If Tuesday night was a wild night of college basketball, Wednesday was about as ho-hum as they come. The night was full of unsurprising blowouts (like Texas Tech’s 78-50 romp at Oklahoma State or Florida State’s 88-66 win over Wake Forest) or convincing wins (like Tennessee’s 85-73 win over South Carolina or Villanova’s 85-67 win over Providence). So for results a little more noteworthy, a trip to the ACC is an idea.
There, two wins that were certainly not scripted at the outset grab attention.
First, Clemson went to Miami in a good place of late. The Tigers have had some good numbers, but have lacked the quality wins to make them look any better. In non-conference, their best wins have come against the likes of second-tier SEC teams like Georgia and South Carolina as well as Big South leader Radford and Atlantic Sun co-leader Lipscomb. In ACC play, their best wins were Pittsburgh and at Georgia Tech (twice) until Saturday’s win over Virginia Tech. They don’t have a bad loss, although they came in with eight losses on the season, and at some point they add up.
Miami, meanwhile, has not had a storybook season by any means. They came into the game at 2-9 in ACC play, have had a limited bench all season due to injuries and eligibility issues, and that lack of depth has consistently hurt them. But they battled as gamely as they did all year, and when Zach Johnson put up a step-back jumper from around the foul line that dropped with less than a second to go, Miami had pulled off a big 65-64 win that finally rewards them for their efforts.
This is the worst loss of the season for the Tigers, and it leaves them with a challenge: pick up another quality win or two. If they can do that – and they will certainly have a chance for it, including on Saturday at Louisville as they are fresh off a devastating loss – this can be overcome. They have the talent and experience to do just that.
The second such game on the evening was in Raleigh, where NC State needs to pick up more wins, and good ones. The Wolfpack played one of the easiest non-conference schedules in the country, and that leaves them with little margin in ACC play. Their best wins in non-conference play were over Vanderbilt without Darius Garland (and as the Commodores’ season goes downhill, that win keeps losing value) and at home against an Auburn team that has underachieved. As a result, a loss at Wake Forest last month isn’t good. Coming into Wednesday night, they had knocked off Miami, Pittsburgh (twice), Notre Dame and Clemson.
Syracuse came to town with its 2-3 zone that continues to give teams fits. NC State found a way to deal with it, however, shooting 49 percent from the field without doing much from long range and then overcoming 20 turnovers to pull away from the Orange for a 73-58 win.
Some teams get a bit of fool’s gold against the Orange zone by hitting a few three-pointers early on, but can’t sustain that shooting. The Wolfpack did none of that, but didn’t settle for three-pointers often as some teams do – they went 5-18, but got to the foul line 24 times and made 20 of their free throws, which along with going 19-31 on two-point shots tells you they found ways inside the zone and got transition opportunities.
The Wolfpack defense was pretty stout as well, holding Syracuse to 35 percent shooting including 5-25 on three-pointers. Syracuse didn’t help themselves by going 11-22 from the free throw line; hit a few more of those and this may become a different game. NC State also out-rebounded Syracuse 42-31.
The end results of these two games are different for the teams chasing NCAA Tournament bids. For Clemson, it certainly doesn’t help, especially trying to build off their best win of the year, while for NC State it is a much-needed boost. Syracuse is widely viewed as very much on the bubble, but with an 8-4 ACC mark that includes a win at Duke and a non-conference resume that includes wins at Ohio State and at home against Georgetown, the Orange are probably in the “should be in” category right now.
On a ho-hum night, these two games found a way to stand out more than the others.
Side Dishes
Xavier dealt Creighton’s NCAA Tournament hopes a blow as they held on for a 64-61 overtime win in Cincinnati, dropping the Bluejays into a three-way tie at the bottom of the Big East at 4-8. Seton Hall, meanwhile, took care of Georgetown 90-75 to strengthen their position.
Nebraska‘s misery is over, for now, as the Cornhuskers snapped their seven-game losing streak with a 62-61 win over Minnesota in Lincoln on two late free throws by James Palmer. That also deals a blow to the Golden Gophers, who are on a slide of their own with four straight losses.
VCU (81-60 over Richmond) and George Mason (80-75 over UMass) both scored home wins to keep pace in Atlantic 10 play on Wednesday night. Saint Louis also won at George Washington 73-58 to get back on track, as the Billikens had lost five out of six.
Bubble teams in the American Athletic Conference both picked up wins to keep hope alive, as Temple beat SMU 82-74 and UCF handled USF 78-65 in Orlando.
In the Atlantic Sun, Liberty went on the road and beat Lipscomb 74-66 to even things up atop the conference. The road team wins both meetings between these two in the regular season, with the Bisons blowing out the Flames earlier, and this should whet our appetites for a potential rubber match in the conference championship game next month.
With Loyola-Chicago losing 61-54 at Bradley in the Missouri Valley, there was a chance for the two teams behind them to close the gap. Illinois State didn’t take advantage, losing 77-64 at Northern Iowa, but Missouri State went to Evansville and won 68-56 to get within a game of the Ramblers.
Sam Houston State got a late free throw and then held on in the final seconds to edge Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 70-69 and remain undefeated in Southland Conference play at 12-0.
In the race for second in the Mountain West, Utah State (76-59 over Wyoming) and Fresno State (65-63 over Boise State) both scored home wins to keep pace. In Utah State’s case, that may help them keep any slim hopes of an NCAA Tournament at-large bid alive.
It is perhaps only fitting in a season of such mediocrity that in the Pac-12, four teams now stand at 6-6 after Wednesday night’s games. UCLA improved to that mark with a 75-67 overtime win at Cal to keep the Golden Bears winless in Pac-12 play, Colorado improved to that mark as well with a 77-73 win over Arizona State that deals another blow to the Sun Devils’ NCAA Tournament hopes, and Stanford and USC are both at 6-6 after the Cardinal edged the Trojans 79-76 in Palo Alto.
Campbell‘s 87-84 win over Hampton won’t garner much attention all by itself, but Campbell star Chris Clemons scored 48 points to pass Danny Manning and Oscar Robertson into ninth place all-time in Division I scoring. Hersey Hawkins is the next player on the list, and Clemons is 30 points behind him. The Fighting Camels are still battling for the top spot in the Big South as well, but they are two games back of defending champion Radford and the Highlanders look to be in a good place right now. With Campbell guaranteed to play at least six more games (five regular season plus at least one Big South Tournament game), Clemons could conceivably jump into the top five at his present rate. He will need to either score more and/or the Fighting Camels win a game or two in the tournament and get into postseason play (Campbell is 15-10 overall, and if they don’t fall apart down the stretch, a CIT bid could be in the offing if they don’t win the Big South Tournament) to climb higher, possibly even to second. Catching Pete Maravich, who he is almost 700 points behind, is almost impossible.
Tonight’s Menu
A busy night of action includes a few games involving top teams in a conference.
- In the CAA, College of Charleston takes their six-game winning streak into a visit from conference leader Hofstra (7 p.m.)
- The full Northeast Conference slate includes a big matchup with two teams just a game apart as Saint Francis University visits Fairleigh Dickinson (7 p.m.)
- Houston has a road challenge as they visit UConn (7 p.m.)
- UNC Greensboro begins a challenging couple of games as they travel to Furman (7:30 p.m.)
- The Summit League has a big one on tap as South Dakota State heads to Omaha (8 p.m.)
- The Ohio Valley Conference has a full slate that features two of the three team tied for first as Austin Peay hosts Murray State (9 p.m.)
- In the Big Sky, Weber State will try to close the gap on visiting Montana (9 p.m.)
- Also out west, in the West Coast Conference there is San Diego hosting BYU (10 p.m.) plus Loyola Marymount hosting Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s going to Santa Clara (11 p.m.)
