Jesse Baumgartner is an RTC columnist. His Love/Hate column will publish on Mondays throughout the season. In this weekly 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….a game so good that you’re left wondering if you just saw the National Championship preview. There was plenty of hype involved with Kentucky-North Carolina, and it would have been easy to see the game devolve into a sloppy, up-and-down affair. But instead we got everything we asked for and more. Fans and scouts alike were able to salivate over matchups like John Henson-Terrence Jones, and while lightning fast, the pace was still in control. One point on a non-neutral court certainly doesn’t give us any lasting conclusions, other than we’d all be happy to see these two powers square off again in April.

I LOVED….seeing something new. Every year we witness moments that are absurdly unthinkable, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen one like this shot from Detroit’s Ray McCallum, Jr. When in doubt, use the bounce.

I LOVED….seeing a well-balanced attack this early in the year. It’s not shocking that I’m talking about Ohio State, with how much experience and chemistry they have on the court. But still, their dismantling of Duke last Tuesday was a clinic on offensive balance. They may have arguably the best player in the nation in Jared Sullinger, but the Buckeyes spread the ball around so well that it even overshadowed Sullinger’s brilliance on the block.

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1. Apparently there was a pretty big game on Saturday. Unlike many other games, the Kentucky-North Carolina match-up lived up to the hype as it had a little bit of everything including a crazy final sequence that involved a ridiculous block, a brain freeze by UNC, and then a mental lapse by Marquis Teague that should have resulted in a turnover. We posted our recap soon after the game, which you can read here. One thing that has been glossed over in our recap was that it was even match-up that we would be lucky to see in April (not March like everybody keeps saying).
2. Jeff Goodman has been all over Xavier for quite a while now (more likely due to his obsession with Chris Mack than actually insight), but it might be time for the rest of the nation to take notice. With Tu Holloway and Mark Lyons starting the Musketeers might have best backcourt in the country, praise that was heaped on them even before their remarkable comeback against Purdue. Even though Ken Pomeroy doesn’t love them (ranked #22 at the time this was written), with their remaining schedule the Musketeers could very easily be looking at a #3 seed if they continue to play well given how their schedule works out for them with only two road games against ranked opponents (Memphis and St. Louis) remaining.
3. On Friday night, after Syracuse‘s win over Florida, Jim Boeheim apologized for his prior criticism the alleged victims of sexual abuse in the Bernie Fine case. Various members of the media have come out on both sides of the debate. Some applauded Boeheim for having the courage (not sure that is the right word) to apologize for his prior statements. Other took it as another opportunity to rip Boeheim for how long it took him (two weeks) to apologize for his callous prior statement and his need to do so with an attorney-prepared script. Unfortunately for Boeheim and Syracuse we doubt that this circus is going to end until the courts make a ruling or Boeheim retires.
4. Two weeks ago, Jabari Brown left Oregon taking away one of the top freshman recruits in the Pac-12. Last night, the Pac-12 lost another of its most hyped freshman recruits as Sidiki Johnson decided to transfer from Arizona. The exact reasons for Johnson’s transfer have not been provided yet, but it appears that he did not mesh with the Wildcats or Sean Miller. Johnson, who only played in three games before being suspended on November 21, decided to stay in New York City following the team’s appearance in the 2K Sports Classic before returning to Tucson briefly. Johnson has not announced where he is looking to transfer, but his prior list of schools may give us some indication of where he may end up.
5. Finally, a tip of the cap to our college football friends who have to spend another off-season trying to explain their mess of a system to determine a champion. Ignoring the fact that LSU would absolutely destroy Oklahoma State, it is amusing that a team with one loss (on the road following a tragic event in their athletic department) and that has more big wins gets passed over for a chance at the title game by a team that already played the #1 team at home and lost. While there are a few critics who want college basketball to expand its postseason to allow more teams to play (read: help more bad coaches keep their jobs) it is worth noting that as long as you don’t lose your last game of the conference tournament you are allowed a shot to play for the title in our sport (ignoring the Ivy League, a few awful teams in super conferences, and schools on probation). As last year demonstrated, you can play fairly mediocre for a stretch of the season, but if you are playing the best at the end of the season, you can walk away with the title.

This Weekend’s Lede. Every Week a Playoff… Until It Isn’t. No matter your opinion on whether Oklahoma State or Alabama should have the right to play LSU for the BCS national championship next month, can we at least come to an agreement that college football’s tired meme of “every week a playoff” has once again been blown out of the water as farcical? Look, we all know that the NCAA Tournament system is far from perfect in terms of anointing the best team as the champion, but like every other major American sport, at least every team that has a reasonable claim to the crown gets a chance to prove its worth on the hardwood. The old saying goes, “in order to be the best, you have to beat the best,” but as this comical CFB playoff scenario shows, at least one deserving school will get no such chance to do that. On to basketball…

Your Watercooler Moment. Anthony Davis’ Game-Saving Block.

Kentucky vs. North Carolina. North Carolina vs. Kentucky. What else could it be? Saturday afternoon’s tilt in Lexington was one of those rare fulfilling games where the action on the floor not only lived up to the hype, but exceeded it. And the hype for this game was extraordinary, especially considering that it took place on the first Saturday in December rather than sometime deep in March. Our post-game takes on what we’d seen in the one-point Kentucky win are located here, but the long and short of it is this: Carolina should feel as if they were only a play away from winning a difficult road game that didn’t cater to its strengths (61% on threes, but only 33% on twos), while Kentucky should feel that its extremely young but talented team stood toe-to-toe with the other most talented team in America and didn’t blink. Both UNC and UK should be playing in New Orleans next Spring, and if we’re lucky they’ll tip off for the fourth time in just over 16 months with nothing less than the national championship on the line.

Five More Weekend Storylines.

1. Big East Dominates SEC in Challenge. Coming into Friday, the SEC was tied with the Big East at 2-2 in this year’s Challenge. The Big East then won the next six games before dropping the final two Saturday evening to finish at 8-4. The most impressive wins over the weekend were Pittsburgh and Cincinnati’s road wins at Tennessee and Georgia, respectively(the Big East had four roadies), and as we noted in our commentary on Saturday, the Big East appears to be an eight- or nine-team NCAA Tournament conference, whereas the SEC seems to deserve roughly half that. Nothing too surprising here, just further confirmation that the Big East, along with the Big Ten, are the top two conferences in college basketball this season. Read the rest of this entry »

On a lazy Sunday, we’re going mid-major this afternoon with a tilt between two schools who have more pride and tradition between them than many of the power conferences basketball schools. Join us for our live coverage this afternoon, after the jump.

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It may have felt like #1 Kentucky’s big win over #4 North Carolina was the only game of the day, but another 200+ teams who suited up today might beg to differ. Our thoughts on the earlier Game of the Century are located here, but this post will deal with the rest of the afternoon’s key games.

• Marquette Wins Badger State Battle. The second-biggest game on today’s slate was a rivalry game in the Badger State. Marquette wasn’t feeling very Badgerly today, though, as Buzz Williams’ team made a statement of superiority in taking down Wisconsin in Madison. You know, at the Kohl Center, also known as the building where Wisconsin never loses (12 times under Bo Ryan coming into today). MU exploited its better quickness and play-making ability to regularly break into the gut of the Badger defense and gang-rebound the basketball, and despite a good second-half comeback from Wisconsin, Marquette remains unbeaten and served notice to the rest of the Big East that, once again, the small school on the frontier of the conference will be heard from. With a home-heavy schedule the rest of December and a neutral game against Washington next week at the Jimmy V Classic, the Golden Eagles have a great chance at hitting 2012 at 13-0. As for Wisconsin, Jordan Taylor suffered a poor game (4-10 FG, one assist, five TOs) write the Badgers out of your top ten at your own peril.
• Tu Holloway: Xavier Savior. We’ll probably be writing this a lot this year, but Tu Holloway put his team on his back in the second half of Xavier’s game against a fired-up and better-than-advertised Purdue team this afternoon, and carried the Musketeers to another win after being left for dead down 19. With under two minutes in the game and XU still down five points, Holloway drilled a three to cut the lead to two. After a Purdue turnover, here’s where we pick it up:

 These are just one-on-one moves by a player good enough to not only create his own space, but also to knock down the long jumpers. XU had a horrendous first half (18 TOs), but was able to claw back into the game by taking better care of the ball and tightening up its defense. The key, though, is Holloway. He’s such a difference-maker with the ball in his hands that you have to believe that Xavier will win just about every close finish they’re involved in this year.

• Big East Dominance. The SEC/Big East Challenge hasn’t formally ended yet, but as of this writing, the Big East had run out to an 8-2 lead with the two remaining games happening later today. After Friday night’s 4-0 Big East record, the SEC had virtually no chance to tie, but Connecticut ensured the victory in a convincing win over Arkansas, while Pittsburgh outlasted Tennessee in Knoxville. Right now, we’d peg the SEC as a four-team NCAA league with a reasonable shot at a fifth, while the Big East looks like a surefire eight-team NCAA conference with a reasonable shot for a ninth and an outside shot at a tenth.
  
• Pac-12: Best Mid-Major Conference in America? We hate to pile on this league so much, but there were five Pac-12 games this afternoon, and the league went 1-4. Perhaps worse, other than Arizona State’s somewhat surprising win at Tulsa by three points, the other four teams — UCLA, Oregon, USC, and Utah — were all noncompetitive in their losses. And it’s not like they were playing ranked teams here, folks. UCLA couldn’t hang on to an early lead against Texas in its home-away-from-home; Oregon got run out of the EnergySolutions Arena by BYU; USC put up a miserable 40 points in a loss against Minnesota; and, shudder… new Pac-12 member Utah lost by 30 to a largely mediocre Fresno State team. We were joking in the blurb title here about being a mid-major league, but the Pac-12’s KenPom profile is actually closer to the Atlantic 10, Mountain West and Missouri Valley than it is the SEC or ACC. (note: gulp, and that was before today!)

• Butler Not Butler. Nobody expected Butler to immediately recover from its personnel losses after last season’s run to the national championship game, but Brad Stevens’ team is really struggling after an overtime home loss to Valparaiso today. Through eight games, the Bulldogs’ best win came against Savannah State, and a murderer’s row awaits in the next few weeks — Purdue, Xavier, Gonzaga, Stanford. We have learned our lesson about writing off Stevens teams, but right now it wouldn’t surprise us in the least if BU enters the meat of the Horizon League schedule with an overall losing record. The Bulldogs are having trouble shooting the ball from both the line ( 61% on the season, 17-29 today) and behind the arc (29% on the season, 6-20 today), two key components of their attack — until Stevens shores up those areas, Butler will be just another mid-major team.

What a game. It was the most highly-anticipated regular season game of the college basketball season with good reason. The likelihood that both of Kentucky and North Carolina will be playing deep into next March/April is better than not, and although we find the “look how many NBA players there are on the court” mantra somewhat tiresome, there’s no denying that elite talent was peppered all over the Rupp Arena floor this afternoon. Let’s take a look at some of our thoughts and observations from today’s early Christmas present to hoops fans around the nation.

The Play of the Game (credit: Larry Vaught)

• CBB Atmosphere At Its Best. It’s really, really hard to completely silence Rupp Arena, yet at a couple of points in the first half — notably when Kendall Marshall and James McAdoo dropped threes to give UNC an eight-point lead twice, you could hear the coaches yelling at their players on the sidelines, sneakers squeaking, and the ball bouncing off the floor. That’s no easy task in a building that holds over 24,000 people. But as Kentucky mounted its inevitable comeback in the second half, the old barn roared to life. When Marquis Teague’s layup a few minutes into the second half finally gave UK its first lead since the opening minute, the energy coming from the place could have fueled all the power needs for the city of Lexington for the next several days. It never relented the rest of the afternoon. Given the overall atmosphere of Rupp, the high quality nature of the play, and the regal names on the front and back of the jerseys, today was a special day that captures what college hoops is all about when it’s at its best.
  
• Kidd-Gilchrist Was the Star of Stars. Anthony Davis may get all the attention (including from his coach, who has declared Davis as the definite #1 pick in next year’s draft) and he may have been the less heralded player in his matchup against preseason 1st team All-American Harrison Barnes, but Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was the best player on the court today. It is easy to forget that he was the top recruit in his class until his senior year when some recruiting services moved Davis and/or Austin Rivers ahead of him. Kidd-Gilchrist may not have that one skill that makes NBA scouts jump out of their seat, but he does a lot of things well and you would have a tough time convincing us that there were many players in the nation tougher than him after the show he put on today. While Terrence Jones kept the Wildcats alive early, he did not score another point after hitting three free throws with 4:27 left in the first half. After that, it was Kidd-Gilchrist leading the way as he scored 14 of his game-high 17 points when Kentucky most needed it. Davis and Jones may get most of the headlines for the Wildcats, but today showed that opposing teams would be wise to game plan for Kidd-Gilchrist too.
• Anthony Davis Is a Work In Progress. After the game everybody wanted to talk about the late block by Davis on John Henson’s final jump shot. While it was an outstanding block and something that we would not have gotten to even if we were holding a broom, it is worth pointing out that Davis didn’t really play all that well today. For most of the first half he was abused by Tyler Zeller, who quickly realized that he had to make his move early on Davis before the precocious freshman could collect himself to rise for the block. Davis is unbelievably long and athletic with a ceiling that makes NBA scouts and fans drool, but he is nowhere close to a finished product right now. Davis probably will end up being the top pick in next year’s NBA Draft, but it isn’t because he is the best player or even the best freshman in the country. In fact, he may not be the best freshman on his own team. But as we discuss below breaking down the final play, he has tools that are simply beyond normalcy — it’s going to be simply a matter of harnessing them.
• Harrison Barnes Comes Up Small. We don’t want to come too hard on Barnes because we saw what he was capable of late last season, but today he was outplayed by Kidd-Gilchrist. Part of this was due to some early foul trouble (picking up a dumb third foul with 6:19 left in the first half when UNC was up by seven), but at times he seemed to drift a bit and he certainly was not as assertive as the Kentucky freshman. He is probably still a top 10 prospect, but we should stop expecting him to be a superstar every game until he proves that he can do it on a consistent basis. We should also probably re-evaluate where he is in the pecking order of college basketball stars and whether he is still the regular go-to guy that we thought he was last season or if UNC should spread the ball around a little more in late-game situations. He made a clutch three with just over three minutes remaining to keep Carolina alive, but he should be more than a long-range jump shooter (4-5 threes today, but only five FGs) given the overall skill set that he has developed.
• The Phenomenal Davis Block. John Henson is an awkward, unnatural jump shooter, and his catch wasn’t clean on a tipped pass to the spot he was standing with eight seconds remaining, but we’d wager that Anthony Davis’ swooping block coming from somewhere around Section 230 at Rupp Arena is the first time he’s ever been packed on a wide open jump shot when he left his feet. That’s how phenomenal that defensive play was. Davis was standing right in front of the basket when the ball hit Henson’s hands about twelve feet to the right side of the basket. Watch the replay closely. In less than a second with one step and a leap, Davis’ hand covered about 15 feet of space and met Henson at the top of his jump to swat the ball back into his hands to secure the victory. That play alone may have secured his selection as the #1 pick in next year’s NBA Draft. Not only did it save the game for Kentucky, it was the kind of play that makes scouts take notice — if you hadn’t seen it before, those Marcus Camby comparisons forced themselves out of the screen on that play.

• A Strange Ending. After the Davis block, it appeared that UNC just gave up on the game. There were at least five seconds remaining when he secured the ball after the tip, and even after finding Marquis Teague in the corner to dribble the clock out, the Carolina players only half-heartedly ran at him to commit a foul. Once a Tar Heel got to Teague with about a second left on the clock, he only provided a very light push to his back which was not (and should not have been) called. Roy Williams will without question use this as a teaching moment for his guys, because Kentucky had just missed the front end of a one-and-one prior to the Henson/Davis shot-block, and there would have been at least a second or more remaining had the Heels put UK back on the line. The other side of this is that for the second time in a little over a week, a player in live game action picked up the ball and started running with it prior to the clock expiring. Last week in Maui, Wesley Witherspoon did the same thing in a game against Tennessee, turning the ball back over to the Vols for a last shot attempt, and today’s culprit was Teague. He tucked the ball on his hip in the open court with just under a second and started running with it, thinking that the clock had run out. Luckily for the Wildcats, there was no whistle (the refs probably couldn’ t hear the horn), and the game ended just after that. Without question, both coaches will have a few teaching moments deriving from the last six seconds of what was otherwise a pretty entertaining game.

It’s a Big 12/Pac-12 battle in southern California this afternoon, as two teams searching for identities will match up. Join us for our live coverage this afternoon, after the jump.

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The game that nearly every college basketball fan has circled on their calendars is finally here: #4 North Carolina visiting #1 Kentucky. The hype for the game started with Kentucky’s defeat of UNC in the 2011 Elite Eight. Then anticipation turned into a frenzy when upperclassmen — sophomore Harrison Barnes, senior Tyler Zeller, and junior John Henson for the Tar Heels, sophomores Doron Lamb and Terrence Jones for the Wildcats — passed on the 2011 NBA Draft. Instead the NBA will be coming to them (if they can get the media credentials) Saturday at Noon EST. Plebeians like the rest of us can watch the national broadcast on CBS.

Series History (by Gerald Smith): These two programs are the foundation of college basketball, yet on Saturday they play each other for just the 35th time in history. The Tar Heels own the overall series 22-12 and have padded their lead with a 6-2 record since 2004. Back in the 1920s, North Carolina and Kentucky were actually conference-mates in the Southern Conference. The two teams played each other twice in the conference tournament held in Atlanta and once in Lexington, with the Tar Heels coming away victorious each time. Kentucky left to join the Southeastern Conference while North Carolina eventually split off with other Southern Conference teams to form the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Adolph Rupp Helped Turn This Into A Regular Series in the 1960s

Kentucky Coach Adolph Rupp and first-year UNC coach Dean Smith organized a ten-game home-and-home series starting in 1962. According to BigBlueHistory.net’s highly-detailed write-up of the UNC-UK rivalry, the first game of the series saw the debut of Smith’s “the Kentucky play”: a prototype version of Smith’s (in)famous Four Corners offense. North Carolina point guard Larry Brown — yeah, that Larry Brown — would move the ball to the middle and all other Carolina players would space out to the four corners of the floor. By controlling the ball and limiting Wildcat great Cotton Nash to 12 points, North Carolina upset the Wildcats, 88-86. During the 11 games that encompassed this first regular-season series, UNC won eight of them.

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RTC Live is coming to you from Syracuse where basketball has taken a back seat to more serious matters over the past two weeks, but tonight it is the site of the game of the night as the two of the top six teams in the country face off in what is one of the more highly anticipated match-ups of the regular season. Join us for our live coverage tonight, after the jump.

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Brian Otskey is the Big East correspondent for RTC and a regular contributor. You can find him @botskey on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

As we move into December, the first big Saturday of the year (highlighted by the battle in Lexington) is now upon us. Not to mention we get a nice preview of things to come on Friday evening.

#6 Florida @ #3 Syracuse – 7 PM EST Friday on ESPN (*****)

• Syracuse has three distinct advantages in this game despite playing a top ten opponent. One is home court, two is height, and three is depth. The Orange have taller players at every position, one through five, and Jim Boeheim can go a legitimate ten deep into his bench. Against a Florida team that will be without forward Erik Murphy, Syracuse may be able to overwhelm the guard-heavy Gators. The key for the Orange will be defense. The 2-3 zone creates a fantastic match-up given Florida’s preferred style of offense, shooting lots of threes. If the Orange can be active and extend the perimeter of the zone, Florida will have a tough time.

• The key for Florida is simple: make threes. To do that however, the Gators must establish Patric Young early and often. Playing without Murphy, Young is Florida’s only reliable post player. If he can’t get going, Syracuse won’t have to worry about extending the zone and leaving holes in the middle. If Young gets off to a fast start, the Orange will have to respect his presence by packing its defense in a bit more inside the arc. That will give Florida’s dynamic guards the opportunity to make shots. With Kenny Boynton and Mike Rosario both shooting almost 50% from deep and two other Gators lurking as potential snipers, Syracuse doesn’t want to be forced to do that.

Can UF Establish Patric Young Inside To Give Its Shooters Room?

• It’s always fun when a team that relies heavily on guards and the three point shot gets together with a team that plays almost exclusively zone. The Syracuse defense will tempt Florida to shoot the deep ball all night but Florida must work for open shots by establishing Young and some sort of an inside-out game. Keeping the zone off balance and moving the ball effectively are always keys to finding open shots. Defensively, Florida has to do better. Syracuse is much more efficient on that end of the floor while the Gators rank a pedestrian 52nd in the nation. Although three point shooting is the big key in this game, Florida’s defense could cost them in a tight game.