Although the games to decide the BCS matchups were played today, a full slate of terrific hoops also took the stage, and we were provided with far more excitement from the hardcourt. From buzzer beaters to upsets to continued impressive season-opening win streaks, today had it all. Let's get to the games.
Texas 81, Temple 80 (OT): Texas traveled to Philadelphia and got an extremely important road win. The Longhorns lost to its only decent opponent so far, a neutral court game against BYU. If Texas wants any hope of playing itself onto the bubble, it needed this game. Coming up, it has road games at North Carolina and a home game against Michigan State. Pull off a win in one of those, and Texas is sitting well heading into the Big 12 season.
Georgetown 61, Colgate 55: Georgetown narrowly avoided disaster today in the form of a home loss to Colgate, a team that Ken Pomeroy's simulation only gave a 5% chance of winning. Georgetown already has one bad loss, to Northeastern, on its resume. The Hoyas will need to take care of business in the form of winning every game it should win if it wants to stay in the tournament. The Big East season will potentially be more damaging from a strength of schedule standpoint than Georgetown is used to.
Missouri 80, UCLA 71: In this battle of still unbeatens, UCLA traveled to Columbia and fell apart in the second half after playing pretty well for the first 30 minutes. The Bruins have played well so far this year, but they've played one of the easiest schedules in the entire country, and this was their first road test. Duke in the Garden and Alabama remain on the schedule, but UCLA can't have many more slip ups. As for Missouri, they are one of the few teams that have a strength of schedule even worse than UCLA's. The Tigers don't have the luxury of a game with a team like Duke, so more games like this are what Missouri will need. Excellent resume building win for Mizzou, though.
Harvard 79, Boston U 68: Harvard is very fortunate to have won this game. Although the Crimson have gaudy tempo-free numbers, if Harvard wants an at-large bid this year, this kind of loss would not fly. They can lose on the road to a team like Colorado, but Harvard can only afford one more non-conference loss, when it heads to UConn.
UMass 105, BYU 96: UMass's impressive start continued with this win over visiting BYU. The Minutemen now have an impressive five wins over Top 100 teams according to Ken Pomeroy's ratings. Before UMass even gets to its A-10 schedule, it still will play at Ohio, against Florida State in Miami, and in a home game against Providence. This run to open the year is probably the most impressive and unexpected out of any team, especially considering the A-10 media picked UMass fourth in the preseason. BYU doesn't lose much off of this loss, but it needs to beware of upcoming road games at Utah and at Oregon, because losses there would leave the Cougars at 8-5 going into the WCC season. Like Georgetown, BYU needs to expect that it will not get the schedule strength it has been accustomed to.
Arkansas 74, Clemson 68: This was an excellent win for the Razorbacks, their best of the year so far, and it may be good enough to move Arkansas off the bubble and into the tournament. Clemson lost a close one on the road, but this was the last chance for the Tigers to get a good non-conference win. Clemson will have to pull off some upsets in the ACC season, where it has one of the toughest schedules, to stay in the tournament.
Wisconsin 70, Marquette 64: Wisconsin became the first team to hit 10 wins so far this year, and they have done so against good competition including St. John's, Florida, Green Bay, St. Louis, West Virginia, Virginia, and now Marquette. They are solidifying their bid for a top-2 seed. Marquette fell to 5-4, but the record is deceiving. The losses have come to excellent competition: Ohio State, Wisconsin, San Diego State, and Arizona State, all tournament teams. Losses to good teams aren't bad, but Marquette is running out of time to get a signature win. They'll face New Mexico in Las Vegas in a couple weeks, but otherwise, Marquette is going to need to perform very well in the Big East.
Colorado 75, Kansas 72: This ended up being the upset of the day after this happened:
Colorado now has the signature win any team wanting a decent seed needs, and they have another opportunity when the Buffaloes play Oklahoma State in Las Vegas in two weeks. Kansas, on the other hand, seems to be treading water since it beat Duke in the second game of the season. It has now lost to Villanova and Colorado, and it struggled with UTEP and Wake Forest. The shell-shocked Jayhawks now head to Florida for another tough road test. Something just feels a bit off with this Kansas team, and they could be heading to their first 10-loss season in 14 years.
Toledo 80, Robert Morris 77: A strange game to appear in the recap, Toledo remains one of the season's unbeaten teams. They have one of the most efficient offenses in the country, but the Rockets do not have a defense to match. Still, it is easy to expect Toledo would be 12-0 heading into Allen Fieldhouse to play Kansas in its last non-conference game.
New Mexico 63, Cincinnati 54: No one should ever expect a road team to win a game in the Pit, but Cincinnati failed in its first major test of the season. Cinci has won plenty of games so far, but they did so against the 4th-worst schedule in the entire country. Wins are necessary. On the other hand, one thing the non-conference schedule has told us is that we should expect the battle for the Mountain West between New Mexico and San Diego State should be a lot of fun to watch.
Green Bay 75, Virginia 72: Virginia headed to Green Bay, a commendable scheduling choice, but the Cavaliers came away with a loss. Virginia has now lost to every decent team on its schedule, a seemingly typical performance from UVA. But that's all that matters here, as Green Bay will still need to look at winning the Horizon tournament.
Arizona 63, UNLV 58: I did not expect this game to be in the rundown at the beginning of the day, but UNLV was the better team for the vast majority of this game. Arizona was entirely out of sorts, but perhaps that was a response to potentially taking over #1 in the rankings after Michigan State's loss earlier this week. This is far from a vintage Rebels squad, and UNLV missed out on a golden opportunity for a resonating win.
Illinois State 81, Dayton 75: Dayton opened the season with decent wins over Gonzaga and Cal with an incredibly close loss to Baylor (where Dayton collapsed at the end), but a team positioning itself for an at-large bid losing to a team like Illinois State is unacceptable. Yes, it was a road game, but the Redbirds will probably not even finish over 0.500 in the Missouri Valley. Archie Miller's team will need to win most of the rest of its non-conference games or else it will drop sharply out of the bracket.
Gonzaga 80, New Mexico State 68: Gonzaga got a nice sizable win tonight over NMSU. This is not the usual tough non-conference schedule that the Zags set---it might be the worst of the Mark Few era. So it needs to win these games against teams like NMSU, especially since it already gave a game away to Dayton earlier this year. Gonzaga still appears to be strong this year, but they will have to work harder to prove it. On the other side, NMSU is clearly the class of the WAC, and I would not be surprised at all if they ran the conference table. But NMSU just doesn't have the wins to warrant an at-large bid, so they will have to take care to get the automatic berth.
Sunday's slate doesn't have a lot of impactful games, short of some shocking upsets, but we'll keep a watch on Maryland vs. George Washington, Oregon at Ole Miss, and possibly Nebraska at Creighton. There will also be a new Bracket Brief tomorrow.
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