Here's a look at what happened in the Lone Star State:
Saturday NCAA Football Recap: Baylor remains undefeated; Houston still doesn’t know which way is up
Nov 3, 2019, 12:32 pm
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UCF 44, Houston 29
My annoyance with Dana Holgorsen know no bounds. The Cougars have only won three games this season and it's starting to feel like Holgorsen is attempting to introduce tanking to college football. But the gag is, the only thing a 3-5 record gets you in college football is bad recruits. I digress. Houston actually started off pretty well in their 29-44 loss to UCF on Saturday. The Cougars jumped out to an early 10-0 lead on Mulbah Car's 37-yard touchdown run and a 45-yard field goal by Dalton Witherspoon. UCF pulled away with three third-quarter touchdowns and Houston never recovered. Houston quarterback Clayton Tune finished 18-for-30 for 179 yards, one touchdown and one interception. UCF quarterback Dillion Gabriel hit 21-of-30 passes for 298 yards and three touchdowns without an interception. Houston is off next week to hopefully do some soul-searching before hosting Memphis at home on Nov. 16.
Oklahoma State 34, TCU 27
Oklahoma State running back Chuba Hubbard racked up 223 yards and two long touchdowns, leading the Cowboys to a 34-27 victory over a TCU team with one of the best defensive coached in college football. According to a TCU spokesperson, Hubbard became the first player to rush for at least 200 yards against TCU in Gary Patterson's 19-year run as head coach. "When Chuba gets through there, nobody can catch him," Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said. "That makes him different than other players." OKST quarterback Spencer Sanders threw for 158 yards and two touchdown passes to Dillon Stoner who finished with three receptions and 93 yards for the Cowboys, who became bowl eligible for the 14th straight year. The Horned Frogs entered the day allowing just 103.7 yards rushing per game but surrendered 307 on Saturday. TCU hosts an undefeated Baylor on Saturday.
Texas A&M 45, UTSA 14
The Aggies fell behind early on Saturday against UTSA and needed a spark to bounce back and secure the victory. Isiah Spiller was the match that lit the flame for Texas A&M. The freshman running back set season highs with 217 yards rushing and three touchdowns, leading the Aggies to a demoralizing 45-14 victory over UTSA. "He was the catalyst today," Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said of Spiller. "He's growing each and every day." The Aggie's win over UTSA is their third straight victory and makes them bow-eligible for the 11th-straight season. Texas A&M quarterback Kellen Mond threw for 211 yards, one touchdown and a one-yard touchdown in the ground to lift the Aggies to 42-7 in the fourth quarter. UTSA quarterback Lowell Narcisse threw for 90 yards passing and racked up 54 yards and a touchdown on the ground before suffering a right thumb injury early in the third quarter. The Aggies are off next week and host South Carolina on Nov. 16.
Baylor 17, West Virginia 14
Bad Baylor has come a long way from their one-win 2017 season. The 12th-ranked Bears put on a defensive showdown on Thursday night to hold off West Virginia and improve to 8-0. Baylor quarterback Charlie Brewer threw for 277 yards and two touchdowns, and the defense blocked a late field goal, securing Baylor's 17-14 victory over West Virginia. This marks the first time Baylor has won a game when scoring less than 20 points since 2006. "A tremendous, tremendous defensive game," coach Matt Rhule said after the 17-14 victory over West Virginia on Thursday night. "We are still learning that it's OK just to play defense and not worry." Bad Baylor is the only undefeated Big 12 team and one of eight among FBS teams. Baylor's defense may have won the game but its offensive line was all but useless, allowing Brewer to be stuffed by West Virginia eight times. The game-winning play came when Baylor nose tackle Bravvion Roy blocked Casey Legg's 48-yard field goal with 3.5 minutes left. "A lot of guys hurt in that locker room. I hurt for them," first-year Mountaineers coach Neal Brown said. "I hurt because they invested. They came up short. I don't' know if we necessarily got beat, but we came up short." Baylor travels to TCU to face the Horned Frogs next week.
Louisiana 31, Texas State 3
Running back Elijah Mitchell rushed for 126 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries for the Rajin' Cajuns and Louisiana-Lafayette clobbered Texas State 31-3 on Saturday. Bobcat quarterback Tyler Vitt finished 24-of-34 for 206 yards-passing and two interceptions for Texas State.
Marshall 20, Rice 7
Isaiah Green threw for 269 yards and a touchdown and Marshall rolled to 20-7 victory over winless Rice on Saturday.
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They’ll be watching in Canada, not just because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, though the NBA’s scoring champion and MVP favorite who plays for Oklahoma City surely helps lure in fans who are north of the border.
They’ll be watching from Serbia and Greece, the homelands of Denver star Nikola Jokic and Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo. Alperen Sengun will have them watching Houston games in the middle of the night in Turkey, too. Slovenian fans will be watching Luka Doncic and the Lakers play their playoff opener at 2:30 a.m. Sunday, 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Los Angeles. Fans in Cameroon will be tuned in to see Pascal Siakam and the Indiana Pacers. Defending champion Boston features, among others, Kristaps Porzingis of Latvia and Al Horford of the Dominican Republic.
Once again, the NBA playoffs are setting up to be a showcase for international stars.
In a season where the five statistical champions were from five different countries, an NBA first — Gilgeous-Alexander is Canadian, rebounding champion Domantas Sabonis of Sacramento is from Lithuania, blocked shots champion Victor Wembanyama of San Antonio is from France, steals champion Dyson Daniels of Atlanta is from Australia, and assists champion Trae Young of the Hawks is from the U.S. — the postseason will have plenty of international feel as well. Gilgeous-Alexander is in, while Sabonis and Daniels (along with Young, obviously) could join him if their teams get through the play-in tournament.
“We have a tremendous number of international players in this league,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this season. “It’s roughly 30% of our players representing, at least on opening day, 43 different countries, so there’s much more of a global sense around our teams.”
By the end of the season, it wound up being 44 different countries — at least in terms of countries where players who scored in the NBA this season were born. For the first time in NBA history, players from one country other than the U.S. combined to score more than 15,000 points; Canadian players scored 15,588 this season, led by Gilgeous-Alexander, the first scoring champion from that country.
Gilgeous-Alexander is favored to be MVP this season. It'll be either him or Jokic, which means it'll be a seventh consecutive year with an international MVP for the NBA. Antetokounmpo won twice, then Jokic won three of the next four, with Cameroon-born Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers winning two seasons ago.
“Shai is in the category of you do not stop him,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said after a game between the Raptors and Thunder this season.
In other words, he's like a lot of other international guys now. Nobody truly stops Jokic, Antetokounmpo and Doncic either.
And this season brought another international first: Doncic finished atop the NBA's most popular jersey list, meaning NBAStore.com sold more of his jerseys than they did anyone else's. Sure, that was bolstered by Doncic changing jerseys midseason when he was traded by Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers, but it still is significant.
The Slovenian star is the first international player to finish atop the most popular jerseys list — and the first player other than Stephen Curry or LeBron James to hold that spot in more than a decade, since soon-to-be-enshrined Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony did it when he was with New York in 2012-13.
“We’re so small, we have 2 million people. But really, our sport is amazing,” fellow Slovene Ajsa Sivka said when she was drafted by the WNBA's Chicago Sky on Monday night and asked about Doncic and other top Slovenian athletes. “No matter what sport, we have at least someone that’s great in it. I’m just really proud to be Slovenian.”
All this comes at a time where the NBA is more serious than perhaps ever before about growing its international footprint. Last month, FIBA — the sport's international governing body — and the NBA announced a plan to partner on a new European basketball league that has been taking shape for many years. The initial target calls for a 16-team league and it potentially could involve many of the biggest franchise names in Europe, such as Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.
It was a season where four players topped 2,000 points in the NBA and three of them were international with Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic and Antetokounmpo. Globally, time spent watching NBA League Pass was up 6% over last season. More people watched NBA games in France this season than ever before, even with Wembanyama missing the final two months. NBA-related social media views in Canada this season set records, and league metrics show more fans than ever were watching in the Asia-Pacific region — already a basketball hotbed — as well.
FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said the numbers — which are clearly being fueled by the continued international growth — suggest the game is very strong right now.
“Looking around the world, and of course here in North America," Zagklis said, "the NBA is most popular and more commercially successful than ever.”