We’re back with the second episode of AITF, a semi-regular piece that will take a closer look at each of the six power conferences to see what interesting tidbits relating to the national picture might be occurring.  And yes, for those of you asking, we’re still classifying the SEC as a power conference (even if KenPom has the Mountain West ahead of it). 

Power Conference Rankings

1.  Big East.

• Everyone in the Big East has now played between six to nine conference games, so we have a somewhat decent sense as to how the pecking order in this league looks at this point.  So far, Pittsburgh (7-1), Villanova (5-1) and possibly Connecticut (4-2) have separated themselves in our eyes as the cream of the conference.  Syracuse (5-2) is just a shade below that group, but they’re going to have to figure out some things before we anoint the Orange among this year’s Big East elite – we’ll keep them at the bottom of the top tier for now, though.  The next level is a muddled mess of seven teams — Louisville, Notre Dame, West Virginia, Marquette, Cincinnati, St. John’s and Georgetown.  The most likely candidate from this group to play up to the next level is (unsurprisingly) Notre Dame after last night’s big win at Pitt, while the most likely candidate to fall completely apart is Steve Lavin’s Johnnies.  ND has already played the toughest part of its schedule whereas St. John’s is already sputtering and still faces four games versus the top tier (plus Duke and UCLA).  The lower tier — Rutgers, Seton Hall, Providence, South Florida and DePaul — isn’t likely to do much more than spring an occasional eyebrow-raising upset (witness PC’s win over Louisville on Saturday).
• Notre Dame has been the beneficiary of the scheduling gods thus far.  The Irish have played nine games (6-3), winning five in the friendly confines of South Bend while going 1-3 away from home.  With nine games left, Mike Brey’s team has only four remaining contests at home, BUT five of their remaining games are against bottom-tier teams, more than another school in the mid-pack.  If the Irish can simply win all of those, they’ll already have eleven wins this season, good enough for an NCAA Tournament bid and a strong seed.  On the other hand, West Virginia, already with wins over three of the bottom tier en route to a 4-2 record, has four games remaining against the elites including a home date with Pitt. 
• We’re simply not a believer in Louisville despite their 15-4 overall and 4-2 conference record.  The Cards shoot 41% of their attempts from three, and when the bombs aren’t falling, bad things happen.  In UL’s two bad performances this season, vs. Drexel and at Providence, Rick Pitino’s modern-day bombinos shot 8-39 (.205) from outside the arc.  When you keep in mind that the Cards have had a soft Big East schedule thus far and escaped Marquette on a miraculous comeback, it wouldn’t surprise us to see the wheels come off soon.
• Rutgers is at 3-4 after defeating after defeating fellow bottom-dwellers South Florida and Seton Hall last week.  But credit is due to Mike Rice’s team for separating the Scarlet Knights a little from the true bottom of the barrel by beating those two plus Providence so far this season.  Having lost the personnel they did and to already be well past last year’s pace of five wins is a solid achievement even if the schedule toughens up from here on out.

2.  Big Ten.

• There was some consternation over the weekend about Michigan State suffering its seventh loss of the season and whether that puts Tom Izzo’s team in danger of falling onto the bubble, and that worry is misguided at this point.  According to Pomeroy, MSU has played the toughest schedule in the nation to date, and various bracketologists (Glockner – #7; Lunardi – #6; Hayes – #6) as of this morning have the Spartans still feeling comfortable.  Still, the Spartans are a couple of bounces away from having lost six in a row (instead of three of six), and it’s clear that Michigan State is struggling to find answers.  Kalin Lucas still doesn’t appear to be himself, and the continued inconsistency of Durrell Summers and Delvon Roe remains perplexing.  Sparty needs to win its next three easily (vs. Michigan, vs. Indiana, @ Iowa). 
• Big Ten schools must be so tired of Bo Ryan and Wisconsin.  Year after year no matter the personnel the guy finds a way to become an annoying thorn in the side of every team in the league.  After a road destruction of Northwestern in Evanston on Saturday, the Badgers sit at 5-2 in the league with four shots to overtake league leaders Ohio State and Purdue on the horizon.  Since the Big Ten expanded to an 18-game conference schedule, the Badgers have averaged a 13-5 record, with Purdue (13.3 wins) and Michigan State (13.7 wins) just barely ahead.  Would you bet against them? 
• Illinois has been close-but-no-cigar in losses to Texas and Ohio State this season, and there’s a general sense that Bruce Weber’s team is just one little thing short of being truly elite.  That one thing is interior defense.  Despite having the very large Mikes (Tisdale and Davis) inside to man the post, Jared Sullinger and Tristan Thompson shredded the Illini frontline for easy scores when they needed them down the stretch.  If Illinois had made stops in those situations (in addition to losses to UIC and Wisconsin), they would very likely be 17-3 or thereabouts and sitting in the top eight of the polls. 
• It’s no big surprise, but Northwestern’s NCAA prospects are dim and fading to black after the beatdown that Wisconsin put on the Wildcats Sunday.  Now at 3-5 in the league with Minnesota away followed by Ohio State and Illinois at home, it’s very likely that the next two weeks will finish them off.  The sad part is that both Michigan State losses were there for the taking; had Northwestern won those, we would be handicapping a very different situation.

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***** – quit your job and divorce your wife if that’s what it takes to watch this game live
**** – best watched live, but if you must, tivo and watch it tonight as soon as you get home
*** – set your tivo but make sure you watch it later
** – set your tivo but we’ll forgive you if it stays in the queue until 2013
* – don’t waste bandwidth (yours or the tivo’s) of any kind on this game

Brian Otskey is an RTC contributor.

No matter how many games there are, no night is ever an off night in college basketball. Notre Dame legitimized itself as a Big East double-bye contender with a massive road win at Pittsburgh last night while Kansas State got their must win. What’s in store for us hoopheads tonight? All rankings from RTC and all times eastern.

#12 Purdue @ #1 Ohio State – 9 pm on ESPN (****)

It's a Battle of Player of the Year Candidates In Columbus Tonight

First place is on the line in the Big Ten as these two clubs meet tonight in Columbus. Ohio State has a one game lead over Purdue and can make it two plus the tiebreaker if they win. On the other hand, the Boilermakers can move into a first place tie and will hold the tiebreaker edge (for now) should they come out on top. Obviously the big-time matchup in this game is down inside as freshman Jared Sullinger goes up against senior JaJuan Johnson. Sullinger has a lot more bulk to push people around inside but Johnson has a game that extends out to mid range and even the three point arc on occasion. Look for Matt Painter’s big man to try and pull Sullinger away from the basket, opening up lanes for Purdue’s guards to get to the rim. Each team starts four guards, so Purdue won’t have as difficult of a time as you might think if Johnson is successful.

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Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist for Rush the Court.

– The last second Cory Joseph-led triumph over North Carolina in Greensboro opened some eyes to the legitimacy of the Texas Longhorns, but it was directly following their evisceration of Michigan State at the Breslin Center when I pegged Rick Barnes’ squad as my official Final Four sleeper. Following a dismantling of Texas A&M on their home floor and a stunning come-from-behind win in Allen Fieldhouse against previously unbeaten Kansas—for my money the single most impressive win of the season to date – I think it’s time we elevate the Longhorns from Final Four contender to justifiable national champion candidate. It’s difficult to believe that this same program is just eight months removed from a historic and embarrassing collapse that saw a #1 Texas team in the nation in mid-January fall out of the rankings to a #8 seed in the NCAA Tournament and a first-round flameout, but the infusion of heady, intelligent and talented freshmen, the maturation of Jordan Hamilton, the cleansing of players with varying agendas and a severe rotation trimming has convinced most followers of the sport that last season’s disintegration is no longer relevant to discuss. Trying to discover a weakness on this Texas squad is a challenging task; even the free throw headaches that plagued last year’s team have improved from the depths of Division I to the point where it in all likelihood won’t single-handedly cost them a game. Their team defense is tenacious and hounding, ranking second in the nation in efficiency and in the top ten in both two-point and three-point field goal defense with stoppers in the paint (see: Tristan Thompson’s length and athleticism forcing Marcus Morris to become a three-point chucker) and on the perimeter (Dogus Balbay and Cory Joseph are two of the best). With capable scorers that line the roster and a scoring extraordinaire that will take and make any shot in the gym, the Longhorns have jumped from the unranked to the second best team in the nation in many evaluators’ eyes, the polar opposite of a downfall last season that’s long in the past.

Barnes and Johnson are leading Texas up the rankings

– The biggest basketball game in the history of the Mountain West conference will take place Wednesday night when top-ten foes BYU and San Diego State clash at the Marriott Center in Provo. Even though ESPN isn’t broadcasting the game, the hype surrounding this showdown will build considerably in the hours ahead until Wednesday night’s late tip off. The atmosphere should be absolutely electric and the stakes are considerably high: a win over an RPI top ten foe, a leg up in the race to win the fourth ranked RPI conference in the nation, a number one seed and potential undefeated campaign for the Aztecs and a jump to the second seed line for the home Cougars, to name a few. What’s so fascinating about this matchup is the contrast in styles. BYU, led by the captivating Jimmer Fredette and his capable sidekick Jackson Emery, is more backcourt-focused, a team whose guards generate steals and fast break opportunities, shoot 37% from deep, rank third in the nation in turnover percentage and has a member of their backcourt (Fredette) that uses 33% of his teams’ possessions. San Diego State, meanwhile, features an abundance of depth in their frontcourt, led by the explosive trio of Kawhi Leonard, Billy White and Malcolm Thomas. The physical and bruising San Diego State frontline boosts the Aztecs to first in block percentage, eighth in two-point field goal percentage and 23^rd in offensive rebounding percentage in the nation. BYU has crumbled in the past when facing superior athleticism and it’s a legitimate concern as to whether the Cougars have the horses up front to match Leonard, White and Thomas. Playing in front of their raucous home fans in an arena where BYU rarely falters should help tremendously.

– So, raise your hand if you had Kansas and Pittsburgh both losing at home in a span of three days. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention/discuss Notre Dame’s jaw-dropping win last night at a place where Pittsburgh is normally invincible just two days following Kansas surrendering their nation-pacing 69-game home winning streak. It’s especially remarkable when you consider that in Notre Dame’s previous two Big East road games at St. John’s and Marquette, two teams that may not make the NCAA Tournament, the Irish lost by a combined 40 points. Give Mike Brey and his team tons and tons of credit for executing and believing in a “burn” gameplan that exhausted the shot clock continuously, limited possessions (ND totaled 37 of 56 points with 11 seconds or fewer on the shot clock) and trusted Ben Hansbrough to create his own shot under enormous pressure. Pittsburgh insisted on switching ball screens and pick-and-roll situations which left Nasir Robinson and the less-than-agile Gary McGhee trying to front Hansbrough in space. The progress that Hansbrough has made improving his conditioning and all-around repertoire from perimeter gunner to capable penetrator, floor general and three-point marksman since his Mississippi State days has been staggering. Although Hansbrough donned the Superman cape late, it was matchup nightmare Carleton Scott that kept the Irish within striking distance by knocking down critical shots all night long. Scott is truly an X-factor and difference maker for Brey, a weapon the Irish didn’t have during those two blowout losses to St. John’s and Marquette.

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David Ely is an RTC Contributor

Get ready college hoops fanatics. Get ready for the stampede of casual fans that are about to crash the sports bars once the NFL season comes to a close. They’ll have to find something for their sports fix and they’ll turn to college basketball. So be prepared for people asking things like, “Who’s that big guy for Ohio State? He looks pretty good.” Or “San Diego State’s in the top five? Really?!?” Just try to smile and nod at those fools. No need to let them ruin the season’s stretch run.

What We Learned

TWTW Loves Jimmer and Kawhi, But Prefers E'Twaun and the Boilers Traveling to Columbus This Week

Even with SDSU and BYU squaring off on Wednesday, TWTW feels that if there’s only one game you watch this week, make sure it’s Purdue at Ohio State, tonight at 9pm ET. Matt Painter’s squad is one of our favorites and TWTW thinks they’re a good bet to pull off the upset. Purdue rebounded from back-to-back losses at Minnesota and West Virginia to grind out a win over a plucky Penn State squad and then took care of business against reeling Michigan State. It would have been easy for the Boilermakers to fold at the first sign of trouble this season. They have the built-in excuse of Robbie Hummel’s injury, and no one really believed they could sustain their early-season success once they hit the meat of their schedule, but seniors JaJuan Johnson and E’Twaun Moore wouldn’t let that two-game losing streak turn into a prolonged swoon. Johnson scored 25 points in the win over PSU, while Moore poured in 26 against the Spartans.

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If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

Top 25 Games

• #16 Notre Dame 56, #3 Pittsburgh 51: “Enormous road win for the Irish tonight, as they utilized some great outside shooting and Ben “Get Out Of My Damn Way” Hansbrough down the stretch to come from behind against the top-notch Pitt Panthers. Carleton Scott’s 4-point play with about seven minutes left pushed the ND lead to 46-41, and they never relinquished it. Some awesome clear-outs for Ben after 30 seconds of burn in the waning minutes helped put it away. (When was the last time we had a guard who could work the clear-out? Seriously. When? And who thought Ben would ever be that guy?)” (Rakes of Mallow)

Pre-Game Analysis

• #12 Purdue at #1 Ohio State: A preview in the form of Q & A from two opposing bloggers. (Boiled Sports or Buckeye Battle Cry)
• Virginia Tech at Georgia Tech: The Hokies will be trying to build on some recent victories in an attempt to move up in the ACC standings. (Tech Hoops)
• Maryland at Virginia: “Maryland’s game at Virginia at John Paul Jones Arena on Thursday is massively important for the Terrapins. Really, every single game from this point out is, and all for the same reason: Maryland’s skating on thin ice for the NCAA tournament unless an unexpected run is on the way down the stretch. Another bad loss, even on the road, may not be something this year’s Terrapins can survive.” (Testudo Times)

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The Lede.  On paper it didn’t appear to be much of a Big Monday, but Notre Dame’s visit to Pittsburgh tonight changed all that.  The lesson from the last eight days in the Big East might just be that nobody is safe in this exceptional basketball conference.

Hansbrough and Co. Silenced the Oakland Zoo Tonight (PPG/M. Freed)

Your Watercooler Moment.  Notre Dame Burns Pitt.  Perhaps Notre Dame caught the Pitt Panthers in a post-celebratory Steelers hangover tonight, or perhaps the Irish are just a very good team that has had the Panthers’ number the last two seasons.  Whatever the case, Notre Dame’s win this evening at the Peterson Events Center, a venue where Pittsburgh has only lost eleven games over the last nine years, is the kind of win that can catapult a team to great things.  Pitt, ranked #2 in the AP poll and #3 in the RTC poll that came out earlier today, was stymied by the same offensive strategy the Irish employed last season on its way to two wins versus the Panthers.  Notre Dame calls it the “burn,” as it is designed to slow down the Panther attack and force its defense to play 35 full seconds and respond accordingly.  It almost sounds counterintuitive, right — slow down Pitt and force them to defend?  Yet this year’s version of Panthers are actually an incredibly efficient offensive team (#1 according to Pomeroy), and while defense and rebounding are always a Jamie Dixon staple, the best way to defeat Pitt this year is to limit their offensive possessions.  The fewer they have, the less opportunities they’ll have to score.  Notre Dame slowed the pace down to an unrelenting crawl, ultimately topping out at a Division I season-low of 48 possessions (for context, an average Wisconsin game has 58 possessions, or ten more than tonight’s molasses-induced game at Pitt).  The game’s slow tempo and Notre Dame’s patience never allowed Pitt to ignite a major run that would set the Oakland Zoo on fire, so that in the last nine minutes of the game the margin was close enough for Ben Hansbrough to do his work off the bounce (13 of his 19 points in that period).  Psycho-T’s little brother utilized simple ball-screens to come off for several open jumpers and forays to the rim for easy layups down the stretch.  Pitt couldn’t seem to figure it out, and as a result, the Panthers lost for only the second time in 53 games at home (but its third in a row to ND).  Carleton Scott’s timely three-point shooting throughout the game (5-6) was also instrumental for in  the big upset.  With the win, the Irish, who have already lost road games in the Big East to Syracuse, St. John’s, and Marquette, may want to consider running the burn more often — with four winnable games on the immediate horizon, Mike Brey’s team could be sitting at a strong 10-3 going into the last dash of the Big East schedule.  No matter how the rest of the season turns out for Mike Brey, this was a season-defining win the Irish should be proud of.  Now that both Pitt and Kansas’ long home court winning streaks have come to an end this season, is Duke next?  The Devils host dangerous BC at home Thursday night.

Tonight’s Quick Hits...

• Did Kansas State Save Its Season? Well, it’s a start.  What we do know is that if Frank Martin’s team couldn’t see the gigantic eight-ball in front of them coming into tonight, then they had some serious 3D shades on.  A loss tonight would have dropped K-State to 1-5 in the Big 12 with a trip to Lawrence pending next weekend.  This was as close to a must-win as we’ve seen this season for a team at this point in the year.  The game tonight was ugly, boring and in many ways comical in the two teams’ ineptitude, but it was a key win for Kansas State regardless.  Who knows, maybe now the Wildcats will start putting things together, but the truth is that this team has every earmark of a season-long disappointment rather than a late bloomer.
• Charles Jenkins Rallies Hofstra.  When you’re the best player in the CAA, as Charles Jenkins is, you’re going to have some games where you’re asked to carry your team to a victory where your team otherwise wouldn’t have had a chance.  With sixteen minutes remaining and Hofstra down fourteen points tonight in Hempstead, Jenkins turned on his scoring abilities and dropped seventeen points in a variety of ways to bring his team back, sending the game to overtime at 79-all.  He then scored six more of his team’s thirteen in the overtime period to lock up a key win that keeps the Pride in a tie for first place in the CAA with VCU at 8-1.  Jenkins 35/3/5 assts/2 stls wasn’t his most impressive performance of the season — he dropped 40/5/6 assts on Binghamton in December — but it was right on cue tonight.  Jenkins is having a phenomenal year — 24/4/5 APG while shooting 56% overall and 45% from distance — we really hope that he finds his way into the NCAA Tournament so that some first round BCS opponent will sweat bullets trying to figure him out.

… and Misses.

• And Lots of Them.  As in misses.  Tonight in the craptacular second half of the Big Monday slate in Manhattan, preseason All-American guards Jacob Pullen and LaceDarius Dunn combined to brick their way to 8-30 from the field and 5-15 from three.  Their poor performances tonight are indicative of the struggles that both teams have had with the burden of big-time expectations this year.  Baylor is still seeking its first quality win of the 2010-11 season while K-State is hoping those Washington State and Virginia Tech wins back in the first few weeks of the season wear well into the late winter.

Tweet of the Night.  Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Walker Carey is an RTC correspondent.

Everyone remembers that West Virginia was in the Final Four last April, but if one team has fallen completely off the radar this season, it is definitely the Mountaineers. It is quite perplexing that a Bob Huggins-coached team with some talent hasn’t received a great deal of national coverage. When considering the number of  incidents involving this team since the start of the season, it’s even more shocking that this Mountaineer squad hasn’t received a major amount of national headlines.

Huggins Has Done a Great Job Keeping WVU Together This Season

Heading into the season, West Virginia was ranked by most publications to finish in the top half of the Big East. The Mountaineers boasted a deep recruiting class with its four members thought to have the potential for an early impact. Much to the chagrin of Coach Huggins, though, that class has hit so many snags that the current  roster carries zero active freshmen. The first domino to fall was when it became known that center David Nyarsuk would be unable to qualify academically as a student at West Virginia. The next one fell at the beginning of the fall semester when guard Darrious Curry had been diagnosed with a previously undetected heart condition and it would be in his best interest to stop playing basketball. Then Huggins suspended guard Noah Cottrill indefinitely for behavior that the head coach termed “unbecoming of a Mountaineer.” Cottrill eventually withdrew from the school on January 14 and is currently evaluating transfer options. The final freshman domino fell on January 12 when forward Kevin Noreen underwent season-ending knee surgery.

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A little over two years ago we mentioned the budding music career of Renaldo Woolridge before he had even played a game for Tennessee. We noted that his constant references to his involvement with the basketball team appeared to be a NCAA violation and we were met with criticism from many Tennessee fans who felt that it was just an innocent hobby and nothing bad would happen from it.

The NCAA will be looking for real answers on this one (Credit: http://www.myspace.com/rwtheanswer)

Well, it appears that Swiperboy aka Baller Vol aka The Answer aka Woolridge [Ed Note: Is this inspired by Puff Daddy aka Diddy aka P. Diddy aka Sean Combs?] has caught the attention of the media and the NCAA again with his music. Earlier today it was first reported that Woolridge had filmed a music video on Saturday at a local bar without having to pay for using the area. That act could be construed as a NCAA violation (impermissible benefit granted due to one’s status as an athlete) that would not be unlike what happened to Jacob Pullen and Curtis Kelly a little over a month ago for getting discounted clothing. Later in the day, however, Tennessee responded with a statement that essentially cleared Woolridge and the program of any wrongdoing stating that the area was used for free by other student groups, no filming had taken place, and the area had not been blocked off to the public. Case closed, right? As Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast my friend.”

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Lots of movement within the top 10 as Syracuse and Kansas both struggled in losses, but one team in particular predictably did not change: Ohio State remains at #1.  Quick n’ dirty analysis of this week’s poll after the jump…

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