Game #102.  The Hoyas are in a near must-win situation at home tonight against a top ten team intent on rolling to a Big East title.

Georgetown is reeling. They’ve lost three of their last four games, including a home game on Saturday against West Virginia. The problem? Two things — Georgetown has had trouble executing on the offensive end and they’ve struggled to rebound on the defensive end of the floor. When you are struggling on the offensive end of the floor and struggling on the glass, the last team in the country that you want to play is Pitt. They are a deliberate, physical basketball team, and while they are not quite as good defensively as their reputation would make one believe, they are a team that makes it difficult for you to “run your stuff,” so to speak. They also happen to be the most efficient offensive team in the country, in large part because they lead the nation with a 46.9% offensive rebounding percentage. Georgetown is going to need Chris Wright, Austin Freeman, and Jason Clark to wake up offensively if they are going to win tonight.

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Game #100.  RTC Live hits it century mark this season with a trip to Evanston where the Wildcats are in do-or-die mode.

Sunday’s game features two struggling Big Ten teams that are desperately looking for wins in conference. Indiana is 9-7 (0-3 in the Big Ten) after losing a close game to Minnesota in its last one and Northwestern is 9-4 (0-3) and coming off a blowout loss at in-state rival Illinois on Thursday night. Tom Crean and Bill Carmody both desperately want victories to quiet the choruses that are very loudly questioning their decision-making and tactics. While Northwestern is a slight favorite in the game, the injury status of John Shurna, who is playing on a badly sprained ankle, should even things out and make for a highly entertaining contest. Follow along with the entire game from Welsh-Ryan Arena starting tonight at 6 p.m. central time.

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Game #99.  Unbeaten Cincinnati gets it toughest test of the season as it travels to take on Villanova on the Main Line this afternoon.

One of the more important early Big East Conference match-ups this week will pit #25 Cincinnati against host #7 Villanova on Sunday at noon. An accidental blockbuster, few fans of either school (or the mainstream media) circled their calendars when this match-up was posted, the game’s significance has snowballed as each team has put together impressive unbeaten streaks. Cincinnati, led by solid nucleus of upperclassmen including junior forward/center Yancy Gates, senior Rashad Bishop, junior wing Dion Dixon, senior forward/center Ibrahima  Thomas and redshirt sophomore point guard Cashmere Wright has gone through the first 15 games of their 2011 slate undefeated. If there was a marshmallow or two in their schedule, most likely the reason AP and Coaches Poll voters just moved them into the Top 25, few can argue the way the Bearcats disposed of Dayton (68-34), Oklahoma (66-56) or Xavier (66-46) was in any way soft. Villanova will counter with their own nucleus of veterans, sophomore center Mouphtaou Yarou, sophomore point guard Maalik Wayns, senior forward/center Antonio Pena, senior off guard Corey Fisher and senior wing Corey Stokes. This is the fourth conference game where both teams are ranked. Each team played and won on Thursday night, Cincinnati pummeled Crosstown Shootout rival Xavier by 20 points, 66-46, while Villanova downed the South Florida Bulls in the Sun Dome 83-71. Join RTC Live Sunday at noon, as Cincinnati meets Villanova at the Pavilion on Villanova’s campus.

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Game #98.  St. Mary’s goes on the road in the WCC where things are always dangerous tonight.

RTC Live is headed to Malibu for its first-ever game at Pepperdine’s Firestone Fieldhouse, as the Waves host red-hot St. Mary’s in a Saturday evening matinee. The Gaels and their head coach, former Pepperdine assistant coach Randy Bennett, roll into Malibu sporting a 13-2 record after handling Loyola Marymount easily, 98-75, in their Thursday night West Coast Conference-opener. Six Gaels scored in double figures, while the team as a whole posted an impressive 70.3 effective field goal percentage. WCC Player of the Week Mickey McConnell led the way with 21 points (on 8/9 shooting, including 3/4 from behind the arc) and eight assists, while Rob Jones added 20 points and nine rebounds and Matthew Dellavedova chipped in another ten points along with nine assists. For Pepperdine (7-11, 1-0), they’ve posted two-straight 20-point victories, including a 75-55 win over San Diego in their first WCC contest. Junior guard Lorne Jackson busted out with a career-high 26 points, just one game after becoming the first Wave since Doug Christie in 1991 to post a 20-point and 10-assist game (Jackson had 23/10 against Seattle). The WCC’s leading scorer, Pepperdine’s junior guard Keion Bell, has missed the Waves’ last two games with an ankle injury, and is still questionable for this game with St. Mary’s, a definite concern for head coach Tom Asbury, as the Waves will need all the help they can get. One area Pepperdine could hope to exploit is SMC’s potential weakness on the defensive glass. Against LMU on Thursday, the Gaels only rebounded 50% of the available defensive rebounds, so if Wave senior forward Mychel Thompson can get to work on the glass (where he has grabbed ten rebounds in each of the last two games and 5.8 per game on the season), perhaps Pepperdine can break SMC’s six-game win streak in this series.

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Game #97.  The suddenly relevant Johnnies travel to Notre Dame on this evening to try to keep their perfect Big East record intact.

Steve Lavin’s St. John’s squad comes into South Bend with a 3-0 record in the Big East with wins versus West Virginia, Providence, and Georgetown. One month ago, this start could not have been predicted due to the Red Storm dropping early games versus lowly St. Bonaventure and Fordham. Mike Brey’s Fighting Irish squad stands at 2-1 in the Big East with wins versus Georgetown and Connecticut and a loss at undefeated Syracuse. Fighting Irish seniors Tim Abromaitis and Ben Hansbrough will look to lead the offense and offset the loss caused by a hamstring injury to senior forward Carleton Scott. The Red Storm attack will be led by senior guard Dwight Hardy and senior forward Justin Brownlee. If Notre Dame’s thin frontcourt of Abromaitis, Tyrone Nash, and Jack Cooley can effectively guard the post then the Fighting Irish would have to be viewed as favorites in this key early conference matchup.

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Game #96.  RTC Live visits the RBC Center for the first time this year as Wake Forest travels east to play its old-time rival.

Wake Forest is traveling to the RBC Center to take on in-state rival NC State in the conference opener for both squads.  NC State has had a difficult season so far, largely thanks to the untimely injury to senior star Tracy Smith.  The good news for Wolfpack fans is that this is Smith’s third game back, so he should steadily be returning to his pre-injury form.  Freshmen studs CJ Leslie, Ryan Harrow and Lorenzo Brown alongside sharpshooter Scott Wood round out the rest of NC State’s starting five.  I think Smith’s impact will probably be more indirect, as he will force Wake’s defense to collapse and double team him in the post, leaving State’s shooters open from the perimeter.  So far Brown, Leslie and Harrow especially have struggled from beyond the arc, but I suspect Smith’s presence will get them much easier shots.  On the other side of the floor, Wake Forest is having a nightmarish season.  The Demon Deacons have looked absolutely horrendous coming out of the gate, and coach Jeff Bzdelik will need a phenomenal game out of JT Terrell if Wake wants to have any chance at all.  Right now they’re struggling to win at home, much less in a hostile environment.  But conference rivalries tend to bring out the best in down teams, so I fully expect this to be a better game than it looks on paper.

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Game #95.  Everyone’s favorite Big East Team That Could visits Pitt on a chilly winter day in Three Rivers City.

Welcome to a snowy January Saturday in Pittsburgh at the Petersen Events Center, home of the University of Pittsburgh Panthers. Today’s Big East matchup should be like most of the others these days: A battle down to the bitter end. Pitt at home is almost impossible to beat, but Marquette isn’t going to just lie down. Their four losses are by a combined 14 points, including a five-point loss to Duke and a one-point nail biter to Vanderbilt. Pitt is almost unbeatable itself; one of the best performances of the year by Tennessee upended the home court winning streak by the Panthers. Sit back and relax, because one thing is for sure, you can be guaranteed a great game between two teams that have a lot to prove in the Big East, and they will be putting everything on the floor they have today. Plus, it’s cold outside, there’s no better place to be than watching college basketball right now.

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Game #94.  RTC Live is back at the Rock to see what the Orange are made of traveling on the road in the Big East.

What a difference seven weeks can make. Seton Hall brought back a roster packed with talented veterans and a disciplined head coach. They may have dropped a close road game to A-10 powerhouse Temple, but they played to the last possession and followed it with a huge home win over 2010 Ivy League champion Cornell. Then things started to go bad for Coach Kevin Willard, in his first year at the head of the Seton Hall program. A broken wrist sidelined “anytime, anywhere” scoring threat Jeremy Hazell, a longer than expected rehabilitation period limited all purpose forward/center Herb Pope’s effectiveness and the unexpected transfer of promising sophomore forward Ferrakohn Hall thinned the front court reserves even further. The Pirates could not hold halftime leads over A-10 teams Dayton and Richmond at the end of December, and have stumbled to a 1-2 start in Big East Conference play, leaving the rookie head coach with many more questions than answers. For Syracuse, the season started with a rookie of the year whose learning curve was far longer than anticipated, a slew of complementary players who would be tasked with filling the leadership (and scoring…) roles vacated by the departed Wesley Johnson, Andy Rautins and Arinze Onuaku. Scoop Jardine, Rick Jackson, Brandon Triche and Kris Joseph had prospered in Coach Boeheim’s team-oriented 2-3 zone defense and in the offensive shadows of the departed stars, but were they ready to step up? The Orange swept Michigan and Georgia Tech aside to win the Legends Classic in Atlantic City and then beat (then) #7 Michigan State in the Jimmy V. Classic at Madison Square Garden. The Orange have charged out to a 2-0 start in Big East Conference play, heading it seems, in a very different direction than the Pirates. Seton Hall, led by Herb Pope, Jeff Robinson, Keon Lawrence and Jordan Theodore will try to turn their season around as they face off against Rick Jackson, Kris Joseph and Scoop Jardine. Join RTC Live as we blog Syracuse at Seton Hall, Saturday at noon from the Rock in downtown Newark, New Jersey.

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Game #93.  RTC Live returns to the Verizon Center in downtown DC for a Big East tilt involving two teams needing a win.

Georgetown and West Virginia square off here at the Verizon Center in an early morning (well, early for a Saturday morning) tip. Both the Hoyas and the Mountaineers come into this one on a bit of a slide. Georgetown is just 1-2 in Big East play. To be fair, they have lost on the road to Notre Dame and St. John’s, neither of which look like bad losses right now. But throw in the loss to Temple from November 30th, and the Hoyas have not looked like the team that I saw cleverly called the best in the Big East two weeks ago.  West Virginia, on the other hand, just has not looked like the team we expected. They are also just 1-2 in league play, that win being a two point victory at DePaul. The Mountaineers have also lost at home to St. John’s and Providence. Its not necessarily a talent issue with WVU as much as a chemistry problem; this team doesn’t look like they understand how to play together or what exactly Bobby Huggins is asking of them.  This should be a dandy to start your day off with. No one whats to go 1-3 to start the Big East season.

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Behold — The Crosstown Shootout. The very words send a blast of adrenaline into our bloodstream that gets our heart racing…or maybe that’s just a result of the chili dogs we always eat too many of while we’re in Cincy. Nah, it’s the game. Along with so many other college basketball freaks, this is one we circle on our hoop calendar as soon as we see the schedules. Hey, maybe you haven’t noticed or heard, but Cincinnati is undefeated. Given how much these two teams love each other, can you imagine the frissons of satisfaction that would wash over Xavier backers everywhere (not to mention every single one of head coach Chris Mack’s players) if the Musketeers were the ones to put the first blemish on Cincinnati’s season? The Bearcats, of course, would love to flick Xavier aside as conquest #15 and pay them back for the double-overtime loss they suffered at the Cintas Center last season. We made the trip there last year and it was one of the highlights of our season. If you can’t get fired up for this, go find another sport to love. Fifth Third Arena. 7:00 pm ET. We’ll start the conversation about 15 minutes before the tip, and we can’t wait.

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