The Daily Gus: December 2nd

November 18th could not be further away in Lynchburg. The Liberty Flames were featured on ESPN's 24 hour college basketball tip off bonanza fananza wahoo commercial for itself on that day when they traveled to UNC-Asheville. Its conference opener, Liberty got thumped by 28 in a humiliating display of basketball which made the highly touted recruiting class of Ritchie McKay extremely uneasy. Since then the Flames are burning the candle at both ends, scoring and locking up high mid majors and majors alike, going 4-0 with victories over William & Mary, Virginia and an excellent win at home Monday night over George Mason. Liberty hit 11 threes and went to overtime with Mason before Seth Curry, the younger bro of Davidson's Stephen Curry, hit a jumper with 40 seconds left to give LU the lead for good. Curry had 22 and held Mason shooter Dre Smith scoreless and big Darryl Monroe to 8 points for LU. Since winning four in a row, maybe the baby Flames are growing up a little early, and are starting to regain a home court swagger which will certainly help come Big South conference play. Things dont get any easier for Liberty, they match up against Depaul, Saint Louis and Clemson within the next two weeks, but if they can snag some victories there expectations are already exceeded in McKay's second season. On the other hand, Mason suffers its second loss to a low major after Hampton several weeks ago. They are now 5-2, but their glaring weaknesses in their non conference schedule is not helping their case for respect.

Shoot-Around

- Travon Hughes' game winning jumper with 0.9 seconds left lifted Wisconsin over Virginia Tech in the massively outdated ACC-Big Ten Challenge. Marcus Landry missed one shot for the badgers and had 18, but the show belonged to Va Tech guard A.D. Vassallo. Vassallo had 24 second half points and 30 overall as he completely led the way for Tech; big Jeff Allen looked miserable, two points and a foul out appearance. It was lucky for the Hokies to even be in the game due to Allen's play.

- San Francisco jumps out to a 12 point first half lead over a really underachieving USC team before allowing the Trojans to go on a run in the second half to seize the victory 74-69. The Trojans had 18 turnovers but relied on 26 from guard Dwight Lewis for the victory helping them rebound after losses to Seton Hall and Missouri in Puerto Rico. It could be a long night for Southern Cal on Thursday when they go into Norman.

- Ball State got a last second victory at IPFW Monday night, 54-52 to move to 4-2 on the season as Anthony Newell hit a game winner in Fort Wayne. Ball State has seven newcomers, and all of which have started out with fervor. After going 6-24 last season, Newell has given the team a swingman to rely on along with their inside presence. Purdue goes into Muncie next Tuesday for what could be a big time trap game.

- Mount St Mary's wins at city rival American for the first time in 43 years as Mountie Jeremy Goode went off for 29. Mount had two points with 8:30 left in the first half and all of a sudden the flood gates opened. Shooting just 38% the Mount managed to take care of the ball only turning it over seven times en route to the 57-52 victory. 14-18 from the line certainly did not hurt either. It was American's second home game and they hit the road for a five game road trip starting Saturday at cross town rival Georgetown. The Eagles are 4-3, and could be in a tenuous position if they keep squandering away late game leads. THe road trip does not look promising.

- Colgate is by no means a New England basketball force, but Syracuse may be finally back in a big way. The Orange jumped out to a 43-14 halftime lead and rested its starters for much of the second half, but they are now 7-0 and have yet to be tested including a great win over Kansas last week in the CBE. Paul Harris had 22 points in 21 minutes to drop the Raiders to 2-3. Now with victories over two ranked teams that are the last two national champions (Florida/Kansas) the Cuse look ahead to a December 20th date with Memphis in which they should be 11-0 and possibly in the top 15.