Thursday’s Den: Doing some thinking out loud…….

— Arizona 71, UConn 67
Arizona out-rebounded the Huskies, 43-23.
Wildcats are rebounding 38.8% of their missed shots (#37)
UConn was 9-18 on foul line, 8-25 on the arc.

Arizona is 5-0, with three top 30 wins; none of those were in Tucson.

— Alabama 90, Illinois 86
Illinois led 19-10 early on, but that didn’t last.
Alabama was 13-36 on the arc, 17-30 inside arc; they scored 1.14 ppp. 

So far this month, 52% of Alabama’s shots have been 3’s.

Alabama has already played three top 20 games (2-1); they’re playing the #5 pace in the country. Fun team to watch.

— Oklahoma State 103, South Florida 95
USF led by 13 points late in the first half.
Bulls shot 15-39 on the arc, 15-25 inside the arc.
OSU is 5-0 with two top 100 wins, playing #3 pace in country.

— Dayton 77, Marquette 71 OT
Dayton led by 12 with 8:27 left in regulation.
Flyers had 25 turnovers, Marquette 20.
Marquette is 0-3 vs top 70 teams; they need PG Jones to get healthy.

Famous birthdays, November 20:
Veronica Hamel, 82
Louie Dampier, 81
Rick Monday, 80
Richard Masur, 77

Bo Derek, 69
Dwight Stephenson, 68
Sean Young, 66
Callie Thorne, 56

JD Drew, 50
Carlos Boozer, 44
David Fry, 30
Tarik Skubal, 29

— Miami OH 37, Buffalo 20
Freshman QB Gotkowski was 13-23/185 passing in his first college start.
Miami was +3 in turnovers; they’re bowl eligible for fifth year in a row.
Buffalo QB Roberson threw for 303 yards, two TD’s.

— Central Michigan 28, Akron 16
Chippewas led 14-3 at halftime.
CMU had an 18-play, 75-yard TD drive in the first quarter.
Kent State’s first TD came on a 59-yard punt return.

— Akron 19, Bowling Green 16
Matthew Schramm kicked four FG’s, including a career-long 48-yarder.
Game was tied 6-6 at halftime.

Akron QB Finley threw a 75-yard TD pass; he played for three schools in his six years as a college QB, also playing for NC State and California.

— Western Michigan 35, Northern Illinois 19
Huskies led 10-0 after the first quarter.
RB Buckley ran for 133 yards, two TD’s.
Western Michigan ran ball 59 times for 361 yards (6.1 yards/attempt).

— Ohio U 42, UMass 14
RB Bangura ran for 196 yards, two TD’s.
Bobcats ran for 363 yards, threw only 8 passes.
UMass finishes the season a dismal 0-11.

Movie of the Day: Forget Paris (1995)- An NBA referee travels to France to bury his father; he meets and becomes friends with an airline employee. Their story gets told in flashbacks by their friends, as they wait for the couple to show up at a restaurant.

Great cast: Billy Crystal is the ref, Debra Winger his friend. Joe Mantegna, John Spencer, Cathy Moriarty, Richard Masur are also in this movie, as well as a lot of NBA stars.

— South Alabama 71, Jacksonville State 65
Gamecocks led 26-11 early in the game.
Jaguars were 15-24 on foul line; Jax State, playing at home, was 1-4.

South Alabama is 6-0; only one of their five D-I wins was at home. They’re #307 team in the country in experience.

— Arkansas 84, Winthrop 83
Red flag game; SEC teams should beat Winthrop by more than one point, especially since they won their previous game 79-75 over Samford.

Arkansas has games with Duke/Louisville coming up soon, which will be interesting.

— In baseball, Orioles traded P Grayson Rodriguez to the Angels, for veteran hitter Taylor Ward. 

Rodriguez is 20-8, 4.11 in 43 big league starts, but he’s been hurt a lot; his last major league game was in July, 2024.

Ward hit 36 homers this year, knocked in 103 runs, but he’s a free agent after the ’26 season.

— RIP to former big league pitcher Randy Jones, who passed away at age 75.

Jones went 20-12/22-14 for the Padres in 1975-76, throwing 600 innings those two years, back when starting pitchers went deeper into games. Those Padre teams went 71-91/73-89, so he was ace for a cruddy team. He wasn’t a hard thrower, but he was very good.

RIP, sir.

Author: Armadillo Sports

I've been involved in sports my whole life, now just write about them. I like to travel, mostly to Las Vegas- they have gambling there.

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