http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/taxonomy/term/45 The taxonomy view with a depth of 0. en http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/blog_entry/daily_dribble_wild_saturday_recap32826 Wow.. simply wow. College basketball is fun. You can take your Super Bowls and endless weeks of repetitive buildup.. I'll take college basketball any day of the week. Just so happens Saturday is the best day of the week though.. and yesterday was about as wild as it gets. Lets begin our journey.. Florida is crazy good. The Gators have been blowing away the SEC, East or West, home or away, with ease. The Gators are 8-0 in league play, 2 full games ahead of 2nd place Kentucky. These two teams meet next week in Lexington.. but I just don't see the Wildcats winning. The Gators are one of four teams around the country that are still perfect in conference play. Holy Cross is 9-0 in the Patriot, Winthrop is 9-0 in the Big South, and Memphis is 9-0 in the CUSA. Wisconsin has just 1 conference loss.. and is now tied with Ohio State for the Big Ten lead. The Buckeyes picked up a big road win at Michigan State today.. and because they host the Badgers later in the season, have to be considered the conference favorite at this point. UNC is now a 2-conference loss team.. after losing to.. NC State? If you were to have told me Tyler Hansbrough would have 24 and 8, and that Ty Lawson would have a money 21 point, 7 assist, 1 turnover game (his best game ever).. I would have said UNC would have won by 20 points.. But the Wolfpack got solid production from their dependable starting five and won a well-fought game. State is probably the thinnest team in the country, with 5 guys who basically play all their minutes (think Arizona but worse).. yet depth wasn't a factor. The Heels got nothing out of Thompson or Stepheson, and Reyshawn Terry had a miserable game (fouling out in 15 minutes). What's really odd about this game is that NC State won despite turning it over 21 times to just 12 for UNC. Still, as big a deal as the #3 team losing is.. its not nearly as big a deal as Texas A&M's huge win at Kansas. The #8 team beating the #6 might not seem so special.. but this is monstrous. Not only has A&M never beaten Kansas in the decade-long history of the Big 12.. but no Big 12 South team had ever won a game in Allen Fieldhouse. 0 for 31 heading into today. That's nuts. After a back and forth first half, Kansas actually led most of the 2nd half, up by as many as 62-52 with 6 minutes to go. Acie Law capped a big 23 point, 7 assist game by leading the Aggies back to the win, including hitting the go-ahead three. Though A&M was 8th in the Coaches Poll, they were just 10th in the AP. They could however jump to as high as 4th this Monday.. maybe 3rd. Florida's obviously still #1. But after Wisconsin lost earlier in the week and then UNC fell today, 2 and 3 are up for grabs. UCLA will almost certainly jump up to #2.. but then 3rd will be between Ohio State, Wisconsin, or A&M. Of course its conceivable both of those teams will go 3-4 and then UNC will be 5th.. but I think the new Big 12 overall leader deserves better than the spot Kansas held before today. Besides UNC and Kansas, #9 Oregon is the other Top 10 team that lost on Saturday. The Ducks are in a slump, having lost two-straight and 3 of 4, and could fall all the way to the 18-20 range. The Ducks fell at USC, who is now 18-6 overall and seriously deserving of a look in the Top 25. The Trojans were 31st by votes last week, but there's not many new opening this week. The upset bug also hit the 11-25 range as well.. as #14 Oklahoma State, #18 Virginia Tech, #19 Notre Dame, #21 Clemson, #23 Texas, and #25 Indiana all lost. The most surprising of these games was Notre Dame losing to South Florida. Before Saturday, the Bulls were just 3-21 in Big East games since joining the league last season. But they do have McHugh Mattis.. and that was enough to knock off a Top-25 team yesterday. Mattis had 23 points and 16 rebounds, though oddly the small forward known for his defensive presence (4 bpg) had only 1 block. The Irish were just 21st in the AP Poll.. and are obviously in serious danger of falling out now. If that happens, and the team that replaces them isnt Georgetown, it would leave the Big East with just two teams in the Top 25. Like Georgetown, Southern Illinois deserves a serious look by the voters. The Salukis were 29th in the AP last and won another impressive MVC game.. at Wichita State. As usual, the Salukis won behind a suffocating defense, holding the shockers to 28% shooting.. and this game was in Wichita. None of these games though, teams in the Top 25 or fighting for the Big Dance, really mattered. What did matter yesterday was Iona finally getting their first win of the season. The 1-22 Gaels picked up a 12-point victory over Rider. With Siena coming to town next Friday, its possible Iona could be looking at a two-game winning streak. The Gaels lost by just a point (61-60) at Siena on Thursday.. and with their new found confidence, could be in line line for another win. Iona's win now puts the onus on North Florida. The Ospreys have avoided the bad press of Iona (if there's really such a thing as bad press) by beating 2 non-D1 teams earlier in the year. But UNF still hasn't beaten a Division 1 team yet! As far as I'm concerned, UNF was tied with Iona going into today, but is now alone as college basketball's lone winless team. - Dribble me softly - http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/blog_entry/daily_dribble_wild_saturday_recap32826#comments Iona NC State North Florida Advertising Sun, 04 Feb 2007 01:33:14 -0500 Shawn Siegel 32826 at http://www.collegehoopsnet.com http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/blog_entry/daily_dribble_1_3031410 I was definitely surprised at the amount of hits to the site yesterday in regards to the BracketBusters announcement. Sure, some of these are nice games, but I don't necessarily get the hubbub over one game in mid-February as opposed to any other game in February. I guess its the ESPN hype-machine at work? One of the odd things about this year's event is that almost all the good teams were slated for home games. Assuming home teams have the advantage anyways, this ends up making a lot of these games probable one-sided affairs. Lets knock off games that mean nothing first: Albany at Boise State, Fullerton at Wright State, ODU at Toledo, Autin Peay at Akron, Kent State at George Mason. I'll also include Ohio at New Mexico State, since the Aggies are about a 100% lock to win so its useless. These 6 games might as well not exist. You'll notice the MAC is involved in 4 of those games. Unfortunately for ESPN's selection process, the MAC is a rather boring 1-bid league this year. Next you have Northern Iowa at Nevada and Holy Cross at Hofstra. These games would be interesting.. had they been on neutral courts or in the reverse venues. But I don't see the homes teams losing these games.. betting lines shouldn't be that close. The same can probably be said for Appalachian State at Wichita State. The Mountaineers have had a great run and are in the 50-70 range in most rankings.. but they simply won't win this game at Wichita. Won't happen.. so can't say its that interesting. Then you have Utah State at Oral Roberts. This game would be a lot better if Utah State was just a tad bit better. But the fact is the Aggies have no chance of making the tournament. So although this is a game where the road team might win, and where the competition should be high.. it doesn't really have any impact on the postseason. This leaves four potentially worthwhile games. Bradley at VCU, Drexel at Creighton, Winthrop at Missouri State, and SIU at Butler. First off, SIU at Butler is a GREAT game. Both of these teams are basically locks to make the dance.. but it can have major seeding implications. Further, the MVC is still without a ranked team.. and an SIU could push them into the Top 25. Bradley/VCU and Winthrop/Mo State are intriguing for their tournament implications. Bradley probably won't make it despite a solid RPI and a solid Sagarin rating.. but VCU is still in the running. Basically I count this game as interesting because although VCU will be a healthy home favorite, a loss by the Rams could kill their bubble hopes. The same is true for Mo State. Winthrop is good, better than most people think, and they will give the Bears a run for their money in Springfield. A few weeks ago, due to a nice record and that win over Wisconsin, it seemed like MSU was a tournament lock. But the Bears (6-5 now) are slowly drifting towards .500 or worse in conference play. I like the MVC and you like the MVC.. but the committee will not even consider a .500 MVC for the tourney. Even slightly above .500 wont be enough unless they handle Winthrop at home. All in all, there's a few worthwhile games in this mix. But there's equally important games in the mid-majors any given weeknight. For example: Wichita State at Northern Iowa tonight. Luckily, this one's on ESPN2 tonight and it should be a good one. Or how bout VCU at Hofstra on Wednesday? There's a big game for ya.. puts most of these BracketBusters events to shame. Speaking of Hofstra, they did get shocked by Delaware last night. This is 4-18 Delaware we're talking about. 1-9 in the CAA Delaware.. And they beat a team that had won 16 of 18 games. The Pride are now 2 games back from VCU after the loss.. but they should be the favorite heading into Wednesday night. That pretty much ended up being the only upset of the night. The only other big game was #7 Pitt getting an impressive road win at Villanova. The Wildcats are a definite bubble team right now, but 3-5 in conference play isn't helping the cause. Luckily for Nova, their league schedule eases up in the next few weeks. They have a home game against Louisville next (can this be labeled must win?), then a road game at Seton Hall, and back home to host Cincinnati. All three are winnable.. and they basically need all three. The key will basically be Scottie Reynolds. The freshman PG had been hot the past few weeks, but he just simply didn't have it last night. If the Cats don't get 15-20 out of Reynolds, its hard for Sumpter and Nardi to carry the scoring lone by themselves. Some noteworthy games tonight. #19 Notre Dame at Syracuse. The Orange need this win in the worst way. Wichita State at UNI, which I mentioned above. Maryland at FSU is huge too. A loss by the Terps could drop this once top-25 team to a disastrous 2-5 ACC record. You won't find a more competitive game than Michigan State at Illinois. Finally, new Top 25 member UNLV (in the Coaches Poll anyways) heads to Colorado State. State is 14-5 and has been solid at home, so a Rebels loss wouldn't be that surprising. I wish the Super Bowl would just be over with so a) I can stop listening to the hype.. and b) all the focus can be on college hoops. - Dribble http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/blog_entry/daily_dribble_1_3031410#comments Villanova Mid-Majors Advertising Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:40:30 -0500 Shawn Siegel 31410 at http://www.collegehoopsnet.com