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The Breakfast Buffet: Fletcher Loyer, Washington State visits Arizona, Duke

Here’s today’s installment of “The Breakfast Buffet”, a daily column that can be found here every single morning getting you caught up to date on everything that’s happened from the day/night before and everything that’s going to happen in the next 24 hours.

Mangia!

Things To Sample

Purdue needs more out of Fletcher Loyer
The Boilers need all of their key players to perform well in order to get to the Final Four and that includes Loyer, who’s quietly in the middle of a mid-season shooting slump. In his last three games, the 6-4 sophomore is only averaging 4.7 points while shooting just 3-18 from the field and 1-5 from three-point range. Purdue needs Loyer to be a consistent scoring threat if it’s going to have a chance to advance deep in March Madness. The Boilers will next host Rutgers tonight at Mackey Arena.

Washington State visits Arizona
Here’s one thing that I never thought I’d write The Cougars will be in sole possession of first place in the Pac-12 if they can beat the Wildcats tonight in Tucson. Washington State won the first meeting between these two teams when they met earlier this season in Pullman. Kyle Smith’s ability to get this program into the national spotlight is one of the great coaching jobs that we’ve seen this season after the Cougars lost their top four scorers — TJ Bamba, Justin Powell, DJ Rodman, and Mouhamed Gueye — from a year ago. Beating Arizona at the McKale Center is a completely different task. Keep an eye on Oumar Ballo in the middle for the Wildcats as he’s posted five consecutive double-doubles.

Duke feels a bit under-the-radar
That’s not a joke. The Blue Devils have won 16 of their last 18 games, with the only losses during that span coming at North Carolina and against Pitt on Jan. 20th in Durham. Duke had two starters — Jeremy Roach and Mark Mitchell — out of the lineup when it lost to the Panthers. When people discuss the top teams in the country, they don’t discuss the Blue Devils. Should that be the case? Time will tell. Duke is currently not slated to be a one or two seed in the NCAA Tournament, but any team that only loses twice in two months deserves to be put into focus. Jon Scheyer’s team improved to 21-5 with Wednesday night’s win over Miami.

On The Side

  • Creighton is 14-3 this season when Steven Ashworth reaches double figures. Two of those three losses were by a combined five points and the other one came at UConn. Ashworth has reached double figures in 11 consecutive games.
  • If I had to vote today, I’d split my vote for Big 12 Coach of the Year three ways between Iowa State’s T.J. Otzelberger, BYU’s Mark Pope and Texas Tech’s Grant McCasland.
  • Iowa has made a late push towards the bubble and will have three Quad 1 opportunities in its final four regular season games. The Hawkeyes play Illinois twice down the stretch and will also travel to Northwestern on March 2nd. Fran McCaffery’s team is 16-11 and has won three of its last four games.
  • Since returning to game action on Feb. 7th, USC’s Isaiah Collier is averaging 19.5 points and 5.3 assists. Don’t discount the Trojans from playing spoiler down the stretch.
  • Six of the Atlantic 10’s 15 teams played within the same two-hour window on Tuesday. Eight of the Atlantic 10’s 15 teams then played within the same two-hour window on Wednesday. Where’s the scheduling logic, here?!

Daily Specials

  • Rutgers at Purdue
  • SMU at Florida Atlantic
  • Michigan at Northwestern
  • Oregon at Stanford
  • Washington State at Arizona

Leftovers