A quick wrap-up of the weekend in college hoops:
- The Texas Longhorns are looking like national title contenders after beating North Carolina 103-90 on Saturday. The contest was the first basketball game played at Jerry Jones’ new Cowboys Stadium, which will host the 2010 NBA All-Star Game and 2014 Final Four.
- Carolina how has three losses, but don’t count the defending national champions out just yet. The Tar Heels are very young, and they’ve already played some excellent competition (Ohio State before Evan Turner’s injury, Syracuse, Michigan State, Kentucky and now Texas). They’ll be a very tough out in March.
- Speaking of the Wildcats, team Calipari blew out Austin Peay 90-69 on Saturday, improving to 11-0 on the season. A win over Drexel on Monday night would be the 2,000th in school history — and make the Wildcats the first school in Division I to hit that milestone.
- Most of the other teams at the top of the polls came out ahead, with Kansas topping Michigan, Purdue blowing out Ball State, Syracuse beating the Bonnies and West Virginia surviving a scare against Cleveland State. But Tennessee was blown out by USC, as the Trojans handed the Vols their worst loss of Bruce Pearl’s tenure. Mike Gerrity — a newly-eligible transfer from Charlotte — led the Trojans with 12 points and 10 dimes in his USC debut.
- Meanwhile, two more Big East teams fell from the ranks of the unbeaten on Saturday, as Georgetown lost to Old Dominion and Temple beat Seton Hall.
- Aside from the Kentucky/Drexel game on Monday night, there’s an interesting matchup at Madison Square Garden, where St. John’s will face two-time Ivy League champs Cornell in the finals of the MSG Holiday Festival. The Johnnies beat Hofstra in the preliminaries, and Cornell knocked off a Davidson team that’s a whole lot less interesting now that Stephen Curry is in the NBA.
But the most-talked-about game of the weekend had to be Butler vs. Xavier… a hotly-contested battle between two of the nation’s top mid-major programs, with a bizarre ending that featured everything but the Stanford Band running on to the field.
The guys at Rush the Court break down the last 36 seconds — which seemed to take about an hour and a half to complete.
College Basketball Fast Breaks originally appeared on About.com Basketball on Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 14:20:34.
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