NCAA Men's Hoops Recap 2/14/2022: Renewed Focus
Now that the Superbowl is behind us, we can focus our attention fully on Basketball. Oh, sure the Olympics are still going on, but I think a lot of people agree those are pretty much a farce this year. With the continued doping and all of the speed skating short track controversy, I have made it a point not to tune in that much.
Lot's of respect to Matthew Stafford and the LA Rams. Well done. Stafford deserved that win more than anyone in the league given his track record with the Lions. I am really happy for him that he finally got the recognition he deserves. On a side note, I did pretty well last night too. I was able to win the 2nd and 4th quarters on @summertooth's superbowl board. It was pretty awesome watching 350 Hive magically show up in my account this morning!
The Superbowl wasn't the only hot ticket this weekend. I got to watch a handful of really exciting college basketball games that I am going to recap for you.
Friday night there was only one top 25 game. It was #25 Xavier over #24 UConn. Also, not that you really care, but my nieces finished their final home games of the regular season last night. My niece who is a freshman got a lot of playing time in the freshman and JV game. They were able to win both of them, but there were some moments that it was close.
On the Varsity side of things, they went on to win their game by more than twenty points which has been a recurring theme for them this year. Now they head on to the tournament and what will likely be some really tough competition. I hope they can make a deep run this year.
Saturday gave us a ton of college basketball. Eighteen games in total to be exact. I decided to do some betting on Saturday and I put down about ten dollars across many of the games. I ended up winning my money back which I guess isn't horrible. It would have been nice to be up a bit though.
#1 Auburn bounced back and took down unranked Texas A&M. I expect these rankings will change by the end of today. Don't expect Auburn to be #1 much longer.
Unranked Rutgers has been on a tear lately and they added another big win to their resume taking down #14 Wisconsin. This was actually the game that won me most of my money back.
In other upests, unranked Memphis beat #6 Houston, unranked Butler beat #18 Marquette, and #21 USC beat #12 UCLA.
I am happy to say that #17 Michigan State shook off their slump (at least for now) and beat Indiana by a pretty convincing margin. That is good news because they have a tough schedule ahead to finish out the regular season. It was really nice to see the Spartans playing so well.
More like what we were seeing at the beginning of the season. If you can't tell, I am really happy about that!
Finally, on Sunday we had three top 25 games that were played. The Maryland Purdue game was probably the most exciting. It came right down to the wire and #3 Purdue was barely able to squeak past unranked Maryland. It was a bit of a heartbreaker for sure given the potential for upset.
The Illinois Northwestern game was actually a lot closer than the final score would lead you to believe as well.
I'd also like to point out that the game between Boise State and Colorado State was also pretty fantastic. I had it on while I was waiting for the Superbowl to start and it was a thriller that went into overtime. While neither of the teams are ranked, this game had big implications for their conference. Both teams sit near the top. I have had the opportunity to visit Colorado State a couple of times when I was younger and the campus is really beautiful. That tie to this team is what prompted me to not flip the channel and watch this thriller of a game to its completion.
That's all I have for today. Like I said, football is past us now and it is a mad dash to March and the NCAA touranment. Expect to see a lot of movement as teams make that final push for bracket consideration.
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USC has to be the most wildly inconsistent team I've ever watched. They're either on fire or a bottom tier team. The bipolarity is incredible
I haven't had the chance to see them too much this year. I feel like Michigan State is similar though. Maybe not quite to the same degree. I think the tournament should be really exciting this year.
Good wins with 350 Hive earned and maybe you should buy a lottery ticket as the luck is on your side.
Haha yeah, maybe. Hard to say though. I put $20 fiat on another board and didn't win a thing. Maybe it needs to be a crypto lottery ticket!