Seeing Red....

Good Super Tuesday of basketball, as expected.

Ohio St. 69 Wisconsin 72

In the battle of the Bucks, Wisconsin used a tremendous interior defense to stifle any attempts at points in the paint, until the very end. Marcus Landry showed up in the stat sheet with 4 blocks in only 21 minutes!! With Ohio St. shooting 34 two-point shots, that's an outrageous 22% of all attempted two-point shots that he blocked while he was on the floor. Just as impressive was Wisconsin blocking 21% of all two point shots during the game. 8% is great, 22% is insane. Anyone watching the game could see the swarms of white that would descend the minute the ball got inside the arc. Taylor stepped up during Tucker's "poor" shooting to hit 1.60 points-per-weighted shot for 25 total points. Ohio St.'s improvement over the course of the game in their numerous 3-point attempts (finishing 46% while hoisting 43% of their shots as threes) kept the game within reach.
Jason Chappell played his role perfectly while not posting anything great on the stat sheet, he frustrated Oden all night and cause him to draw an early 2nd foul in the first half. Ohio St. continues its treacherous schedule (already playing at the top 3 teams in the nation) while hosting an extremely strong Tennessee team.


Clemson 87 NC St. 76

Clemson continued its reign as the last unbeaten by getting a quality, mistake-free win at NC St. The Tigers only turned the ball over 8 times in a 68 possession game while forcing 17 from the Wolfpack, for a 25% TO percentage. They also shot well from three (52%) while posting 63.5% eFG and a solid 1.28 points-per-possession. NC St. was almost as hot with 1.11 ppp on 63% eFG, but turning over the ball on a quarter of the possessions just doesn't help the cause.

Evansville 54 Mizzou St. 106

Missouri St., with help from Northern Iowa's loss to Illinois St. brought itself into a tie for first in the MVC with a complete offensive and defensive shellacking of Evansville. The Bears offense scored 1.55 points a possession!!! Yes, you heard it right. 57% 3pt shooting with 73% eFG numbers coupled with 25 assists on 63 shots. Sharing means points in this game. ***TEMPO-FREE ALERT*** The Bears "only" had 9 offensive rebound to the Aces 10 o-boards. Were they beat on the offensive glass???? You must unlearn what you have learned master Luke. Because of the Bears tremendous shooting, there just weren't that many opportunities, or "at-bats" for them to grab an offensive board. But the few misses that they did have (23), they secured 39% of those; an extremely strong percentage of second chances. On the other end, Evansville's "better" 10 rebounds came on 38 misses, for only a 23% offensive rebounding "batting average". Onward goes the Tempo-free revolution!!!!!! No wonder Evansville only could manage .79 points a possession.


Other lights:

22. Gators continue their stronghold in the Gainesville with almost identical statistical numbers of Arkansas, but slightly more 3 pointers. Ahh, as Dickie V would say "the power of the three babayyyy!!!"
7345. Air Force outscores New Mexico 41-18 in the second half to overcome a 15 point deficit at the half.
433. Notre Dame wins a close one. Joining the Ducks in trying to reverse last season's trend

Coming soon...
Fanatical looks back at who's "improved" from last season. How wrong were we a month ago?