Two More Upsets: Vandy & New Mexico Go Down

South Carolina 83, #24 Vanderbilt 75, OT
Midway through the second half Vanderbilt looked like they were pulling away, and this was going to be a big win for Vandy's SEC title hopes with Kentucky losing earlier in the day to Georgia. But down the stretch it seemed like the Commodores lost concentration. They were rushing shots and didn't seem to have the same intensity as a South Carolina team that was riding their home crowd's energy. Jeffery Taylor had a horrendous game (4-for-16 from the field) while South Carolina's Sam Muldrow had the game of his life with a triple-double (16 points, 14 rebounds, 10 blocks). This is a tough loss for Vanderbilt, but they weren't going to go undefeated in conference, and with their goofy homecourt advantage you have to expect that most (if not all) of their conference losses will come on the road. The SEC East is upside down right now with Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Tennesseee tied for last place, but things will right themselves soon enough. Vandy next plays Georgia at home on Wednesday night. South Carolina moves to 10-4 and now has a big win to counter that bad loss to Furman. Their RPI is still only 117th, but that will improve as their schedule strength improves. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS will be up close to 80th. They still have a long way to go to get to the bubble, though. I'd certainly like to see them take care of Alabama on the road on Wednesday night.

Wyoming 67, New Mexico 66
This is another upset that will get lost in all of the shuffle today. It doesn't help that this game happened on the CBS College Sports Network, which is available in approximately 37 homes (I'm one of them, thankfully). Absolutely everybody expected that this season, like last season, would see the Big Four atop the Mountain West safely into the NCAA Tournament, and far ahead of the rest of the conference. But New Mexico, despite being 12-4, is now in a heck of a fight just to make the Tournament. Their best win is a neutral court victory over Colorado, and they have this loss to go with a loss to Northern Iowa. They are 0-3 against the RPI Top 100 and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS has plummeted out of the Top 60. If the season ended now they'd be an NIT team. They suddenly have a big home game coming up against Colorado State, a team that is threatening to pass them as the fourth best team in the conference. As for Wyoming, what makes this a particularly impressive win is that it wasn't any kind of fluke. They didn't just hit a ton of three pointers. In fact, New Mexico was the team keeping themselves in the game with hot outside shooting (10-for-19 behind the arc). But as nice as this win is, this Wyoming team already has losses to North Florida, South Dakota, UC-Irvine, UW-Green Bay and Northern Colorado. They are still, in my opinion, the worst team in the Mountain West.

Clemson 79, Miami (Fl) 72
This was good old-fashioned Clemson basketball as they absolutely pummeled Miami in the paint. Jeria Grant had 18 points and 11 rebounds, and Clemson as a team had an offensive rebounding percentage of 44%. Reggie Johnson was invisible for Miami (pretty hard to do when you consider how physically massive he is), and Miami relied entirely on its backcourt of Durand Scott, Malcolm Grant and Garrius Adams (all other Miami players combined for 19 points). Clemson is 12-4 with wins over Seton Hall and Miami to go with a potentially bad loss against South Carolina. Their RPI is 110th, but that's deceptively low because of their weak schedule. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is up near 75th, and both Sagarin and Pomeroy rate them as one of the 60 best teams in the nation. They have work to do, but they're on the edge of the bubble. They should take care of Georgia Tech at home on Tuesday night, but then have two tough road games at North Carolina and Maryland. Miami is 11-5 with wins over West Virginia and Ole Mis, but they've got a potentially bad loss to Rutgers and have fallen to 0-2 in the ACC. They probably will get into the Tournament if they can get back to 9-7 and have two key home games coming up against Boston College and Florida State, two other teams they'll potentially be fighting against for those last few at-large bids.