Your College Basketball Saturday Viewing Guide: January 19, 2019

Since we’re finally free of the grasp of the NFL Playoffs, we get a stacked up schedule of 32 (!) nationally televised contests today! That’s pretty great.

12 of those games have at least one ranked team involved, and two games have two ranked teams squaring off. #12 Kentucky visits #14 Auburn in an SEC showdown in the mid-afternoon window, and that’s followed with #4 Virginia heading to Cameron Indoor Stadium to see #1 Duke in the early evening window. The UVa/Duke game presents us with a somewhat unique circumstance in college basketball: For just the fourth time in history, we get the #1 team in the AP Poll (Duke) facing off against the #1 team in the Coaches Poll (Virginia). How neat is that?

I’m still not going to watch it. Sorry/not sorry, Virginia.

In addition to those two games, there are seven more games with a ranked team going out on the road, and thanks to staggered start times, there will be at least one of those going on between 11am and 9pm with the exception of during the majority of the Kentucky/Auburn game. That’s fine for us Marquette fans, as the Butler/St. John’s game is going on then as well.

Keep your eye on the Houston/South Florida game in between timeouts of the DePaul/Seton Hall game tonight, by the way. The Bulls have had a somewhat surprisingly good season so far this year, rising from #287 in KenPom.com’s rankings to start the year to their current perch of #138, but have had a rocky start to AAC play. Houston is going to be favored to win the game, but I like USF’s chances.

Here’s the whole national television rundown for the day! Enjoy!