Harvard Knocks Off Florida State

Harvard 46, #20 Florida State 41
If there was any doubt about Harvard before this game, there's no doubt now. They're a legit team with the type of athletes that can hang with Florida State and deliver a huge victory. This was, of course, a low scoring game. Florida State, with their tremendous defense and inconsistent offense, tends to play low scoring games, but even by their standards this was bad. This game was 14-14 at halftime, and Florida State didn't reach 20 points until there were about 11 minutes to go in the game. Even with some scoring late in the game, the Seminoles still finished with only 0.67 points per possession.

It's the offensive struggle for Florida State that is the worry here. Their defense is very good, as it is every season. But after a really efficient offensive performance against UCF I was talking about the possibility that their offense had turned the corner. They didn't show any of that here. Not only did they turn the ball over plenty, as they often do, but the shots they got were bad shots. Too many one-one-one attacks leading to off-balance shots. That's not the way to score efficiently.

Harvard moves to the finals in the Bahamas where they'll play Central Florida. UCF is obviously a formidable opponent, having just upset UConn to get to this game, but they'll be more manageable than UConn would have been. And a win in a tournament that includes the defending national champions UConn, as well as Florida State, UMass, Utah, UCF and College of Charleston would be a really impressive achievement. Florida State was expected to win this game and to play UConn in the finals. Instead they'll be playing UConn in the third place game. They can't spend too long dwelling on this loss. Harvard will most likely end up in the RPI Top 50, so this loss won't get held against FSU on Selection Sunday. A win over UConn would be a very nice way to finish this trip to the Bahamas.

Virginia Tech 59, Oklahoma State 57
You could feel the nervousness of both teams through the television. Neither team wanted to come home from Madison Square Garden with a pair of losses, particularly since both of these teams have a good shot of ending up on the Tournament Bubble. The nerves got to their shooting legs, and the teams combined to shoot 7-for-33 behind the arc. This game didn't quite come down to the final possession - Keiton Page cut the final margin from five to two on a three only about a second before the final buzzer. The difference was Virginia Tech's bluechip true freshman Dorian Finney-Smith, who dominated the Oklahoma State front line for 10 points and 14 rebounds (including 8 offensive boards). The fact is that the OSU front line is almost nonexistent (they often play four guards at the same time), and Finney-Smith is not the first and will certainly not be the last to clean up the boards in a game against the Cowboys this season.

Virginia Tech heads home to play Saint Bonaventure on Sunday. They'll play at Minnesota on Wednesday as part of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. Oklahoma State will play their next game on Wednesday against Tulsa. Without a single win over a non-cupcake this season, they really need that win to get back on the right track. They still have games against Pittsburgh, Alabama, New Mexico and Missouri State to come over the next few weeks.

Mississippi 64, Miami (FL) 61, OT
Miami will have a very bad taste in their mouth after blowing what would have been a nice true road victory over Ole Miss. They came out asleep, and were down 17-0 after the first eight minutes. Then after fighting all the way back they ended up being undermined by a little home town reffing. Despite similar foul numbers (21 for Miami, 19 for Ole Miss), and identical offensive rebounding and turnover numbers, Ole Miss somehow ended up with 30 free throws, to only 13 for Miami. I didn't watch much of this game, but stats like that are always a good sign of home cooking.

With their win over Rutgers looking less impressive than it did a week ago, Miami could have really used a win over a quality opponent. They won't have many more opportunities for quality wins before heading into ACC play. They will be pretty large underdogs for a game against Memphis and for true road games at Purdue and West Virginia. Unless they pull an upset in one of those three games they'll enter ACC play needing to work their way back into the Field of 68.

However this win happened, it looks good on the Ole Miss resume alongside wins over TCU and Drake. I think that 30 point loss to Marquette was just one of those fluke performances at a November tournament - they just had a bad day. They have a key stretch coming up on the road at DePaul (December 1st) and Penn State (December 4th). Both of those teams are likely to finish outside the RPI Top 100, and so both would be "bad" losses, but neither game will be easy. If Ole Miss is going to make a run at an at-large Tournament bid, they've really got to take care of business in those two games.