The Morning After: Recapping a crazy Friday night of basketball

What had the potential to be a great Friday night in college basketball certainly lived up to the hype. There were upsets. There were dunks and buzzer beaters (sometimes all in one). There was brutality.

If you didn’t catch all of the action, here are the key things you might have missed.

Buffalo wins in Morgantown

We had this game circled as soon as it was announced, and it certainly did not disappoint. Behind a monster game from CJ Massinburg to the tune of 43 points and 14 rebounds, Buffalo went into Morgantown and knocked off No. 13 West Virginia. The Bulls rallied late in regulation as a deep Massingburg three sent it to overtime, and eventually ran away with it for a 99-94 win. There’s been chatter about the Bulls having a chance of cracking the top 25 of the AP Poll this season. Don’t be surprised if they’re right there in the mix on Monday morning.

Kenpom.com

Furman dunks on Loyola Chicago before the buzzer

I’ll spare the details of the rest of the game as I was unable to watch it. However, I did see the finish to the game going around on Twitter. Take a look:

A BACKDOOR CUT LEADING TO A POSTER DUNK FOR THE WIN. GLORIOUS.

That’s a great win for Furman and an awful loss for a Loyola Chicago team that still had outside hopes at an at-large bid.

Brutality!

The epitome of brutality was plentiful Friday night. Here’s what we had:

• Buffalo over West Virginia. See above.
• UC Irvine went into College Station and picked off Texas A&M, 74-73. It’s the second brutality given by the Big West.
• Longwood beat Richmond, 63-58. Not a great start to the year for Chris Mooney, whose seat continues to get warmer.
• Stony Brook picked up their second straight brutality by beating South Carolina, 83-81. Things are off to a great start in Jeff Boals’ third season at the helm.
• American handed George Mason its second straight loss. The Atlantic 10 has already suffered brutality five times in this first week, three of which have come at the expense of the Georges. Get it together George Washington and George Mason.

Here is the full brutality leaderboard.

Other games of note

• Northeastern won a great Boston matchup against Harvard, 81-71. Harvard did not have Seth Towns or Bryce Aiken, which takes away from what was already a great matchup between two really good mid-major teams.
• In a matchup of NCAA Tournament teams, Montana held serve on its home court against Georgia State. The Grizzlies pulled away late for a 81-74 win behind 22 points from Jamar Akoh. D’Marcus Simonds poured in 30 points for the Panthers in the losing effort.
• UNC Greensboro almost came back to take down No. 23 LSU, but ultimately fell short with a 97-91 loss. The Spartans showed they can score with the best of them and were led by 32 points from Kyrin Galloway.
• Yale beat California by double digits in Shanghai.
• Saint Joseph’s picked up a really good win against Old Dominion to start off the season. The Hawks had four players with at least 14 points en route to the 79-64 victory. With the rest of the Atlantic 10 struggling early on, Saint Joseph’s affirmed that they should be one of the teams in contention this year.
• Davidson needed a late rally to beat [checks notes] Dartmouth. Kellan Grady and Jon Axel Gudmundsson each had 20 a piece, and the Wildcats snuck away with a 79-76 win over a bottom tier Ivy League team. Seriously, what’s in the Atlantic 10’s water this year?