NCAA Basketball: Oregon’s potential, Livers’ importance and more takeaways

Here are the biggest takeaways from the past week in NCAA Basketball, including a look at Oregon’s potential and Isaiah Livers’ importance to Michigan.

The NCAA Basketball schedule slowed down a bit this week due to final exams at campuses across the country. Yet, while there were very few marquee games during the week, we did see a fourth No. 1 team be upset on Tuesday when Louisville fell to Texas Tech in the Jimmy V Classic. They were the third straight top team to lose to an unranked opponent and the victory snapped a three-game losing streak for the Red Raiders.

Ohio State is expected to rise to No. 1 when Monday’s top 25 rankings are released but did haven’t played since last Saturday’s 106-74 victory over Penn State.

The Cardinals did rebound with a dominant win over Eastern Kentucky on Saturday because of course, they did, though that game was overshadowed by a pretty stacked slate of games.

Two other ranked teams lost as Seton Hall and Xavier fell to Rutgers and Wake Forest, respectively, and there were three matchups between ranked teams. Memphis outlasted in-state rival Tennessee and Gonzaga held on to beat Arizona, but the game of the day happened in Ann Arbor.

Oregon got out to a big lead in the first half, but Michigan went on a second-half run to force overtime, at which point Payton Pritchard did everything and essentially won the game for the Ducks.

It was the kind of matchup that was very telling about both teams. Here are the biggest takeaways from the past week of college basketball, starting with what we learned about Michigan and Oregon, in this new Rauf Report.