Oklahoma State Takes Down Missouri

Oklahoma State 79, #2 Missouri 72
Oklahoma State is 5-1 in the past ten years against teams ranked in the Top 5 in the Coaches Poll, and they have won six straight times against a ranked Missouri team. Neither of those stats have anything to do with a game in the 2011-12 season, of course - it's just an interesting stat. In retrospect, though, Oklahoma State is a team that matches up well with this Missouri roster. The Cowboys are a good defense team and have a couple of guys that can shoot the ball. What's killed them all year is the fact that they have a very small front line (particularly with J-P Olukemi out for the season) and are probably the worst rebounding team in the entire Big 12. But Missouri is one of the only Big 12 teams that can't take advantage of that - they play four guards most of the game and aren't great at rebounding the ball either.

Ssuper-frosh Le'Bryan Nash scored 27 points on 12-for-18 shooting, but the difference-maker for Oklahoma State was redshirt freshman Brian Williams, who scored a career-high 22 points on 6-for-11 shooting. Ricardo Ratliffe led Missouri with 25 points on 10-for-17 shooting and 12 rebounds.

In the end, I think this was just a brutal defensive performance from Missouri. They haven't been a terrific defense all season long (their offense has been spectacularly efficient, which is why they're playing so well), but considering the quality of their opponent this was their worst defensive performance of the season. And that's why I wouldn't overreact about this game. Every team is going to have a few clunkers every year, and this was one of those for Missouri. One game is not a trend. Missouri is still 5-2 in Big 12 play with wins over Baylor, Texas, Illinois, California and Iowa State, along with this bad loss. With a home-and-home remaining with Kansas, even the Big 12 title is still a possibility. They will play next tomorrow against Texas Tech before heading to Austin to play the Longhorns on Monday.

This is an important win for the Oklahoma State program and will give them some hope for the future, but I don't think it will mean much for any postseason hopes. They are still 3-4 in Big 12 play and 10-10 overall with an iffy loss to Pittsburgh and no big win other than this one. They are 3-10 against the RPI Top 100 and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is 104th. They will play at Texas A&M tomorrow and then at Texas Tech on Tuesday.

St. John's 78, West Virginia 62
Much was made of the fact that St. John's started this game with five freshmen. And yes, it is a good sign for the future that the St. John's freshmen played so well, but this really isn't a new story. St. John's returned one scholarship player from last season (Malik Stith) and he hasn't been starting. All five starters have been new players, four of whom are true freshmen (the fifth, God's Gift Achiuwa) is a Juco transfer. And besides, Achiuwa played 28 minutes in this game, more than two of the "starters". There's nothing more overrated in sports than "starters" - what matters is who plays the most minutes.

Yes, St. John's is an extremely young team that has a bright future, but they're too young to be consistently competitive this year. They'll win a few games in Big East play, but that's the extent of the damage that they'll do. Their other big upset this season came over Cincinnati and they're now 3-6 in conference play (they also beat Providence at home). They'll play at Duke tomorrow before getting back to conference play on Wednesday at DePaul.

This was a putrid performance from West Virginia. They had a 39.2 eFG% and allowed 1.15 PPP to St. John's. To put that in perspective, that's the second most efficient offensive performance from St. John's all season long, even including all of their games against cupcakes. It's also the second most PPP allowed by West Virginia this year, outdone just barely by 1.16 PPP in their loss to Baylor. This was just one of those "clunker" games, like I talked about above with regards to Missouri. The problem is, Missouri can afford a clunker a whole lot more than West Virginia can.

The Mountaineers are now 5-3 in Big East play with wins over Georgetown, Kansas State and Cincinnati along with bad losses to Kent State and St. John's. Their RPI is 16th, though their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is back at 29th. I think they need to win at least four of their final ten regular season games (to get to 9-9) and then win a game in the Big East tournament to earn their spot in the NCAA Tournament. They have to play at Syracuse on Saturday before coming home on Monday to play Pittsburgh.

Notre Dame 55, Seton Hall 42
This was an ugly, ugly game, particularly in the first half. The Irish led 19-18 at halftime, with the two teams combining to shoot 13-for-49 from the field with 16 turnovers. Seton Hall finished this game with only 0.70 PPP, one of the first worst offensive performances by any team in Big East play so far this season (Pitt's 0.56 PPP in that embarrassing 62-39 debacle at Rutgers was the most futile performance so far). Herb Pope, to pick out one player, shot 2-for-16 from the field.

Seton Hall was flying high a couple of weeks ago when they were 4-1 in Big East play, but they've now lost three straight. They are 5-5 against the RPI Top 100 with wins over UConn, West Virginia and Dayton, along with a bad loss to USF. Their RPI is 19th but their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is 36th. If the season ended now they'd be an NCAA Tournament team, but only narrowly. Unless they get a big scalp or two, they're going to need at least a 9-9 record and a win in the Big East tournament to lock up a Tournament bid. They'll try to bounce back to 5-4 tomorrow at home against Louisville. After that they'll head on the road to play Marquette and UConn.

The Irish, for all their struggles early this season, find themselves 5-3 and in a tie for fourth place in the Big East. They have wins over Syracuse and Louisville to go with this win, along with bad losses to Georgia, Rutgers and Maryland. Their RPI is 82nd and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is 68th, but it's hard to ignore that 5-3 record and the win over Syracuse. If they can go just 5-5 the rest of the way and get to 10-8, it will earn them a spot on the Tournament bubble. Their upcoming schedule is pretty rough, though. They'll play at UConn on Sunday followed by a home game against Marquette a week from Saturday.