Gonzaga Wins Maui Invitational

Gonzaga 61, Cincinnati 59
Gonzaga didn't have a very pretty Maui Invitational by any stretch of the imagination. They had to make a big comeback just to overcome Colorado in the first round, and then benefited from atrocious shooting performances by Wisconsin and Cincinnati to sneak through their other two games. But college basketball isn't about beauty points, it's about winning, and Gonzaga collected three nice wins and is well on its way to its 12th straight NCAA Tournament (only Arizona, Kansas, Duke and Michigan State have longer active streaks). Gonzaga has won the WCC conference tournament 9 of the last 11 years, so they generally don't worry about their out-of-conference resume except for the purposes of Tournament seeding, but it's always nice to have that reassurance that even if a team like San Diego pulls another shock upset in March that you'll still be Dancing. As for Cincinnati, it's hard to be too disappointed by a two point loss to Gonzaga after very convincing victories over Maryland and Vanderbilt. That makes a 2-1 record against teams that will probably all be RPI Top 50. Any time you can win half of your games against RPI Top 50 teams over a season out of a BCS conference you're in really good shape. Cincy has a very easy out-of-conference resume the rest of the way, but should be poised to make a lot of noise in the Big East this season, especially as long as Yancy Gates is playing with this level of intensity. The conference is very wide open this season, with the bottom of the conference improved, but the top of the conference not nearly as good as last year. The Bearcats won't compete to win the conference, but they'll be up in the top half.

#7 Duke 64, Arizona State 53
A mildly unimpressive win by Duke. The final score belies how close this game was, as both teams were within 3-4 points of each other for the first half hour of the game before Duke slowly pulled away over the final ten minutes. Nolan Smith and Jon Scheyer both played really well here, so while the Duke backcourt is thin, the starters are clearly going to be very good together. Singler had a poor shooting night, but the reason the game was so close was because Duke's frontline just did not produce. Neither Miles Plumlee or Lance Thomas is producing points, and Brian Zoubek really struggles to stay out of foul trouble (he's averaging 3.8 fouls in only 15.8 minutes per game this year, and has never averaged less than 6.5 fouls per 40 minutes in any season of his collegiate career). I don't think Ryan Kelly will be ready to play more than about 7-8 minutes per game until he has another year to bulk up, so unless Zoubek can stay out of foul trouble, or until Mason Plumlee can get healthy, Miles Plumlee and Lance Thomas will just have to be more productive offensively. They are going to get a real test tonight when they go against UConn, which has one of the most athletic front lines in the nation. You have to wonder how Duke is even going to keep five bodies on the floor late in that UConn game if they start getting players fouled out. As for Arizona State, they did show some life here. I really like the savvy play of Derek Glasser, and Trent Lockett is off to a solid start to his freshman year, so Arizona State should have a good enough backcourt to compete in the Pac-10. They will be one of the contenders for third place in the Pac-10, along with Arizona, UCLA and a few others.

San Diego 76, Oklahoma 64
Oklahoma has gotten off to a fairly disappointing start, with this loss coming on the heels of a loss to VCU. Their only chances for big scalps during out-of-conference play will come against Arizona on December 6th and at Gonzaga on December 31st. What makes this loss disappointing from my perspective is that I expected Oklahoma to be a decent team this year because of what I saw out of Willie Warren last season when Blake Griffin was hurt. Yet Warren had a great game here: 30 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals in 37 minutes. The problem was that the rest of the team gave him nothing: 34 points, including 3-for-15 from behind the arc. I'm particularly disappointed with Tony Crocker, who does not seemed to have improved at all since a very promising freshman season. Willie Warren is a superstar, but he can't carry this team to the NCAA Tournament by himself. As for San Diego, fifth-year senior Brandon Johnson appears to be regaining his form from two years ago, and led the way with an extremely efficient 22 points on 4-for-9 from behind the arc, 3-for-4 from inside the arc, and 4-for-4 from the line. The Toreros have that disappointing 1 point loss to Pacific, but they will be allowed to get away with one bad loss in November if they can prove that it won't happen again all season. With wins now over Oklahoma and Stanford, they are still in a position to make a run at an at-large bid. But right now they just need to make sure not to have a letdown against Houston tomorrow.