Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Around the Country

Will the real Cincinnati please stand up? The same squad that lost to Belmont, Bowling Green, UAB, and Illinois State has played ranked teams tough in back to back contests. Losing by 10 to #2 Memphis may not make Mick Cronin too happy, but coming on the heels of a very close Xavier game the Bearcats are trying to prove their worth in the Big East. Games against NC State and Miami (OH) will give them two more opportunities to get victories before opening the conference schedule.

Other games in the conference today include South Florida losing to Wake Forest and West Virginia defeating Radford. Last night, Georgia Tech nearly pulled off an upset against #3 Kansas, shaving a double digit deficit to two with ten seconds to play. The Jayhawks eventually came away with the win, but the Yellow Jackets are back to respectability after dropping off the national landscape with losses to Indiana and Vanderbilt. While they need to play better in the ACC to deserve a tournament bid, it's nice to see such a prominent program like Kansas struggle against one of the two teams that have defeated the Irish this year. Baylor, meanwhile, has lost only one game, a three point nail biter to #6 Washington State. Here's to both the Bears and Yellow Jackets earning NCAA selections by March.

Notre Dame is back in action Saturday against San Francisco. If you need to watch a game before then, check out Duke at Pittsburgh tomorrow at 7 on ESPN. The Panthers look to remain unbeaten and get their first marquee nonconference win of the year.

2 comments:

BelowtheRim007 said...

Does anyone have a scouting report for San Francisco? I've never seen them come anywhere close to the national radar.

BlackandGreen said...

Good question. They've lost to Oklahoma and Oregon by large margins, but those are the only two marquee games they've played so far.

I'll look into the statistics a bit today or tomorrow and make a quick scouting report, but good luck finding anyone who's actually seen this team play