— Nebraska 76, Washington 66
Nebraska is 19-0 in basketball.
Indiana won the national title in football; the world is upside down.
Nebraska is shooting 60.2% inside the arc (#11).
Cornhuskers are in top 30 in eFG%, both in offense/defense.
— Creighton 94, Xavier 93
Bluejays rebounded their own missed foul shot and scored a hoop at the buzzer
Xavier scored 1.28 ppp and still lost; unusual.
Creighton shot 13-24 on the arc, Xavier was 12-24
— Florida Atlantic 79, Tulane 74
Owls are 14-6, lead the AAC with a 6-1 record.
FAU has won five games in a row (3 wins by 6 or fewer points)
FAU is impressive because they’re #347 in country in experience.
— Kentucky 85, Texas 80
Game was 40-40 at halftime.
Kentucky was 30-35 on foul line, Texas 18-20
Brickfest; teams combined to shoot 7-36 on the arc.
Kentucky won its last four games, scoring 83 ppg.
— IU Indy 103, Oakland 85
Oakland was favored by 14.5 points.
IU Indy scored 103 points, only took 3 foul shots (2-3)
Jaguars shot 64.2% inside the arc.
— Citadel 77, Furman 75 OT
Furman was favored by 10.5 points.
Paladins led by 19 with 10:50 left in the game
Teams combined to shoot 12-57 on the arc.
— Gonzaga 84, Pepperdine 60
Zags have beaten Pepperdine 51 games in a row. Fifty-one.
Only streak that was longer; from 1961-86, UCLA beat Cal 52 times in a row.
Gonzaga has won its last 13 games, is 20-1 this season.
— Famous birthdays, January 22nd
Lester Hayes, 71
Jeff Rutledge, 69
Vince Newsome, 65
Diane Lane, 61
Gabriel Macht, 54
Chone Figgins, 48
Carlos Ruiz, 47
Tyrone Taylor, 32
Davis Webb, 31
Dillon Brooks, 30
— Cody Bellinger re-signed with the Bronx Bombers, will get $32.5M/year for five years; he hit 29 homers last year, had 98 RBI, an OPS of .813.
— It is January 22, it is freakin’ freezing out, and I’m watching podcasts trying to figure out where three of the guys on my fantasy baseball team are going to play this year:
Zac Gallen/Luis Arraez are free agents, Freddie Peralta is likely to be traded. Spring training starts in three weeks; time to figure it out, fellas.
As I typed this, Peralta got traded to the Mets:
Mets get Peralta, P Tobias Myers
Milwaukee gets P Brandon Sproat, SS/OF Jett Williams.
— It is kind of funny to listen to these podcasts and listen to nerdy analysts shredding guys who didn’t help their fantasy teams last year. I mean, I’m nerdy too, but if your team wasn’t good, it was your fault, not some guy who is banking million$$ of dollar$$ playing ball.
— There was a 7-year stretch when Indiana coach Curt Cignetti was a QB coach, for three years at Rice, then four years at Temple, not exactly football factories.
In 1998, Rice went 0-11; the whole staff got fired, then Temple went 11-33 the next four years, so if you told Cignetti in 1993 that he would wind up making $12M/year, he probably would’ve laughed at you.
— Before Indiana hired Cignetti away from James Madison, he applied for the head coaching job at Mississippi State, but he didn’t get an interview.
Whoops.
— In Kevin Stefanski’s six years coaching the Cleveland Browns, he started 13 different QB’s; he just hired Bill Callahan as his OL coach in Atlanta, brought OC Tommy Rees with him from the Browns, so if he starts Kirk Cousins, he should have more success with the Falcons.
— Best wishes to Kansas basketball coach Bill Self, who missed the Jayhawks’ game at Colorado Tuesday night; he has atrial fibrillation and was dehydrated.
He had two stents inserted into his heart back in July and also missed the NCAA Tournament and Big 12 Tournament in 2023 after undergoing a heart procedure.
