1. It’s been a harrowing couple of weeks for Connecticut freshman Ryan Boatright as he awaited the NCAA’s ruling on his eligibility, but they cleared him to play and he returned to the court in this weekend’s loss to Notre Dame. While he is trying to move on, his lawyer and mother are not happy with the NCAA’s decision to release the details of what Boatright and his mother considered a private investigation. Boatright’s mother is pondering legal action but it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense at this point. The issue has already been drawn out for long enough, and a legal battle will keep it in the news even longer, something I doubt the Boatright family relishes.
2. As always, plenty of exciting basketball was played this weekend, but no game received more attention than Syracuse‘s controversial win over West Virginia. The Orange got the benefit of a blown goaltending call and held on to win by two points. Coach Bob Huggins wasn’t thrilled with the result and rightfully so. The Mountaineers played well enough to win a difficult road game and it is never good when the officials are directly involved in determining the outcome, as clearly happened there.
3. It is encouraging that Seton Hall forward Herb Pope is shouldering the blame for the Pirates’ fourth straight loss, but that won’t be enough to stop the team’s free fall in the Big East standings. Taking the blame is great, but improving his play would be better. Pope is the team’s best player and against Louisville on Saturday he was just 4-13 from the field. The Pirates aren’t good enough to consistently win when their best offensive option is struggling, so Pope will need to pick up his game quickly if Seton Hall still wants to make the Tournament.
4. Villanova should be kicking itself Saturday after blowing an 18-point lead in a loss to Marquette. It was the Wildcats’ second-straight second-half collapse and the mistake that cost them Saturday was a silly error by the team’s veteran leader, Maalik Wayns. Wayns picked up a technical foul for arguing a blown call and Marquette took advantage of the change in momentum and never looked back. Wayns was probably right to be upset, but that doesn’t excuse his inability to curb his frustration. Maybe I am extrapolating a small incident too much, but those types of stupid mistakes are indicative of why ‘Nova has struggled so badly this season. The team has plenty of talent, just not a lot of discipline or mental toughness.
5. Don’t look now but the Pittsburgh Panthers look poised to make a run. Considered an afterthought after seven straight conference losses over the last four weeks, the Panthers handily beat No. 10 Georgetown on Saturday and looked like a different team from the one that looked soft and disorganized earlier this season. It shouldn’t be too big a surprise that the team has some fight because they still have talent and Jamie Dixon is an excellent coach. That said, it might be too little too late and it would be a bigger story if they could win impressively away from the Peterson Center.

1. While all season-ending injuries are disheartening, the one that has taken Kevin Parrom out for season is especially difficult after all he has had to endure recently. Parrom as you probably remember was shot while visiting his ailing mother in New York City just a short time before she died, which was a few months after his grandmother passed away. Parrom, who had been showing signs of playing like he used to recently, was dealt another setback as he will be out for the rest of the season after breaking his right foot in Arizona‘s two-point loss to Washington on Saturday. Fortunately, based on the way he appears to have handled several much bigger setbacks in his life we expect Parrom to bounce back from this and be a force for the Wildcats next season.
2. Connecticut got its versatile freshman guard Ryan Boatright back this weekend, but not without more controversy. On Saturday, the NCAA released a statement clearing Boatright to play and also provided a timeline with some of the alleged improper benefits that Boatright and his family reportedly received. The following day while Boatright was playing the attorney representing the Boatright family issued a statement criticizing the NCAA for releasing the information about the alleged improper benefits and threatened the NCAA with legal action. The NCAA then replied with an update to the document (a blue text box in the prior link) that said their previous statement was “factual and in response to numerous public misstatements and the resulting inaccurate reporting by some media”. We are not sure when this will end, but at this point it is beginning to seem petty and would probably be best for both sides to let it fade away rather than trying to get the last word in.
3. There has been a lot of talk about why there has not been as much interest in college basketball this season after many people expected the sport to have a breakthrough season with several potential lottery picks opting to return to college for at least another season. Many pundits have proposed solutions to fix this, but Dan Wolken’s may be among the most interesting that we have heard. In a column yesterday, Wolken proposed that the start of the college basketball season be moved back to January and the NCAA Tournament start in May. Under this proposal, college basketball would not have to compete with college football and would be finished by the time the NBA Playoffs were in full swing. While some fans and some administrators may find this jarring to their established sensibilities it does make some sense and although it may interfere with college finals, which would only affect Duke students according to Dick Vitale, it could be a generate more season-long interest for many fans. At the very least moving back the season so it does not start at the most important time of the college football season would be a big boost. If January-May is too much for administrators, perhaps a season that starts in December after the college football conference championship games could provide a reasonable compromise.
4. The streak is over. Mercifully, Towson ended its NCAA Division I-record losing streak at 41 games as it knocked off UNC-Wilmington 66-61 on Saturday. The Tigers, who improved to 1-22 (bubble team status in the Pac-12), were led by 18 points from Marcus Damas. There are quite a few numbers that will give you a sense of just how bad this losing streak was, but we will now turn our attention to Binghamton, which now has the longest losing streak in Division I at a rather pedestrian 22-game losing streak. We are guessing this will be brought up on PTI much to the dismay of Mr. Tony.
5. Charleston will be without Bobby Cremins for the foreseeable future as the legendary coach has taken an indefinite medical leave of absence to tend to undisclosed medical conditions. Cremins, who has compiled a 579-375 record in his career, is best known for his time at Georgia Tech where he led the school to the 1990 Final Four, but has also made a mark at Charleston where he has gone 125-68 in a little over five and a half seasons and pulled off several memorable upsets over more prominent schools. Cremins will be replaced for the time being by assistant coach Mark Byington. We wish Bobby a speedy recovery from whatever he is dealing with and hope that it is not too serious.

This Weekend’s Lede. In the season’s first non-football weekend (if you were watching the Pro Bowl, sorry, we can’t help you), we were left with a bunch of ho-hum games this weekend, but that doesn’t mean that they were unimportant. As of right now, there are approximately 60-70 teams that have a realistic shot at putting a run together the rest of the season to earn one of those elusive 37 at-large bids for the NCAA Tournament. Right now, it’s easier to find teams that don’t deserve an at-large than those that do, but that will probably change as teams separate themselves over the next six weeks. For the time being, here’s what we experienced this weekend…

Your Watercooler Moment. Iowa State RTCs Kansas.

In one of the more predictable situations of a hot team playing great basketball facing a hungry, up-and-coming team needing a statement win in its own building, Iowa State took it to Kansas in the last few minutes of their Saturday matchup, resulting in a major RTC and one of the biggest wins in recent Cyclones basketball history. The Mayor suffered an avalanche of criticism for his lack of coaching experience upon his hire two offseasons ago, but sporting a 5-3 Big 12 record and looking every bit the part of an at-large NCAA team for the first time since 2005, it now appears that it is he who will have the last laugh. The other takeaway from this game is that NPOY candidate Thomas Robinson may have met his Kryptonite, at least at the college level, in the form of ISU’s Royce White. The beastly Cyclone big man outplayed Robinson in both of their matchups this season (18/9/5 assts vs. 13/7 yesterday; 18/17/4 assts vs. 11/14/3 blks two weeks ago), and that’s not an easy task to perform. For our money we’d love to see a Round Three in March in Kansas City at the Big 12 Tournament.

Five More Weekend Storylines.

• The Goaltend That Wasn’t. With Syracuse up two in the closing seconds of a hard-fought game with West Virginia on Saturday, the Mountaineers’ Truck Bryant fired up this wayward shot from the outside:

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Stanford at California, January 29, 5:30 PM PST, FSN

The Big Game, basketball edition (part one), lost a bit of its luster last weekend when Stanford got swept by the Washington schools, but with California sitting tied atop the conference standings with Oregon, and with the Cardinal sitting just a game back, there is still plenty of importance to go around here.

Aaron Bright And Stanford Have Slowed A Bit As The Quality Of Opponent Has Increased (photo credit: Liza Hafalia, San Francisco Chronicle)

For the Cardinal, after losing just one of their first 11 games – and that one to Syracuse at Madison Square Garden – the uptick in level of competition over the last few weeks has exposed them a little bit. After beating up on low-majors (like Bethune-Cookman and Central Arkansas) and mid-majors (like Fresno State and Colorado State), and even sneaking out some tough wins over bubble-minded high majors (Oklahoma State and North Carolina State), Johnny Dawkins’ club has lost four of its last nine games, with all four losses coming to teams ranked lower than #80 in the nation by Ken Pomeroy. Throw in some tight wins (a one-point win against UCLA, a four-overtime battle over Oregon State and even a slugfest W over Utah), and it is clear that despite the major strides this Stanford team has made this season, this is certainly not a team that is going to outclass conference opponents on a regular basis. Along the way, their once stellar efficiency numbers on both ends of the court have taken a significant hit — in their last four losses, Stanford has averaged just over one point per possession offensively, while giving up 1.16 PPP. In their first 11 games of the season, they only allowed more than one point per possession once (the NC State win), but in the last nine they’ve done so five times. Part of that is due to the fact that they’ve been facing better athletes. Where they once were able to outclass opponents on the glass, they’ve now been playing teams with their athletic equals, and the rebounding numbers have dipped. Likewise, guys like Aaron Bright and Chasson Randle have been unable to keep up their ridiculously hot shooting paces; Bright was 49% from three in non-conference play and is down to 37% in conference play while Randle has dipped from 42% to 36%.

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On an exciting Saturday of ACC play, everything pretty much went as expected. Virginia Tech’s surprising slide to the bottom of the conference continued at the merciless hands of Terrell Stoglin, while Clemson found a little more consistency in its defeat of Wake Forest. The North Carolina State – Virginia game was as close as expected, and included the expected Cavaliers win, while Duke came away with its win against St. John’s despite a surprisingly close game thanks to the Herculean efforts of Moe Harkless (30 points and 15 rebounds). Duke won the game with its increasingly refined and balanced offensive attack, but the fact that game remained close speaks to the Devils’ troubles on defense.

Rivers and Duke Survived St. John's Upset Bid in Cameron Saturday

Taking Care of Business

• Miami at Boston College at 1:00 PM on ESPN3.com
• Georgia Tech at North Carolina at 6:00 PM on ESPNU

Boston College and Georgia Tech are the two worst teams in the conference. Virginia Tech and Wake Forest have similarly bad records, but each team shows flashes of potential that makes each squad seem a little less damned than their bottom-of-the-standings compatriots. Though Miami hasn’t shown it yet, the emergence of Kenny Kadji and Shane Larkin means that the Hurricanes can put at least five very good players on the court. This team is still figuring things out, but it’s unclear if Boston College’s team even understands the concept of basketball. Meanwhile, Georgia Tech is going to have a hard time matching up with North Carolina. Defense appeared to be an early strength of Georgia Tech, but since the beginning of conference play, the Yellow Jackets have been the worst defensive team in the conference while still managing to remain thoroughly underwhelming offensively. The simplest recipe for beating the Tar Heels has been an effective perimeter attack paired with aggressive ball pressure, and unfortunately for Georgia Tech, these are two things that this team can’t actually do that well. Daniel Miller is a good enough defender in the post to effectively handle either Tyler Zeller or John Henson, but it’s unclear who takes whichever player Miller doesn’t guard. Worse, on the offensive end, Miller is limited, and against the North Carolina frontcourt, he might really struggle to score. Miami and North Carolina are clear favorites, but Boston College already has a pair of surprising conference wins, and somehow Georgia Tech has beaten North Carolina in the past four match-ups. Hard to hang your hat on either of these fun facts, but it’s at least something.

A key Big East matchup takes place in New Jersey tonight, as Louisville visits Seton Hall with a chance to move to the positive side of the ledger for both teams.

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I. Renko is an RTC columnist. He will kick off each weekend during the season with his analysis of the 26 other non-power conferences. Follow him on twitter @IRenkoHoops.

The now-annual Bracket Buster weekend is a great late-season non-conference bounty, especially for mid-major hoops fans.  This year’s matchups will be announced on Monday, and today we take a look at the top five games we hope to see scheduled.  That, plus a look back and a look forward, after the updated top 15.

Top Five Potential Bracketbuster Matchups

This year, there are 22 Bracketbuster squads in the RPI top 100, with 13 slated to play home games and nine set to hit the road. This creates a slight discrepancy between the strength of the home teams and the road teams, which is magnified when you consider that the breakdown is 12 to six among teams in the top 85.  Nonetheless, there are some great potential matchups.

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David Gao is the RTC correspondent for the Big West Conference. You can also find his musings online at Zotcubed, a UC Irvine blog, or on Twitter @dvdgao.

Reader’s Take 

The Week That Was

• Long Beach State Halfway Home: UC Riverside’s David Chavarria was one made free throw away from handing the 49ers their first conference loss of the season on Thursday, with the game all tied up at 63 and two seconds left. Fortunately for Long Beach State, he missed, and the game went into overtime. Coach Dan Monson’s crew proceeded to take control of the extra period, propelling the 49ers to a 77-70 win and a sparkling 8-0 conference record halfway through the 16-game schedule. Thursday’s UCR game would have been a classic letdown game after Saturday’s impressive blowout of UC Santa Barbara on national television, but it’s clear that Long Beach State is determined to win out.
  

  Dan Monson Has Long Beach State Playing Excellent Basketball

• Cal Poly Ties NCAA Record: The Mustangs made their first 11 three-pointers against Cal State Northridge on January 21, tying the all-time NCAA record for consecutive made threes. Cal Poly shut an incredible 71.4% on the night from long distance, going 15-21. Of course, they followed that up by shooting a paltry 3-29 the following game against Pacific (10.3%). The two nights added together equal 18-50, good for 36%, or their approximate season average.
• Big West Lands Slew of Midseason Transfers: Some of the future stars of the Big West officially enrolled for the spring semester recently, with Long Beach State and Cal State Fullerton the big winners. Arizona State star and southern California native Keala King is transferring to Long Beach after averaging 13.7 points in 13 games with the Sun Devils this year. Rumored to have character issues since high school, it will be interesting to see if King can settle in to lead the new era of 49er basketball along with fellow transfers Tony Freeland (DePaul) and Edgar Garibay (Loyola Marymount). In addition, Cal State Fullerton pulled in yet another D-I transfer (they currently have eight on their roster) in UTEP’s Darius Nelson, a freshman who never played a game for Tim Floyd. While some D-I transfers have excelled as expected (Orlando Johnson comes to mind), others haven’t received as much playing time as anticipated (Nate Garth, Johnson’s teammate).

Casper Ware And The 49ers Have Control Of The Big West. One Question Sure To Be Asked Is Whether They Have The Insurance Policy Of An At-Large Resume Worthy Of A Bid. (Keith Srakocic/AP)

Power Rankings

1. Long Beach State (15-6, 8-0) – Long Beach State fans were able to let out a huge sigh of relief on Thursday against UCR during the aforementioned missed free throw from David Chavarria with the game on the line, as Long Beach went on to complete the first half of conference play at a perfect 8-0. What’s more impressive is that arguably their three toughest games in conference, on the road against Cal Poly, UCSB and UCR, will all go down in the books as wins. Their supposed biggest test coming into conference play against UCSB at the Thunderdome, a game televised nationally on ESPNU, turned out to be a laugher, as the 49ers ran away with a lopsided 71-48 win. The question going forward remains the same: can Long Beach’s heavily used starting group stay fresh and maintain enough energy to close the season strong? Edis Dervisevic being reinstated from his academic suspension helps as the 49ers look to keep their NCAA at-large chances alive. Read the rest of this entry »

Danny Spewak is the RTC correspondent for Sun Belt Conference. You can find him Twitter @dspewak.

Reader’s Take 

The Week That Was

• Now off to the best start in program history, Middle Tennessee has its sights set on more than just a Sun Belt East Division title. Instead, the Blue Raiders have positioned themselves for an NCAA Tournament at-large bid, especially if they can win at Vanderbilt in an out-of-conference tilt this weekend. At 20-2, MTSU has not lost in league play yet, and it leads preseason favorite Florida Atlantic by four games in the win column. Joe Lunardi from the vaunted four-letter network has the Blue Raiders in the NCAAs as a #12 seed, so they may actually have a little breathing room if they fail to win the SBC tourney. Of course, this is all moot if they stumble down the stretch in conference play.
• A lot of teams have beaten Lousiana-Monroe this season — 19, to be exact. But during the Warhawks woeful 2-19 season, no team has come close to what Troy did to them last weekend. The Trojans, never shy to jack up three-pointers under coach Don Maestri, tied an NCAA record by making 11 straight three-pointers in a 91-63 victory. Overall, Troy made 15 threes, and that streak of 11 threes ties marks set by Niagara and Eastern Kentucky in 1997. The statistics get better and better, too. Troy made almost as many threes (15) as twos (15), and Justin Wright tied his career-high with four made treys. And as for the Warhawks? They made a measly six three-pointers.

Thursday night was not a good night for people who like close games. Despite admirably hanging tough for a chunk of the game, there was no way Boston College was going to out-tough Virginia, with or without Assane Sene. Meanwhile, upset-minded North Carolina State received a stern reminder in Chapel Hill that their turn around isn’t complete just yet. Saturday, however, offers some intriguing story lines, capped up with an epilogue to Thursday night’s action.

Prime Time Showdown

NC State Not Quite Ready For Prime Time

• Virginia at North Carolina State at 8:00 PM on ESPN2

The Cavaliers bounced back from their surprising loss to Virginia Tech last weekend with a command performance against the thoroughly outgunned Boston College. Playing in Raleigh against a North Carolina State team that was embarrassed on Thursday, Virginia has a more challenging task ahead of them. Both of these teams are probably among the top five teams in the conference, but both have a lot to prove. If Virginia wants to have any hope of remaining in the polls, they need an overpowering road win against the Wolf Pack. North Carolina State, on the other hand, needs a win by any margin. The blessing and curse of the conference schedule for NC State is that it’s relatively soft. The team will finish the year with plenty of wins, but their chances for quality wins are few and far between. Taking care of a beatable Virginia team at home is a must if NC State wants to be playing basketball throughout March.

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