This weekend marks the end of the decade-long Bracketbuster era — or experiment, depending on your perspective. Sadly, if appropriately, it looks like the event will go out with more of a whimper than a bang. Not a single game features a top 25 team, resulting in little hype for this year’s slate. But for true mid-major basketball fans, no top 25 ranking, or lack thereof, is going to dissuade them from devouring the late season, inter-conference action among the country’s best, under-the-radar-until-March teams. Here’s a preview of the five Bracketbuster games we’re most looking forward to, followed by an updated Top 10, our weekly honor roll, and the most compelling non-Bracketbuster games of the coming week.

Can Matthew Dellavedova And His Prominent Mouthpiece Lead the Gaels to a Much-Needed Win Over Creighton? (Las Vegas Sun / Sam Morris)

1. Creighton at St. Mary’s (6 pm, ESPN) — Both teams enter what is perhaps the premier Bracketbuster matchup with a great deal to prove. Creighton’s hot 17-1 start has given way to a rough 5-5 stretch, as the depth of the MVC has taken its toll. In four of those five losses, Creighton’s once unstoppable offense slowed to a pace of less than a point per possession. An at-large Tournament bid remains a safe bet, even with a loss to St. Mary’s, but the Bluejays are no doubt looking to this game to reignite their offense and their season. St. Mary’s, on the other hand, is in desperate need of a quality win for its Tournament resume. Having been swept by Gonzaga, Saturday’s matchup is a virtual must-win for the Gaels. Both teams have highly efficient offenses that rely heavily on the three-point shot. Whichever defense can step up its game may emerge with the win.
2. Ohio at Belmont (10 pm, ESPN) — This should be a really entertaining game between two teams who love to run and gun. But for the colors of their jerseys, it may be hard to tell the two apart, as the Bobcats and Bruins have remarkably similar statistical profiles. Both are high-possession squads that shoot more than 40 percent of their field goals from three-point range and rank in the top 20 nationally in forcing turnovers. Both have high effective field goal percentages, but rebound poorly and allow their opponents to shoot far more free throws than they do. Toss in a great point guard matchup between seniors D.J. Cooper and Kerron Johnson, and you have the ingredients for a great nightcap to the day’s action. 
3. South Dakota State at Murray State (8 pm, ESPN2) — Neither team is as good as it was last season, but both returned their star player. And it’s their matchup at the point guard spot, with Nate Wolters squaring off against Isaiah Canaan, that makes this a must-see game. The two players are the heartbeats of their respective team’s offenses. Each uses roughly 30 percent of all possessions, ranking them in the top 50 in the country. Wolters has been on a particularly nasty tear of late, averaging more than 33 points over his last five games, though two of his 30-plus efforts in that stretch were in defeat. Canaan, meanwhile, is coming off his own 35-point outburst in a win over Morehead State.
4. Detroit at Wichita State (4 pm, ESPN2) — Wichita State has bounced back from a recent three-game swoon with a four-game win streak that includes two close victories over Illinois State and Indiana State this past week. They’ll be the favorites against Detroit, but his game has definite upset potential. Detroit is on the upswing, winning six of their last seven, and developing a potent offensive attack with a multitude of options, from Ray McCallum’s attacking ability to Jason Calliste’s three-point shot to Nick Minnerath’s versatile inside-out game to Doug Anderson’s physical interior play. The Titans will try to push the tempo, while the Shockers will try to slow things down and pound the ball inside to their big men Cleanthony Early and Carl Hall, who may find success against Detroit’s mediocre interior defense.
5. Denver at Northern Iowa (8 pm, ESPN3) — After a rough 4-6 start to MVC play, Northern Iowa has righted the ship and fought its way back to where we thought it would always be — at the top of the league standings, just a step behind Wichita State and Creighton. They face a Denver team that has flown a bit under the radar, recovering from a slow start to the season to win 13 of their last 14 games. A trip to Cedar Falls will be a test of just how far the Pioneers have come. Expect a low-possession, halfcourt-oriented game, with a steady barrage of three-point shots. The Panthers have a balanced attack, with five players averaging between 9 and 13 points. Denver will turn primarily to Chris Udofia, the versatile forward who is the hub of their Princeton offense.

And now on to our updated Top 10 rankings, weekly honor roll, and the (other) games we’re keeping an eye on …

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Welcome to this week’s RTC Podblast, hosted by Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114). In a week full of competitive and interesting games, the guys focus in on the three biggest of the slate — Michigan State-Indiana, Kansas-Oklahoma State, and Florida-Missouri, while looking ahead to a weekend of action slightly better than last. As always, the weekly outline is below, so feel free to jump around to the place that most suits your interest…

• 0:00-6:19 – Kansas in the Big 12 Driver Seat Yet Again
• 6:19-13:45 – Indiana Cements Itself as Top Team
• 13:45-15:33 – Florida Reminds Us Not to Trust Them
• 15:33-17:57 – Preview Big Weekend in the A-10
• 17:57-19:17 – Creighton and Saint Mary’s Headline Last BracketBusters
• 19:17-20:57 – Another Week Another Exciting MW Game
• 20:57-23:16 – End of a Big East Battle at the Carrier Dome/Wrap

From the moment it was first rumored, the relocation of the conference tournament to Las Vegas has created quite a buzz among Pac-12 basketball fans. Adam Butler (@pachoopsAB) of PacHoops will be here every week as he offers his unique perspective along our March to Vegas.

I got a text from my Cal buddy last night, “You’re welcome for Cal again… But 48 points…” This of course set off a chain of text exchanges that culminated in a conversation about whether or not I’d be joining him at Bonnaroo in June – a welcome digression, albeit extremely tangential. But my dear friend had a point. Those 48 points are a less-than-exciting, underwhelming, slow score. It’s for this very count that many of us declare Bo Ryan an eye-ripping excitement-suck for whose style we’d wish the NCAA death penalty upon our own program before enduring a season. The funny thing about that is Bo Ryan wins. Not one of my friends who attended Wisconsin or cheer for the Badgers has seemed to have a problem with his .725 winning percentage. Wisky wins and so too did the Cal Bears on Thursday night. And this is the only stat that matters this time of year.

It Hasn’t Always Been Pretty, But Mike Montgomery Has His Golden Bears Playing The Best Ball In The Pac-12 (credit: Mark J. Terrill)

We are on the cusp of March and by most accounts (check this aggregation out) the Golden Bears are shoving (get it?) their way into the madness. And they most certainly will not be dancing with a statistically intriguing loss. That’s to say, had they shot 48%, outrebounded the Ducks, and committed just 10 turnovers en route to disappointing loss, 74-71, the committee would’ve seen just another loss on a team that’s already wearing nine of them (including a home loss to Harvard). Statistically speaking, Cal had a 27% chance of winning that game. The projected final was 71-64, which is to say that based on the standard game for these two, Oregon was going to win relatively handily. Something different had to happen. So Cal forced a deviation from the norm, limited the game’s possessions, and adjusted the dynamic of the game’s pace.

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Poor defensive rebounding is a well-known weakness of the North Carolina State Wolfpack. As gifted as this team is offensively, shoddy interior defense and an inability to snag defensive rebounds have been a thorn in the side of Mark Gottfried all season. So in an attempt to supercharge his lineup’s skills on the boards, Gottfried went big and started 6’8″ T.J. Warren at small forward and benched fellow freshman Rodney Purvis. The move paid off big time in a game that saw near-total board dominance against the overmatched Florida State Seminoles. At least, that’s the narrative that we were treated to here.

Warren’s Inclusion in the Starting Lineup Paid Off; Or Did It? (credit: newobserver.com)

Starting Warren over Purvis is a move that makes a lot of sense, but there are a few things about this story that don’t add up. First, was it the lineup change that led to such a great game? I doubt it. Florida State is the worst rebounding team in the conference — everyone kills them on the boards. They are ranked 242nd in the nation on the offensive glass. They are even worse on the defensive boards. Out of 347 Division I schools, there are only 27 that are worse on the defensive boards than the Seminoles.  If the test for successful rebounding was being able to handle FSU, the bar was set incredibly low.

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Jimmy Kelley is an ACC correspondent for Rush the Court. Follow him on Twitter @DevilsInDurham.

Virginia Tech is one of the most infuriating teams to watch in the ACC. When your best player is the nation’s leading scorer the list of other things that need to go right in any given game to get a win is actually pretty short. It starts with playing good enough defense so that the game doesn’t reach the 70s. If that can be accomplished, the rest of the team — nine players playing 10+ minutes per game — need to score a total of somewhere around 40 points. On Thursday night, the Hokies did neither and actually played so poorly on defense that they posted the blueprint of exactly how not to approach an upset bid against Duke.

Seth Curry scored 19 of his 22 points in the first half against Virginia Tech on Thursday night. (AP Photo)

The odds of Thursday’s contest being close were pretty poor to begin with, but with the way they played defense and let the Blue Devils impose their will early and often sent that possibility completely out the window. NC State and Miami created the blueprint of how to beat Duke this season and although the Hokies don’t have the personnel to execute that type of game plan, they at least could have tried to make life difficult for Duke. The Blue Devils made eight of their nine three-point attempts in the first half and let Seth Curry get hot from deep. Mason Plumlee is the crux of Duke’s attack and stopping him should be every team’s first priority, but any positive work a team gets down low against Plumlee can be rendered completely useless if Curry is allowed to do what he did on Thursday. When Curry is working it not only opens up the drive-and-kick game to the weak side, but forces more defensive rotation and leaves Plumlee plenty of space to work inside. Everything starts at the arc for Duke and if they are hot from deep, few teams have a chance of beating them.

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David Cassilo is an RTC columnist who also writes about college basketball for SLAM magazine. You can follow him at @dcassilo.

Wouldn’t it be fun to have a real college all-star game? First of all, it would give every team a break it needs, and second, seeing the top players face off would be great. Imagine something like Trey Burke, Victor Oladipo, Doug McDermott, Jeff Withey and Kelly Olynyk against Marcus Smart, Deshaun Thomas, Otto Porter Jr., Mason Plumlee and Cody Zeller. Personally, I would love to see Burke and Smart run their teams against each other. I know there is some lame all-star game during Final Four weekend, but a mid-season game is something that the NCAA should consider.

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

10. Marcus Smart – Oklahoma State (Last week – NR)
2012-13 stats: 15 PPG, 5.9 RPG, 4.4 APG, 2.9 SPG

It’s amazing that Smart not only is this great already but also has so much room for improvement. In the double-overtime loss against Kansas on Wednesday, he was the most important player on the floor despite going 2-of-14 from the field. One more offseason of workouts will make him a lethal player. This week: February 23 at West Virginia, February 27 at TCU

9. Kelly Olynyk – Gonzaga (Last week – 10)
2012-13 stats: 17.9 PPG, 6.9 RPG

Kelly Olynyk’s Breakout Year Has Gonzaga As One Of The Nation’s Elite Offensive Teams (USA Today Sports Images)

There is likely no better frontcourt tandem in the nation than Olynyk and Elias Harris. The two combine to average 32.5 PPG and 14.4 RPG. There are few teams in the country that will be able to match up with that duo in the NCAA Tournament. This week: February 23 vs. San Diego, February 28 at BYU

8. Deshaun Thomas – Ohio State (Last week – 8)
2012-13 stats: 20.1 PPG, 6 RPG

Thomas is just a straight-up gunner. He takes 16 shots per game and has scored in double-figures in every game this season. It seems nearly impossible to completely take him out of a game defensively. This week: February 24 vs. Michigan State, February 28 at Northwestern

7. Doug McDermott – Creighton (Last Week – 7)
2012-13 stats: 22.5 PPG, 7.8 RPG

For all his accolades as a scorer, McDermott’s ability to rebound often gets overlooked. The 6’8″ junior has eight double-doubles so far this season and has hauled in as many as 13 rebounds in a game. This week: February 23 at St. Mary’s, February 27 at Bradley

6. Jeff Withey – Kansas (Last week – 6)
2012-13 stats: 13.4 PPG, 8.6 RPG, 4.0 BPG

At the most important part of the season, Withey is playing his best basketball. He’s had double-doubles in his last three games, which is something he hasn’t done all season. The 14 rebounds against Oklahoma State on Wednesday were a season-high. This week: February 23 vs. TCU, February 25 at Iowa State

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It’s that time of the college basketball season when you look up out of nowhere and notice that conference tournaments tip off in a couple weeks, Selection Sunday is in a smidgen over three weeks and before you know it we’ll be crowning a champion and watching a “One Shining Moment” montage. But before we get ahead of ourselves, one of our favorite traditions of the end of the season is Senior Day, a chance to pause for a brief moment, get the student-athlete at the end of the bench that has worked tirelessly for little fame or glory a moment in the spotlight, and recognize the efforts of guys who we have gotten to know over the previous few years one last chance to take a bow in front of the home crowd. Over the next couple weeks, we’ll turn an eye to each Senior Day around the conference and highlight the guys we’ll be saying goodbye to this season.

Carrick Felix Has Exploded With Career High’s Across The Board In His Senior Year (USA Today Sports)

We start with Arizona State, where the Sun Devils Senior Day (or more fitting, I suppose, Senior Night) comes Saturday as they host Washington. Carrick Felix, Chris Colvin, Ruslan Pateev and Joey Hormes will be the honorees. Of those four, obviously Felix is the big name — he has spent three years in Tempe after beginning his career at the College of Southern Idaho, but until this year may have been most well-known as Mike Krzyzewski’s first junior college signee at Duke (although he never played a minute there). After a slow start to his college career (just 23 points in limited minutes over the course of 11 non-conference games), Felix came alive at the start of Pac-12 play as a freshman, averaging 12.7 points, 3.3 boards and two assists over six games while veterans like Trent Lockett and Jamelle McMillan were banged up. Unfortunately, Felix got sick prior to the Devils’ next road trip, missed a game and was never back at full strength the rest of the way as the team limped home to a 12-19 record. His junior campaign featured much more playing time and production but very little team success. Jump ahead to his senior year and his production is through the roof. He’s averaging career highs across the board (with the notable exception of turnovers, which are actually down despite increased run) and he sits at or near the top of several Pac-12 stats and is in line for strong consideration not only for First-Team Pac-12 Honors, but also Defensive Player of the Year.

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Mitch Goldich is the RTC correspondent for the Patriot League. You can find more of his work online at The Huffington Post. Follow him on Twitter at @mitchgoldich for more updates.

Looking Back

• Bucknell Wins Lehigh Rematch: The Bison and Mountain Hawks have spent the majority of this season tied atop the league standings, and they stayed that way when both teams lost last Saturday. While their losses may have hurt both teams’ overall resumes, they did nothing to diminish the importance of the game between two 8-2 opponents. The rematch was critically important to both teams, but more so to Bucknell because Lehigh had already won the first match-up in Lewisburg. Had Lehigh won, they would have had a one-game lead, plus the season sweep — essentially a two-game lead, with three to play. Lehigh’s uncharacteristically poor shooting was one of the night’s main storylines, as the Mountain Hawks went just 1-of-15 from three-point range and 6-of-15 from the free throw line. After Lehigh shot 10-of-18 from beyond the arc in their first meeting, the Bison wanted to contest those shots better and force Lehigh to come inside for better looks. Still, 1-of-15 is obviously a brutal night, and there is no excuse for a team previously shooting better than 75 percent from the line to go 6-of-15. Bucknell’s star Mike Muscala scored just 12 points, with his minutes limited due to first half foul trouble, but his nine rebounds and four blocks made a big impact during his 26 minutes on the floor. Bryson Johnson made three three-pointers and scored 19 points, and Cameron Ayers made a wild shot that put the game away after Lehigh had cut an 11-point deficit down to three points in the final minute. With a one-game cushion and a softer schedule, the Bison now look very likely to take the top seed and lock up home court advantage throughout the Patriot League Tournament.
• Tony Does It Twice: Tony Johnson, who goes by the twitter handle @Tonytone_3, gave Patriot League fans two reasons to say his name this week. Lafayette’s dynamic point guard hit game winning shots in consecutive games. First he hit a bucket with 4.5 seconds left to put Lafayette ahead of Bucknell 63-62 on Saturday. Then on Wednesday, he hit a tie-breaking three-pointer with even less time remaining against Holy Cross. The Leopards started the season 5-10, and dropped to 8-12 after losing two of their first three Patriot League games. They have since reeled off six wins in eight games, including upsets of both Bucknell and Lehigh. Johnson’s play (12.2 points and 5.0 assists per game in league play) is a major reason the Leopards are legitimate contenders to win what was previously considered a two-team league.
  

  The Leopards Have Leaned On Tony Johnson To Keep Them In The Thick Of The Patriot League Race. (April Bartholomew/Morning Call)

• The Patriot League’s Most Exciting Day: While arguably the most anticipated season in Patriot League history has offered compelling storylines, it took a little while for the games on the court to live up to the hype surrounding the league. With a few notable exceptions, the first half of league play saw relatively few second half lead changes, let alone games coming down to the final possession. Fortunately, with the Patriot League Tournament on the horizon, the games have gotten more exciting. Saturday, February 16 was easily the most fun day of the Patriot League season, with three games decided by a total of six points all playing out at once. Johnson’s last second shot lifted Lafayette past Bucknell. Lehigh came all the way back from 22 points down to Colgate, before the Raiders fended them off. And Army held off a last-second shot to grab a one-point win over Navy. Fans of the league can hold plenty of hope that when matchups are renewed for their third installment during the conference tournament, the games will only continue to get more exciting.

Power Rankings

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Daniel Evans (@bracketexpert) is RTC’s new resident bracketologist. According to Bracket Matrix, he ranks as one of the top several bracketologists among those who have produced brackets for more than three years, including two seasons with perfect bracket projections. He updates the field daily on his site, Bracketology Expert, and will be producing a weekly bracket update here at RTC on Fridays. RTC Bubble Watch will publish on Sunday nights and Thursday afternoons for the rest of the season.

New in This Update:

• Illinois continues to be the toughest team in the country to figure out. The media’s mock bracket came out last week and the Illini were a #5 seed. This team was once ranked in the nation’s top 15 teams and then it was 2-7 in conference with a game against No. 1 Indiana up next. The Illini won that one at the buzzer and four more games in a row to get to 7-7 in conference. Compare Illinois to the other teams around them in the bracket — they have five wins against the RPI top 26 and no longer have an under .500 conference record to bring them down. I agree with the media mock — Illinois is now a #5 seed.
• After Florida’s loss earlier this week against Missouri, the #1 seed line is again hard to figure out. Indiana and Miami (FL) are easy to pick given their overall resumes and Duke fits in nicely despite struggling somewhat without Ryan Kelly. The fourth #1 seed could be any number of teams. It looks like Joe Lunardi and Jerry Palm have pegged Gonzaga as the final top seed, but I disagree. The Zags are going to have to rely on the eye test to get that high and in general most are decided by overall profile and not eye test. Gonzaga simply does not have the profile of a #1 seed.  Michigan State is the fourth top seed in my field based on the Spartans’ overall profile.
• The Mountain West is a mess. It looks like four teams are going to get a bid, with UNLV and Colorado State playing fantastic basketball over the last few weeks. New Mexico has a top five RPI and San Diego State held the Lobos to 33 points in a game earlier this year.  Putting those teams into the bracket is pretty tough, because there is not a lot of separation between them.
• Maryland was in my field after upsetting Duke, but the Terps are out again after falling to Boston College.  Temple is in after defeating La Salle. Indiana State has fallen out of serious at-large contention after a loss to Wichita State and six inexcusable losses on its resume.
• Kentucky and Mississippi are making things interesting in the SEC. Both teams are among my last four teams in. Missouri’s win over Florida practically assures the conference of at least getting two teams in.
• Minnesota and Cincinnati are sliding in my bracket, but I still think both teams are safe. The Gophers may not want to tempt fate, though. Tubby Smith’s team has been blown out in games against Iowa and Ohio State and is now two games under .500 in the Big Ten. Teams under .500 in conference play typically do not get in. Overall, 34 teams have gotten at-large bids over the last 43 years while being under .500 in conference play.

LAST FOUR IN: Colorado, Baylor, Saint Mary’s, Kentucky
FIRST FOUR OUT: Boise State, Alabama, Arizona State, Charlotte

NOTE: Projected conference champions (or auto bid winners) are in capital letters.

(full bracket after the jump)

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1. Thursday night the Pac-12 race got even tighter as California’s Justin Cobbs took advantage of Oregon’s 5’8” point guard Jonathan Loyd in the waning moments of their meeting, knocking down a game-winning jumper over the smaller man’s outstretched arms. As we head into the weekend, we’ve got three teams atop the conference with four losses while a pair of teams, including those Golden Bears, lurk just one game back in the loss column. The game itself wasn’t pretty, as Cobbs turned the ball over eight times, the teams combined to shoot 3-of-21 from deep and nobody on Oregon shot better than 50% from the field, but Cal continues to be the hottest team in the conference with six victories in its last seven games. As for Oregon, this current group of Ducks still remains winless in their careers against California.
2. In the wake of Washington State’s seventh straight conference loss on Wednesday night, the talk about whether head coach Ken Bone is the man for the job in Pullman for the long term has reached a fever pitch. The talk has been slowly bubbling up since way back before the season began as Reggie Moore got booted from the team and incoming transfer Brett Kingma ran afoul of the law, highlighting some off-the-court issues that have troubled Bone’s program for some time. But, as CougCenter pointed out a couple weeks back, if the university hopes to go a different way, they’ve got to figure out a way around Bone’s hefty contract, which promises the coach $2.55 million over the remaining three years. Given the amount of money the WSU athletic department already has tied up in paying current and former football coaches, that amount of money may be too much to bear at this point. And, as I pointed out back before the season, expectations in Pullman have to be realistic. The fact of the matter is that prior to this season, Bone had the second-highest winning percentage of any coach in school history who had coached at least 20 games. Unfortunately for him, however, the one guy ahead of him was his predecessor.
3. USC will take a crack at earning a season sweep of crosstown rival UCLA at the Galen Center on Sunday afternoon. And if they’re going to get it done, they’ll need to lean heavily on senior point guard Jio Fontan who, after dealing with ACL surgery last year and the heavy-handed offensive structure of former head coach Kevin O’Neill, is now thriving with more freedom under interim coach Bob Cantu and more confidence in a knee that gets stronger by the game.
4. One thing we haven’t talked a lot about here this season is the Player of the Year race in the Pac-12. No worries though, as Pachoops has got you covered on that mark. Adam Butler scouts the candidates out and narrows the race down to two guys: Arizona State’s Jahii Carson and Cal’s Allen Crabbe. I wanted to quibble (Carrick Felix anyone?) but in the end decided that yes, those are the two guys atop the leaderboard right now and somebody from the next pack back (some combination of Solomon Hill, Shabazz Muhammad, Spencer Dinwiddie and Felix) would have to go absolutely nuts for that to change. In my mind, however, Carson is the favorite, as he has been for at least a month; but as Cal has heated up, Crabbe has made a big time charge to the point where it is just about even money right now.
5. Lastly, in case you forgot, DirecTV has still not come to an agreement with the Pac-12 conference to carry the Pac-12 Networks. I’m sure all of you have done the right thing and dropped DirecTV like a hot potato, but apparently there are people out there sticking with the satellite television behemoth instead of watching tons of Pac-12 action this season. And, if you’re somehow still among that crowd, you’ve missed the 20 out of Arizona State’s 27 games this season that have aired on the Pac-12 Networks. Don’t hold your breath on a deal getting done any time soon as both sides appear entrenched in their positions.