List of undefeated teams remaining in men's, women's college basketball.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I wish I could be at Argentina’s World Cup parade in Buenos Aires, but at least I can Follow us on Twitter.

In today’s SI:AM:

💯 The remaining undefeated teams from College Hoops

🏥 Another blow to an often-injured Lakers star

🔪 A tennis thriller

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Who falls first?

As the new year approaches, Only a handful of teams in college basketball can boast unblemished records. There are five men’s (Mississippi State, Utah State, New Mexico, UConn and Purdue) and 10 women’s teams (Rice, South Carolina, LSU, Arkansas, Utah, Ohio State, Indiana, St. John’s, Kansas and Virginia). Of these 15 teams seven are in use later todayincluding a major out-of-conference matchup between the 13-0 17th Arkansas Women and No. 16 Oregon.

Of all the undefeated men and women, the biggest surprise has to be the Virginia women. The Cavaliers fired coach Tina Thompson after going 5-22 (2-16 in the ACC game) last season. (The Hall of Famer failed to set a winning record in any of their four seasons.) But Amaka Agugua Hamilton things have fundamentally changed since taking over the program. She built a successful program at Missouri State (at least 23 wins in each of her three seasons there), and one more win would equal Thompson’s best single-season overall wins. However, members of the media are not yet fully convinced of UVA. The Cavaliers have yet to crack the AP Top 25which is probably fair considering they haven’t beaten a team in the rankings yet this season. They’ll be up against 10-1 Duke on the street tomorrowand if her unbeaten run doesn’t end there, she almost certainly will during a three-game gantlet in early January against three conference opponents currently ranked in the top 10: Virginia Tech, NC State and North Carolina.

Likewise the Mississippi State’s men thrive under a freshman coach (Chris Jans, formerly of the state of New Mexico). And similarly, they face a grueling conference schedule that threatens to end their run. The No. 15 Bulldogs meet Drake at a neutral ground in Lincoln, Nebraska this afternoon and then open conference play by hosting No. 9 Alabama on December 28th. If that doesn’t spoil the party, they’re heading to Knoxville on January 3 to take on No. 8 Tennessee. Molly Geary has been trying to predict when each of the remaining undefeated men could lose their first few games and believes Mississippi State will fall first thanks to Alabama’s strong offense.

In the men’s division, two undefeated teams have set themselves apart from the crowd: No. 1 Purdue and No. 2 UConn. They have better wins on their resumes than Mississippi State and both undefeated mid-majors Utah State and New Mexico. The Huskies won all of their games fairly easilyincluding an 82-67 win over Alabama on a neutral court. Purdue has played some close games, but its two most impressive wins have been blowouts– against Duke and Gonzaga, both of whom were ranked in the top 10 at the time. With the Big East not as strong as the Big Ten, KenPom gives UConn a better chance (6.1%) of finishing the season undefeated than Purdue (0.1%). KenPom also ranks the Huskies as the No. 1 team in the country, so the calculation isn’t based solely on the strength of the teams’ remaining schedules.

On the women’s side, things are murkier, where Three undefeated teams find themselves in the top four. (The No. 2 team, Stanford, only lost to No. 1 South Carolina.) With so many teams undefeated, it’s going to be an exciting run towards March in the women’s. But if you had to pick a title favorite at this point, It’s hard to bet against Dawn Staley and South Carolina.

The best of sports illustrated

Top 5…

… Things I’ve seen since yesterday morning:

5. Spurs rookie Jeremy Sochan Shoot free throws with one hand.

4. Another great goal for Sabers star Tage Thompson.

3. The huge crowd in Buenos Aires for Argentina’s World Cup celebrations.

2. Lionel Messi sleeps with the World Cup trophy. (His Instagram post from Sunday is now the most liked post in the platform’s history.)

1. avalanche defender Cale Makar’s sportsmanship.

SIQ

After the last game of the NFL season that day in 1925, the Chicago Cardinals were declared champions with a record of 11-2-1. But which team was controversially ruled out of the championship in the final weeks of the season and still believed by many to be the rightful defending champions?

Providence Steamroller
Akron professionals
Detroit Panther
Pottsville chestnuts

Yesterday’s SIQ: When the Dawson City Nuggets made their journey to Ottawa 118 years ago this week to compete for the Stanley Cup, which of the following modes of transportation did they do? Not take?

Answers: Horse. Driving across the country to Ottawa from Dawson City, deep in Canada’s Yukon Territory, turned out to be quite a feat. Most of the journey would be done by train, but getting to the train was the hard part.

First, players from Dawson City had to get to Whitehorse, where they would take their first train. To get there, some players left the sled while others walked alongside the sled. The rest of the players took bikes. After several days they reached Whitehorse, more than 300 miles from Dawson City.

There they caught a train to Skagway, Alaska, where they were scheduled to catch a boat to Vancouver for the train to Ottawa. However, delays during the voyage to Skagway meant they missed their boat and had to wait five days for the next one. When they finally boarded a ship, poor Vancouver conditions forced the boat to dock in Seattle instead, so the group had to take another Seattle-to-Vancouver train to complete their eastward journey.