Morning News: New Bracket, Colorado Stuns Kansas, Missouri Topples UCLA, Wisconsin Over Marquette, And Much More

In case you were living under a rock yesterday, here's the Colorado/Kansas finish.

New Bracket Projection Come for the bracket projection, stay for the BCS rant. It's Sunday morning, so that means a new bracket projection. Kansas slides to the top as the new #1 overall (remember, this is a projection of March, and not a ranking of how teams have played so far or what their resumes are so far). The four teams that are projected as 1 seeds still have not changed all season, though. Three new teams moved into the bracket (Missouri, LSU and Stephen F Austin) while three teams dropped out (BYU, Maryland, Northwestern State).

Colorado Stuns Kansas At The Buzzer This Colorado/Kansas game was fantastic. I know most people were watching football yesterday, but I was doing my best from my twitter account to implore folks to switch over to this game. The difference in this game in the end was a crazy, running 30-footer at the buzzer by Askia Booker. The real difference in the game, though, was rebounding. Colorado somehow managed to win the rebounding battle against a bigger, longer and more athletic Kansas team. They just outworked the Jayhawks. Throw in only 8 turnovers for the Buffaloes, and they managed to make up for the shortage of talent (particularly with Wesley Gordon out injured).

This was the win that Colorado needed for their at-large resume. They now have a big scalp in non-conference play, and even if they fall to Oklahoma State in a couple weeks they should enter Pac-12 play inside the Field of 68. An 11-7 Pac-12 record should get them in. A 10-8 record might require a win or two in the Pac-12 tournament.

The Jayhawks have been a bit inconsistent early this season, which shouldn't be surprising for a team so young. Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid have both taken turns looking elite and looking a bit off. In this particular game, it was Wiggins who looked great and Embiid who was a bit shaky. As the season goes along, they should get more consistent and this team should look a lot better. In my opinion, Kansas has the highest March ceiling of any team in the country. They're just not there in early December.

Missouri Topples UCLA In an interesting battle between two undefeated teams, the story was just how little help Jordan Adams got from his teammates. Buried on the Pac-12 Network and without a big victory yet, Jordan Adams is unknown to most casual basketball fans, but he's been playing like an All-American early on this season (not a shocker considering how good he was last season). He had 22 points an 10 rebounds, and was probably the best player for either team. But he got no help from his teammates at all. The Wear Twins, in particular, were invisible (a combined 4 points and 5 rebounds in 43 minutes). Missouri, on the other hand, had three players break 20 points and a fourth collect a double-double. The catalyst for Missouri, as usual, was Jordan Clarkson. The transfer from Tulsa has given the Tigers a surprisingly explosive offensive playmaker.

With wins over West Virginia and UCLA, the question is whether Missouri will build on this hot start or fall back to Earth. Illinois and NC State are their remaining serious tests prior to SEC play. If they can get past those games, they have a very soft start to their SEC schedule before hitting the meat of conference play in February. If this Missouri team really is as good as they looked yesterday, they could have an awfully good won/loss record on February 1st. UCLA, meanwhile, has been blowing out the teams they're supposed to blow out but have yet to beat a quality opponent. Unless they beat Duke at Madison Square Garden in a couple of weeks, they're going to enter Pac-12 play looking up at the Field of 68.

Wisconsin Takes Care Of Business Against Marquette The Badgers are a home win against Wisconsin-Milwaukee away from sweeping the state of Wisconsin. They weren't at their best here (and their poor front court depth was tested with serious foul trouble), but they don't have to be at their best to beat Marquette this season. Their defense isn't as good as last season, but it's still very strong, and they have a huge array of offensive options. With a soft schedule coming up, don't be shocked if Wisconsin stays undefeated until late-January.

Marquette falls to 0-4 against Pomeroy Top 50 teams. I still think they're a Tournament team, but even a win over New Mexico (their final quality non-conference opponent) won't be sufficient to have a Tournament quality resume entering Big East play. They're probably going to need at least a 10-8 Big East record to go Dancing.

Green Bay Knocks Off Tony Bennett's Virginia Cavaliers Tony Bennett played his collegiate career at Green Bay for his father, but his alma mater didn't take it easy on him. Green Bay has been feisty, nearly taking out Wisconsin and Harvard before this big win here. They hit 50% of their threes, but what really won this game was offensive efficiency. Against a superb Virginia defense, Green Bay finished with 18 assists to only 8 turnovers. The 1.19 PPP allowed by Virginia weren't just the most they've allowed this season, but more than all but one game last season (North Carolina). If Green Bay gets into the NCAA Tournament, they'll be a very scary 12/13 seed. Virginia, meanwhile, is already starting to replay last season's resume-much-worse-than-team-quality season. If they're not careful, they might find themselves on the bubble all over again.

Illinois State Storms The Court After Win Over Dayton This result probably won't even make Sportscenter, but it's a pretty big upset victory over a ranked team for an Illinois State squad that came in 2-4 against the Pomeroy Top 300. To be fair to Illinois State, they had been showing a little bit of life the past couple of weeks, and so they were only 6.5 point underdogs here. But this still represents a bad loss for Dayton's resume, to balance out somewhat the wins over Gonzaga and California. The good news for them is that in the Atlantic Ten there will be a bunch of chances for quality wins, and so one bad loss is not going to be as devastating as it would be if they were in a smaller league.

UMass Beats BYU Chaz Williams might be the best point guard below the national radar. He dominated BYU here, finishing with 32 points, 15 assists and only 1 turnover. BYU's defense is poor, but a team getting 29 assists on 35 made shots is really impressive regardless. UMass is now 8-0 with wins over New Mexico, Clemson, BYU and LSU. They're probably due for a little bit of a reality check at some point, but they're certainly playing like an NCAA Tournament team and have the resume to back it up so far. The same can't be said for a BYU team that has blown the opportunities it has had to collect quality non-conference wins. Road games against Utah and Oregon are their final chances for RPI Top 100 wins prior to WCC play.

Arkansas 74, Clemson 68 Clemson almost pulled off a big comeback victory here. Trailing by 15 points with under 6 minutes to go, they pulled within 5 with more than 2:30 left in the game. But two straight empty possessions (including one stopped by a massive block by Alandise Harris) did them in. Mike Anderson's team has a quietly solid resume, with victories over Minnesota, Clemson and SMU, without any bad losses. Assuming they avoid any losses to their remaining non-conference cupcakes. they should be able to play well enough in SEC play to at least get on the bubble. Clemson, on the other hand, will now finish non-conference play without a quality win. Even in the tough ACC, they'll have a hard time getting to the NCAA Tournament without 10 wins.