Some good ones on tap today. I'll be curious to see how Az/TT goes. TT almost knocked off ISU at home last weekend.

Creighton up 5 on #14 UConn with 5 mins left

UCF gets beat by 51 by KU.

Now they are leading #10 UH by 1 with 3 seconds left.

UConn ends up losing to Creighton as 7.5 favorites

UCF with perhaps the worst last possession defense I've seen all year and they lose.

Big12Fan2024 said:

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UCF with perhaps the worst last possession defense I've seen all year and they lose.

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And then houston turned around and gave them a second life

And then UCF couldn't even inbound the ball.

Tech is just pounding Arizona on the boards. Something like 15-3 so far. They are a well coached bunch.

Tech controls the game the entire first half and leads 33-26.

Tech looks strong

KU wins by 10 over K State although the game was never really close and KU led 12-18 for most of the game.

Tang headed for another tough year in Manhattan. Kinda makes you wonder where he would be if Nowell hadn't changed his mind at the last second and passed up Miami's money to stay at K State, then Keyontae Johnson fell into his lap in August when he was finally cleared to play and Florida wouldn't take the risk again and most other big schools where he wanted to go had full rosters already. But it did happen and he parlayed that team into a contract extension that sets him for life. Smart dude!

Tech up 5 and has led since 2 minutes into the game but Williams appears to be hurt and exiting the court with 4 to go.

Arizona can't hit the broad side of the barn from 3 when someone is actually guarding them. 3 of 14 for 21% today.

Big12Fan2024 said:

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Arizona can't hit the broad side of the barn from 3 when someone is actually guarding them. 3 of 14 for 21% today.

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Where was that on Tuesday? They were 7 for 14 against us.

Tech turns on the accelerators in the final 4 minutes and ends up blowing Arizona out by double digits, 70-54.

boognish_bear said:

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Big12Fan2024 said:

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Arizona can't hit the broad side of the barn from 3 when someone is actually guarding them. 3 of 14 for 21% today.

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Where was that on Tuesday? They were 7 for 14 against us.

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Yep. 50%. Like pretty much everyone we've played this year. We're currently sitting at #333 out of #355 total D1 teams in 3 point defense. It's almost impossible to be that bad.

Arizona finished 3-18 today for 17%

There's a lot of parity in college hoops this season.

Big12Fan2024 said:

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boognish_bear said:

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Big12Fan2024 said:

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Arizona can't hit the broad side of the barn from 3 when someone is actually guarding them. 3 of 14 for 21% today.

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Where was that on Tuesday? They were 7 for 14 against us.

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Yep. 50%. Like pretty much everyone we've played this year. We're currently sitting at #333 out of #355 total D1 teams in 3 point defense. It's almost impossible to be that bad.

Arizona finished 3-18 today for 17%

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Against decent teams, we don't have the coaching or the execution to make teams uncomfortable. That's one of the reasons why strictly evaluating quality of looks the other team gets isn't the full picture. At times over the last three years, Drew has harped on that metric all while teams drill 3 after 3 on the defense. "Sometimes they just make shots" is what we hear. Anybody whose played or coached know 100% this is true, but its often used way out of context. We've had a lot of those supposed "they just made shots" games over the last 3 years.

Teams that are comfortable, will make easy shots and then they will make actual well contested (difficult) shots. Teams that are made very uncomfortable (where the defense is constantly disruptive) will often miss even open looks. This obviously isn't true at the pro level for the most part but it is college and down.

There's a reason agressive, competent defenses give up open threes on a possesstion and teams can't seem to knock them down. They already made them work and are all over the court.. so even the open three with 7 seconds left on the shot clock doesn't go down more often than not. The offenses are made to feel uncomfortable and can never get in a rhythm. That's also the reason the closer the talent is to pro level, the less effective those "hard working, overly aggressive" defenses become and those games often turn into a scoring battle.

#7 Marquette loses at home as a 9.5 favorite to Xavier

Eat it, Rick Barnes.

Big12Fan2024 said:

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Eat it, Rick Barnes.

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Yep...#6 Tenn loses to Vandy as a 5.5 favorite

I obviously made a huge preseason error. I counted WVU as an almost auto win. I didn't realize DeVries was that good of a coach. He's up 1 at the half vs Iowa St and still playing without his best player (his son) and with 2 other key players hurt. They look like the school along with Tech battling with us for the top 2nd tier position.

Texas Tech with a 70-54 home win over Arizona as the Red Raiders go on a 13-0 run down the stretch.

This was a much-needed victory for Texas Tech - which hadn’t really beaten a tourney team all season.

New Mexico transfer Jacob Toppin was the difference - with 20 points and 16…

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) January 18, 2025

Last summer I was hoping like crazy we could pull off getting both Omier and Toppin and have a 3 man front court rotation of Omier, Toppin and Ojianwuna.

There have already been 16 Top 25 teams that have lost this week:

Florida
Tennessee
Alabama
Marquette
Kentucky
Kansas
Memphis
Oregon
Texas A&M
Miss State
UConn
Gonzaga
Georgia
Michigan
Utah State
Baylor

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) January 18, 2025

ISU in a dogfight with WV

Vanderbilt with the court storm after upsetting the Tennessee Vols.

Another WILD day in college hoops.

Mark Byington has done an incredible job in Year 1 with the Commodores. Vandy now 15-3 and 3-2 in SEC play.

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) January 18, 2025

I'm not sure anyone's top 4 wins can stack up to West Virginia's this season:

at No. 9 Kansas
No. 2 Iowa State
No. 16 Gonzaga (Bahamas)
Arizona (Bahamas)

The wins at Allen Fieldhouse and against Iowa State have come without star Tucker DeVries.

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) January 19, 2025

Devries is a hell of a coach

Texas Tech jumps up to #13 in KenPom after the 16 point home win over Arizona. 👀

Should see a pretty solid jump in the NET as well. Just a big time win for the Red Raiders who are now 4-2 in Big 12 play.

— Austin Massey (@austinmasseySBI) January 18, 2025

Big12Fan2024 said:

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I obviously made a huge preseason error. I counted WVU as an almost auto win. I didn't realize DeVries was that good of a coach. He's up 1 at the half vs Iowa St and still playing without his best player (his son) and with 2 other key players hurt. They look like the school along with Tech battling with us for the top 2nd tier position.

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They're decent and extremely well coached. That game is showing why even Bu should win out at home. No team good enough not to win every conference home game. Totally different home v away. If they can't finish ahead of Tech or Wvu, forget it.

Quinton said:

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Big12Fan2024 said:

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I obviously made a huge preseason error. I counted WVU as an almost auto win. I didn't realize DeVries was that good of a coach. He's up 1 at the half vs Iowa St and still playing without his best player (his son) and with 2 other key players hurt. They look like the school along with Tech battling with us for the top 2nd tier position.

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They're decent and extremely well coached. That game is showing why even Bu should win out at home. No team good enough not to win every conference home game. Totally different home v away. If they can't finish ahead of Tech or Wvu, forget it.

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WVU has beaten Top 25 teams at home, on the road and at neutral site. They have conference wins against 2 of the likely top 4 teams in the conference and, although non-conference because it was in a tourney, a win also over Arizona and a take down of a Gonzaga team that blew our doors off the hinges. That's not something we can really claim right now. I'm glad we get them at Foster.

Grant McCasland was asked about the Red Raiders owning their mistakes throughout the game, then got emotional saying how important Chance McMillian has been in all aspects.
Here's the end of the answer. pic.twitter.com/7hi0TaW8X1

— Nathan Giese (@NathanGiese) January 18, 2025

They're a good sound team. They also got blown out at home and another game they were blown away by a middling team. They have shown more ability to occasionally rise up and beat good teams.. I agree.

I've been low on our performances but still no reason they can't win every game at home. If they get rolled at Foster I'll have to concede. I don't think they win out at home, but that should be their goal and expectation.

Utah takes care of BYU in Salt Lake City and suddenly they are 3-3 in the Big 12.