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Saturday, November 23, 2024
It’s become almost a yearly occurrence now that Scott Drew’s Baylor squads are underrated heading into a season. The Bears perennially are undersold. They don’t have blueblood status steeped in decades of tradition. They just may not ‘look’ like a top 20 team in a modern game that values guards upon guards and has little use for teams defined by a quirky defense. Maybe it’s just the bad highlighter uniforms. Whatever the reason, it’s an error that needs to be corrected.
The Atlantic 10 went somewhat as expected this year in that the top three teams were expected to be there. Things will look a little different on the benches next year, and there may be other places where that is the case as well.
Friday brought us a day full of drama and decisiveness, great games and important results all the way around. We also saw one team continue to remind us that they can make a big run later this month.
Duke made it through a challenging early stretch in a good place, including a good win on Sunday. Plus a few more tournaments conclude, a controversial ending, and a Duck is ready to go.
After a couple sweet games Friday, college basketball’s season-opening troubles were on full display in all their glory Saturday.
The Atlantic 10 saw a little bit of everything, but a lot of good things continued in 2015-16 as part of that.
There is no substitute for double round-robin conference schedules where every team plays each other twice, home and away. For those of us who thoroughly enjoy and believe in the double round-robin format, the Atlantic Sun and Northeast Conference have been as good as it gets this year.
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.
It’s not just the big games a team wins; it’s how they play in the games immediately after, as well as in games throughout the season that they aren’t expected to lose. In that regard, Saturday was not a good day for a few teams who have had some big moments this year.
We’re reaching the time of the college basketball season where we’re going to start seeing teams undergo a serious in-season transformation.
