With 23 ranked teams in action on Saturday, college basketball was plastered on televisions across the country with some entertainment that did not disappoint. Here are some of the winners and losers so far.
Winner: Arizona
The Wildcats welcomed Allonzo Trier back into the lineup after missing every game this season. Against No. 3 UCLA, no one really knew if he would make an impact -- or whether it would even play much against the high-flying Bruins who have been unbeatable at home.
Turns out, he did play a lot, 27 minutes. And they did matter.
With a 96-85 win over the Bruins, Arizona is a perfect 7-0 in Pac-12 play and could be considered a favorite in the league the way it handled UCLA. The Wildcats sweep of the L.A. and Bay Area schools on the road is the first since the 2002-2003 season, and as things stand now, Zona looks like the Pac-12 c0-favorite along with Oregon and a legit Final Four threat.
Loser: UCLA's No. 1 seed chances
The Bruins have been one the real darlings of college basketball this year, and rightfully so. They score like crazy, and Lonzo Ball is ahead of his time. But their defense is not great, or even good, and after falling to Arizona, the chances of UCLA earning a No. 1 seed are all but done now.
So far, the only really good win for UCLA was at Kentucky -- which, to be fair, is one of the best wins in the country this year. But there isn't much more than that, and they're now two games back of Oregon and Arizona in the Pac-12. Not a lot of opportunities for UCLA to build that resume back up to one-seed status.
Winner: Villanova's chances to remain at No. 1
Villanova, which faced a pretty rough home test against Providence Saturday, pulled out a 78-68 win. The Wildcats are now 19-1 on the season, 7-1 in the Big East and will remain atop the Big East standing.
Also, they will continue to clutch that No. 1 ranking in the AP poll on Monday and for the foreseeable future as the Wildcats will be favored in each of their remaining regular season games.
Winner: Indiana
Only one day after learning that its star forward OG Anunoby would be out for the season with a knee injury, Indiana responded with a resounding win over a talented Michigan State team at home.
Losing a player with Anunoby's talent is a huge blow, and obviously it knocks the Hoosiers down a notch in terms of its ceiling. But without him so far, they have a win at the buzzer on the road over Penn State (he was injured earlier in this game), and now an 82-75 win over Michigan State who has now dropped two straight. Even with the injuries, Indiana is still finding ways to win. That's a win for Tom Crean's team to sneak away with another semi-close one while not being at 100 percent.
Loser: Michigan State
Beating Indiana on its home floor is a tough ask, but as mentioned above, Michigan State, which is pretty much fully healthy at this point, needed to take advantage of a Anunoby's absence. It did not. This has been a tough campaign for Tom Izzo's squad. Their schedule was brutal in the early going, and then injuries delayed their getting on track.
This loss hurts.
Sparty is absolutely not guaranteed a spot in the NCAA Tournament and every loss like this sends them closer to the bubble.
Winner: Florida State's ACC title hopes
The Seminoles shot just 36.7 percent from the field, 25.0 percent from 3-point range and 69.4 percent from the free throw line. And they still found a way to pull out a 73-68 win over No. 12 Louisville.
Florida State is 6-1 in its early portion of the grueling ACC with wins over four KenPom top-20 teams during that span.
As Gary Parrish noted in his takeaways from the game, Leonard Hamilton has shared, but never won an outright conference title. With their win over Louisville, the Seminoles share a three-way tie atop the ACC standings and appear primed to make a run at an outright ACC regular season crown and perhaps a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Loser: Georgia's luck
With just under 10 seconds left in regulation down, Georgia, trailing by one, began its attempt to get a shot up and potentially clinch the game in the final seconds.
However a clock malfunction foiled any chance of that.
The clock inexplicably halted with 5.6 seconds left as play continued. While Georgia drew a foul for a chance to seal the game and go up by one, the officials reviewed the play and assessed it would have been after the buzzer, effectively ending the game. An awful stroke of luck for the Bulldogs, who held a double-digit lead and got its chance to seal a nice road win taken by an unfortunate clock error and subsequently controversial decision by the refs.
Loser: DePaul
DePaul was a 13.5-point underdog against Butler at home. Being the last-place team in the conference playing a top-15 team, that number is completely understandable.
Yet after taking control of the game with a eight-point lead with 13:41 left in the second half, the Blue Demons went ice cold from the floor. And when I say ice cold, I mean ice freaking cold as DePaul closed the final 13:41 of the game without scoring a single field goal.
That gave Butler extra time to seal the deal, which they did, pulling out a 70-69 win behind two Kamar Baldwin free-throws in the closing seconds. DePaul, now 1-6 in the Big East, missed a big opportunity to clinch a win over a ranked opponent. The last time DePaul beat a ranked team was in an upset of No. 11 Providence in February of 2016.
Winner: Central Michigan's Marcus Keene
Recognize the name? If not, maybe you should.
Keene, a Central Michigan guard, is the nation's most prolific scorer, averaging 28.7 points per game this season as a junior. Even held to that standard, what he did Saturday was still outstanding. He went 15-for-23 from the field, 10-for-15 from the 3-point line and scored 50 points in a win.
Since 2009, only six players have hit the half-century mark.
Loser: NC State
NC State's up-and-down performances in league play reached a new low with its latest horrendous loss coming at the hands of Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons secured a 93-88 win on NC State's home floor. The last time that happened? A guy named Chris Paul was on the team.
NC State has a potential No. 1 pick running the offense in Dennis Smith Jr., but has one of the worst defenses in the country. It is the sixth time they've allowed more than 80 points this season -- all six of which have resulted in a loss. It's also the first road win for Wake Forest in ACC play in more than three years.
Winner: Marquette
Before Saturday, Creighton's only home loss came at the hands of No. 1 Villanova. Marquette put themselves on that list with a 102-94 win and, without question, notched its biggest win of the season.
On the other side, it's also a huge loss for Creighton, who suffered a bigger loss earlier this week by losing All-America candidate Mo Watson Jr. to an ACL injury for the season. As Matt Norlander noted, Mo Watson Jr. was responsible for 630 of Creighton's 1,648 points this season and Creighton, once a sleeper Final Four threat, has no way of replacing him this season.
Loser: Minnesota
Richard Pitino's Golden Gophers have already won three Big Ten games this season. That's a marked improvement from a two-win outing in the conference all of last season.
Given its opportunities, Minnesota hasn't been able to notch a signature win. It's best wins in KenPom rankings: Ohio State and Northwestern.
Against No. 17 Wisconsin on Saturday, Minnesota missed a huge chance to greatly improve its NCAA Tournament resume. The Badgers took the game to overtime and eventually put down Minnesota, 78-76. It would have been the biggest win for Minnesota this year, obviously. Too bad.
Winner: Baylor's No. 1 seed quality resume.
Baylor won in two ways on Saturday, but let's take it one a time.
The first: a 62-53 win over TCU. The Bears improved its already insane NCAA tournament resume with a quality win over Jamie Dixon's Horned Frogs, an improved Big 12 unit that could be a tournament team this season. Baylor has wins over 5 top-25 AP ranked teams, and 8 wins over teams in the KenPom top-50. That's a resume deserving of a top-seed should they continue their play.
The second win on Saturday: West Virginia lost.
The Mountaineers, who were considered by many to be a team primed to dethrone Kansas in the Big 12, fell to 4-3 in conference play. And while that almost certainly means good news for Kansas, it's also good news for Baylor. The Bears hold sole possession of second place in the Big 12 with West Virginia's loss and Baylor's win.
Loser: TCU.
Hey, someone wins and someone loses. Baylor's gain is TCU's loss in this case.
The Horned Frogs squandered a golden opportunity to capitalize against a highly-ranked opponent and chance to bolster its NCAA tournament resume. A recurring theme this season with TCU. In three games versus top-10 teams this season, the Horned Frogs are now 0-3 losing on average by just 11 points. So they've been close, but close doesn't get the job done. TCU now stinging and still looking for a signature win. Their next matchup against a ranked team? Baylor. On Feb. 11.
