Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Wednesday's Shootaround: A Big Ten blowout, OT in Athens, and Jeremy Lamb

No. 1 Ohio State 87, No. 12 Purdue 64: See here.

No. 5 UConn 76, Marquette 68: See here.

Seton Hall 90, Syracuse 68: See here.

No. 6 Kansas 82, Colorado 78: The Jayhawks were able to hold on down the stretch and knock off Colorado on the road despite quite obviously playing with incredibly heavy hearts. It seems silly to talk about basketball at this point, but the article from Gary Parrish is much better than anything I would be writing in this limited space, so I'll allow him to handle that side of the story. We'll focus on the less-depressing side here.

Josh Selby caught fire in the first half, scoring 15 of his 17 points, while Tyrel Reed and Brady Morningstar paced the Jayhawks in the second half with 14 points apiece. The Buffaloes did a pretty good job on the Morrii, who combined for just 21 points and 16 boards, but Colorado could not get enough stops down the stretch to overcome the six-to-eight point lead Kansas held for much of the game. A couple of missed Jayhawk free throws down the stretch allowed Colorado to get within two points in the final minute, but that was it.

Kansas will land in Washington DC today for tomorrow's funeral. Kids, call your parents. Tell them you love them. Love you, mom.

No. 23 Florida 104, Georgia 91 2OT: The Gators and the Bulldogs played a terrific game down in Athens on Tuesday night. Florida was up six points with just 1:28 left on the clock, but thanks to a missed front end and another 1-2 trip to the foul line in the final minute for Erving Walker, Georgia was able to mount a come back. Dustin Ware knocked down two free throws and Gerald Robinson buried a three, setting up this final possession:



The overtime was just as exciting, as the two teams traded buckets for the first four and a half minutes before Georgia was finally able to build a three point lead with seven seconds left, setting up these heroics from Erving Walker:



In the second overtime, Chandler Parsons took over. He scored nine of his 17 points and the Gators used a quick 9-0 run to put away Georgia. Vernon Macklin had 23 points and nine boards for the Gators, who move to 5-1 in the SEC East, a game in front of everyone in the loss column.

Richmond 70, Dayton 61: The Spiders picked up a win at Dayton that they had to have as they remained just one game back of Xavier in the loss column in the A-10 standings. Kevin Anderson had 18 of his 26 points in the first half and Justin Harper added 14 points and 11 boards. Dayton took their first lead of the game at 37-35, but Richmond responded with eight straight points before pushing the lead to 56-44.

Georgia Tech 72, Virginia Tech 57: Memorial Coliseum is where bubble dies go to die. Earlier this year, it was UNC getting smacked by 20. Now, Virginia Tech loses by 15 points in a game the couldn't afford to lose. Credit Iman Shumpert with one of the best individual performances on the season. He had 22 points, 12 boards, 11 assists, seven steals, and held Malcolm Delaney to 11 points on 3-13 shooting. Hey Iman, send that game tape to every NBA team.

UNLV 74, Wyoming 65: UNLV played their best half of basketball on the season as they overcame a 31-23 halftime deficit to score 51 second half points and knock off the Cowboys. Chace Stanback, Tre'Von Willis, and Oscar Bellfield all had 17 points.

Clemson 60, NC State 50: With 6:10 left in the opening half, NC State open up their biggest lead of the game, 31-12. From that point forward, Clemson outscored the Wolfpack 48-19 over the final 26 minutes of the game. Demontez Stitt led the way for Clemson, who got the much-needed win on their home floor. As for NC State? Well, they had better hope CJ Leslie and company hang around for a few years longer than Sidney Lowe does.

Lipscomb 73, Belmont 64: In one of the most underrated rivalry games in the country, Lipscomb avenged a 36 point whooping from two weeks ago as they handed the Bruins their first league loss of the season. More impressive, however, is that the Bison did it despite being down 38-20 late in the first half. Adnan Hodzic had 26 points as the Bison controlled the back boards and never let Belmont get into an offensive rhythm in the second half.

Other Notable Scores:

  • Missouri State 73, Drake 70
  • Arkansas 73, Auburn 64
  • East Tennessee State 67, USC-Upstate 52

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