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Sunday, December 22, 2024
March as we know it is officially here-conference tournaments have begun. The Atlantic Sun tipped the first D-I tourney, with top seeds Lipscomb and Liberty clearing one hurdle each on the way to a potential anticipated third meeting. Also, Kansas State and Texas Tech move closer to Big 12 title.
Kansas’s Big 12 streak is still alive, though its other-worldly performance on Mondays meant we should’ve expected as much. Iowa State, Florida State & Lipscomb also win and Northern Colorado makes the Big Sky race more interesting.
Virginia slowly pulled away from Virginia Tech in the second half on the road Monday night, doing so in a most Virginia-like way, slowly and in a most satisfying way for the winners. Also, Kansas State takes care of business on the road, and TCU’s NCAA tourney chances running into trouble.
Louisville continued its peculiar and long-running domination of Virginia Tech. Iowa State also stayed in the thick of the Big 12 race, Texas Tech took a liking to Monday again, and a huge performance in the Patriot League by a Colgate junior.
Baylor has been one of the bigger surprises of conference play, and the Bears delivered one of the more eye-opening results of the entire season on Monday-on the road.
Leagues and TV networks continue to run away from college basketball as college football stages its invitational championship game. The SWAC and MEAC deserve credit for being two of the few to buck a wimpy trend.
Happy Thanksgiving. While the Battle 4 Atlantis has been one of the premier early season tourneys in recent years, this year’s event looked very top-loaded. Thursday proved otherwise.
The toughness that helped Villanova win a national championship a year ago was on display for the country to see, just two games into the Wildcats’ defense of their title.
The competition between Southern and Texas Southern for title of the best program in the Southwestern Athletic Conference continues to be hot, and that was only enhanced in 2015-16.
Polls do matter. A case could be made that the All-America first team is already wrapped up right now. And it’s not at all hard to envision Oklahoma and Kansas playing two or three more times this year, including perhaps again in April.
