Tennessee Turns Its Season Around

#10 Tennessee 71, #23 Mississippi 69, OT
You had to figure that Tennessee was going to have a reality check loss after that huge win against Kansas, and Ole Miss seemed to be providing it by absolutely dominating this game for the first 30 minutes. Tennessee was down 12 with nine minutes to go. But somehow, Tennessee chipped away at the lead, took things to overtime, and finally pulled out the big victory. And while it seemed like Tennessee's short rotation (only six eligible scholarship players) was going to eventually wear them down. Bruce Pearl has now announced that Cameron Tatum and Melvin Goins will be back at practice tomorrow. Tyler Smith, of course, was dismissed from the team, meaning that the only player left in purgatory is Brian Williams. Tennessee is still overrated (they're going to probably be ranked 7th or 8th in the nation on Monday, and that's ridiculous), but they've clearly survived this storm, and many of the players on the team are perhaps better basketball players because of it. It seems like the team has rallied around Bruce Pearl and is playing its heart out. As for Ole Miss, they fall to 13-4, but 1-2 in the SEC. They still only have one good win this season (Kansas State, back in November), and their RPI has slipped to 45th. Figuring that Tennessee and Kentucky have their Tournament bids sewn up, I see four SEC teams on the bubble right now: Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and Florida. All of them have similar resumes right now, but not all of them will earn at-large bids. Ole Miss has got to start winning games over quality SEC teams to try to differentiate themselves in a positive way.

#18 Georgia Tech 73, #13 North Carolina 71
North Carolina looked a bit shell-shocked to start this game, as they're still reeling from what's happened the past couple of weeks, and Georgia Tech actually opened up a shocking 29-9 lead to start this game in the Dean Dome. North Carolina fought all the way back and actually grabbed a lead with under five minutes to go, but Georgia Tech had an answer for every big UNC shot down the stretch. There continue to be all sorts of problems with the North Carolina lineup. Marcus Ginyard had yet another clunker of a game, and Larry Drew is struggling because he's trying too hard to create offense (he had nine assists, but they came with five assists, which is not a great ratio for a point guard). Dexter Strickland barely saw the floor, which makes no sense to me. I'm not pretending to know more basketball than Roy Williams, but I don't understand why he continues to throw out big lineups when his team's ballhandling problems are so bad. Tyler Zeller also is a big loss from the lineup, and might not be back for a month or more. Because John Henson is producing almost nothing for the team on the floor, the Tar Heels are depending heavily on Travis Wear, which is not the way that North Carolina fans envisioned the season going. This loss drops them to 1-2 in the ACC, and makes me question where I'm going to project them in the bracket. I've been keeping them as the ACC champion because they just seem like a horrible match-up for Duke, and I can't see Duke beating them in an ACC title game. But is North Carolina falling off so far that they might not even be in that game? As for Georgia Tech, this gives them a big win for their resume, and they move to 2-2 in the ACC with two more tough games right ahead (vs Clemson, at Florida State). With North Carolina falling off, the ACC title is opened up now to potential dark horses like Clemson, Wake Forest and Georgia Tech.

Washington 84, California 69
This game wasn't even as close as the final score. Washington opened up a 25 point first half lead, and Cal went on a big run over the final few minutes to cut the lead to 15, the smallest their deficit was since the opening ten minutes of the game. Washington showed why I picked them in the preseason to win the Pac-10 over California: they're just a horrible match-up for Cal. The Bears have no answer inside for Quincy Pondexter, who went for 25 points on only 15 shots from the field. And Washington has good defensive guards who can contain Cal's explosive backcourt of Jerome Randle and Patrick Christopher. Christopher got his 20+ points, like he always does, but it was fairly inefficient (6-for-16 from the field). And Cal had 21 turnovers, compared to only 14 for Washington. After three straight losses, Washington is back with two straight good wins, and at 3-3 they are only one game out of first place in the Pac-10. It will probably only take a 13-5 record to win the conference, so Washington continues to be the favorite in my mind. As for Cal, they are still my pick to finish second in the conference, but they have to bounce back next week with two winnable home games against Oregon and Oregon State.