A couple bright spots in a bad weekend

1 day ago

Coming off the huge Detroit Lions loss on Saturday I was really looking for something to be happy about this past weekend. Michigan State had a big game against Illinois on Sunday and if they dropped that game, it was going to be a definite heartbreaker of a weekend as I mentioned in my post earlier this week.

Actually, even if both of those scenarios had happened it still wouldn't have been a total loss of a weekend because my niece's high school team won their game. They were "deep in Amish country" as my brother in law put it and they had a single game on Saturday.

It started out a bit rough, but ended with them snagging a 42-36 victory over the other team. In fact, they held them scoreless for the whole third quarter. That's pretty awesome if you ask me.

Thursday night last week there were three games in the top 25. Believe it or not, all of them were upsets. How crazy is that?!

Temple took down (18) Memphis 88 to 81, then Minnesota stunned (20) Michigan in overtime beating them 84 to 81. Finally, Oregon State slapped (16) Gonzaga 97 to 89 also in overtime.

Friday there were no college basketball games in the top 25, but then on Saturday there were fifteen of them.

One of the marquise match-ups of the day was (4) Alabama taking on (8) Kentucky. Alabama came out on top 102 to 97. Creighton got the Big East rolling with an upset victory over (14) UConn 68 to 63. (10) Houston had a close game against UCF, but they squeaked out the win 69 to 68.

(1) Auburn stays at the top of the college world at least for a little longer with a 70 to 68 win over (23) Georgia. Xavier continued the Big East upsets with a 59 to 57 win over (7) Marquette. (17) Purdue had a nice 65 to 58 upset on the road versus a (13) Oregon team that has been playing quite well this season.

Vanderbilt stunned (6) Tennessee with a huge in state upset victory 76 to 75. Meanwhile we saw West Virginia knock (2) Iowa State off their pedestal 64 to 57. (15) Mississippi State had a close overtime win against (21) Ole Miss 84 to 81, and (16) Gonzaga continued to take the hits as Santa Clara handed them a humiliating 103 to 99 loss.

On Sunday there were only three games in the top 25. (12) Michigan State had their really close win against (19) Illinois 80 to 78. I was basically on the edge of my seat for the whole game. It was pretty intense. When one of the Illinois start players fouled out with about 8 minutes left in the game, I thought the Spartans would run away with it, but Illinois kept it close. It was literally a technicality at the end that this game didn't go into overtime.

It was a lucky win for MSU and they have still proven that they have some growing to do. It's going to be a rough road through the rest of the Big Ten season and I am sure there will be some setbacks. At this point though, there shouldn't be much reason they don't at least make it to the big dance this Spring.

(20)Michigan had a big bounce back win after their humiliating loss to Minnesota with an overtime victory against Northwestern 80 to 76. I'm honestly not sure how Michigan is still ranked at this point.

Monday there were zero games in the top 25, but on Tuesday evening there were eleven of them.

(6) Tennessee had a nice bounce back from their Vanderbilt loss against (14) Mississippi State 68 to 56. (16) UConn also bounced back with an overtime win over Butler 80 to 78. (4) Alabama put Vandy back in their place with a 103 to 87 victory. It honestly annoys me that Bama is good at basketball now. I guess the fact that they aren't as good at football lately should be some consolation for me.

Ohio State had a big upset win over (11) Purdue 73 to 70 and Arizona State upset (23) West Virginia 65 to 57. Texas took down (22) Missouri 61 to 53, and UCLA Stunned (18) Wisconsin 85 to 83.

Wednesday there were five games in the top 25, but none of them were upsets. I would like to point out that both (5) Florida and (13) Texas A&M had narrow victories over South Carolina and (16) Ole Miss 70 to 69 and 63 to 62 respectively.

Also, (20) St. John's needed overtime to beat Xavier 79 to 71. Finally, (7) Houston had a pretty remarkable game against Utah holding them to a meager 36 points the entire game for a 70 to 36 win.

There are just two games on in the top 25 tonight and then a flurry of activity over the weekend. U of M faces a good Purdue team at Purdue on Friday night, and Michigan State heads to New York to take on Rutgers on Saturday at noon.

If you had to pick three games to watch on Saturday, I would suggest the Houston/Kansas game, the Ole Miss/Missouri game, or the Tennessee/Auburn game.

Or you can just watch the NFL Conference championships. Whatever you do, I hope you have an awesome weekend!