Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

There is no drama left in the race for the WCC conference title and favorite’s role heading into the conference tournament – it’s Gonzaga by a landslide – but that doesn’t mean the excitement is over in the West Coast Conference. With Portland’s emergence as a threat to Saint Mary’s for number two behind the Zags and a wild scramble underway to fill out the top four league spots, the last two weeks of play will be interesting.

Here’s how it is shaping up:

Saint Mary’s vs Portland
The Gaels may have righted themselves following the loss of Patty Mills on Jan. 29 by losing a winnable rematch against Gonzaga 72-70 (2/12) and pulling away from Portland in the second half to win 77-65 (2/14), both games in Moraga. Not only did the win over the Pilots give the Gaels as a team a much-needed confidence boost, it may have given even more to sophomore point guard Mickey McConnell. McConnell rebounded from a miserable outing as Mills’ stand-in against Gonzaga – six turnovers and five points is not a line to be remembered – to score 20 against Portland and post a gleaming line: four-for-four from three-point land and six-for-six from the foul line. McConnell has been up and down this year for the Gaels, but may be coming into his own at a crucial time. A coaches’ son from Mesa, AZ, McConnell has held coach Randy Bennett’s praise and confidence since arriving in Moraga, and now has a perfect opportunity to show everyone else what Bennett sees.

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We just came across the news that UConn guard Jerome Dyson is done for the rest of the year. It looks like the meniscal tear he suffered against Syracuse was more serious than it was originally thought. For more on the injury in general (trust us, we could go on for a long time on the topic), we’ll refer you to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons page on the meniscal tears.

Some UConn fans believe that losing Dyson won’t affect the Huskies as much as some in the media think because of UConn’s outstanding perimeter depth with Kemba Walker and Craig Austrie picking up the slack, but the bigger problem may come on defense. Dyson has been one of the Huskies best defenders averaging 1.8 steals per game this year. Walker isn’t that far behind at 1.0 steals per game, but any time you lose a defender like Dyson who can create that much havoc it has to be a blow for the team. I’m assuming that Jim Calhoun would have A.J. Price on Levance Fields for most of the game against Pittsburgh tonight and the Huskies may be able to get away with it because the Panthers do not have a great perimeter scorer. However, against a team like UNC, which has 2 legitimate perimeter threats in Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson, Dyson’s injury may come back to bite the Huskies in late March or early April.

The one positive thing for the Huskies is that this should lead to more driving by the opposition and more shots for Hasheem Thabeet to block.

Ryan ZumMallen of LBSports.com is the RTC correspondent for the Big West Conference.

Let’s be very honest about the Big West for a minute: The conference will only send one team to the NCAA Tournament that will probably be seeded 13th or 14th in their region, and there isn’t a single can’t-miss NBA prospect in the conference.

Here’s why you should watch the Big West, anyway.

1. It’s Been A Great Race

Long Beach State jumped out to an early 5-0 conference record behind the fresh legs of their four freshmen, but were hit with an injury to leading scorer Donovan Morris and have stumbled ever since, going just 2-4 in their last six. The most recent loss, a double-overtime thriller at UC Riverside, put the ball in Cal State Northridge’s court. The Matadors, picked in October by both media and coaches to win the conference title, beat that same Riverside team to snatch a full-game lead on Long Beach State. But beware as five teams trail Northridge by 2.5 games or less.

1) Cal State Northridge 12-10 (8-3)
2) Long Beach State 12-11 (7-4)
3) Pacific 14-9 (7-5)
4) Cal State Fullerton 13-12 (7-6)
5) UC Riverside 14-10 (6-6)
6) UC Davis 11-14 (6-6)
7) UC Irvine 8-17 (5-7)
8) UC Santa Barbara 10-13 (4-7)
9) Cal Poly SLO 6-16 (3-9)

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As part of the new Blogpoll, we’ll be posting our poll on RTC.net that will then be used to create a composite Blogpoll that will be released at a later date. I’m pretty sure this is how it is supposed to work, but if it isn’t this post will probably disappear pretty quickly.

This week was a rather difficult one to rank teams since so many of the top 25 teams lost to teams they probably shouldn’t have. As always, I’m open to your suggestions. I may not agree with them, but I will take them into consideration for future voting. Feel free to leave compliments or complaints in the “Comment” section.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	North Carolina	2
2	Connecticut	1
3	Oklahoma	1
4	Pittsburgh
5	Michigan St.	5
6	Memphis	5
7	Louisville	2
8	Duke
9	Villanova	5
10	Arizona St.	12
11	Wake Forest	4
12	Clemson	3
13	Missouri	5
14	Marquette	2
15	Illinois	5
16	Purdue	1
17	Xavier	4
18	Kansas	2
19	Butler	4
20	UCLA	14
21	Gonzaga	3
22	Syracuse	3
23	Florida St.
24	Utah St.	5
25	Louisiana St.
Last week’s ballot

Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the Big 12 and Missouri Valley Conferences.

Current Records and My Standings (Conference Record)(Last Week Rank)

1. Northern Iowa (18-8) (12-3)(1)
2. Creighton (21-6)(11-4) (2)
3. Illinois St. (21-5) (10-5)(3)
4. Bradley (14-12) (8-7) (4)
5. Evansville (15-10) (7-8) (5)
6. Wichita St. (13-13) (7-8) (8)
7. Drake (15-12) (6-9) (6)
8. Indiana St. (7-19) (5-10) (10)
9. Southern Illinois (11-15) (6-9) (7)
10. Missouri St. (10-16) (3-12) (9)

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Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the Big 12 and Missouri Valley Conferences.

Current Records and my standings (Conference Standings) (Last Week)

1. Oklahoma (25-1)(11-0) (1)
2. Missouri (22-4) (9-2) (3)
3. Kansas (20-5)(9-1) (2)
4. Kansas St. (17-8) (6-5)(5)
5. Texas (17-7) (6-4) (6)
6. Nebraska (15-8) (5-5) (4)
7. Baylor (16-9) (4-7) (8)
8. Oklahoma St. (15-9) (4-6) (9)
9. Texas A&M (17-9) (3-8) (7)
10. Texas Tech (13-12) (3-7)(10)
11. Iowa St. (13-12) (2-8) (11)
12. Colorado (8-14) (1-9) (12)

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Welcome back to another edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite. I’m back as your semi-regular host after a day off with John Stevens covering for me. Today is a kind of weird day of basketball with the best games later in the day going head-to-head against the NBA All-Star game. So hopefully everyone will be sticking with us throughout the day and the real basketball fans (the ones who actually like defense and competition) will stay with us into the night.

1:00 PM: Our early games today are Illinois at  Indiana on CBS and Clemson at Virginia on ESPN Full Court and ESPN360.com. We’ll be updating you with highlights of those games throughout the day, but like always if there is something going on that we are missing or we make a mistake leave us a message in the comment section.

1:10 PM: Illinois is up 10-7 early. Bruce Weber‘s club must be riding high after their amazing comeback at Northwestern in their last game. Clemson is tied 3-3 in Charlottesville with 15:54 left in the first half. I’m guessing today is Sean Singletary day at UVA today based on the parts of the pre-game that I caught. Singletary, a 3-time 1st team All-ACC player, is one of three players in ACC history (Danny Ferry and Johnny Dawkins being the others) to have 2,000 career points, 500 career assists, and 400 career rebounds.

1:25 PM: Illinois is up 15-7 as we go to a TV timeout. CBS just showed a graphic about Indiana’s tough losses this year by featuring the games they led, but lost. You know the Hooisers are having a bad year when having a lead of 2 points at some point during the game is highlighted as a tough loss. Meanwhile, UVA is up 16-7 with 11:54 as they head into a timeout as well.

1:30 PM: I just noticed the electronic board on the side of the court at Assembly Hall. I guess it’s a nice fan friendly feature and probably generates some revenue through ads, but I think it looks horrendous in this famous arena. I haven’t noticed it at Cameron Indoor, but I think they should avoid it in the historic arenas.

1:40 PM: Jeff Jordan just hit a jumper for Illinois. As we noted before, he was recently was given a scholarship at Illinois. For those of you who haven’t seen him play, we think you might have missed his only big play of the day if his performance this season is any indication of what we can expect today. He’ll probably be out there quite a bit since Indiana is awful so watch for #13 on Illinois.

1:45 PM: UVA is up 22-16 coming out of a timeout with 5:11 left in the first half. Illinois is up 27-13 with a little less than 5 minutes left in the first half. I’ll be focusing on the UVA-Clemson game for now unless the Illinois-Indiana game gets interesting.

1:55 PM: UVA is up 33-25 at half. That 3 by Terrence Oglesby with a little over a minute left in the first half was Clemson’s first of the day after the Tigers missed their first 10 straight. The Cavaliers might have a chance if the Tigers continue to have difficulty hitting from the outside. Trevor Booker has had a big first half with 10 of Clemson’s 25 points, but it wasn’t enough as none of the other Tigers are playing well today. Illinois is up 38-21 at half.

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Ryan Pravato of College Fast Break is the RTC correspondent for the Summit League.

North Dakota State Bison 19-5 (13-1)
11 games and counting since this squad last lost a game (Jan. 2 @ Oakland). Three out of their last four wins have been by at least 20. In a 38-point murder of UMKC on Thursday, 11 different players scored for NDSU and their 4th leading scorer Michael Tviedt was not one of them.

Ben Woodside (left), Senior, 5’11”: Leads the conference is scoring, 2nd in assists, and totally needs to acquire a license for his guns. Balances the duties of point guard and go-to scorer perfectly.

Brett Winkleman (middle), Senior, 6’6″: 3rd in the conference in scoring, tied for 3rd in rebounding, and his last name is Winkleman.

Mike Nelson (right), Senior, 6’4″: NDSU’s 3rd leading scorer, 3rd in minutes/game, and 1st in headshot creepiness.

Woodside, Winkleman, & Nelson

Oral Roberts Golden Eagles 12-13 (10-3)
Extended their 33-game conference home winning streak by squeaking past Western Illinois on Thursday, an important win considering the two game slide they were on coming into the game. Home date February 24th vs. NDSU.

Robert Jarvis (left) Senior, 5’11: 5th in the conference in scoring, probably has bigger guns than Woodside, and shoots a lackluster 38.5% from the field. Guy thinks his fecal matter and jump shot don’t smell.

Marcus Lewis (right), Senior, 6’8″: Oral’s 2nd leading scorer, team leader in FG% by a mile, and is tied for the team lead in assists (averages more feeds than Jarvis).

Jarvis & Lewis

Oakland Grizzlies 15-11 (8-5)
Two straight victories after two straight losses have the Grizz still in the hunt for the #2 seed. Celebs were in full force when Centenary traveled to Rochester for a date on the 7th. Didn’t actually see Joe Cribbs Car Wash mastermind Jerry with my own two eyes (almost sold out), but he was there.

Erik Kangas (left), Senior, 6’3″: The best shooter in the nation (inside joke, actually, wait a second) is 3rd in the country in total threes made, 2nd in the conference in scoring, and 2nd on the team in minutes/game (36.3).

Jonathon Jones (middle), Junior, 5’11”: J.J. currently has the most total assists in the nation, leads the team in minutes/game (38), and is only shooting 39.5% from the field (it’s unhealthy to be too much of a homer, got to keep it real).

Keith Benson (right), Redshirt Sophomore, 6’11”: Had to throw the big guy in here because he’s blocking over 2 shots/game (best in the conference.), 2nd on the team in scoring with 13.7, and the only guy I know who can effectively smile while swatting a shot, “running” back on defense, and getting cussed at by Coach Kampe. I’m telling you, the Only Guy.

Kangas, Jones, & Benson

The Others…

• Southern Utah had a golden opportunity to draw within one game of Oakland for 3rd place with a win @ SDSU on Thursday, but couldn’t get it done.
• After a 5-4 beginning in conference play, Centenary has lost four straight games by double figures.
• IUPUI is quietly lurking at 7-7 thanks to a 5-1 record since Jan. 24th.
• I think it’s safe to assume 2-10 UMKC won’t qualify for the Summit league tourney at this rate.

Good afternoon, college hoops fans, and welcome to another version of Boom Goes The Dynamite.  What does that mean?  If there’s a game on my television, I’m watching it.  I’m even monitoring games on about five different online game-trackers.  John Stevens, here, holed-up in the RTC Midwestern Compound.  Normally you have to wait until Tuesday for me to force my opinions and exert my influence on you in my weekly column; on this particular Saturday, NVR1983 (the Zelig of college basketball fandom — the man can literally pop up anywhere in the country with a press pass and do a live broadcast and duck out before you’ve noticed he’s been there, and probably eaten half your food) is probably somewhere setting himself on press row for a game tonight, and RTMSF (the guru of RTC) is, from what I understand, probably laying under a big pink blanket watching Mad About You or Sex And The City DVDs with his wife at a spa somewhere.  Poor b—ard.

(Just kidding, Mrs. RTMSF…)

Anyway, where I am in the Midwest, it’s cold again, it’s grey, and it’s starting to snow.  Sounds like good basketball-watching weather (but what isn’t?).  I’ve got a television, I’ve got a cooler, and I’ve got a couch.  Let’s watch some hoops.  I invite you to join me. 

We’re getting a little bit of a delayed start because of a techincal difficulty on my end (long story — suffice to say, I am easily distracted and/or confused by things like shapes and colors), but now that we’re up and rolling, in a moment we’ll catch up on what’s happened so far in today’s games.  Welcome!

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Ray Floriani of College Chalktalk is the RTC correspondent for the MAAC and NEC Conferences.

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ – There are no undefeated teams anymore in the MAAC. Last Saturday , in a rematch of last year’s MAAC championship, host Rider knocked off Siena 90-88 to hand the Saints their first conference loss of the season. The victory secured the two outstanding player of the week awards for Rider. 

Sophomore guard Justin Robinson earned Player of the Week honors. Robinson scored a career high 25 points and had three rebounds in that win over Siena. Novar Gadson, a freshman swingman, earned Rookie of the Week accolades with his 17 point, 4 rebound , 4 assist performance in the same contest.

The standings as of Friday February 13, 2009:

1. Siena  14-1
2. Niagara  11-3
3. Rider  9-4
4. Manhattan  8-7
5. Fairfield  8-7
6. Iona   6-8
7. Loyola  6-8
8. St. Peter’s  4-10
9. Marist  4-11
10. Canisius  2-13

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