Monday Look Back: Memphis-Georgetown thrills and fulfills

Blake Griffin got zero field goals in Oklahoma's win over Utah.

That's zero, as in none.

Which means we are barely a month into the college basketball season, and already we've seen the two favorites for National Player of the Year -- Griffin and Davidson's Stephen Curry -- get held to no field goals in different games. In a related note, J.J. Redick and Adam Morrison think this season's National Player of the Year race is a joke.

Anyway, here's the Monday Look Back.

Best game of the weekend: Two of the past eight Final Four teams in an overtime battle with Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg on the call; that's not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon, which is why Georgetown's 79-70 win over Memphis was among the best nonleague matchups to date. It featured a dramatic tip-in by Shawn Taggart to force overtime. Though the final margin is a little lopsided, the reality is that this was a one-possession game with 34 seconds remaining in the extra period. Either way, Georgetown is now 1-1 against teams from the state of Tennessee (beat the Tigers, lost to the Vols), Memphis has as many losses (two) as it finished with last season, and Greg Monroe still can't talk to the media because of some silly rule Georgetown has in place that is more outdated than my cargo pants.

Worst game of the weekend: Jamie Dixon is 10-0 for the sixth time in six years at Pittsburgh thanks to Saturday's 91-56 victory over UMBC. Honestly, I'm still not sure what to make of the Panthers because they still haven't played a ranked opponent, or even a team likely to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. But one thing I do know is that they can beat the brains out of average/bad teams, evidence being how the average score of Pitt's games is 80-57.

Win to brag about: I wonder if Dionte Christmas ever gets tired of his last name being Christmas? I'll have to ask him one day, but for the record I hate that his last name is Christmas, because anytime he does anything of note the slew of Christmas-related headlines and comments is almost too much to take. A Christmas to Remember! The Christmas Spirit! A Christmas Story! If you can think of it, it was probably written or said somewhere after the Temple star got 35 points -- Merry Christmas! -- in Saturday's 88-72 win over Tennessee. My favorite was Christmas Comes Early, but that almost sounds dirty (if not disappointing and deflating), so let's just move on to something about the Minutemen.

Loss to hide from: Derek Kellogg's UMass Minutemen entered Saturday's game against Kansas with three times as many losses as wins, including defeats to Jacksonville State, Wisconsin-Green Bay and Toledo. Tough start for D.K.; I was beginning to feel badly for him. And then somehow he took a team with that body of work and led it to a 61-60 victory over the Jayhawks in Kansas City, which made no sense but served as a reminder that six of the top seven scorers from KU's national championship team are no longer at KU, case any of you had forgot.

Player who deserves improper benefits: I'm not certain how many guys could score 91 points in a two-game stretch, but I imagine the list is probably limited to Kobe Bryant, Stephen Curry and Ben Woodside. Yes, Ben Woodside, a little-known guard for North Dakota State who got 60 in Friday's loss to Stephen F. Austin and 31 in Saturday's win over Georgia Southern.

That means Woodside is the first college player to score at least 60 since Arizona State's Eddie House put 61 on California on Jan. 8, 2000, and as ASU's fine media relations contact Doug Tammaro points out, the interesting thing about House's effort was that he actually outscored 55 Division I teams on that day. As for Woodside, he alone outscored Delaware State, Florida International and Iowa State on Friday, and his 91-point weekend produced 13 more points than Southern California's DeMar DeRozan has scored all season, which is wild considering many projected DeRozan to be the nation's best incoming freshman.

James Harden can't hurdle the IUPUI defense in a struggle for him and the Sun Devils. (AP)

Player who should lose his scholarship: James Harden nearly messed around and got Arizona State beat Sunday, finishing with nine points and five turnovers before fouling out in the Sun Devils' 59-58 victory over IUPUI. The nine points were obviously a season-low for the All-American, and somewhere Eddie House is shaking his head, totally disgusted.

Why I'm smarter than you think: I've argued for hours with Kansas fans about Kansas and tried like crazy to prepare them for what was to come. So I'll take this opportunity to write what I've written before one more time: You cannot -- even if you're Kansas -- lose five starters without slipping.

That's why I (wisely) omitted the Jayhawks from the preseason Top 25 (and one) and explained that they were more likely to limp like Florida last season than they were to win the Big 12 with Sherron Collins, Cole Aldrich and a bunch of new guys.

Did I expect a loss to UMass? Um, no. But I'm not surprised that KU already has two losses, and with games against Temple (on Saturday), Arizona (Dec. 23), Tennessee (Jan. 3) and Michigan State (Jan. 10) still to come it's not crazy to think the Jayhawks might have five or six losses entering Big 12 play, which would put a lot of pressure on them to close strong to make the NCAA tournament and at the same time prove I am pretty freaking smart.

Why I'm dumber than I think: Remember how I mentioned that some projected DeRozan to be the nation's best incoming freshman? Among those who projected such was me in an Oct. 27 column that is starting to look dumber and dumber by the day. Not only did I have DeRozan ranked first in terms of impact freshmen, but I had UCLA's Jrue Holiday second, Ohio State's B.J. Mullens third and Memphis' Tyreke Evans fourth. A month into the season, most would call Holiday solid but not great (he got 14 points and six assists in Saturday's win over DePaul), Mullens a total bust (he played just 16 minutes in Saturday's win over Butler) and Evans the person most likely to miss 15 shots in any particular game (he missed 16 in Saturday's loss to Georgetown).

Three things you should know before you go

1. North Carolina senior Tyler Hansbrough got 26 points in Saturday's 100-84 win over Oral Roberts. That pushed him into 11th place on the ACC's all-time scoring list and means he's just nine points shy of passing Phil Ford to become UNC's all-time leading scorer.

2. Charles Jenkins continued his stellar sophomore season Saturday, finishing with 11 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists to lead Hofstra to a 68-52 victory over Saint Frances (N.Y.). The 6-foot-3 guard is now averaging 20.6 points, 5.7 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game, and if he leads the Pride to a victory over UMass in their next game then Hofstra will be 9-1 and match its best record through 10 games at the Division I level.

3. I already goofed on Harden's effort against IUPUI, but it's worth noting that the sophomore made two of three 3-point attempts in the win and is 18-of-25 (.720) from the beyond the arc in his past five games. In other words, Harden is Arizona State's 6-4 guard who can get to the rim at will (against everybody except IUPUI) and obviously sink jumpers; that's why he's going to be a top five pick in next June's NBA Draft.

On tap: On Monday, Syracuse will try to start 10-0 for the first time since the 1999-2000 season when it hosts Cleveland State at the Carrier Dome. On Tuesday, Buzz Williams will take his Marquette Golden Eagles to Nashville, where they'll meet Tennessee in the SEC/Big East Invitational. On Wednesday, Siena will have a chance to get its rough early season turned around when it visits Pittsburgh. On Thursday, Andy Kennedy will be back in Cincinnati, where he once coached on an interim basis, when his Ole Miss Rebels battle Louisville in the SEC/Big East Challenge.

Final thought: Mike Krzyzewski did not coach this weekend (Duke was off), but he was involved in a one-car accident before Friday's practice.

"He's fine," Jon Jackson, Duke's associate athletic director of communications, told WRAL. "He was at practice."

So Coach K is OK; that's good news. And though I had a few reasonable jokes of my own, I'll refrain and simply turn things over to a North Carolina State blog, which commented: "Police have charged the tree that Krzyzewski hit with a flagrant blocking foul and awarded Duke with two shots and the ball."