Morning Coffee: BYU Makes its Presence Known, Small Ball Fails Against Milwaukee

Outside of the ESPN marathon, there really wasn't a lot of quality matchups out there in college basketball on Monday night. So most eyes were going to be focused, bleary eyed on what the WWL could provide for your viewing pleasure.

But the performances were there. Take Gonzaga's total domination of Colorado State. When you turn on a game, and it is almost a 40-point advantage for one team, you don't need to see any more than that. It isn't even worth trying to determine what is going, or comment on it; the game is just too far gone to comment.

So what will people be talking about on Tuesday? Some of it will be what they missed while sleeping (please bring the sleep), but let's look at the rest of the list.

What everyone will be talking about over their morning coffee:

BYU's Guards Dominate Against Stanford

Yeah, so if you didn't know what BYU's strength was before its game against Stanford, you do now. Tyler Haws, Matt Carlino, Kyle Collinsworth: these are the names for everyone to know, and apparently the names that will haunt Johnny Dawkins and Stanford for at least a few nights.

The trio of guards for the Cougars combined for 71 of the team's 112 points as BYU took out Stanford by nine on the road.

Haws, who was held relatively quiet for the opening half, came alive in the second 20 minutes, and seemed unable to miss no matter where he shot from, or how ugly he looked doing it. He finished with 31 to lead BYU in what could be a big win come March.

More impressive might be BYU's ability to penetrate and make the Cardinal look really bad on its interior defense. The Cougars will likely need to make a living of that this season if they hope to make a statement in the West Coast Conference.

But for tonight, they have logged a very important win for this season, and one that certainly made an impression in the national media.

Side of bacon:

Richmond and Belmont slug one out

Richmond and Belmont might not have been one of the on-paper premier games of the night, but the two teams put on a great game of basketball, ultimately coming down to who could execute in the crunch. Richmond's underrated achievement of the night was containing the production of JJ Mann who finished with just four points and six rebounds on the night -- not exactly his common fare in a game like this.

Terry Allen did the damage from the floor for the Spiders, scoring 16 points and grabbing seven rebounds, but the real winner might have been Cedrick Lindsay, who put on a fundamentals show for any lower level coach. Lindsay went 11-for-13 at the free throw line, while also dishing out five assists and nabbing three steals.

Drew Windler had 13 points, nine rebounds and two blocks for the Bruins in the loss.

Other bites:

• Davidson tried to take a page from Loyola's opening night plan against Milwaukee, by going small against the team of giants from Wisconsin. It worked on the scoring end, as Tom Droney and Brian Sullivan each had 22 points for the Wildcats. But it looks like Milwaukee learned its lesson from the opening loss. The Panthers fed Matt Tiby, who went to the line 12 times, and scored 21 points while pulling in nine rebounds. Kyle Kelm added 10 points and Austin Arians scored 11 in the 81-77 win for the Panthers. Side note: Milwaukee still shot 3 of 17 from 3-point range, so maybe the Panthers haven't learned all their lessons.
• UNC-Asheville's D.J. Cunningham had one of the better nights of the short season, going almost perfect from the floor, while scoring 18 points, grabbing 12 rebounds and blocking four shots. He even got 24 points from Andrew Rowsey, including six 3-pointers. But it wasn't enough as Western Carolina had 13 steals and pilfered the win away from the Bulldogs, 74-67. James Sinclair had 17 points and five steals in the win for the Catamounts.
• St. Francis Brooklyn has certainly made things interesting early. After taking out Miami in overtime to begin the season, they Terriers came back to defeat Florida Atlantic on Monday night in another close win, 59-57. St. Francis shot just 39.6 percent for the game, and just 60 percent from the free throw line, but it was enough as the Owls couldn't best the shooting effort on the floor. Jalen Cannon went for 15 points and nine rebounds in the win, and got contributions from Wayne Martin (12 points) and Ben Mockford (15 points).
• Speaking of Miami, well, we aren't covering the Hurricanes, but another mid-major team has taken them to overtime. Jelani Hewitt hit two free throws in the waning moments to put Georgia Southern in position to be the second team of the year to take out the defending ACC champs. But after a close overtime, Hewitt's desperation shot at the buzzer failed to fall and give the Eagles the upset win. He finished with 27 points and five assists in the 81-80 loss.
• Billy Baron didn't have the greatest shooting night for Canisius, but he came alive in the final minutes, scoring 13 points over the final 10 minutes to lead the Griffins over South Dakota 71-66. Baron finished with 27 points in the win.

• Yeah, so I went to bed after BYU won... So now I need my coffee and a look at Mike Rutherford's live blog to fill me in.