Couch Musings (12-24-04)
While seeing only half of the Providence-Memphis game yesterday, a few things caught my eye through the box scores.
- The MRI went 2-1 in the games to watch last night. The one loss was the Providence-Memphis game which had the lowest confidence factor of the three games. Memphis is in a downward spiral and I don't think they are going to find their way out. They just don't look confident on the floor anymore. A few times in the game, they made runs to get close to Providence, but then it seemed that the offense would fall apart and let the Friars run out to another big lead for them to overcome. Providence got a good win here. They needed to get their confidence back and continuously fighting off the Tigers was a nice way to do it.
- With the 2-1 record last night, the MRI was 9-6 for the week in games to watch. Overall, the MRI went 30-7 last night to bring the week's record to 186-31. With only one game being played tonight, there will not be any games to watch today. All teams have the weekend off before resuming play on Monday. With that loss of the weekend, there will be no MRI released this Monday. Look for it to return on January 3rd.
- As I said yesterday, when you watch Southern Illinois, you only need to know one thing: Darren Brooks. Brooks went for 16 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals, in the win over Illinois State last night, 61-49.
- At the beginning of the year, I did a preview of the four new teams that the MRI would be tracking throughout the season. Little did I expect that of the four teams, the one with the most Division 1 wins at this point in the year would be the one that was a community college last season. I didn't expect Utah Valley State to win more than one game this season. Last night, the Wolverines won their fourth game of the year over Montana State, 80-60. They have now won three in a row and only one loss has been by more than 16 points. Their next game is against Oral Roberts on December 28th. This will be one to watch if they can pull an upset on a team which had been playing very well this season until two recent losses out in Hawaii.
- Two more teams got their first Division 1 win of the year last night, Chicago State and Idaho. That leaves us with only 13 winless D1 teams. We also have 13 undefeated teams remaining. I am tempted to say that we will have all the teams win before all the teams lose, but that is asking a lot from Savannah State, currently in the basement of the MRI by a big margin. Still, I will say it. Someone will lose to Savannah State before the last team in Division 1 loses a game.
- Illinois-Chicago wasn't going to let themselves be embarrassed for the second game in a row. They beat Saginaw Valley 79-47 last night to end their losing streak against Non-Division 1 teams. They take on Detroit, the loser in Chicago State's first win, next Thursday night.
