Kansas Handles Baylor

#7 Kansas 92, #3 Baylor 74
This was a fun game, but I'm not sure we learned a whole lot. Despite the dumb human poll rankings, most people who follow college basketball closely know that Kansas is the better team, and the Jayhawks were at home. On top of that, Baylor's offense relies on offensive rebounds and put-backs, and few teams are as good at preventing those as Kansas, so this was a bad match-up for the Bears. Throw in 6-for-11 shooting behind the arc for Kansas and you end up with an 18 point margin of victory. One concern for Baylor is that Brady Heslip wasn't getting enough of the ball. He took only three shots (and had two assists) in 26 minutes. Heslip is a tremendous shooter, and Baylor desperately needs players that can stretch the floor on offense. I've talked before about how good shooting nights from Heslip always seem to correlate with good wins for them.

This loss drops Baylor from the ranks of the unbeaten. They are now 17-1, with two undefeated teams remaining (Syracuse and Murray State). Of course, Baylor was never going to finish this season undefeated, and losing on the road still gives them the chance to beat Kansas in Waco. That game will happen February 8th. And they get a chance to bounce back in a big way on Saturday, when they'll play Missouri.

Kansas has, so far this season, been the strongest Big 12 team. They have that upset against Davidson, but their other losses have been to Kentucky and Duke. They have wins over Ohio State, Kansas State, Georgetown and now Baylor. If they win a share of the Big 12 title and win the Big 12 tournament then they'll have an excellent shot at a 1 seed in March. They have a key game on Saturday at Texas, where they'll try to avoid a letdown.

#22 Marquette 74, #21 Louisville 63
Louisville actually led this game 18-2 at one point. They hit 7 of their first 12 shot to make that happen. But eventually their offense clogged up again, and they faltered in the second half of the game. Peyton Siva made a more focused effort to be a facilitator (1-for-4 from the floor, 8 assists), but team efficiency did not improve. They finished with 0.88 PPP - the sixth time in the last nine games that they've scored fewer than one point per possession. Their defense remains excellent, but that offense is just atrocious.

Honestly, I don't understand how Louisville has stayed ranked so long. They've now lost five of their last seven games, and prior to that were two putrid games against Western Kentucky and Charleston, both of which came down to the final minute. They've slid to 35th in the Sagarin PREDICTOR and 41st in Pomeroy. I don't think they'll fall to the bubble, but it's not inconceivable. They are 2-4 in Big East play and will need to get to at least 9-9 in Big East play to avoid the bubble. And their schedule doesn't ease up in the near future. They'll play at Pittsburgh on Saturday, another team that has struggled with offensive efficiency. But Pitt has played better the past two games and will be desperate for a win - that will be a tough game.

Marquette moves to 4-2 in Big East play with this win, and remain as likely as any other team to finish second in the Big East. That said, their big concern is road play. They are 1-3 this season in true road games heading into a game on Saturday at a feisty Providence team. They have road games at UConn, West Virginia and Cincinnati all coming up after mid-February, so they need to figure out how to win road games now so they won't stagger to the finish of the regular season in March.

Valparaiso 72, Cleveland State 66
Tim Kamczyc has emerged as one of the best interior scorers in the country, and he poured in 18 points on 7-for-8 shooting. Unfortunately for him, his teammates shot a combined 33% from the field, and Valpo ran away with the upset victory. Meanwhile, Cleveland State's post defense continues to be a problem. Their 49.6 2P% against is 238th in the nation and third worst in the Horizon League. Valpo shot an incredible 75% on twos in this game.

Cleveland State was the one team in the Horizon League that had a plausible shot at an at-large bid. This loss doesn't end those chances, but it makes it much less likely. That win over Vanderbilt remains their only quality win of the season and they have bad losses to Hofstra, Youngstown State, Valparaiso and South Florida. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS has slipped to 55th. They can't afford to lose too many more times the rest of the season. At 5-2 in Horizon League play, they'll have to finish at least 13-5 to have a shot at an at-large bid heading into the Horizon tournament.

Valpo has improved throughout this season under first-year coach Bryce Drew. In non-conference play they finished 6-5 against Division I opponents with losses to IPFW, Oakland and IUPUI. But they're now 5-2 and tied for second place in the Horizon standings. They'll play at Loyola-Chicago tomorrow, and then at Illinois-Chicago on Saturday.