Louisville Loses To UNLV... Again

UNLV 76, #16 Louisville 71
UNLV almost blew this one, after letting an 18 point second half lead shrivel completely away, but they managed to pull ahead in the final couple of minutes to collect a very nice early season victory. The Rebels won with a very good, experienced set of guards that wasn't afraid of Louisville's defensive pressure, collecting 21 assists on 27 made baskets, and forcing 16 turnovers of their own. UNLV didn't even shoot particularly well in this one. They came into this game with three consecutive victories over three good teams (Nevada, Southern Illinois, Holy Cross) by an average of over 14 apiece, and they move to 5-0 with very nice computer numbers. They now have three tough games the rest of the way until Christmas week, and all are quite winnable: at Arizona, at Santa Clara, vs Kansas State. If the Rebs can continue their winning ways they might head into Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu at 11-0 and flying high. As for Louisville, there's no reason to draw too much from this game. Let's recall that Rick Pitino's teams always start out slow and finish strong. They lost to UNLV last season also, as well as to Western Kentucky, and still got themselves to #1 in the nation and earned a 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. So if they could do all of that last year then there's no reason to worry too much about another loss to UNLV now. You have to get the sense that Pitino is still working out players combinations when he had ten different players earn double-digit minutes in this game - he'll have to shorten that rotation before Big East play begins. In standard Pitino style they have pretty much a cupcake out-of-conference schedule. This year it will lead up to that big match-up in Lexington against John Calipari's Wildcats on January 2nd.

Bradley 72, #21 Illinois 68
Another close loss for an Illinois team that just had a tough week. They did a better job of rebounding here than in the loss to Utah, but they still couldn't make a shot when they needed one. Just one little hot shooting streak at any time late in the game might have made the difference, but it never came. The Illini now get about a week to regroup before heading to Clemson as part of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. They'll have a few more quality opponents before Big Ten play begins. They're still probably an NCAA Tournament team, but we'll get a better sense over the next month of whether this team will finish near the top of the Big Ten, or whether they'll end up near the Tournament bubble. Bradley, meanwhile, really needed to have this win. After losing to BYU and Oklahoma State they were still without a quality win, and quality wins will be hard to come by in the Missouri Valley. This will probably be the only Top 25 team that they play all season long. And while Illinois probably won't look like a Top 25 scalp by the time March rolls around, this will still be a good check mark to have on the resume. Bradley still could make a run at Northern Iowa in the Missouri Valley, especially since the disappointing play by Creighton down at the Old Spice Classic seems to have dampened expectations that they might be the ones to challenge the Panthers.

St. John's 55, Temple 48
Patience has been running thin among Johnnies fans toward coach Norm Roberts, but his solid recruiting classes - not exactly Lou Carnesecca players, but still better than they had been getting recently - are starting to pay off. They are now 5-0 with wins over Siena and Temple, and this game was practically a road game since it was played at the Palestra. They still have to head to Duke on December 5th, and it's hard to see them pulling the upset there, but every other game that they've got before Big East play begins is one that they can win. If they can find a way to get into Big East play at 11-1 then they'll be in superb position to make their first NCAA Tournament since 2002. Meanwhile, Temple fans shouldn't get too down about this loss. They probably outplayed St. John's, yet while the Johnnies didn't shoot well from the field, Temple was downright awful shooting the ball. They hit 28% from the field, 21% from behind the arc and 60% from the line. The large number of fouls called on them didn't help either. And when you consider that this is only their second loss of the season, with both losses coming to Big East teams, and that those two losses are balanced out by wins over Virginia Tech and Siena, it's hard to be anything but pleased with how this season has begun. Their next test will be against Penn State on December 5th. If Temple can collect another nice victory or two and then avoid bad losses then they'll be in position to earn an at-large bid if they can get a nice enough record in conference play (maybe 11-5 or 12-4, depending on who their wins and losses are against).