Friday, March 19th: Day Game Recaps

Best Game: After all the great games yesterday, this afternoon was a bit of a letdown. Almost by default, the Wofford-Wisconsin game takes this one. The Badgers, up 8 at halftime, appeared to have the game under control. But Wofford made up the difference early in the 2nd half and the two teams traded buckets the rest of the way. In the end, Jon Leuer's 16 footer and subsequent forcing of a turnover gave Wisconsin the victory. This was a pretty ugly game overall, so it's kind of sad this was the best game of the day, but it was at least close.

Best Performance: I'm going to give this one to the entire Cornell team, who took the lead in the first three minutes of the first half and never looked back. The Big Red scored on Temple early and often, putting up 78 on the Owls and making Temple's vaunted half court defense look very, very pedestrian. Louis Dale, Ryan Wittman, and Jeff Foote did most of the scoring for Cornell. Meanwhile, Temple goes out early in what I think was a very disappointing showing for them, despite the overall talent of Cornell.

Upset that didn't happen: Siena played Purdue neck and neck for the 1st half, but the Boilers came out on fire to start the 2nd and held off a late Saint rally to win 72-64. You can look at this game from two angles. One, Purdue clearly dominated most of the 2nd half and essentially built too big of a lead for Siena to take back. However, the Saints stormed back late in the 2nd and actually were in a pretty good position to win that game, even though they never actually took the lead. They had Purdue on the ropes late, but clutch free throw shooting gave the Boilers the victory.

Games that got lost in the mix: Missouri gave Clemson all kinds of fits with their full court press, forcing 20 Clemson turnovers in their 86-78 win. Also, Xavier outlasted Minnesota in a slow, physical game, 65-54.

Exciting games left tonight: Right now Oklahoma State leads Georgia Tech by 5 at the half, but the rest of the games going on are double digit leads. On the late night cap, Louisville-Cal looks to be entertaining, and there's something intriguing about the Syracuse-Vermont matchup, even though it won't likely be very close.