Welcome back to the Watch Grid, where we've reached the part of the season where most of the games are just regular ol' non-conference games. No conference vs. conference challenges, no preseason tournaments (a few neutral site games though), just teams that scheduled each other because they wanted to. The quality of games will slowly decline until around New Year's, where they will abruptly pick back up again. Let's take a look:
Monday, December 9th
Hmm I don't think so. Minnesota-Iowa could be interesting, but neither team looks anywhere near a tournament team right now.
Tuesday, December 10th
One of my favorite types of regular season games in college basketball is "top 10 team plays a road conference game against a good but not great team." The hit rate of upsets in these games is really high, and although Maryland just flipped to a 1 point favorite on Kenpom, I would consider Maryland-Penn State the first such game of the year, and it should tell us a lot about both teams. Later, undefeated Butler faces their biggest test of the year so far in Waco.
Wednesday, December 11th
Another game that meets the same description above, Illinois needs to beat Michigan to avoid falling to 0-2 in conference. Like Maryland, Michigan is still a 1 point favorite, but the two teams have been heading in opposite directions since the start of the year. Hopefully Michigan fares better in Juwan Howard's first conference road game than they did in their first non-conference road game.
Thursday, December 12th
We need a nickname for the basketball edition of the Iowa-Iowa State rivalry that isn't El Assico. Because unlike their football teams, the basketball rivalry regularly produces competitive, exciting games and not the magnificent parade of incompetence we know and love in football. Anyways, this game should be pretty good.
Friday, December 13th
Unless you're from the state of Colorado, you can skip tonight.
Saturday, December 14th
Wow, that's a lot of games. The true end of the college football regular season pushes more basketball games to TV, but honestly the quantity of really good games is probably a bit less than the past 2 Saturdays. The top is strong though, with Michigan and Oregon giving us the "best game that didn't happen in Atlantis," while Michigan goes for revenge for the 2017 Sweet Sixteen. Next, the Tennessee state championship should be a lot of fun with the teams much closer in quality than they were last year. After that, Wichita is on an amazing quest to beat every DI team from the state of Oklahoma. They've already beaten Oral Roberts and Oklahoma State, they play Oklahoma here, and they get 2 games against Tulsa in conference play. They are favored in all of these games. This is now the thing that I will become way too invested in this season. After dark, Gonzaga tries to continue it's dominance over the Pac 12 and gain another transitive conference championship.
Sunday, December 15th
Oklahoma State-Houston could have late season implications if both teams end up on the bubble, but having not watched either team play this year I can't really tell you anything else interesting about that one. Meanwhile, OSU-Minnesota doesn't quite carry the upset alert of the previous 2 Big Ten games highlighted in the grid (Minnesota does not qualify as a "good but not great" team), but any conference road game can be a tough challenge, which provides mild intrigue here.
