What’s Trending: The ACC/Big Ten Challenge & More…
Posted by Matt Eisenberg on December 3rd, 2018What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Matthew Eisenberg (@matteise) is your weekly host.
Two weeks ago, college basketball fans were treated to a Feast Week that featured Gonzaga vs. Duke in Maui, Virginia vs. Wisconsin in the Bahamas and Kansas vs. Tennessee in Brooklyn. This past week brought us the perfect dessert to the meal with the 20th annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge. This season’s event, as always, included a plethora of quality match-ups…
https://twitter.com/accmbb/status/1067103946186067968
The challenge this year included Michigan soundly beating North Carolina by 17 points, as Wolverines’ freshman Iggy Brazdeikis scored a season-high 24 points in a dominant performance. Michigan’s elite defense stifled the Tar Heels all game long, as the below sequence shows…
https://twitter.com/BigTenNetwork/status/1068000299506225152
The challenge this year included Wisconsin making plays in crunch time. The Badgers overcame a 12-point second half deficit to beat NC State. The below sequence sealed things…
Wisconsin Basketball.
Winning Plays.
Nice #B1GACC win, @BadgerMBB! pic.twitter.com/qQvYu2bEfD
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) November 28, 2018
The challenge this year included last-second drama. Pittsburgh was down a point with the ball in the closing seconds against Iowa. Unfortunately for the Panthers, the final few seconds included nothing more than these two airballs….
Anotha one. ✅
And it's another thriller in the #B1GACC Challenge as @IowaHoops holds on against Pitt!
B1G 4, ACC 3. pic.twitter.com/JFQ2KUU888
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) November 28, 2018
The challenge this year included an ACC team draining a game-winning shot in the final seconds. Leonard Hamilton‘s Florida State club trailed Purdue by eight points with under four minutes to go, but the deficit was just one point with ten seconds remaining. Then, the Seminoles’ Trent Forrest stepped up…
https://twitter.com/theACCDN/status/1068003704312233984
The challenge this year featured 14 games and each conference walked away with seven victories. Thank you ACC, thank you Big Ten, for another terrific challenge.
https://twitter.com/theACCDN/status/1068007237413732352
The challenge this year featured a number of individual efforts and plays as well. There was Zion doing #Zionthings in Duke‘s win over Indiana…
https://twitter.com/br_CBB/status/1067633045904199681
The challenge this year featured Wisconsin‘s Brad Davison taking five charges….
https://twitter.com/espn/status/1067663730316636161
Outside of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge last week, college basketball also experienced a rather sizable lowlight. Despite having access to countless respected advanced analytics platforms and plenty of smart people offering to help the NCAA develop its system, it decided to handle the job on its own. The organization unveiled its initial NET Rankings on Wednesday morning…
https://twitter.com/marchmadness/status/1067105577661276160
And well, within a half-hour Twitter ripped apart the new system. Whether that meant Nate Silver offering this opinion…
These are the worst rankings I've ever seen in any sport, ever. NCAA needs to go completely back to the drawing board. https://t.co/UXKbrGyuP8
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 26, 2018
The NET rankings also gave us the least talked about upset of a “#1” team ever…
The No. 1 team in the NET rankings goes down! pic.twitter.com/Be1HcPCrVm
— SB Nation CBB (@SBNationCBB) November 29, 2018
This past week also featured March Madness darling Sister Jean jumping back into our lives as she was given a Final Four ring at Loyola (Chicago)…
A Final Four ring for Sister Jean! pic.twitter.com/k0A0slaC8i
— Loyola Men's Basketball (@RamblersMBB) November 28, 2018
This past week also featured two plays that flew under the radar. First, Western Kentucky’s Josh Anderson registered this dunk which could be up against any dunk of the week…
Nowhere to go but up ↗️↗️↗️ #GoTops @JA__IV @ESPNAssignDesk #SCTop10 pic.twitter.com/jRZtyTlD3W
— #SellOutDiddle (@WKUBasketball) December 2, 2018
And finally, Eastern Kentucky’s Nick Mayo found the ball in his hands in the waning seconds against High Point…
"To Mayo … at the buzzer … for the win!"
Here it is. @1nmay0's glorious buzzer beater, complete with @Gstotelmyer's radio call.
Let's get Nick on @SportsCenter's #SCTop10! pic.twitter.com/3pV0ysapkl
— EKUHoops (@EKUHoops) December 1, 2018
