It's safe to say this trip to the west coast for the Michigan State Spartans hasn't been sunshine and rainbows. They say it never rains in Southern California, but that is anything but the case for MSU. It's been one hit after another as they welcome the new teams into the Big Ten.
Equally sad for me, is the fact that the past two games haven't been on network TV. They have streamed exclusively on Peacock Network which is one of the few services I don't subscribe to. That means I have to follow the game in The Score app or something similar.
That's what I was doing Saturday night as I was sitting and watching the hockey game @mrsbozz and I attended. Every so often I would check my phone to see just how bad the Spartans were losing.
Let's get to some other teams first...
Last Thursday night was a big deal for Nebraska as they upset (18) Illinois 80 to 74 in overtime. I hope @sports.guy55 got to see that. Meanwhile, UCLA started off what will eventually be a big week for them beating (16) Oregon 78 to 52.
Friday there was just one game in the top 25 and it was not an upset.
Saturday gave us sixteen games in the top 25 which might be the most we have seen in single day all season. (8) Tennessee returned to their previous form upsetting (5) Florida 64 to 44 and (20) Missouri had a big upset of (14) Mississippi State 88 to 61.
Kansas State continued the trend with a 80 to 61 victory over (3) Iowa State. If you haven't noticed, pretty much all of the upsets so far have been by a rather large margin. Twenty to thirty points even!
Oklahoma put (24) Vanderbilt back in their place beating them 97 to 67 and Georgia Tech took down (21) Louisville 77 to 70. Baylor also had a big win beating (11) Kansas 81 to 70.
As I mentioned before, (7)Michigan State has had a rough week and it all started with USC beating them 70 to 64. (22) Texas Tech had a really close overtime win against (6) Houston 82 to 81, and (25)UConn beat (9) Marquette 77 to 69.
Finally, Arkansas stunned (12) Kentucky 89 to 79. Needless to say, it was a virtual blood bath in the power conferences on Saturday.
Sunday gave us only two games and neither of them were upsets.
Monday we saw (8) Iowa State who had previously been ranked number 3 continue to slide with a 69 to 52 loss against (16) Kansas.
Tuesday night we had ten games in the top 25. (12) St. John's beat (11) Marquette 70 to 64, (25) Ole Miss upset (14) Kentucky 98 to 84, and sadly, (9) Michigan State fell to UCLA 63 to 61. I can't say I am really happy with that outcome, but I am honestly not shocked.
Although Michigan State has been playing quite well this season, they still are turning over the ball a lot and there has been a fair amount of sloppy play. When they are clicking, they are so good, but those moments have been more the exception than the norm.
I hope this extended road trip gives them the opportunity to work the bugs out and figure out what they need to fix before they head into the home stretch of the regular season.
Last night we had five games in the top 25. It seems Michigan has clawed their way back into the top 25 and they beat Oregon 80 to 76. The only upset of the day was Rutgers taking down (23) Illinois 82 to 73. It would appear that Duke has found their groove as they are sitting in the number two spot in the country right now. Auburn continues to hold onto that #1 spot they have had most of the regular season.
Michigan State is back in action on Saturday at home against Oregon. I hope they can shake off the road blues and show the ducks what Green can do.
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
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