This week on The IX Sports Podcast College Basketball Edition, hosts Melissa Triebwasser and Michael Waterloo break down the first week of NCAA basketball.
The week featured some career performances, stunners and barn burners — everything our hosts love about college hoops.
Michigan toppled UConn, 77-66, on Thursday, in a loss that shocked many viewers.
“As good as we know UConn is, as high as the expectations are this season, as much as Sarah Strong might very well be the national player of the year, we are big believers in Michigan, and we’ve been big believers, and we both think that they’re a Final Four capable team for sure,” Triebwasser said. “And so, while it was a little bit of a an eyebrow raise to see them come out so early and knock off UConn like that, I don’t think either of us were particularly surprised whatsoever.”
The Huskies are scheduled to play Ohio State and Louisville next week — both Top 25 tests.
Standout player
On today’s show, the “Audi Crooks stat line of the week” honor went to Addi Mack of the University of Maryland. The show’s weekly award pays homage to Audi Crooks, who, in her last two seasons at Iowa State, put up such big stat lines week in and week out, that Waterloo and Triebwasser named their standout player of the week segment after her.
This week, that honor went to Mack, who dropped 35 points on the University of South Carolina Gamecocks. The Terrapins ultimately lost the game, but Mack put on a career performance, and joined the show this week to discuss it.
What to watch next
This week, Triebwasser said she is looking forward to watching the UConn contest vs. Ohio State on Thursday evening. Waterloo said he’s looking forward to watching the West Virginia Mountaineers take on the Northwestern Wildcats. The Wildcats have a new head coach this year in Carla Berube, the UConn alum who spent the last seven seasons at Princeton.
Tune in to the episode to hear about more standout performances and programs to watch this week!
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