Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. The new year is upon us, and so is conference play, giving us plenty to talk about.
This time around, we start with a rivalry game on Sunday as Michigan State took down Michigan behind the duo of Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman. Michigan was without Isaiah Livers, who they seem to be playing things carefully with, but the Spartans were quite impressive on the day to go to 4-0 in Big Ten play. We go on to talk about more in the Big Ten as well as 10 wins by an unranked team over an AP top 10 team this season, including Wisconsin’s win at Ohio State on Friday night.
From there, we go to the ACC, which looks wide open after Duke now that Louisville is not playing well. Including in the Cards’ struggles of late was Saturday’s loss to Florida State at home, and the Seminoles look really good right now. On the other hand, North Carolina is really struggling in a way we have rarely seen them aside from the 2001-02 season. Could Clemson finally beat the Tar Heels in Chapel Hill? We will find out on Saturday.
The next subject is the SEC, notably an initiative that has been quietly going on but got some attention recently. The conference has been using its resources in the league office where they also run the SEC Network to make replays for review run much more smoothly and quickly. Many are surely frustrated by how much time officials have spent reviewing calls, whether at a game or watching on TV, but this is something that should help.
From there we stay in the SEC and also go to the Mountain West as we talk about Auburn and San Diego State going on the road to stay undefeated on Saturday. San Diego State is on a great run, and the Mountain West looks better than it has been of late but not by as much as first hoped, especially since New Mexico now has a big question looming over them.
We close by going back a little earlier in the week, when a couple of massive upsets took place. The most notable one was Florida A&M, previously 0-106 against power conference teams, won at Iowa State, albeit a Cyclones team that was without Tyrese Haliburton. Also, SIU-Edwardsville won at Belmont for the first time after Belmont had won the first eight meetings by an average of 17 points and was 55-3 all-time in Ohio Valley Conference home games.
We hope you enjoy the podcast and share it with your fellow college basketball fans. Be sure to tune in again soon for more of our analysis of college basketball as conference play continues.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
