bierce

Kaluma overpowered the NC State guy who should have been called for a flop.

Johnson was undoubtedly telling Kaluma at the FT line, "Ignore bierce and just do your thing, baby."

Now Johnson getting in on the Kaluma-Mark bad shot parade. This is the scary part of our team. Three guys who want to do it themselves instead of being part of an offense.

Weaver burned on the first step.

But his skying is incredible.

Weaver, make your ft

Tons of movement away from the ball on that possession that led to the Shedrick layup. Nice to see.

Is the lineup disgustingly bad or has Kaluma just taken a couple of disgustingly bad shots?

They had to punish him for the great offensive rebound and putback.

WEAVER!

Mark gets the steal and goes one on two instead of using his teammates to get a bucket or bring it out to set up the offense. Good start, bad finish to the play.

We just need one thing for this team to be great. We need Kaluma, Mark, and Johnson to understand they will be ever so much greater helping each other than trying to outdo each other. Mark's turn to jack up a crappy shot.

Then Kaluma driving into the teeth of the d without a plan makes me think there is still a lot of work to do.

And Mark with the good d being rewarded with the dish from Pope. things like that make me think this team can be great if it plays as one.

It was bound to happen. We all knew Mark was going to move into the starting lineup, and Weaver didn't show very well in our last game. That said, I will note one potential issue with our great start tonight. Zero assists. Our offense has entirely been people creating their own shot. Until that pass around to get an open shot for Pope in the corner. That is the sort of thing I want to see from this team.

Mark's first play on offense is a length of the court drive for an and one.

Nice anticipation by Kaluma for the steal and aggressiveness by Johnson on the drive for the jam.

Mark starting

Florida fans chanting S-E-C and not Tigh-Tul-Nine. Go figure. Maybe the best part of this SEC-ACC challenge is that we aren't having to follow a Big East game, so our tip-off isn't delayed or our broadcast shunted to a different channel.

Did poorly on the boards against a weal rebounding St. Joe's. Did quite well on the boards against a good rebounding Syracuse team. Won both games.

BTW, Karaban suffered a mild concussion late in the game against Dayton. He didn't play against Maryland Eastern Shore and has been ruled out of UConn's game against Baylor tonight. We'll see if he'll be ready to go against us on Sunday.

Close, but not quite. Kentucky was a single point underdog at Clemson, and Mississippi was a four point underdog at Louisville according to Pomeroy. Today Auburn and Alabama are both 2 point underdogs. Texas, Florida, Mississippi State, and Vandy are favored, Texas being the only road favorite of the night.

Well, the real challenge is tonight. Texas goes to NC State in a game that Pomeroy gives Texas a 54% chance of winning, making it the most closely contested game. I've said before in other places that NC State profiles to force a lot of turnovers and make it hard to make threes, even though Purdue avoided the first and BYU made a bunch of the second in the two games in San Diego. I like our chances here, even without Kent. NC State is poor at rebounding on both ends. It doesn't take a lot of threes or make a high percentage of them, and we have been the best in the country at opponents' 2pt%. We don't turn the ball over much. As a result, some of our strengths offset some of their strengths, and others meet with their weaknesses. Auburn and Alabama are given a 43% chance of winning at Duke and at UNC respectively. Mississippi State has a 56% of beating Pitt, which had the only win over an SEC team (LSU) coming into this challenge. (My comment in the OP about Duke-Kentucky was in error). Vandy is slightly favored at Va Tech in a battle of cellar dwellers. Florida is expected to feast at home on Virginia. Florida/Virginia and Alabama/UNC tip off at 6:15. Rest, including Texas, tip off at 8:15.

Kentucky was sole loser last night, falling 70-66. Mississippi won in a rout. OU had a big run to start the second half to win by 15. The only SEC schools to not outscore their opponents by 10+ in the second half were SC and Georgia, and they both won by20+.

3-0 SEC with Tennessee leading Syracuse by 20 with 5 minutes to go and Missouri leading Cal by 6 with 37.8 left and with the ball. South Carolina blasted BC and Georgia blasted ND by larger margins than expected. Arkansas really struggled against Miami, but the Arky offense was way better than it looked against Illinios. Much more passing and movement away from the ball. Miami jacked a lot of bad threes down the stretch, and Arky went on a run to win by 3.