Rush The Court

Feast Week is under way once again this year, and although a few SEC teams have already started their festivities — Texas A&M won the Legends Classic with convincing wins over Oklahoma State and Penn State, while LSU is finishing up a successful trip to Maui that includes an upset over Michigan – there is plenty of Thanksgiving weekend action ahead. Let’s take a look at what’s on the plate for SEC teams during the rest of the week.

• Battle 4 Atlantis (Tennessee). The Volunteers have cruised to two easy wins against lesser opponents and appear to have plenty of depth. Things will get really challenging in the Bahamas this weekend, however, as they take on #18 Purdue on Wednesday followed by a likely top-five team (with a win) in Villanova. The stacked field also includes Arizona, N.C. State and SMU this year. Needless to say, we will know a lot more about the fortitude of Rick Barnes’ club by Monday.
• NIT Season Tip–Off (Vanderbilt). The Commodores are coming off a close overtime home loss to USC on Sunday and will battle Virginia in the semifinal round of the NIT on Thanksgiving day. On Friday, they will draw either Seton Hall or Rhode Island. This potentially very difficult trip to Brooklyn for two games is an opportunity for the Commodores to significantly enhance a resume that already includes a loss to crosstown rival Belmont.

• Advocare Invitational (Missouri). The loss of Michael Porter, Jr. for the rest of the season will overshadow anything that happens on the court this weekend. Porter entered college basketball as the consensus national high school player of the year and was the centerpiece of what was expected to be a resurgence of Missouri basketball under Cuonzo Martin. With the 80 seconds he played in the Tigers’ opener against Iowa State likely to be the only on-court time he will ever see in Columbia, Porter will undergo season-ending surgery. Martin’s task is to refocus his team’s attention and be ready for Thursday’s very winnable matchup against Long Beach State. St. John’s or Oregon State will await in the second round with West Virginia lurking on the other side of the bracket.
• PK80 (Florida and Arkansas). Sixteen teams head to Portland this holiday weekend for the highly-anticipated tribute tournament to Nike founder Phil Knight. Florida’s first-round opponent in the “Motion” bracket will be Stanford, and a win against the Cardinal will likely result in a semifinal match-up with Gonzaga. Top-ranked Duke is the headliner on the other side of the eight-team bracket. In the “Victory” bracket, a relatively untested Arkansas team will initially take on Oklahoma, but the prospect of a second round game with North Carolina lurks. Michigan State and Oregon await on the opposite side of this loaded bracket.
• Wooden Legacy (Georgia). The Bulldogs have been underwhelming in getting off to a 3-0 start but the Wooden Legacy will allow them to beef up their resume. A game against Cal State-Fullerton will be the open an event that includes St. Mary’s, St. Joseph’s and Washington State. Even if not the strongest field of the various Feast Week events, this tournament gives Mark Fox’s team a chance to do some damage by winning a couple games en route to the championship game.