Spartans Win!
It's been a flurry of activity over the past week in the college basketball landscape. With football starting to wind down, this is going to become the norm. We had some destination tournaments over the Thanksgiving break, and then we started to ease into a bit of conference play. We aren't quite there yet, but we are getting there, and that is when the fireworks will really start happening. Especially in the Big Ten conference.
On Wednesday of last week there were eleven games in the top 25, and a couple of them were upsets. Kansas took down number 17 Tennessee 81 to 76, and number 21 Auburn upset number 14 St. John's 85 to 74. Finally, we also saw Texas get a win over number 23 North Carolina State 102 to 97. It wasn't an upset, but I should also point out the 101 points number 7 Michigan put up against number 12 Gonzaga in their lopsided 101 to 61 win.
Thanksgiving day gave us six games in the top 25 with TCU getting the turkey day upset over number 10 Florida 84 to 80. I'd also like to point out that number 11 Michigan State took down number 16 North Carolina 74 to 58 in a game that many thought would go the Tar Heels way.
Black Friday gave us five games in the top 25, with none of them being upsets. Saturday there were only two games as most everyone was watching college football and there were also no upsets on that day.
Sunday gave us a single game in the top 25, and that was also not an upset though number 20 Texas Tech had a close scrape against Wyoming winning 76 to 72.
Monday night there were zero college basketball games played in the top 25, but last night on Tuesday we had seven games.
I was lucky enough to travel to East Lansing, MI to watch the Michigan State Spartans face the Iowa Hawkeyes. It was a great time culminating in a 71 to 52 win for the number 7 Spartans. This weekend the face a number 4 Duke team that narrowly beat the defending champs number 15 Florida 67 to 66.
Syracuse had a big upset win over number 13 Tennessee 62 to 60, and number 16 North Carolina narrowly defeated number 18 Kentucky 67 to 64.
The new Michigan State head coach Pat Fitzgerald came out on the court during one of the breaks and got the crowd fired up. They all seemed pretty happy with the hiring decision on that one. I will reserve my judgement until I see them play.
It was a great night with an awesome win for the Spartans. I hope they can carry this momentum with them into the regular season. They have a tough game on Saturday against Duke, and then a Big Ten regular season that is looking to be pretty stacked with talent. Purdue is still sitting in the number 1 spot in the nation and Michigan is not far behind them at number 3. Illinois is still ranked in the number 14 spot, and Indiana and USC are 22 and 24 respectively.
It's going to be a tough road to the tournament this year.
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