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Top 25 Games
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Marquette 79, Notre Dame 57: “Tonight, with Hayward in the house, YOUR Golden Eagles exacted their revenge and then some, riding a well-balanced scoring attack and a reinvigorated (or perhaps just “invigorated,” since it hasn’t looked this good all year) defense to a 79-57 thumping of the Fighting Irish.” (Anonymous Eagle); “All of that offense is fine but the real difference last night was defense. MU played with an edge defensively and it showed. MU held the sweet-shooting Irish to a paltry eFG% of 42%. Notre Dame came in with a national top 15 offense — averaging over 1.15 points per possession (ppp) — and the Warriors held them to 0.90 ppp, the Irish’s third worst offensive performance of the season. This was easily MU’s finest defensive performance against a quality opponent this year.” (Cracked Sidewalks)
Pre-Game Analysis
- Maryland-Wake Forest: “Here’s an unusual phenomenon, at least in conference play: after playing arguably the best team in the country on Sunday, Maryland will turn around and play arguably the worst high-major team in the country. Ah, the joys of Wake Forest.” (Testudo Times)
News/Analysis
- Kentucky Basketball: Fairness “Made In America” For Enes Kanter: “Not anybody can be happy with the NCAA ruling in the Enes Kanter Case. Not a soul.” (A Sea of Blue)
- Four Things We Learned from the Terps’ Loss to Duke: Reflecting on nearly knocking off the #1 team int the country. (Testudo Times)
- Who Is The Biggest Big 12 Threat To Kansas?: With the rest of the Big 12 struggling so far the question is who can challenge the Jayhawks. (Rock Chalk Talk)
- Mario Little Cleared To Play By Bill Self: “This afternoon Bill Self announced that Mario Little would once again be eligible to play for the Kansas Jayhawk basketball team. Little, as most will recall, has been suspended since December 16th following a misdemeanor arrest in Lawrence.” (Rock Chalk Talk)
- Does Purdue’s Ranking Matter?: “I saw on Twitter this morning that one of the many fools media types (Gary Parrish) put up his top 25 and he had Purdue at 13th. And that’s fine. It’s worse than their actual ranking will be, but honestly, who cares? Gary Parrish has probably not watched a complete half of Purdue basketball this season, so really, his opinion is nothing. The problem, of course, is that his opinion — and those of other fools like him — actually gets traction simply because of the size of their megaphone (platform). And then other people who haven’t watched 5 minutes of Purdue take their opinions as fact. But does it matter?” (Boiled Sports)
- UConn getting by, but Walker needs even more help from his friends: “Walker got the most support he’s had from his backing band offensively against a quality opponent since Maui, with three non-Kemba players (Shabazz Napier, Alex Oriakhi, Roscoe Smith) breaking into double-digits, and two more (Donnell Beverly, Charles Okwandu) hitting season-highs. And yet, perhaps the Huskies’ most meaningful win of the season, one that head coach Jim Calhoun labeled “Our best win of the year,” basically came down to a little luck; not only did Walker’s miracle Taliek Brown-esque heave somehow find the bottom of the net, but the Longhorns also opened overtime by missing three free throws.” (The UConn Blog)
- UCLA Hoops Roundup: Confidence and Conditioning: Recapping where the Bruins stand at this point in the season. (Bruins Nation)