bierce

A well deserved return of the favor after Onyema wrestled for the loose ball underneath and kicked out to Johnson.

Who was that whirling dervish in the paint? It was Ze'Rik!

Shoulder into Shedrick's sternum. No foul. Two more bump backs. Finally called Shedrick when Mississippi player puts a shot up. That's wrong, but that's how basketball is called.

Nice pass from Mark to Kaluma. These guys are working together 10x better than they did when Mark first became available.

I'll definitely take 80 -20.

Great feed to the cutting Pope. too bad he missed it. I'll take 60-30.

Do we know anything about Kaluma's status?

I guess I should complete the picture of bubble impacting games with Nevada (77) @ Boise State (52). MWC profiles much like it did last year. NET rankings are a little worse across the board, but the OOC results are very similar. San Diego State had the only really big win OOC, and it is again taking some lumps in conference play. A few other teams have two or more wins OOC against Pomeroy 40-100 types. Then a team like Colorado State, which did nothing OOC, goes on a run to shoot up the conference standings. St. Mary's must have gotten tired of losing 2 games per year to MWC teams, so it scheduled only two games against them this year. Lost both, so that didn't work. So here's my question. What will the committee do this year if 5 or 6 MWC teams finish in the top 50 NET? Granted, Nevada and Colorado State have a lot of ground to make up to get there, but let's say Colorado State stays hot, finishes with the sweep over Nevada and gets in or near the top 50. The committee took a lot of heat for putting 6 MWC teams in last year, but the worst of them was the autobid winner, so it was really 5. Only San Diego State was seeded better than 8th, and it made the S16. Utah State won its first round game convincingly over TCU in a 8/9 game. Everyone else lost first round games, but they were all double digit seeds, Nevada had 7 seed Dayton on the ropes before collapsing at the end of the game to lose by 3, and Colorado State won a play-in game by 25 points. So I tend to think the committee got it right and seeded properly last year, even if St. John's might have had a reason to complain, but anything that makes Pitino mad works for me. Getting back to my question, will the committee hold the MWC's collective failure to advance last year against it this year? Once again the conference strength is just below the worst of the P5, but it doesn't have a huge lead over the next best conference the way it did last year, thanks largely to the WCC getting much stronger by adding Oregon State and Washington State.

I was joking, of course. I would add that Mark Adams's defenses can still make life difficult for iso shooters. Each defender knows his teammates will react quickly to someone who gets by him, so he can play tighter on perimeter shooters. Teams may wind up taking a lot of threes, but they don't make many of them. But yeah, on nights the bombs are falling, there's not a lot anyone can do to stop them.

Yeah, the over/under.

A few other games to mention Houston (2) @ WVU (41) WVU got off to a great start, winning a pair of OT games in the Bahamas against Gonzaga and Arizona, and it won in Lawrence in the conference opener and beat Iowa State in Morgantown. That's 4 really impressive wins, but it has struggled in conference other than the wins over KU and ISU, most recently losing @ 102 KSU and at home to 58 ASU. Throw in a 24 point beatdown @ Pitt in November and Arizona getting payback in the form of a 19 win in Morgantown, and you see why WVU isn't assured a bid by any means. One bracketazonker has WVU as a 5 seed. Another has it as an 11 seed. It has an easy schedule remaining with only 5 more q1 games, and the only impact games after tonight will be @ Baylor and @ Tech. Tucker DeVries hasn't played since early December, and the WVU offense has tanked. Jayden Stone has also been out all year, but I don't know how much he could help at this level. North Texas (45) @ Wichita State (163) This isn't Gregg Marshall's WSU program. UNT really can't afford any losses before playing Memphis in the AAC final. UNT has only 3 q2 games left, all road games against teams 122-133, and it has no games left against teams in the NET top 120, so it gets almost nothing for each win and gets harshly punished for each loss. It's not exactly fair, but that's the way it is. Xavier (54) @ Creighton (39) Creighton split with Marquette and St. John's and is a game out of first in the BE because it suffered a bad loss 81-57 @ Georgetown. That was one of three losses that caused it to drop 13-18 spots in Pomeroy each time (by 11 at home vs. Nebraska, by 18 to SDSU on a neutral floor). Xavier mostly went backward in OOC and is 1-3 against St. John's and Marquette, but one loss was in OT and one was in a one possession game. It still gets included in a bracket or two, and it has played very well of late, beating UConn, taking St. John's to OT, and winning @ Marquette in its last 3 games. Cal (100 something) @ SMU (43) I'm not buying SMU. It hasn't beaten anyone better than LSU, is 0-4 in q1 games and might not get a chance to play another q1 game. St. Mary's (24, why?) @ Santa Clara (59) St. Mary's is 0-0 in q1 games. To be fair, it is 2-3 in games that almost but don't quite get to q1. It is about to play 5 q1 games in a row if USF stays in the top 75. So we will finally learn what St. Mary's is made of this year.

Lots of games today, but only one could really move the needle for Texas, and that is our game in Oxford. If we win, then we shoot way up the seed list. A loss won't hurt us much unless it is of a truly catastrophic variety. Mississippi has been whipped on the boards in the last 3 games, losing all of them. Beard made only a passing mention after the Missouri game of their rebounding problems. He was more concerned with "lack of aggression" leading to Mississippi shooting half as many free throws as the opponents. We've been crappy at rebounding, so maybe we can hope Mississippi will respond to Beard by getting overly aggressive to commit a ton of fouls, and we can bury them with free throws. And we need Kaluma back or someone to step up in a big way in rebounding. Shedrick was very good at it in the second half against A&M, but we need whole games. Mississippi has the best defensive efficiency in conference play, making this the fourth game against the top 4 and sixth game against the top half of the conference and sixth game in conference play against teams in the top 20 nationally. Missouri, btw, is 9th in conference play. Other SEC games include Auburn at LSU. Auburn is 3-0 on the road in conference, but it won those games by a combined 10 points and the opponents are a combined 7-17 in conference. To be fair, it didn't have Broome when it went to Athens. Broome's limited minutes against Tennessee? Just 33 of them. Alabama @ Mississippi State Mississippi State's only home loss was in a game in which Kentucky shot more 3s than 2s and hit 50% of them. Alabama doesn't have that kind of attack. But Alabama has a defense. Not sure Kentucky does.

SEC network announcers sick about how long it takes to finish the games. Time to junk the review system. Or time to buy more beer. One or the other. But I bet most arenas shut down beer sales with x number of minutes left in the game, so it's only the one.

Agroids outrebounded dirt burglars 47-18. It didn't matter that OU shot 45+% from three. You just can't reasonably expect to win basketball games in which you give your opponent a dozen more shots at the basket and 5 more possessions that end in free throws.

Baylor-BYU going to OT. Possessions/shooting % didn't show a significant disparity in regulation.

Pitt beat UNC by 8. UNC is now 1-8 in q1 games.

ASU won 70-68 by expanding rotation to 8 players by getting freshman Trevor Best, he of 3 minutes all year, on the floor to commit a turnover and a foul. But a win is win. Seriously, ASU did get a lot of time and production from Ali tonight, so it went 7 deep. Staying alive.

Stick fork in VCU as an at large candidate unless it sweeps Dayton. Lost to St. Louis. A10 is in all likelihood down to the the tournament winner or down to whichever team sweeps the VCU-Dayton series and the tournament winner. Which is to say the A10 is a conference deserving at most one at large bid for the 7th or 8th straight season. We are many years removed from seeing four A10 teams make the tournament. Lunardi is probably crying about it as I type this.

OU kept it close in the first half by shooting 6/13 bta. It hasn't attempted a 3 in the second half. 7-0 Agroid run. Agroids with a 31-9 advantage on the glass and up 38-30.

Dayton just suffered its second 20 point loss in conference to a tournament non-contender. I don't see how it can hope for an at large bid now, short of sweeping the season series against VCU, which would eliminate VCU.

Aggies wearing white with pink numbers and trim. It's not helping their shooting so far. 12-10 OU with 12:30 left in the half. A&M 2/10 from the field.

Kentucky wins for the 4th time in 5 years in Knoxville. Did it without Butler and Carr. Tennessee finished 11/45 from the arc. Ridiculously bad offense down the stretch.

UK made a pair of ft. Tennessee . . . you guessed it . . . missed a three. Air. Knocked out by Tennessee. UK inbounding with 7.9 seconds to go, up 3.

Uk hit one of 2 ft. Tennessee bricked two more threes on its possession, Zeigler rebounded the first, Kentucky fumbled next out of bounds. Tennessee missed another three, got the rebound, and finally hit one. That must be about 1/10 from three over the last 3 minutes. Just not worth it. But it is a one point game with 28.6 seconds left. Possession arrow to Tennessee.

Louisville blew out WF in the first half and coasted to a 72-59 win. Georgia won by 11. Pitt-UNC have a late start.