Purdue Wins Epic Over Tennessee

#6 Purdue 73, #11 Tennessee 72
This was the best game I've seen so far this season, with two teams already looking like they're in mid-season form. But not only was it a fun game, but I also enjoy how up close and personal the cameras can get at these little tournaments, and because the crowds are so small and quiet you can hear the coaches and players yelling at each other. I particularly enjoyed Bruce Pearl, one of the most animated coaches in the nation, yelling at the refs. At one point I thought he was going to storm over to try to beat up Matt Painter. This game also featured the greatest hustle play I've seen in years, when Chris Kramer dove near halfcourt after a Tennessee dribbler, missed the ball, yet somehow kept sliding down the court... and about 10-15 feet later managed to tip the ball out of bounds off a Tennessee player to give the ball over to Purdue. There's no better way to really describe it, and shamefully the play was not one of the highlights of the game when I saw Sportscenter that night, but somebody on youtube seems to have caught the highlight (here). Anyway, there was a result here, but in reality it doesn't matter all too much. Both of these teams are in play for a 1, 2 or 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and it's mostly going to come down to how they play during conference games. The only chance this game has of being a tiebreaker is perhaps if these two teams are fighting for the last 1 seed, or the last 2 seed. But that's the irony of these match-ups between Top Ten teams: while they're a lot of fun to watch, they don't have nearly as much to do with the eventually Tournament brackets as games between bubble teams.

Arizona 91, Colorado 87, OT
This was a very narrow win that means a whole lot for this Arizona team. Because really, they should have lost. Nic Wise did have a great game (30 points, 6 assists), but Arizona just won because they got white hot from behind the arc (14-for-24 for the game) while Colorado was ice cold (5-for-19). Colorado was the better rebounding team (total rebounds were 33-to-33, but that was because of the shooting disparity. Colorado collected offensive boards on 31% of their missed shots, while Arizona only collected them on 22% of theirs), and also won the turnover battle, leading to 9 more shots from the field and 9 more shots from the line. It's rare that a team gets that many more shot attempts than their opponents and still loses. For Arizona, a win over Colorado won't mean much in the big picture, because Colorado is not particularly good. But what it does is give them a chance to do is to salvage the Maui Invitational today by beating Vanderbilt. Arizona really needed one nice win from this tournament, and Chaminade wasn't going to do it for them. If they can get that win today then they'll actually be in good shape because of how bad the Pac-10 is. Can anybody honestly say that Arizona hasn't been playing at least as well as any of the other teams fighting for third place in the Pac-10 (UCLA, Arizona State, Oregon, Oregon State, etc)? I find it hard to believe the Pac-10 won't get at least three Tournament teams, so if Arizona can finish third, then collect a scalp or two out-of-conference while avoiding bad losses, I think that adds up to an at-large resume.

Florida 68, Florida State 52
A nice early season victory for Florida over their intrastate rivals. Kenny Boynton looks like he'll be one of the better freshmen in the nation, and I also like the skill set Dan Werner brings, with his ability to drag his defenders outside with his shooting ability. Florida is going to be in a battle all season in the SEC East with teams like Vanderbilt and South Carolina for third place. The fact is that as good as the SEC East is, the SEC West is so bad that it gives the appearance that the conference as a whole stinks. And it's just going to look really bad if Florida finishes in fourth or fifth out of six teams in one division of that SEC. And their SEC record will also end up being better than it appears because they have to play 10 of their 16 games against the East, while some SEC West teams will get to fatten up their record on other SEC West teams. Unfortunately, they did a poor job of scheduling out-of-conference teams. Their remaining schedule involves a game at Michigan State, a home game against Syracuse, and then a bunch of cream puffs (other than, perhaps, Richmond or whichever team they play in the Legend's Classic: Rutgers or UMass). That puts a lot of pressure on Florida to knock off one of those two teams (both currently ranked in the Top Ten), or they potentially will have no RPI Top 50 wins out of conference (or even RPI Top 100, depending on where Florida State, Richmond and UMass end up). That really puts them in the uncomfortable position of potentially having to put together an 11-5 or better record in a tough SEC East. As for Florida State, this season was always going to be about rebuilding. I never understood why people thought it would be so easy to replace Toney Douglas when he was their entire offense last season. They can still rebound and play good defense without him, but their offense was absolutely lost last season when he was on the bench, and they don't appear to have gotten much better. They could still make a run at an at-large bid, but until they show that they have offensive weapons I'd bet against it.