{"id":361,"date":"2012-12-14T01:58:34","date_gmt":"2012-12-14T07:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/67.227.157.91\/~kenpom\/wp_blog\/week-in-review-finals-week-blahs\/"},"modified":"2012-12-14T01:58:34","modified_gmt":"2012-12-14T07:58:34","slug":"week-in-review-finals-week-blahs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/week-in-review-finals-week-blahs\/","title":{"rendered":"Week in Review: Finals week blahs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 3 most appealing games (according to FanMatchTM<\/sup>):<\/strong>
\n1) Tennessee 69, Wichita State 60 [63]. (Thursday) The Shockers suffered their first loss of the season as Cleanthony Early had the most miserable game of his D-I tenure, missing all five field goal attempts and disqualifying himself in 17 minutes. <\/p>\n

2) Belmont 64, Middle Tennessee 49 [62]. (Thursday) Whatever you want, think Belmont!<\/a> In this case, Belmont wanted to make 61% of its twos and simultaneously showcase its defense, which will be desperately needed when they play Kansas on Saturday. Nary a Blue Raider managed to score in double-figures.<\/p>\n

3) Villanova 65, Saint Joseph\u2019s 61 [67]. (Tuesday) This game became famous for Halil Kanacevic flipping off the crowd and earning a two-game suspension from his school. The game itself was pretty good, too, as neither team could build more than a six-point lead. \u2018Nova scored the last nine to earn a four-point win. <\/p>\n

The 3 biggest upsets:<\/strong>
\nWith the light schedule of finals week, there were only nine upsets in the last four days, the biggest of which was #276 McNeese State at home over #90 Louisiana Tech. At 23% this was hardly the kind of thing that represents the spirit of this section, so I\u2019m moving on\u2026<\/p>\n

The 3 craziest comebacks:<\/strong>
\n1) NJIT (0.5%) over Army<\/a>. (Tuesday) NJIT trailed Army by double-digits most of the second half, but it\u2019s worst situation was trailing 63-51 with 3:06 to go. But the Highlanders made eight of their last ten field goals, including a tie-breaking layup by Chris Flores with a second left. NJIT scored five points in the first ten minutes, and 35 in the last ten to win 69-67 [73].<\/p>\n

2) Duquesne (4.4%) over West Virginia<\/a>. (Tuesday) The Mountaineers loss to Duquesne was disappointing but especially so when you realize they led 38-23 with 19:34 left. It\u2019s not like Duquesne had to do much to overcome the deficit since WVU went 8-of-31 from the field and 0-for-4 from the free throw line the rest of the way allowing the Dukes to secure a 60-56 [64] victory.<\/p>\n

3) McNeese State (7.9%) over Louisiana Tech<\/a>. (Wednesday) As noted previously, this wasn\u2019t a huge upset coming at home and all. But McNeese spotted La. Tech the first 11 points which increased the degree of difficulty a bit.<\/p>\n

Unbeatens remaining:<\/strong> 13. (One fewer since Monday.)<\/p>\n

Winless teams remaining:<\/strong> 6. (Two fewer since Monday.)<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s 3 most appealing games (according to FanMatchTM<\/sup>):<\/strong>
\n1) #2 Florida at #14 Arizona. (Saturday, 10 ET, ESPN) Florida hasn\u2019t played a great collection of offenses, but their offensive SOS is ranked a not-disgraceful 169th. I bring this up because the Gators have the eighth best turnover percentage against those offenses and Arizona has had a turnover problem so far, ranking 231st in taking care of the ball. Florida also has the 2nd-lowest opponents’ 2P% in the land. That felt weird to type.<\/p>\n

2) #15 Creighton at #43 Cal. (Saturday, 11 ET, Pac-12 Network) It\u2019s a pretty nice run for Haas Pavilion \u2013 UNLV, Creighton, and Alan Williams in a three-game stretch. Fun fact \u2013 Alan Crabbe is Doug McDermott\u2019s fourth-best statistical comp right now. Both can fill it up from everywhere and draw fouls in impressive quantities. <\/p>\n

3) #3 Louisville at #33 Memphis. (Saturday, 2:30 ET, Fox Sports Net) Russ Smith tries to further his unlikely player-of-the-year campaign as these two continue a rivalry rooted in Metro Conference times. Let\u2019s dedicate this one to the memory of Baskerville Holmes. Last year’s game checked in at 86 possessions, by the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 3 most appealing games (according to FanMatchTM): 1) Tennessee 69, Wichita State 60 [63]. (Thursday) The Shockers suffered their first loss of the season as Cleanthony Early had the most miserable game of his D-I tenure, missing all five field goal attempts and disqualifying himself in 17 minutes. 2) Belmont 64, Middle Tennessee 49 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}