Last week, in my first edition of Saturday Down South Bracketology, I promised that this opening section would typically be a spot where I emptied the notebook, so to speak, regarding “One Big Topic” which could be a player, game, team, conference or concept. On Saturday, as I was preparing to zero in on what I wanted to use this space to talk about, each time I thought I had figured out what this week’s topic would be, another freaking player from somewhere around this freezing cold country was treating us to a performance that made me think over and over, “Holy cow, we could be setting up for an absolutely remarkable final few months of the college basketball season.”
Consider, we had 3 players — Houston’s Kingston Flemings, Illinois’ Keaton Wagler, and BYU’s AJ Dybantsa — reach the 40-point mark in a span of about 4 hours. We also had JT Toppin go punch-for-punch with Flemings, delivering a 31-point, 12-rebound gem of a performance in a Texas Tech win over Houston. Cameron Boozer put up a casual 32 and 9 against Wake Forest. Braden Smith went for 27 points and 12 assists in Purdue’s loss to Illinois, and Jeremy Fears dished out 17 assists, the second-most in Michigan State history, in an absolute rout of the Maryland Terrapins.
And mind you, I didn’t even mention: UConn’s overtime win over Villanova extending the Huskies’ win streak to 15-straight games, their longest of the century… Nebraska overcoming a 6-point halftime deficit against Minnesota to remain undefeated… North Carolina winning a thriller over Virginia in Charlottesville… Auburn and Tennessee scoring road upsets over Florida and Alabama, respectively… Gonzaga holding off a San Francisco 2nd-half rally to stay unbeaten in the WCC.
And again, all of this happened on Saturday. One single day of college hoops action produced this much madness, so sure, it may not be March, but the madness has clearly already begun.
The Bracket
Bracketology Breakdown
No. 1 Seeds: Arizona Wildcats (West Region), Michigan Wolverines (Midwest Region), UConn Huskies (East Region), Duke Blue Devils (South Region)
Multi-Bid Leagues: ACC (9), Big 12 (7), Big East (4), Big Ten (10), Mountain West (3), SEC (9), WCC (2)
SEC Seeding: Florida (4), Vanderbilt (4), Arkansas (5), Alabama (6), Tennessee (6), Georgia (7), Texas A&M (8), Kentucky (8), Auburn (10)
Bubble Watch
Last 4 Byes: Auburn, Ohio State, Virginia Tech, USC
Last 4 In: New Mexico, Seton Hall, Miami FL, UCLA
First 4 Out: Indiana, TCU, California, Texas
Next 4 Out: Mizzou, Stanford, Butler, LSU
10 Biggest Games of the Week
Monday, January 26 – 7 p.m. ET, ESPN – Louisville at Duke
Monday, January 26 – 9 p.m. ET, ESPN – Arizona at BYU
Tuesday, January 27 – 7 p.m. ET, Peacock – Nebraska at Michigan
Friday, January 30 – 8 p.m. ET, FOX – Michigan at Michigan State
Saturday, January 31 – 1 p.m. ET, SEC Network – Texas A&M at Georgia
Saturday, January 31 – 4:30 p.m. ET, ESPN – BYU at Kansas
Saturday, January 31 – 6:30 p.m. ET, ESPN – Kentucky at Arkansas
Saturday, January 31 – 10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN – Saint Mary’s at Gonzaga
Sunday, February 1 – 1 p.m. ET, ABC – Alabama at Florida
Sunday, February 1 – 4 p.m. ET, FS1 – Illinois at Nebraska
