A Little College Hoops

Alright, I was dead wrong. I really expected Texas to be the ones cruising to victory over Duke not the other way around. But the Dukies got up for this one and did plenty to quiet the skeptics. Let's face it squeaking out wins against Memphis, Drexel, Indiana, and Virginia Tech didn't exactly instill an invincible image. But JJ Reddick absolutely exploded today with 41 points - he was 9-16 from 3pt land. Thats goddlike. So Reddick stepped up for the biggest game of the year so far and #1Duke rode his performance to a 30 point win against #2 Texas. The next non-conference game that could really give them some trouble is Bucknell at home January 2nd right before ACC play begins. Texas will probably drop out of the top 5 - Iowa doesn't look like so much of a strong win after losing to Northern Iowa and Iowa State; and West Virginia handed Texas a W by not making any free throws. #4 Villanova and its 4 guards continue to live up to the hype. A solid 9 point win over then #5 Oklahoma and the Wildcasts handled a competitive Bucknell team that they matched up well against beating them by 19. #8Florida has surprised everyone -they've beaten Wake Forest, Syracuse, and Providence but easy with the National title talk. Since their run in the 2000 tournament this team never gets past the 2nd round of the tournament. Yes its ridiculously early for tournament talk but it was fueled by overhearing people talk about how the Gators are heading for the title game. Slow down - Syracuse isn't exactly looking too good right now, and Wake lost Chris Paul. But its a very impressive start seeing the players Florida lost last year. #10 Illinois is doing just fine without Luther Head running to 9-0. In a rematch of last year's title game the Illini got a bit of revenge with a 68-64 win against North Carolina. #16 Indiana suffered a tough loss to Duke when Marco Killingsworth ran out of gas with about 6 minutes left in the game and went on to lose to rival Indiana St. earlier this week. The Hoosiers seem to be regrouping and have a 16 point lead over #15 Kentucky at halftime. #20 George Washington had a very good 8 point win over #17 Maryland and will face fellow ACC member #23 NC State in their last non conference game before Atlantic 10 play begins. Second only to Florida's great start is North Carolina cracking the Top 25 at #24 with a completely different team. The Tar Heels rebounded nicely from its loss to Illinois with a 4 point win over then #10 Kentucky. Syracuse has dropped out of the Top 25 after losses to Bucknell and Florida. The Orange have the talent there's no question about that and they're even finding star production in surprising places like junior Demetris Nichols who has put up two 24 point games. But their defense stinks, their rebounding stinks, and Gerry McNamara has been stinking it up as well shooting under 30% from the field and outside the arc. To get this team going they either gotta have Terrence Roberts and Daryl Watkins hit the glass or run a small lineup out there a la Villanova hoping they can shoot the lights out. They Orange still have a little bit of time left to figure out how they're gona deal with their problems but Big East play is getting closer by the day. The Orange show up against UConn, Villanova and the rest of the Big East elite playing like this and they'll get run out of the building.