Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. As conference play heats up, the games seem more unpredictable all the time, the results more significant, and many conference races hard to decipher.
We begin the night by looking at the big story on Tuesday night, a big brawl at the end of Kansas’ 81-60 blowout over Kansas State in Lawrence. It will go down in recent history, certainly, and big punishments have to be coming from the Big 12 office although both schools will likely take action, although they might work in concert with the conference office.
The next subject is what completed a tough day for college basketball, though it happened earlier. Evansville fired Walter McCarty as their investigation that landed him on administrative leave continues, as they have found serious matters that warranted an immediate firing even before the investigation completes. It’s an unfortunate ending considering the potential he appeared to have as a coach, but he’s about to have much more to worry about than a lost coaching career.
From there, we talk about the new-look AP poll out this week. 24 of the 25 teams changed places from last week or entered the ranking, including the unusual change of a new team at the top despite the previous week’s number one not losing. Baylor is the seventh team to occupy that spot, and the Bears nearly lost right away on Monday night before hanging on.
Additionally, we talk a little about Virginia losing again, some teams that had been hot like Auburn and Butler now losing consecutive games (the Bulldogs lost their third straight on Tuesday night), and then went out west to look at San Diego State trying to remain undefeated and Utah State trying to bounce back from a devastating loss on Saturday night. The Aggies, in particular, have fallen from grace ever since a great non-conference run where most figured they would be a lock NCAA Tournament team before long.
We close by looking ahead to the weekend’s games, especially the SEC/Big 12 Challenge.
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 coverage of college basketball.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
