Thursday of Champ Week is the best basketball day of the year.
First two games on Thursday were #1-seeds getting upset in their tournaments.
— Mid-American
Kent State 67, Toledo 59
Last four years, Toledo is 62-13 in MAC regular season games, but only 4-4 in MAC Tournament games. Rockets haven’t been to the NCAA’s since 1980.
— Atlantic 15
St Joe’s 66, Richmond 61
Spiders led by 10 with 11:27 left in the game.
Hawks out-rebounded Richmond, 40-29.
Duquesne 65, Dayton 57
This is a disaster for bubble teams; Dayton is going to be in the NCAA’s, so now the winner of this tournament becomes a bid-stealer from a bubble team.
St Bonaventure 75, Loyola 74, 2OT
Bonnies were down 10, with 6:06 left in the game.
St Bonaventure won the last two days, by total of 3 points.
Daryl Banks scored 22 points in 42:00, and he didn’t start.
— Coaches who win (South Carolina, Florida) get new contracts.
Coaches who don’t win enough lose their jobs; this is a tough week for that.
Fresno State
Oklahoma State
Rice
Saint Louis
Texas-San Antonio
Vanderbilt…….all these schools fired their coach in the last day or two.
— ACC
NC State 74, Duke 69
12th-seed Wolfpack are first double-digit seed since 2010 to make the semi-finals of the ACC Tournament.
Last time Duke lost its first ACC Tourney game was 2013 (18-3 since 2003).
Pitt 81, Wake Forest 69
Panthers have won 10 of their last 12 games.
Wake Forest went 4-6 in its last ten games.
— Big East
St John’s 91, Seton Hall 72
Red Storm scored 1.32 points/possession; in their two losses to Seton Hall during the season, they scored 0.97/0.85 points/possession.
St John’s has won six in a row; their Selection Sunday will be stress-free.
Providence 78, Creighton 73
Friars held Creighton to 37.9% from the floor.
Bracketology suggests that Providence still needs a win Friday to make the NCAA’s.
Marquette 71, Villanova 65 OT
Loss figures to send Villanova to the NIT.
Wildcats shot 9-35 on the arc.
— Big X
Iowa State 76, Kansas State 57
Iowa State was 24-40 inside arc, 1-14 on arc, 25-31 on foul line.
Cyclones were +14 in turnovers; they’ve won nine of their last 11 games.
— Mountain West
Both afternoon games went to overtime.
Utah State 87, Fresno State 75, OT
Aggies have won six games in a row, two of them in OT.
Utah State’s Great Osobar was 15-24 on the foul line; Fresno’s whole team was 11-14.
San Diego State 74, UNLV 71, OT
Aztecs have won nine in a row vs UNLV in the MW Tournament.
San Diego State out-rebounded UNLV, 50-31.
Aztecs survived shooting 6-23 on arc, 16-26 on foul line.
— SEC
Mississippi State 70, LSU 60
Bulldogs outscored LSU 48-31 in second half.
Miss State snaps a 4-game losing skid; they’re on right side of the bubble, for now.
— Pac-12
Oregon 68, UCLA 66
UCLA’s last 26 games this season:
1-8 from December 9-January 11
8-1 from January 14-February 15
2-6 from February 18-today.
Arizona 70, USC 49- Because ESPN is ESPN, they have a story on the front page of their website about Bronny James’ NBA prospects. The kid started 6 of USC’s 33 games this season; let him progress at his own pace.
— American
Wichita State 71, Memphis 65
Shockers shot 56.8% inside arc.
Penny Hardaway said Memphis would pass on playing in the NIT; in his six years coaching the Tigers, Memphis is 133-62, but only 1-2 in NCAA Tournament games.
— Big 14
Ohio State 90, Iowa 78
Buckeyes are 6-1 since they fired their coach; that coach, by the way, got hired Thursday by DePaul to be their new coach.
— MAAC
Saint Peter’s 50, Rider 48
Teams combined to shoot 5-28 on the arc. No bueno.
Peacocks never trailed; they were up 14 at one point, hung on for dear life.
— Conference USA
Texas El-Paso 66, Liberty 57
Thursday would’ve been Don Haskins’ 94th birthday; he was UTEP’s coach when they won the 1966 national title. UTEP has won four games in a row, after starting out 4-9 in C-USA.
— WAC
Tex-Arlington 109, Stephen F Austin 78
Mavericks have won seven games in a row; they led 48-27 at halftime.
Tex-Arlington made 19-40 shots on the arc.
Seattle 81, Cal Baptist 57
Seattle snaps a 3-game losing skid.
Redhawks made 12-23 shots on the arc.
— Big West
Hawai’i 75, Northridge 68
Rainbows won eight of their last ten games.
Long Beach State 86, Cal-Riverside 67
Long Beach snaps a 5-game losing skid.
— Oakland Griizlies have a player, Jack Gohlke, who this season has taken:
121-327 on 3-pointers (37%)
4-8 on 2-point shots
45-57 on foul shots (78.9%)
Turns out that Gohlke is a graduate student who played four years at D-II Hillsdale College, and wasn’t starting there until January 15 of his junior year. Hillsdale made the Elite 8 of the D-II tournament for the first time in 2022.
Shooting is marketable.
