FratHouseSports

1. New Rankings: In weekend that saw 11 ranked teams lose, surprisingly only one new team has entered the rankings (Arizona jumped in at #22 after wins against UCLA and USC). But on the flip side only one team retained their ranking from last week, unanimous #1 Ohio State…other than them everyone flip flopped with Notre Dame making the biggest jump from 14 to 8 and Syracuse dropping the lowest from 10 to 17. Complete ranking here.

2. Big East: The Big East is not only the best conference, it’s the craziest. The conference is in total chaos after this past week: bottom half teams like Marquette, Seton Hall, and Providence all beat top 10 teams, Syracuse lost its fourth straight…and all the craziness was capped off by St. John’s thrashing of Duke on Sunday. The Big East is so good that if a team finishes over .500 in conference play I fully expect them to get an at large bid.

3. Pac 10: Things just got interesting in the Pac 10. Washington who looked like they were running away with the Pac 10 title is now 7-2 after a 80-87 loss to Washington State last night, opening up the door for (7-2) Arizona and (6-3) UCLA to once again contend for title.

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Arizona 85 – 74 UCLA: This was a battle to see who was second best in the Pac 10..and other than AZ totally dominating, the only thing of note that happened was this alleyhoop dunk from future Pac 10 POY Derrick Williams (2 more dunks from Williams here).

#24 Saint Mary’s 73 – 71 Gonzaga: We continue this weeks string of buzzer beaters with this one from  Saint Mary’s guard Mickey McConnell who hit a jumper with 1 second remaining to keep the Gaels perfect in WCC play this season. In addition to moving to 6-0, with the win the Gaels have effectively put an end to the Zags run of 10 straight regular season titles…who suddenly find themselves at 3-3 having lost three straight.

Big Ten Notes Below…

UNC 74 – 70 Miami: Here was one of two game winners last night. This one came courtesy of freshman dud Harrison Barnes who is shooting just 37.3 percent from the floor and even worst from three point land (just 31.5 percent), but on this night he mde all the fans forget just how much he sucks with this game winner (video here).

#19 Louisville 55 – 54 West Virginia: WVU could have definately used some of suspended guard Casey Mitchell’s scoring in this one…WVU only suited up eight scholarship players and managed just two baskets in the final 15 minutes of play. But UL still needed some last second heroics from Peyton Siva to get the W (video here).

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#13 Purdue 63 – 62 Penn State: This was your most exciting game of the night (complete video highlights here) and it was forward JaJuan Johnson who provided the finale…down one with five seconds to go he hit a long jumper to vault (5-1) Purdue into 2nd place in the conference, just one game back of 6-0 Ohio State. The stat of the game: Penn State got zero points from their bench in this one and just one shot attempt…hell if their coach knew how to recruit a bit the Nittany Lions could actually be good.
Video of two more buzzer beaters below…

Tennessee 59 – 57 Georgia: I have nothing but good news for Vol fans. Thanks to an awesome last second buzzer beater from Bryan Williams the Vols are now 2-2 and still in the SEC East title hunt. And even better yet Bruce Pearl is halfway done with his eight game suspension. And even better still, Pearl will be on the bench coaching Saturday as the the Vols take on #8 UConn because the suspension only applies to conference games. With a win at UConn, the Vols would be a lock for the tournament.

#9 BYU 83 – 67 TCU: Jimmer led the way in this one with 21 points…and he added another shot to the YouTube highlight reels with this three he took from way way back.

Colorado 67 – 79 Nebraska: When Public Enemy made the song “Don’t Believe the Hype” they must have been talking about this years Colorado team. Just when everybody was starting to hop on the Buffs bandwagon, with the them 3-0 in conference having beaten both #8 Mizzou and #20 KState, they go and lose to Nebraska. Nebraska!? Their matchup with Kanas next Tuesday is suddenly a date that no longer deserves a circle.

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Pitt 74 – 66 Syracuse: And then there were three. How things might have been different had leading scorer Kris Joseph been there for the Orangemen…but he wasn’t and Pitt handed Syracuse their first loss of the season and more importantly the Panthers, who are off to a 6-0 start in conference play for the first time ever, are in first place all by their lonesome in the Big East standings. We’ll see just how long that last though.

UConn 61 – 59 Villanova: He did it again! Kemba Walker overcame a tuff shooting night to lead the Huskies to the win down the stretch, hitting a big three and the game winner just like he did at Texas last week. Walker right now reminds me of Gilbert Arenas back when people used to call him Agent Zero, you know back when he was actually good.

Even with the loss ‘Nova is still in the Big East title hunt and have a chance to even the score with games coming up against Syracuse (Saturday) and Pitt (Next Monday).

More notes below…

The Undefeateds: There’s still four perfect teams left out there: #2 Ohio State (18-0), #3 Kansas (17-0), #4 Syracuse (18-0), and #6 San Diego State (19-0)…and out of all of them SDSU might be playing the best ball. Seriously. But you can throw the records out the window this week because all of them will face some of their toughest competition to date. Syracuse takes on both Pitt and Villanova on the road. Ohio State plays Illinois. Kansas will go up against Texas. And SDSU will face their first true test taking on BYU.

UNC Sucks: The expectations for UNC were high in the preseason…they were ranked in the top 10, Harrison Barnes was an all-american and now both those things downright are laughable. Carolina is now 12-5 and coming off a 78-58 loss yesterday where they were held to its fewest points in the Roy Williams era.

Conference notes below…