Saturday’s top-heavy schedule appeared to have many games decided shortly after the opening tip.
Auburn was down to Kentucky 23-2 before the under 12 minute media time out. Even though Kentucky managed to throttle Auburn 110-75, UK hadn’t scored at least 110 points in a regular-season game since beating Tennessee State 115-87 way back on December 30, 2002. Auburn became only the second team all season to score that many points, since Kentucky shot 65 percent from the field. The win was a milestone for Head Coach John Calipari, as he won his 100th game against only four defeats at Rupp Arena.
Other key games of note…
Texas is definitely NIT bound after losing a hard fought 85-77 decision to Iowa State. For the Longhorns, it was their 9th loss in 10 tries against the RPI Top 50. You might also add Miami (Florida) to the list after blowing a huge lead at Louisville and blowing away a rather chippy game, 55-53.
Xavier swept the season series from Butler, same thing for Pittsburgh against Syracuse. Also, LSU’s Jarell Martin’s between the legs dunk against fading Florida made Shaquille O’Neal’s dunks from January 27, 1990 in the ultimate scoreathon game against Hank Gathers, Bo Kimble, and the rest of Loyola Marymount look like a picnic trying to find a place to park your RV outside the Daytona International Speedway. Yes, LSU did win and they need a few more quality wins to possibly bolster their chances of grabbing one of the final at-large bids.
Out in the Pac-12, Stanford beat their arch-rivals in Cal 72-61 and will host both Oregon schools next week–so don’t count out the Cardinal just yet, even with UCLA starting to fade just a bit in recent weeks.
Outside of that, please take a bit of time and revisit my Dean Smith tribute blog for something really, really cool that took place during North Carolina’s first game after Coach Smith passed away. Yes, the Tar Heels did rout Georgia Tech in the process.
Just scroll down to the bottom or hit your Page Down key on your laptop or desktop to view the very short, but special clip:
Legendary former North Carolina head coach Dean Smith dies at age 83
There will be some more key games that I will try to monitor on Sunday afternoon. Please have a good night.
All Things About Men's College Basketball 