Upsets Continue: Georgia Over Kentucky

Georgia 77, #11 Kentucky 70
We've had so many wild upsets today that this doesn't even seem that crazy anymore. Georgia is one of the few teams that has the athleticism to match Kentucky, and they're starting to round into form after a solid non-conference performance. This game had a great battle between Kentucky's Terrence Jones and Georgia's Trey Thompkins. Jones had 24 points and 10 rebounds, Thompkins had 25 points and 7 rebounds. The difference in this game was the supporting cast. Kentucky had been playing better because Josh Harrellson and Darius Miller had been stepping up, but neither did anything here (a combined 4-for-15 shooting with 15 rebounds). Meanwhile, Travis Leslie had one of the best games of his season (15 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists), while Dustin Ware and Gerald Robinson both scored in double-digits as well. Disappointing play from Florida and Tennessee, not to mention an upset today of Vanderbilt (more on that in a post later tonight), means that Kentucky remains a solid favorite in the SEC. But the weakness of the SEC means that even a regular season and postseason SEC title might not be enough for a 1 seed in the Tournament. Kentucky has to roll off an impressive record, and this is a disappointing start. As for Georgia, this win moves them to 12-2 with no big wins other than this one, but no bad losses either. Their RPI is up to 44th and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS will move inside the Top 40 when the new numbers come out tomorrow. I think it's fair to say that if the season ended now Georgia would probably be in the Field of 68. But even with this win they will be held back by that weak schedule and the weak SEC, so they might need a 10-6 SEC record to make the Tournament. This is a nice start, but they can't relax now with a road game at Vanderbilt coming up Wednesday night.

UAB 100, UTEP 97, 3OT
This was a wild game where both teams needed to avoid the loss more than they needed the win, if that makes sense. Both of these teams have ground to make up to get into the Tournament, and this wasn't going to be a big win for either of them. Cameron Moore hit the game winning three-pointer with two seconds left in the third overtime, and Randy Culpepper's tying attempt failed. I try not to analyze games like this too much, because the fact is that when a game goes three overtimes the difference in the game has a lot more to do with luck than anything else. Neither team outplayed the other. UAB came into this game 10-3 against a soft schedule, with no RPI Top 50 wins and a loss to Arizona State that is starting to look bad. Their RPI is 42nd, but their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is going to be close to 50th. UAB will likely need to go 11-5 or better in conference play to make the Tournament. They have a road game against Tulsa and a home game against Memphis on the next two Saturdays, and both games will be key. As for UTEP, they are 13-4 overall, but their best win came over Michigan and they have a bad loss to Pacific. They are going to need to beat Memphis (or possibly UCF) to get an impressive win to balance out that Pacific loss. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS will likely drop out of the Top 90, so they've got a lot of ground to make up.

Houston 76, #18 UCF 71
This game was a reality check for a UCF team that had been playing so well. They just came out sleepwalking in this game and allowed Houston to get off to a 14-4 lead, and they pushed the lead up to 18 before UCF began to fight back. They got it down to four points in the final minutes, but never closer. Kirk Van Slyke keyed the early lead for Houston with 15 first half points. Marcus Jordan struggled for UCF with 3-for-9 shooting and 4 turnovers. This is a bad loss for UCF, but it's their first loss of the year and they do have wins over Florida and Miami (Fl) and would still be in the Field of 68 if the season ended now. There aren't many quality losses to be had in Conference USA, though, so UCF can't afford more than four or five more losses the rest of the season if they're going to stay in a good position for an at-large bid. Although as poorly as Memphis has played lately, Central Florida is probably the favorite for the Conference USA auto bid right now. They will play at Memphis on January 26th, and have the return game at home on February 9th. This win pushes Houston to 9-6 overall, but their Sagarin and Pomeroy ratings were outside the Top 200 coming into this one, so they're nowhere near even the NIT bubble.