1. After a quiet period surrounding Christmas, things pick back up again beginning tonight with a pair of games involving Pac-12 teams. The most high profile game is UCLA hosting Missouri in a chance to see whether the Bruins’ recent improvements on the offensive end are enough to have them ready to compete with very good teams. Missouri is coming off its most high profile win of the season, a nine-point win over Illinois in the Braggin’ Rights game, but they have also handled Stanford and Virginia Commonwealth in a pair of quality wins in the Bahamas. The Tigers will be playing a bit shorthanded, though, as reserve forward Tony Criswell – he of 18 minutes, six points and five rebounds per game – will miss the game with a broken finger.
2. Utah is the other Pac-12 team to break its Christmas fast and return to the court tonight, as they will host the College of Idaho, an NAIA school. While the Utes already have more wins this year than they earned all of last season, they still left quite a few on the table. Despite a 7-4 record, if the Utes had simply been able to hang on to three different second-half double-figure advantages, they could be 10-1 at this point. But with a young team that is still getting used to the idea of winning games, closing out victories is still a work in progress.
3. Oregon State gets back in the swing of things on Saturday when they host Towson at Gill Coliseum. And in a cool bit of marketing for the program, the first 1,000 fans into the venue will get a free Alamo Bowl t-shirt and everyone is invited to stick around after the game and watch the football game (vs. Texas) as well as participate in an autograph session with OSU players and coaches. Way to take a simple, relatively unappealing basketball game for which the students will be out of town and turn it into a blockbuster day for Beaver fans to spend enjoying both of their big-time sports programs.
4. Oregon got back from its Christmas break and resumed practice yesterday in advance of a meeting with Nevada on New Year’s Eve, and they are hoping to repeat last year’s improvement following their time off. Last year the Ducks got run over by Virginia then coasted through three uninspired wins over bad teams prior to Christmas break, before coming back and tearing through Washington State to kick off a strong conference run. Dana Altman recognizes that the parts are in place for the Ducks to again compete for a conference title, but he’ll have his team spending the next few practices working on offensive execution and defensive communication.
5. It seems like all week we have had a little something about the big Arizona win over San Diego State on Christmas night, but for the most part we have focused on Nick Johnson’s highlight-reel blocked shot in the waning moments. Head coach Sean Miller notes that, while Johnson’s play was great, senior Kevin Parrom put a bow on the game by running down the loose ball after the block and making sure that the Aztecs were unable to get a second-shot opportunity. That, coupled with Parrom’s offensive contributions, made him a underrated key to Arizona’s Diamond Head Classic title, even though teammates like Johnson, Solomon Hill, and Mark Lyons may normally get more publicity.

1. Jerry Palm of CBSSports.com is back with his first Bracketology of the year. He predicts his field as if the season ended today, not based on how he thinks teams will do the rest of the season. The Big 12 has six teams in Palm’s field: Kansas (#1 seed), Oklahoma State (#6), Kansas State (#8), Baylor (#11) Oklahoma (#12) and Iowa State, a #12 seed playing in one of the four play-in games. As Palm notes, the Jayhawks are the only #1 seed remaining from his preseason bracket. Duke is the overall No. 1 seed.
2. Bill Self turned 50 on Tuesday. Self is one of the best coaches in the country and is relatively young compared with what he has already accomplished. He will surpass 500 wins this season and is on pace to win his 900th game in about 15 years, according to Kansas City Star beat writer Rustin Dodd in this article yesterday. But Self shot down any talks of catching Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski someday. “I don’t think that I’ll want to coach near that long,” Self told Dodd. While it seems natural for a coach as successful as Self to stay on the sidelines for another two decades like Coach K, Jim Boeheim or Jim Calhoun, those instances of great coaches staying in the game well into their 60s and 70s are few and far between. If Kansas fans have Self patrolling the sideline for another decade, they should be ecstatic.
3. The idea of playing four games simultaneously next season in Cowboy Stadium looks to be dead, the Detroit Free Press and Matt Norlander of CBSSports.com have reported. It was the original plan of Michigan State Athletic Director Mark Hollis, the creator of the first aircraft carrier game last season. Being in Dallas, the Texas Longhorns seemed to be one of the eight teams who would participate, but there were just too many obstacles to overcome. It would have been a television nightmare (a television nightmare I would have watched, admittedly) and like college athletics have shown us recently, if it won’t work on TV, it probably won’t work at all.
4. Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated gave us his top five freshmen wings in a video segment last week, and Kansas guard Ben McLemore came in at No. 5. “Self has made clear,” Davis said. “That he (McLemore) is the one that needs to carry Kansas deep into March.” Davis is spot on. While Elijah Johnson, Jeff Withey, and Travis Releford provide senior leadership for the Jayhawks this season, it will be the play of McLemore that will determine if Kansas makes the Final Four. They might not make it deep into March with McLemore playing well, but they are certain to not advance if he plays poorly.
5. Many people might have forgotten about former Iowa State coach Larry Eustachy by now. He was fired in 2003 after a night partying in Columbia, Missouri, following a loss at Mizzou. He sat out a year, went to rehab, and landed at Southern Mississippi, where he took the Golden Eagles to the NCAA Tournament last season. Now at Colorado State, he has guided the Rams to a 10-2 start while coming up on a decade of sobriety. It is hard to imagine the coach in both of the stories linked are the same man.

1. No doubt it has been a frustrating season for Purdue and the Boilermaker fans, but the first step to fixing a problem is deciphering what has gone wrong. Jeff Washburn of the Lafayette Journal and Courier believes the Boilermakers know what the issues are, and the problems are rooted in the offense. Purdue misses players like Lewis Jackson and Robbie Hummel, who could orchestrate plays and take control of the offense in key stretches, but this year’s team simply does not shoot well from anywhere — the free throw line, the three-point line, or the field, in general. Everything from turnovers to senior leadership has a void, and it leaves Washburn wondering if Purdue can even find its way to an overall .500 record this season.
2. Whether things are good or bad, Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan has a pretty strong poker face. And when things have not been going well at times this season — the Badgers have had a few tough losses and have been dealing with some injury setbacks all year — he has remained stoic. Now that the Big Ten season is here, the Badgers are hoping that his demeanor can help keep them calm as they head into the gauntlet. “It’s been done before,” senior forward Jared Berggren said of turning things around in January. “We’re by no means writing ourselves out of it this early in the season. There’s a lot of basketball left to play and Coach Ryan has proven that he knows how to get the job done as long as we listen and start applying it on the court a little better and more consistently.”
3. Deverell Biggs, who is sitting out this season at Nebraska as a redshirt junior, was cited for drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident in Omaha last Sunday. Biggs reportedly had a blood-alcohol content level of .134 after the 20-year-old backed his car into another vehicle after Biggs remained stopped at a red light. According to the Omaha World-Herald, Biggs talked to the man momentarily but drove away before the two could exchange information. He was later tracked down by the police and the rest is history. It is a black eye for him and the program after he became the first in-state player to sign with Nebraska in 11 years, transferring in from Seward County (Kansas) Community College, where he was a first-team All-American.
4. When it came to hiring a new head coach, Illinois did not make headlines for its search. It is well known that several other candidates — Brad Stevens and Shaka Smart, namely — turned down the offer once the Fighting Illini parted ways with Bruce Weber. And when John Groce was hired away from Ohio, many were skeptical that his track record would translate to success in recruiting the greater Chicago area while competing in the Big Ten. Well, the Illini have certainly been in the headlines this year for their early showing. So far, at least, Groce has turned out to be a great hire — and the Chicago Tribune recognize that fact as one of the best sports decisions of the year for the area.
5. Dunk you very much to the Big Ten Network for putting together this compilation of the conference’s best high-flying slam dunks of the non-conference season heading into Big Ten playaround the New Year. The league has some of the best athletes in the country — Branden Dawson and Adreian Payne at Michigan State, Victor Oladipo at Indiana, Rodney Williams at Minnesota, and Sam Thompson of Ohio State come to mind — and they are all showcased here. Which ones are your favorites?

1. The New Jersey Nets fired coach Avery Johnson on Thursday, thus beginning the hunt for a replacement, and, of course, an established college coach is always a viable option. Cue the rumors of Kentucky coach John Calipari’s departure to the NBA. It is an annual rite of passage at this point, but Calipari and Kentucky have been there and done that. And he did it in New Jersey to boot. It just does not seem possible that he would leave at this point for another try in the big leagues, and definitely not a return to the same franchise. By the way, Calipari will have Kentucky in the hunt for another National Championship next year. He’s a coach made for the college game, and call me naive, but I think he finishes his career in Lexington.
2. Frank Martin continues to rack up some top shelf talent at South Carolina. With a strong recruiting class already set for 2013, Martin secured a commitment from Villanova transfer Ty Johnson. Johnson is a 6’3″ guard who averaged 3.3 points and 2.0 assists per game in 32 games of action in his freshman season, but will fill a need at point guard for the Gamecocks when he becomes eligible in December 2013. Martin is stockpiling talent in Columbia since his arrival this offseaso — in addition to Johnson, a top-75 recruit coming out of high school, Martin has also collected commitments from five-star Sindarius Thornwell, three-star center Desmond Ringer, and the son of former Gamecock star BJ McKie, guard Justin McKie. With improved talent in Columbia, things could turn around fairly quickly for South Carolina in the next several years.
3. LSU guard Anthony Hickey spent three games on the sidelines for disciplinary reasons earlier in the year, and now he will be out for a fourth game because of another violation. “Anthony has a lot of improvement to do in a lot of areas not only on the floor but off as well,” Tigers coach Johnny Jones said. “We have to try to help him develop.” Hickey is averaging 10.3 points and a national best 3.5 steals per game, but the point guard duties will be handed off to junior Andre Stringer. This string of suspensions isn’t the first time Hickey has landed in the dog house for various LSU coaches, and it likely won’t be the last.
4. Frank Haith’s Missouri Tigers are hitting their stride with big victories over Illinois and Virginia Commonwealth, but have recently suffered a minor setback as reserve power forward Tony Criswell will miss tonight’s UCLA game with a broken finger. Criswell is among the nation’s best offensive rebounders, with a 13.7% offensive rebounding rate. The Tigers are somewhat thin in the frontcourt beyond their starters Alex Oriakhi and Laurence Bowers, so Haith may choose to play small ball in Criswell’s absence with a three- or four-guard lineup. It’s not like Mizzou hasn’t gone small before, and been quite successful.
5. Kentucky guard Archie Goodwin went 4-of-17 from the field on Saturday in the Cats’ win over Marshall, but John Calipari needs Goodwin to make the easy ones against Louisville. Goodwin missed several shots at the rim against the Thundering Herd, leaving Calipari searching for answers. “I was disappointed, he missed four layups. I think he’s flippin’, Rod (Strickland) thinks he’s looking down, he’s not seeing the basket, he’s looking up at the last moment to shoot it. I don’t know what it is, I’ll watch the tape, see if I can figure out.” Expect Cal and Goodwin to watch the tape and figure it out quickly. Regardless, Calipari does not have much depth to put Goodwin on the bench if it happens again.

1. Keeping it Heel: Matt Hamm thinks that UNC, now unranked and at 9-3 with no victories against notable opponents, needs to tighten its rotation with time lacking for further “experimentation.” He advocates solutions that enhance the offense, including giving freshman Brice Johnson the lion’s share of the minutes at center. He also insists that UNC must play PJ Hairston and Leslie McDonald more to maximize UNC’s perimeter effectiveness. All of these moves have offense in mind, although the defense, which gave up 85 points to a struggling Texas team and 61 in the second half to East Carolina, has not always been a strong suit. Regardless, UNC needs to get things figured out as conference play is around the corner. One area that UNC could definitely improve in is getting to the free throw line — this season, the Tar Heels rank 335th in FTA/FGA, with Brice Johnson interestingly enough among the worst at getting to the free throw line.
2. Virginia has been one of the most enigmatic teams in the ACC this season — the Cavaliers soundly defeated Wisconsin at the Kohl Center, but are also 0-3 against the CAA, its only three losses of the season. Its latest loss, to previously 1-10 Old Dominion, has raised many of the lingering questions that Virginia has had all season. Tony Bennett’s normally stout defense was poor against ODU, surrendering 63 points, one shy of its maximum all season, in a game with few possessions. The absence and/or limited effectiveness of Jontel Evans has really plagued the Cavaliers, and their undersized front line came back to haunt them against the Monarchs, as UVA posted one of its worst rebounding efforts of the season. Virginia must avoid losses like these if it wants to be considered a legitimate NCAA Tournament contender.
3. Miami’s Reggie Johnson is an essential cog for the Hurricanes. Without Johnson in the lineup, Miami dropped two games in this week’s Diamond Head Classic. While he has not been particularly efficient this season — shooting only around 43% from the floor, a stark decline from previous seasons — he is the best on the team at getting to the free throw line, and is a good foul shooter for a big man (just over 70%). The effects of Johnson’s absence were most notably seen at the other positions where teams could focus more of their defensive attention as Miami lacked its skilled big man. Kenny Kadji bore the brunt of this attention, as he was just 5-of-16 in the Indiana State game. Miami needs Johnson to get back to action, not only because he is likely to improve to a performance in line with seasons past, but also because his presence opens up opportunities for Miami’s potentially lethal perimeter attack.
4. With Dez Wells and Alex Len getting a majority of the ink for 10-1 Maryland, an under-appreciated part of the Terrapins’ attack has been junior point guard PeShon Howard. Howard has quite a bipolar season stat line — he is 38th in the country in assist rate , but his turnover rate is nearly as high and is the worst on the team. Howard has also been an anemic shooter this season (just 8-of-31 overall), but adding to his strange profile, he is an incredibly good free thrower, albeit in a low sample size as well (15-of-17). Howard, in order to improve his overall profile, must keep teams a bit more honest when calling his own number, but Mark Turgeon has generally been pleased with his improved shot selection, as he has been known as a bit of a chucker in previous seasons. Regardless of his odd statistical profile, Howard will play a very important role in Maryland’s overall success this season, and he was nominated for the Bob Cousy Award, which honors the top point guard in the country..
5. State of the U: This article presents a detailed if slightly off-color look at some interesting statistics in the ACC this season. Some highlights include: Mason Plumlee is second in the ACC in scoring and first in rebounding, averaging over a double-double per game. NC State has three of the top four players in the conference in offensive efficiency. North Carolina, while ranked third in the country in scoring, has largely done it against poor competition — their upcoming game with UNLV will likely be the most accurate litmus test for the Tar Heels this season. Boston College’s woes can be at least partially explained by the fact that their second and third leading scorers are both shooting under 40% from the floor. There’s more than this in the article – make sure to check it out.

1. We are usually disappointed when a basketball game is not played, but when that game/event is the previously mentioned four games at one time concept championed by Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis we have to applaud. As we have stated before we appreciate the work that Hollis has done to make early season college basketball more visible, but in this case that proved to be his undoing. According to reports the primary road block to putting on the event was the lack of a television network or more specifically group of networks willing to broadcast the four games at the same time. At some level we are disappointed that college basketball could not generate enough interest to get this to happen, but in the end we are glad that the sport was not made in to a circus.
2. After a rough start, UCLA has started to show signs of becoming a solid team, but just as you would expect with any good Hollywood drama the Bruins cannot have a dull moment. With a big home game against Missouri looming tonight, the team now has to deal with rumors that yet another player–this time it is freshman Tony Parker–is considering transferring based on a series of tweets he posted (and then deleted) about how unhappy he was at UCLA. To be fair, the rumors that Parker might be the third Bruin in a little over a month to leave the school are based on some pretty extreme conjecture, but it does not reflect well on the program and Ben Howland that another player is even reported to be considering transferring even if those close to Parker deny the rumors.
3. Providence may not turn out to be the threat in the Big East that they were expected to be before they were hit by injury and eligibility issues, but they will get a little help when Vincent Council returns to action tonight. Council, who was sidelined just four minutes into the season after injuring his hamstring, will give the Friars a veteran presence at point guard. Council may look “very, very rusty” as Ed Cooley reported, but when paired with Kriss Dunn they could form a very formidable backcourt by the end of the season.
4. At this time, you could make a strong argument that Kansas coach Bill Self is the best in the business with his incredible run of conference championships and his ability to regularly produce national title contenders. Yesterday, Self turned 50 yesterday and dismissed a recent column from SI.com that stated that he was the coach most likely to challenge Mike Krzyzewski and his all-time wins record he said this of his chances: “Zero. Whoever [Ed. Note: That would be this guy.] wrote that, doesn’t know me very well. I don’t think that I’ll want to coach near that long.” To be fair to Glockner, he said that Self was the most likely to do it although it was more likely that none of the current crop of coaches would do it. Although Self’s ten-year, $52 million contract would be finished well before he approaches whatever total Krzyzewski ends up at it we have a hard time believing he would not chase it if he were close particularly with the amount of money that Kansas would probably put up for him to chase it.
5. Earlier this week we linked to some of the first 2012 retrospective posts that we had seen and now we have the first 2013 prospective post courtesy of Luke Winn, who tries to provide us with ten predictions for 2013. This may not be the type of column you are used to seeing from Winn (or at least not the kind that we usually link to here), but Winn does cover many of the big topics that we expect to be addressed in the next calendar year. Some of them are nothing more than pure speculation, but there are a couple of interesting educated guesses including one potential job opening that could lead to a huge swing of the coaching carousel.

Bennet Hayes is a regular contributor for RTC. You can find him @HoopsTraveler on Twitter. Night Line runs on weeknights during the season, highlighting a major storyline development from that evening’s games.

Cincinnati’s dreams of an unbeaten season, wild as they may have been, came to an end Thursday night in the Queen City. New Mexico wound up a point better in a predictably grinding contest, as Tony Snell’s fadeaway jumper with 2:28 to play would close out the scoring. No coach will be happy after a loss, but should Mick Cronin feel any extra pain tonight when realizing that his team’s dream of perfection disappeared? Should John Beilein, Mike Krzyzewski, Sean Miller and Larry Shyatt (coaches of the four remaining unbeatens) be paying any sort of attention to the pursuit of being the “Last Unbeaten Team?” If the March success of past title-holders is used as proof, it’s hard to really say how much weight the distinction deserves to hold.

Mick Cronin Shouldn’t Lose Too Much Sleep Over Cincinnati’s First Loss

It happens every year. The eyes of the college basketball world will begin to gain sharp focus in January or February, or perhaps if we are lucky, March. One team will lay claim to the title of “Last Unbeaten,” and for better or worse, we as college basketball fans seem to really care. Talking heads will banter about how long the run can last, where the significant hurdles lie on the schedule, and even if a perfect season is a real possibility. And this buzz doesn’t discriminate; whether you are Duke (the last unbeaten four times since Indiana’s perfect season in 1976), or Murray State (last year’s final unbeaten), the attention will follow. So we clearly do care, and look, it probably should be that way. The notion of a perfect season is a tantalizingly romantic one, having last been accomplished nearly four decades ago, when Bob Knight led an unblemished Indiana squad to a title. No matter how unlikely the perfect season may be, it’s undeniably fun to wonder if this year could be the next one. So dream away college basketball fans, but the question still remains – does this distinction really mean anything?

Read the rest of this entry »

Some quick thoughts from tonight’s inter-regional battle between New Mexico and Cincinnati…

Three Key Takeaways.

1. Unbeaten No More. Cincinnati is #8 in the AP Poll, #8 in the ESPN/Coaches Poll, and #10 in the RTC Poll this week, but we are not sure anyone actually believed the Bearcats were that good or if simply the momentum of an unbeaten campaign had put them there. They play hard and defend well, but this is a guard-heavy, flawed team. And when the guards are not hitting — the starting backcourt of Cashmere Wright, Sean Kilpatrick and JaQuon Parker went 14-of-42 including an astonishing six total makes from inside the arc — Cincinnati has a lot of trouble scoring. The good news for Mick Cronin\’s team is that his squad can put the flawless record behind them as Big East play approaches. His team is good enough to finish in the top quarter of the league this season, but they have to find a way to get more balance in their offense (11 points from the front line) before we will see them pushing the upward boundaries of the polls again.
2. Still Uncertain About New Mexico. Steve Alford’s squad is a tough team to get a read on this season. They have beaten a bunch of good-not-great teams but it is tough to discern what they actually do very well. Tony Snell and Kendall Williams are certainly capable players, but neither will take a game over in the same way that some of the other stars in the Mountain West will. Their defense and length was solid tonight, but they were playing a smallish, guard-oriented team in the Bearcats. They appear well-coached, but it\’s difficult to say how much that will matter against conference foes that already know who they are dealing with. The gut says that the Lobos are an NCAA Tournament team again — probably somewhere in the neighborhood of a #7-#10 seed — but that they are not quite in the same class with UNLV and San Diego State this season.
3. Impressive Effort From New Mexico’s Role Players. Everyone is familiar with the talents of Lobo stars like Tony Snell and Kendall Williams (who combined for 26 points and six rebounds), but I also came away impressed with the skill and effort level of two of New Mexico’s lesser-known players, Alex Kirk and Cameron Bairstow. Neither is the type of player for whom you run offensive sets, but both guys exhibited a knack for getting their hands on the ball near the basket, resulting in 22 points, 13 rebounds and an untold number of tips, scrapes, and clear-outs with their aggressive dispositions.

Star of the Game. Alex Kirk, New Mexico. As mentioned above, Kirk’s activity around the basket was impressive enough tonight on its own merits, but his proper positioning to maneuver in place to reject Sean Kilpatrick’s long jumper attempt with two seconds remaining ensured the big road win for the Lobos. Throw in 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting, seven rebounds and countless hustle points, and it was clear that the seven-foot sophomore was the difference in tonight’s game.

Quotable.

• “I thought I had him… I coulda drove him left but I didn’t.” – Cincinnati’s Sean Kilpatrick, referring to the final play of the game where his long jumper was blocked by Alex Kirk.
• “Sorry I’m late, I had to talk to Coach Knight. I wasn’t leaving until he said I was finished.” – New Mexico head coach Steve Alford, proving that a quarter-century of time doesn’t always change relationships.
• “That’s why you gotta be able to dance to every dance.” – Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin, on playing different styles successfully.

Sights and Sounds. For much of the game Cincinnati fans’ eyes and ears were split between the game on the court and the school’s football team playing Duke in the Belk Bowl. With all the plasma screens in the luxury boxes tuned to the football game, it was easy enough for much of the crowd to keep tabs on the Bearcats’ gridiron fortunes. When arena staff flashed that UC had taken a seven-point lead with a minute remaining, Fifth Third Arena erupted.

What’s Next. The immediate future gets no easier for either team, as both squads will suit up on New Year’s Eve for tough road games. Cincinnati travels to Pittsburgh for its AFC Central Big East opener, while New Mexico continues its tour of the Midwest by traveling to St. Louis.

We are five weeks into our Pac-12 Pick’Em and Adam is slowly running away with the thing. Sure, he’s only one game up on Parker, but with a week with so many similar picks like this one, and with those shorter conference weeks coming up, making up ground will be hard to do. Last week was rough on all of us, thanks to teams like USC and Utah choking away what we thought were sure wins. I was the only one to miss Stanford’s road win at Northwestern; I did come pretty close on the score, however. I had the Wildcats winning 71-69, but they fell 70-68. So now, we enter week five. New Mexico’s visit to Cincinnati and Missouri’s meeting with UCLA headline the list as our games of the week.

There’s only a single difference in opinion this week, as Drew is taking the visiting Lobos over host Cincinnati. I am the only one picking the Tigers-Bruins match-up to be a close ballgame, with Missouri pulling out a five-point victory in Los Angeles.

Here’s a look at the power rankings that Drew, Parker, Adam, and I have compiled after the sixth week of Pac-12 games (delta in parentheses):

1. Arizona, 12-0 (-): Arizona will be the only Pac-12 team to go through non-conference play undefeated, thanks to three walk-over wins and a last-second thriller in Honolulu in the Christmas-extended week six. After dispatching Oral Roberts in Tucson and East Tennessee State and Miami (Florida) on the islands, the Wildcats met San Diego State in the Christmas night final of the Diamond Head Classic. And if not for a game played 10 days prior in the desert, this one would have made a good choice for game of the non-conference season. Just like Arizona, the Aztecs came into Tuesday winners of their last 11. And at two points in the second half, it looked as if SDSU would leave with its 12th. But trailing 45-37, freshman Brandon Ashley made his mark on an otherwise lackluster night. Ashley scored six points and had a key assist in just over five minutes, and along with some help from Solomon Hill, pulled Arizona even at 52-all. The game would go back and forth from there, with the lead changing nine different times, and both teams tied at seven different points. The Wildcats’ perfect non-conference record was finally secured with an out-of-nowhere Nick Johnson block and controversial Kevin Parrom rebound as time expired. Up Next: 1/3 vs. Colorado.
2. Oregon, 10-2 (-): Played in front of more fans but a lesser national audience, Oregon was entangled in its own thriller last Wednesday in El Paso. And this time, the Pac-12 team didn’t come out on top. UTEP appeared to be practically begging Oregon to win the game, but the Ducks gave away chance after chance before the reluctant Miners finally closed out a 91-84 triple overtime win. Up Next: 12/31 vs. Nevada Christmas Came Early For UTEP Fans, While Arsalan Kazemi And The Ducks Left The Don Haskins Center Disappointed. (credit: Pac-12.com)
   

   Christmas Came Early For UTEP Fans, While Arsalan Kazemi And The Ducks Left The Don Haskins Center Disappointed. (credit: Pac-12.com)

3. Colorado, 9-2 (-): The Buffaloes hold steady at number three after destroying an awful Northern Arizona team, 98-51. Askia Booker and Xavier Johnson led all scorers with 17 points a piece in the victory. Up Next: 12/29 vs. Hartford.
4. Oregon State, 9-2 (-): Another week, another pair of unimpressive wins for Oregon State. The good news is of course that the Beavers are winning games, and that is the point of playing these contests. The bad news is that if they put out the type of efforts we saw against Howard and in the second half against San Diego, conference play is going to be a disaster. Up Next: 12/29 vs. Towson. Read the rest of this entry »