Today was the first real weekend of college basketball season. Gameday in the morning, conference play all day on ESPN, and an evening full of underrated games that most people will miss.
As I write this post, it is only 4:00pm EST, and boy have we had a lot to talk about already:
- West Virginia 65, No. 13 Georgetown 59: Georgetown’s back court struggled once again as the Mountaineers picked up a nice road win. I went more in depth on this game here.
- Penn State 66, No. 19 Michigan State 62: Is there a more disappointing team in the country than Michigan State? The Spartans are going to be out of just about everyone’s top 25 after they lost to Penn State despite Talor Battle’s 3-14, 13-point performance. Jeff Brooks and 17 points, 12 boards, and 4 blocks, out playing Draymond Green, who finished with five points on 2-10 shooting. It will be interesting to see how people react to this loss by Michigan State. Is it still “don’t bet against Izzo in the tournament” or are we at a point that its time to simply say this team just doesn’t have ‘it’?
- Colorado 89, No. 8 Missouri 76: Colorado, the same team without a true post player that lost by 16 to Harvard, got 36 points from Alec Burks as they thoroughly smacked Missouri at home. The Buffs only turned the ball over 10 times and dominated Missouri on the glass, grabbing 15 offensive rebounds and winning the over rebounding battle 46-31.
- Oklahoma State 76, No. 17 Kansas State 62: The Spartans are not the only preseason top five team that looks like it will drop out of the top 25 this week. The Wildcats got 39 points combined out of Jacob Pullen (although he was just 4-11 from the floor) and Rodney McGruder, but Freddy Asprilla, Wally Judge, and Jamar Samuels combined for 15 fouls and just 12 points and 11 boards on 3-11 shooting. Marshall Moses and Keiton Page both had 16 points for the Cowboys, but it was 22 points and 11 boards from Jan-Paul Olukemi that made the difference.
- Arkansas 68, Tennessee 65: We shouldn’t be surprised, but the Tony Jones era didn’t exactly start off smoothly as the Vols were trailing by as much as 13 in the second half to the Razorbacks. Better question -- how badly in Memphis playing right now?
Rob Dauster is the editor of the college basketball website Ballin’ is a Habit. You can find him on twitter @ballinisahabit.