Morning News: Kentucky Loses... PANIC! (or don't); Also, California Falls To UCSB & Gary Harris Is Out Indefinitely

Gary Harris is out indefinitely

Kentucky Loses... PANIC! (or don't) The Kentucky/Baylor game was buried way late at night on a Friday, so not many people saw it, but Kentucky fans are certainly freaking out about the 67-62 loss. Throw in the typical John Calipari quotes about how his team is terrible and won't beat anybody decent that he gives after every loss, and this is being made into more of a problem than it really is. But really, this is only a disaster if you bought into the 40-0 nonsense. This was a tough game, as I talked about yesterday, with that long, athletic Baylor front line that was going to put pressure on the weakest part of Kentucky's roster - their backcourt. With Baylor owning the glass and the paint, Kentucky's backcourt needed to make the big plays in crunch time, and last night they weren't able to.

In the end, Kentucky has two losses this season but both were against quality opponents, by five points or less, and away from Lexington. The Wildcats are sitting in 10th in Pomeroy and in the Sagarin PREDICTOR. Considering how young this team is, it's reasonable to expect them to improve more than most teams over the course of the season. In other words, Kentucky remains what reasonable people thought they were preseason, a really good team that is the favorite to win the SEC and that will likely earn a 1 or 2 seed and make a run for the Final Four. Only if you believed the 40-0 crap does that prognostication disappoint you.

As an aside, Baylor now has three wins over teams with a good chance to finish in the RPI Top 50 (Kentucky, Colorado and Dayton) and only a loss to Syracuse. Assuming that they get past the four relatively easy opponents prior to Big 12 play, they're going to be in good shape to lock up an at-large bid relatively early this season. Considering the strength of the Big 12 this season, even a 9-9 record probably gets them in, and a 10-8 record will clinch it.

California Falls To UC-Santa Barbara California's defense has struggled mightily these past two weeks, and it's led them to three losses in their last four games. They allowed at least 1.20 PPP in all three of those losses, after not allowing a previous opponent to score more than 1.04. They were also outplayed in the paint here, with Richard Solomon being almost completely shut down.

These are the types of losses that turn bubble teams into NIT teams. Cal has a chance on the road at Creighton in a couple of weeks, but barring the big upset there will enter Pac-12 play with an uphill battle to get back into the Field of 68. And they're going to have to play a lot better than they have the past two weeks to do it.

UC-Santa Barbara joins UC-Irvine with a Pac-12 scalp (UC-Irvine beat Washington). Those two teams also appear to be separating themselves atop the Big West.

Gary Harris Out Indefinitely Gary Harris had been slowed by an ankle injury, and now he's going to get a chance to finally rest it. Michigan State will have him sit out "indefinitely", which basically means that they're going to let him rest it for a couple of weeks and then re-evaluate where he is at that point. Certainly it will be a big problem for Michigan State if he's out for a significant piece of Big Ten play, and certainly they hope that he'll play better once he's back, though it should be noted that it's a bit of a stretch to blame all of his struggles this year on his ankle. Harris is shooting worse this year, but it's because his three-point percentage has gone way down (28% from 41% last season). He's drawing fouls at almost the same rate and shooting two-pointers better. So I don't think it's fair for Michigan State fans to expect a wildly improved Harris once he gets healthy.

The top of the Big Ten is looking more and more like a four team race, between the Spartans, Buckeyes, Badgers and Hawkeyes. The next three weeks don't matter, but once the Big Ten season kicks off in January, Michigan State will need to be at full strength in order to win the league.