Oregon State Upsets Texas

Oregon State 100, Texas 95, OT
Jared Cunningham led all scorers with 37 points, but the difference in this game was rebounding, and the lack of it for Texas on the defensive end. Oregon State had a 45.7 OR% in this game, continuing a trend of teams getting a lot of offensive boards against the Longhorns (their 42.2% average allowed on the season is 322nd among Division I teams). Texas has consistently had a lot of size under Rick Barnes, but the loss of Tristan Thompson, Gary Johnson and Jordan Hamilton appears to be hitting the team harder on the defensive boards than anywhere else. With only Alexis Wangmene doing much on the boards so far this season, Barnes is going to depend on the development of true freshmen Jonathan Holmes and Jaylen Bond. Neither is particularly big, but they're athletic enough to rebound well if they execute and put in the effort.

A lot of people are killing the Big 12 Conference for being way down, but I think that's overstated. The conference isn't as good as last season, but it's still got good depth. The weakness of the conference is at the top, where all of the teams have major flaws. Kansas has looked the best of the top teams so far, but I think their lack of depth is going to catch up to them. Texas is still, narrowly, my pick to win the Big 12, but it's a precarious position. I'd like to see them bounce back tomorrow against a feisty NC State team. Oregon State will be the team playing Vanderbilt in the finals of the Legends Classic on Monday. If they can win that game (and Vanderbilt is another team with a depleted front court, with Festus Ezeli still out) then they'll start getting at-large hype. The Beavers shouldn't overlook a road game at Towson on Saturday, though.

College of Charleston 72, Clemson 69
Clemson never led this game, and it was never tied other than at 0-0. Charleston scored the first six points of the game and never relinquished the lead. Bobby Cremins has had success bringing in some really good recruits to Charleston, and they have the type of athleticism you don't expect to see from a Southern Conference team. The capstone of those recruiting classes is true freshman Adjehi Baru, a 6'9" blue chipper. He had nine rebounds in this game, and a key block on Andre Young with under 30 seconds to go to help lock up this win. Baru was recruiting by multiple ACC teams, and he showed why here.

This looks like a terrible result for Clemson, but it shouldn't be viewed that way. Charleston is a good team that has a good shot of finishing in the RPI Top 100, and Clemson actually played pretty well here - they just got out-shot from the field (56.0 eFG% to 49.2%). Clemson obviously doesn't have the talent of North Carolina, Duke or Florida State, but so far they've looked as good as any other team from the ACC. They, along with Miami and Virginia Tech, look like the top contenders to finish fourth in the ACC. Clemson will have to get up on Tuesday night to beat a Coastal Carolina team that has already beaten LSU, and then they'll play Furman on Friday. Charleston now gets a chance to collect a few more scalps in the Bahamas, where they'll open against Central Florida on Thanksgiving and will play their second game the next day against either UConn or UNC-Asheville.

Southern Miss 79, Colorado State 58
This game turned into something of a shooting contest, and Southern Miss won it. The Golden Eagles finished 10-for-18 behind the arc. LaShay Page alone hit 8-for-11. Southern Miss as a team hit 60% from the field in the first half, giving them a 19 point halftime lead that was beyond what Colorado State had the ability to overcome. Remember that Colorado State's two best scorers last season, Andy Ogide and Travis Franklin, both graduated. The Rams have played three games this season against decent-to-good teams (Stanford, Montana and Southern Miss) and have scored a combined 0.94 PPP in those games.

Colorado State will try to pull things together tomorrow against UT-San Antonio. They'll play Manhattan before getting to play a very vulnerable Colorado team on November 30th. This is a nice win for Southern Miss, but it comes after a bad loss to Denver. They head off to the Great Alaska Shootout next, where they'll open against UC Irvine, and could potentially get a juicy game against a solid New Mexico State squad in the semifinals.