NCAA Hoops Friday Wrap-Up 12/17/2021: Holiday Slowdown
I've gotta be honest with you, I really didn't watch a ton of basketball this week. In fact, with Michigan State being on an extended break, the only games I did watch were the junior varsity and varsity games that my neices played in on Tuesday.
My younger neice got zero playing time in the varsity game because she played every single quarter in the JV game. She still gets to sit on the bench with the varsity team during the game which I think is pretty great considering she is only a freshman.
Oh, they won their JV game by the way.
In similar fashion, the varsity team also won their game, so it was a pair of wins for both of my neices. It is so fun watching both of them play. The teams that they play on are fast and relentless on defense. I have a feeling they are going to give a lot of teams fits next year when Ohio implements the shot clock for women's HS basketball.
I am not kidding, there was a point where the opposing team just kept passing the ball around for a good five minutes because my nieces team was covering them so well. Every time they thought they had an open shooter the doors would close. It was pretty cool to watch.
Like I said, they are a fast team, I have seen some opponents just run out of steem because they can't keep up with all the running. My only issue with them is they need to take the ball to the hoop more. It seems like in this era of Stef Curry, all kids want to do these days are shoot "3"'s. When they are falling that is great, but when they aren't, you need to shift gears and start driving the lane. These girls have the speed to do that, they just need to get out of that three point mindset. I have seen several games where they let it get a lot closer than it should have been because they just kept chucking up three balls that wouldn't fall...
Anyway, let's get on to the college hoops. There weren't a ton of games this week. In fact there were zero top 25 games on Monday night.
Tuesday gave us eight top 25 games and only one of them was an upset. Unranked Memphis took down #6 Alabama. It was a pretty big margin too, something like 14 points. Congrats to the Tigers for handing it to the #6 team in the nation. I personally don't really think of Bama as a basketball team, I think they have been decent the past couple of years, and I think they had some lucky(?) wins over big teams, but I don't know if that 6 was really deserved. Likely they are going to drop to a more realistic ranking now.
Wenesday gave us four games, but one of them was cancelled Alabama State at #4 UCLA. The other three games went off with zero upsets.
Finally, last night gave us only one game and it was #2 Duke taking out unranked App State by a pretty big margin.
Tonight there is only one game on and then this weekend thing pick back up a bit (at least on Saturday).
Like I said, things are slowing down a bit now for the Holiday season and likely the college bowl games that are going to be starting up (today actually).
Be sure to check back on Monday when I cover all of the hoops action that took place over the weekend.
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