UCLA Upsets BYU

I apologize for falling a little bit behind on my game recaps. Here are a few left over from Saturday:

UCLA 86, #18 BYU 79
The UCLA players headed into this game talking about playing for John Woodon, who had passed away since the last time the team played in a Wooden Classic. They lived up to their promise, winning in dominant fashion over BYU. They got an assist from Jimmer Fredette, who had his worst game in a while (7 turnovers, 2-for-8 shooting behind the arc), but UCLA's frontline dominated the boards and they ended up with ten more shots from the field, and five more from the line. UCLA not only keeps themselves over .500 with this win, but it also represents their first quality win of the season. They do have a loss to Montana, though, and will have to go at least 11-7 in Pac-10 play to make the Tournament. BYU is just going to have to shake this loss off - there are always a lot of strange upsets that happen this time of the year, and BYU was coming off a dominant 22 point thumping of Arizona. They're 10-1 overall and remain among the three teams likely contending for the Mountain West title. BYU does have a deceptively difficult game tomorrow night at Weber State, and they follow that up with a game against UTEP on Thursday night. They need to be wary of another upset.

Wichita State 70, LSU 69
I was underwhelmed with Wichita State in this game. They are my pick to win the Missouri Valley Conference, and should be good enough to contend for an at-large bid as well, but they needed a late clutch three-pointer to survive a very mediocre LSU team. They completely shut down LSU in the first half (23% shooting from the field) and opened up a 14 point halftime lead, but fell asleep in the second half. If they let off the pedal like this on the road against an SEC team, how are they going to avoid several bad losses in conference? It just continues to look more and more like the Valley will be a one-bid league again. Still, despite no good wins (a win over Virginia is the best), Wichita State is 8-2 without bad losses. If they can defy the odds and go something like 15-3 in Valley play, an at-large bid isn't out of the quesiton. Meanwhile, LSU falls to 7-4, but it's a tremendously soft 7-4. They have zero good wins, and losses to Nicholls State and Coastal Carolina. They are nowhere close to being a postseason quality team.

Virginia Tech 88, Mississippi State 57
Welcome to the Renardo Sidney era! The hyped 2009 recruit who missed all of last season with a suspension technically played his first game on Wednesday in a exhibition against Belhaven, but this was his first regular season game. Sidney has a lot of raw talent, but he just doesn't seem to have the mental part of his game under control. The criticism coming out Starkville was that Sidney was out of shape, and it wasn't a good sign when he had to leave the Belhaven game with cramps. He ended up making it through 25 minutes of this game, but fouled out with a mediocre 12 points, 3 rebounds and 4 turnovers. Unless something dramatically changes, I don't see Sidney being a program changer. The return of Dee Bost (also under suspension) will do a lot more for them than Sidney will. Mississippi State is 7-3, but they have zero wins over likely RPI Top 100 teams, and have losses to Florida Atlantic and East Tennessee State. They have chances for quality wins over the next couple of weeks (they're heading to the Diamond Head Classic, and will also play Saint Mary's on a neutral court on their way home from Hawaii), but the way they're playing now I don't see them collecting any quality wins. Bost will be back for the start of SEC play, but they might already be out of at-large contention by then.