Late Night Snacks: A Stetson buzzer-beater, Oklahoma’s upset

Games of the Day

Stetson 69, Florida Atlantic 68: Stetson guard Chris Perez tipped in a miss by Aaron Graham at the buzzer to give the Hatters a win over FAU. “I saw [junior] Aaron [Graham], he shot it, and the ball didn’t hit the rim,” Perez said. “My guy didn’t box me out, so my first thought was just to go rebound, and throw it up there. Thank God it went in.” The final play was set up by Greg Gantt, FAU’s star point guard, who hit a deep three to give the Owls a 68-67 lead in the final seconds.

Stephen F. Austin 56, Oklahoma 55: The Lumberjacks entered this game as the nation’s leader in defensive scoring average, and it showed, as the Sooners struggled to find a rhythm on the offensive end of the floor for much of the game. SFA led by as much as 11 in the second half, but the Sooners made a run down the stretch. They tied the game at 54 on a jumper from Steven Pledger with 2:28 left on the clock, but Hal Batemen gave the Lumberjacks the lead a minute and a half later. With four seconds left, Buddy Hield missed a finger roll — that hung on the front of the rim for what felt like a minute — but got fouled. He only made one of two free throws, however, and the Sooners lost.

The bigger question here has to do with the Big 12 as a whole? Just how good — or bad — is this league? We’ll be taking a closer look at this on Wednesday afternoon.

Important Outcomes

Miami 72, Central Florida 50: The Hurricanes jumped out to a bid lead on UCF in the first five minutes and never looked back, controlling every aspect of the game. We won’t be getting too deep into it again, but Miami looks like they might actually be the second best team in the ACC.

No. 25 NC State 88, Stanford 79: This was a nice win for the Wolfpack, as Stanford has been a bit up and down this season, but the Cardinal have a good amount of talent on their roster. I see two problems for the Wolfpack, however. The first is that they have no depth. Mark Gottfried uses, essentially, a six man rotation with Tyler Lewis getting minutes here and there when someone needs a breather. I’m not sure how long that can survive. The other issue is that CJ Leslie, who is clearly the most talented player on the roster, is currently the third best front court player that Gottfried has at his disposal. And as good as Richard Howell and TJ Warren have been, that’s not necessarily a compliment.

Starred

Kris Dunn, Providence: Making his first appearance for the Friars off the bench, Dunn — the highly-touted freshman point guard — finished with 13 assists and six boards on Tuesday night. Will chalk the 3-13 shooting up to his bum shoulder.

Victor Rudd, South Florida: Rudd finished with 16 points and 16 boards as South Florida used a 33-9 run to close out a better-than-you-think Youngstown State team. They were down 45-39 at the time.

Rodney McGruder, Kansas State: McGruder has struggled throughout the early part of the season, including a 1-9 performance in a loss at Gonzaga on Saturday, but he finished with 26 points on 12-17 shooting against Texas Southern on Tuesday night.

Struggled

Western Kentucky: 35.7% shooting. 32 turnovers. A 76-44 loss to VCU. That’s a bad night. (To be fair, they were missing their starting back court. But still. Yuck.)

Keith Appling, Michigan State: Appling finished 3-9 from the floor with six turnovers as Michigan State hung on to beat Bowling Green on the road. With Big Ten play right around the corner, Appling has to be better.

Old Dominion: ODU allowed Adjehi Baru to go 8-8 from the floor and finish with 20 points and nine boards as they dropped to 1-10 on the season with a 76-65 loss to Charleston. I thought the Monarchs were supposed to be tough in the paint?

The Rest of the Top 25

- No. 4 Arizona 89, Oral Roberts 64
- No. 7 Ohio State 65, Winthrop 55
- No. 9 Kansas 87, Richmond 59
- No. 18 San Diego State 76, Point Loma 49

Other Notable Scores

- UCLA 89, Long Beach State 70
- Western Illinois 70, Illinois-Chicago 54
- Wyoming 71, Denver 61