— Weird Stat of the Day: In Monday’s 93-87 win over Florida, Arizona was 2-5 behind the arc, for the whole freakin’ game. In this day and age, no teams only take five 3’s in a game.
Arizona shot 50% inside the arc, made 31-38 on the foul line. Florida was 7-27 on the arc. It was a really good game that seemed like a Final Four game.
— Tennessee-Martin 86, UNLV 81- The Josh Pastner era in Las Vegas got off to a cruddy start, as Rebels blew a 10-point first half lead, losing as a 17-point favorite. UNLV turned the ball over 22 times, shot only 7-23 on the arc.
Tennessee-Martin was 27-48 on the foul line; the Skyhawks have players from 11 different countries- their entire starting 5 is from eastern Europe. Seven of their players have played at non-Division I colleges.
— SC-Upstate 87, Fresno State 86
Bad home loss for the Bulldogs, who were favored by 9.5 points; Fresno led by 12 late in the first half, were +10 in turnovers, but the Spartans shot 57.6% inside the arc. Five of the 12 teams in the Mountain West have already lost a game, in the season’s first three nights.
— Rutgers 81, Rider 53— Tariq Francis scored 20 points for the Scarlet Knights; he used to play for NJIT in the America East. He took 370 3-pointers over two seasons in which NJIT went a combined 13-46, 6-26 in conference games. Go figure.
— UCLA 80, Eastern Washington 74— UCLA coach Mick Cronin wasn’t happy after the game.
“There’s so many mistakes; I’d like to fire myself for our defense. I mean, if you think you’re going to give up 53.7% in your own gym in a buy game and have a good year, you have no chance.”
They won, but apparently he wasn’t happy.
— Second year in a row, my doorbell only rang once on Halloween night; mustn’t be a lot of kids in my neighborhood. It was windy/cold Friday, but I didn’t think it was that bad.
— Famous birthdays, November 6th:
Sally Field, 79
Ethan Hawke, 55
Adam LaRoche, 46
Lamar Odom, 46
Luke Jackson, 44
James Paxton, 37
— Atlanta Braves signed two coaches who were with the Mets this past year: pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and and first base coach Antoan Richardson.
Hefner had worked for the Mets for six years. Richardson was first base coach,OF coordinator and baserunning instructor for the Mets the past two seasons; he got tons of credit for the Mets’ 89.1% stealing bases this year- Juan Soto stole a career-high 38 bases.
— Players who opted in on their 2026 contract:
Chris Sale, $18M
Shane Bieber, $16M
Salvador Perez, $25M for two years
Jack Flaherty, $20M
Trevor Story, $55M for two years
— Chicago Cubs rejected an option to extend P Shota Imanaga’s contract out to 2028; he then rejected a $15M player option for next year, so now he is a free agent.
Imanaga was 24-11, 3.28 in 54 regular season starts in two years with the Cubs; he was 9-8, 3.73 this season, but he had a 6.51 ERA in September.
— Jets were a 2.5-point favorite over Cleveland this week, until they traded two of their best defensive players away, for three first round draft picks.
When that happened, the line moved to Cleveland, -2.5, a five-point swing.
— Drew Brees is joining FOX Sports as an NFL game analyst; rumors are that he is taking Mark Sanchez’ place. Sanchez had some off-field issues recently, may now be out of a job.
— Oklahoma City star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has now scored 20+ points 81 games in a row, the 3rd longest streak of all-time.
