[The Poet]

Only three of the evening games last night held much interest, as the others were the anticipated blowouts. The one "upset", if you can call it that, was Syracuse spanking #13 California 95-73, but as weak as the Pac-10 appears early this season it is not too big a shocker. More of a shock was the final in the #4 Kentucky/Sam Houston State game - 102 to 92. Whereas in their games against Morehead State and Miami (OH), where the question was why did the Wildcats score so little, the question here is how could they let Sam Houston score so much? Though the contest was not as close as the score, this has to be disturbing to UK faithful. Also, Roy Williams is doubtless upset at the sloppy end-game play his team has shown, for although #6 UNC defeated #15 Ohio State 77-73, this was a game that was not nearly this tight until the end, when some late turnovers and missed free-throws, coupled with OSU finally hitting some treys (4 in the final 2 minutes), cut what had been a safe double-digit lead down to a slim two with 11 ticks left. Hey, I started out by saying my Heels are young, and this will be a steep learning curve for them - which gets steeper come December. Well, we'll see if they learned any lessons, when they grip the orange against The Orange in MSG tonight.

Other games this evening:

# 2 Mich. St. vs. Toledo
# 7 Purdue vs. South Dakota St.
# 10 Tenn. vs. East Carolina
# 13 Cal vs. Ohio St. - the consolation game in The Garden
# 14 Washington vs. San Jose St.
# 16 Michigan vs. Houston Baptist
# 22 Clemson vs. N.C. Greensboro
# 25 Maryland vs. New Hampshire