USATSI
The days leading up to Christmas always make for a pretty uninteresting week in the sport of college basketball because most programs are getting ready to let their players break for the holiday. This season, it’s a week that’ll feature exactly one game between two ranked schools. That’s obviously not fun. So if you were hoping to settle in for some can’t-miss matchups, well, my condolences.
Three of the four remaining undefeated teams are playing Tuesday, though.
Undefeated UConn is hosting Georgetown. Undefeated Mississippi State is playing Drake inside Pinnacle Bank Arena in Nebraska. Undefeated New Mexico is hosting Prairie View A&M. Of that group, only New Mexico is yet to crack the CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings, but the Lobos probably deserve more consideration than the predictive metrics suggest because they are 11-0 with a road win over the Saint Mary’s team that is ranked 22nd at KenPom.com.
That’s great stuff from Richard Pitino.
His team is on my radar.
UConn and Mississippi State are No. 2 and No. 11, respectively, in Tuesday morning’s updated Top 25 And 1. The Huskies are 12-0 with four Quadrant 1 wins — among them an 82-67 neutral-court victory over Alabama. The Bulldogs are 11-0 with two Quadrant 1 wins — among them a 58-55 neutral-court victory over Marquette. If you were putting together an early list of national coach of the year candidates, UConn’s Dan Hurley and Mississippi State’s Chris Jans would both have to be on it. Hurley, now in Year 5 at UConn, has created this monster of a team exactly the way he promised he would. Jans, meantime, is proving his reputation as a man with real coaching chops is…
..
