Men's College Basketball

No. 12 Florida Outlasts Arizona In Overtime And Unpredictable Dayton Upsets No. 16 Alabama

Florida survived a questionable call late in regulation to hold off Arizona, and mid-major powers Iona and Ohio each notched major road wins.

by Mike Rutherford

Dec 8, 2011, 3:16 PM UTC

Baby one plus one ain’t two when you’re with Dayton, C ain’t after A and B when you’re with Dayton.

If you don’t start your daily college basketball wrap-up with Jamie Foxx, then really what’s the point?

SCORES

Top 25

No. 5 Louisville 90, IUPUI 60
No. 7 Duke 87, Colorado State 64
No. 8 Xavier 73, Butler 61
No. 12 Florida 78, Arizona 72 (OT)
No. 14 Wisconsin 70, Green Bay 42
Dayton 74, No. 16 Alabama 62
No. 22 Texas A&M 64, Sam Houston St. 37
No. 24 Illinois 48, St. Bonaventure 43

GAME OF THE NIGHT: Florida 78, Arizona 72 (OT)

Gator big man Patric Young dominated a game that was supposed to be headlined by elite guard play, scoring 25 points and grabbing ten rebounds in Florida's first real quality win of the season. The sophomore made 12-of-15 shots, and after the game head coach Billy Donovan ripped into star guards Kenny Boynton and Erving Walker for not feeding Young more.

“This was a game where Patric Young should have taken 40 shots in the game,” Donovan said. “Erving Walker and Kenny Boynton need to do a better job of reading what’s going on inside the game. Their shooting percentage form the field, although their intentions of wanting to win the game and feeling like they need to do something, we should have just played out of Patric Young the whole entire night.

“He had 25 points. He should have had 45 points. We should have got the ball to him much, much more than we did. There’s got to be a better understanding.”

Florida trailed by seven with seven minutes to go in regulation, missed 17 of their 32 free-throw attempts and was on the wrong end of a questionable last-second whistle that gave Arizona's Solomon Hill three free-throws and the opportunity to push the game into overtime. Still, the Gators managed to notch just their second victory over an opponent with a winning record.

Arizona, which began the season ranked in the top 25, played without suspended freshman guard Josiah Turner.

GAME OF THE NIGHT PART II: Iona 80, Denver 78 (OT)

The meeting between the No. 4 and No. 6 teams in the latest SB Nation Mid-Major Top 25 certainly lived up to the hype. And by hype I mean the expectations I laid out for it in my head and the time I spent talking about it to friends who could not have cared less.

Iona, which entered the evening as the nation's leading-scoring team at 91.0 ppg, was held below 90 points for just the third time this season and appeared at times to be affected by the thin mountain air.

"We had guys coming in and out of the game and a few of them were under the weather," Iona head coach Tim Cluess said. "I know Scott (Machado) and Momo (Jones) came out of the game more than normal."

In the end it didn’t matter as the Gaels rallied from a 13-point deficit in the second half, forced overtime and then won on a jumper by Randy Dezouvre with 1.6 seconds to play. The loss was the first at home for Denver (6-2), whose only other defeat this season came at the hands of then-No. 18 California.

Jones led Iona with 21 points while Machado was limited to the almost pedestrian (for him) stat line of 19 points, seven rebounds, six assists, two steals and none block (kid's good). Chris Udofia's 18 points led Denver.

GAME OF THE NIGHT PART III: Ohio 84, Oakland 82

In a second battle of mid-major top 25 teams, Ohio snapped Oakland's six-game winning streak by drilling 12 three-pointers and surviving an 8-2 Golden Grizzly run in the game's final minutes. Closing games out has become an issue for the Bobcats, who had a nearly identical situation play out in a two-point win at Marshall, and let a late six-point lead slip away in a 59-54 loss to No. 5 Louisville.

"This was a great learning experience," Oakland coach Greg Kampe said. "When they keep coming at you it's hard to get up and play well every time. We just weren't ready to play. Most learning experiences are painful. There's no excuses. Ohio is a really good team. They came out with confidence."

Ohio (6-1) outscored Oakland's bench 42-8 and forced the Golden Grizzlies into a season-high 22 turnovers.

The loss dropped Oakland to 6-3.

UPSET OF THE NIGHT: Dayton 74, No. 16 Alabama 62

Dayton began the season with an upset loss to Miami of Ohio, then it won the Old Spice Classic in convincing fashion, then it was beaten at home by Buffalo by 30, it followed that performance up with a 17-point loss to Murray State and now it beats No. 16 Alabama by 12.

Basically, this is UD basketball for the past seven or eight years in a nutshell. They amaze and then they disappoint almost instantly (see: 2010 where they perpetually underachieved and then blew through the NIT). Dayton has dominated big non-conference games in recent years despite making the NCAA Tournament just once since 2004. They've actually won nine of their last ten games against BCS conference teams, but that hasn't done anything to limit the flood of frustrating losses like the three they've suffered this season.

I would almost bet my life savings that the Flyers go 8-8 or 9-7 in the Atlantic-10. The only sure thing is that they'll lose at Xavier.

PLAYER OF THE NIGHT: Jeffery Taylor, Vanderbilt

The return of center Festus Ezeli was supposed to be the story in Nashville, but Taylor stole the show with a 30-point performance in an 87-83 win over Davidson that the Commodores had to have.

HONOR ROLL:

Patric Young, Florida - As mentioned earlier, the big dominated the post against Arizona, registering 25 points and ten rebounds.

Nick Barbour, High Point - Hit seven of his team's 15 three-pointers and scored 35 points in an 87-83 loss to Wake Forest.

Langston Galloway, St. Joseph's - Scored a career-high 30 points in a 75-68 win over Boston U.

Walt Gibler, Loyola (IL) - Scored half of his team's 58 points in an 11-point loss to DePaul.

Zach Rosen, Pennsylvania - Scored a game-high 29 points to go with eight assists in a 69-60 win over the fighting Blue Hens of Delaware.

QUOTE OF THE NIGHT: "We were trying to hit grand slams with nobody on base." --Illinois head coach Bruce Weber after his team's ugly 48-43 win over Saint Bonaventure. The 24th-ranked Illini moved to 9-0.

IMAGE OF THE NIGHT:

65283_vermont_saint_louis_basketball_medium

If this picture is any indication, Saint Louis' 62-43 win over Vermont was the whitest college basketball game ever played.

TEN TO END:

1. The Jimmer wan in attendance as BYU held the nation's leading scorer, Damian Lillard, to just 15 points and pounded Weber State, 94-66. The Wildcats have played two quality opponents on the road (Saint Mary's being the other) and they've gotten hammered in both those games. WSU is solid, but they aren't the NCAA Tournament upset threat that many in the mid-major community insist they are.

2. People always talk about the Princeton/Georgetown game in 1989, but the closest a No. 1 seed has ever come to being knocked out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament actually came in 1996. With top assistant Thad Matta watching from the bench, Western Carolina's three-pointer at the buzzer just missed and top seed Purdue escaped with a 73-71 win. The pair met again on Wednesday night and the Boilermakers were again victorious, this time by a score of 65-60. Robbie Hummel's 19 points led the way.

3. Wisconsin's 70-42 home victory over Green Bay marked the first non-sellout at the Kohl Center in 144 games.

4. Louisville junior forward Rakeem Buckles returned to the floor on Wednesday for the first time since tearing his ACL last February. Manhattan transfer (and current walk-on) Chris Smith scored 19 points and went over the 1,000-point mark for his career as the fifth-ranked Cardinals blew out visiting IUPUI, 90-60.

5. In the return mentioned earlier, Vandy center Festus Ezeli scored 15 points and grabbed six rebounds in 21 minutes of court time.

6. It's hard to believe that the Utah basketball program has fallen this far. The Utes are 1-7 and just lost by 31 to a Fullerton squad that was beaten by Houston Baptist earlier this season. They may not win a game in their Pac-12 debut.

7. Jerry Palm's second early-season bracketology is out. Check it out if the mood strikes you.

8. Despite a rowdy home crowd that seemed at times to be almost willing the Bulldogs to a comeback win, Butler fell to 4-5 with a 12-point loss to No. 8 Xavier. The two-time defending national runners-up will now almost certainly have to win the Horizon League Tournament in order to get back into the field of 68.

9. Georgia Tech's 68-56 victory over Georgia marked the Jackets' first road victory over their arch-rivals in 35 years. That's hard to believe.

10. As if things weren't going poorly enough for UCLA, yesterday at practice freshman guard Normal Powell suddenly broke out into hives and started struggling to breathe. He was taken to the hospital where he stayed overnight for observation.

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