College basketball live blog: Musings from our Philly trip, BYU plays Gonzaga, and more

Hey, it’s another college basketball Saturday! And it’s our first one of February!

Lots going on around the nation today, as always, and we’ll have you covered right here. I’m in Philadelphia with Chris, and we will bring you live coverage of the La Salle game at 4 ET and the Penn game at 7. We will also be visiting Wawa to see what all the fuss is about. When that’s done, we’re going to find somewhere to watch BYU play Gonzaga in a WCC showdown.

Some other games of note...all times Eastern

Missouri State at Loyola-Chicago, 2 p.m., CBS Sports
St. Francis PA at Mount St. Mary’s, 4 p.m., NEC Front Row
St. Francis Brooklyn at Wagner, 4 p.m., NEC Front Row
Vermont at UMBC, 4 p.m., ESPN3
FGCU at Jacksonville, 6 p.m. ESPN3
St. Bonaventure at Duquesne, 6:30 p.m., NBC Sports
UNLV at Boise State, 8 p.m., CBS Sports
Saint Mary’s at San Diego, 9 p.m.
BYU at Gonzaga, 10 p.m., ESPN2

Enjoy the games, everyone!

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UPDATE: 9:22 p.m.

It has been some time since Drake basketball has been defined as “good,” so seeing them start the Niko Medved era better than anticipated is clearly a welcomed sight for Bulldogs fans.

However, one mainstay of a program that has struggled recently is Reed Timmer, who has been a consistently solid scorer for Drake for the past few seasons.

This year, it has all paid off for the senior guard, who broke the record for most points scored by a Bulldog in tonight’s game against Bradley.

This is a great milestone for Timmer, especially since he has passed up greats like Adam Emmenecker and Josh Young, who was the Bulldogs’ all-time scorer when he graduated in 2010.

Now he’s No. 2.

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UPDATE: 8:48 p.m.

Watch St. Bonaventure’s game-winner from Jaylen Adams (who else?).

Then watch it again.

It’s no secret that the Bonnies have struggled as of late (weirdly enough, ever since our own Cam Newton ranked them atop his power rankings in December). Adams is still going to ball out, though. The senior dropped 40 on Duquesne tonight, setting a new career-high and bringing St. Bonaventure’a record in the A10 to 6-4.

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UPDATE: 6: 10 p.m.

The person responsible for this entry spent the afternoon watching basketball with a Missouri State alum. The first thing that person said?

“Man, Paul Lusk has got to go.”

Can you blame him? Missouri State fell two (2!) games under .500 in MVC play by getting blown out by Loyola in Chicago this afternoon. Regardless of how Lusk’s tenure has gone, and how this season has trended for the Bears, that still seems incomprehensible for such a talented team.

Nonetheless, MSU is certifiably toast in the wide open Valley. The Ramblers, on the other hand, bounced back from their midweek loss at Bradley. Clayton Custer had another brilliant game (23 points, 6 assists), and has been making a case for MVC POY since returning from injury about a month ago. He’s scored in double figures in his last nine games, including pouring in 20 or more in his last three games.

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UDPATE: 5:43 p.m.

Death. Taxes. Louisiana?

That’s been the mantra in 2017-18, as the Ragin’ Cajuns reeled off their 10th-straight win by blowing out UL Monroe, 80-59. It was a relatively close, five-point game at halftime, but Louisiana pulled away in the second half, getting predictably good games from Frank Bartley (22 points) and Bryce Washington (12 points, 9 rebounds), along with double digit scoring from Malik Marquetti, JaKeenan Gant and Johnathan Stove.

We know the Ragin’ Cajuns are the class of the Sun Belt, but dare we float their at-large chops? At 20-3 with a #54 RPI and KenPom maybe it isn’t as crazy as it seems (but let’s stay grounded).

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UPDATE: 4:10 p.m.

ARE THE CITADEL BULLDOGS LEGIT? Well, who’s to say, really? All we know is that they have just won back-to-back SoCon games against Wofford and Furman, two of the conference’s top programs.

Today’s victory over Furman marked an incredible performance from the Bulldogs, who found themselves down 75-58 with around nine minutes left in the game. All hopes for a win seemed to have been dashed.

However, The Citadel managed to make a game out of it, turning in a miraculous, stunning final few minutes worth of basketball. Honestly, I’m still not sure how they did it. Kaelon Harris hit a few shots. Matt Frierson added some offense too. For a team that has seemed so uninspiring at times this year, it was a stunning turning of a page.

The Bulldogs ultimately sent the game to overtime, where 10 of the 12 points they scored came from making free throws! They sealed the 100-92 win, finishing the final 14 minutes of gameplay on a 42-17 run.

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UPDATE: 4:16 p.m.

We got gas station sandwiches. Here’s mine.

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UPDATE: 4:59 p.m.

The Atlantic 10 matchup between Dayton and UMass today is fairly inconsequential in terms of the conference race. Still, the two teams took part in one of the more entertaining games of the weekend, but it came with a hint of controversy.

Late in double overtime, the game was tied at 81. A loose ball scramble resulted in Luwane Pipkins recovering the ball and firing up a prayer as the shot clock went off.

It looks like the clock hits zero before the ball is out of his hands, but the officials counted the shot to put UMass up three. Here’s a closer look:

That certainly looks like it shouldn’t have counted. Nonetheless, it did, and UMass went on to win 86-82. The win snapped a five-game losing streak for the Minutemen.