We started the night with fourteen unbeaten squads. Four, Wichita State, Pittsburgh, Oregon, and Toledo, were in action. One of the four would not make it through the night. Meanwhile, Florida and Memphis played an absolute war of a game in MSG. Find out about a good Wednesday night of hoops inside.
Cincinnati 44, Pittsburgh 43: And then there were thirteen. Pittsburgh, one of the last remaining unbeaten teams, was taken out at Madison Square Garden in an extremely difficult game with Cincinnati. An extremely ugly game. The teams only shot 31/85 on their field goals and 5/24 from three. Somehow, Pitt lost while committing 11 fewer fouls, shooting 26 more free throws, and committing fewer turnovers. The major difference was offensive boards. Cincinnati had 14 offensive rebounds, nearly as many as Pitt had defensive boards.
Cinci is not a bad loss by any stretch, but it isn't like Pitt lost to a top team here. Then again, too much has been made of Pitt's bad non-conference schedule without talking about just how bad Louisville's strength of schedule is, worse than Pitt's even.
For the winners tonight, Cinci recovered from a couple of recent losses at New Mexico and to Xavier with this loss. They dropped out of the most recent Bracket Brief, but they will likely be back in next week having demonstrated a good win.
Toledo 78, Arkansas State 65: Unlike Pittsburgh, Toledo managed to keep its record unblemished. The strangest unbeaten left keeps rolling, destroying Arkansas State in the second half after finding itself down four at the half. The Rockets have been ridiculous on offense so far this year, protecting the ball and getting to the free throw line better than just about anyone in the country, which is especially remarkable since Toledo has only had four home games thus far. One might think that if Toledo has a bad shooting night, it's offense will finally lag back to the Rockets' lesser defense, but it isn't like Toledo shoots a lot of threes, as we are so used to from good mid-majors. Toledo is 300th in the country in % of points coming from the three. We're waiting for Toledo to face a real tough test, but there's a chance that this team is the real deal. No one yet has been able to outscore Toledo, and it remains to be seen whether Kansas can stymie this offense.
Wichita State 72, Alabama 67: Look, Alabama shouldn't get dinged too much for losing to a terrific team like Wichita State, even at home. But the fact of the matter is that Alabama is now 5-5 against a good-though-not-the-best non-conference schedule. Numbers lie, but they aren't ignored. Trevor Releford may end his career with another trip to the NIT.
Wichita State got an excellent road win, on the other hand. The great, undefeated start for the Shockers has continued, and four of the last five wins are over teams in the Top 50 of the Ken Pomeroy rankings. Sure, Wichita State has some road wins coming up, but they are likely to be untested until the middle of January when it plays Indiana State for the first time (at home). Having made it through this tough stretch with flying colors, Wichita State is going to need to have a very bad night to lose before the NCAA tournament.
Florida 77, Memphis 75: This was the game of the night, where Florida would pull away a bit, but Memphis would come back and keep the Gators from running away with a sizable win. In the end, Florida pulled out the two-point win. Looking at Sunday's bracket, I don't think it would move Florida up to a #2, but it would likely give Florida its choice of a regional final site.
For Josh Pastner and the Tigers, the record now drops to 7-2 with extremely excusable losses at Oklahoma State and against Florida in New York. Among two-loss teams, only Duke (Kansas, Arizona) and Florida (at Wisconsin, at UConn) have better losses. Memphis can add to its non-conference resume still when it welcomes in Gonzaga, but in the American, the Tigers needs to win all of its games against teams not named Louisville and UConn to get a good seed.
New Mexico State 67, New Mexico 61: The Mountain West woes continue. Somehow, these two teams traded road wins this year, but the WAC is so terrible this year that there is only one win now that matters for NMSU: the conference championship game. So this game was more about New Mexico and what happens if it doesn't win the MWC tournament. Last year, UNM got a #3 seed, and the MWC also had a #5, a #7, a #8, and a #13. This year, the MWC may get as few as two teams in, and the seed lines that UNM and San Diego State might get placed on are falling rapidly. UNM and SDSU simply cannot lose home games to teams like this. New Mexico's problems might be blamed on the loss of Steve Alford, but no matter the reason, the Lobos need to stabilize their season.
The following games all went as expected, with a tourney or bubble team beating a lesser opponent. The one exception in this list is Wake Forest/St. Bonaventure, which earned the ACC tourney teams some bonus strength of schedule points over the A-10 with its win.
Wake Forest 77, St. Bonaventure 62
Providence 76, Yale 74 - unlikely scare for Friars trying to get on right side of bubble
Michigan State 78, North Florida 48
Purdue 79, Maryland Eastern Shore 50
Florida State 106, Charlotte 62 - unexpected crazy huge margin of victory
Georgetown 85, Elon 76
VCU 72, Wofford 57
Louisiana Tech 64, McNeese State 50
Oklahoma State 75, Delaware State 43
Oklahoma 91, UT Arlington 89 - tied within last few seconds; be worried, Sooners fans
Creighton 88, AR Pine Bluff 51
Mississippi State 78, Florida A&M 65
Louisville 90, Missouri State 60
Marquette 91, Ball State 53
Denver 90, Belmont 62 - further Belmont updates unnecessary, now must win OVC tourney
Oregon 91, UC Irvine 63
Wednesday also has a lot of good teams in action. For bracketology purposes, keep an eye on Delaware at Ohio State, UMass at Ohio, UL Monroe at Ole Miss, NC State at Tennessee, Drexel at St. Joe's, Southern Miss at Western Kentucky, Chattanooga at UAB, Indiana State at St. Louis, USF at St. John's, UT Pan Am at SMU, Stanford at UConn, LSU at Texas Tech, Northwestern State at Baylor, Southern Utah at San Diego State, and the marquee matchup of the night: Texas at North Carolina.
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