’ head is getting louder and louder every game as the margins of defeat grow larger and larger as well. I also picked Illinois St over Drake for my upset pick after toying with the idea of K-state of Kansas sure hope this doesn’t backfire.
I can’t think of what to think of about any of the Texas schools really.
Caught that game last night and was more confused than clear by the end of it. I think I like Turgeon (sp?) as the coach there, though. I think he could be just as effective as Billy G.