Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

Tonight’s Lede. Big Boys Stumble. At various stages of this season, Indiana and Florida have been called the best team in the country. Both efficiency statistics and on-court observations confirmed the hype. Over weeks of grueling competition the season has spotlighted weaknesses on both outfits – Florida can’t win on the road, Indiana tightens up in the second halves of close games. Top teams get picked apart endlessly; it’s part of the reason why this sport, and its subjective polls, are so fun to talk about. With both going down on Tuesday night, I won’t even begin to imagine what will be said Wednesday morning about these teams. Some of the talk may be more optimistic than I’m leading on. Equally possible is a scathing revival of the “No Best Team” debate, and the attendant tirades about the quality and quantity of NBA talent in this year’s draft class. We, of course, will leave that for other people. Don’t worry: These upsets receive plenty of love in the space below. But if you expect a mainstream screed on the state of college basketball, on the evils of the one-and-done system, the ultimate vanity of the regular season, you’ve come to the wrong place.

Your Watercooler Moment. Don’t Rue IU.

It hurts to lose in any context. Even No. 1 Indiana can’t avoid the occasional road defeat (AP).

The rare multi-week placeholder of the number one ranking in the AP Poll lost Tuesday night. We should have seen this coming; the top spot in the rankings has been a dangerously ephemeral place since Duke fell from its No. 1 perch around the turn of the New Year. Indiana’s reign felt* like the most sustainable thing since, with not only the star power of Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo mounting a strong case for their team’s unquestioned dominance. The results on the court were piling up quite nicely, too – the Hoosiers withstood a devastating last-second loss at Illinois, perilous road trips to Ohio State and Michigan State, all while keeping that coveted numerical distinction. What IU was doing in the Big Ten – living and thriving on the road, what every team has tried and failed to do at time or another – was remarkable. It was also too good to be true. In this historically fierce Big Ten, was there anyone who reasonably believed Indiana could rip off eight straight wins, including trips to Minnesota and Michigan, to finish the season as a Kentucky 2012-like favorite heading into the NCAA Tournament? The Gophers ended that conversation Tuesday night at the Barn. Indiana lost one in a number of tricky Big Ten road games, and now, inevitably, the No. 1 debate will rage on for another week. This feels like a perfect juncture to salute the Hoosiers for an inspiring run of dominance unseen in any other league by any other team this season. After braving the road rigors of Big Ten country, Indiana, despite Tuesday night’s loss, can at least claim to have lived up to its preseason front-runner status. Reputational merits aside, the Hoosiers made a fine go at keeping No. 1 locked up in B-town. And given their body of work to date, they just might keep it (*see what I did there?) through next week.

Also Worth Chatting About.Deja Vols.

A big resume win was what Tennessee needed, and that’s exactly what it got Tuesday night in beating Florida (AP).

This is not a new story. Last season, Tennessee won eight out of nine games to finish 10-6 in the SEC race. The Volunteers, powered by then-freshman wunderkind Jarnell Stokes, pushed hard for an at-large bid, and if not for an overtime loss to Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament, their late surge would have given the selection committee a long and hard decision to make. UT is pressing yet again as the conference season plays out, and it might just be in better position to leave Selection Sunday with more than an NIT one-seed this time around. Because when you snag the biggest kid on the SEC block, as the Volunteers did in Knoxville Tuesday night by beating Florida, the resume-changing potential is boundless. Tennessee is in the discussion now, no doubt, and the way Cuonzo Martin’s team is playing lately, and the soft tail end of the SEC schedule (at Georgia and Auburn, home against Missouri), things are looking up in Knoxville. The late-season Tournament surge is on, the Volunteers are playing their best basketball of the season, and in a year where the SEC boasts two decent teams and not much else, UT has a place in the at-large jumble. It also helps when the aforementioned Gators, the best NCAA chip available in this league, cannot, under any circumstance, beat quality teams on the road. The Gators’ road hiccups are of no big concern to UT. Right now, the Vols have their sights set on the prize they fell just short of last season. Their bubble stock is on the rise, that’s for sure – which is a lot more than you can say about most bubble-dwellers these days.

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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 day’s games.

Attention bubble dwellers – it is time to make room for the Tennessee Volunteers. After a rousing victory over the SEC’s best in #8 Florida, the Vols are officially back in the NCAA Tournament picture. If you are feeling as if you have seen this movie before, it’s probably because you have. A year ago, Cuonzo Martin’s club ripped off eight victories over the course of its last nine regular season games, overcoming a disastrous 10-12 beginning to find their way into the March bubble talk. Losing to Ole Miss in their SEC Tournament opener would ultimately relegate last year’s Vols to the NIT, but this season’s bunch has a chance to script a different ending. More work left to be done for certain, but a late February six-game winning streak is a good place to start if you are looking to re-enter the NCAA discussion.

Trae Golden Has Been One Of The Major Catalysts For The Volunteer Revival

While the Vols may have reached their aesthetical nadir back in December after posting a total of 74 points in two games against Georgetown and Virginia (yes, I said total), it isn’t as if Cuonzo Martin’s club is all of a sudden winning pretty. Their adjusted tempo still places them in the bottom fifth of Division I basketball, and Tuesday night’s win over the Gators saw just one Vol in double figures, with Jordan McRae continuing his strong play by posting a game-high 27 points. Grinding pace aside, the team’s overall offensive efficiency (53^rd nationally) is not bad, but the Vols are heavily reliant on getting to the free throw line and pounding the offensive glass — blue-collar efforts that may or may not appeal to the average fan, but that the tough-as-nails Martin has to love.

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Believe it or not, we’re getting down to the end of the conference season already, and March is just around the corner. In this week’s RTC Podcast, hosted as always by Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114), the guys break down the big win from Georgetown over Syracuse and question what might be ailing the Orange, discuss the biggest conference dropoffs among some of the more-hyped teams at midseason (ahem, hey Minnesota; you too, Missouri.), and take a look forward at this week’s biggest games.

Check back on Friday of this week for our shorter RTC Podblast, which will run down some of the action from this week and look ahead to the weekend’s action. And don’t forget to add the RTC Podcast to your iTunes lineup so that you’ll automatically upload it on your listening device after each recording. Thanks!

We welcome any and all feedback on these podcasts including topics for future discussion or if you want to send us any questions for our “May Not Be From Actual Listeners” segment. Hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com or @rushthecourt on Twitter.

As we’re now fewer than four weeks from Selection Sunday, it’s always fun to start speculating about resumes of teams on the bubble. On some of the days when Daniel Evans (@bracketexpert) isn’t providing us with his updated Bubble Watch (Sunday nights and Thursday afternoons) or his weekly Bracketology (Fridays), he’ll give us an interesting comparison or two of teams that he finds difficult to distinguish. Today, he shows us just how tough it is to decide on No. 1 seeds.

I think if you threw 100 people in a room right now to decide on No. 1 seeds, most would agree that Indiana and Duke are clearly No. 1 seeds right now. My bracketology has reflected that for weeks, so let’s concede that as of today those two teams would be on the top line. The race for the third and fourth No.1  seeds is as tough, though, as I have ever seen it. So, today I have put up five blind resumes of potential No.1  seeds. All you have to do is vote below. Which two teams out of the five most deserve a No. 1 seed? Remember, don’t give the team names away and do not research the team names before voting. That takes the fun out of it!

The two teams are revealed after the jump…

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1. It has been a week since the NCAA released the external report it received regarding its lack of institutional oversight the misconduct of a few individuals, but Dennis Dodd is one the first national media member we have seen who took the time to pick it apart to point out the sheer ridiculousness of some of the stuff that the NCAA did. While this information is embarrassing for the NCAA and points to the fact that some more people than just Julie Roe Lach should have gotten fired, the NCAA always makes us cynical and we have a hard time believing that the NCAA revealed all of the bad stuff it did and exactly how high up the chair this type of behavior went. Unfortunately in the end the administrators at the NCAA will probably walk away unscathed.
2. While many writers watched the Oscars on Sunday night, Dan Spears was busy putting together his mock bracket, but unlike nearly every bracket you will see his is tailored around storylines. We are not sure that this would necessarily boost ratings since it seems like a large portion of the country shuts down for the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Still we suspect that every writer would love for this to happen for the overload of storylines to choose from.
3. We have mentioned the peculiar case of Ryan Evans‘ free throw shooting as the Wisconsin senior has gone from a fairly reliable (70%+) free throw shooter to an awful one (40%). It appears that Evans and the Wisconsin staff are experimenting with all kinds of potential solutions as he may even start taking jump shots for his free throw attempts. If Evans were do so he would not be first player to take such an approach as the article points out that NBA legend Hal Greer took a similar approach and in more recent times Nick Van Exel who opted to shoot his free throws from 17 feet instead of the customary 15 feet. Of course both Greer and Van Exel were outstanding free and we doubt that even a normal method of shooting would have made either of them 40% shooters.
4. After becoming a media darling with their early domination of the SEC Florida has fallen under the radar following losses at Arkansas and Missouri. However, several analysts still consider the Gators to be on the short list of top contenders to cut down the nets in Atlanta. The likelihood of that happening may increase on Saturday when they are expected to get Will Yeguete (knee) and Michael Frazier II (concussion) back. The news of their return will be overshadowed by the imminent return of Ryan Kelly (as all non-Duke news does), but in terms of the national title picture the impact could be similar. Yeguete gives Patric Young some much needed support on the inside and Frazier is actually the Gators’ best three-point shooter connecting 48.9 percent of the time. The Gators finish the regular season with a relatively easy stretch (and yes, we are counting the SEC Tournament) so they should have plenty of time to get these two back into the regular rotation without too much difficulty.
5. With Kansas’ win at Iowa State last night Bill Self won his 500th game as a head coach, which is an impressive total, but still leaves him outside of the top 20 winningest coaches in Division I history. That doesn’t stop Jeff Goodman from joining Andy Glockner in pointing out that Self may have the best chance of any current coach of breaking Mike Krzyzewski’s eventual wins record. It is worth pointing out that Self has mocked Glockner’s idea when it was mentioned to him some time later. As Goodman points out with (basic?) statistics, Self has won 33 games per year over the past six seasons and if he does that for “just” 15 more seasons he would be approaching 1,000 victories. While we appreciate Goodman breaking out the calculator it is worth pointing out that the run Self has been on the past six years is one of the more impressive runs in NCAA history (Krzyzewski has never had a six-year run that was as successful if we are just going by overall wins as his best six-year stretch averaged 31.667 wins per year). Honestly the only way we see Self or any other current coach approaching Krzyzewski’s record is if the NCAA adds more games to the season.

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

Tonight’s Lede. Not Your Average Monday. By now you know the Monday drill. Two good games, played under the ESPN Big Monday umbrella, are typically the only contests worth watching. That was mostly true this Monday, but the two nationally televised games (Syracuse-Marquette, followed by Kansas-Iowa State) were plenty entertaining for a single night of hoops. In fact, it almost felt like… March! Speaking of which, Monday was the last such weekday of February, which means by this time next week, we’ll have entered – to borrow from a recent Oscar-winning sci-fi trilogy – the one month to rule them all. It’s coming fast, any day now, and if Monday night’s action got you excited, well, just wait for what’s in store once the calendar flips at the end of the week.

Your Watercooler Moment. Davante Gardner’s Not Messing Around.

From the bench to the spotlight, Gardner played his best game of the season Monday night (AP).

It is not always wise or logical to criticize the basketball decisions of head coaches. Unless your hoops knowledge eclipses the man drawing up the plays and apportioning playing time on the sidelines – which, if that is the case, should land you a Division I job somewhere, at some school – my best advice is, to put it as succinctly as possible, just be quiet. Marquette coach Buzz Williams sent junior center Davante Gardner to the bench after just 11 minutes of playing time in Saturday’s game at Villanova. The Golden Eagles did not win that game, and Gardner may indeed have prevented the Golden Eagles’ fourth conference loss. MU fans had good cause for protest, surely. Not only is Gardner the Golden Eagles’ most efficient offensive player, he’s also the most highly-used, and the team’s best offensive rebounder to boot. All of those skills were evident in Monday night’s three-point upset against Syracuse, in which Gardner came off the bench to score 26 points and grab eight rebounds. Maybe Gardner’s benching had no impact whatsoever on the way he played against the Orange. Maybe he was primed for a breakout game anyway. Or maybe – and this is where I fall on the matter – Williams’ bad-cop routine worked, and Gardner responded with his best performance of the season, almost as if to say, “just try and bench me now, coach!”

Also Worth Chatting About. So Close, ISU.

For the second time in a row, ISU played Kansas into overtime and lost (AP).

The key to Tournament salvation was palpable Monday night at Hilton Coliseum. First-place Kansas was getting all it could handle from the Cyclones, and it was starting to feel very much like these teams’ first meeting – when ISU pushed KU into overtime at Allen Fieldhouse and elicited Ben McLemore’s best game of the season to preserve a Jayhawks win. Fred Hoiberg’s team had KU on the ropes again Monday night, and again the game went into overtime, and again, Kansas held on for a win — Bill Self’s 500th, in fact. Senior Elijah Johnson was the star this time around, finishing with 39 points, but rather than focusing on Kansas’ quiet post-TCU loss resurgence, I cant help but feel for Iowa State in what’s become a season of “almosts.” Sealing just one of those KU wins would have given the Cyclones the requisite resume pop to appease the selection committee. Now their fate for the NCAAs will most likely come down to the final three games of the regular season (and the Big 12 Tournament). This team has shown enough thus far to make me think they can win one of two upcoming games at Oklahoma and against Oklahoma State. Getting both would make the Cyclones a virtual lock; just one may be enough. Anyway, if the Cyclones do end up missing out, they can look back on these potentially seismic Kansas near-wins and pinpoint the exact source of discontent. When college basketball gives you opportunities to knock off top-10 teams in overtime, you take them. Iowa State hasn’t, not just once, but twice.

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Jesse Baumgartner is an RTC columnist. His Love/Hate column will publish each week throughout the season. In this piece he’ll review the five things he loved and hated about the previous seven days of college basketball.

Five Things I Loved This Week

I LOVED…. Ohio State’s Sam Thompson getting so high on this alley-oop against Michigan State on Sunday that he was literally staring at the rim when he got the ball. That would have been enough, but then he chose to hammer home right on a poor Michigan State defender – just for kicks. Definitely one of the more impressive athletic plays I’ve seen this year.

Sam Thompson is not shy about attacking the rim

I LOVED…. the hilariousness that is Jay Bilas and Bill Raftery on set. In this week’s gift from above, Raftery comically asks Bilas if he’s “ever been ridden” before. Take a look – it’s just too much.

I LOVED…. everyone realizing that Miami can be very, very average – or in this case, downright bad in a loss to a Wake Forest team that was 4-9 in the ACC going into Saturday. If Miami and Gonzaga somehow play their way into #1-seeds, I don’t think it’s overkill to say that they could be two of the more susceptible #1-seeds ever for a first-round upset. And Miami could even be the likelier of the two because of how much they love the three-ball.

I LOVED…. glancing at the Georgetown schedule and having my jaw slowly drop lower and lower as I looked at their defensive efficiency during this very impressive nine-game winning streak. Check it out – since losing to South Florida on January 19, the Hoyas have allowed 47, 51, 52, 56, 63, 55, 55, 66 and 46 points. That’s pretty stingy, and it bodes well for a Tournament run if they can continue mustering enough offense. Read the rest of this entry »

Brendon Mulvihill is an RTC contributor. You can find him @TheMulv on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

There are four games left in the regular season for most teams and the conference battles are still going strong. The last week and a half of the season should be exciting for everyone. Let’s not waste any time and get to the breakdowns.

#11 Syracuse at #19 Marquette – 7:00 PM EST, Monday on ESPN (****)

Can Michael Carter-Williams cause Marquette to turn the ball over?

• Both of these teams are coming off losses that have dropped them one game behind Georgetown for the Big East lead. The final four games of the season are certainly no cakewalk for Syracuse as they have to play at Marquette, home against Louisville and DePaul, and then at Georgetown to close out the regular season. Marquette has it slightly easier as the will play at home against Syracuse and Notre Dame and then on the road against Rutgers and St. John’s. The Orange are 4-4 in their last eight games and have struggled offensively. They shot below 40% eFG in all four of the losses. Their three-point shooting has been particularly bad as they have gone 5-of-14, 3-of-14, 4-of-23, and 4-of-20 in those games. A road game at Marquette will not be easy since the Golden Eagles are 9-0 at home this year. Turnovers have been the problem for Marquette but mostly away from the Bradley Center — if Marquette can protect the basketball and the perimeter, they can win this game. Syracuse simply needs to knock down its open shots. If they are going to break out of their three-point shooting slump, Marquette is the team to do it against because Buzz Williams’ perimeter defense is suspect at best. Watch out for James Sutherland, as he has been hot and cold from deep since returning to the Orange lineup. If they can get a solid performance from him, SU will be in good shape. Also, keep an eye on the match-up between Michael Carter-Williams and Junior Cadougan. Cadougan is prone to turning the ball over, so if Carter-Williams can use his long arms to poke a few balls away and get the Orange out on the break, his team has a definite shot at a big road win against Marquette.

#7 Kansas at Iowa State – 9:00 PM EST, Monday on ESPN (****)

• Iowa State took Kansas to the brink in their first contest in early January, only to cave in overtime at Allen Fieldhouse. With four games to play in the Big 12 season the Jayhawks are currently tied with Kansas State for the lead, which puts the Cyclones squarely in the spoiler role. In the first game, Iowa State shot the ball an absurd 38 times from three. Expect more of the same in this contest as Kansas possesses a significant size advantage down low. Given that advantage, look for them to pound the ball inside to Jeff Withey early and often. Iowa State has no answer for Withey inside. If he is able to establish himself in the paint, it opens the floor for Ben McLemore to take over. If Kansas can defend the three and utilize its advantage in the paint, they should have no problem knocking off the Cyclones. However, if you see that three-pointers are raining down from Fred Hoiberg’s squad early, it’s going to be another nailbiter.

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At long last, we have stability atop the RTC25 as Indiana checks in at #1 for the third straight week. The Hoosiers earned a big road win at Michigan State in their only game last week, and are beginning to look like the team that was ranked #1 in the preseason rankings. One player who was thought  in the preseason to be more of a role player rather than a star and legitimate candidate for National Player of the Year is Victor Oladipo. Oladipo has led the way with 19 points and outstanding play this season for Indiana. In looking at the Top 10, there is very little separation between #3 Duke and #10 Louisville in terms of the average ranking (5.33 to 7.44), but then there is a noticeable drop-off between Louisville and #11 Syracuse. It is refreshing to have some parity in the Top 10, especially after last season when at a certain point Kentucky was nearly untouchable.

More good stuff with the Quick n’ Dirty after the jump…

Quick n’ Dirty Analysis.

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1. As Seth Davis noted on CBS on Saturday we finally have a target date for Ryan Kelly‘s return to action. The 6’11” senior forward has set March 5, Senior Night against Virginia Tech, as the target for his return to the court. It seems strange that a player who is at best the second best player on a Duke team without a surefire NBA star and a player who is at best a borderline second round pick could change the entire national championship picture, but that is the reality of college basketball this year. While most analysts expected the Blue Devils to miss Kelly’s outside shooting and length it was in fact his interior presence on the defensive end that Duke missed the most. If Kelly can make a return and be back near 100% by the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament the Blue Devils could be serious title contenders.
2. If you thought that the Miami investigation fiasco would finally lead to changes at the top of the NCAA, you would be wrong as the “Executive Committee unanimously affirmed its confidence in Mark’s leadership as president”. At this point we don’t know what exactly would make the NCAA’s leadership acknowledge that there was a problem with the organization and more specifically its upper levels. Obviously any organization is fallible, but most organizations eventually own up to their mistakes. The NCAA’s continued lack of self-awareness never ceases to amaze us and
3. After suspending its leading scorer DeMario Mayfield indefinitely at the end of last month for a violation of an athletic department policy, Charlotte finally dismissed Mayfield from the team on Friday. Mayfield, who had transferred from Georgia, has had his share of disciplinary issues over the years as he was suspended for one game last season for a misdemeanor charge of marijuana possession (later dropped) and two games at the beginning of this season for another violation of team rules. While the 49ers managed to win at Butler in Mayfield’s absence they are only 2-3 since he was suspended indefinitely and his dismissal makes them a less dangerous team in the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
4. Over the year we have heard about several coaches using advanced statistics when planning for games, but we have seen relatively few profiles on Ken Pomeroy, who is basically the leader of the revolution in college basketball. The profile of Pomeroy and his influence on college coaches by David Teel is one of the better ones that we have seen. We were aware of Pomeroy’s background as a meteorologist, but had no idea about his time at Virginia Tech watching some awful basketball that eventually led to his creation of his popular site. With the rapid growth of competing websites we will be interested to see how long Pomeroy can keep his place as the leader in the field or whether some upstart will eventually take over.
5. One of the interesting aspects of running any university with a top-tier athletic program is managing the dichotomy of having a mission to be a world-class educational institution and being full of people who are probably a little too involved with their team as most fans are. In his essay in The New York Times Bill Morris examined the challenges in doing so at Duke and found that the balancing act can be challenging for administrators. While we would agree with Morris we would also push it beyond the Dukes of the world and expand this question to any university administrator that wants to provide the best educational opportunity for his or her students, but must balance that with the wishes of the students and alumni who often are more interested in the on-field/-court product.