Saturday, January 10, 2009

Saturday Afternoon

Conference play is here for all the BCS conferences. Sweet.

Marquette defeats West Virginia 75-53: Remember my comment on Monday about the Pomeroy Rankings still being in flux at this point in the season? West Virginia was a 71% favorite on the road at Marquette. Instead, Marquette wins by 22.

Nebraska defeats Missouri: More evidence we don’t know anything yet. Missouri scored only 3 points off of turnovers in the game. Missouri entered the game at #1 in the country in steal percentage. Oddly enough, Nebraska was #2 in steal percentage despite playing at a much slower pace. Nebraska imposed their pace in this game and held on to win.

Duke defeats Florida St. Seriously, I thought I was watching a Big 10 game. It was 19-14 at halftime. I don’t understand people who think Duke is too short to win a national championship. This team flat out plays the best defense in the country. Take a guy like Nolan Smith. Yes, he’s only 6’2” tall, but there he is out-jumping a taller Florida St. player to steal the inbound at mid-court and take it in for a dunk.

VMI defeats Coastal Carolina 103-102 in regulation: Nobody saw it, but on paper doesn’t this sound like the most entertaining game ever?

Louisville defeats Villanova: Really bummed I missed this one due to the Georgetown game. Well, I can always read the thread on Card Chronicle.

Georgetown defeats Providence: Let’s compare last year’s Georgetown team and this year’s Georgetown team. Advantage this year: Georgetown took advantage of Providence’s full court pressure getting numerous dunks and only committing one bad turnover late in the game. Advantage last year: Were it not for those fast-break points, Georgetown wouldn’t have won. Georgetown struggled in the half-court in the first half, and late in the game didn’t know how to run the clock to seal the victory. Amusing moment: Georgetown students started a “We are Georgetown” chant while the officials checked the clock situation. And when the stoppage of play ran on-and-on, the chant continued for a full 8 minutes.

UMass defeats Dayton: So who’s the real UMass? The team that defeated Kansas and Dayton or the team that lost by 30 at home to Vanderbilt earlier this week?

South Florida defeats DePaul 80-58 at DePaul: It’s official. DePaul is the worst team in the Big East.

Virginia Tech defeats Virginia 78-75: Sophomore Guard Mustapha Farrakhan has only been playing limited minutes for Virginia, but he might have earned more time after hitting 4 three pointers in the final minutes to make a blowout close. But AD Vassallo was just too good, hitting a spinning fade-away jumper that essentially put the game away.

Florida leads Ole Miss: Florida started the game 7 of 9 from 3-point range.

Yep, I love this time of year.