NCAA Top 25 Hoops Recap 2/4/2022: A narrow victory
Another busy week of college basketball behind us! We are truly in the heart of the season now and this is the point where everyones eyes start turning towards those conference tournaments that are just around the corner. Before you know it, it will be Selection Sunday and the stage will be set for March Madness. I can hardly wait!
We saw just two top twenty five games this past Monday and neither of them were upsets so let's just move along to Tuesday shall we?
There were eight top 25 games played on Tuesday night. There were only two upsets, but there was almost a third and I am not very happy about that.
Unranked Creighton took down #17 UConn for the first upset and then unranked Ole Miss beat #25 LSU for the other upset of the night. Tennesse got back on track with a win over Texas A&M as did Kansas with a win over Iowa State. Both of those teams had some setbacks in the past week or so, so it was nice to see them bounce back.
#13 Michigan State beat unranked Maryland, but it was only by a single point and it wasn't pretty at all. They got a bit lucky at the end of the game with a layup to put them ahead with only 1.9 seconds left in the game. It really shouldn't have been this close of a game, but I honestly wouldn't expect any less from MSU at this point.
The seem to have a knack for playing down to the level of their opponent. It is aggrivating.
In other MSU news, I heard this week that they are rescheduleing the U of M game to another date. The orgiinal contest was postponed becase Michigan was in Covid protocol.
Personally, I think this is a dumb move. They aren't required to make up this game. Plus it will be at U of M, so why give the Wolverines another reason to pad their resume before the tournament. I just don't see the point of putting yourself in that position. MSU has some other loses during the regular season that are already putting them in jeopardy of losing the conference title. If they end up narrowly missing it because they chose to make up this game and they lose, I will be pretty disappointed.
Perhaps Izzo knows what he is doing and he has confidence in his team. Perhaps he doesn't care because he knows they are heading to the big dance anyway. Who knows.
Wenesday night gave us six top 25 games. It's nice to see Kentucky at the #5 spot. I am sure my friends down south will appreciate that. Purdue continues to be a power house in the Big 10. They are sitting at a ranking of #4 in the nation and the road to the Big 10 Championship will likely lead through them.
The two upsets of Wednesday night came at the hands of #18 over #11 Wisconsin and #24 Marquette over #12 Villanova. It would be intersting to see if the Big East and the Big 10 have had the most movement in their conferences this year. I feel like one of them has at least one upset victory each week.
I forgot to mention that Auburn played on Tuesday night and hit the century mark scoring 100 point against their opponent to retain the #1 ranking. This could be a case of Auburn getting hot at jus the right time.
Thursday night we had four top 25 games. Unfortunately, one of them was postponed. Iowa and Ohio State will have to play another day (or not). They both have similar records at 13-5 and 14-7, so it could have been a really good game.
Probably the biggest news of the night was #7 Arizona upsetting #3 UCLA. I can't say as though I am too sad about that one. I still have a grudge against UCLA over the tournament last year and their beat down of Michigan State.
Tonight we have zero games on the calendar. I was able to watch my neices play again this past Tuesday. Once again in standard fashion they beat their opponent by more than twenty points. I think there was a point they were up by close to 40 points, but I can't recall now. My niece who is a freshman got some decent play time on the varsity team, but she stil hasn't been able to score yet. My other niece who is a senior came close to having a double double. We will be watching them in action again this weekend as long as the schools broadcast the games.
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Are we all underestimating Auburn or are they a house of cards waiting to fall hard?
There is still a bit of time before the tournament, so I guess anything could happen. I haven't honestly seen them play a single game this year, so I don't even know what to think. I think we get the SEC network as part of our YouTube TV subscription so maybe I will have to try and catch one of their games.