bierce

Bobby Hurley might still be safe and can blame future misfortune on losing Quaintance for however many more games he misses, but things are pretty ugly in Tempe with the frequency of player ejections there, the latest of which happened last night in a home loss to TCU, just the Frogs' second win this year away from Schollmaier. Johnny Dawkins signed an extension to keep him at UCF through the 2026-27 season, and he may be safe due to UCF not yet getting full revenue share from the Big 12, but losing yesterday to let Colorado get its first conference win of the year shows his days are numbered, even in that number is over 365. Dawkins coached UCF through its transition from the AAC into the Big 12, but you have to think once UCF will want some better results after it starts getting full P5 money than a single NCAA appearance in 9 seasons, and no, UCF was not going to get in the tournament in 2020. However, UCF doesn't get full Big 12 revenue share until 2025-26, so maybe Dawkins gets one more year. I haven't confirmed the report, but I read somewhere that the Pac 12 imports will receive full shares this year, btw. Moser might have similar protection from firing by OU this year. OU and Texas received partial shares from the SEC in February for the 2023-24 fiscal year.

Someone needs to explain to me how Kansas is still NET 14 after it lost to Utah last night. Kansas did have a very nice November in beating Duke and Michigan State on neutral floors, and it recently evened the score against ISU, but it is 10-8 over its last 18 games, lost a home game to DeVries-less WVU, and is 1-6 against Pomeroy top 50 since November.

BYU beat KSU 80-65 to end KSU's hot streak. KSU may need to nearly win out to climb back in contention for a bid. It is 4-6 in q1 games, but it is only 2-4 in q2 and has a pair of q3 losses (home to LSU by 10 and@ Wichita State by 19). San Diego State beat Boise State 64-47 last night. Boise State is now 0-5 against the other top 4 teams in the MWC, but it has home games left against New Mexico, Utah State, and Colorado State, and it has played demonstrably better at home in conference so far, but it probably needs to win at least two of the three big games to keep hopes alive for an at large bid. MWC looking more and more like a three bid conference (UNM, Utah State, and SDSU). Boise State had very good OOC wins over Clemson (home) and St. Mary's (neutral), but it did nothing outside the state of Idaho, and it had a horrible loss to BC in the Cayman Islands and a bad loss to Washington State in an arena in Boise that the NCAA decided to call a neutral floor. Yeah, sure. New Mexico hosts Utah State today. With a win today, UNM would have a 2 game cushion on Utah State and 3+ game cushion on everyone else. Won't matter much for conference tournament purposes, but getting the likes of Wyoming or San Jose State in your first game is better than having to face someone like Nevada or UNLV. MWC gives five teams a first round bye to winnow the field to 8, and no one gets a double bye. Oh, wait. SJSU is the only team to have beaten UNM in conference so far. A couple of Big Ten games of note today: Nebraska (49) @ Northwestern (59) Nebraska managed to resurrect itself with wins over Illinois, Oregon, and Ohio State, and it is a 10 seed in the matrix despite the poor NET ranking. When Nebraska loses, it has done it in impressive fashion (37, 36, 28). Big games coming up are hosting Michigan on 2/24 and going to tOSU on 3/4. Michigan (20) @ tOSU (27) tOSU is a low 9 in the matrix despite the strong NET ranking. It goes to UCLA next weekend and will host Nebraska in the second to last game of the season.

With that we leap over OU, Vandy, and WVU in the matrix. Feeling much better about our chances to make the tournament now, but we still need to win 3 of our next 5, and we might need a first round conference tournament win too boot.

You should have seen Wisconsin take apart Purdue in the second half today in West Lafayette.

Tre? Why?

And Kentucky hires Tyrese Hunter to make the inbound pass!

9-0 run down the stretch to take control of this one. Finish it, guys.

I suspect you are right. Most of the time he's gone to the floor, it's because his legs are taken out.

Shedrick spends more time on the floor than any near 7 footer in the history of basketball. More power to him for the effort, but I'd like to see him stay upright.

Or a violent collision in the paint. Williams was back.

Williams right over Shedrick for that board.

Carr's fifth

And is Tre serious with that 30 footer?

We REALLY could have used this version of Mark against Vandy and Arky.

Since we got to the double bonus, we've made no attempt to get the ball in the paint and draw contact.

Williams having his way inside tonight. We don't have anyone who can match his strength.

Like I said, ft shooting contest. Both teams in double bonus now.

Tied at 58 with 7:46 left, UK shooting ft and in the double bonus.

FT shooting contest now.

Here is where we really miss Kaluma. He was superb on offense in the middle of the zone in NYC.

Kent is without a rebound this half, but he's getting some things done for us. Pretty good game for him so far, even though we are allowing Kentucky a ton of offensive rebounds. And he can't make a free throw.

Pope is now shooting .300 bta in conference.

Excitement in the house!

I think I have seen more bounce passes into the paint this year by more teams, and they so often are intercepted or get lost out of bounds. Is it like a point of emphasis from the advertisers?