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

Tonight’s Lede. Two Games, and That’s About it. When college basketball gives you two good games, you watch them. That’s what ESPN’s Big Monday night promises to serve up over the next month or so, and on evenings when there’s literally nothing else of note going on, you study those two games from every angle, every statistical nuance – and if you’re me, you write about them. So if you’re interested in what happened when Pittsburgh visited Louisville and Kansas embarked on its first ever conference road trip to West Virginia, and not much else, you’ll find this post meets that interest quite well. Or maybe you’ll reject my analysis and stop reading altogether. It’s cool; I’ll never begrudge a critical approach. However you go about it, take comfort in the fact that the rest of the week, leading into Saturday’s massive Indiana-Michigan game (and that other football game being played Sunday afternoon), promises more enticing match-ups.

Your Watercooler Moment. A Win Is A Win Is A Win. 

With the three-game losing streak behind them, the Cardinals can look forward to the Big East stretch run (photo credit: Getty Images).

Using the term “must-win” for teams who fell out of the No. 1 spot in AP Poll just two weeks ago feels wildly irrational. Seasons aren’t won and lost in January, and Louisville still withdraws the right to whip out one of the most fearsome defenses of the 21^st century, a deeply stocked frontcourt, a stable of effective complementary pieces, and a Final Four pedigree to boot. But if the Cardinals didn’t need a win Monday night against Pittsburgh, per se, it was at the very least strongly advised that they get one. Lest we forget that just over a week ago, Louisville – long owners of an historically efficient defense and burgeoning National Player of the Year point guard – was on top of the college basketball world. And not just in every major poll of note; the Cardinals were the national title favorite flavor of the week. The week that followed, which included three consecutive losses to Syracuse, at Villanova and at Georgetown, was not what everyone had in mind when they pegged Louisville as the nation’s best team. After all, national championship favorites just don’t lose three in a row. Louisville’s plunge in the polls (Monday’s AP Poll had the Cardinals ranked #12) reflected this fallout, but the Cardinals had a pretty favorable opportunity on their hands Monday night.

That’s when the efficiency-buoyant Panthers, winners of four Big East games in a row, traveled to the Yum! Center to pour salt on Louisville’s three-loss wound. Any reasonable observer would have looked at this game, noted Pittsburgh’s recent improvements, the shoulder injury to Wayne Blackshear and suspension of Kevin Ware, and surmised the Panthers had a legitimate shot to not only hang tight with Louisville but seize a huge road opportunity against a confidence-bereft team in the midst of a three-game skid. Pittsburgh nearly got there. The Panthers’ stormed back to cut an 11-point deficit to just two inside the final minute, and were it not for a few clutch free throws from Gorgui Dieng and Russ Smith, Jamie Dixon’s team could well have walked out with a massive win. Final outcome aside, Pittsburgh played to its adjusted, per-possession bona fides – the Panthers entered Monday ranked seventh in KenPom’s ratings – and that’s something we’ve been waiting to see for much of this season. Poor free throw shooting (the Panthers finished 3-of-12 from the stripe) was the difference. Louisville’s performance was hardly the work of the Final Four contender so widely bandied about just over week ago, and that’s something we may not see from Rick Pitino’s team until March. The point is, the Cardinals picked up where they left off before becoming No. 1 – they won a basketball game, and they did it against a veritably good team.

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

Things are a little quiet this week with mostly match-ups between top and bottom teams in the conferences.  However, there are a few games that mean a lot to certain teams, including those in some of the smaller conferences. Let’s get to the breakdowns!

Pittsburgh at #8 Louisville – 7:00 PM EST, Monday on ESPN (****)

Pitino needs to stop the bleeding at Louisville (AP)

• Louisville is in an absolute must-win situation. They have lost their last three games and have struggled at crunch time with opportunities to win. Everyone keeps saying the Cardinals still could be the team to beat in March. However, history shows that teams that lose three games in a row during the regular season rarely win the title. Only four teams since 1980 have lost three games in a row and still managed to win the whole thing – 1982-83 North Carolina State, 1984-85 Villanova, 1987-88 Kansas, and 2005-06 Florida. Only one team in history has lost four games in a row and still won the tourney – Danny Manning and the Miracles (Kansas actually lost five straight at one point that season). The reality is that Rick Pitino‘s team is a poor shooting team and unless they get that corrected quickly, Louisville should not be considered a threat to win it all. Pittsburgh on the other hand seems to be turning things around. After starting 1-3 in conference play, they have managed to rattle off four straight wins. Both teams need a win to stay within two games of Syracuse and Marquette in the Big East. Pitt has improved their shooting and offensive rebounding in the last four contests and has been able to play tough defense without putting teams on the line. Keep a close eye on how Pitt does in the paint against Louisville shot blocker Gorgui Dieng. The Panthers are not a threat from three, so most of their points will come from inside the arc. For Louisville, they need to convert their turnovers into points by simply hitting shots. While Pittsburgh is not as long as Syracuse, Villanova, and Georgetown, they are not short. So Pitino’s crew needs to get to the basket for lay-ups and dunks. Shooting over the top is not a great way to break a shooting slump. Watch Chane Behanan and Wayne Blackshear, as their performance on the interior will be the key to Louisville breaking their losing streak.

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Six of the 10 teams in the top 10 of last week’s RTC25 tacked on a loss to their resume, or in Louisville’s and Minnesota’s cases, multiple losses. Fortunately for these two, Duke garnered much of the attention as they were absolutely thrashed by an upstart Miami team by 27 points. Duke rebounded with a win over Maryland though, unlike the preceding two teams who seem to be in a state of free fall as the Cards have lost three straight (after being ranked #1) and the Gophers four straight. Despite defeating two top 10 teams, Villanova didn’t even get a whiff of the RTC25— probably due to prior losses to Alabama, Columbia, and Providence — it has been that kind of year. Just another week in the world of college hoops where the only thing that is predictable are storylines surrounding the brand of backpack that Shabazz Muhammad carries around the UCLA campus.

The Quick n’ Dirty after the jump…

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1. In what might have been one of the more ridiculous controversies we have ever seen a minor firestorm erupted late Thursday night following UCLA’s win over Arizona when some reporters noticed that Shabazz Muhammad had a Gucci backpack on. Several writers jumped on this story as a sign that Muhammad could have been (or even was) receiving impermissible benefits since they could not imagine that his family could afford a bag worth in excess of $1,000. We will let you think of the sociopolitical ramifications of that idea. It turns out that Muhammad’s family had in fact managed to scrape together the money for it and was able to produce enough evidence that UCLA’s compliance department has closed the “case”. As we said on Twitter a few days ago, it is a sad state of affairs when the media is fixated on a backpack with all of the unscrupulous things going on within the NCAA.
2. When your team sets multiple NCAA records for offensive futility in a half you have to be creative when conveying the story to your students, fans, and boosters. In the case of Northern Illinois and its four-point first half, the athletic department had to come up with creative ways for talking about the team’s performance and did so by talking about their defensive effort and glossing over the 1-31 field goal shooting in the first half. To be fair to the school we doubt that we could have come up with a better way of putting the game in a positive light. Unfortunately for them the folks at Deadspin are always watching.
3. Louisville may not be as offensively challenged as Northern Illinois, but the Cardinals still have some significant issues as Saturday’s loss should illustrate. Fortunately for Rick Pitino and company help may be on the way in the form of incoming recruit Terry Rozier, who scored 68 points on Saturday while coming off the bench. The big issue for Rozier is his academic status, which is still in question, but it appears that he is taking it seriously as he missed a week of practice and two of his team’s game while working with a tutor to get his grades up to the necessary level (apparently the reason that he did not start). We are sure that there are a few more Louisville fans who are concerned about Rozier’s grades after this weekend’s debacle.
4. The TV ratings for nationally televised college basketball games so far this season are out and they are not pretty. The highest rated games so far have been Duke-Kentucky and Kansas-Temple, which both had 2.0 ratings (apparently that is around 3 million viewers). It should be noted that the Kansas-Temple game was the lead-in to the NFL playoffs so I am sure that played a major role in that number. We are sure that some of these numbers will trend up now that we are getting into conference play where we have some more traditional rivalries (at least for this season) and other major sports are finishing their season. It is nice to see that when you get two major teams on TV you still are able to get viewers, but the numbers (there are even a few 0.0 ratings) are kind of depressing.
5. And finally because some of you may have missed it, here is Marshall Henderson interacting with the friendly Auburn fans after his team pulled out a win on the road:

You Could Spend Hours Dissecting Everything Going On Here

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

The Weekend’s Lede. Parity Rocks Conference PlayThe theme of this college basketball season isn’t going away. There are no dominant teams. From Indiana to Duke to Louisville, or whoever else inherits the top spot in the rankings this season, their stay won’t be a long one. But what we’re seeing this season is about more than big-time upsets. Not every surprising result is a top-five stunner. It’s the parity in conference play that makes pegging conference frontrunners and Final Four contenders so adventurous. The insanity continued over the weekend, and frankly, I don’t envision it stopping any time soon. This – hotly-tested games, minimal gaps between the best and worst of each league, contested conference races, no clear favorites – is college basketball at its finest. It comes at you from so many different angles, so many different time zones, so many different TV channels. It gives you unranked Villanova knocking off two top-five teams in a week, and UCLA losing to the little-brother Arizona school two days after beating big brother, and Marshall Plumlee and Alex Len engaging in mid-game dunk warfare. And then, just when you’ve seen enough, it brings you another healthy heaping throughout the week. Before we get there, the weekend brought us plenty to dissect and deliberate. Time to dive in.

Your Watercooler Moment. Villanova Strikes Again.

Two top-five upsets highlighted an excellent week for the Wildcats (Photo credit: Getty Images).

There is no rational explanation for why Villanova was able to take down not just one but both of the Big East’s best teams this week. The Wildcats are still worlds away from the perimeter-oriented teams that fared so well under Jay Wright over the past decade. But they got those wins, and now Villanova’s season is headed in an entirely different direction. A week ago, the Wildcats were licking their wounds after dropping consecutive games against Pittsburgh and at Providence. The first was predictable and totally understandable; the second one hurt. It hurt not just because you’d rather not lose to a talented but young Providence team on the road under any circumstance, but because the rigorous two-game stretch that loomed left the possibility for a sustained losing streak. That rigor, in hindsight, was ‘Nova’s upset gold. And the weirdest part: Louisville and Syracuse, both ranked in the top-six in Kenpom’s defensive efficiency rankings entering Saturday, are about as upset-proof as tom-five teams come this season. Sure, the Cardinals’ offense betrays them from time to time, and when the bad, turnover-proned, wacky Russ Smith overwhelms the All American-level star we’ve seen in large stretches this season, Rick Pitino’s team can lose. And yes, the Orange have their warts, especially without their best shooter, James Southerland. But that baseline defensive commonality buffers against bad shooting nights, against 25-point games from Darrun Hilliard and poor late-game foul management. Seeing one of these teams go down in Philadelphia would have been run of the mill stuff for this season. But two, both lorded over by hall of fame coaches with decades of upset-avoiding wisdom at their disposal? Can’t say I saw this coming.

Also Worth Chatting About.  Bruins Still Maturing.

As the season rolls on, the Bruins will continue to get better (Photo credit: AP Photo).

Swinging through a late-week road trip bookended with games at the two Arizona schools without a loss was a pipedream from the start. UCLA is an explosive offensive team, flush with talented freshmen and a handful of valuable role players, plus a much-improved defense. It is not the best team in the Pac-12; at least not yet. By season’s end, Ben Howland’s team is the odds-on favorite to own that title, but the Bruins have a few tweaks to make before they reach their peak. They won the more important of the two games, beating Arizona Saturday in relatively comfortable fashion, and that’s the biggest takeaway from this brutal two-game stretch. UCLA, like its Pac 12 challengers (Oregon, Arizona), is not experienced or balanced enough to stroll through conference play without a few hiccups along the way. Besides, Arizona State is quietly playing some excellent hoops on both ends of late; the Sun Devils entered Saturday making exactly half of their two-point shots, tops in the Pac 12. If Jordan Bachynski is going to give you 22 points and 15 rebounds, Carrick Felix adds 23 and 11, and David Wear can’t hold his side of the bargain (five points on 2-for-12 shooting), competing – much less winning – is a dubious goal.

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RTC Bubble Watch will publish on Sunday nights and Wednesday afternoons for the rest of the season.

My name is Daniel Evans and I have been doing bracketology for the last seven years. I’m new to RTC but very excited about the chance to write for one of the nation’s top college basketball websites. I have a journalism degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The Bracket Matrix ranks me as one of the nation’s top bracketologists. I’ve had two perfect years of bracketology — meaning I nailed every team in the field. On a daily basis, I update brackets on my website BracketologyExpert.com and I’m going to be doing a weekly bracket update on Fridays here along with a Bubble Watch column on Sundays and Wednesdays. I always enjoy answering any questions about my field of 68 or my bubble watch, so hit me up on my Twitter name (@bracketexpert) with any comments you may have.

What is a “Bubble Watch?” Below is my bubble watch. If you are not familiar with my work, this is basically a current look at how things are shaping up for the NCAA Tournament. Each conference is broken down and the teams I am currently considering on the bubble are listed. This makes it easy to figure out how many at-large berths are left for the NCAA Tournament. Remember, 31 automatic NCAA Tournament bids go to the conference tournament winners (and the Ivy champion). The other 37 bids are at-large bids, or bids that the selection committee gives to the best remaining teams that fail to win an automatic bid.

Bracket Math: Below there are 22 locks along the right column. That means if none of my “locks” wins an auto-bid, there are 15 at-large spots available for the NCAA Tournament. It is usually safe to say that an average of six of my locks will win automatic bids, so that means nine at-large bids will be taken and I project that 28 at-large bids will remain available to the NCAA Tournament.

What Does Being a “Lock” Mean? It means that at this point, I see no way that team could miss the NCAA Tournament. Every year I end up having to move at least one team I have locked in back into the at-large pool. For example, I’ve already done it this season with Minnesota and Illinois.

UPDATED THROUGH ALL GAMES OF JANUARY 27, 2013

ACC

LOCKS:

ACC Overview: On November 13, if anyone had told me that Miami would be 6-0 and leading the ACC in late January I probably would have laughed hysterically. November 13 is the day the ‘Canes lost by 12 to Florida Gulf Coast. Miami now has wins over Duke, North Carolina, Michigan State, La Salle, Maryland, and Charlotte. They are not only fighting for a top seed in the ACC Tournament, but a very high seed in the NCAA Tournament, It is safe to lock Miami into the field. Duke has the nation’s best wins, but the Blue Devils clearly are not the same team without Ryan Kelly. Coach K’s team is sliding down the seed line some, but it is still very much a lock for the field. N. C. State can also celebrate lock status. The Wolfpack’s victories do not scream “lock” but wins over shorthanded Duke, Connecticut, and North Carolina should be enough in a year where the bubble is looking weak. Virginia is on my watch list, but I can’t include a team with a RPI of 101. Maryland (15-5, 3-4; RPI: 60): Since my last Bubble Watch, Maryland has lost four of six games. The Terrapins’ best victory came over North Carolina State by one on January 16, but they followed that up by losing at fellow bubbler North Carolina by 10 on the road. Maryland also let a big opportunity go by the wayside when they let Duke romp on Saturday. Other than the victory over the Wolfpack, there is not a NCAA Tournament win on Maryland’s resume. The only upside here is that they still get Duke and North Carolina at home. Plus, unlike many other bubble teams, Maryland’s losses are not bad ones (Miami, North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, Florida State). North Carolina (12-6, 3-3; RPI: 35): North Carolina has one great win (over UNLV) and two mediocre ones (Florida State, Maryland), but bad losses against Texas and Virginia are not helping the Tar Heels’ resume. Losing to the 9-10 Longhorns by 18 points is inexplicable. The Heels still have not played Duke and a win over the Blue Devils might do it based off North Carolina’s history in the sport and what that rivalry usually does for NCAA Tournament chances. Of course, Roy Williams also takes his team to Miami, a scary proposition after what the Hurricanes did at home to a much more talented Duke squad. Before getting a chance to help its resume, North Carolina better make it through the next three without another blemish (@BC, VT, Wake). Florida State (11-8, 3-3; RPI: 75): The Seminoles “Snaered” a win over Clemson on a last second three by Michael Snaer and basically kept their at-large hopes alive in the process. Florida State’s best two wins are against Charlotte and BYU, teams that are in the exact same spot as the ‘Noles. Beating them may help them move up the at-large consideration board on Selection Sunday, but it won’t get them into the top 37. This team also lost to South Alabama, Mercer, and at Auburn — teams that are all below 150 in the RPI. Losing to Miami on Sunday was a big blow because it was yet another chance for a big win blown. The good news is that Florida State still plays Duke, Miami, at N. C. State, North Carolina, and N. C. State (home) before the ACC Tournament. In other words: This is a high reward, low risk schedule. Winning a few of those games might put Florida State on the good side of the at-large bubble.

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Who Won the Week? is a regular column that will outline and discuss three winners and losers from the previous week. The author of this column is Kenny Ocker (@KennyOcker), an Oregon-based sportswriter best known for his willingness to drive (or bike!) anywhere to watch a basketball game.

WINNER: Miami (FL)

Miami Fans RTC’d the Blue Devils Wednesday Night (credit: WaPo)

Jim Larranaga’s Hurricanes, by extension the subject of an NCAA inquiry regarding the alleged payment of former player DeQuan Jones, had one of the best weeks on and off the court of any school this season. First, the NCAA botched its investigation so much that it has to investigate its own investigators, according to CBS Sports. Then the ‘Canes went off and destroyed No. 1 Duke by the score of 90-63 on Wednesday, putting the third-worst beating ever onto an AP top-ranked team. Wednesday’s game also marked the return of gargantuan center Reggie Johnson (listed at 6’10”, 292 lbs.), who scored two points and grabbed five rebounds in his first game back from a broken thumb that was supposed to leave him out for up to another month. Miami now has a two-game lead on the rest of the ACC, although a return trip to Duke does remain. You know you had a good week when knocking off the top team in the country isn’t even the best thing that happened to you.

(Related winners: Miami guards Shane Larkin and Durand Scott, who combined to shoot 17-of-28 from the field on their way to 37 total points. Related losers: Duke guards Quinn Cook, Seth Curry and Tyler Thornton, who combined to go 1-of-29 from the field on their way to six total points; the NCAA – see below.)

LOSER: The NCAA

This was all set to be Frank Haith’s spot, as his Missouri team got shellacked by Florida 83-52 on Saturday, barely escaped at home Tuesday against South Carolina, and then news broke that Haith could face unethical conduct charges from the NCAA relating to the aforementioned DeQuan Jones issue. But instead, the NCAA now must review its own investigators’ conduct, particularly related to the release of Haith’s supposed looming punishments. So Haith is safe for now, and all of a sudden NCAA President Mark Emmert has another public relations maelstrom on his hands. Bummer.

(Related winners: Florida, because it still shellacked Mizzou. Related losers: Ethics.)

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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.

The two players I have the most trouble with every week are Russ Smith and Michael Carter-Williams. With Smith, it’s because his on-ball defense, arguably his biggest strength, doesn’t show up in box scores or highlights, so I need to watch his entire games to stay up to speed. And I have to be honest, his reputation sometimes gives him credit in games he doesn’t deserve it. Couple that with a streaky jump shot, and he falls short of the top-10. As for MCW, I have a real problem ranking him because he’s a terrible shooter and a turnover machine. People say he makes the big shots, but if he made them in the first half or didn’t keep giving the ball away, there wouldn’t be big shots to make. So like it or not, that’s why those two guys aren’t on the list at this juncture.

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

10. Otto Porter Jr. – Georgetown (Last week – NR)
2012-13 stats: 14.6 PPG, 7.7 RPG

Since the Hoyas’ second-leading scorer, Greg Whittington, was ruled ineligible, Porter has raised his game to another level. Over his last four games, he’s averaging 19.8 PPG and 9.3 RPG and played a full 40 minutes in Georgetown’s upset win at Notre Dame. This week: January 26 vs. Louisville, January 30 vs. Seton Hall

9. Cody Zeller – Indiana (Last Week – 5)
2012-13 stats: 16.4 PPG, 8.2 RPG

Cody Zeller has a lot of work to do to get back up the rankings. (AP Photo/D. Cummings)

Zeller did not register a single field goal on Wednesday against Penn State, but prior to that, he had back-to-back games of at least 20/10. While people have made the case that Victor Oladipo is more valuable to the Hoosiers, I still think Zeller will dictate the big games. This week: January 27 vs. Michigan State, January 30 at Purdue

8. Anthony Bennett – UNLV (Last week – 6)
2012-13 stats: 18.4 PPG, 8.6 RPG

Against Wyoming on Thursday, Bennett’s scoring finally returned, as he finished with 17 points. But the rebounding has disappeared. Bennett has just 13 boards over his last three games. Once a double-double machine, it will be interesting to see if he gets it back.  This week: January 29 vs. Nevada

7. Kelly Olynyk – Gonzaga (Last week – 10)
2012-13 stats: 18.5 PPG, 6.9 RPG

For those who didn’t see it late Thursday night, Olynyk had a night to remember against BYU. He went 9-of-9 from the field and 8-of-8 from the free throw line en route to 26 points, nine rebounds and five assists. Make sure to catch him next time he’s on TV because he’s fun to watch. This week: January 26 vs. San Francisco, January 31 at Loyola Marymount

6. Ben McLemore – Kansas (Last week – 8)
2012-13 stats: 16.1 PPG, 5.4 RPG

Since breaking out against Iowa State to start Big 12 play, McLemore has been a steady contributor for the Jayhawks. Although teams are devoting more defensive attention to him, he finds a way to get his points. This week: January 26 vs. Oklahoma, January 28 at West Virginia 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.

While this weekend’s slate of games doesn’t quite match last weekend’s, there are several conference match-ups that are vitally important in the Big Ten, ACC, and Mountain West. The theme of the weekend is “must win”. The action should be great, so don’t sleep on these games. Let’s get to the breakdowns!

#5 Louisville at Georgetown – 12:00 PM EST, Saturday on ESPN (****)

• Louisville is trying to avoid a three-game losing streak, as they head on the road to Georgetown. Another loss by the Cardinals and Rick Pitino may have to do some reevaluating or reshuffling. For Georgetown, a fourth loss in the Big East this early would certainly put them on the verge of irrelevance. This game is the first of three straight home games for the Hoyas before heading on the road to Rutgers. If they can string together some wins prior to their match-up against Marquette next month, the Hoyas can keep themselves in the thick of the Big East race. In Louisville’s two losses to Syracuse and Villanova, they have struggled against the length of both teams. They simply could not get good shots over the taller players from the Syracuse and Nova. They shot 46.6% eFG and 44.8% eFG against those two teams. Georgetown is another long team. In order for Louisville to avoid a three-game skid, they must figure out a way to hit shots. Creating turnovers without capitalizing on them will not get it done on the road. The Hoyas on the other hand still need to protect the ball and play at their pace. If they are turning the ball over, which they have been doing in conference play, and the pace speeds up, it will be a big problem for John Thompson III‘s squad.
  

  Can Russ Smith Get Louisville Back On Track? (Credit: Getty Images)

#10 Minnesota at Wisconsin – 2:00 PM EST, Saturday on BTN (****)

• Minnesota has lost three straight games while Wisconsin has lost two straight. Because the Big Ten is so tough this year, it’s too early to say that either team would be out of the race with another loss. However, it will make things much more difficult. The Gophers are struggling on defense in conference play and when they get aggressive, they are fouling. They are also turning the ball over at a rate of 24%. This isn’t the same team we saw in non-conference play. They have put themselves in a must win situation very early in Big Ten play. Similarly, Wisconsin is struggling after their big win against Indiana. They need to continue to play at their pace. If Minnesota can speed this game up with its great athletes, Wisconsin will have a tough time competing. Play close attention to Jared Berggren on the glass. He has to have a monster rebounding game in order for the Badgers to win. If Wisconsin can find a way to get to the line, they can make it four losses in a row for the Gophers.

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1. Since it left the Big East there has been quite a bit of speculation about who the so-called Catholic 7 would select to join them in their basketball-centric conference. Several names have been mentioned as potential additions and yesterday Marquette’s athletic director Larry Williams came out and endorsed the addition of Butler to the conference. Williams notes that these are just his thoughts and not extending an invitation to the school. One interesting aspect is that one of the presumed potential hurdles in the addition of any schools to the new conference is that the seven current members are Catholic affiliated, but as Williams notes that would not be an impediment if the schools share similar values (we aren’t quite sure what that means specifically, but probably just that they fit in with the image that the conference wants to project to advertisers).
2. The separation of the Catholic 7 from the remnants of the Big East has left grasping for what essentially amounted to TV leftovers making some question the continued existence of the conference. Although the Big East may never exist in the way that we knew it for years it appears to have received a boost in the form of a TV deal that is near completion. While the details of the deal–both dollars and years–have not been disclosed this is a good sign for the Big East going forward assuming this is not some ridiculously low offer such as one might have expected following reports of prior offers from TV networks.
3. In the wake of Wednesday night’s debacle in Coral Gables there were plenty of questions about how Duke would react. Yesterday on his show Dan Patrick reported that the Blue Devils held a late night/early morning three-hour practice after landing in Durham, which set Twitter on fire and would have been a NCAA violation if it was true except it wasn’t true. It appears that the producers on the show felt it would be amusing to run with a fake story, but we still are not sure why everybody was so eager to run with it (even Kobe went to the gym before leaving Miami during his infamous late-night practice session at American Airlines Arena). For as much press as this imaginary practice got we would have been much more interested to hear what happened in the actual practice the Blue Devils had to go through yesterday.
4. Notorious number hater Seth Davis is back with his annual Jigsaw Man column where he pairs unheralded players with teams that are a piece away from being complete. So you won’t find Ben McLemore on any of these pairings as Seth tries to find players that are not in the national spotlight. Perhaps it is because we get to see more of these players (even ones in small conferences) on a regular basis or at least hear about their exploits nightly on Twitter by those who are plugged into those teams, but it seems like many of these guys are more well-known than we would come to expect from the Jigsaw Man. Someone like Travis Releford would seem to fit the bill being the third most important player on the Jayhawks while someone like Mike Muscala probably should be left off since he should merit consideration as an All-American.
5. In our eyes the national player of the year has essentially come down to a two player race even if Mike Rothstein’s latest straw poll still says it is a three player race. We can buy into both Trey Burke and Doug McDermott as legitimate contenders, but Mason Plumlee is definitely a tier below those two even if the current voting might suggest otherwise. The player who will probably walk away with the majority of the postseason hardware is the one who is on the team that closes the best. We are leaning towards Burke here with the quality of opponents he will be playing and the fact that he will be on national TV more than most. There is a chance that we could see an even split if both players close the season strong.