Villanova Keeps Pace With Pitt

#7 Villanova 88, #17 Louisville 74
Pitt is undefeated and looking unstoppable, and Villanova slid a bit off the radar after getting upset by Tennessee back in November, but Villanova is now rolling through the Big East and they're keeping pace with Pitt, now at 4-0 and tied atop the Big East. Mouphtaou Yarou has emerged as a strong post player (18 points and 11 rebounds here) and has helped balance the team, which again has tremendous guard play. The Two Coreys have been around forever, but they've been joined this season by Maalik Wayns, who has improved quite a bit from last season. The team as a whole hit 8-for-13 behind the arc for this game and also forced 11 steals (to be fair they were uncharacteristically sloppy and allowed 11 steals themselves). This was a tough loss for Louisville on the same day that they found out that Jared Swopshire, who hadn't played all year, will now for certain be gone for the full season. With him gone and Terrence Jennings disappointing, Louisville's frontcourt is suddenly fairly thin. Still, Louisville is 2-1 in Big East play with a very winnable stretch upcoming (vs Marquette, vs St. John's, at Providence, vs West Virginia). As for Villanova, they'll get their chance to make a run at a Big East title. They have to play both Syracuse and Pitt twice, and also have to head to Notre Dame and UConn. This weekend they step out-of-conference for a home game against Maryland, but that game really doesn't matter. Any team that wins the Big East regular season and tournament titles will very likely earn a 1 seed in the Tournament, so Nova just has to worry about their conference foes.

#13 Texas A&M 71, Oklahoma State 48
It wasn't a surprise to see Texas A&M hold serve at home against Oklahoma State, but this was a demolition. The Aggies have played strong defense all season (Pomeroy adjusted defensive efficiency of 23rd in the nation), and they were suffocating here. OSU had more turnovers (18) than made baskets (16) and was never in this game. The Cowboys were shut down inside (Marshall Moses and Matt Pilgrim combined for only 16 points) and outside (4-for-19 behind the arc as a team). Texas A&M is quietly 15-1 with wins over Washington, Temple and now Oklahoma State, with a quality loss (Boston College). They are nearing the Top Ten, and if they were in the Big East they'd already be in the Top Ten (no conference gets more teams over-ranked than the Big East). That said, Texas A&M might not be quite as good as their resume. Coming into this game their Sagarin PREDICTOR was 28th and their Pomeroy rating was 27th. I think they're still a step behind Kansas and Texas and are at best in a battle for third place in the Big 12 with Baylor, Kansas State and Missouri. Speaking of which, they have home games against Kansas State, Baylor and Texas all before the month of January ends. The Missouri game is next, on Saturday afternoon. Personally, I think Missouri will win that game, but if they don't then I would expect Texas A&M to move into the Top Ten on Monday. As for Oklahoma State, they are now 1-1 in the Big 12 and 13-3 overall with wins over Kansas State and Missouri State and no bad losses. They are a respectable 2-3 against the RPI Top 100 and 11-0 against the RPI 100+, which is an at-large quality resume. They head next to play at a suddenly-dangerous Colorado team before heading home for Iowa State on Wednesday night.

Vanderbilt 73, Georgia 66
Georgia is playing well this season, but I was very surprised to see them in the AP Top 25 this week. They aren't ranked in the Coaches Poll, but they did still receive more votes than Vanderbilt. But regardless of what the voters thought, I expected Vandy to win this game rather easily. I think they're the better team, and they're extremely tough to beat at home. Las Vegas agreed with me, because they made Vandy an 8.5 point favorite, so the Commodores didn't even cover the spread. Georgia stayed in this game with a monster performance from Travis Leslie (21 points and 10 offensive rebounds), Gerald Robinson (20 points) and Trey Thompkins (13 points, 13 rebounds). Vandy's post defense and rebounding were worrisome in this game, but they did get a good backcourt performance from John Jenkins (18 points, including 3-for-6 shooting behind the arc). Both of these teams are now 1-1 in the SEC and 12-3 overall, but Vandy is clearly better. They have wins over North Carolina and Marquette and zero bad losses, and Georgia has a big win over Kentucky. But while the resumes aren't too different, Vandy has a Sagarin PREDICTOR of 12th and a Pomeroy rating of 15th. For Georgia those ratings are 78th and 71st, respectively. So over time, Vanderbilt should separate themselves as the better team and (in my opinion) will be the second best team in the SEC. Georgia will be battling for one of the last Tournament spots. Georgia heads to Ole Miss on Saturday and then plays Tennessee on Tuesday. Vanderbilt's upcoming schedule is the opposite, as they'll head to Tennessee on Saturday and then will play Ole Miss at home on Wednesday.