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The Breakfast Buffet: Kansas seeks a road win at Texas Tech, Wake Forest’s massive week, Northwestern

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

Kansas seeks a road win at Texas Tech
Games played away from Lawrence have not been kind to the Jayhawks this season. Kansas enters tonight’s tilt in Lubbock with just a 1-4 mark in road games during Big 12 play. Three of those losses came against teams — UCF, West Virginia, and Kansas State — who are not currently projected to make the NCAA Tournament. The Jayhawks are hoping to get Kevin McCullar back in the lineup after he missed Saturday’s game against Baylor due to a knee injury. Texas Tech is 12-1 this season in Lubbock and 17-6 overall in its first season under Grant McCasland.

Wake Forest has a massive week
The Demon Deacons don’t own a Quad 1 win on their resume, but they’ll get two chances to change that this week when they play a pair of road games at Duke (tonight) and Virginia (Saturday). Wake Forest looks like the type of team that could win multiple games in the NCAA Tournament if it got the right draw because of its offense, but it first has to compile a resume that warrants an invitation to March Madness. Steve Forbes’ team is 16-7 overall and averaging in excess of 80 points.

Northwestern has built a strong home court advantage
Chris Collins’ team improved to 13-1 at home after Sunday’s win over Penn State and now has an inside track to reach the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons for the first time ever. Remember: The Wildcats did not have games on campus during the 2017-18 season — the year after they went to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history — because of renovations at Welsh-Ryan Arena. That hasn’t been the case this season. Establishing a dominant home court advantage has played a major role in Collins’ ability to get this program in position to again accomplish something that hadn’t been done prior to his arrival.

On The Side

  • Save these dates: Feb. 17th and March 6th. Why? Those are the dates of the two regular season meetings between Marquette and UConn.
  • Duke shouldn’t be considered a threat to go deep into the NCAA Tournament until Kyle Filipowski regains the form that he showed early in the season. In the Blue Devils’ last five games, the 7-foot Filipowski is only averaging 13.8 points and 5.4 rebounds. That’s not going to get Duke where it aspires to go in March. 
  • Alabama is 7-0 this season in games where Latrell Wrightsell scores in double figures. This is the X-Factor to monitor moving forward in Tuscaloosa.
  • Only three head coaches — George Raveling, Kelvin Sampson, and Tony Bennett — have taken Washington State to the NCAA Tournament. Kyle Smith — who’s led the Cougars to an 18-6 start — is on the verge of becoming the fourth.
  • UNLV has now swept New Mexico, won at Boise State, and also beaten Creighton on a neutral court. This is the bid stealer to watch at next month’s Mountain West Tournament, which will be played on the Runnin Rebels’ home floor at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Daily Specials

  • Wake Forest at Duke
  • West Virginia at TCU
  • Kansas at Texas Tech

Leftovers