St. John's Nearly Upsets Texas A&M, Norfolk State Shocks Drexel

#18 Texas A&M 58, St. John's 57
I talked yesterday about how I thought this game might not even be particularly close, but St. John's was actually agonizingly close to winning this game outright. Nurideen Lindsey was at the line with 2.3 seconds left and a chance to tie or win, and missed both. Now that said, Texas A&M can feel like the Johnnies were kept in this game by the refs. The hustle stats were fairly similar - St. John's had narrowly more steals (9-to-7) and more blocks (2-0), and lost the rebounding battle (Texas A&M had a 50.0 OR% to 35.5% for St. John's), but the foul stats were nowhere similar. Texas A&M was called for twice as many fouls (25-to-12) and the free throw differential was staggering (38-to-3). St. John's was more aggressive and did deserve a few more free throws, but when you've got a differential that vast it's due to some home cooking from the refs.

But despite playing well in their two games here in the final rounds of Coaches vs Cancer, St. John's leaves with a pair of close losses. Both are quality losses, but it's a missed opportunity. They will get an easy game next, on Tuesday against St. Francis, but then the schedule picks up again with games against Northeastern, Kentucky, Detroit and Fordham. Texas A&M finishes third at Coaches vs Cancer, but in underwhelming fashion. Beating St. John's by one point and losing to Mississippi State by nine was surely not how they thought these two games would go. To be fair, as I've said a couple of times, we've got to give Billy Kennedy more time to get his system implemented. It's really unprecedented to have a coach take over at a major university and to come down with such a serious disease before even coaching his first game. The Aggies have some time to do that now, as they head into Cupcake City for the next few weeks. Their next quality game is on December 17th at Florida.

Norfolk State 61, Drexel 56
I know that Drexel is a team that has gotten zero national, or even regional, attention this season. But this is a Drexel team that a lot of people, including me, thought had a chance to be pretty good this season. Drexel was a Top 100 team last year that returned all but one player from their regular rotation. Drexel was actually picked by the media to win the Colonial, though I wasn't quite that high on them. I have them as one of the teams seriously considered for the BP68 and narrowly left out. And that's what makes this loss bizarre - Norfolk State is just a bad team. Norfolk State is likely going to finish in the bottom half of the MEAC, which is one of the worst conferences in Division I. And this loss wasn't really a fluke - the game was pretty even. The teams were nearly even in rebounds, turnovers, shooting, etc. Drexel just ended up in a very close game, and when you're in a very close game there's a decent probability that you're going to lose.

Not only is this a terrible loss, but it also knocks Drexel into the Consolation Bracket at the Paradise Jam. They'll next play Virginia, this afternoon, and then will play Monday against either Drake or Winthrop. Norfolk State, meanwhile, somehow finds themselves in the semifinals of a good preseason tournament. Their next game will be this evening against TCU. On Monday they'll play their final game, against either Marquette or Ole Miss.

Indiana State 57, Ball State 50
It's been an unfortunate start to the season for Ball State. After a narrow loss at Arizona, this would have been a nice victory, and they nearly won the game after coming back from 20 points down in the second half. They actually won the turnover and rebounding battles, but they were doomed by shooting. They were an atrocious 10-for-43 from the field with 7:30 to go when they trailed by 17 points. A 6-for-7 stretch over the next seven minutes got them within five points with under 30 seconds to go. But a missed three followed by an open dunk for Indiana State's Dwayne Lathan, who was flagrantly fouled by Aaron Adeoye - leading to two free throws, the ball, and an ejection for Adeoye - doomed Ball State. It was a bad way for this game to end. From Indiana State's perspective, they got a bit of a breakout game from their top 2011 recruit Justin Gant, who had five blocks in only 19 minutes. Gant is only 2-for-8 shooting on the season, and he's obviously raw offensively, but he has athletic potential.

It's a disappointing start for the team I picked to win the MAC, but they haven't played poorly. They've just had two close losses against a pair of quality opponents. They should win their next few games heading into their next quality opponent - Butler, on December 10th. Indiana State is now 3-0 heading into a home game against UW-Green Bay on Monday, followed by a trip to the Old Spice Classic. In Orlando they'll be opening up on Thanksgiving against Texas Tech. Their second game will be the next day against either Minnesota or DePaul. As good as the Missouri Valley has been in the early going this season (very close behind the Atlantic Ten for top mid-major conference in both Sagarin and Pomeroy), Indiana State could actually start getting some at-large hype if they can take care of UW-GB and then win at least two of their three games in Orlando.