Jimmer Fredette Dominates UNLV

#14 BYU 89, UNLV 77
The big story coming into this game was the supposed trash talking by Tre'Von Willis about Jimmer Fredette, who he called "supposedly" the best player in the Mountain West. I've seen much more trash talking than that, but the media decided to play it up anyway. If it affected Jimmer Fredette it certainly fired him up, although in general he plays with added intensity against the elite opponents - sometimes it seems like he gets bored against weaker foes and defers more to his teammates on the offensive end. Jimmer had 39 points on 12-for-25 shooting, including 7-for-13 behind the arc. Jackson Emery also was big again, with 6-for-9 shooting behind the arc. Emery has been a big scorer in all of BYU's quality wins this season. We know Jimmer can score, but it's the second and third offensive options that will determine BYU's ceiling. Inside, Brandon Davies played well with 15 points and 10 rebounds, but UNLV is a very small team. If Davies has a game like that against San Diego State's tremendous frontline I'll be much more impressed. Tre'Von Willis certainly didn't back up his talk, hitting 4-for-16 from the field. The player keeping the Rebels in the game was actually sophomore Anthony Marshall, who had the best game of his life off the bench (26 points on 9-for-12 shooting). The home loss here for UNLV is very damaging for their chances in the Mountain West. The Big Four in the conference had already been pared to the Big Three after New Mexico got off to a poor start this season, and it's teetering toward becoming the Big Two with SDSU and BYU seeming to be a step ahead of UNLV. I had warned earlier this year that UNLV's reliance on streak shooting makes them capable of taking down big opponents but will leave them too inconsistent to be a truly elite team. Right now I think that the Big Four will all go to the Tournament, and certainly UNLV looks to be very safely in the Field of 68, but UNLV's Tournament seed could tumble.

#25 Cincinnati 66, Xavier 44
Where has this been from Yancy Gates? He has so much talent and just has never played up to his potential for more than brief spurts. I even lamented in my 2010-11 Big East preview that "I've become more and more convinced that Yancy Gates will never live up to expectations for more than five minute intervals." But he was dominant throughout this game, hitting 10-of-16 from the field for 22 points and 14 rebounds. Cincinnati dominated every aspect of this game and they now move to 15-0, albeit a very suspect 15-0. The fact is that they've faced a joke of a schedule. Pomeroy rates their non-conference schedule 337th most difficult in the nation, and the only teams they have played in the RPI Top 115 are Dayton and Xavier (both games at home). We'll find out more about this Cincinnati team soon, though, because in the next two weeks they will play road games at Villanova, Syracuse and Notre Dame. The Villanova game is first and will take place on Sunday afternoon. Cincinnati has only played one road game all season and it was Miami-Ohio. Until they prove that they can beat a quality team on the road I just can't take them seriously. They can ask Clemson fans whether a 15-0 cupcaked start is a guarantee of future success. Xavier now can plan for their Atlantic Ten opener, Sunday at Rhode Island. The fact is that the Atlantic Ten has been very unimpressive out-of-conference this season, and only Temple comes into the conference slate looking like a sure Tournament team. Xavier is 8-5 with wins over Butler, Seton Hall and Iowa along with a bad loss at Miami-Ohio. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is 77th, but their PREDICTOR is 115th, and their injury situation is just getting worse. Right now things are looking a bit bleak for Xavier's Tournament chances.

Stanford 55, Arizona State 41
Jamelle McMillan missed this game with an injury for Arizona State, and their offense was going to struggle without their best offensive creator, but there's no excuse for struggling this badly against a mediocre Stanford team. They had 10 assists to 15 turnovers, and shot 35% from the field, including 1-for-14 on three-pointers. The fact is that Arizona State's offense has been terrible all season, and is now outside the Top 200 in Pomeroy adjusted offensive efficiency, by far the worst offense in the Pac-10. Their defense is solid, which is why the two Oregon schools should be the programs fighting for the Pac-10 cellar, but ASU's offense just isn't good enough to compete for an at-large bid. Arizona State is now 1-2 in the Pac-10 and has fallen outside the Top 100 in both Sagarin ratings as well as the Pomeroy ratings. They play Cal tomorrow afternoon and then play a non-conference home game against Tulsa on Wednesday before heading to Arizona next Saturday. As for Stanford, they actually move to 2-0 in Pac-10 play, but it comes after a weak 7-4 non-conference performance with no big time wins and a couple of perplexing losses to Murray State and Tulsa. Their RPI has moved into the Top 100 (it's 99th) and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is up to 87th. But as weak as the Pac-10 is, and as weak as their non-conference performance was, Stanford probably needs to go a minimum of 12-6 in Pac-10 play to be seriously considered for an at-large bid. Their schedule gets tough now as well, with a road game at Arizona coming up, followed by home games against the two Washington schools.