QT: Michigan State showing some early Mojo

College basketball is alive and well in East Lansing.  We can acknowledge the long road ahead while also recognizing that Michigan State might be better than we first thought.  In a five-day span, the Spartans have dropped a one-point decision to Gonzaga and taken down Kentucky.  Splitting two games with preseason No. 1 seeds is rather nifty.  MSU’s next two contests: Villanova and Alabama.  We applaud your schedule, Tom Izzo.

Additional Quick Takes:

• Kansas beat Duke in Indianapolis.  Close game.  Status quo for both.
• North Carolina keeps winning – but by relatively small margins given its competition.  Things that make you go hmm, even if quietly.
• Dayton took its show to UNLV and lost to the Rebels.  We’ll learn more about the Flyers at the Battle 4 Atlantis next week.  UNLV is off to a 3-0 start, but its remaining non-conference schedule is rather light.  Check back in January.
• Meanwhile, Saint Louis toppled Memphis and is A or 1A with Dayton in the Atlantic 10 race.
• Upsets continue: Colgate knocked off Syracuse and Washington State fell at Prairie View AM.  For what it’s worth, SWAC teams now have three wins against Pac-12 schools in the Pac-12/SWAC Legacy Series.  Something else that makes you go, hmm.  And hmm some more.
• Wild start for Temple.  In three games, the Owls have lost to Wagner, beaten Villanova and lost to Vanderbilt.

Bracketology: Michigan State back in the Field

An important reminder when it comes to evaluating resumes: While the dates of games are noted on NCAA team sheets, the Selection Committee has more than once emphasized that a team’s full body of work is evaluated without undo respect to the timing of its wins and losses.  Agree or disagree, a victory in February is worth the same as one as in December, and vice-versa.  Information is presented in such a way that unless you specifically look for the date of a contest, it blends into the background.

Bracketology
Seed List

Why issue such a reminder?  Because it’s easy to get caught up in streaks or how a team played at a given point in time – past or present – and form an opinion about how far said team must climb or fall related to that particular position.

Quick Takes: Michigan State and the Mountain West …

Let’s begin Quick Takes with this … we could realistically be looking at an NCAA tournament bracket without these teams: Kentucky, Duke and Michigan State.  Since winning at Duke on December 1, MSU has one win against a tournament team, Rutgers.  And Thursday, those same Spartans lost at Rutgers by 40.  Pauses due to COVID have certainly impacted Sparty, along with many other teams, but MSU’s current resume has more questions than answers.  With more than a month left in the regular season (we hope), there’s ample time for Tom Izzo and Company to right the ship.  We’ll see if last night ends up being a turning point or the edge of a cliff.

Quick Takes: Cards, Blue Devils win the night

Louisville’s defense suffocated Michigan.

It’s was that simple Tuesday night at the KFC Yum! Center.  The previously hot Wolverines missed 43 of 58 shots, including 16 of 19 three-point attempts. By game’s end, Big Blue had racked up a whopping 43 points.  For comparison sakes, Michigan averaged 79 points-per-game while sweeping through Iowa State, North Carolina and Gonzaga at the Battle 4 Atlantis.

Assuming the Cardinals dispatch Pittsburgh at home on Friday, they will be the top overall seed in next Monday’s bracket.

Duke wasn’t as defensively dominant in the scoring column, but the Blue Devils rattled Michigan State early and kept the Spartans off balance with an in-your-face mentality in East Lansing.  It was a nice bounce-back victory after last week’s shocking home loss to Stephen F. Austin.  Duke heads to Virginia Tech on Friday.

Quick Takes: Virginia Tech fills its plate with Spartan stuffing

Collectively, the college basketball world wasn’t expecting too much from Virginia Tech this season.

That narrative may have changed Monday afternoon in Maui.

Tenacious on both ends of the court, the Hokies filled their plate with some Spartan stuffing en route to a huge resume-boosting victory over Michigan State.

In many ways, the Hokies resembled the previous team coached by Mike Young.  Yes, that would be Wofford, whom Young guided to the NCAA tournament five times in his final 10 years at the school.  It’s one game, so let’s not push all of our chips in just yet.  But it’s a huge start that gives Young and the Hokies a nice stack of cache to play with.