NBANCAA Basketball

What Happened Last Night: NCAA Basketball Begins, Knicks Stay Unbeaten, Lakers Win Post-Brown

While you were all out watching Skyfall (James Bond, you guys!), sports were still happening. It’s time to get caught up on Friday’s night action, and save your Bond spoilers for someone who cares.

The NCAA Basketball tipped off, everyone who was supposed to win did

Let’s be real; no one really cares about NCAA basketball until we get to March Madness. Include the fact that most top 25-ranked teams played unranked opponents last night, and the vast majority of them took care of business, and you have the perfect recipe for “who cares?” That being said, I was interested in seeing how Kentucky freshman Nerlens Noel did in his first game for the Wildcats as they took on Maryland (he had 4 points, 9 rebounds, 2 steals, and 3 blocks in 26 minutes). There’s a decent chance Noel will be a top-5 pick in this year’s draft, but who knows after such a ho-hum performance in game 1 of this season. Chalk it up to first-game jitters, I guess.

The Knicks stay perfect, move to 4-0 after beating Dallas

Led by a combined 53 points from Carmelo Anthony and JR Smith, the New York Knicks defeated the Dallas Mavericks 104-94 to move to 4-0 and stay atop the Eastern Conference standings. Dallas was led by OJ Mayo (23 points, 7 rebounds) and Chris Kaman (14 points and 7 rebounds).

Just a note about Kaman: he is averaging 17 points on 73% shooting so far this season. Any concerns about whether or not he can still play should be out the window by now, those are insane numbers, especially considering he doesn’t just hang out and dunk like other field goal percentage beasts Dwight Howard and Tyson Chandler. Obviously, he probably won’t keep this up all year, but it’s impressive nonetheless.

The Lakers destroy Golden State in game 1 of the post-Mike Brown era

I’m sure Mike Brown wasn’t the problem in LA. It was the Lakers lousy bench and defense! You’ll see, they’ll still be lousy when they play Golden State Friday night. What’s that? They won 101-77? And the bench scored 47 points? And the defense held the Warriors to 33% shooting with 18 turnovers?

Maybe the Lakers don’t need Phil Jackson, or even Mike D’Antoni. Maybe they just needed to get rid of a terrible coach that was holding his team back. Now if only the other team in LA would do the same…

All statistics via ESPN.com, photo via Jayne Kamin-Oncea/US Presswire

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