What a Wednesday

What a night. Just wow. Wednesday was the real kickoff to conference play (although the Big Ten tried on Tuesday), and it certainly did not disappoint. I was focused on three games coming into last night and those were Seton Hall/Creighton, Virginia/Louisville, and UCLA/Oregon. 

Well Seton Hall and Creighton played on Fox Sports 2, and I don't get that channel. (It's times like these where I wish the Big East was still on ESPN). Anyway, Creighton won handily. Virginia and Louisville turned out to be a signature Wahoo win, in which they held Louisville to 53 points and won 61-53. So with Seton Hall and Creighton not being available and Virginia and Louisville being a snooze fest in general, I turned to Fox Sports 1 (luckily I have that) and watched Villanova battle DePaul.

And I mean battle. Villanova played its worst game of the year, and DePaul almost caught them sleeping. However, Nova just scraped by with a three-point victory at home despite Billy Garrett Jr. having a decent look to send it to overtime. In all honesty, I can't really blame Villanova for overlooking DePaul because EVERYBODY overlooks DePaul. I even sarcastically put Villanova on upset alert during my podcast yesterday. I was THAT confident that Villanova would pound the Blue Demons into the ground. SB Nation's college basketball Twitter account has a thing where they say "DePaul lost" after what seems like every DePaul game. DePaul and losing go together like peanut and butter. So that makes me even more impressed with what DePaul accomplished last night. They really showed that they have to be taken seriously in the Big East by any opponent.

While the DePaul/Villanova game was a surprise blockbuster, everyone knew what would go down in Eugene, Oregon, on Wednesday. This game was bananas. Simply bananas. Both UCLA and Oregon played extremely good basketball, and we had Bill Walton as the color guy to top it all off. The game was back-and-forth throughout, but Dillon Brooks's three pointer with .8 seconds remaining gave the Ducks the 89-87 victory over the previously undefeated UCLA Bruins. This was definitely the best game of the year. It had potent offense and little defense. Perfect! Lonzo Ball, Bryce Alford, Thomas Welsh, and TJ Leaf all scored in double figures for UCLA, while Brooks, Dylan Ennis, Payton Pritchard, Jordan Bell, and Tyler Dorsey did for Oregon. 

With the win, Oregon re-entered the discussion for the best team in the country. When healthy, they can compete with anyone. As for UCLA, I still really like them, but they clearly need help on defense if they want to get to a Final Four. 

Overall, today was nuts. Hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did.