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Saturday, November 23, 2024
Like so many conference foes now, Indiana and Michigan are more acquaintances than consistently fierce rivals, the product of today’s bloated leagues where yearly home-and-homes are no longer a given. Still, their only meeting this year looked juicy on paper, matching one top 25 team and another not far from it.
This season, there are no surprises when a top-5 team goes down. Frankly, it’s also almost never a surprise when Louisville is the group defeating such a highly ranked squads. Still, the Cardinals’ 71-65 win over No. 2-ranked North Carolina on Monday was bigger than some and maybe most this year.
January and February belong to conference play in college basketball, and that’s how it should be. That doesn’t mean the sport couldn’t use a few more games like those furnished Saturday.
North and south, east and west, there were high-level games and fantastic finishes last night. We’ve still got more than a month yet until we get to March-including a Leap Year day-but it felt like a snapshot from the greatest basketball month of the year.
On an emotional night at Oklahoma State, the Cowboys very nearly were successful in reprising the spoiler role they are going to continue to take on in this year’s Big 12 race.
If you haven’t seen any BYU games yet this year, you should. In fact, you should see as many of them as possible. The end of Kyle Collinsworth’s college career is near, and when it’s finished college basketball will lose one of the truly unique players it has had in many years.
If you only saw the first 38 1/2 minutes of the game between Virginia and Wake Forest Tuesday night, you wouldn’t believe the final result. In fact, the same would go if you only saw the first 39 minutes and 45 seconds. It was the Demon Deacons’ night, about to snap a four-game losing streak with a home win over a top 15 team. The Cavaliers were done. And then they weren’t.
Miami (Fla.) certainly appears to be well past its Dow Jones season of a year ago. This year, the Hurricanes have established themselves as a legitimate top 25 team, and quite likely will continue to be even more than that if they can continue results like their 80-69 win over Duke Monday night.
We’ve written a few times this year about Texas-Arlington and Arkansas-Little Rock, two of the most surprising teams in the country and squads that could be legitimate NCAA tourney at-large contenders in March based on their stellar non-conference performances. Alas, their first meeting of the season on Saturday was muted, and it wasn’t because of a snowstorm.
As much as almost any teams in the country, Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s are programs both known for offense, but their latest meeting was one marked with defense.
