Ballin!
It was a pretty busy week as far as basketball is concerned. As we roll towards the holiday weekend, many teams are starting to participate in some of those early season destination tournaments that we frequently see. In addition to that, my nephews have been busy plugging away at their local basketball games. Last weekend we got to go down and watch our youngest nephew play with his school team.
They run a camp on Saturdays where teams play a couple of games at each grade level. This is a really good program to help get kids interested in the sport early and to work on the feeder programs that will eventually see these students play at the high school level. Something that as I mentioned in a previous post is starting to become less common.
The nephew we watched this past Saturday is actually a really good player. He has a strong situational awareness of what is happening on the court. He scored quite a few points and got a ton of rebounds. I think if he sticks with it and refines his game he can be a really strong player at the next level.
On the college side of things, we saw four games in the top 25 last week on Wednesday. There were actually a couple of upsets too. Only two of these games were cupcake games and the other two offered some big excitement. Number 4 Arizona took down number 3 Connecticut 71 to 67, and number 11 Alabama upset number 8 Illinois 90 to 86.
Thursday night we had five games in the top 25. In each of those games, the ranked team took down the unranked team, but I should point out number 15 Texas Tech just barely beat Wake Forest 84 to 83. This is the same Wake Forest team that gave U of M fits as well, so they might find their way into the top 25 at some point.
Friday night we had nine games in the top 25. My favorite game of the night was the number 17 Michigan State win over Detroit Mercy 84 to 56, though that game was kind of a given. About halfway through the game most of the starters for Michigan State weren't even on the court anymore. Probably the other biggest game of the day was number 1 Purdue versus number 15 Texas Tech, but the Boilermakers took the Red Raiders down 86 to 56, so it really wasn't much of a game.
Saturday there was only one game in the top 25 and that was number 8 Illinois trying to bounce back after their big loss earlier in the week. They did beating LIU 98 to 58.
Sunday we had two games in the top 25, but neither of those were an upset. In fact, they were both cupcake games that went about how you would expect for two top five teams.
Things started to get exciting on Monday as more significant games started being played. Ten games in the top 25 to be exact and only a couple of them were cupcake games. Seton Hall had a big upset victory over number 23 North Carolina State 85 to 74, and number 15 Iowa State took down number 14 St. John's 83 to 82.
Syracuse took number 3 Houston to overtime, but the Cougars got the win 78 to 74. Number 12 Gonzaga got the huge upset win over number 8 Alabama 95 to 85, and number 7 U of M beat a San Diego State team that used to be pretty good 94 to 54.
Finally, Tuesday night we had a couple of daytime games as those destination tournaments I was talking about before started happening. Number 11 Michigan State hammered East Carolina 89 to 56. It was a really good game for the Spartans against a team that really wasn't that competitive. They are going to have a tougher go of it tomorrow when they face North Carolina.
Probably the biggest upset of Tuesday was number 3 Houston falling to number 17 Tennessee 76 to 73. In other upset news, California took down number 18 UCLA 80 to 72. I should also point out, number 7 U of M beat number 21 Auburn 102 to 72. Ouch! I'm starting to get a bit nervous about those Michigan/Michigan State games now.
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