Missouri's 8-Point Possession Beats Illinois

#10 Missouri 75, #21 Illinois 64
Technically Missouri only had a six point possession, but it effectively turned into an eight point possession. What happened was that Illinois scored to cut the deficit to one point with a little over 40 seconds to go. Missouri pushed the ball down the court quickly to an open Laurence Bowers, who hit a layup and was fouled by Mike Tisdale. The refs called it an intentional foul, however, which meant that Bowers was able to take and make two free throws and the team got possession under the basket - a possession that they scored on a backdoor layup. Technically the possession ended then, but Bruce Weber was screaming at the refs on their way back to the other side of the floor and they T'd him up, which meant two more made free throws. Basically eight points on one possession, turning a 1 point lead into a 9 point lead with half a minute to go. A killer, and another disappointing close loss for Illinois. Illinois just doesn't really have a flow offensively down the stretch of games. What they should be doing is letting Demetri McCamey run the offense, and they should be pushing the ball into the paint with Mike Tisdale and Mike Davis in there. Instead, the team barely was able to get the ball to either player, even though Tisdale is one of the most skilled big men in the Big Ten and Davis looked the best he has all season (17 points on 7-for-13 shooting, with 8 rebounds). To me it just seemed like every possession was in control of a different Illinois guard - and while Illinois does have four very good guards, the lack of a consistent flow makes it difficult for them to get clutch baskets when they need them. Illinois is still a good team, of course. They're a Tournament team, and something like the fourth or fifth best team in the Big Ten - but they have problems to clean up that teams with this many seniors and juniors don't usually have. The Illini open Big Ten play on Wednesday at Iowa, and then get Wisconsin at home, in an early test that could be the difference between a place or two in the final Big Ten standings. Missouri remains overrated, in my opinion, but I could see them finishing as high as third in the Big 12. They have a dangerous home game against Old Dominion on December 30th, and then open up Big 12 play at Colorado on January 8th.

#3 Kansas 78, California 63
This was a very chippy game for two teams that really don't have much history. A flagrant foul by Marcus Morris (which got him ejected from the game) seemed to really fire up both of these teams, and it climaxed a few minutes later into what was basically a tag-team wrestling match in the paint. The fighting did seem to fire up Cal for a little while, but in the end the talent gulf was too great. Josh Selby continues to shoot the lights out (3-for-4 behind the arc), and Markieff Morris (21 points, 10 rebounds) stepped up in the absence of his brother. For as long as Duke is without Kyrie Irving, I do think that Kansas is the most complete team in the country. They do have flaws (they're sloppy offensively at times, and can struggle to score if their shots aren't falling), but they have players that can fill any role against any team. They have no clear weakness that can be exploited. California falls to 6-5, but it's fair to point out that all five losses have come to likely RPI Top 100 teams. They also have wins over Iowa State, New Mexico and Temple. They'll get credit on Selection Sunday for playing a tough schedule, but they didn't have quite enough wins and will have an uphill battle heading into the Pac-10 regular season. In a weak Pac-10 they will need to go at least 11-7 to have a realistic shot at an at-large bid.

Northern Iowa 67, Indiana 61
The difference in this game was simple: outside shooting. The teams had the same number of turnovers and blocks, and Indiana had one more steal while UNI had one more assist. UNI had two more offensive rebounds (meaning two extra possessions), but the difference was UNI's 39% three-point shooting, compared to Indiana's 15% outside shooting. This is kind of surprising since Indiana has actually been a strong three-point shooting team this season (38.2%) while UNI has been poor (30.3%). It's not clear yet whether this will be a "bad" loss for Indiana or not, because UNI will likely be right on the border of being an RPI Top 100 team or not (their RPI is currently 66th, but Pomeroy has them as the 85th best team, and Sagarin has them 103rd). But even if it is, it will surprisingly be the first bad loss for Indiana all season. Their other two losses came against Kentucky and Boston College. An important test as far as I am concerned will be tonight against Colorado. I think Indiana is improved enough that they'll actually get onto the edge of the Tournament bubble in February (I think they're at least one more year from getting back into the Tournament, however). But if they're that improved, they should take care of business against a bad Colorado team. They open Big Ten play on December 27th at home against Penn State. I think Penn State is the worst team in the Big Ten, so if Indiana is going to have a decent Big Ten season they really have to start off with a win in what will likely be their easiest game from there on out. As for UNI, as you could probably guess from the computer numbers I threw out earlier that they're a decent team, although a very unlikely Tournament team. They're 8-3 with wins over Iowa State, Indiana and TCU, but they've got a very questionable loss at UW-Milwaukee. The Missouri Valley Conference is most likely going to be a one-bid league, and even if they do get an at-large team it's most likely to be Wichita State, but UNI can get themselves into the discussion if they can beat New Mexico tonight and then finish with a very strong Missouri Valley record (14-4 or better).