It was a hell of a week of college basketball throughout the country, with another exciting weekend ahead of us! From buzzer-beaters to overtimes, and upsets that led to storming the court, this week was one of the best. From Saturday up to Thursday night, 17 teams from the AP Top 25 lost.
Anarchy?
Nope. Just College Basketball.
cc: Jon Rothstein
We are getting to a point in the season where every win could feel like two, and every loss could feel like three. Let’s go over some of the winners and losers across the nation from the past week:
Winners
Arkansas Razorbacks:
Winners of nine straight, the unranked (for now) Razorbacks welcomed 22 – 1, No. 1 ranked Auburn to Bud Walton Arena and handed the Tigers an 80-76 overtime loss, their first in SEC play this year. Guard JD Notae led Arkansas with 28 points, 18 coming in the second half and overtime.
Arkansas has had a lot of critics this year. They started off their year 9 – 0 but lost five of their next six including a home loss to Vanderbilt and to Hofstra in Little Rock. Since then, the Hogs and sometimes shirtless coach Eric Musselman haven’t lost, silencing those critics.
Oh, and the court storm was the best of the year so far. A+.
Michigan Wolverines:
One of the more disappointing teams of the season, Michigan was the No. 6 team in the AP Preseason Poll. In mid-January this team was 7 – 7 overall and 1 – 3 in the Big Ten with no momentum or sign they were going to turn it around. But with a 19-point victory over Maryland on January 18, things started to click for Michigan.
Winners in six of their last eight games, the Wolverines smoked No. 3 Purdue 82-58, who had just came off an amazing game of their own beating Illinois. With a win like that, some were starting the conversation of them being right back on the bubble. The win over Purdue shot them all the way up to 30th in NET and 27th in KenPom. Both metrics would say the Wolverines are going to be dancing in March, but they still have some work to do with battles against Wisconsin, Illinois, in-state rival Michigan State, and two bouts against Ohio State coming up,
Texas Longhorns:
Chris Beard’s reunion at Texas Tech didn’t go as planned back on February 1, but the Longhorns have won two straight over Top 25 teams since. Texas easily handled No. 20 Iowa State on Saturday, but the big one was Monday night against No. 8 Kansas at home.
Down four with a minute to go, Tre Mitchell banked in a three which gave Texas momentum, leading to turnovers on the next two Kansas possessions. Timmy Allen nailed a jumper after the second Kansas turnover, giving Texas the lead and the Longhorns never looked back, winning 79-76.
The Big 12 is an absolute buzz saw. Texas has seven games remaining in the regular season, four are against ranked opponents. This week should give UT a lot of momentum moving forward.
SMU Mustangs:
The Mustangs pulled of an upset of No. 6 Houston on Wednesday night at home. SMU was down by 15 in the first half but came storming back to steal a win from the Cougars, 85-83, to improve to 17 – 5 overall.
The American Conference is having their worst year since the league’s inception in the 2013-14 season. The only way to boost your resume in the conference is to beat Houston. Sitting outside of the bubble, this victory will give SMU some attention from the selection committee. The Mustangs could face the Coogs two more times this season: once on February 27 at Houston, and the other could be a potential meeting in the AAC Tournament in March.
Rutgers Scarlet Knights:
Rutgers is sitting outside of the bubble just like SMU, but they have plenty of opportunities to solidify their resume in the Big Ten. This past week, Rutgers beat No. 13 Michigan State by 21 points and beat No. 16 Ohio State by 2, both in Piscataway. That was the first time Rutgers beat back-to-back ranked opponents since the schools’ Big East days in 2008.
Rutgers could still get into the tournament. Earlier in the year they had a signature win over then No. 1 Purdue on a half-court heave by Ron Harper Jr., but Rutgers has losses to DePaul, Lafayette, and UMass.
Their next five games are brutal: at No. 14 Wisconsin, home vs. No. 13 Illinois, at No. 3 Purdue, at Michigan, home vs. Wisconsin. That stretch will make or break the Scarlet Knights, but they are riding high going into this gauntlet.
Losers
San Francisco Dons:
San Francisco hasn’t made it to the Big Dance since 1998 and have a shot at making it in 2022. Starting out the season winning ten straight, they are now 19-6 overall. The only thing keeping the Dons out are bad losses in the West Coast Conference, and that happened Tuesday night at home against 12 – 12 Portland, who are ranked 211th in NET.
It will be hard for the selection committee to overlook the Portland loss, but San Francisco does have Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga remaining on their slate. A win at home against Gonzaga is a very tall task but could catapult the Dons back on the right side of the bubble. Todd Goldens’ squad has some work to do.
BYU Cougars:
Another WCC team taking bad losses to the bottom of the conference. BYU had lost four in a row before surviving Thursday night to Loyola Marymount in overtime. What seemed to be a well-rounded NCAA Tournament team has lost to Santa Clara, Pacific, San Francisco, and got dragged by No. 2 Gonzaga all in the past two weeks.
Without a true signature win this season, the Cougars can not have any more slip-ups.
Michigan State Spartans:
While Michigan State is going to be in the Field of 68, the Spartans seemed to have cooled off after starting the season 14 – 2. This team has lost two straight: one to Rutgers, the other at home against No. 14 Wisconsin.
Now sitting at 17 – 6, 8 – 4 in the Big Ten, the Spartans are still looking to be a 5-seed, but only a week ago some bracketologists had them on the 3-line. A home game on Saturday against Indiana will be a telling sign for Sparty, but if there is a coach that will have their team ready to play come March, it is Tom Izzo.
Utah State Aggies:
Coming into this week Utah State still had a decent shot for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. At 19 – 5, the Aggies were right on the bubble needed a few key wins and no bad losses. On Tuesday, USU took Wyoming to overtime, but fell short by two points in a heartbreaker. Friday night, the Aggies faced off against Nevada, who is 124th in KenPom and 147th in NET, and lost 85-72.
Friday nights loss is a serious blemish to the Aggies not-so-great resume. Was it a trap game? Yeah, probably. Utah State will square off against San Diego State and Boise State in the next seven days, both away from home. But, if this team comes away with victories in those games they will find themselves right back on the bubble with three games left until the Mountain West conference tournament.
Louisville Cardinals:
Oh, Louisville. It hasn’t been just a bad week for the Cards, it has been a terrible start to 2022. At the end of January, Louisville and former head coach Chris Mack agreed to part ways after Mack did not follow university procedures when firing his assistant Dino Gaudio. Gaudio then attempted to extort Mack with NCAA violations. Just a huge mess, and within the mess Mack lost the trust of his team.
Louisville started the season 10 – 4 and 4 – 0 in the ACC. They now have lost six straight and nine of the last ten. This past week the Cardinals were destroyed by Syracuse 92-69 and then went to Notre Dame and lost 63-57.
The Cardinals might be on this list for the rest of the season.
Games you might have missed this week
It is impossible to watch every game that is going on in college basketball. 358 teams are hard to follow, but here are some notable games you might have missed this week:
Toledo Rockets 77, Ohio Bobcats 62
Toledo took over first place in the MAC after this battle of top teams in the conference. Setric Millner Jr. led all scorers with 18 points. These two teams might meet again with the winner getting their ticket punched to the Big Dance.
Wyoming Cowboys 78, Utah State Aggies 76 OT
Star combo Graham Ike and Hunter Maldonado shined bright Tuesday night in this overtime thriller. Ike finished with 28 points and 12 boards, Maldonado ended the night with 23 points and 5 assists. Ike also had the game-winning score with 6.6 seconds left in overtime. Utah State’s bubble might be bursting, while Wyoming is becoming a very solid NCAA Tournament team. Cowboys are currently 20 – 3.
Richmond Spiders 62, George Mason Patriots 59
Senior guard Jacob Gilyard had 23 points for the Spiders, but none more important than the final three. Gilyard nailed a 3-point dagger from the top of the arc with 0.9 seconds left to give Richmond their third straight win, improving to 16 – 8 overall. The Spiders as a team made 11 baskets from beyond the arc, seven coming from Gilyard alone.
George Mason Patriots 87, Richmond Spiders 84 OT
Just 48 hours after these two teams tipped-off in Richmond, both traveled 90 minutes north to Fairfax, Virginia for another battle. The Patriots pulled this one out in overtime with the help from starters D’Shawn Schwartz and Josh Oduro, who each finished with 24 and 22 points. George Mason contained Richmond’s Jacob Gilyard well, holding him to 13 points, but Gilyard still dished out 11 assists.
Key games this weekend
No. 20 Texas Longhorns at No. 10 Baylor Bears
Saturday, 12 pm on ESPN2
Texas is hot, Baylor is cooling down. The Bears need this confidence boost heading into the final stretch of the regular season. This should be a good one to start off the weekend.
Arkansas Razorbacks at Alabama Crimson Tide
Saturday, 12 pm on SECN
Arkansas looks to keep their 9-game winning streak alive. The Crimson Tide are the most up and down team with wins over Baylor, Gonzaga, and Houston, but have lost to Iona, Miami, Davidson, and Missouri. Nate Oats needs Alabama to come out hot Saturday afternoon.
Rutgers Scarlet Knights at No. 14 Wisconsin Badgers
Saturday, 2 pm on FS1
Rutgers is looking to strengthen their resume against a top 15 team. A win at Wisconsin will surly put the Scarlet Knights right on the bubble. For Wisconsin, Johnny Davis will look to have another 20-point outing which would be his 14th of the season.
No. 16 Ohio State Buckeyes at Michigan Wolverines
Saturday, 6 pm on ESPN
With Michigan’s win at home over No. 3 Purdue on Thursday night they found themselves right in the middle of some bubble talk again. They’ll need a win against a good Ohio State team to keep their bubble afloat.
Colorado State Rams at Boise State Broncos
Sunday, 4 pm on FS1
Both teams are gunning for the Mountain West regular season title but have Wyoming ahead of them in the standings. This should be the best game of the Sunday slate as the Rams’ David Roddy looks to overpower the Broncos tough defense. This is the first of two matchups for these teams this year, so lets see who wins round one.
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