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Pittsburgh and Purdue were trading almost literal punches. Miami was doing its best to get clear of Nebraska. Maryland was somehow staying within single digits of North Carolina despite its absolutely horrendous first half. The Big Ten/ACC Challenge was in full swing, the conference vs. conference counter running next to the scorelines, and if you were watching college basketball Tuesday, you probably weren't keeping close tabs of Texas' win over UT-Arlington. You were busy. And you saw the Kerwin Roach dunk. You had it covered. Texas' win over UT-Arlington -- an 80-73 overtime victory -- was one of the best and most enjoyable games of the night, thanks in large part to the continued awesomeness of UT-Arlington.  The Mavericks don't have a zany bench to help publicize their unexpected nonconference brilliance, and no one would argue that Monmouth's wins (over UCLA, Notre Dame, and USC) didn't add up to November's most impressive mid-major run. But UT-Arlington has been a close, more buttoned-up, disproportionately less-famous second. Scott Cross' team entered Tuesday night with wins on the road against Ohio State and Memphis. Neither team is Final Four material, sure, but both should always beat Sun Belt teams at home. UT-Arlington upended that maxim twice. That was pretty good already.
On Tuesday night, they were two minutes from the sweetest upset of all. The Longhorns needed all of regulation and almost all of overtime -- until back-to-back 3s in the final 76 seconds -- to get free of their much smaller state system affiliate. Arlington's defense was stout enough, even against a much bigger Longhorns lineup, to force fourth-option Javan Felix to net 18 points. It kept Isaiah Taylor from more than one first-half point, and pushed Taylor to get 20 of his 21 after halftime. That may be the biggest contribution UT-Arlington made, at least to Texas: It pushed the uneven, sporadically impressive, transitioning Longhorns to play arguably their best basketball of the season. That is not the kind of thing teams like UT-Arlington are supposed to do. The Mavericks will play three more Division I opponents before the start of Sun Belt play. None of them (North Texas, UTEP, Bradley) will grant the brief spotlights afforded by OSU, Memphis or UT. For now, at least, the scrappy underdog act is over. You know what this means: The next time you'll think about Arlington will be in February or March, when you're casting about for potential double-digit upset candidates. By then, the Mavericks will be fighting tooth and nail to capture their league's sole NCAA tournament spot. We'll be hoping, for the sake of March Madness, that they get it. What we're thinking about today: Some not-fantastic news for Arizona Tuesday, just a few days before it leaves for Spokane, Washington, where a true road game against Gonzaga awaits: Center Kaleb Tarczewski will miss the next 4-6 weeks while he recovers from stress reaction and a strained muscle in his left foot. It's never good to lose your bedrock big man, no matter the circumstances, but it must feel especially daunting in advance of a meeting with Kyle Wiltjer, Prezmek Karnowski, and Domantas Sabonis. Meanwhile, this Daily Wildcat column leads with an incredible stat, one we'd either never heard or, at some point, just plain forgot: "This weekend’s tournament was brutal for Wildcat fans to swallow. Arizona suffered a loss in November -- something that hasn’t happened since 2011." The Sporting News has a detailed look at Duke freshman Brandon Ingram's specific struggles at this (incredibly early) stage of his (thus far) underwhelming freshman season. Duke hosts another of the season's major disappointments -- Indiana -- tonight. Rick Pitino can fairly be called "quietly confident" in his Louisville team, and understandably so: The Cardinals have played surprisingly brilliant defense in their 5-0 start. The only problem? Their toughest opponent to date was Saint Louis. It will be a far different story -- and a fantastically informative 40 minutes -- in East Lansing against No. 3 Michigan State Wednesday night. Hey, remember when Kansas center Cheick Diallo celebrated his NCAA reinstatement/KU debut by dunking with one hand behind his head? That was rad.
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