Saturday Morning Update

#9 Pittsburgh 65, #7 Duke 64, OT
A great game for those that got a chance to watch it. Duke opened up a big lead in the first half, but Pitt made a strong comeback in the second. In overtime, Levance Fields hit a clutch three-pointer with about 5 seconds to go. Duke had a good shot to come back for the win, but Jon Scheyer rushed an off-balance three with about 3 seconds to go - not realizing that he had so much time left that he got a chance to try to tip in his own rebound. More importantly, however, we finally saw Duke's weakness. All year they've been relying on three point barrages, often scoring a majority of their points on kick-out three-pointers from the likes of Taylor King. But what happened in this game was that they got a bit cold, and the shots weren't falling. In all, Duke went 4-19 from behind the arc. To be fair, Pitt also went 3-19, but they don't rely on the three quite as much. What we found out in this game is that Duke can't really struggle to score off the dribble, and they are too small to get a lot of offensive rebounds. So if the threes aren't falling, they're not going to score a lot of points. Seeing as how Duke still hasn't played a true road game, their great resume so far could just be a result of a home gym that they're very comfortable with. It's very possible that once they start going on the road in the ACC that they're going to struggle. For example, I can see a team like UNC really running all over Duke at Chapel Hill. With this in mind, I'm probably going to drop Duke a seed or so in the next BP65, taking into account future road losses in the ACC.

Oklahoma 72, #20 Gonzaga 68
It's hard to really come up with one reason why Gonzaga lost this game. The free throw shooting was mediocre, but overall the Zags just didn't really look that great in any aspect of their game. This team just doesn't make sense with Mark Few as coach. For so many years, Gonzaga has been greater than the sum of its parts, with elite teams that lacked elite talent. Now, Gonzaga gets blue chip recruiting classes and oozes with talent, yet they just look so blah in all aspects. Yes, they're 9-3 with wins against St. Joe's and UConn. The RPI is 36th and the Sagarin Ranking is 29th. They're still the best team in the WCC (I'm sorry, but St. Mary's is overrated), but I just don't see how they're going to get a really high seed at this point. If they finish something like 23-7, I don't see anything higher than a 7 or 8 seed being possible for these guys. As for Oklahoma, this is a huge win for the Sooners. Up until this point they had played two elite opponents (Memphis and USC) and lost to both of them. Then they'd lost against a bad opponent (Stephen F. Austin) and done nothing else. The RPI was a mess. This win over Gonzaga gives them a win that they can brag about as they near the end of the out of conference season. If they can pull the upset at West Virginia next Saturday, they'll put themselves right back on the bubble.





Don't forget, Memphis vs. Georgetown in 40 minutes. Not to mention a lot of other great games. Check your local listings.