An AWESOME college hoops weekend

Good morning! Another glorious weekend of basketball — upsets, buzzer-beaters, you name it — only had one thing wrong with it: That Dick Vitale’s return to the sideline will be delayed.

He had been scheduled to call Duke’s Jan. 25 games against Wake Forest, but a he’s in the hospital recovering from a fall. Here’s hoping he’s healthy enough for just one game this season.

Let’s get to it.

1. Two top 10 upsets, two court stormings

Maybe West Virginia should honor Jerry West every year when a top 10 team comes to Morgantown.

In front of nearly 15,000 fans, the Mountaineers outplayed No. 2 Iowa State, 64-57, for their biggest win of the season, a season in which they look more like the program to which West Virginia fans had become accustomed — not the 9-23 mess from a season ago.

This group, led by Javon Smalls (27 points, 7 rebounds, 4 steals), has West Virginia (13-4, 4-2 in Big 12) celebrating what should be another week where it’ll be in the Top 25 — and primed for an NCAA tourney berth.

“There’s some very tough places to play in the Big 12. We want our place to certainly be one of them,” coach Darian Devries said. “I felt like it was tonight and the crowd did their part. We had to do our part. But I thought the crowd was very engaged and helped us down the stretch.”

Iowa State (15-2, 5-1) entered with a 12-game win streak. But its miserable shooting performance (43.9% from the field) led to a season-low .85 points per possession. All the swagger from a win at Texas Tech and a home victory vs. Kansas now needs to recaptured with a home game vs. UCF and a road swing to Arizona.

Still, Iowa State hung around until the final minute. No. 6 Tennessee had the opposite problem in its 76-75 loss at Vanderbilt.

The Commodores (15-3, 3-2 in SEC) have been one of the season’s pleasant surprises (they have that in common with W.Va.), and led the Vols by as much as 16 points in the second half. Jason Edwards (18 points) was skirting that perimeter defense, opening up things inside for Vernon Carey (14 points).

Tennessee (16-2, 3-2) did make a run behind its defense, which held Vandy to just five points over the final eight minutes. All those gaps closed down, and while the Vols still struggled to score, that was nothing compared to Vandy’s issues.

Maybe it was fitting that when Tennessee finally had a chance to tie the game, it was Vandy that came up with the defensive play of the game.

Fans stormed the court in celebration after a rare win vs. the Vols. Vandy had won just once in the previous 13 games. (Worth noting: it wasn’t a good weekend to be a Vol in Nashville.)

“I was happy for our players. I was happy for the fans and former players, alumni,” Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said. “When you're trying to build something, you want … you want people to buy in. You want 'em to support you. And sometimes they're apprehensive until they see results. And, you know, this game, they showed up and they had a great environment. Great crowd. They helped us win.”

2. Weekend buzzer beaters and last-second thrillers

Know what’s nearly as good as a court storming? A buzzer beater. And there was no better buzzer-beater than Dayton’s remarkable alley-oop from Malachi Smith to Amael L’Etang as time expired of an 83-81 overtime win over Loyola Chicago.

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