Some great college hoops stories from the past few days

On Wednesday night the #1 Duke Blue Devils lost to the Miami Hurricanes by the score of 90-63.  Miami is now 5-0 in the ACC, with a two game lead in the loss column over the conference's 2nd place team, NC State (4-2).  The thought of Miami winning the ACC sounds crazy to me.  Not that long ago the Big East added the 'Canes for football purposes, which made a mockery of their basketball conference.  As horrific as Miami was in the Big East in the early 1990's, they likely would have fared even worse in the ACC.

The 27 point loss by Duke was the 3rd worst ever for a #1 team, and the Blue Devils most lopsided regular season loss since 1984.  Duke (now 16-2) somehow managed to get this far into the season with only two road games on their schedule, and they've dropped both of them by an average of 17.5 points.  The most recent defeat opens the door for the #2 Michigan Wolverines (18-1), who can take over the the top spot in the polls if they win at Illinois on Sunday.  It's been 20 years since the Wolverines were last ranked #1, back when the Fab Five were all sophomores in 1993.

One team that both Duke and Michigan beat this year is the #12 Minnesota Golden Gophers (15-4). Oddly enough, Minnesota's first three losses this season were all to teams ranked #5 at the time of the game (Duke 11/22, Indiana 1/12, and Michigan 1/17).

This loooong 3 from Darien Brothers sent the game to OT.

And last but not least I have to mention my Richmond Spiders.  Yesterday they hosted the #19 VCU Rams.  Back when I went to Richmond these two schools were crosstown rivals in the CAA, and now they are again in the giant new 16 team Atlantic Ten (yes, the Atlantic "10" has 16 teams, this whole conference system is becoming such a joke).  Richmond trailed VCU by seven, 63-56, with just :43 seconds remaining.  Amazingly the Spiders scored 13 points in the final :37 seconds to send the game to overtime tied at 69, then outscored the Rams 17-5 in the extra frame to win 86-74.

Probably the biggest giant killer in NCAA Tournament history, Richmond has now won 4 of it's last 5 home games vs. ranked opponents, and 8 of their past 13 games overall against top 25 teams.

Unrelated and off topic, Rajon Rondo had another triple double against the Knicks on Thursday.  Read my post about how much he's dominated the rest of the NBA in this category on Celtics Life.

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