Tuesday night is not usually a night of the week associated with a big night of college basketball. Usually, that’s reserved for Saturdays and occasionally Monday given some of the matchups, and lately, Thursday nights tend to be packed with games and often important ones. But this Tuesday night packed plenty, most notably two big games that went multiple overtimes, with the home team winning each in game that can in one way or another help salvage their season.
The first one was in Morgantown, West Virginia, where TCU and West Virginia battled it out for three overtimes. Amazingly, only two players fouled out in this one, although five others had four fouls when the final buzzer sounded with the Mountaineers dealing TCU a 104-96 loss.
A little more tale of the tape: six players logged at least 50 minutes, four of them for West Virginia as the Horned Frogs still played just seven players while the Mountaineers essentially played six (three others combined to play ten minutes); both teams turned the ball over 24 times, a number that’s not so bad considering it was over a little less than three halves of action; and perhaps a bit surprising, only three players topped 20 points.
This hasn’t been a season to remember for West Virginia by a long shot, as they are now 11-17 overall and 3-12 in Big 12 play. But this will certainly be a bright spot, with Derek Culver having the night of his young career with 22 points and 21 rebounds.
Meanwhile, one wonders if this could indirectly help Kansas in their quest for a 15th straight Big 12 regular season title. The Jayhawks need help to catch Kansas State and/or Texas Tech, and TCU has to play both of those two in Fort Worth. With TCU dropping to 6-9 in Big 12 play, they need those games and the regular season finale at Texas a little more now. There should be a little more desperation for them in those games against teams they lost to by double digits in the first meetings on the other team’s home floor.
Later, the Big Ten took center stage with Wisconsin rallying and matching big shots to take Indiana to overtime, then a second overtime, with D’Mitrik Trice sinking free throws both times, the latter coming after being fouled on a three-pointer in the final seconds of the first overtime. The Badgers were down 47-34 with 12:40 left in regulation, but made inroads when an 8-0 run capped a 13-2 stretch to get them within a possession and later took the lead.
It looked like Indiana would pull it out with quite the broken play, as De’Ron Davis almost lost the ball when Wisconsin wised up on a hand-off play, but the ball got to Rob Phinisee, who drove and made a layup with eight seconds left to give Indiana the lead before Trice’s first game-tying free throws. In the second overtime, Romeo Langford’s drive and layup with less than a second to go was the difference as the Hoosiers outlasted Wisconsin 75-73.
It’s ironic that Wisconsin would tie the game late in regulation and the first overtime at the free throw line, because the Badgers 13-25 from there on the night. Indiana wasn’t much better at 17-27, but if you’re a Badger fan, you wonder if the result might have been different if they hit just one more along the way.
Indiana is still 5-12 in Big Ten play, so they have taken a lot of hits. They are 14-14 overall, so only a strong finish and wins in the Big Ten Tournament will give them much hope of an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. But hopes of making that happen had to start by knocking off Wisconsin, and while it took some extra time, they pulled it out.
There were other results that added to make this quite a night: Virginia Tech beat Duke 77-72, Ohio State beat Iowa 90-70 in Columbus, Providence went on the road and dealt Butler a damaging 73-67 loss, and Memphis rallied to hand visiting Temple a damaging 81-73 loss. But any games that go more than one overtime will grab attention, especially this late in the season, and the two that did on Tuesday night led the way as Tuesday night was one not to be missed.
Side Dishes
Fran McCaffery is highly-respected in the profession for good reason. The Iowa head coach is not only good at what he does, but is well-liked, engaging and a genuinely nice man. But he’s been known to get a bit unruly in the heat of game action, and according to the Toledo Blade and Columbus Dispatch, that happened again following their aforementioned blowout loss on Tuesday night. The newspapers both report that McCaffery pursued referee Steve McJunkins down a hallway and yelled some choice words to him. McCaffery and his son, Connor, were both assessed technical fouls during the game.
There were plenty of games that went as expected, especially in the SEC, where Mississippi State took care of Missouri 68-49, LSU handled Texas A&M 66-55 and Kentucky held off Arkansas 70-66 behind 29 points from Tyler Herro. There was also Buffalo handling Akron 77-64, VCU edging Saint Louis 71-65 in Richmond and Liberty pulling away from Kennesaw State 76-59.
An important result in the SEC that didn’t fit either extreme was Alabama going to South Carolina and knocking off the Gamecocks 68-62. Alabama is very much on the bubble, but may be running out of margin for error, so this win will help.
It won’t register the same way as many others on the night, but Wake Forest‘s 76-75 win over Miami was one more tough one for the Hurricanes to take. Miami led 58-44 with 8:32 left, then went into a funk the rest of the way while the Demon Deacons reeled off nine straight points to start the rally. Brandon Childress would then score eight points in 13 seconds to lead a game-ending 10-3 run in the final 53 seconds, and Miami finished the game by missing their last ten shots.
Also in the ACC was a well-played game by Syracuse and host North Carolina, with the Tar Heels having one run too many on a career night by Coby White in a 93-85 win. White had 34 points on 9-14 shooting and made big plays that won’t show up in the box score, and this was an entertaining game that had stretches with both teams putting on a clinic of how to play at the offensive end. White’s game and the end result overshadowed a fine outing by Tyus Battle for Syracuse, as he had 29 points. North Carolina made an incredible 34 of 37 free throws, and they needed just about every last one, while they also had a 46-25 edge on the glass.
Later in the evening, San Jose State ensured they won’t go winless in Mountain West play as they beat New Mexico 89-82. With this dropping New Mexico’s conference mark to 5-10, isn’t it that much harder to believe that the Lobos handed Nevada their first loss of the season a while back? That game seems like years ago at this point.
In LSU’s win over Texas A&M, Aggie guard T.J. Starks hurt his right shoulder late in the first half and was taken to a hospital as it appeared to be serious. The sophomore was in a collision near the basket, and after leaving the court, never returned. The severity is not known but is suspected to be serious given the trip to the hospital.
As the FBI investigation into corruption continues, there is a new twist as Kansas will seek to recover legal fees and lost tuition from the three men convicted in the federal trial – James Gatto, Christian Hawkins and Merl Code. Kansas has lost a player, Silvio De Sousa, over eligibility issues from this and has maintained that it is a victim all along.
Tonight’s Menu
Tuesday night is a tough act to follow, but the matchups didn’t especially jump out at you then, so the games ahead could be better than advertised.
- The first game of the night is an important one in the Patriot League as Holy Cross, who just knocked off Lehigh on the road, travels to Colgate, the team tied with Lehigh for second (6 p.m.) A little later, Lehigh visits American, while league leader Bucknell visits Navy (7 p.m.)
- SEC play features a good one early with Ole Miss hosting Tennessee (7 p.m.), while later on Georgia hosts Auburn and Vanderbilt hosts Florida (9 p.m.)
- If Georgetown wants to maintain any remote hope of an NCAA Tournament at-large bid, taking care of business at home against DePaul (7 p.m.) is part of the bargain, while later on is the big matchup that has lost a bit of luster as Villanova hosts first-place Marquette (9 p.m.)
- In the Missouri Valley, Illinois State hosts Missouri State (7 p.m.), Drake hosts Indiana State and Loyola-Chicago is at Northern Iowa (8 p.m.)
- A key game among teams jockeying for position in the Atlantic 10 is St. Bonaventure hosting Duquesne (7:30 p.m.)
- In Big 12 action later on, Texas visits Baylor (9 p.m.)
- The last game of the night is a battle of in-state rivals as Nevada hosts UNLV (11 p.m.)
