Upsets were the theme of the night last night. Two top 5 teams went down last night. Tennessee came into the night ranked number 5 and they lost to South Carolina. That win pretty much gets the Gamecocks into the tournament. Georgia Tech beat North Carolina in Atlanta. The Yellow Jackets are a long way from the tournament, but they have beaten Duke and North Carolina this season. Dayton had a huge bounce back against George Washington. Indiana beat Iowa at Assembly Hall but may have lost Xavier Johnson for the season.
Boston College beat Syracuse, Marquette beat Villanova, and Oklahoma blew out Kansas State. In the final games of the night Michigan State blew out Michigan and Gonzaga blew out LMU. Colorado State picked up a huge win against San Diego State. All those results were huge for the tournament prospects of each team.
Yesterday I went 22-8 in my picks. That brings my 84 day total to 2,394-946 overall. There are a lot of huge games on the bubble today and some top teams are in action. There are a ton of power conference games today to satisfy everyone and some of the top mid majors are in action tonight as well. Picks for day 85 January 31,2024, are below.
UNC Greensboro over VMI
Purdue over Northwestern
Alabama over Georgia
Xavier over St. John’s
UCF over Baylor
Virginia over Notre Dame
Pitt over Wake Forest
Cincinnati over West Virginia
Tulsa over Wichita State
East Carolina over South Florida
Presbyterian over South Carolina Upstate
UNC Asheville over Gardner-Webb
Radford over Charleston Southern
Colgate over Army
Lehigh over Navy
Duquesne over Chicago State
Lafayette over American
Rhode Island over La Salle
Richmond over Fordham
Saint Joseph’s over George Mason
Bucknell over Loyola MD
ETSU over Mercer
Furman over The Citadel
Western Carolina over Chattanooga
Lipscomb over North Florida
Jacksonville over Austin Peay
Indiana State over Belmont
Samford over Wofford
Kentucky over Florida
Memphis over Rice
Southern Illinois over Missouri State
Evansville over Illinois Chicago
Drake over Valpo
Bradley over Northern Iowa
Louisiana over Louisiana Monroe
Texas A&M Commerce over Incarnate Word
UConn over Providence
Rutgers over Penn State
Missouri over Arkansas
Southern Mississippi over Arkansas State
Auburn over Vanderbilt
North Texas over UAB
New Mexico over Boise State
Saint Mary’s over Santa Clara
There are a lot of great games today with NCAA tournament implications on the line. Can Purdue avenge their earlier loss to Northwestern? Providence is a bubble team and a win over UConn would go a long way towards securing their bid into the NCAA tournament.
Memphis is currently on a three-game losing streak they may have a bit of a get right game with Rice. Can the Tigers get back to winning? Baylor has a very tough game on the road at UCF. The Knights have already beaten Kansas at home. UCF poses quite a challenge in the Big 12 when they are at home. The schedule today is loaded and it's going to be a lot of fun.