Don't Read Too Much Into Ohio St. Over Duke or LMU Over Saint Louis

#2 Ohio State 85, #4 Duke 63
This was obviously a tremendous result for the Buckeyes. Ohio State played excellent in every facet of the game, and Duke was run off the floor. But before I talk about the game let me just say that mainstream sportswriters always put too much emphasis on games like this. Duke is going to have a bad game or two this season. Sometimes Ohio State will be firing on all cylinders. It happens. Remember, Duke was run off the floor by St. John's last season, and nobody at the end of the season really thought that St. John's was the better team.

What did Ohio State do right in this game? For one thing they hit their threes (8-for-14). The ability of Deshaun Thomas, in particular, to hit from outside spread out Duke and opened things up for Jared Sullinger. It also helped them to somehow fight to a draw on the boards against a bigger Duke team. I felt like the Blue Devils were too passive in the paint, and should have run every possession through one of the Plumlees or Ryan Kelly. As good as Austin Rivers is, an offensive possession that consists of him taking his man off the dribble without looking to pass isn't the type of offense Coach K wants to run.

I thought before this game that Ohio State was the better team, so when you throw in the homecourt advantage I expected them to win this game by 5-8 points or so. They ended up playing much better than Duke, but it should be obvious that Ohio State won't always play this well, and Duke won't always play this poorly. Duke will have a week before they can take out their frustrations on Colorado State. Ohio State plays Texas-Pan American on Saturday, but then a week later will head to Kansas to test themselves on the road. The Buckeyes haven't played a road game all season, so it will be interesting to see how they play in their first hostile environment.

Loyola-Marymount 75, Saint Louis 68
Saint Louis came into this game 6-0 with wins over Villanova, Oklahoma and Washington. So what happened? It was a classic letdown game, coming off a huge tournament victory at the 76 Classic and traveling to a decent mid-major on the other side of the country from home. It's the perfect situation for a poor performance. I don't think it's a coincidence that the winners of the Maui Invite (Duke) and Old Spice Classic (Dayton) both had clunkers in their first games after tournament victories as well.

With all the quality wins Saint Louis has had, this loss won't hurt them too badly. They've still got a Tournament quality resume so far. The key will be not allowing one clunker to snowball into a slump. And their next two games are against opponents that they should beat, but that are in no sense cupcakes (Portland and Vermont).

This is Loyola-Marymount's second big win of the season after beating UCLA. Their loss to Middle Tennessee State isn't that terrible of a loss, and their only other loss was to a very good Harvard team. They're not going to contend for an at-large bid, but they're playing well. In fact, the WCC as a whole has gotten off to a really strong start to this season. Both Sagarin and Pomeroy actually rate the conference as better than Conference USA (I say that with the usual caveat that the computer ratings are still fairly inaccurate this early in the season). Santa Clara, another team that has over-performed, will probably contend for Loyola-Marymount for fourth place, behind the trio of Gonzaga, BYU and Saint Mary's. They have a few cupcakes coming up, starting with Columbia on Friday.

Oregon 64, UTEP 59
Oregon struggled to play efficiently in this game, despite being at home against a team they're better than. They lost the rebounding battle and committed 15 turnovers. It took some hot outside shooting (44% on threes) and a breakout performance from sophomore Johnathan Loyd (24 points on 8-for-11 shooting) to escape with a win. But what was encouraging was that they did find a way to win. Good teams are going to struggle from time to time, and this is the type of game that Oregon would have lost in previous seasons. They're much better and more consistent now.

Oregon also has a win over Nebraska, and their only loss was to Vanderbilt. They're definitely a potential Bubble team, though I'll have to see more before I'm willing to put them in my bracket. They get a chance for a nice win on Saturday, when they play BYU. Their only other quality opponent before starting Pac-12 play will be Virginia, on December 18th.

UTEP has really struggled this season. This was arguably the best they've played all season, honestly. They are 1-4 with a couple of bad losses (UT-San Antonio and Stephen F Austin) and their only win coming over a cupcake (UC-Riverside). They will try to break through on Sunday when New Mexico State comes to town.