The first official Saturday without wall-to-wall college football featured all-day college basketball, with ranked games across the schedule. Arkansas beat Texas Tech in Dallas, and some are starting to sound the alarm on the Red Raiders. I am not yet ready to write them off, as they have Christian Anderson and JT Toppin, two of the best players in the country and the Big 12. Arkansas looks very good and should be one of the SEC’s best teams this season.
Greg McDermott has his work cut out for him in Omaha; his Creighton team doesn’t defend, and they have to do some soul searching before Big East play begins. Kansas State came into Omaha and beat Creighton. It was the first half, when the Wildcats built an 18-point lead, that decided the game. The Bluejays just couldn’t quite close the gap; however, on a positive side, coach McDermott may have found something with his new starting lineup.
The Big Ten had some interesting results today. Michigan State escaped Penn State in State College. The Nittany Lions forced a ton of turnovers but didn’t make nearly enough shots to beat the Spartans. Nebraska had the win of the day as they used a Jamarques Lawrence buzzer-beater three-pointer to beat Illinois in Champaign. The Huskers are now 11-0 and will be ranked in the top 15 on Monday. Finally, Michigan turned it on late and blew out Maryland in College Park. The Terrapins played very well but lost star Pharrel Payne for a while and could never recover. I don’t know when Michigan will lose…