The College Basketball slate on Wednesday got off to a slow start, but heated up later in the night, leading to three massive upsets overall. The good news for these teams is that they’re still safely in the NCAA Tournament mix. However, their respective chances at a protected seed may not.
Here are the big results from last night and the impact of those defeats.
Minnesota 76, No. 10 Michigan State 73
The Gophers got off to a huge lead early and managed to hold on for the big upset win at home. The good news for the Spartans is that this loss is currently in the Quad 1 range, with Minnesota now having a NET ranking of 72. Odds are this will fall towards the Quad 2 range come Selection Sunday, but this team has bigger issues, including the Jeremy Fears “dirty player” tag that has come up, along with a looming road battle at Illinois.
If Michigan State wants to stay in the Big Ten regular season title race, they need to find a way to pull off the victory against the Illini.
Oklahoma State 99, No. 16 BYU 92
This is a Quad 1 loss for the Cougars, but again, they weren’t in danger of falling to the bubble. Despite 36 points from AJ Dybantsa, BYU has now lost four of its last five games and still doesn’t have a signature win on its resume, putting it in the 5/6 seed line as of now.
The Cougars have a chance to turn things around with a massive matchup against Houston this weekend. But if they lose that, there’s a chance they’ll be unranked in next week’s AP poll.
Portland 87, No. 6 Gonzaga 80
At some point, not having Braden Huff (17.8 ppg) was going to hurt Gonzaga and its chances of going unbeaten in the WCC. But no one thought it would be Portland, which lost 47 of the previous 49 meetings between them, to do it. But freshman Joel Foxwell’s 27 points helped lead to potentially the biggest upset of the entire season.
This is a surefire Quad 3 loss for the Bulldogs, which could fall into Quad 4 status if the Pilots continue to struggle. This loss likely pushes Gonzaga out of the 1-2 seed range, given how strong the top group is. Plus, they still have road games at the top three other teams in the WCC, including vs Santa Clara and San Francisco next week.