Late Night Snacks: UMass wins at the buzzer again

Games of the Day

1. UMass 77, Providence 75: For the second time in three days, UMass came away with a solid win at the buzzer. On Tuesday, it was a three from Sampson Carter with one second left to beat Harvard. On Thursday, it was a last second tip-in from Terrell Vinson that locked things up for the Minutemen in the first round of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off. UMass head coach Derek Kellogg will take the wins, but I don’t think he would mind if UMass started collecting them in more dominating fashion. “I’m going to turn 80 before I turn 40 with these last second wins,” he told ESPN after the game.

2. Villanova 89, Purdue 81 OT: It was a back and forth affair in the semifinals of the 2KSports Classic at Madison Square Garden. Purdue put a 24-8 run on the Wildcats to erase a double digit deficit in the second half, but Villanova answered by outscoring Purdue 9-2 in the final minute of regulation to force the extra period. Purdue may have been hosed, however. A questionable Flagrant Foul called on DJ Byrd, which happened to be his fifth, game Nova two shots and the ball when they were down four with 43.8 seconds left.

3. Southern Miss 62, Georgia 60 OT: Georgia dug themselves a major hole early on, but managed to force overtime, where the Golden Eagles won the game on a breakaway layup from Dwayne Davis with 31 seconds left. It’s Georgia’s second loss this week to a team outside the BCS conferences; they lost to Youngstown State at home on Monday.

Important Outcomes

1. Illinois State 86, Drexel 84 OT: The Redbirds are looking more and more like a team that will be capable of sticking their nose in with Northern Iowa and Wichita State as a competitor to Creighton in the Missouri Valley, handing Drexel their second overtime loss in as many games. Jackie Carmichael followed up a 27 point performance in the opener with 21 on Thursday.

2. St. Mary’s 67, Utah State 58: Matthew Dellavedova and Stephen Holt combined to score 37 points as the Gaels went into the Spectrum and knocked off the Aggies. USU got just seven points from Preston Medlin on 3-11 shooting, but it was promising to see big man Jarrad Shaw go for 17 points and 15 boards.

3. No. 12 Arizona 72, UTEP 51: The Wildcats were impressive in knocking off a solid UTEP team at home. Mark Lyons went for 17, but the numbers to keep an eye on are Sean Miller’s three freshmen bigs — Grant Jerrett, Brandon Ashley and Kaleb Tarczewski — who combined for 24 points and 18 boards, nine of which came on the offensive end.

Starred

1. Pierre Jackson, Baylor, and Ryan Anderson, Boston College: Jackson had another terrific outing for the Bears, posting 31 points on 10-15 shooting to go along with seven assists, but the name to know coming out of this game is BC’s Ryan Anderson. He had 25 points and six boards against Baylor’s talented front line and looked like an all-ACC caliber performer. He may be able to make the Eagles relevant in the ACC this season.

2. Ben McLemore, Kansas: The final score of the Jayhawk’s 69-55 win over Chattanooga is deceiving; they were down eight at the half and needed a 27-4 run in the second half to pull away. But the important note to take out of this game is that Ben McLemore had 25 points, just a game after Bill Self essentially said that No. 7 Kansas needs him to learn how to be a star. His two dunks sparked the run. Oh, and he dislocated his finger twice in the second half.

3. Jordan Adams and Norman Powell, UCLA: A game after struggling to hold off UC-Irvine in overtime, the Bruins looked the part of being the No. 13 team in the country. They beat James Madison 100-70 and were up 63-29 at the half, so there’s plenty of love to go around, but Adams and Powell were the names to note. They combined for 52 points on 17-24 shooting and 8-11 from three. It was the third straight game that Adams went for 20, the first Bruin to do that since 2007. If Shabazz Muhammad doesn’t get cleared, than maybe UCLA will still have some scoring pop on the wing.

Struggled

1. Auburn: They lost 79-59 to Murray State, and the score doesn’t quite indicate the whipping the Tigers took. They were down 36-11 at one point.

2. Lorenzo Brown, NC State: The Wolfpack beat Penn State 72-55, but Brown was just 1-10 from the floor.

3. DePaul: Losing to Gardner-Webb at home by 12 is not something a Big East school should be doing.

Three Facts

1. Jud Dillard is good: There is a lot of star power in the OVC — Isaiah Canaan, Robert Covington, Kerron Johnson — so no one would blame you if you’ve never heard of Tennessee Tech’s Jud Dillard. You might want to remember the name, however. He had 34 points and 12 boards in a win over Coastal Carolina and is averaging 29.5 points and 10.5 boards this season.

2. Trevor Mbakwe hasn’t done much: Mbakwe has come off the bench three times this year. He’s yet to play more than 15 minutes in a game this season and has three game totals of 15 points and 12 boards. Oh, and Minnesota is 3-0 with every win coming by at least 26 points.

3a. JP Olukemi might be done for the year: After going through a long process to be given an extra semester of eligibility, Oklahoma State’s Olukemi crumpled in a heap after his knee buckled in an overtime win against Akron. It looked really, really bad.

3b. Larry Drew is actually good?: It’s three games into the season and he has 25 assists and just five turnovers. That’s, dare I say it, Kendall Marshall-like.

Other notable finals

- Nebraska 50, Valpo 48

- Colorado 67, Dayton 57

Rob Dauster is the editor of the college basketball website Ballin’ is a Habit. You can find him on twitter @robdauster.