Beware: The people in your life who love you and want to spend time with you know the Super Bowl is on Sunday. They will use that fact as a cudgel Friday night and all day Saturday, in the form of “You’re going to spend all Sunday night eating and drinking and watching football, turn off the basketball game!” You don’t have to listen to these people; they don’t love you like I do.
But barring a miracle, your watching habits this weekend will be upended because nobody is going against the Super Bowl, so any potential games that might have slid into that time slot have been moved around. As such, it’s a condensed schedule; let’s get to it.
As always, the weekend starts at 7 p.m. ET on Friday; Kent State and Buffalo hold it down for some early Friday-evening MACtion.
Must Watch (Times ET)
No. 14 Baylor at No. 17 TCU, 4 p.m., Saturday (ESPN2)
This is a winner based as much on what it was as what it can be.
On January 4, TCU took down Baylor in Waco in a wild 88-87 thriller that saw Mike Miles Jr. and Keyonte George trade haymakers for 40 minutes; the Horned Frogs, trailing by 17 at one point, mounted a furious rally predicated largely on an aggressive transition game (outscoring Baylor 23-2) that brought them from the brink to the lead with just over four minutes to play.
From there, they engaged in some of the best basketball played this year, a back-and-forth affair destined to go to whomever got the last good look. That turned out to be TCU, on a Miles feed to Chuck O’Bannon Jr. in the corner for the go-ahead jumper.
This time will be different. Miles Jr. has missed three straight due to a knee hyperextension; Eddie Lampkin hasn’t played more than 20 minutes in nearly a month. Meanwhile, George has been a supernova of late, averaging 19.6 points since the start of 2023, even with a pair of unsightly clunkers against Oklahoma State and Kansas thrown in there. The ESPN predictor gives TCU, as the home team, a slight edge; no Miles and limited Lampkin would imply a heavier workload for Emanuel Miller and Damion Baugh, both of whom had solid efforts in the last Baylor game (13 and seven boards for Miller, 15 and seven dimes for Baugh).