Morning News: Creighton Smokes Arizona St, Purdue Hangs Tough & America Meets Kellen Dunham

*Burp*

I hope you all enjoyed Turkey Day with your families. In between all the food and football and naps were some good college basketball games. Let's talk about some of them:

Creighton Smokes Arizona State Creighton shoots the ball so well on an average night that when they're "hot" they're almost unstoppable. They defeated Arizona State by 28 late last night, and the game was never competitive. They led 24-9 by the second tv timeout, and never looked back. In a year where the Big East doesn't appear to have a dominant team, this is the type of performance that will get some to argue for Creighton as the conference favorite. I'm not ready to go there yet, but they're obviously a contender, and they're going to be a really scary team to see in your draw in March.

As for the Sun Devils, there's no reason for panic. Jahii Carson struggled and Creighton shot the lights out. Sometimes it's just not your night. But this loss pretty much guarantees that they'll leave the Wooden Legacy without a quality win. They'll play Charleston on Saturday followed by either Miami (Fl) or Cal State Fullerton on Sunday. None of those potential wins will move the needle in March, but if they can take care of business and avoid a bad loss then they'll still enter the Pac-12 regular season in good shape to make a run at an at-large bid.

Purdue Hangs In Tough Against Oklahoma State Marcus Smart had 30 points and Oklahoma State got a nice win over undefeated Purdue. But that's not news. Smart has been vastly improved over last season and it seems pretty clear that Oklahoma State is a Top Ten team. We knew they were good. This game was about a Purdue squad that looked awfully feisty, even after falling behind by 24 points.

Last season was all about rebuilding the Purdue roster, and they were awfully young. They're still very young, but they returned everybody other than DJ Byrd, and have supplemented the roster with a deep recruiting class, led by Kendall Stephens, Bryson Scott and Jay Simpson. That depth showed up yesterday, as 11 different players earned at least 9 minutes. Matt Painter has a lot of options if things aren't working.

Is Purdue a Tournament team? They look like a bubble team. They will play Washington State later today, and then will have one more game in Orlando before coming home to play Boston College next week. The Boilermakers aren't supposed to beat Oklahoma State, but if they're going to go Dancing I'd like to see them take care of business over the next week.

Kellen Dunham, Meet America. America, Meet Kellen Dunham. Butler players not named Kellen Dunham or Khyle Marshall scored a combined 14 points in this game. But that was enough for a good 76-69 win over Washington State. Kellen Dunham, in particular, was a star. He had 32 points, including 6-for-9 behind the arc. And after Washington State took a three point lead with approximately 3:30 to go, Dunham personally outscored Wazzu 11-4 down the stretch, including three monster three-pointers. Considering the fact that Dunham was more or less a complementary player last season, this game on national television during Thanksgiving was the first exposure a lot of casual fans had to him. And we should see a lot more of him as this season goes along.

Iowa Escapes Xavier... Barely The Iowa Hawkeyes trailed Xavier by 14 points with around 14 minutes to go, but Roy Devyn Marble (30 points) led them back to a hard-fought overtime victory. And this was a battle, with guys wearing down and keeling over with cramps. The best player for each team (Semaj Christon for Xavier and Marble for Iowa) were simultaneously stuck on the sidelines for an extended period of time late.

In the end, trying to draw too much meaning from who wins a game like this is always a mistake. The fact that Iowa fought back in a game like this is great for them, even if they had ended up falling in overtime - it doesn't matter in that respect. But this game matters for resumes, with Iowa picking up their first quality win of the season. At the same time, this is a tough loss for Xavier's resume. The Musketeers have a good chance of being stuck on the bubble in February, and a win over Iowa would have really helped.

UTEP Upsets Tennessee After Tim Floyd and Andy Enfield got into a slight disagreement at a pre-Battle 4 Atlantis reception, a lot of people (including me) were looking forward to a potential UTEP/USC match-up Sadly, it is not to be, as USC lost their opener while UTEP won theirs. They'll get a rematch with Xavier later today, having lost to them back on November 12th. Considering that they'll play either USC or Wake Forest in their final game, the Xavier match-up is their last chance for a quality win before leaving the Bahamas. As a likely bubble team in February, this Xavier game could play a significant role in whether they end up going Dancing or not.

As for UTEP, it's pretty clear what their model is this season. They are going to try to overwhelm teams with their size. They probably aren't good enough in the backcourt to make a serious run at an at-large bid, but they can change some minds in that regard if they can upset Iowa later today. Certainly they'll want to steal one more win in the Bahamas to make up for those two early season losses to New Mexico State.