Best Performance: UMass The Minutemen played something of a Bubble Battle yesterday. In my most recent bracket, Boston College was one of the last teams in and UMass was one of the first teams out. On this day, at least, UMass crushed Boston College. Chaz Williams picked up where he left off last season, but the real story was the Minuteman front court. They physically annihilated Boston College, finishing with 21 offensive rebounds to only 27 total rebounds for the Eagles. Rebounding was a significant problem for BC last season, and this is a really bad sign to start this season. UMass, short of a clunker against LSU on Tuesday, is likely moving into my next bracket projection. How could they not?
Worst Performance: Oregon State The Oregon State Beavers losing to a terrible team in non-conference play, a fall tradition unlike any other. They fell to Coppin State last night, joining Towson from last season, Idaho the year before, and both Seattle and Texas Southern the year before that. Few figured that Oregon State was going to seriously contend for an at-large bid this season, but they were supposed to be improved at least. This is just another deflating loss to lead off another season. You have to wonder if this season might finally be the end of Craig Robinson.
Most Confusing Performance: Iowa Coming off an impressive 82-39 thrashing UNC-Wilmington, Iowa looked like the Top 20 team that have the real potential to be. But that's what made this performance so confusing. They actually trailed Nebraska-Omaha by 7 points at halftime, and were still in a battle in the final 90 seconds before pulling away for an 8 point victory. And honestly, they really could have lost. Omaha did them a favor by only hitting 29% of their threes and 69% of their free throws.
Iowa was just sloppy and lazy on both ends of the floor here. They committed 50% more turnovers (18) than assists (12), and allowed 17 offensive rebounds against an Omaha team that finished 337th in the nation with a 24.5 OR% last season. Teams are allowed their bad nights, but a performance like this against any Big Ten team would have led to a certain loss. Iowa will have to figure out what went wrong here if they're going to contend for a Big Ten title.
Living Up To The Hype So Far: Julius Randle While bad NBA teams this season are "Riggin' for Wiggins", there are many who view Kentucky's Julius Randle as the best freshman in the nation. Kentucky has only played a pair of cupcakes so far, so take things with a grain of salt, but so far Randle has been dominant. He followed up a 23 point, 15 rebound performance in his debut with a 22 points, 14 rebound performance yesterday. Tuesday night he and the Wildcats go up against Michigan State, a match-up that you can't afford to miss.
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