Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.  He will be reporting from the WCC Tournament this weekend in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Check for his game liveblogs at RTC Live: WCC Tournament throughout the weekend.

A little unexpected news on the injury front has turned what looked to be a rather drab WCC Conference Tournament into a hotbed of excitement. The news concerned the broken right hand of Saint Mary’s star guard Patty Mills, who had been told by his doctor not to count on being ready for the tournament. That was before a visit with the doc on Monday (3/2), at which time Mills was pronounced fit to resume practicing with the Gaels. Current plans from coach Randy Bennett had Mills participating in non-contact drills on Tuesday and Wednesday and full five-on-five scrimmages on Thursday, Friday and maybe even Saturday since Saint Mary’s doesn’t have to be in Las Vegas for its first game until Sunday at 8:30 p.m.

The condition of Mills’ hand is significant because it permits speculation about a possible rematch between Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga with revenge and an NCAA tournament bid in the balance. As the number one and number two seeds in the tournament, Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s need only to get by a single semifinal contest to face each other for a third time this season in the WCC championship game Monday night, March 9. Their first game on January 29 on Gonzaga’s home court in Spokane was shaping up to be Mills’ finest effort as a collegian, as he rattled the Zags for 18 points in the first 17 minutes of the game. Then as he eluded the Zags’ Jeremy Pargo on a dash into the key, Mills lost his balance and fell to the floor, with his right hand striking the hardwood first. Given the spills taken regularly by the fearless Mills it didn’t seem to be much to be worried about, but appearances were deceiving. He had broken metacarpal bones, requiring surgery, insertion of pins to stabilize the area and fitting of a cast. Things immediately went downhill for the Gaels, who were 18-1 and possessing the nation’s longest active winning streak at 15 heading into the Gonzaga game.

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Ryan Kish of George Mason Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the CAA.  He will be reporting from the CAA Tournament this weekend in Richmond, Va.

Having the privilege of attending this weekend’s CAA conference tournament, I’d like to share the fact that it’s probably going to be one of the most exciting in the country.  Starting this Saturday I will be liveblogging the most intriguing game from the sidelines for the CAA faithful (see RTC Live sidebar).  Choosing which game will be very difficult as almost any match-up will be worthy.  This weekend you will get an in-depth hands-on look into the tournament and some insight on what to expect.

Favorite:  VCU

The term “favorite” is kind of a loose term this season in the CAA, and even though VCU was picked by the coaches and media to be where they are now, any CAA fan will tell you that #1 seed won’t guarantee a championship visit.  The Rams have ridden the success of Eric Maynor as he guided his young squad through the CAA schedule but not without their share of bumps and bruises.  Nearly every team in the top of the conference has lost a game or two to the bottom dwellers and much can be said about the fact that VCU only had to face George Mason and Northeastern once each.  But despite that the Rams have shown more consistency in an unstable CAA and they have the tools to run the table in Richmond.  Head coach Anthony Grant has been here before and Eric Maynor is continuing to make his teammates better even with scoring 25+ a night. Forward Larry Sanders has been having a sensational season to date, on both ends of the court.  His play in the front court will be huge for the Rams.  VCU plays an aggressive, rough, in-your-face kind of game and that’s exactly the kind of squad I’d like to avoid in a single elimination tournament.  At times this season that same aggressiveness has led to trouble but if they can keep it under control and they will be the most dangerous team this weekend.

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Update (3/7).  Oops.  Our MVC correspondent will be unavailable on Sunday, so we regret to inform you that RTC Live will not be covering the MVC Championship Game.  Thank you for those of you who checked in with us the last two days, and we hope to see you again soon.

Update (3/6).  RTC Live will be back Saturday with one of the two semifinal matchups.  Come back this evening to vote on which game you’d like to see us liveblog.  We already know the first matchup is N. Iowa vs. Bradley.  Who will be the other two semifinalists?

Update (3/7).  The next RTC live game will be Creighton vs. Illinois St. at 4pm CST.  Join us for what will undoubtedly be a tremendous battle.

Hello MVC fans, and welcome to RTC Live’s ongoing coverage of Arch Madness from St. Louis, Missouri.  Our correspondent and man-on-the-move, Patrick Marshall, will be live-blogging and reporting from the River City throughout the weekend.  If there’s a major incident at the Scottrade Center, he’ll be all over it like Rush Limbaugh on Michael Steele.  Or something like that.   The Tournament begins tonight with two opening round games, so Patrick has already published his MVC Season Wrap and Tournament Preview for your viewing pleasure.

We’ll also be live-blogging select games throughout the weekend, starting tomorrow with the #4/#5 matchup between Bradley and Southern Illinois at 2:30pm CDT.   If you’re new to the site, the live-blog box will show immediately below this paragraph, and Patrick will be taking comments and questions throughout the game.  Particularly insightful questions will be chosen for him to take into the media press conference and/or locker rooms afterwards.  So if you really want to know why SIU underachieved this year (as an example), here’s your opportunity to ask Coach Lowery.  Afterwards, we’ll post takes from the day’s other games in the MVC Tourney and give you, the fans, a chance to select Saturday’s game that we liveblog.

Just another night of highly ranked teams playing as if they don’t want to be a high seed. However, I am always on top of my game and I bring 110% to the Fast Breaks everyday. So sit back, relax, and let me do the work for you.

• Rivals takes an expansive look at each and every conference tournament.
• Who better than Kyle Whelliston to recap all the conference tournaments that have already started.
• CBS’ Mike Freeman takes a fantastic look at why Blake Griffin isn’t receiving the same attention Tyler Hansborough did last year.
• Jameson Fleming tries valiantly to explain why Baylor continues to underachieve.
• Gary Parrish says forget tournament expansion, with the way these bubble teams are playing, we should think about cutting it in half.
• Sure, lets throw Northwestern onto the bubble. Bring’em on!!! The more merrier.
• Please Mr. Goodman, slow down your bubble watching, I am not yet in tournament shape for all these bubble watches.
• Math and statistics has helped us prove that college basketball is the hardest sport to win at on the road.
• Despite what Russ Pennell has done at Arizona, the Wildcats are looking for someone who has “had success at the highest level”….I am sorry, what level does Arizona play again?
• We made fun of Paul Harris for his in-game dietary habits. But he also managed to make some ridiculous plays as well.
• Will Duke being playing shorthanded against UNC? They better hope Lance Thomas and Brian Zoubek get healthy and fast.

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

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ – The postseason brackets are set and the Northeast Conference tournament tips off tonight. The schedule:

Thursday

• Quinnipiac at LIU
• Central Connecticut  at Sacred Heart
• St.Francis (NY) at Robert Morris
• Wagner at Mount St. Mary’s

**Semifinals are Sunday at the home court of the higher seed and the finals are next Wednesday, 8:00 on ESPN2. Again at the home court of the highest remaining seed (see below bracket).

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As part of our ongoing quest to provide you with the best college basketball coverage in the nation, we have enlisted the help of some of the finest team-specific bloggers on the planet to help us. With the NCAA Selection Show coming up on March 15th there are still several teams on the proverbial “bubble”. We figured it might be interesting to see what kind of nonpartisan arguments these bloggers could make for their team deserving a spot in the NCAA tournament. We welcome any discussion of their arguments and praise or criticism of their reasoning in the comment section. If your team is on the “bubble” and you would like to submit something, please contact us at rushthecourt@gmail.com.

Kansas State – submitted by TB at Bring On The Cats.

Kansas State Profile
Record: 19-10
RPI: 72
Record vs. RPI Top 50: 3-5
Record vs. RPI Top 100: 5-7
Best Wins: Missouri (home), Texas (road), Texas A&M (road), and Cleveland State (road)
Worst Loss: Oregon

After Tuesday night’s loss to Oklahoma State in Stillwater, K-State’s chances at receiving an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament are smaller than ever. Still, because the proprietors of RTC asked me to make K-State’s case, and because I’m an insufferable homer (OK, not really), I’m going to do my best. Also, ESPN’s Andy Katz still has us in consideration, so it’s still worth looking at what K-State needs to do.

As you can probably tell from the profile above, K-State’s non-conference schedule is bereft of, well, anything. The best teams we played in the non-con schedule were Kentucky, Iowa, and Cleveland State, and we only managed to defeat CSU among those teams as we dropped two-point decisions to both UK and Iowa. You might be wondering why I don’t have Iowa listed in the “Worst Losses” category, considering they’re at 105 in the RPI and 14-15 (4-12 Big 10). At the time, Iowa was at full strength, whereas later in the season several key players would lose time to injuries or suspensions. The Hawkeyes were never going to challenge for the Big 10 title, but they were a decent team at 11-4 before Cyrus Tate’s injury, and had decent wins over Northern Iowa and Iowa State.

Anyway, that one loss doesn’t change things for K-State. Given that we inexplicably lost to woeful Oregon and didn’t have a big win in the non-conference, we needed to separate ourselves in conference play. With wins over Missouri, Texas (on the road), and Texas A&M (on the road), we gave ourselves a chance. But with last night’s loss to Oklahoma State, the best we can hope for is a tie for fourth place in the Big 12 at 9-7, a tie we will win by virtue of our head-to-head win over Texas. The problem is, with Texas, Texas A&M and, to a lesser extent, Oklahoma State having more impressive non-con resumes, we needed to have a clearly superior conference resume to even the playing field. While our conference run still stacks up favorably with all our intra-conference bubble competition, we failed to clearly distinguish ourselves.

One thing that plays in K-State’s favor that wouldn’t have been true in the recent past is the strength of the Big 12 North this season. Coming into this week, the unofficial divisions were 14-14 against each other, but after Kansas’s inexplicable loss to Texas Tech and Colorado’s continued woefulness, the South now owns a 16-15 advantage. But with KU owning wins over Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M; Missouri owning wins over every South opponent it has played, and K-State picking up road wins over Texas and Texas A&M, it’s clear the North is not the South’s little brother this season. If you compare the records of the teams from each division, you will notice that the South did not fare markedly worse against itself as compared to its record against the North, indicating the South didn’t beat each other up and pick off easy wins against the North. The divisions actually appear to be pretty evenly matched.

• Oklahoma: 4-2 North, 8-1 South (Oklahoma State remaining)
• Texas: 2-3 North (@ KU remaining), 7-3 South
• Oklahoma State: 4-2 North, 5-4 South (@ OU remaining)
• Texas A&M: 3-2 North (Missouri remaining), 5-5 South

• Kansas: 9-1 North, 4-1 South (Texas remaining)
• Missouri: 7-3 North, 5-0 South (@ Texas A&M remaining)
• Kansas State: 5-4 North (Colorado remaining), 3-3 South
• Nebraska: 5-5 North, 2-3 South (@ Baylor remaining)

(Note: I omitted the bottom two teams from each side because, really, does anyone care what Baylor, Texas Tech, Iowa State and Colorado did? Yeah, me neither.)

So, our last shot at an at-large bid is to impress in the conference tournament. If K-State does manage the four seed, it will likely play Texas in the 4/5 game on Thursday in Oklahoma City. A win there would be a big resume boost and would affirm the earlier win in Austin, not to mention giving the Wildcats a third shot at KU on Friday. The Jayhawks will be the top seed in the Big 12 and are one of the hottest teams in the country right now, Wednesday night’s debacle in Lubbock notwithstanding. If K-State could somehow come away with the win there, they would have two impressive wins on the last weekend and would be playing in the conference tourney finals on Saturday. Of course at that point, you might as well just win the title game and eliminate all doubt, but it would at least give us a chance. Beyond the two impressive wins, our “Last 12” record would be 9-3 at that point, another selling point to the committee.

Undoubtedly, K-State is still in the “Work Left to Do” category, and at this point it’s probably more like “A Whole Lotta Work Left to Do.” However, using the scenario outlined above, I believe it’s possible for K-State to remain in consideration for one of the last at-large berths. A win over Colorado would push K-State to 20-10 overall, and two games in the conference tournament, likely against Texas and KU, could push the record to 22-10 with impressive wins on the last weekend of the season. Given that other bubble teams aren’t exactly making huge statements right now, either, a late run could impress the committee. While we’re at it, it wouldn’t hurt K-State if Texas A&M and Oklahoma State would lose this weekend – their opponents are Missouri and Oklahoma, respectively – and go quietly into the night at the conference tournament in Oklahoma City.

We held off on doing a post about this since every other blog already had a post up about it, but you may have heard that Rick Pitino and Christian Laettner were filming a commercial for Vitaminwater recapturing the magic of the 1992 East Regional Final. Personally, I enjoyed the Kentucky fans reaction the most.

Well today we received an e-mail in our inbox letting us know that the commercial was finally online. Here it is.

Duke fans, feel free to run around your homes or offices like mad men (or women). Kentucky fans will be back in a few hours after they get done puking.