Late Run Gives Syracuse The NIT Title Over Stanford

#5 Syracuse 69, Stanford 63
This afternoon had been a bad day for Big East teams all around, and it looked for a while like Syracuse might go down as well. They trailed by seven points with about six minutes to go. Kris Joseph and Dion Waiters started scoring late, and the crowd helped carry them to a victory (honestly, it often feels like Syracuse has more of a homecourt advantage in Madison Square Garden than St. John's does). The difference in this game, without question, was the ability of Syracuse to turn Stanford over basically at will. Syracuse finished with a remarkable 19 steals. But those 19 steals also lead to the question: how did they manage to still score under one point per possession? Their offensive flow and ball handling are going to have to improve. Their defense is outstanding, but they'll need better offense to deserve that #5 ranking.

With a win over Oklahoma State and a near-upset of Syracuse, this trip to New York City has to be considered a success for Stanford. It's still early, but their defense looks to be really sharp, as it needs to be for them to have success. They just don't have the offensive weapons to win a shootout against a top team. That said, the lack of offensive weapons also puts a ceiling on this team. They might be able to work their way into the NCAA Tournament, but I don't think they've got the potential to win the Pac-12. They return home now to play Pacific on Monday. Their next quality opponent will be NC State, on December 4th.

Syracuse is now 6-0 with a pair of quality wins (Virginia Tech and Stanford). They will head home to play Eastern Michigan on Tuesday, and then will play Florida next Friday.

BYU 76, Nevada 55
Nevada's defense had been pretty good this season coming into this game, but BYU just put on a shooting clinic. The Cougars shot 8-for-18 behind the arc and finished with a 61.4 eFG%. Olek Czyz is the only really good shooter Nevada has, and BYU did a good job of keeping the ball away from him (Czyz shot 5-for-7 from the field and finished with zero assists, so he was efficient in the limited opportunities BYU allowed him). Charles Abouo led BYU with 22 points and 8 rebounds, but this was a breakout game for redshirt freshman Anson Winder (9 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals). Guard production was going to be the biggest issue for BYU this season, and Winder will apparently be a big part of that answer.

After a disappointing loss to Utah State to start the season, BYU beat up on a bunch of cupcakes and now has a nice win over Nevada to lead into a game tomorrow against Wisconsin in the finals of the Chicago Invitational. It will be an interesting match-up between a team deep in the front court and thin in the backcourt (BYU) and a team that's the opposite (Wisconsin). A win would be huge for a potential BYU at-large resume. Their next game after tomorrow will be on Wednesday night at Northern Arizona.

Nevada has a lot of talent, but they have come up short in all three games this season against quality opposition (BYU, UNLV and Missouri State). They've got problems in all aspects of the game and need to figure out why they're not executing. They will play Bradley tomorrow in the third place game of the Chicago Invitational. After that they'll head home for a game against Washington on December 2nd.

Dayton 56, Fairfield 49
Neither of these teams could hit jump shots (both finished with effective field goal percentages under 43%). Dayton managed to grab a lead early in the second half, and Fairfield was always just two or three made baskets in a row from taking the lead back but just could never do it. Fairfield's Rakim Sanders (17 points, 12 rebounds) was the best player on the floor for either team, but he didn't get enough support from his teammates.

This is Dayton's best win of the season. They have beaten Wake Forest, but Fairfield is a lot better (in my opinion) than Wake Forest. Dayton also has a bad loss to Miami-Ohio. They now head to the Old Spice Classic title game, where they'll get a shot for a nice win over Minnesota. Fairfield drops into the third place game, where they'll play Indiana State. Believe it or not, their next game after Indiana State is a conference game, on the road at Niagara on December 2nd. I don't know why the MAAC starts their conference season so early, but it means that Fairfield is going to have to be ready to go within a week to try to challenge Iona for the regular season title.