Rating: 2 Units

This Valpo squad is shooting a mere 27.2% on three-pointers after eight games, and has had five straight postponed or canceled because of their virus issues and a program pause. They haven’t played since Dec. 19, a span in which Missouri State has won five of six games while scoring 79, 75, 84 and 70 in Missouri Valley action. Two players no longer with Valpo shot the lights out from three-point range to beat the Bears twice last season.

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

Bob Huggins and the Mountaineers began putting the new plan in place during their road trip to Oklahoma and Oklahoma State over the weekend. It took a while for them to get going with a four-guard lineup but they eventually got the hang of it with huge second halves each time in their 1-1 split. Their centerpiece Derek Culver had a horrible time of it vs. Oklahoma but rebounded with 22 points, 19 rebounds at Oklahoma State. Texas hits Morgantown, WV ranked #4 to West Virginia’s #14 and the Mountaineers are thinking, ‘Those ranks should be reversed!’ 6’9” senior Royce Hamm should still be in virus protocol for the Longhorns.

Rating: 3 Unit Big-10 Play of the Day

The Scarlet Knights have revenge for a 80-68 road loss on Dec. 23. This is a program that was 2-16, 1-17, 3-15 in its first three Big Ten seasons, which beat the Buckeyes here in their fourth during a 7-13 conference season, went 11-9 in conference last year when they lost only 72-66 at Ohio State. Guess what we’re saying is that Rutgers belong now. Rutgers led the earlier meeting 38-28 at halftime, got out-scored 52-30 in the second half. “I needed to do a better job of getting this team ready for the two things this team (OSU) does well — rebounding and shooting free throws,” said Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell. And, if you’re thinking he was being sarcastic about the second thing, you’re right. “I just have to do a better job with the officials. They’re great. They do a great job.” Senior guard C.J. Walker – leader on the Buckeyes in minutes per game – suddenly out with an injury

Rating: 3 Unit CAA Play of the Day

A match-up so nice, they’re doing it twice. Hofstra is now 0-3 ATS in CAA play while their head coach Joe Mihalic is out on medical leave. There isn’t much of an adjustment they can make, as a team that plays 40 minutes of zone defense. They play a short rotation that can’t press for long stretches for fear of foul and fatigue. They’re not shooting the rock as well as they did last season. Northeastern head coach Bill Coen can tell his team, “Listen, if you slackers hadn’t come out and trailed 46-29 at halftime at their place on Thursday, you wouldn’t have had to make those fine Winning Points people worry and you wouldn’t have had to sweat overtime just to get out of there with a win. Now, let’s go! From the get-go! Those guys beat us three times last year and we still owe them!

Rating: 2 Units

After you lose outright as -12 chalk at lousy Fordham with only seven players plus a project 7-foot freshman playing, does it stand to reason that playing another road game, against a better Davidson team, would be grounds for improvement? Sounds like no! Dayton’s 55-54 loss to Fordham came six days after a 67-65 loss to La Salle. Fordham and Lasalle were picked to finish last and next-to-last in the 14-team Atlantic 10. If Fordham and Lasalle could shoot 50.0% and 43.5% on threes against them (they did), then the Wildcats should so as well or better

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

Tarleton State – located in the south of Utah -- moved up into Division 1 this season, has played only four games – none since Dec. 9 after eight straight postponements – and lost to Abilene Christian by 21 points in their most recent game against a D-1 foe. Off three straight losses to legit post-season tournament sides San Francisco, Colorado and Arizona State, in which they were undervalued going 3-0 ATS and out-rebounded all three, Bryce Drew seems to be in a Grand spot to right the ship and start WAC play A-OK. Since they last played, TSU assistant coach Steve Shields has resigned to become a parks department director in Arkansas

CBB Mismatch of the Day

The host Rams were sharpening the saw at San Diego State earlier this week, “finishing” strongly in each second half of their two-game, back-to-back series (37-27 the first night in victory, 41-28 the second night in defeat.) Given that UNLV hasn’t played since Dec. 5 after a program pause, and is kind of a ratty team, anyway, for the Runnin’ Rebels to take the court after such a long break, to play at high altitude against an opponent that just finished strongly two nights in a row against a quality foe…

CBB Play of the Day

Hofstra has won seven straight in the CAA dating back to last season. Northeastern has lost five straight road games. What’s it all mean? Hopefully not much. The Huskies’ five road losses were at UMass in their opener with UMass having games under the belt, Syracuse, Old Dominion, Georgia and West Virginia. They lost three times to Hofstra last season – hey, another losing streak! The three losses were by 2, 4, 9 points. You think they’re not jazzed up for this game? Hofstra pretty much plays 40 minutes of zone defense, which Northeastern saw at Syracuse when they lost by only 6 points taking 18. Hofstra has begun CAA season 0-2 ATS without head coach Joe Mihalic, who is on medical leave.

Rating: 3 Unit Big-12 Play of the Day

The Sooners caught West Virginia in the Mountaineers’ first go-round without power forward Oscar Tshiebwe, working four guards around Derek Culver, who got them a big 2 points in 22 minutes, with 7 turnovers. D-oh! Wrapped up in working their new arrangement, WVU missed a lot of shots early, which messed up their transition defense, and they fell behind the Sooners by a considerable amount (38-20) at halftime. Oklahoma was able to weather a late charge by West Virginia to get the win. They travel to Waco, TX to face an opponent with no such transitional learning curve in their game on either end of the floor. The Bears have won five straight over the Sooners over the course of the prior three seasons, when they weren’t unbeaten and ranked #1. For all the bitcoins.

Rating: 2 Units

Prospective road dog backers might be encouraged by the fact that Virginia needed overtime to dispose of the last Danny Manning-coached Wake Forest team last season. But that game came off a 2-point loss at Duke for the Cavs, and was played under hangover conditions. The Cavaliers are currently fresh and fit, seven games under their belt vs. only two for Wake Forest, and you know that Wake’s only real game was the 70-54 loss at Georgia Tech, our Sunday ***BEST BET. Steve Forbes can’t help but eventually coach them up beyond what Manning did, but at the moment he’s handicapped by the long pause in his first season after inheriting a not-so-hot spot. Forbes played nine kids for 10 to 30 minutes at Tech, got only 6 points from four players in 71 bench minutes.

Rating: 2 Units

Angry Vols, off their first loss! (Also, angry Arkansas, off their first loss!) Arkansas couldn’t get Missouri’s rim protector, James Tillmon, in foul trouble. In fact, the 6’10” senior had himself a day with 25 points. Vols’ 6’9” John Fulkerson’s eyes light up. Arkansas is the St. John’s of the SEC – zips through non-conference season at home, doesn’t class up within conference play. Doubtful they can rebound with Tennessee.

Rating: 2 Units

Let’s see how the Jayhawks respond to the whuppin’ that Texas put on them in Lawrence. TCU’s Andrew Nembhard: “All these games are personal. We want to put the conference and the nation on notice that we’re legit.” Two road wins in the Big 12 already by TCU hint that he may have something there. Said Jamie Dixon after the Horned Frogs’ win at Kansas State: “This was the first time we’ve had our full team and I think we’ll get better and better.

Big East Play of the Day

Welcome back to the Big East, UConn, Love, Marquette. This Huskies bunch was one of the nation’s worst long-trip travelers when it was in the American Athletic. They’ve been cuddled in their home-state bubble, and the confines of their friendly home floor, since the beginning of this season and have left the area for the first time. They shot only 35.8% when they lost by 2 points to an off-kilter Creighton team, then had the pleasure of facing pause-problem Depaul after that. Off a difficult stretch to open Big East season (at Creighton, Seton Hall, at Xavier, Villanova), Marquette got a reprieve at Georgetown and comes back home for what appears to be another.

Rating: 2 Units

Kevin Keatts has readjusted the Wolfpack to take advantage of its big frontline and look into the paint on most of its halfcourt sets, and got good news when 6-10 F.J. Funderburk returned from a recent absence to score 21 in last Wednesday’s win over Boston College. With 6-5 sr. wing Devon Daniels (16.3 ppg) now handily assuming more of the scoring burden following the departures of last year’s stalwart backcourt tandem of C.J. Bryce and Markell Johnson, Keatts has other attack-end options. This one stays real close at Littlejohn and an outright Wolfpack success would be no surprise.

Rating: 2 Units

Nobody has stepped into the Northern Illinois void left by the program’s all-time leading scorer, departed Eugene German. He scored 20.8 ppg last season when nobody else averaged more than 8.5. The Huskies’ low-lights so far this season include 57.1 ppg, 9.1 to 15.5 Assist/Turnover, 21.2% on three-pointers. Ohio surrounds 6’8”, 250 senior Dwight Wilson (15.3 ppg, 8.4 reb) with a lot of guys who aren’t shy about shootin’ it, and Wilson isn’t the leading scorer. 6’4” guard Jason Preston, with his 48.3% three-point shooting, is

Rating: 2 Units

Toledo comes in hot – five straight wins, four straight covers – and has double-revenge in this 2 pm, ET matinee. But Kent State regained the services of 6’7”, 230 senior forward Tervel Beck in their most recent game on Jan. 1, a 66-62 road loss at Akron. They’re toughened up to protect home floor following the rivalry road loss

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

Wake played down in class on Nov. 25 and 27 vs. Delaware State and Longwood. Then, they paused for a while. They came back on Thursday to beat Division 2 Catawba, 70-62, without Ian Dubose (senior grad transfer guard) and Tariq Ingraham (6’9”, 255 freshman), each of whom led the team in scoring the first two games. Both will miss the rest of the season. “We had to find a game, at least one. It would have been nice to play four or five of those,” said first-season head coach Steve Forbes. How many times in the history of college basketball has a team played a couple games around Thanksgiving then not being to play or practice again until New Year’s Eve? That’s difficult. I don’t know the right answer for that one, but I know for us it’s been a tough and difficult path… We’re so far behind, it’s scary.”

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

A match-up so nice, they’ll give it to us twice! UCSB didn’t even play with its real rotation last night, managed to win by 18 points. Head coach Joe Pasternack will probably take this second of back-to-backs more seriously, to  complete a sweep and reverse what happened to them last weekend at Irvine.

Rating: 2 Units

In 2016, for reasons that made less sense than hiring Tom Pecora before him, Fordham gave head coach Jeff Neubauer a contract extension through 2020-21. Therefore, this season will more than likely be a death march through the A-10. They’ve played one game, losing by 24 points to a George Washington team they beat three times last season. Fordham normally begins a season playing down-down-down in class in games they win. This season, they start at their own level – which is a bad way to describe it because it’s a level at which they don’t belong

Rating: 2 Units

If Thursday night’s match-up between these two had been a fight, it would have been stopped at the end of the 22-6 run by Utah State early in the second half to take a 70-36 lead. But Air Force shot the ball okay, 47.2%. The 26 turnovers (vs. Utah State’s 9) hurt some, ya’ think? One of their senior forwards turned it over 7 times. Get him off the floor, Joe Scott! “They got 45 points off those 26 turnovers. That’s a great place to start right there,” Scott said afterwards. With a day between games, Scott has an opportunity to watch tape with the players and prepare for better execution.

Rating: 3 Unit Big-10 Play of the Day

Not sure how sustainable Illinois’ 42.6% three-point shooting is. But this should be a good day to be Kofi Cockburn, with Purdue opponents hitting 71.7% of their shots at the rim. Purdue is 0-2 ATS on the Big Ten road so far and lost both meetings vs. Illinois last season, by 26 and 17 points. “Purdue basketball still looking to build defensive foundation,” said a local headline yesterday. Look to Salt Lake City, where Haarms transferred.

Rating: 2 Units

Mercer has double-revenge, but after promising beginnings vs. non-conference strangers, they’ve had some postponements and cancellations, and a performance decline with exposure that continued in Tuesday night’s 13-point home loss vs. Wofford that tipped off SoCon season. Furman’s season has been uninterrupted and the Paladins tested themselves with narrow, power-conference losses at Cincinnati and Alabama before winning at Chattanooga on Wednesday night to begin SoCon season

Rating: 2 Units

Down 56-37 at the half at Samford earlier this week, VMI held it together and “won” the second half in defeat. They come home off three straight road losses to play with double-revenge against the Mocs, whose 9-0 season got its first loss as soon as they faced a SoCon opponent Wednesday night. Not easy to lose when you sink 13 of 26 treys and the other side makes only 4 of them, but that’s what they did

Rating: 3 Unit SEC Play of the Day

Tell me can you, off a 20-point home loss vs. undefeated Tennessee, win a road game against a 9-0 Arkansas team that just scored 97 points on the road at Auburn? Tell me, Cuonzo, Cuonzo, Cuonzo!’ He didn’t seem too concerned about the Tennessee game, giving all the credit to the highly ranked Vols, who are probably the best defensive squad in the nation. Telling talk, perhaps, from Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman after the 97-85 win vs. Auburn, a team still being molded by Bruce Pearl (compared to a pretty set Missouri squad): “To be honest with you, this game tonight, knowing that we had two ranked teams in the top 15 in our next two games, since I’ve been at Arkansas, for a regular season game, this was by far the most important game that I have been a part of with this team.”

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

Off losses on back-to-back nights at Cal-Irvine, the Barbarians – who’ve beaten Loyola Marymount by 11 points and Pepperdine by 12, on the road -- return home ready to take it to whomever they’ve had all week to prepare against. It happens to be the Fullertons, who have a grand total of one game under their belt so far, played against San Diego Christian of D-2 on Dec. 13, in which ten players got 11-24 minutes of court time. You know how to proceed.

Rating: 2 Units

The 6-3 Peacocks wake up in Buffalo, NY on New Year’s Day (Happy, Happy, Everyone!) for the first of back-to-backs vs. the locals, who they beat by 1 point on this floor last season (the other game was a 4-point home loss). Saint Peter’s is 11-1 SU, last 12 MAAC games. Canisius is shooting 38.7% from the field (a woeful number, in case you weren’t aware) and is off back-to-back 16- and 28-point losses at Monmouth. Who do ya’ like

PAC-12 Play of the Day

The Trojans four games postponed or canceled, hadn’t played since Dec. 8 before beating Santa Clara 86-63 Tuesday night. The tall Mobley brothers are combining to average 27.5 ppg, 17.6 rebounds, 4 blocks per game. The team has the best field goal percentage among Pac 12 squads (49.2%). Tad Boyle doesn’t coach his Buffs to experience lop-sided halves against themselves on the road, but he has yet to prove that he can coach them to avoid having lots of them. Let’s have another, bud.

Rating: 2 Units

We did not buy Wisconsin’s high ranking against what had been an underperforming Maryland team earlier this week and we’ll stay on that track for this match-up against the Gophers, with Marcus Carr a tough guard and Liam Robbins a nuisance guarding the rim

Rating: 2 Units

Revenge! WCU doesn’t care who’s in the uniforms for ETSU. They only care about having lost to them three times last season, twice the season before, twice the season before that, twice the season before that, twice the season before that. But now they’ve got five double-digit scorers, having added one of them in the most recent game – 6’7” junior transfer Cory Hightower. ETSU’s Assist/Turnover rate of 12.5 to 16.4 is a far cry from last season’s 14.0 to 12.1.

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

UMass has beaten A-10 foe Lasalle by 19 points. George Mason is off a class-drop loss at home vs. Norfolk State, and had beaten Towson – who hadn’t played in a month – by only 5 points before that. Five double-digit scorers – four of them around 6’9”, 245 Tre Mitchell (21.5 ppg) is probably too much for GMU to guard and then match on the other end.

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Mismatch of the Day

Temple has played two games. You’ll remember that we had Houston as a BEST BET against them in the second, laying a lot and winning by more (76-50). The Temple program seems like it’s been on the way down and still has a ways to go. As we noted Dec. 22, they haven’t had consistently accurate shooters for several seasons. One 50-point game at Houston doesn’t mean they can’t bounce back with many more in the next, but the capabilities haven’t shown, they haven’t played since, the Houston game was their seventh straight AAC defeat, SMU is 5-0 and allowing only 63 ppg

Rating: 2 Units

7-0, #5-ranked Houston lays 8+ to an opponent they beat by 23 points at home in February as they come off a 9-point win at UCF. Margins of those sizes are difficult to sustain in conference play. Tulsa lost a home game to Wichita State earlier this month, but has since won at Memphis. “We learned a lot from that [Wichita State] game because I don’t think we were quite right in the first half, coming from the break,” head coach Haith said. “We got better in the second half, but we needed practice time.” Alrighty, then. They stay true to their defensive system, which is a good trait to have against a Houston bunch that keys on offensive rebounding

Rating: 2 Units

The Terps are getting their sea legs under them. They’re a tough athletic match for the Badgers in man-to-man. They turned it over only 5 times losing 73-70 at Purdue and should battle all the way attempting to avoid an 0-3 start in the Big Ten. They lost by only two points, 56-54, on this floor last season

Rating: 2 Units

Evansville’s two true road games were a 35-point loss at Louisville and an overtime loss at a Tennessee-Martin team in disarray. They struggle to score, don’t rebound strongly. They lost by 17 points on this floor last season, when they went 0-18 in Missouri Valley play

Rating: 2 Units

Drake concluded non-conference play 9-0 and although Liam Robbins, who deserted them, is helping Minnesota (and us, Friday!), they haven’t missed him. Yet. Perhaps in their first Missouri Valley game, an opponent like Indiana State will know how to exploit them? Interesting, eh? This is hardly a reach. Drake beat Indiana State by 4 points home last season, lost 58-56 on this floor

Rating: 2 Units

Green Bay had two cracks at Milwaukee at home, went 0-2 to fall to 0-6 in the first season of young Ryan as head coach. They shot 38.9% and 39.1% from the field in those losses. Hey, at least they’re consistent! But shooting in that range ain’t gonna get it done against a Wright State side shooting 51% from the field overall after five games, unless the Raiders have a bad shooting day in their own gym

Rating: 3 Unit Big-10 Play of the Day

The Hoosiers have failed two serious tests already. Losing by 22 to Texas, falling behind badly at home vs. Northwestern. Illinois is the best foe they’ll have faced in nine games, and the reverse is not true for Illinois, who has played four of their last five games away from home vs. Duke, Missouri, Minnesota, Rutgers and Penn State.

Rating: 2 Units

Little Pitino no doubt swayed the transfer of Liam Robbins from Drake with Iowa’s Luke Garza in mind – somebody a little taller than Garza to help keep him in check inside and perhaps make him spend more time on the perimeter taking lower-percentage shots and rebounding less. The Gophers shot just 35.6% from the field when they lost just 58-55 to Iowa on this floor last season so they know they can do a defensive job on an offensive-minded visitor. The Total of 162.5 seems too high, doesn’t it? We shall see

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

What happens to Northwestern one game after they destroyed Michigan State in the Big Ten opener? How about a crash at Indiana? Izzo is infamous for failing to prepare Michigan State early in conference season, which then gives him an opportunity to remind his players that they are terrible and need to listen to him in order to improve. It’s all part of the master plan of peaking later on, because he is Mr. March, not Mr. December. Northwestern is mostly a five-out offense, the type that in the Big Ten, would figure to be the most volatile night in and night out, meaning much variance in performance.

Rating: 2 Units

This visitor lost by 29 points at Minnesota, getting dominated by the Gophers’ 7’0” Liam Robbins. The home favorite lost by 8 points at Minnesota, playing well but running into a sixth man on the floor – Big Ten referees who sent Minnesota to the free-throw line 41 times to 17 for the Billikens. Three Saint Louis starters got fouled out. Saint Louis was also done in by 32 points (14 on free throws) by Gophers’ goto guy Marcus Carr, and 9 blocked shots – 4 by Robbins, 3 by 6’9” Isaiah Ihnen. The aggression that was thwarted should zip through unimpeded in this match-up

Rating: 3 Units

CBB Play of the Day

Temple has played one game, three days ago, against NJIT. They won it 72-60, shooting 40% from the field on their home floor, with a 30-12 disparity in free throw attempts. They haven’t shot well for four years and should shoot it worse on this long road trip with a class rise into conference play against a ranked, unbeaten opponent that allows 55.6 points per game, had some virus issues, didn’t play for 15 days, but got players cleared recently and returned for a good tune-up win vs. Alcorn State on Sunday

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Mismatch of the Day

Class drop for the Crimson Tide, off a loss. Good spot to get back on track. ETSU is still attempting to discover an identity with a new head coach and many new players on a team who won 30 games last season with different kids in these uniforms. They are coming off three games against non-Division 1 opponents you’ve never heard of and have been scoring mostly in the 60s or less against them, and better foes. Alabama will be the best team they’ve played in this, their eighth game. They way they’ve been turning the ball over suggests that Alabama will thrive in transition.

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

The Lobos have some catching up to do after playing only three games so far, two of them way down in class against Our Lady of the Lake (NAIA) and Le Tourneau (Division III), we kid you not. They lost 11 of their last 15 Mountain West games last season. Boise has looked quite good against real opposition – Houston and BYU, to name a few. East Tennessee State transfer Mladen Armus gives them a 6’10”, 232 rebounding stabilizer they’ve lacked.

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

The visitor is 6-0 SU and 6-0 ATS, but playing its first true road game. “True road” doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing this year as in the past, given the lack of crowd enthusiasm for home teams. There are still Big Ten referees for the A-10 squad to overcome but otherwise, they have the scoring, the rebounding, the experienced depth, and the coaching to pull this off. Illinois helped expose Minnesota earlier in the week.

Rating: 2 units

The host Musketeers are 7-0 but were forced to pause for a while. They’ll probably introduce recently eligible Hampton transfer Big Ben Stanley to Big East ball here, but head coach Travis Steele will be forced to juggle minutes off the interruption. Fresh off double-avenging Creighton, Marquette seeks to take a fifth straight from the Musketeers.

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Mismatch of the Day

Off 24- and 28-point losses to Wright State and Buffalo, teams that contended for Mid-Major conference championships last season, Miami-OH doesn’t appear to be in a good spot on the road against the Missouri Valley’s back-to-back post-season tournament winner. Bradley had a 10-day break end on Thursday night with a cushy, 23-point win here vs. Jackson State in which everybody got to play, a nice tune-up for this, in which a better effort is needed before they go to Missouri on Tuesday for a class test.

Rating: 2 Units

We’ll repeat the forecast from yesterday’s game that was postponed due to ongoing insanity, although there’s a chance this, too, won’t be played: The 0-4 Eagles of EW have been playing their butts off, very competitive in hastily scheduled true road games vs. three Pac 12 foes and Saint Mary’s. They lost to Arizona by 3 points. Northern Arizona lost to Arizona by 43, also to Cal-Riverside by 24, Colorado State by 39… NAU hasn’t had a winning conference season in the Big Sky since 2014 and has lost six straight to EW.

Rating: 2 Units

YSU seeks to end an eight-game losing streak to the host. Their current leading scorer, Naz Bohannon (22 ppg), fouled out of last year’s 2-point loss here trying to guard since-departed Dantez Walton. The visiting Penguins have only three games under their belts but their starting group has played a lot of ball together.

Rating: 2 Units

Although Alabama is a tad taller this season, they still lack a player who can prevent 6’11”, 235 senior center Charles Bassey from doing harm. With Alabama barely cracking 40% field goal shooting overall and less than 30% from three-point range, the Tide is in tough because you know former SEC head coach Stansbury is pointing for a pelt in SEC territory with a favorable style match-up. Alabama’s 6’8”, 210 Herbert Jones had a 17-and-12 game vs. Furman but Furman’s forwards go 6’7”, 6’8” and Alabama won the game by only 3 points.

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

Seton Hall transfer Anthony Nelson, a 6’4” junior guard and New York, NY-er, stepped into the MAAC with 19 and 23 points for Manhattan in his first two games last week, which were also the team’s first two games. Marist has somebody top 20 points for them about once every three weeks. Actually, it hasn’t happened yet in four games this season.

Rating: 2 Units

Zero (0) steals, 5 offensive rebounds, 24 fouls by Butler in their loss at Villanova. This is only their third game. They still need work. The Hoosiers have beaten Butler’s Big East cousin Providence by 21 points, played well vs. what appears to be more imposing defense on Florida State. Bo Hodges, ETSU transfer, may debut for the Bulldogs but it’s probably a reach to call him an instant difference-maker.

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

“Iowa State searches for answers after a sloppy start to Big 12 play,” said Wednesday morning’s headline. Normally, you look in the last place you left something. Instead, the skidding Cyclones are forced to travel all the way to Morgantown, WV to face a 6-1, #8-ranked opponent after losing the rivalry game 105-77 to Iowa, following up with a 75-65 home loss to fellow flounderer Kansas State – who shot only 17.4% from three-point range but never trailed after the 10:00 mark of the first half. Keep searchin’ fellas. Jackson State and Chicago State await, in your place, after this. Ya’ might find some some answers then and there. Here and now, rebounding and shooting issues are magnified in this match-up.

Rating: 2 Units

Monmouth debuted on Tuesday night, sending Hofstra to the free-throw line 32 times (vs. only 13 FTs for themselves). That’s a sign that their defense isn’t there yet and why should it be? Six games into its season -- including a sweep of Niagara here last weekend and two power-conference match-ups plus Lasalle -- St. Peter’s has all the momentum and foundation beneath them here.

Rating: 2 Units

Omaha will be playing at altitude two nights in a row – moving up from 5,000 feet in Boulder, CO to 7,100 feet in Laramie, WY. It was only a 137-mile drive to escape the Buffs and get to Cowboy Country but this still seems like a magical mystery tour for a visitor that is struggling to score (in the 40s, again, last night, thank you!). Wyoming averaged a mere 67.2 points per game last season, had a 3-7 non-conference record. They hired Jeff Linder (Northern Colorado) as head coach and now they’re 5-1, averaging 86.2 points per game with a 16.3 to 10.5 Assist/Turnover ratio

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

Georgetown transfer Mac McClung is leading Texas Tech in scoring at 14.1 ppg and his longer-than-average range helps the Red Raiders’ offense space the floor for dribble penetration by #2 and #2 scorers Terrence Shannon and Kyler Edwards. VCU transfer Marcos Santos-Silva, at 6’7”, needs to prove he can finish as strongly at the rim in the Big 12 as he did in the A-10. But Kansas lacks rim protection this season. So, in this match-up, Santos-Silva may very well get it done. Gonzaga and Creighton both exposed some interior defense weaknesses that Kansas will either live with, or improve upon. But the personnel isn’t really there to improve upon it

CBB Play of the Day

Butler is in a bad spot. They’ve played only one game, on November 25. They were life and death to get past Western Michigan at home, scoring only 66 points. WMU hasn’t beaten a Division I team in three tries since, averaging 61 ppg. Butler was/is replacing 90% of its three-point production from last season and their 5-for-20 performance on threes in the lone game makes it seem like they won’t be getting 50% of it back. Jay Wright and the Wildcats, highly ranked, will fiddle a sad tune for the Bulldogs while maintaining that ranking.

Rating: 2 Units

The manner in which Colorado dispatched of Northern Colorado the other night suggests that Omaha is similar fodder. We went against this visitor last week against Kansas when they were taking 25, called it by 35, and they lost by 45. Life is short. Patsies are few. Go against them when you can

Rating: 2 Units

100+ points plus at Boston College the other night for Syracuse, eh? That’s a little ridiculous. Their shooters figure to come down to Earth. Syracuse is not a strong rebounding team. Their tallest starter, Marek Dolezaj, plays out on the perimeter. They don’t crash the offensive glass. Northeastern is not outsized in this match-up unless Boeheim puts his bench full of inexperienced, offensively challenged 6’10’’ and 6’11’’ stringbeans out there, in which case he’d be sacrificing offense. Northeastern gave up 30+ points in their season debut to a 6’10” UMass center who can score inside but came back two nights later and neutralized him in a revenge win. There’s nobody like that for them to guard tonight. They’re happy to guard the perimeter, rebound, and let the chips fall where they may.

Rating: 2 Units

The Vols have been warming up against real opponents who had more games under their belt. Two games, 2-0 SU and ATS as the less-than-sharp favorite vs. Colorado and Cincinnati. Not bad. The offense they couldn’t find in those games should get a little bit better against a Sun Belt also ran. The defense should continue to do its job against an outclassed foe that scored only 69 points in regulation vs. Bowling Green, 61 vs. Charlotte.

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Mismatch of the Day

The Shockers of Wichita played nice defense in the 3-point home loss to Oklahoma State, covering by 1 as a home dog. But they still have yet to shoot better than 37.5% overall for a game. That’s not a good sign as they head out on the road to face a good conference foe that plays good defense with the added benefit of knowing them pretty well. Senior guards Brandon Rachal and Elijah Joiner should be chomping at the bit to get after the Shockers, who ended Tulsa’s 2019-20 by beating them by 22 points in Wichita.

Rating: 2 Units

Clemson ambushed the Terps in one of those typically unprepared Mark Turgeon road games. He now has their attention, and the obligation to coach the heck out of them, for the Big Ten conference and home opener against a Rutgers bunch that had it all over Syracuse in the match-ups, and available personnel

Rating: 2 Units

We all enjoyed Georgia Southern being mercy-ruled at Davidson Friday night. Revitalized Mercer has already beaten Georgia Tech and Georgia State by 10 and 17 points, scoring 80+ against an ACC school and a perennial Sun Belt contender. Like Davidson, they are shooting better than 40% from three-point range. May as well go right back to the well.

Rating: 2 Units

Adding Va. Tech transfer Landers Nolley to the four sophomores who played a lot as freshmen make Memphis a formidable invader against an Auburn team still in flux for Bruce Pearl. “You want to talk about getting exposed, this’ll be the best defensive team that we’ve played,” he says. Considering that Auburn is giving up 81 ppg after four, scoring points isn’t all Pearl needs to be concerned about

Rating: 4 Unit  CBB Game of the Week

ETSU is down 20 points from last season’s per game scoring average of 76. Their Assist/Turnover Ratio is 8.7 to 19.3. This is not good. But this is what happens when the head coach of a 30-4 team times his move for greener pastures off a season like that, takes assistants with him, and his move is followed by transfers, graduations, and the new coach must mold freshmen and transfers in an immediate rebuild. UAB’s Andy Kennedy – not one of our favorite coaches but he managed to snag an experienced scoring guard from Georgia Southern (Quan Jackson), another experienced scoring guard from UL-Monroe (Michael Ertel) and a 7’, 260 center from Clemson. So far, nobody’s beaten them and nobody’s come close. It’ll all come crashing down, of course, but not just yet.

Rating: 3 Unit  CBB Mismatch of the Day

The Irish have been straddling spreads in losses against quality Big Ten opponents Michigan State and Ohio State. Kentucky hasn’t shown that they can score like those other two, with 64, 62, 62 points in three straight losses to Richmond, Kansas and Georgia Tech. Unfriendly road whistle against short-rotation visitor notwithstanding, because ya’ gotta get ’em while they’re down

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

The kid we told you about on Iowa – 6’10" Jack Nunge – wasted their time with 0-for-5 three-point shooting and only 3 rebounds, 0 blocks in 22 minutes vs. North Carolina. But the Hawkeyes still won the game by 13 points! Iowa State’s low rebounding numbers (only 30 per game) and low-percentage three-point shooting (29.1%) do not bode well for a match-up with the nation’s #3, which has too good an inside-outside game

Rating: 2 Units

Ike, Tookie, Quan Jackson, all gone for Georgia Southern, who beat still-winless South Carolina Upstate by 3 points after beating two NAIA schools. In the 72-69 win, they shot 2-for-17 from three-point range. Uh-oh. Now, they get to truly measure themselves against an Atlantic 10 title contender dropping down in class and returning home after three games against Texas, Providence and UNLV and shooting 49.5% from the field.

Rating: 2 Units

Omaha is in the same city as Creighton, but they ain’t Creighton! Those Blue Jays merited every part of their high national ranking. These Mavericks are scoring a mere 63.7 ppg (Creigton got here averaging 84) and played their last game, and most of the previous, without leading scorer Marlon Ruffin, a 6’5" junior guard who’d had a game-high of 18 vs. Creighton in a 27-point loss. 6’8" KU freshman Jalen Wilson had quite the three-point stroke vs. Creighton, has help there, and 6’10", 265 junior David McCormack got a season-high 28 minutes in vs. Creighton, should move forward now

Rating: 2 Units

USF already has wins away from home against Virginia, Nevada and Cal Poly, the latter by 25 and 26 points, so they haven’t let down since achieving the ol’ “signature win” vs. Virginia. Looks like Cal-Poly’s Big West cousin Long Beach is headed up the California coastline for a drubbing. Dan Monson’s bench has totaled 4 points in two games, 1 at Loyola Marymount and 3 vs. Seattle U

Rating: 2 Units

UNI has been a sucker-side so far at 0-3 ATS, losing all D-1 games outright to fellow mid-Majors Western Kentucky, Saint Mary’s and Utah State despite shooting 42.9% from three-point range. With outside shooting that good, other stuff is lacking. On Monday, the Spiders of Richmond came out of a program pause on short practice and no opponent-specific prep to get past a very good Wofford team that played in the SoCon Championship game last season.

Rating: 2 Units

UTEP’s Souley Boum played against Saint Mary’s when he attended San Francisco, a program that improved after he transferred. “We’ll have our hands full and it will be a great challenge for us,” says UTEP head coach Rodney Terry about defending Saint Mary’s offensive system. His team didn’t practice much last week before drilling Sul Ross State, after they’d drilled Texas Permian Basin. Those are Division 3 and Division 2 schools, folks. Starting point guard Jamal Bienemy logged a lot of minutes for Oklahoma but never scored much, plays only his second game for UTEP after missing the latest.

Rating: 3 Unit CBB Play of the Day

The Montana coaching staff gets to split the guaranteed money generated from most of their games against power-conference opposition. It’s in DeCuir’s contract to schedule some of these games, and for the money to go among the coaches. It’s true. You could look it up. The message being, ‘If we schedule these games and show up, we make more money and the team gets a good scrimmage vs. better athletes.’ The score is not important. Showing up in SEC country averaging only 29.7 rebounds per game also bodes poorly.

Rating: 2 Units

A hard-nosed defensive mindset could serve the home side as well in this match-up as it did when it held Murray State to 61 points in a recent home win. The visiting Mocs won only 62-54 at Tennessee Tech recently, a 9-22 squad from last season (0-4 currently) not known as a tough defensive outfit

Rating: 2 Units

Seton Hall offense without Myles Powell to dominate the proceedings – still a work in progress, eh? 0-2 SU on the road so far at Rhode Island and Louisville despite 25 and 22 points from Sandro Mamukelashvili, who has yet to have foul trouble but it wouldn’t be good if he does

Rating: 2 Units

The host Shockers hit only 40.9% from the field against Oral Roberts here. It’s early still, but Cuonzo’s kids are finding the net so far like never before on his watch. Drew Buggs, grad transfer point guard from Hawaii, is getting partial credit. Cuonzo Martin has been able to keep a core group together for a few seasons, while Wichita’s has transferred out

Rating: 2 Units

You started worrying about Wright State when they said they would be tossing it more down low to Loudon Love and Grant Basile, the latter who happens to be beginning this season with an injury and played only 18 minutes in Wednesday’s 80-64 home loss to Marshall. Love and Basile combined for 20 points in 47 minutes. The rest of the team shot 14-for-44. The visiting Redhawks scored 81 points vs. Wright last season. Lost the game by 7 points, but Love had 27 that night for reasons that may no longer exist

Rating: 2 Units

Visiting EW will be without starting point guard Ellie Magnusen for this hastily scheduled affair but they were 23-8 last season and have already played Washington State to within 3 points on the road. Arizona is basically replacing their entire starting lineup around transfers James Akinjo and Jordan Brown. The Wildcats shot 38.3% from the field against Grambling in their only game

Rating: 2 Units

The shelf-life of the traveling Jackrabbits figures to expire after coming out of Iowa State on Wednesday, where they pulled off a mild “upset” of the Cyclones but at +3.5 in early December against an unranked foe with no fans in the stands, it was about as mild as it gets. It’s no Sunday drive getting to Peoria, IL from anywhere. When they get there, they’ll be facing the Missouri Valley’s two-time conference tournament winner who played three games in three days last week, covered the true road game at Xavier for us and played an exhibition tune-up here on Tuesday. The Braves have nothing scheduled for 13 days after this and after tomorrow’s visit from St. Joe’s was canceled, have been able to turn their full attention to tonight’s assignment

Rating: 2 Units

Marquette had an awful offensive game against an opponent not known for defensive tactics (Oklahoma State). Trouble ahead? It’s early in the post-Markus Howard era and if they couldn’t score while Okie State’s underclassmen wizards were putting on their display, then how they gonna score in the halfcourt against a team whose program is perennially drilled into playing 35 full seconds of dogged, man-to-man defense

Rating: 2 Units

VMI doesn’t stray into power-conference territory very often. In 2018-19, they lost 94-55 at Pitt, 89-65 at Va. Tech. Last year, they lost by only 9 points to Va. Tech, but the Hokies had a new head coach who spread the minutes around generously among many new players – nine played 11 to 27 minutes. Freshman Hunter Catoor was their leading scorer for the first and only time of the season. This year’s group of Hokies – a group more to Mike Young’s liking -- handled Radford and South Florida by 15 and 18 points around beating #3-ranked Villanova, all three better than VMI

Rating: 2 Units

Seems unfair for BYU to be playing an athletic, up-tempo opponent that’s rested, after BYU played against USC yesterday, doesn’t it? Not that we’re concerned about fairness. Unfairness is what creates value, we hope. BYU head coach Mark Pope would like his seven-foot Purdue transfer Matt Haarms to be a 27-30 minute guy (he’s played 12 and 24 minutes so far). “It’s hard to do for a big to log that many minutes, but I think he can do it… In terms of getting him the ball in the right spot, that’s going to be a learning process for us.” We can earn while they learn.

Rating: 2 Units

Off a 20+ point loss vs. Texas, Indiana will probably be missing guard Al Durham (14 ppg so far). The offense didn’t look good with guards Rob Phinisee and Khristian Lander on the floor together and that combo may be forced to play more minutes this afternoon. Stanford’s aggressive defense (22 turnovers from North Carolina) would figure to capitalize on struggling offense. Also, 6’11” senior center Joey Brunk has yet to make an appearance for Hoosiers

Rating: 2 Units

It’s possible that Kentucky rebounds from shooting 0-for-10 from three-point range in the loss vs. Richmond. But 10 trey attempts is not a lot of three-point shots, is it? And it’s not like their forwards were pouring in the buckets in the paint. Only 64 points vs. Richmond? The Spiders are good, but defense is not their calling card. Kansas tempo would figure to make the turnover problem they had vs. Richmond remain a problem

Rating: 2 Units

As long as they’re taking points against opponents who aren’t familiar with them, Stansbury and his Hilltoppers seem to be a decent option. Louisville has been missing several injured players, including 6’11’’ center, Malik Williams, recovering from foot surgery. They played only seven escaping Seton Hall by 1 point. West Virginia had the size to help neutralize WKU’s Charles Bassey. Louisville doesn’t seem to have it at the moment

Rating: 2 Units

Pirates’ head coach Kevin Willard should relish beating one of his mentors, Rick Pitino, when Pitino is coaching the lesser roster his first game. “We’re not ready to play right now but we have to play a game.” Thanks for the heads-up, Rick! Two Iona starters, Asante Gist and Osborn Shema, are expected to be out with injuries

Rating: 2 Units

Jim Christian’s seat at Boston College is hotter than just about anyone else’s in the nation. His roster has more continuity of personnel than the Red Tomato, whose coach Mike Anderson does a very good job with what he has – especially when playing down in class -- but probably isn’t ready to run-n-gun a fellow power-conference also ran off a neutral floor just yet. BC struggled against zone defenses last season but won’t see much of that from the Red Menace.

Rating: 2 Units

Marcus Santos-Silva, VCU transfer, is an exciting new piece for a Texas Tech team that has several others, such as Georgetown transfer Mac McClung, UNLV transfer Joel Ntrambwe and Wichita State transfer Jamarius Burton. All of them averaged double-digits in scoring for their prior programs. But Houston scored 89 points on Wednesday without preseason American Athletic Conference player of the year Caleb Mills. They forced 22 turnovers, blocked 8 shots, had a 37-9 advantage in bench points. Then, they eased past Boise State on Friday in a fine, low-scoring tune-up for this

Rating: 2 Units

Wouldn’t be going against the Mobley family currently factoring heavily in the USC program. They’re more efficient and responsible than, for example, the Ball family that was trying to run the neighboring UCLA program. There is lots of length on the floor for Montana to navigate around. First of six straight road games for the visiting Grizzlies, four of them – including this – contractually guaranteed-payment games by stipulated clause in the contract of head coach Travis DeCuir.

Rating: 2 Units

The Irish closed last season 9-4, have plenty of returning experience and production. Michigan State is forever primed to play its best basketball in March. Says Irish head coach Mike Brey, regarding Michigan State (who no longer has point guard Cassius Winston or paint owner Xavier Tillman), “When I think about them, when I talked to the team, can we stop transition and can we keep it to one-and-done so they don’t play volleyball on the backboard?” They might. Also, Michigan State turned it over 18 times vs. Eastern Michigan’s zone the other night.

Rating: 2 Units

Have to believe that Bruce Weber needs more time to develop his K-State team into something resembling his preferred style. Until then, anyone with quality should be able to handle them, anyplace. Buffs did us a solid vs. South Dakota, step up in class looking fine in this spot

Rating: 2 Units

Nothing about Santa Clara’s 62-49 win against Idaho State on Wednesday suggested forthcoming dominance of Jim Les’ Davis boys, who probably benefit from scheduling changes that would have had them flying all over the place this month. This change in November itinerary was a 90-minute bus trip, two days ago, and they’ve stayed in town since debuting with 93 points on Wednesday in this “Invitational.” Lost the game but hey, 93 points looks better than 62!

Rating: 2 Units

This’ll work out better for the Jayhawks than yesterday, when they were thrown to the Gonzaga wolves. That which didn’t kill them makes them stronger. St. Joe’s took Auburn to the wire and figures to be worse for the wear a day later.

Rating: 2 Units

Musketeers invite Braves to sit with them for holiday and could have their Thanksgiving lunch eaten by a rude guest. Xavier – not as strong the last two seasons and with turnover issues that rarely existed in Chris Mack’s tenure -- will be blending in a couple of “veteran” transfers and perhaps one more if they can get Big Ben Stanley (22-and-7 at Hampton) eligible. The Braves – back-to-back Mo Valley champs -- won’t be awed, regardless.

Rating: 2 Units

The Buffs have a solid core of returning, productive experience, plus redshirt freshman guard Keeshawn Barthelemy, who’ll allow McKinley Wright to move off the ball and score more. South Dakota plays up in class in first game after losing five of top seven scorers

Rating: 2 Units

A year ago, we picked Penn of the Ivy League outright over Alabama – at Alabama -- in the Tide’s first game under head coach Nate Oates. Timing, of course, is everything. Penn – who could score – won 81-80. Alabama went on to have a respectable season in which they averaged 82 points per game. So-so offensive teams from lesser conferences are in very difficult spots when on the road vs. track-meet hosts

Rating: 2 Units

The Waves bring back a lot, including senior point guard Colbey Ross. Though Ross had a pedestrian 13 points and eight assists in last year's game, he's huge talent. While the Waves return four starters, the Anteaters lose four (senior) starters. While expectations are always high for this team, they're going to be pretty inexperienced out of the gate

Rating: 2 Units

The Wildcats suffered through a 10-game losing streak down the stretch before ending their misery with a 79-63 win over Iowa State on Saturday. Senior leader Xavier Sneed scored a career-high 31 points in his final home game as Kansas State won for the first time in 38 days. Consider that Kansas State is 7-3 ATS in their last 10 games vs. a team with a winning straight up record.

Rating: 4 Unit ACC Game of the Week

North Carolina may be the 14th seed in this season's ACC tournament, but no team may be no more dangerous than the streaking Tar Heels. North Carolina blasted Virginia Tech 78-56 with a dominant second half to win for the fourth time in five games after a seven-game losing streak, and now will play sixth-seeded Syracuse on Wednesday in the second round at the Greensboro (N.C.) Coliseum. Consider that Syracuse is 1-5 ATS in their last 6 games vs. a team with a losing straight up record and 0-3-1 ATS in their last 4 neutral site games.

Rating: 2 Units

Georgia and Ole Miss have endured disappointing seasons entering their first-round matchup in the SEC tournament today in Nashville, Tenn., but both rosters feature a player who can take over a game offensively. Anthony Edwards earned SEC Freshman of the Year honors after averaging 19.5 points in the regular season for 13th-seeded Georgia, while Breein Tyree averaged 19.7 points and landed on the All-SEC first team for the 12th-seed Rebels. Consider that Georgia is 3-7 ATS in their last 10 games vs. a team with a losing straight up record.

Rating: 4 Unit Big-12 Game of the Week

Oklahoma State authored the biggest in-season turnaround in the Big 12, recovering from an 0-8 start to win seven of its final 10 league games. The Cowboys will try to carry their momentum into the postseason when they enter the Big 12 Tournament as the No. 8 seed against ninth-seeded Iowa State in an evening first-round matchup in Kansas City, Mo. Consider that Iowa State is 7-20 ATS in their last 27 games as an underdog.