Well, so much for Nevada possibly going undefeated, at least in the regular season. New Mexico’s 85-58 shellacking of the Wolfpack on Saturday night will put that talk to rest.
And while the Mountain West has been on a down slope for a few years from when it was regularly a three- or four-big league in the NCAA Tournament, it’s not a bad conference and on the whole was actually a little better than you might think during the non-conference portion of this season. As such, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to talk about that, no matter how good you think this Nevada team is. There are teams capable of knocking off the Wolfpack, especially on their home floor.
New Mexico has been on a bit of a slide towards irrelevancy in recent years, and has been part of the conference’s overall decline. From 2010-13, when the conference had between three and five NCAA Tournament bids each year, New Mexico was in all but one of them, and they made it in 2014 as well; in 2012, the one year they didn’t make the NCAA Tournament in that stretch, they were in the NIT and won 22 games. While they have won at least 10 Mountain West games in every season since then except for their 7-11 finish in 2014-15, they haven’t been serious contenders in that time. Meanwhile, the Mountain West was a one-bid league in 2016 and 2017 and only got a second team last year because San Diego State upset Nevada in the semifinals of the conference tournament.
But the Lobos have always had a pretty good homecourt advantage at The Pit, a place known for the fan volume at times. And they have had talent most of the time, so that hasn’t been an issue, and with those two in place, the Lobos are tough to beat in Alburquerque, although they had lost three out of four at home. That should go down as an aberration.
On Saturday night, the Lobos shut down the Wolfpack, holding the offensive powerhouse to 33.3 percent shooting, including 4-22 from long range, and forced 14 turnovers to help win the possession battle. The trio of Anthony Mathis (27 points), UConn transfer Vance Jackson (18 points, 10 rebounds) and Carlton Bragg was too much, especially anytime Nevada tried to get a little momentum going. Bragg had 12 rebounds and only nine points, but he got a couple of baskets from good ball movement at key junctures.
The Lobos held the Martin twins to a combined 4-21 from the field, and Jordan Caroline was 7-17 but had five turnovers as the only Nevada player to score in double figures.
New Mexico is now 2-0 in Mountain West play. They didn’t exactly impress in non-conference, going 6-6, and although there are no terrible losses in terms of who they lost to, they did lose by 35 at arch-rival New Mexico State and 25 against Saint Mary’s, and one of their wins came against a non-Division I program. They lost five our of six at one point. But conference play is a different beast, and that reality showed up in Albuquerque on Saturday night.
Side Dishes
The Mountain West will be fun to watch from a competitive standpoint, even if Nevada does run away with the title, and we saw that on Saturday night. UNLV rallied in the second half to take care of short-handed Wyoming 68-56 and improve to 2-0, while Boise State ran out to a 21-point halftime lead en route to an 88-64 win over a San Diego State team that has been tough to figure out. Fresno State is 2-0 after a 78-67 win over Colorado State, and very capable of contending.
No big surprises came in the ACC, where Duke took care of Clemson 87-68 in Durham as Zion Williamson was the show, though his double-double won’t be remembered as the reason why, and Virginia broke open a close one in the first half and convincingly beat Florida State 65-52 to remain undefeated. Also, North Carolina blew out Pittsburgh 85-60 and Virginia Tech handled Boston College 77-66 in Blacksburg. More noteworthy is Syracuse winning their opener 72-62 at Notre Dame.
Iowa State had a down year last season, and though they were at the bottom of the Big 12, they were also a sign of the conference’s depth as they had a couple of good wins along the way. This season’s team has rebounded in a big way, and that was especially evident on Saturday as they pulled away from Kansas in Ames for a 77-60 win. Elsewhere, it may be time to be a little concerned about Kansas State, as the Wildcats are 0-2 after losing at Texas Tech 63-57. The reason for the concern is that the Wildcats’ only quality win in non-conference was against Vanderbilt, a team that could be vulnerable in their conference (see below), so the Wildcats are going to need to win some games against the right teams in Big 12 play. Oklahoma took care of arch-rival Oklahoma State 74-64 to bounce back from their conference-opening loss, while TCU held off Baylor 85-81 in the Big 12 opener for both. Later, Texas scored a nice 61-54 win over West Virginia, which gives the Longhorns their first 2-0 Big 12 start in several years and puts the Mountaineers at 0-2.
Butler finally came back to life after not looking good in their prior two games, running out to a 19-point halftime lead en route to an 84-69 win over Creighton. St. John’s won at Georgetown for the first time in 15 years, a 97-94 win in overtime that helps just being a road win. Speaking of road wins, Villanova held off Providence 65-59, surviving a 16-0 run by Providence late in the second half. Although the Friars were on that run, it didn’t feel as though they were on the verge of taking over, as it seemed to come along slowly.
Michigan State rallied for a big second half to win at Ohio State 86-77, and this win was under the radar not unlike the Spartans, who have been overshadowed in their home state and the Big Ten by Michigan’s great play thus far.
Arizona is off to a 2-0 start in Pac-12 play after an 84-81 overtime win over Utah behind 21 points and 13 rebounds from Chase Jeter. The Wildcats are as good a pick as any to win the Pac-12, especially now that Oregon (who lost 77-72 to Oregon State at home on Saturday) will be without Bol Bol the rest of the season. UCLA is also 2-0 after a 98-83 win over Cal at Pauley Pavilion, while Arizona State bounced back to blowout Colorado 83-61.
The SEC will be fun to watch again this year, and while Tennessee embarrassing Georgia 96-50 doesn’t fit that, Alabama‘s 77-75 win over Kentucky is a fine example of why. All five Crimson Tide starters scored in double figures for a balanced attack to get a quality win. Arkansas went on the road and edged Texas A&M 73-71, and South Carolina did the same with Florida by an almost identical score of 71-69 in Gainesville. Continuing the road win theme, Ole Miss won 81-71 at Vanderbilt.
Dan Hurley might well make UConn relevant again and perhaps more, but this season might not be the one. UCF came to town and pulled away from the Huskies to win 65-53, knocking the Huskies to 0-2 in American Athletic Conference play for the third straight year. There was a more surprising result on the day, though, which was East Carolina holding off Cincinnati 73-71.
The race for second (behind Gonzaga) in the West Coast Conference will be fun to watch, and after Saint Mary’s pulled away from BYU for an impressive 88-66 win, both teams are 1-1 in conference play. San Diego is also 1-1 after holding off Pacific 73-64. San Francisco is keeping pace with Gonzaga at 2-0 after edging Pepperdine 72-69 on the road as Charles Minlend had 21 points, seven rebounds and four assists. A visit from Gonzaga beckons.
Loyola-Chicago remains hot, going on the road to beat Drake 85-74 in a game won by their offense after their defense had taken over of late. They shot 63.3 percent from the field, including 12-24 from deep, with Marcus Towns scoring 28 points and Clayton Custer scoring 26. Southern Illinois also impressed by going to Northern Iowa and winning 58-51 to go to 2-0 in the early going.
The CAA is off to the kind of start one can expect from a competitive standpoint. Hofstra is all alone atop the conference after a buzzer-beater by Justin Wright-Foreman (to cap a 42-point outing) gave them a 75-72 win over Northeastern and James Madison making a 17-point first-half lead hold up in a 69-58 win over College of Charleston. You pick William & Mary to have a down year at your peril, and the well-tested Tribe moved to 3-1 on Saturday with an 84-66 win at Drexel, and Delaware joins them with that mark after a 77-65 win over Elon in Newark.
A mild surprise came in the Ivy League opener as Princeton edged Penn 68-65 in overtime. Penn has looked like as good a team as any in the league, but this game was at Jadwin Gym, so the Tigers’ win is not shocking.
In the Patriot League, Boston University scored a nice 87-80 win over visiting Bucknell behind a big effort from Max Mahoney (26 points, 14 rebounds), which puts both teams at 1-1 in early league play.
A notable result in the Big Sky was Portland State going on the road and handing preseason favorite Montana their first conference loss, a 77-74 outcome.
Of note in Kansas‘ loss at Iowa State, the Jayhawks were without big man Udoka Azubuike once again, but this time it was a right wrist injury that kept him out of action. Azubuike suffered the injury in practice a day earlier, and it’s the latest of several injuries he’s had in his college career. While they are sounding optimistic about a timeline for return, they are also not taking a hard stand on how long he will be out.
Tonight’s Menu
The slate is a lot lighter overall, but the Big Ten leads the way in games to watch.
- The lone ACC game of the day is Miami visiting Louisville (6 p.m.)
- In American Athletic Conference action, Temple travels to Wichita State (4 p.m.) and Houston tries to stay undefeated as they host Memphis (6 p.m.)
- The Atlantic 10 slate features Richmond traveling to Dayton (noon), Rhode Island at Saint Louis and St. Bonaventure at George Mason (both at 4 p.m.)
- The better of the two Big East games on tap is Xavier’s visit to Marquette (noon)
- The Big Ten slate starts with a game where one team will get their first Big Ten win as Northwestern hosts Illinois (1 p.m.), then there’s an early showdown as Michigan hosts Indiana (4:30 p.m.), Iowa hosts Nebraska (5:30 p.m.) and Penn State hosts Wisconsin (7:30 p.m.)
- Pac-12 action closes out the day as Stanford heads south to visit USC (8 p.m.)
