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Saturday, January 11, 2025
A quick look at key results and/or top stories from the night before, as well as a look ahead to key games during the season, to lead a reader into the new day
One of the most anticipated possible conference tournament finals of all will not be taking place this year, as the first two days of March are two-for-two in producing the upsets we’ve come to expect this time of year. The latest team to come from seemingly nowhere to make noise is Hartford, a seemingly benign seventh seed in the America East tournament.
Tuesday night was a moment New Jersey Institute of Technology awaited for 10 years. Unfortunately for the Highlanders, it didn’t last nearly as long as they hoped.
Where has the 2015-16 season gone? The presence of a leap year day yesterday did nothing to convince us that the past four months have absolutely flown by. If anything, it only enhanced that feeling, as conference postseason honors started trickling in at the same time that we started checking out the brackets for the first conference tournaments that kick in starting…today?
Another day, more top teams go down as a record is set in that category. Plus a busy day in the Big Ten and Pac-12, and an important conference title is clinched outright – barely.
We’re on the doorstep of March now, so there isn’t much that has been left uncovered in a season, but the question must be asked: is there a better secret in college basketball this year than Fresno State?
The Ivy League race may be thinning out on the last light Friday of the season. Plus a meaningless reprimand, a new coaching contract and a coaching job gets posted, and the gridiron beckons for a bruising Big 12 post player.
In a college basketball year that has been defined by unpredictability, we dare say that the host of downright thrilling conference races is a story developing late that is also becoming a signature mark of this season.
Even acknowledging that it took some time for the Badgers to find their way under him (remember, the team was 2-4 in his first six games), what Greg Gard has done righting a previously middling team at Wisconsin deserves serious notice, to the point where it’s hard to imagine many others could’ve done it better this year.
Tulsa narrowly missed the NCAA Tournament last year, and the Golden Hurricane looked destined for a similar fate after their first meeting with Temple this year. After a second matchup with the Owls, though, it’s safe to say a lot has changed.
Before Iowa State was placed in so many preseason top 10s and labeled by some as a Final Four favorite and a short-list contender for the national title, it might’ve been instructive to watch the Cyclones’ final game from the 2014-15 season.
