The Columbia at Hofstra game tonight was cancelled due to the Columbia bus being stuck in what is termed "heavy traffic" in the AP story. This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill Columbia-Hofstra game either. It was 4-0 Hofstra against 3-1 Columbia. Hofstra is two wins away from becoming bowl eliglible, and a representative from the Las Vegas Bowl was going to be in attendance. And is heavy traffic all that unexpected in metropolitan New York?
In conference news, the Missouri Valley Conference went 4-0 last night, led by Northern Iowa’s 99-82 victory over Iowa State in the UNI-Dome. This pushes the MVC’s record against D1 competition to 26-11. The MVC is staking a very early claim as the best conference in America that doesn’t have a bunch of games on ESPN or FSN. This is a distinction that has been traded between the Atlantic-10 and Mountain West in this millenium, but with both of those conferences down, keep your eye on the Valley. Along with UNI, Creighton and Southern Illinois have at-large aspirations also.
The rumors of Gonzaga’s demise were greatly exaggerated after their loss to Illinois last Saturday. The Zags beat Washington 99-87 even though Erroll Knight didn’t play again. I’m no talent scout, but the people that are say Ronny Turiaf and Adam Morrison have NBA futures. That means Gonzaga has two more future pros than most of their opponents. I can throw stats at you day and night, but the bottom line is that talent wins, and Gonzaga has some left this year. And oh by the way, we’re finding out the Illini are pretty good, and they’re going to squash a lot of quality teams like bugs.
Finally it’s time for a time-honored tradition in this space. I try to guess which team will be the last unbeaten, but without any explanation. Here’s what I went with last season. With ten teams suffering their first loss last night, the ranks of the unbeatens are thinning a lot faster this year. As of this morning, there are only 42 remaining. The last one standing will be Kansas or Connecticut.