Basketball On The Internet.

BOB'S CORNER: OUR man on the spot in the USA, BOB CRAVEN, has his weekly round-up of all (important) things NBA, not to mention what's happening in college basketball with the NCAA Men and NCAA Women. No, actually, he DOES more than just mention it and even our controversial Ben Simmons gets a shout out!

LET's start at NBA.

Kyrie Irving scored 42 and Tim Hardaway added 41 replacing the injured superstar Luka Doncic in a Dallas win over New Orleans.  It was the second time in franchise history that two players scored 40 or more points in a game.  Doncic and Irving combined for the other such game last season.

Minnesota and Oklahoma City are the feel-good success stories in the first half of the NBA season, especially in the Western Conference.

Nothing, of course, is guaranteed for either of them yet, but last season three of the top 11 teams at the halfway point didn't make the playoffs at all, and only three others of those top 11 teams would go on to win a playoff series.

OKC has been building for its future for years, stockpiling draft picks like squirrels with acorns - the starting five has everyone at or younger than 25. There are 15 active players in the league with more career points than the entire Thunder starting lineup combined.

The defending champion Nuggets ended Boston's record 20-game home winning streak in a squeaker, 102-100.  And what does a guy have to do?  The Milwaukee Bucks fired head coach Adrian Griffin, despite the Bucks having one of the top records in the league at 31-13.

The Bucks did not immediately respond to questions about the reason for his dismissal. Long time coach Doc Rivers is replacing him.

This past week has seen some huge individual scoring efforts.  Last weekend, Devin Booker of the Suns went off against New Orleans in New Orleans for 52 points in 37 minutes.  A couple of nights ago, Booker bettered that with with a 62-point effort in a loss to Indianapolis, as his Suns blew a 17-point lead.

NBA leading scorer Joel Embiid of the Sixers set a league season high and Sixers’ franchise record with 70 points against the Spurs.  He also added a career-high 18 rebounds. The previous Sixers record was 68 points by Wilt Chamberlain (note: Wilt was with the Warriors when he had his 100 point game).

That same night, Karl-Anthony Towns of Minnesota scored a franchise-record 62 points, 44 of those in the first half alone.

To cap off the week’s scoring outbursts, Friday night Dallas superstar, Luka Doncic blew the doors off with a historic 73-point game in a win over Atlanta.  That tied him with David Thompson for the fourth highest game in league history, surpassed only by Wilt’s 100-point game, Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game in 2006, and a 78-point game ... also by Wilt.

Way back in the day, this game by Doncic must have been what Jerry Reed was singing about when he recorded “When you’re hot, you’re hot”.  Doncic was 25-of-33 from the floor (76%), 8-of-13 from deep (61.5%), and 15-of-16 from the free throw line (94%).

NCAA

Upsets are surprisingly common this season for both men and women in the NCAA.  Recent examples include the South Florida men on the road stunning No.10 Memphis; women's No.4 North Carolina State falling to Miami; women's No.3 Colorado falling at home to UCLA; and women's No.6 USC going down to Utah.

The next game for Utah, it returned the favour, beating No.2 UCLA in OT.

Early this past week, the Ohio State women at home beat No.2 Iowa 100-92 in OT. Iowa’s superstar Caitlin Clark scored a season-high 45 in the loss, but the biggest news was immediately after the game ended.

As the fans and students were streaming onto the court in celebration, Clark was flattened by a woman running onto the court while staring at her cell phone.  Initially, it appeared that Clark may have been injured in the collision, but afterwards she said that she was shaken up but not seriously hurt.

The Alabama men stopped arch rival No.8 Auburn, ending their 11-game winning streak.  The Northwestern men topped No.10 Illinois in OT. And the Oklahoma women on the road held on to beat No.10 Texas.

And in maybe the biggest women’s game of the season, top-ranked and undefeated South Carolina on the road defeated Louisiana State, ranked No.9 and the defending national champion.  This snapped LSU’s 29-game home winning streak.

It's been a down year, relatively speaking, for Gonzaga as it dropped out of the top 25 polls for the first time in eight years.

Still, coach Mark Few chalked up his 700th career victory this past week, becoming the second fastest coach to reach that mark in D-I history.

Meanwhile, Stanford's Tara VanDerveer is now the all-time leader in career wins, having surpassed former Duke and Army coach Mike Krzyzeski's total of 1,202 wins.

VanDerveer, 70, is in her 38th season at Stanford and her 45th season overall after earlier stops at Idaho and Ohio State.

She is a 17-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year and a five-time national Coach of the Year.  She also coached the 1996 US Olympic team to a gold medal at the Atlanta Games during a year away from Stanford.

NBA now and the lowly 6-40 Detroit Pistons stunned the high-flying OKC Thunder 120-104 behind the 22 points and 21 rebounds of Jalen Duren.

Detroit was missing its leading scorer, Cade Cunningham who injured a leg in the previous game.  Detroit's brain trust withheld him from this game, due to what they termed "injury management". 

OKC and Minnesota were tied atop the Western Conference standings, and they squared off in OKC.  Minnesota pulled out a tight game 107-101, which had 24 lead changes and six ties.

And Big Ben Simmons played his first minutes of the season for the Brooklyn Nets in a big win over Utah.  He played 18 minutes coming off the bench, scoring 10 points on a perfect 5-of-5 from the floor, and adding eight boards and 11 assists, a steal and a block.

Domantas Sabonis, continuing his amazingly efficient play, led the Kings over Memphis with 20 points on 10-of-11 from the field, a career-high 26 rebounds and five assists.  He's a bit of a longshot for MVP but he's scoring 20 ppg at 62% from the field (8th in the league), leads the league in rebounding at 13 per game, and is 7th in assists at 7.9 per game.

And this is the 7-footer in the middle!!!  Not as spectacular as The Joker, but they are similar in performance, especially playing that position.  And the former Zag is only 27. Barring injury, he'll be putting up these kinds of numbers for several more years.

NCAA Men and No. 23 Iowa State improved to 13-0 at home this season by dumping No.7 Kansas.  State was helped by a season-best 14-of-30 on three-point shots.

Mississippi State edged No.8 Auburn 64-58 in a defensive struggle.  No.1 Connecticut won its eighth in a row by bludgeoning Xavier 99-56.  And No.12 Purdue defeated Rutgers on the road. Giant 224cm post man Zach Edey became the sixth player in Big Ten Conference history to score 2,000 points and grab 1,000 rebounds.

NCAA Women and All-World guard Caitlin Clark scored 38 points, grabbed 10 boards and had six assists to lead No.5 Iowa to a 92-73 win over Nebraska.

Aussie all-star Jaz Shelley, who played two years at Oregon before transferring to Nebraska, led the Cornhuskers with 19 points.

No.4 Kansas State at home edged Brigham Young 67-65.  BYU was led by the 25 points and 21 rebounds of Lauren Justin, her 21 rebounds setting a new record for an opponent at K-State.

Amazingly, both the Washington and Washington State women defeated the nationally ranked LA schools, in LA, no less, and on the same night.

The UW downed No.11 Southern Cal 62-59, while Washington State beat No.2 UCLA 85-82.  That was a costly win, however, as WSU's All-American Kiwi guard, Charlisse Leger-Walker, suffered an apparent serious knee injury during the second half and did not return.  Stay tuned for MRI results.

No.3 Colorado rebounded from an upset at Oregon State to dump Oregon; No.1 South Carolina rolled Vanderbilt, and No.6 Stanford romped in Arizona over the U of Arizona 96-64 behind the 25 points and 19 rebounds of All-American Cameron Brinks, all in only 25 minutes of court time.

Mississippi State stunned defending national champs Louisiana State U. as their defence held All American U. of Louisville transfer, Hailey Van Lith from tiny Cashmere, Washington, to four points.