By Sam Federman
Anybody who has ever watched Sunday Night Football knows the old “I’ve been waiting all day for Sunday night” adage. Those games start at 8:20 p.m. eastern.
No NFL fan has ever had to wait all day for Sunday night the way college basketball fans had to wait all day for Monday night on the opening night of the season.
It’s incredible to have the sport back, but being subservient to the NFL and forced to relegate Baylor/Gonzaga to 11:30 p.m. eastern? That sucks.
Maybe it was for the better though.
From the very start, it was clear who the better team was. It’s going to be a fun year to be a Zag.
101-63.
11 assists from Ryan Nembhard, 17 points for Nolan Hickman led the way as Gonzaga blitzed Baylor from the very start to hang a century mark.
VJ Edgecombe struggled in his collegiate debut, shooting 2-11 from the field, even if one of the two was a ginormous poster dunk.
Baylor has a lot of work to do on the defensive end, and it hasn’t looked good on that end since Jerome Tang left for K-State.
As for the Zags, a huge start to the season, picking up a big time non-conference win that will look great on their resume.
It was a good day for the WCC as a whole, as Santa Clara took down Saint Louis, and no team in the conference lost.
Other notable storylines
4 teams had brutality: UAB lost to Vermont, Illinois State lost to UT Martin, San Jose State lost to Western Illinois, and South Carolina lost to North Florida
Will Riley dropped 31, Derik Queen had 22 and 20, Cooper Flagg dropped 18 against his home state’s team, Robert Hinton had 27 in a Harvard win, Tre Johnson scored 29 for Texas, LaBaron Philon impressed for Alabama
Syracuse barely escaped Le Moyne, same with Providence against CCSU, DePaul against Southern Indiana, Georgia against Tennessee Tech, and Seton Hall against Saint Peter’s
Xaivian Lee dropped 27 points in a last-second victory for Princeton over Iona in what may have been college basketball’s game of the day. Princeton stormed back from 14 points down in the second half, and won on its final possession.
Missouri blew a double-digit lead in Memphis to extend its losing streak to 20 games.
Tonight’s games to watch:
Evansville vs North Texas, 8 p.m.
UC Davis vs Washington, 10 p.m.