Monday, January 25, 2010

UConn Stuns Texas

#21 Connecticut 88, #1 Texas 74
This was a game that Texas was supposed to win, coming off of their overdue reality check loss against Kansas State. It was not just surprising that UConn won this game, but how they stayed in this game: with three pointers. UConn had barely been attempting three pointers against elite competition, and had hit them at a very poor clip even when given the chance, yet they hit 6-for-15 for this game. The three-point shooting kept the game close, but it was the free throw situation that won it. Texas committed 15 more fouls, and UConn hit 17 more free throws (more than the margin of victory). A little bit of that might have been some home cooking from the refs, but you have to give Kemba Walker and Jerome Dyson a lot of credit for diving into the lane and earning those freebies. With their rebounding and defense, it doesn't take a whole lot of offense for UConn to win games. This win also boosts the hopes of a UConn team that might have actually fallen all the way to the bubble with another loss or two. At 3-3 they are still in a tie for 8th place in the Big East, but this win puts them pretty safely into the NCAA bracket for good. As for Texas, the fact that this game doesn't count in the conference standings means that they're still in the driver's seat for the Big 12 regular season title. I think we all tend to go overboard when teams lose a couple of games in a row in January, the same way everybody overreacted about Purdue and is now overreacting about UNC. It's a long season, and this point in the season is like July in a major league baseball season: you're far enough along that you're worn out, but you're not close enough to the end of the regular season to get that second wind. I still think Texas will be a 1 seed.

Oklahoma State 73, #9 Kansas State 69
This wasn't really too big of a surprise, considering that teams rarely don't have hiccups after knocking off a top team (which is why it was so amazing that Tennessee made it about two weeks after the Kansas win before finally losing a game). These are the types of games that always happen after you're out late celebrating a win over a #1 team and a Top Ten ranking: 28% three-point shooting, 58% free throw shooting, 16 turnovers... just an all around bad game. Kansas State has a good home crowd, and they managed to force enough turnovers to make nice runs in the middle of both the first and second halves, but Oklahoma State just looked sharper and won the game. James Anderson is getting the attention for this win because he had 30 points - but Anderson always scores 20+ points. The player I was most impressed with was Nick Sidorakis, who just seemed to be in the middle of every key play. Much of what Sidorakis did is the type of stuff that doesn't show up in the boxscore, but it's the type of stuff that wins big games. And this is a huge win for an Oklahoma State team that is still on the bubble, even with this win (although they'd definitely be in the field of 65 if the season ended today). The Cowboys move to 3-2 in the Big 12, and probably can clinch an at-large bid if they can get to 10-6. At 9-7 their bid will depend on who they beat, how they finish, and how weak or strong the bubble ends up this season. As for Kansas State, there was no question that they'd have a reality check loss - if it didn't come here it would have come tomorrow night against Baylor. The question now is how they respond to this. They have a tough upcoming schedule (at Baylor, vs Kansas, at Nebraska, at Iowa State), and there's a risk of letting a single loss snowball.

#12 West Virginia 71, #25 Ohio State 65
Ohio State looked to be running away with this one, leading by double digits for most of the first half and taking a 12 point lead into the break. But some hot shooting from Da'Sean Butler and Wellington Smith evened this game back up, and the Buckeyes just couldn't get a big shot to fall down the stretch. More than anything, this is a good win for the confidence of West Virginia coming off a very shaky win against Marshall. At 4-2 they are only in fifth place in the Big East, but with a very easy upcoming stretch they could easily get back in championship hunt. I still think that a 14-4 record will be good enough for a share of the Big East title, so the Mountaineers just have to take care of business over the next couple of weeks, where they'll be favored in every single game. As for the Buckeyes, they lost a chance here to really make some national noise after winning three straight very impressive games (at Purdue, vs Wisconsin, and by 20 over Northwestern) since Evan Turner has gotten back to full strength. I still think that they're one of the Top 15 teams in the country with Turner, but even so it was never going to be easy winning at West Virginia. At 4-3 they are three games out of first place in the Big Ten, but their schedule has been much tougher than Michigan State's and I expect that margin to close. They don't have another particularly difficult game for about three weeks, so the Buckeyes will have a shot at still being in contention when their schedule gets very tough in the second half of February.

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