Saturday, January 07, 2012

Iowa State Upsets Texas

Iowa State 77, Texas 71
If there's one thing we've learned about Texas this season it's how incredibly important J'Covan Brown is. Back in November the Longhorns led NC State by 13 points with 8:25 left in the game when Brown was called for his fourth foul. He explained his displeasure to the refs, who called a technical foul and tossed him. Texas blew the game. Here against Iowa State? After the Cyclones shot the lights out early, J'Covan Brown led the Longhorns back to a tie game early in the second half. But that's when he injured his right ankle and missed the rest of the game, and Texas just couldn't find enough offense down the stretch without him.

Iowa State got huge performances from their transfers, who make up most of the top talent that Fred Hoiberg has on his team. They got 14 points and 6 rebounds from Royce White (Minnesota). Chris Babb (Penn State) scored 17 and Chris Allen (Michigan State) had 13, while Anthony Booker (Southern Illinois) had 11 off the bench.

Shooting has been a key for the Cyclones all season long. They hit 47.6% of their threes here, as well as 42.1% of their threes in their second biggest win of the season, over Iowa. Their three losses this season happened to come in three of the four games in which they hit under 32% of their threes. That's a worrying sign for their next game, at Texas A&M. The Aggies have been playing poorly, but they're 4th in the nation with a 25.6 3P% against for the season. If Iowa State can pull the upset there, their next two games will be against Missouri and at Kansas.

Texas is a team that has been improving throughout the season, and they're definitely better than their resume. They are 0-3 in games decided by six points or less, and their one loss that wasn't close came on the road at North Carolina. Getting J'Covan Brown back will be crucial, of course. He's currently considered "questionable" for their next game, against Oklahoma State. After that game they'll play next on Wednesday against Texas A&M. After that they'll head on the road to play Missouri and Kansas State.

#15 Kansas 67, #22 Kansas State 49
This is usually a fun rivalry game, but Kansas State couldn't hit a shot early and this game was really just before it got started. The Jayhawks led by 23-5 at one point. And after they fell that far behind, the Kansas State players just seemed to lose their edge. They were losing every 50-50 fall, and were destroyed on the boards (a 56.7 OR% for Kansas). The leading offensive rebounder in the game was actually the Jayhawks' Travis Releford, which tells you how many of these offensive boards were taken below the rim. One other stat that stood out to me is that other the Will Spradling the rest of the Kansas State team combined for one assist. They've never been a good passing team under Frank Martin, but that's embarrassing.

Kansas has dominated the Big 12 standings for the past decade, and they know that taking care of business at home is a key to winning that regular season title. They're off to a good start. They head on the road next, to play at Oklahoma later today. They'll be looking forward to a home game against Baylor in a little more than a week, followed by a road game at Texas. Sweep those two games and they can take an iron grip on the Big 12 standings.

This was a bad performance for Kansas State, but it's not a "bad loss", and it doesn't take away from their surprisingly strong start to the season. They are 11-2 with wins over Alabama, Virginia Tech and Long Beach State, and zero bad losses. There's no question that they'd be in the NCAA Tournament if the season ended now, and they'll stay in if they can go 9-9 in Big 12 play. Even an 8-10 finish, considering the strength of the Big 12 relative to the ACC, SEC and Pac-12, would have them an at-large contender if they could win a couple of games in the Big 12 tournament. They'll be back in action later today for a huge game against Missouri.

DePaul 84, Pittsburgh 81
It's incredible how badly Pittsburgh has fallen apart these past few games. It would be one thing if this was a poorly coached team, but Jamie Dixon is one of the best. And it's not like we can chalk these four straight losses up to one thing going wrong, or to horrid Pitt shooting or some white hot shooting by opponents. They're allowing 1.10 PPP over these four games, but only a 52.6 eFG% over that stretch. They're just not turning teams over, they're not getting enough rebounds, and they're not locking opponents down defensively like they usually do. And, of course, they're playing sloppy on offense. Far too many guys taking their man one-on-one.

Pitt doesn't have a great collection of wins: La Salle, Oklahoma State, Tennessee, Robert Morris. Not one of those is a real "quality" win. And now they have losses to DePaul and Wagner, and are 0-3 in Big East play and 11-5 overall. If the season ended now, not only would they not be in the NCAA Tournament, they wouldn't even seriously be on the bubble. They're probably going to need to get to 9-9 to make the NCAA Tournament, so they're going to have to turn things around quickly. They will play Rutgers on Wednesday, but then head on the road to play Marquette and Syracuse. So even if they do break this losing streak against Rutgers, they're still staring at a potential 1-5 start to the season.

DePaul is definitely playing better these past few weeks. It says something about how awful they've been in Big East play that fans stormed the court for beating an unranked team that would be heading to the NIT or CBI if the season ended now. They had been 2-54 in their last 56 regular season Big East games, which should tell you the level of their futility. And it tells you that as improved as they are this season, anything more than four or five wins is unrealistic. At 1-1 they'll head on the road to play Villanova tomorrow.

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