Alabama 64, No. 20 Wichita State 60

NICE START ON THE BOARDS – USC has won or tied in the battle of the boards in four of the five games with an average of 47.0 per contest.

Ron Baker finished with 15 points for Wichita State, and Markis McDuffie added 14 off the bench.

Baker, and a heavily partisan WSU crowd, did all theycould to keep the Shockers in the game. However, a lot of those did not seem to be the Shockers out hustling or muscling the Tide, but rather all the bounces going their way.

The Wichita State-Alabama basketball rivalry continued in its fifth city over the past six seasons, not to mention its second country/territory.

Jimmie Taylor made one of two free throws just before the end of the half to send Alabama into the locker room with a 32-30 advantage.

Baker, the senior who took over the point position for VanVleet, and freshman swing player Marcus McDuffie led the biggest WSU charge.

The win over Wichita State, despite being marred with turnovers at times, showed the development of the Trojans as a shooting team who weren’t settling for poor shot selection despite trailing in the second half. Monmouth also has wins over UCLA and Drexel and a 101-90 loss at USC on November 16 in the first-ever meeting of the schools. The Hawkeyes fell to Notre Dame 68-62 Friday as they trailed by 12 points after 20 minutes and simply couldn’t make up the ground in the second half. “Another terrific defensive effort today, just like yesterday, but the difference was we played a little bit better offense”. He hit 20 points on a nice 60% shooting mark. He plays inside-outside. We’re trying to stretch the floor. They shoot 39.6 percent from three while the Shockers allow 20.7 three-point attempts per game with opponnents knocking down 33.9 percent of them.

Although it’s barely the beginning of the season, players have noticed a drastic change in this year’s team compared to the previous ones that they hope will bring USC basketball back to its prominence. He had 11 points, 7 of which came from free throws. Jordan McLaughlin added 15 points and Nikola Jovanovic had a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds.

Syracuse 79, No. 18 UConn 76: PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas – Michael Gbinije and Trevor Cooney each had 17 points and Syracuse beat CT to advance to the championship game of the Battle 4 Atlantis.

“You’ve got to give our guys a lot of credit”, Johnson said. USC has shot over 40 percent in each game this season. He did make an impact though, as he was second on the team in both rebounds (5) and assists (2).