Tennessee Stuns Kansas

#15 Tennessee 76, #1 Kansas 68
In many ways, this was a pretty amazing result. Tennessee was missing four of their best players due to suspension (one, Tyler Smith, has already been expelled from the team for good), and was dependent on a lot of key minutes and shots from walk-ons. One of the key three-pointers, with about a minute to go, was hit by a walk-on. If I was going to name one player who really has stepped up it's been Renaldo Woolridge, who was a prospect getting just a few minutes per game off the bench before the suspensions, and has been one of the most explosive players since the suspensions. He led the team with eight rebounds here, and also put in an efficient 14 points on only six shots from the field. But that said, it would be a big mistake to draw too much from this one game. This was a Tennessee team playing on emotions, desperate to prove that they could play could play without the suspended players, carried by an outstanding home crowd, laying everything on the floor to try to take out the top team in the land. They will not play like this every night. Not to mention that they might start to wear out depending on such a short rotation of players. Can they really depend on continuing to get big quality minutes out of Kenny Hall and Steven Pearl? Besides, Kansas was due for a loss. Like the two remaining undefeated teams (Kentucky and Texas), Kansas has had a number of close calls. They were due to finally lose one of these games. But Texas or Kentucky easily could have lost multiple games themselves so far, so this doesn't change my opinion that Kansas is the best team in the country. Nobody will go undefeated this season, although Kentucky might go for a while longer when you consider how easy their next few weeks of games will be. This win proves to me that Tennessee is still firmly in the NCAA Tournament, but their hopes of a regular season SEC title are over, even with this big win.

#4 Villanova 94, Louisville 86
This seemed like a game that Louisville should have won. They've been following the classic Rick Pitino style of playing awful in the fall, and then getting hot in January. And they looked like they were going to run away with this thing as they opened up a seemingly insurmountable 17 point lead here, on their home floor. But two things got in their way. First of all, the refs lost control of this game. They called an insane 66 fouls (33 on each team), with the game not even being particularly rough. I've seen teams play more aggressive and tough than this and get called for half as many fouls. Second, Villanova went unconscious behind the arc, hitting 9-for-14 for the game. Louisville ended up taking 11 more shots from the field, but hit five less, due to 32% shooting for themselves, and 49% for their opponent. This win would have pushed Louisville up to 4-0 in the Big East, but now they are 3-1 and head to a white-hot Pittsburgh team next. I think Louisville will continue to improve and will probably finish somewhere around 12-6 in Big East play, but they can't allow one tough loss to snowball into a series of losses. As for Villanova, they now move to 4-0 in the Big East and have a great opportunity to make a run for the Big East title. They next play Georgetown at home, with the opportunity to really gap one of their key challengers in the Big East. And they then have four pretty easy games ahead before the schedule gets tougher with road games at Georgetown and West Virginia on February 6th and 8th, respectively.

Oklahoma 62, Oklahoma State 57, OT
Oklahoma State has to be wondering how they lost this game. They were more efficient rebounding the ball and forced six more steals. In all they took 11 more shots from the field. But I'll tell you why they lost: they couldn't hit a shot to save their lives. In all, the Cowboys hit 27.5% from the field. I could focus on any of their players, but I'll focus on Obi Muonelo and Keiton Page, who are two of Oklahoma State's three best players, who hit a combined 2-for-19 from the field. And it's not like Travis Ford had some more players to turn to: his bench went 0-for-8 from the field themselves. This is a tough loss for Oklahoma State not just because it came against their in-state rival, but also because they're trying to find a way to put an at-large resume together. They are 1-1 in the Big 12 and 13-3 overall, but their only good win is over Texas Tech. Their RPI is 27th, but that won't hold up unless they start playing better. Sagarin and Pomeroy put them in the 50-55th range. Their next game is Saturday afternoon against Baylor. For Oklahoma, this is a big win as they were in a position to potentially fall out of the at-large discussion altogether. This win gets them to 10-6 overall, including a very poor 5-6 against the RPI Top 200. This is by far their best win of the season (a win over Arizona is the only other quality win), They probably have to get to 10-6 in the Big 12 to go the Tournament.