This is the first installment of hopefully many summaries of each night/weekend in college basketball. Here I will talk about the major games each night by giving opinions, insight and notes regarding everything happening in the sport. Let’s kickoff by highlighting a top ten match-up between Big Ten powers Iowa and Maryland.

(3) Iowa at (8) Maryland:

Maryland entered the night hoping to finally attain a signature win this season. Coming in, the Terps’ best victory was over a solid, but not great, Connecticut team. Aside from that, Maryland had beaten exactly zero teams with an at-large tournament résumé. This was a very evenly played game. The keys for each team that I was watching for ended up almost identical. Maryland had only one less turnover and grabbed three more boards than Iowa. A big difference was in assists, where Maryland notched 16 on 26 field goals while Iowa failed to reach double digit dimes. Jarrod Uthoff and the Iowa offense never seemed to get into a rhythm with several of their buckets coming in garbage situations (transition, offensive rebounds.) Maryland fans chanting “You are ugly” could have affected Uthoff, though I think most of that credit should go to Jake Layman for his defensive effort. Players like Layman, Rasheed Sulaimon and Robert Carter stepped up big in a relatively quiet night from Melo Trimble. I’ve been ranking Iowa in the top ten for the last three weeks, which is longer than most have. Every time I watch the Hawkeyes, I find myself shaking my head and just laughing multiple times a game at the some of the shots they hit, often as soon as the game begins. That never seemed to happen tonight. The jump shots weren’t falling and the ball wasn’t moving for Iowa. Maryland gets the signature win they badly wanted.

(23) Oregon at (18) Arizona

We are at a point now where “Who has Arizona beaten?” is a very legitimate question. Their best win is at Gonzaga, which now doesn’t appear to be as big of a win as it was at the time. Zona now has road conference losses to UCLA, USC and Cal along with tonight’s home loss to Oregon. None of those are bad losses, but the Wildcats need to win one of these quality games to boost not only their tournament seeding but also their own confidence. Arizona came out on fire against Oregon, starting 12 of 13 from the field. However, turnovers killed the Cats as they turned it over 19 times, roughly 28% of their possessions. Giving over a quarter of your possessions away is not a good recipe for success. Oregon ended up attempting 21 more field goals, which cancelled out Arizona’s great shooting percentage. I ranked Oregon slightly above Arizona this week and really don’t understand why they’ve been so low in the national rankings. So, I’m not exactly shocked by this result, but I definitely expected Arizona to protect their home court. Oregon’s conference record and overall résumé looks very good now after a big road win against the conference’s Goliath.

Notes on other games:

Notre Dame felt Demetrius Jackson’s absence in an ugly loss on the road to Syracuse. I know Syracuse had some bad losses early on, but the eye test tells me this is a team that deserves at least a play-in game opportunity. As for the Irish, Jackson being out should all but throw this game out the window for the selection committee.

UCLA lost for a second time to Washington, this time at home. After getting down big early, UCLA rallied back before losing in the final seconds to the Huskies and the uniquely named Andrew Andrews. To me, this game is just as much about Washington solidifying itself in the Pac-12 and NCAA tournament race as it is about UCLA slowly losing credentials. If UCLA can’t motivate themselves to bring it every game against conference rivals, maybe they shouldn’t be in the tournament.

Also, Michigan State dominated Northwestern on both ends of the court, knocking down 16 3-pointers. Cincinnati got a much needed win on the road against UConn in a very thrilling, defensive American Conference showdown. George Washington dropped a home game against Richmond, which could take a hit into their tourney chances.