— Michigan 91, Purdue 80
Michigan shot 13-23 on the arc, scored 1.31 ppp
Wolverines led 48-28 late in the first half.
Michigan has won eleven games in a row.
— NC State 82, North Carolina 58
Tar Heels played without their top two scorers.
Wolfpack shot 9-20 on the arc, Carolina 5-33.
This was State’s biggest win over UNC since 1962.
— Michigan State 82, UCLA 59
UCLA has lost consecutive games by 20+ points for first time since 1945.
Spartans shot 14-27 on arc, led 43-23 at halftime.
Bruins are 1-5 SU outside of the Pacific time zone this season
— Villanova 92, Xavier 89 OT
Villanova was +10 (6-16) in turnovers.
Wildcats have won six in a row, are 12-3 in Big East.
Xavier lost 6 of last 8 games; their last two losses were in OT.
— Iowa 57, Nebraska 52
Nebraska is 2-4 in last six games, after a 20-0 start.
Cornhuskers only played seven guys the whole game.
Hawkeyes had 37-24 edge on the boards.
— Miami OH 86, UMass 77
Redhawks improve to 26-0, country’s only unbeaten team.
Miami was 24-33 on foul line, Minutemen 9-16
In its MAC games, Miami is shooting 63.9% inside the arc.
— Upsets of the Night:
Rhode Island (+11.5) 81, Saint Louis 76
San Jose State (+10.5) 87, Nevada 71
Northern Illinois (+8.5) 72, Buffalo 70
Grand Canyon (+7.5) 73, San Diego State 63
Georgia (+7.5) 86, Kentucky 78
Arizona State (+7.5) 72, Texas Tech 67
Kansas State (+4.5) 90, Baylor 74
This has been a rough week, with Robert Duvall dying and now this……
— Dwight (Bo) Lamar, who scored 3,493 points at Southwestern Louisiana (now Louisiana-Lafayette) before the 3-point shot was a thing, passed away this week at age 74. Lamar was a first team All-American in 1972 and 1973.
Only Pete Maravich (3,667) and Antone Davis (3,664) scored more points in Division I.
Lamar then played three years in the ABA, scoring 19.7 ppg and one year with the Lakers; too bad he played before ESPN existed. Would have been fun to watch him play. RIP.
— Doug Moe, who played at North Carolina and in the ABA, then later had a very good coaching career, passed away at age 87.
Moe went 628-529 over 15 seasons as a head coach; he was the NBA Coach of the Year in 1988, three years after his best Nuggets team lost in the Western Conference finals to the Lakers. His Nuggets led the NBA in scoring over five straight years in the early ’80s, and he rarely ran a set play, instead stressing movement and a lot of passing.
Moe was from Brooklyn; he was irreverent, kind of a character in a good-natured way. When he was playing in the early 60’s, afraid of flying, Moe would read books to distract himself from the ongoing flight.
On one flight, with North Carolina’s team, there was a famous passenger on the flight (Richard Nixon) who went to the back of the plane to talk to the players. Nixon saw Moe reading the book and said to him “You must be the student in the group”
Moe didn’t know it was Richard Nixon talking to him; he looked up at hm and replied “What are you, a wise guy?”
Doug Moe was a really good coach and a unique personality. RIP, coach.
— Famous birthdays, February 18th:
Cybill Shepherd, 76
John Travolta, 72
Gary Reasons, 64
Chuck Long, 63
Molly Ringwald, 58
Le’Veon Bell, 34
Isaac Paredes, 27
Jordan Westburg, 27
— P Walker Buehler signed a free agent deal with San Diego; he pitched for the Phillies/Red Sox last year, after pitching eight years for the Dodgers. In his career, Buehler is 57-29, 3.52 in 146 career starts, 4-4, 3.04 in 18 playoff starts.
— Twins P Pablo López has a “significant tear” in the UCL in his pitching arm, and is expected to need Tommy John surgery. He was 5-4, 2.74 in 14 starts LY, is 59-53, 3.81 in 172 career starts.
— A reminder about the NBA Draft: Stephen Curry was the 7th player taken in the 2009 NBA Draft, being luminaries like Hasheem Thabeet and Jonny Flynn.
Shea Gilgeous-Alexander was the 11th pick in the 2018, taken behind Mo Bamba, Kevin Knox and Marvin Bagley.
Much like the NFL Draft, smarter NBA teams gain an advantage thru the draft.
— Hannah Storm has been on TV for 40+ years now; these days, she works on ESPN.
Back in the day, her father was Mike Storen, who once ran the Atlanta Hawks, two ABA teams and was also commissioner of the ABA for a while. He was the first general manager of the Indiana Pacers, who were originally an ABA team.
— Miami Dolphins are cutting their payroll; they’re now $13M under the salary cap after letting WR Tyreek Hill go, and releasing DE Bradley Chubb, WR Nick Westbrook-Ihkine and OL James Daniels.
Last week the Dolphins admitted that QB Tua Tagovailoa’s future in Miami is undecided, and Miami has publicly let it be known that Tagovailoa, who is due $54M in 2026, is available via trade. If they can’t trade him, his contract will greatly hamper their salary cap situation.
