Ah yes, a great day of College Basketball, it has been far too long since that has been the case but Tuesday night provided a great night of entertaining College Basketball games. Texas Tech-Tennessee was filled with bad offense, which set the trend for a night of defense. Virginia took a road loss to James Madison, while Syracuse and Villanova squared off in an old Big East matchup. All of this and more is broken down in the daily roundup.
Texas Tech wins battle of the bricks
Texas Tech and Tennessee was setup to be a good defensive matchup, as both teams rated as Top-5 defenses in the sport, but no one could have predicted this bad of offense. The teams combined for 38-132 shooting from the floor, 10-64 shooting from three, and 22-41 shooting from the line, which is atrocious on all accounts. The bigger thing was the amount of bad shooting, Texas Tech’s Clarence Nadolny airballed a free throw, Tennessee’s Josiah Jordan-James had a 1-0 and when going up for a dunk, slipped and had the ball go out of bounds. After the game went into overtime tied at 44, Texas Tech ended up with the win in overtime 57-52. This is a nice win for the Red Raiders are they are now 7-1 and should be in a position to coast to a Top-4 finish in the Big 12.
Virginia falls victim to upset, again
First off, Virginia isn’t very good so them losing on the road to a decent James Madison team shouldn’t have come as a surprise. That said, the fact it isn’t a surprise tells you all you need to know about Virginia. The Cavaliers led 10-2 to start the game, then fell victim to a 24-4 run over the next 15 minutes. Sure they made a run to have a chance late in the game, but that is a pitiful string of basketball. James Madison played well and deserved to rush the court after winning this game in front of a sold-out crowd. As for Virginia, their NCAA Tournament hopes are dwindling fast, unless they compete for an ACC crown, they will miss the Tournament.
Villanova beats Syracuse despite abysmal shooting performance
In a battle of former Big East opponents, Villanova beat Syracuse 67-53 in the Jimmy V Classic. The craziest part of the game was the fact that Villanova went 13-50 from three and was still able to win this game by 14 points, which is impressive. The Wildcats got some really quality looks and just didn’t knock down the shots, but it didn’t matter in the end as they won handily despite that. This Wildcats team will need to shoot better than that when they play at Baylor on Sunday, but for now, they move to 7-2 overall.
Ferocious comeback leads Butler past Oklahoma
Trailing by as many as 13, and down 8 with eight minutes left in the game, the outlook did not look good for Butler, but this team found a way to win a critical game, while shorthanded. The Bulldogs went on a 9-0 run over an eight-minute stretch to take the lead and put themselves in a position to win the game, although a tough three by Elijah Harkless forced overtime. Oklahoma had the lead for most of the overtime period but with 35 seconds left, Chuck Harris drilled a three to give Butler the lead, one they wouldn’t give away this time. This is a big win for a Butler team that at some point will hope to add Bryce Nze, Bo Hodges, and Myles Tate into the mix.
Offensive explosion leads Michigan to win at Nebraska
Coming into this game we didn’t really know how good this Michigan team was, and to a degree, we don’t know how it will hold up against good teams, but it certainly seems to be turning a corner in their 102-67 win against Nebraska. Terrance Williams continues to look like he could be a legitimate option off the bench, as he scored 22 points off the bench, Brandon Johns hit 2 random threes, Caleb Houstan went 4-7 from deep, even Hunter Dickinson got in the mix, hitting one three. If this offense proves to be able to score from the perimeter even to a lesser extent than this, this is the Wolverines that were a projected Top-10 team in the preseason.