Minnesota Topples Butler

#16 Minnesota 82, #10 Butler 73
This shouldn't really have been too much of a surprise, because Minnesota is probably better than Butler. To be fair, it was hard to tell much about either team with the insane number of fouls called by the refs (30 on Minnesota and 26 on Butler, leading to a combined 81 free throws). But Butler showed why they never should have been ranked 10th in the country. I understand the way that the voters think: Butler was a Top 25 team last season, and they return every key player, so you've got to move them up 10-15 spots just for bringing back everybody. But this is a flawed thought for a few reasons. First of all, Butler wasn't a Top 25 team - the voters put them in the Top 25, but the voters were wrong. Their Sagarin rating was 43rd and their Pomeroy was 45th. And while they do bring back all of their key players, there are limits to the "They bring everybody back, we've got to move them up" philosophy. Butler has great basketball players, but not great athletes. Once you get into the Top Ten you're talking about teams with super athletes of the type that Butler doesn't get. When Butler doesn't have their shots falling, they can't win a game against a quality team with their pure talent and athleticism. UConn can do that, and Texas can do that, which is why they are legitimate Top Ten contenders. Butler is probably a Top 25 team this year, but #10 was just too high, as I've been saying all the way back since the polls first came out. As for Minnesota, this goes down as a great legitimizing win. They worked their way into the Top 25 last season only to fall all the way out. This year's team is deep enough and talented enough that they should be a contender to win the entire Big Ten.

Portland 74, UCLA 47
I warned you that this might happen. While I don't think anybody saw this victory margin coming it was, to be fair, a little bit of a fluke. Everything Portland threw up at the basket went in, from off-balance layups to banked three-pointers. They shot 54% from the field, including an insane 58% from behind the arc. And UCLA couldn't make anything, shooting 33% from the field and 22% from behind the arc. Other than the shooting, the game was fairly even: Portland had 17 turnovers, UCLA had 16. Portland grabbed 43% of the rebounds when they were on offense, and UCLA grabbed 34% of the rebounds when they were on offense. But here's the problem: why is Portland fighting to a draw on rebounding and ball handling with UCLA, even when you take out the effects of Portland's better shooting? The answer is that Portland is as good as UCLA is this year. UCLA just has no stars this season - the only player who looks like somebody who'd have started for a UCLA team the last decade is Drew Gordon, or perhaps Malcolm Lee. And both of those two are young and still have to develop before they'll fulfill their potential. I asked about a month ago if UCLA was a bubble team, and I think we've got our answer: they are. It's actually not out of the question for California and Washington to be the only NCAA Tournament teams out of the Pac-10. As for Portland, they just need to focus on not having a letdown. Obviously they could really make a splash by beating Minnesota tonight, but the real thing they have to worry about is not having any bad losses. With the success that Gonzaga has had in the WCC tournament, Portland really needs to build up an at-large resume. And a key for mid-major teams is not having those losses to teams like Denver.

Alabama 79, Baylor 76
This was a pretty surprising result considering how poor Alabama (and the entire SEC West) had played so far this season. I was impressed that they were able to basically fight to a draw on the boards, and did a good job of taking care of the ball (only ten turnovers). It will still be an uphill battle to get back into the at-large discussion this season, but they'll have plenty of opportunities. Playing in the SEC West is a huge advantage because of the unbalanced schedule that will allow them to play 10 of their 16 SEC games against that awful division, and they will only have to play the likes of Tennessee and Kentucky once each. As for Baylor, I hyped up this young team back in April, but it appears like they might not be ready for prime time. Ekpe Udoh has been everything I thought he would be and more: he's really just a very savvy inside player, especially for an athletic player who could easily just rely on his natural talent while trying to get away with stupid decisions. But one thing I was counting on that hasn't happened was immedate contributions from star freshman Nolan Dennis. He got 19 minutes in his first regular season for Baylor, but has seen his time decrease due to lack of production. He only got 4 minutes here against Alabama. The other two key freshmen have also been slow to get going: Givon Crump has been getting 7 minutes per game and didn't even play in this one, and A.J. Walton is showing the wild behavior that you often see from true freshmen point guards (4 assists per game, 4 turnovers per game). If Walton can get under control and Anthony Grant can rapidly develop Crump and Dennis then there's no reason that Baylor can't still compete for third place in the Big 12 against teams like Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Kansas State.