Your College Basketball Saturday Viewing Guide: January 9, 2021

It’s not a particularly outstanding Saturday of college basketball today.

The best game of the day is, by rankings, #4 Texas going on the road to face #14 West Virginia. However, with the Mountaineers going 1-1 since Oscar Tshiebwe left the team — and they needed an 18-3 run to be able to use a late 10-0 run to get the W — there’s real questions to be asked as to whether they’re still worthy of that #14 ranking.

That’s it for ranked teams facing off today. There’s a number of ranked teams on the road on national television, though. #2 Baylor travels north to see TCU, #9 Tennessee goes to Texas A&M, #19 Texas Tech risks Hilton Magic at Iowa State, #19 Clemson (there’s a tie) tries for two straight wins at North Carolina, and #22 Virginia visits Boston College. Sure, we can debate the value of home court advantage in a pandemic season, but when you’re not shooting on your practice rims, it’s always a little less comfortable for you. Could be a lot of upsets, or maybe not. Who can say?!

The big surprise of the day is Kentucky and Florida squaring off in Gainesville on ESPN with neither team holding an AP top 25 ranking. The Wildcats were #10 in the preseason poll, while the Gators were just two spots shy of starting the year ranked. This game’s still going to do great ratings for ESPN because UK is involved..... but you have to figure that The World Wide Leader grabbed this one for The Mothership because they expected it to be a big-time SEC showdown. It is, to a degree, as Kentucky is 2-0 and Florida is 2-1.... but there is a little bit of luster gone now.

Here’s the full rundown of nationally televised games as of Friday morning. If you find something of particular note on streaming, then shout it out in the comments so everyone can watch it.