bierce

Shedrick runs the floor, gets rewarded, and draws the foul.

Shedrick on the drive, and we're 1/1.

Or if make all our first chances, I'd be good with that, too.

LSU is completely crappy at rebounding. Here's hoping we can get a lot of second chance baskets and prevent them from getting any. Auburn took 29 more fga than LSU in LSU's last game.

OU won the second half 61-27. Woof. That was at least the four game this year in which OU torched the opponent in the second half in Norman. It was losing to Northwestern State at the half and won by 16. We were killing them in the first half and won by 4. It was in a close game with South Carolina, then outscored them by 20 down the stretch. Now today.

No kidding. 18-2 run.

Northwestern lost 75-69. Fork. Edwards was red-hot early, then took a bunch of dumb shots before hitting a fall out of bounds to the baseline fall away shot to put Vandy up 4. OU went on a run late in the half helped a little by refs swallowing the whistle on OU's defensive end. Auburn 88 Mississippi 81, Auburn shooting ft with 27.8 seconds left in a game that has taken about 15 minutes to play the last 2. Refs really should have called it a flagrant one on the last foul. Deliberate grab of worst ft shooter before Auburn inbounded the ball. Made both . 90-82. Auburn clears the rebound. Beard gets a technical on top of it. Mississippi sent guys to the free throw line to rebound. Refs erase the first make because Mississippi players weren't supposed to be on the line. Huh? Now they are trying to give Mississippi the ball after the made technical. Double huh? Finally got it right. 92-82 final.

26-15 Vandy with 9:30 left in the half. Dead silent crowd.

Vandy up 15-8 with 15:22 left in first half. Arena is almost half empty. It's early, but that probably doesn't bode well for Porter Moser.

Missouri is crushing Mississippi State 71-45 with 8:53 left. Neither team played a lick of d on the last possession. Gates was mad about it. Jans called a timeout after MSU scored, but I didn't get to see his reaction when Missouri calmly dribbled the clock down on its possession and drove for an easy layup.

Pitt hit a 3 at the buzzer but lost 76-74. Teams shot a combined 42 ft and missed only 2 of them.

Either I missed something or Forbes just wasted a timeout. Wake had 2 left. Refs were reviewing an out of bounds call. After the ball was awarded to Wake, he called timeout? Huh? Then Wake couldn't get the ball in, and it had to call its last timeout. Better get the ball in this time.

Capel can't believe his player wasn't allowed to reach through the driving guards head and shoulder. Wake up 5 with 17.8 left, Pitt shooting ft

Wake steal, transition, pulled ball back out, ran clock, missed corner three. Pitt took a poor 3 quickly. Wake rebounded and had a snow bird for a layup. Pitt got ball to a big man near the elbow, one dribble, pull up jumper good. 70-67 with 49 seconds left. Wake ball.

Wake just worked the clock with some beautiful passing to hit a wide open three as the shot clock expired. 68-65 Wake with 1:42 left.

Pitt (33, but 1-5 q1 and on the 10/11 line in the matrix) @ WF (70. but first four out, not that I understand that). Tied with 3:11 to go.

Barnes returning the favor against Golden, just not quick so emphatically. 58-40 Vols with 3:33 left.

BYU (36) @ UCF (62) UCF is 3-6 in q1 games, but it is 0-1 in q2 games. Back to back wins in home games against BYU and Cincy would change that. Home vs. ISU and @ Baylor are its only remaining impact games. Wins over Tech and A&M have it in the conversation, but it needs to win several of these somewhat easier games. Arizona (13) @ Arizona State (58) ASU has lost 3 straight home games. It was down 7 in the final minute against Baylor, forced a tie, and lost by 7 in OT. Losing the next game at home to UCF really hurt. Losing to ISU is understandable. ASU has a lot of impact games left (Tech x2, Houston, Arizona x2) Wisconsin (19) @ NW (55) If NW loses, then I will stop mentioning it for some time. This might be NW's last game against a top 20 team. Grill just hit a shot in which he was about 2 steps ahead of where the fan is given a chance to win $100,000. Missouri leading at the half @ Mississippi State 45-31.

I'll focus on games involving teams that don't need extraordinary runs to climb in or fall out of the tournament. But I will note the top of the conference games. Auburn is likely to earn a double bye, but the others are at question. Alabama has the lead on the rest of the pack, but it has 2 games left against Auburn and games against Tennessee and Florida. Florida has single games against Auburn, Alabama, and Tennessee, but it gets all on the road. Missouri could be a surprise winner of a double bye. It is the fourth team with two or fewer losses in conference, has only two games remaining against top 10 teams, and it gets A&M and Kentucky at home. The most important game from our perspective is Texas @ LSU. The other important bubble game is Vandy (37, Pomeroy 44) @ OU (45, Pomeroy 40). Interesting how much more Pomeroy likes OU, and it is probably because Pomeroy gave a much bigger reward to OU for beating South Carolina by 20 at home than it gave Vandy for beating Tennessee and Kentucky at home. Both are .500 in q1 games and 2-1 in q2 games. Vandy probably needs this more, since it did so little OOC and has the tougher remaining schedule. OU is the one team I can see getting a tournament bid with a 7-11 conference record because it beat Arizona, Louisville, and Michigan on neutral floors. Georgia (35) could take a huge jump if it can win @ Bama (6), but I'm not seeing that happening today.

7.9 games he'll have missed by that point.

We have beaten the Pomeroy prediction in each of the last three games and by an average of 3.3 points per game. Keep it going, guys. Pomeroy has us winning or in a one possession game in 9 of our last 10 games.

So, that was the week in basketball. Texas remains in the field, but needs to win @ LSU tomorrow to stay firmly there. I don't think I'll be able to type enough to cover all of tomorrow's games in my next thread, but I'll give it a shot.

IU threw it the length of the floor to a Purdue player. Extra dumb.

Purdue made both. IU ball down 3 with 3.3 left. It made the horrible mistake of calling its last time out after the made ft. You don't do that. You inbound as far as you can down the court, and then you call timeout. Now IU has to inbound from the baseline instead of from near midcourt. Dumb.

Purdue hit a turn around in the paint. IU went down, was obviously fouled in the shot. No call. Purdue rebounds. IU was kind of jobbed, but that is the kind of stuff you have to overcome on the road.