Failures from many of the top teams in college basketball dominated headlines last week as five of the top six teams and eight inside the top 10 took at least one loss, drawing with it a ton of deserved coverage as we made sense of the madness. However, that left a lot of other stories of intrigue without much of a spotlight. So as we continue our College Basketball's Best of the Week series, we're here to grab a flashlight and bring some of those stories some overdue shine.
There were plenty of stories to pick from this week that didn't quite get the attention they deserved -- both good and bad -- including some surprisingly poor sportsmanship, some stunning acrobatics, some dramatic coaching, and more.
The second edition of this space is below. If you have submissions for this column, please find me on Twitter. Story tips are always welcome!
Dunk of the Week: Maryland's Scott soars
Maryland had a magnificent week in beating Michigan at home then stealing a road win against a top-10 Illinois team, and it was filled with highlights from Donta Scott. Scott had a season-high 22 points in the win over the Wolverines, which included a highlight-reel slam over senior Michigan guard Jaelyn Llewellyn:
Worst Sportsmanhip of the Week: Illini assistant skips handshake
Speaking of Maryland, the Terps' win Sunday over No. 10 Illinois turned Illini assistant Tim Anderson into a turtle during the postgame handshake line. Anderson was seen shaking hands with everyone on the Maryland team then curiously, but obviously, giving Julian Reese the cold shoulder as he made his way down the line. Reese smartly noticed it in real time, leading to a rather tense exchange:
Cringe Video of the Week: Cincinnati fan chugs chili
Skyline Chili is an Ohio staple, and one Cincinnati fan went to great (and possibly painful) lengths to give them some shine on the national stage.
As the Bearcats faced Texas in Cincinnati to kick off last week, one fan on live television downed a can of chili, raised his glass -- er, can -- then turned his chili-stained face to the cameras to throw a horns down for dramatic effect. What a moment.
Best Meltdown of the Week: Hurley is always intense
Reigning champion and newly anointed No. 1 team in the AP Top 25 poll, UConn led for all but 23 seconds on Sunday in a blowout win over Big East foe Georgetown, but Huskies coach Dan Hurley, as he is wont to do, was caught live on television being unable to do anything but coach his ever-loving face off. Hurley with his Huskies up 11 was peeved about a call just before the break, and, well, you don't have to be an expert-level lip-reader to translate his reaction ....
Most Dramatic Coach of the Week: Pitino takes loss hard
Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino will not be accepting your offer of a moral victory in defeat. No, sir.
After his St. John's team fell 66-65 at Creighton, Pitino flat-out rejected the premise of a moral victory, in fact, he went as far as to suggest he'd rather suffer his own demise than to experience defeat.
"I don't feel good when we lose," Pitino said. "I f****** hate the world. I don't feel good after a loss. I don't believe in 'valiant efforts' on the road. I feel like I want to kill myself, jump into the cold and die of frostbite."
Savage Moment of the Week: Big 12 has no chill
To put it kindly: the Pac-12 has had a miserable year on the hardwood. USC has underperformed, UCLA has totally flopped, and Arizona has been hit-or-miss and sometimes unable to shoulder and uplift the reputation of the league.
The Big 12 acknowledged as much this week with what appeared to be a subtle needling that, upon further inspection, appeared to be an outright dagger to the soon-defunct conference out west. The Big 12 simply tweeted a graphic highlighting its own success but in the process managed to note that what little success the Pac-12 is having, is being had from soon-to-be Big 12 members.
Ouch.
Best of the rest
Steven Izzo gets his Chamberlain moment
Playing in his fifth and final season at Michigan State, Izzo, who is the son of head coach Tom Izzo, tallied his first career points this week. The younger Izzo dashed to the basket late in a game Sunday against Rutgers, chucked a prayer at the rim, then dropped the ball around the rim and in. He drew the foul and made his free throw to finish with three points.
That wasn't all! A Michigan State staffer after the game had fun with the moment, tweeting a side-by-side of Wilt after his 100-point game next to Izzo after his 3-point outing. So good.
Samford makes history in dominant win
Samford, tied with Utah State with the longest winning streak in college basketball at 15 games, improved to 15-2 Saturday with a dismantling of VMI that in the process made history. The Bulldogs won 134-96. which were the most by a Division I team in a regulation conference game since 1995, per Jared Berson.
Brad Brownell gives player not-so-friendly shove
As Clemson extended its losing streak this week to three games with a road loss to Virginia Tech, Tigers coach Brad Brownell had a pretty brutal moment go viral in the second half as he stepped foot on the floor and gave his own player, Joe Girard III, a shove to try and get him to the corner.
Clemson opened the season 11-1 but has gone 1-3 since the hot start.
Stackhouse gets sour about Ole Miss
Vanderbilt coach Jerry Stackhouse didn't take too kindly to getting blown out at Ole Miss to drop his Commodores to 5-11 on the season. Rather than give some coach-speak about a hat tip to Chris Beard's team, Stackhouse after the game got a little sour about the Rebels in his postgame radio hit.
"Best team money can buy," Stackhouse said. "That's where they are, and that's how they approached it. And they got it done. It's about adding experience. You go into the portal and add juniors and seniors. We don't add juniors and seniors at Vanderbilt. They just don't transfer to us."