Texas Reaffirms Its Place Atop Big 12

#8 Texas 74, Wisconsin 69
Anybody whose favorite team has ever tried to win in Wisconsin knows how impressive of a victory this is. Bo Ryan loses about one game per year at home, and Texas looked very impressive in stealing a victory here. One thing I don't think a lot of people realize is just how big this Texas team is. They're more than just Dexter Pittman (who played only 8 minutes in this one with foul trouble) on the inside. It will be extremely interesting to watch them bang bodies with Oklahoma, where a football game might just break out. For Wisconsin, this is their third loss, but all have been close losses against elite teams (that 19 point loss to UConn doesn't look close, but it was a 2 point game halfway through the second half before UConn ran up the score in the last few minutes). And Wisconsin got a very lucky draw in the Big Ten regular season. With 11 teams and 18 games, each Big Ten team plays 8 opponents twice, and only two opponents once. For Wisconsin, the two opponents they're only getting once are Michigan State and Ohio State. In other words, they have the easiest regular season schedule of any Big Ten team. Throwing in the fact that they basically never lose home conference games, and it's hard to see Wisconsin doing any worse than 11-7. That will be plenty to assure another Tournament bid.

Arizona 84, Kansas 67
The schizophrenic Arizona Wildcats struck again, bouncing back after the annihilation at UNLV to crush Kansas. The lead was only three points at halftime, but Arizona opened up a lead early in the second half and it was never close after that. I think this game was a bit of a shock for the young Kansas big men, as they got completely blown off the boards by Jordan Hill and the Wildcats. Arizona had as many offensive rebounds (17) as Kansas had defensive rebounds, and that was the difference in this one, as guard play was something of a draw. The thing with this Arizona team is that you just never know which team is going to show up. With this win, along with that win over Gonzaga, Arizona's out-of-conference resume will actually end up pretty good. But with a weak Pac-10, I don't know if 10-8 will be enough. They might need to go 11-7, which means they're going to have to show enough consistency to go on some winning streaks. Only time will tell if they can pull things together. For Kansas, the early excitement from that demolition of Washington a month ago has worn off. They are a talented team, but they don't yet have an identity. While some were originally predicting that this team might contend for a Big 12 title, Texas and Oklahoma have blown by them and will not look back. So the question is whether Kansas can make the Tournament at all, as they currently sit with an 8-3 record that includes zero wins over any likely Tournament teams. Their RPI is currently 123rd, but I wouldn't pay too much attention to that, as there are several teams with out-of-whack RPIs this early in the year. Pomeroy has them 21st, which I think is the pendulum going too far in the other direction. Sagarin seems to have them right in the middle, at 36th in the nation. I trust Sagarin more than the other computer rankings in general, so I'll take that to be a better approximation of where they stand. The good news from Sagarin is also that he puts their ELO_CHESS at 56th, with a PREDICTOR of 14th. In other words, they are underperforming so far, and should improve their won/loss results as the year goes along. Their next four tests are all tough ones: Albany, Tennessee, Siena and Michigan State. All are dangerous foes, and even a 2-2 result would be acceptable.

Stanford 77, Santa Clara 68
I felt like I needed to follow up on this game after previewing it earlier this week. I called this a game that Stanford should win, and that if they wanted to be a Tournament team they needed to win it. And they did take care of business, hanging on to victory here with vastly superior guard play. That doesn't mean that they're suddenly into everybody's bracket because they beat Santa Clara, but simply that we could choose not to take them seriously if they were to be defeated. We have got to take note of the fact that Stanford is now 8-0 and only has two winnable home games between now and the new year (Texas Tech and Hartford). If they're 10-0 heading into that Pac-10 opener versus Arizona State on January 3rd, you can bet that people will start paying attention to this squad. Can a 20-8 Stanford team with a 10-8 Pac-10 record make the Tournament? Maybe. It depends if they collect a big scalp, and if they have a respectable performance in the Pac-10 tournament.