College Hoops Sunday-Upside Down and All Around

It’s a weekend with no football, unless you decide to include the pajama games being played by NFL players as another league grapples with how to handle their All-Star festivities. So as we roll deep into college basketball conference play, it was a big Saturday in college basketball. The three local squads played consecutively and about 4:30 in the afternoon it appeared that an enjoyable pattern had emerged. All three teams were road underdogs had completed or were, emphatic wins. But there was a twist in the tale.
Mizzou was first out of the blocks and were in Starkville, Mississippi as six point underdogs to Mississippi State. Mizzou has been a very pleasant surprise, and especially so to me, and they continued to impress mightily. In this one, they leaped to a fast start fueled by a withering trapping defense, saw the Bulldogs fight back into it midway through the first half, and then blistered them the rest of the way. Besides the agressive presure defense, the calling card for Dennis Gates team has been getting to the line and clipping off threes at a fine percentage. In this game they were unable to shoot a bunch of free throws, but they were scorching from outside the arc. 15-32 from trey, and that’s gonna bury a lot of people, and it did in a 88-61 clubbing.
That’s six wins in eight SEC outings, with eleven Tigers scoring. The balance was evidenced by Caleb Grill being the only Tiger with a big scoring total with twenty. But fifty-five percent shooting, a significant rebound edge, and onle eleven turnovers is a tidy prescription for the now 17-4 Tigers. The sky is now the limit for Mizzou. Of course every night is a gauntlet in the SEC, and it continues Wednesday night at Tennessee, but every game seems more like an opportunity for MU right now.
Saturday sure didn’t look like an opportunity for Jerome Tang’s Wildcats. They were in Ames, and the prospects seemed dire. The Cyclones had won their Big 12 home games by an average of twenty one points, and were an angry bunch after a gut punch loss at Arizona, where a beyond half court shot forced them to an overtime they lost. Yes, Kansas State had won consecutive games, but merely being competitive seemed a viable goal for KSU. And indeed a rout occurred, only it was the ‘Cats dishing out the misery. They brushed off an opening burst by Iowa State, who jumped out 13-4, and crushed the home team from there on out. The Cyclones never even had a counter punch in a 80-61 thumping, that ended a hone winning streak at twenty nine.
All five K-State starters were in double figures with Dug McDaniel leading the way with twenty, they made half of their twenty three point attempts, and they offset eighteen turnovers by forcing the Cyclones into the same total, and punked ISU on the boards by ten. Despite the three straight wins, at 10-11, finding tangible goals still seems elusive, but they at the very least can relish being spoilers. Two weeks ago, looking ahead to a home game this Saturday against Kansas would have brought groans to Wildcat faithful. Now it seems like a plausible opportunity.
That certainly is because of their improved play, but also because Kansas looks like quite the vulnerable bunch right now. A week ago Saturday they suffered through as epic a final minute meltdown as you ever are going to see. At the line for a double bonus with a six-point lead with seventeen seconds left, they had a 99 plus percent chance of winning…..and they didn’t. And it was first place Houston that pulled the Houdini act, making it that much more painful. That was followed by a less than emphatic four-point home win again UCF.
But all seemed well at halftime in Waco. Their lead topped off at twenty one, and they were up ninteen at the break. Well, they went out and blew all of that lead with a horrible mix of bad defense, sloppy turnovers, and complete lack of poise. That was bad, but what was to come was even worse. They got the lead back up to a healthy ten with less than nine minutes to go. Five minutes later they wwre caught and passed again, went down with nary a whimper, and somehow lost by eleven 81-70.
Kansas gave up SIXTY in the second half in the biggest blown lead in program history, but somehow it was worse than even those words seem to carry, since they blew that lead, and then another significant one in the same game. There were problems all over the shop, and the hope for Jayhawk faithful is that this rock bottom before a resurgance. They are now in a three way tie for fifth in the league at 6-4, very uncharted territory for Bill Self.
No time for feeling sorry for themselves as equally wounded, but mighty dangerous Iowa State comes to Lawrence on Monday, and then there is a bit of a soft spot in the schedule……uh well, it seemed so until K-State started looking dangerous. A week of opprtunity, or further trauma lies ahead as we tick closer and closer to March Madness.
It was a heckuva Saturday to soak in all across the nation in college hoops, and certainly the wide array of emotions was interesting to process. The fans of all three locals generally will be distracted by one more giant football game this week, just as the stakes are growing higher on the court.