No. 18 Duke 78, Florida State 56
College hoops Saturday midday update
Coach K’s record-setting day, controversy in Milwaukee and a terrific buzzer-beater in the Horizon League.
Mark Dolejs-USA TODAY Sports
Mike Krzyzewski won the early portion of Saturday by joining Jim Boeheim as the only coaches in Division-I history to win 900 games at a single school after Duke pounded Florida State, 78-56.
Coach K’s record overshadowed the fact that the Blue Devils gave their worst shooting performance of the season and still hammered one of the better squads in the ACC. Duke went 18-of-59 from the field (30.5 percent), marking just the second time this season they’ve shot less than 40 percent in a game.
It was the 28th straight home win for Duke, which make up for its poor performance from the field by stroking 34-of-43 attempts from the free-throw line. Place your additional snarky comment here.
No. 4 Villanova 94, Marquette 85 (OT)
Had Villanova not outlasted Marquette in overtime, you probably would have seen a lot more of this on the highlight shows tonight and tomorrow:
This was called a (buzzer-beating) charge on Tony Chennault, even though it looks an awful lot like Marquette’s Steve Taylor has a foot in the restricted circle. Villanova overcame the controversy to score the first five points of overtime and cruise to a 94-85 win. A solid bounceback win for a team that was humiliated at home by Creighton earlier this week.
No. 2 Syracuse 64, Mami 52
The Tyler Ennis bandwagon got a tad larger on Saturday when the freshman point guard scored the five biggest points of the game to help Syracuse win at Miami and remain a perfect 19-0.
The Hurricanes had completely erased an 18-point first half deficit to take a 47-46 lead with 8:20 to play when Ennis took control. First, there was a tough drive down the lane which culminated in the freshman hitting a lay-up, drawing a foul and sinking the freebie at the stripe. Ennis followed that performance up seconds later with a gorgeous floater that soared over the outstretched hands of two Miami big men and back down to the ground after barely disrupting the net.
Ennis never changes expression. Good or bad, mostly good, he just keeps playing. As important as any Fr. in the country this year
— Scott Van Pelt (@notthefakeSVP) January 25, 2014 Ennis finished with 14 points, five rebounds, four assists and even more All-American buzz than he entered the day with.
Texas 74, No. 24 Baylor 60
Much has been made about the conference slides of Ohio State, Wisconsin, Oregon and Iowa State, but it’s also panic time in Waco, where Baylor dropped their fourth straight Big 12 game and fell to 1-5 in league play after losing to Texas, 74-60.
While the Longhorns exceeding everyone’s expectations is a story in its own right, it’s the collapse of a Baylor team that beat Dayton, Colorado and Kentucky before the calendar flipped that’s the headline-grabber here.
The folks over at Our Daily Bears aren’t even mad anymore, they’re just resigned.
I don’t have any excuses or silver linings after this one. Losing to Tech was pretty bad, especially in the way it happened. Losing to OU without getting a shot off in the final seconds with a chance to win or tie was arguably worse. Losing at Kansas, whatever. Getting blown out at home by Isaiah Taylor and the Texas Longhorns is a new low. Baylor didn’t just dig a hole for themselves, they blew out the bottom of the whole already dug, causing a cave-in that trapped all the diggers.
The pattern for how Baylor manages to lose games is now set. We start off slow through turnovers and atrocious defense. Then the offense improves a bit, Rico Gathers comes in and starts cleaning up the glass, and we make it closer going into the half. The second half begins with our starters back on the floor and we fall off yet again, showing somewhere around zero defensive effort and even less offensive ingenuity. When the shots fall as required, there is hope. When they don’t, none. I’d say Baylor plays “down” to its opponents, but that would require being above them in the first place. We have all the evidence needed at this point to believe this just isn’t a good team.
At least the opportunity for an NIT title defense is appearing more and more realistic.
Providence 81, Xavier 72
Bryce Cotton has been one of college basketball’s most underrated players for three years, but he might finally start to get his due credit now that Providence is a contender in the Big East.
Cotton, who is averaging a career-best 20.3 ppg this season, won the Big East scoring title a season ago and would be the front-runner to do the same in 2013-14 had Doug McDermott and Creighton not made the move from the Missouri Valley. The lone factor keeping Cotton from being one of the better-known named in college hoops has been that he’s never played for a Friar team that made the NCAA Tournament or even one that lost fewer than 15 games.
At least the second part of that fact figures to change this season, as Saturday’s win over Xavier assured that Providence will play its final game of January with a 15-5 overall record and a 5-2 mark in league play. Cotton played the unsurprising role of hero against the Musketeers, netting a game-high 25 points to go with 7 assists.
A postseason push by the Friars might go hand-in-hand with an All-American push by their star.
Oakland 76, Illinois-Chicago 75
Your buzzer-beater of the day comes from Duke Monday, who lifted Oakland to 76-75 comeback win over Illinois-Chicago.
Once again, college basketball is the best.
Other scores of note:
No. 10 Iowa 76, Northwestern 50
No. 11 Oklahoma State 81, West Virginia 75
No. 14 Kentucky 79, Georgia 54
No. 16 Iowa State 81, No. 21 Kansas State 75
Virginia 65, Virginia Tech 45
Wake Forest 65, Notre Dame 58
VCU 97, La Salle 89 (2 OT)
Be sure to check out our college hoops scores super group for coverage of today’s action from all of SB Nation’s team sites.
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