Before I begin, Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you have a great, prosperous, and hoops-filled 2010!
New Year's Eve served as a thrilling end to the decade. The main showcase of the day was ESPN2's mini-marathon, which started with two Big Ten upsets.
- Indiana showed a lot of heart in the first game without Maurice Creek. They topped Michigan, 71-65.
- No. 15 Ohio State had all sorts of trouble in Madison, and fell to Wisconsin, 64-43.
Three ranked teams picked up wins of various degrees of difficulty in the next three games.\
- No. 14 Tennessee snapped Memphis' 23-game home win streak, 66-59.
- No. 7 Duke blasted winless Penn, 114-55
- .No. 13 Georgetown held off St. John's, 66-59.
Finally, the decade went out with a literal bang in Spokane.
- Oklahoma's Tiny Gallon provided a thrill by breaking a backboard at the Spokane Arena, but Gonzaga won the game, 83-69.
There are two other non-conference scores of note.
- Wake Forest knocked off Richmond, 74-68 in overtime.
- Mississippi State won at San Diego, 77-68, getting revenge for a home loss to the Toreros last season.
The last day of 2009 featured quite a bit of conference play, including four Pac 10 openers.
- UCLA held off a furious Arizona State rally to win, 72-70.
- USC also had to hold off their Cactus State opposition. The Trojans knocked off Arizona, 56-50, to win their seventh straight.
- Oregon stole a win at Washington State, 91-89 in double OT.
- No. 17 Washington held off Oregon State, 76-70, in the nightcap.
Five mid-majors also got into the act.
- In the Big Sky, Weber State picked up a 75-62 home win over Montana State.
- Montana fell 67-65 at Idaho State.
- Shifting over to the Horizon, Butler blasted Green Bay at Hinkle, 72-49, in a battle at the top of the standings.
- Valparaiso sneaked past Milwaukee, 55-54.
- Loyola-Chicago upset Wright State, 53-52.
- UIC knocked off Detroit, 60-56.
- There was one Metro Atlantic game of note. Siena beat St. Peter's (who was without leading scorer Wesley Jenkins, out with a concussion), 64-53.
- In the Summit League, Oakland had little trouble with Western Illinois, winning 75-63.
- IUPUI won at IPFW, 79-69.
- Oral Roberts fell 72-70 at South Dakota State.
- North Dakota State had no trouble at home against Centenary, winning 82-70.
- In the Sun Belt, South Alabama won 71-59 at Florida International.
- Denver won 64-55 at home against Arkansas State.
- Troy slipped past Louisiana-Monroe, 83-82.
- Middle Tennessee beat D-I short-timers New Orleans, 63-58.
- North Texas won 83-78 at Arkansas-Little Rock.
- Western Kentucky took care of Louisiana-Lafayette, 77-65.
If you don't see your team's score, click any of the score links. You'll find a rundown of all of the night's scores on the right side of the page.
For more on Thursday's action, visit SB Nation and Searching For Billy Edelin.
There are only two games on the national TV schedule for today, and they're both pretty big.
- No. 6 West Virginia visits No. 4 Purdue (ESPN, 2:30 p.m. ET). One of these two will have their unblemished record intact at the end of the afternoon.
- Dayton will head to The Pit to face No. 19 New Mexico (the mtn./CBS CS, 9 p.m. ET). The Lobos had no trouble with Texas Tech last time out.
For broadcast info on a whole slew of Valley games -- Southern Illinois at Bradley, Drake at Wichita State, Illinois State at Missouri State -- that will only be telecast locally, visit Matt Sarz' College Sports on TV site.