While I fully intend to write about the top 25 college hoops games that took place this weekend, this post is probably going to end up sounding more like a rant. I apologize for that. There are just quite a few sports things that have me frustrated this past weekend.
If you have been following me for a little bit now, you know that one of things I absolutely love to do is watch my nieces and nephews play sports. It's often difficult to catch all of their games, because two of my nieces live down in Ohio (about four hours away).
One of the good things that Covid laid on us is the fact that many high schools now stream their sporting events. The technology was around long before Covid, and many districts had it in place. However with social distancing guidelines and capacity restrictions, districts that didn't already have it in place were forced to implement it.
Unfortunately, because this was all thrown together so quickly to meet the demand, there were literally no standards put in place. So for example, my nieces school district uses the popular NFHS Network platform powered by Pixellot cameras. That's actually the platform the district I work for uses as well.
If I had been given a choice, I would have went with a different company called HUDL. They broadcast directly to YouTube and your viewers don't have to subscribe to watch the feeds. My issue is there are a million other platforms out there. On top of that, my niece has had very few home games, so that means we either have to hope the opponent uses either HUDL or NFHS or we have to pay an additional fee to watch the game on a different platform.
Which honestly, we would pay to watch it if we were down there, but it is just frustrating that the governing bodies of high school athletics can't get together and mandate a single platform to make things easier for everyone.
Alight, onto the college basketball.
One game on Friday night. It wasn't an upset and honestly I have a feeling the viewership was probably pretty low for the contest against Air Force and #25 New Mexico.
Saturday brought us a massive 19 games in the top 25 and I have to tell you I watched a couple of them and they were pretty epic. There were some massive upsets on Saturday and it had me on the edge of the couch for much of the day!
West Virginia beat #15 Auburn 80 to 77, Creighton beat #13 Xavier 84 to 67. That second game was pretty fire. Creighton was at home and they could not miss. The energy in the stadium was electric. I could feel it through the TV. For real!
Missouri beat #12 Iowa State 78 to 61, and, in a move that has me pretty upset (because I had money on them), #2 Alabama got upset by Oklahoma 93 to 69 in an absolute route at Oklahoma. It wasn't even close. I started watching the game and kept hoping that Bama would creep back into it, but they just didn't. I eventually knew my $1 I put on the parlay was lost. More about that on Thursday though.
#3 Houston had a close win against Cincinnati 75 to 69. I was wondering for a while if we were going to see both 2 and 3 fall this weekend.
Hofstra beat #18 Charleston 85 to 81, and Mississippi State took down what has been a very hot #11 TCU team in overtime 81 to 74.
#20 Miami fell to Pittsburgh 71 to 68 for the final upset of the day. There was a inter-conference tournament going on between the Big 12 and the SEC I think it was. That made for some pretty exciting games and probably some good previews of what we might see in the tournament come March.
That #4 Tennessee vs. #10 Texas game was a pretty good watch as well. I was flipping back and forth between that game and a couple of other ones on Saturday.
I should point out that #24 Clemson only squeaked past Florida State by one point. Additionally, BYU just fell short of beating #22 Saint Mary's by one point as well.
Sunday only brought us two top 25 games, but it also brought my a lot more frustration. Unfortunately, there were no upsets even though I was really hoping Michigan State was going to serve one up to Purdue. Instead, MSU looked like any other team we have seen for the past five years. Turn overs galore and just an absolute lack of discipline. It's getting sad. I am to the point where I am out of both good and bad things to say about them.
It's just disgraceful. They need to get the this train wreck fixed before the tournament is upon us. They have the talent. There is zero reason why they should be playing the way they have been.
Like I said, I am out of words at this point. It's frustrating when you know a team has so much potential, but they just continue to fall short time and time again.
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