Hopefully by now you’ve realized that ESPN is running its second annual 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon beginning tonight at midnight ET. If you haven’t and you still call yourself a college basketball fan, you should probably turn in your credential right now. RTC’s John Stevens will be hooked up to his caffeine drip all night long live-blogging the entire event from start to finish, but you know us, that’s not nearly enough. So we’ll help keep him awake with a 2 am ET RTC Live from the beautiful campus of St. Mary’s College in Moraga, CA, as the Gaels host San Diego State. Both teams have played one home game thus far, resulting in a blowout win for each (SMC 100, New Mexico State 68; SDSU 77, UC San Diego 52), and the Gaels and Aztecs both have serious aspirations of surprising folks in their respective leagues this year. SDSU was the second selection in the preseason poll of Mountain West media (behind BYU), and St. Mary’s was predicted third in a competitive race for the top of the WCC. The Aztecs, however, may be without the services of three of its stars, as star forwards Billy White and Tim Shelton along with guard Tyrone Shelley are suffering a variety of ailments and sat out the last game against UCSD (today’s reports are inconclusive on all three’s status). The two teams have played in each of the last two seasons (and seven times in the last six), with a split last season — SDSU taking last year’s NIT quarterfinal 70-66 behind 17 pts from White, and St. Mary’s winning a close battle 67-64 the December prior. We expect another good one tonight as we burn the midnight oil in Moraga.