Last night was the three-week mark until the Opening Round game in Dayton. You know, if you’re into that sort of thing.

–UPSET–No. 18 Vanderbilt 72, No. 1 Tennessee 69. Vandy wins their fourth straight game at home against a No. 1-ranked team. The pesky Commies! Lofton cracks the 2,000 career point mark, becoming the sixth Vol to reach the coveted club.

–UPSET–Missouri State 86, No. 20 Drake 83 . The Drake’s mortality is starting to catch up with them. I fear that they’ll also lose in the Missouri Valley tournament (no league champ has won the tournament since ‘98) and probably fall to an 8 seed, which is a shame—they probably can’t take down a 1 seed, and would have trouble against a Big 6 school like a Pittsburgh or a Kansas State.

–No. 12 Indiana 72, Ohio State 69. Armon Bassett steps up and delivers a team-high 23 points. Can this Indiana team do what another Big Ten team did in the past? That is: win a championship with an interim coach. (Michigan, ‘89.) Lost in the loss: A great performance from the OSU starters (four with 12 points or more) is all for naught. Ohio State won’t commit to The Dance and would have to probably get to the Big Ten finals in order to get a vote from me. The Buckeyes just don’t look like a Tournament team this year.

–No. 15 Connecticut 79, Rutgers 61. Rutgers kept it close early (don’t they always) but couldn’t close. Jeff Adrien comes out of nowhere to deliver his game of the year (let’s see this play again in three weeks, Jeff). Adrien had 27 and 11 and went 7-for-8 from the foul line. A peek at the Huskies’ schedule sees them playing West Virginia, Providence and Cincinnati—UConn could actually be 25-6 when they hop on the bus for Manhattan. Wow.

Notable:

Western Michigan 56, Northern Illinois 49. The first game since the shootings on Valentine’s Day was such a big deal that ESPN even sent Bob Holtzman to the event. C’mon now: We don’t need field reporters for this type of thing. The team is First game since the tragedy .

Brigham Young 70, New Mexico 69 (OT). This could have acted as a de facto bubble buster game, but the Lobos take BYU the extra five at home. Trent Plaisted (the best forward you don’t know about) had 23 points, including the two game-wining freebies to put the Mormons over the top. New Mexico had two shots in the final seconds to take the game back, but efforts went awry. Former Kansas flame out J.R. Giddens led Steve Alford’s club with 30 in the loss.

UNLV 68, San Diego State 58. The Mountain West’s four Tournament hopefuls played each other last night. Vegas and BYU—the two best teams—escape with the wins. They’ll probably be the two that make it anyway.

Virginia Tech 67, Boston College 48. Hmm…the Hokies have won three straight and are now 17-11 with an ACC record of 8-6. They, unfortunately, have made the bubble a little more crowded once again.

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