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Tuesday, November 5, 2024
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.
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.
Oklahoma is finding a nice home away from home in Hawaii. And Hawaii should be quickly becoming a favorite of TV networks for furnishing exciting games at home on the island.
Underdogs regularly causing problems for favorites is that true throw-out-the-record-book quality that takes a series to the next level. The yearly between West Virginia and Marshall in the past has often fallen into that category-the Mountaineers traditionally have had the better program, yet the Thundering Herd frequently have been nipping at their heels, giving the state school a tough time.
Maybe now we can all put Dayton’s one loss this season far in the rear-view mirror and start calling the Flyers for what they are: a legitimate top 20 team right now.
Rather quietly, Bryce Drew is building a formidable program at Valparaiso, which won a Horizon League title for the third time in four years.
Wisconsin-Green Bay has waited a long time to get back to the level of its NCAA Division I glory years of the 1990’s, but the Phoenix did so in a big way in 2013-14.
The Horizon League championship game matchup is now set, and it has a familiar look to it.
For Detroit it was part big man in the middle and part penetrating guards and part taking Green Bay’s leading scorer out of his game. All of this added up to a 62-53 win for the Titans in the Horizon League Championship quarter-final game. The nightcap was similar to the first game only this time it was Milwaukee scoring the first basketball and going wire-to-wire to win 82-75 over Cleveland State.
Everybody’s doing it. Everybody denies it, but everybody’s doing it. At this time of the year, every coaching staff in America is scrutinizing its remaining schedule. Can we win our conference? Can we get a conference tournament bye? Can we get an at-large bid to one tournament to another?
