***** – 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.

Last night’s games didn’t disappoint as #1 Duke went down and a host of other competitive games made Wednesday a night to savor. The schedule is lighter tonight but a few important conference matchups are on tap. All rankings from RTC and all times eastern.

#8 Purdue @ #21 Minnesota – 7 pm on ESPN (****)

Purdue Obviously Misses Hummel, But Johnson and the Boilermakers Have Proven They Can Hang Without Him

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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

• #2 Ohio State 68, Michigan 64: “William Buford led four Buckeyes in double figures with 19 and Ohio State survived a prolonged field goal drought by hitting 11/14 free throws over the final 8:37 to outlast Michigan 68-64 tonight in Crisler Arena.” (Eleven Warriors or UM Hoops: Player Interviews)
• #5 Pittsburgh 72, #19 Georgetown 57: “What is there to say about tonight? Everything that could have went wrong for Georgetown ended up happening in a soul-crushing demolition by Pittsburgh. The Hoyas came out in front of a capacity crowd, and save for five minutes in the second half, seemed to be the only 13 guys that didn’t want to be in the building. Losing 72-57 at home on ESPN is demoralizing enough, but to do so in such a listless way is all the more disappointing. We didn’t play offense, we didn’t play defense, we didn’t rebound, we didn’t hit free throws, we just existed. In my six plus years as a Georgetown fan, I have never seen a game this depressing.” (Casual Hoya)
• #7 Villanova 88, Louisville 74: “t was a long day for the Cards in the bright lights of Philly.  After starting off hot, Nova’s adjustments in the second half to prevent open three point looks proved to be our downfall.  Most of us knew the crazy hot shooting couldn’t last, and the real world caught up to us in a brutal stretch that put the game out of reach.” (Card Chronicle)

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1. When we list links in the Morning Five every day, we always hope you’ll click on them. Even though we don’t expect our readers to check out every single link in a given M5, we only put things up here that we think you’d want to read or that will provide the original source from a piece of information that we think you should have. We will not attempt to describe the story that Yahoo!’s Jason King published yesterday about the tragic bond shared between Billy Donovan and two of his former assistants, Alabama head coach Anthony Grant and Arkansas head coach John Pelphrey. It is something you simply have to experience for yourself. The RTC crew are not the types to fall victim to that old cliche that a sad story makes for extraordinary writing, or an automatically “better” or elevated story; so take our word for it — you need to read this. Allow us to also say that even though we finished reading the story with red eyes and our collective jaw somewhere around belt-buckle level, we are actually comforted by the fact that men like this — and their families — are in the business of influencing and teaching 18-22 year olds; not because they and their wives and children have experienced tragedy, but because of how they’ve rebounded from it. Now, before you even move on to link #2 in today’s M5, click the above story and read it. Then you can come back here and rejoin our little world.
2. There’s one thing Bob Huggins won’t have to worry about as he and his West Virginia squad trudge through the Big East schedule toward the post-season: freshman mistakes. Because he, um…has no frosh left. Freshman forward Kevin Noreen had surgery on Wednesday to repair a ruptured prepatellar bursal sac on his right knee and will miss the rest of the season. He was the last active Mountaineer freshman on the team out of the four that Huggins brought in this year.
3. Ever since Washington’s Abdul Gaddy tore his ACL, we’ve been waiting to see who would step up and lead the Huskies as both a vocal leader and a distributor of the ball. Jeff Goodman makes a compelling case that Isaiah Thomas has already taken on the task of filling that role. We were inspired to look up a couple of stats Goodman alludes to in the article that back up what he’s saying: last year, Thomas’ assist-to-turnover ratio was 1.3 to 1 and he sported an assist rate of 28.5 (tied for 438th nationally). This season, his A/TO ratio is up to 2.1 and his assist rate of 56.1 is tops in the Pac-10 and 56th nationally.
4. Word surfaced yesterday afternoon that former California freshman Gary Franklin will resurface at Baylor and will be eligible for play in the second semester next year. So, how’s Cal doing sans Franklin? Just fine, writes California Golden Blogs, specifically citing the 1.07 and 1.06 points per possession the Bears averaged against their last two opponents (Arizona State and Arizona, respectively), a level they had only achieved four times in the previous 13 games. Franklin will also enjoy being at Baylor more; you’ve got to shoot to be a scorer, and Franklin should run wild, given all those shots LaceDarius Dunn will leave behind in Waco next year.
5. Hey, check out those Colorado schools! Colorado is 13-4 and 2-0 in the Big 12. Colorado State is 11-5. Air Force is 10-5.  Denver is, er, 8-9…but 4-0 in the Sun Belt! The Denver Post’s Chris Dempsey shows us that, when it comes to making the NCAA Tournament, hope is alive in the Centennial State and with good reason. We hope at least one of them gets there. Of those schools, Air Force was the last to go — five years ago. And Denver has never tasted the sweet, healing waters of The Dance.

The Lede.  It was billed as a blockbuster night of college hoops, and as happens more often than not in this sport, there was no letdown.  It culminated in this great photo snapped immediately after the game’s finish… is there any better view on a cold January night?

Completely Justified and Encouraged RTC at FSU Tonight

Your Watercooler Moment.  The Nation’s #1 Team Goes Down.  Not only was it the consensus #1 team… not only was it one of the few remaining unbeaten teams… not only was it DUKE… but the Blue Devils lost to a team in Florida State that had recently gotten thumped by Auburn, quite possibly the nation’s worst power conference team (apologies to Wake Forest and DePaul).  Set your transitive property flowcharts to ridiculous mode.  Video of the final few seconds of the game and the RTC afterward is below (fantastic coverage of the court, FSU fans — quick and complete!), but for a more detailed analysis of tonight’s upset victory, click over to our post that went up a little while after the game.

Tonight’s Quick Hits…

• The Other Unbeatens.  Ohio State, Kansas, Syracuse and San Diego State were all in action tonight, and all of them pulled through to keep their streaks alive.  All except for Syracuse were challenged tonight, which once again shows why we’ll be lucky to get to February with a single team still standing with an unblemished record.  We plan on doing an analysis later this week to dissect that very thing, so stay tuned for that.    
• Jeremy Hazell’s Return.  What can you say about this kid?  He wasn’t expected to be ready for another week or two, but tonight in his first game back after breaking his wrist AND getting shot in a robbery on Christmas night, he went for 23/2 on 10-17 shooting coming off the bench.  His arrival back in the rotation can’t come at a better time for the Hall, as the Pirates have already lost three games and really need to stay in the lower mid-pack to make a run at the postseason again.
• Clemson Pitches a Perfect Game.  Well, nearly.  This won’t sound that great until you think about it , but tonight Clemson missed only sixteen shots for its entire game against Georgia Tech, including FG and FT attempts.  The Tigers went 27-39 from the field (69%), including a scorching 11-14 from three (79%) and 22-26 from the line (85%).  The Tigers’ effective FG% of 83.3% tonight ties Virginia (vs. Howard) for the best performance of the entire season in over 5,400 games played this year.  Brad Brownell is doing a great job with this team in his first year.

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For the third time in nine years, FSU has knocked off a top-ranked Duke team that came to Tallahassee as the heavy favorites. Unlike 2002 when an undefeated Duke team led by Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy Jr., and Carlos Boozer lost to a Seminole team that had lost to American just a few weeks earlier, or 2006 when a 27-1 Duke team led by J.J. Redick and  Shelden Williams lost to a mediocre Seminole squad, this FSU team has the potential to be a solid team despite what their loss to Auburn last week might indicate.

There Was Nothing Inside for the Devils Tonight (AP/S. Cannon)

While most of the media will point to poor shooting nights by Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith and bemoan the continued absence of Kyrie Irving, when Coach K addresses his team his primary focus should be on the Blue Devils’ complete lack of production on the inside. As Luke Winn astutely pointed out a month ago when Irving first went down, the distribution of the ball would change significantly, but even he failed to predict the precipitous decline in production that we are seeing from Mason Plumlee, who has only scored more than four points once in eight games since Irving was injured. The Blue Devils had so little on the inside tonight that they ended up taking 35 out of their 61 shots (57%) from beyond the arc, which would appear to indicate either a lack of a presence or confidence on the inside. To be fair to Plumlee, he was productive on the glass, grabbing 14 rebounds, and FSU is very tough to play against down low (ask Jared Sullinger who “only” had 11 points and 13 rebounds earlier this year). Still, Duke needs him to step up and become a presence on the inside like he was earlier in the season (25 points and 12 rebounds against Marquette) if they expect to compete with Ohio State with Jared Sullinger or Kansas with Marcus and Markieff Morris while they wait/pray for Irving to come back.

Having said that, we need to congratulate Leonard Hamilton and the Seminoles. Derwin Kitchen was a load on the inside today, putting up 22 points and pulling 10 rebounds while Chris Singleton added 18 points to go along with his usual outstanding defense. We also want to tip our hats to their fans for a solid RTC at the end that was performed safely but effectively and in an appropriate setting. While we wait on video of tonight’s RTC to appear on the Internet we recommend you check out the last 20.5 seconds of FSU’s upset of Duke in 2002.

Welcome to Through the Lens, an RTC photo tour through the game of college basketball.

This week’s topic: PASSION.

He’s mo-bile, probably not very a-gile, but definitely not fra-gile. Dick Vitale, one of the best friends the game of college basketball has, signed a contract extension with ESPN today that will keep him telling us about PTPers and diaper dandies through the 2014-2015 season. That’s right — at least an Olympiad more of Dickie V.

We needle Vitale on here quite a bit. But we wouldn’t have been disappointed if ESPN had locked him up for forty more years as opposed to four. Not becuase we like ribbing him, but because you gotta love the guy.

In Celebration of His Contract Extension, We Won't Call That Clearing Left Arm.

The first time I “met” Dick Vitale I was a sophomore in college. I won’t tell you where or when (heh heh) this was, but there were no college basketball blogs then. A couple of friends and I had attended a Vitale-called game at our beloved institution of higher beer consumption hitting on girls learning, and we stayed around for the head coach’s live post game radio show. When it was over, my buddies and I saw Vitale, who had just completed his post-game duties for ESPN, walking up the stands with an undeniably imposing security guard in front of him. We figured we wouldn’t get too many chances like this in later life, so, like star-struck fanboys, we speed-walked (okay, ran) up the bleachers towards him, calling him “Dickie V!” as if we’d known him for most of our lives.

The school had given out those cardboard cutouts of Vitale’s smiling face on a stick (actual size), similar to the ones they use on Pardon the Interruption. We still had ours and brandished them as we approached him. The security guard turned, put out a halting hand, and told us, “No, gentlemen. Thanks, but Mr.Vitale is finished working for the night.”

Actually, he only got out half of “finished” before Vitale, in long coat and gloves and obviously wanting to get back to his hotel and rest, turned around, removed his gloves, and shook our hands. With his usual enthusiasm and only slightly reduced volume, he asked us, “Hey, what’d you fellas think of that game? Man, that press took care of [the opponent] tonight, they had no answer! I mean, it was like there were ten of ’em out there!…” We didn’t even have time to answer. If he was just assuming “Dickie V-mode” and performing for us, he was doing a pretty convincing job.

One of my friends was from Maryland and loved his Terrapins despite being very far from home. When he could get a word in, he asked Vitale, “Hey, Coach, when’s your next trip to Maryland to see my Turtles?”

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Game #101.  Undefeated Syracuse visits MSG tonight with the potential that they’ll actually be the road team as the Johnies continue their ascent up the Big East standings.

Fourth-ranked and undefeated Syracuse invades Madison Square Garden tonight for the second time this season as they face upstart St. John’s. Syracuse thumped Michigan State in this building last month in the Jimmy V. Classic in front of a partisan quasi-home crowd. The Orange (16-0, 3-0) are coming off a tougher than expected win at Seton Hall on Saturday, a game in which they shot just 47% from the free throw line and were out-rebounded by the smaller Pirates 43-30. St. John’s had their five game winning streak snapped by Notre Dame in convincing fashion on Saturday night as the Irish won by 15 in a game that wasn’t even that close. Despite the loss, the Red Storm sit at 10-4 overall and 3-1 in Big East play, right behind Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Villanova and Louisville at the top. The upset win over Georgetown last week has sparked even more interest in Steve Lavin’s program in a city desperate for a college hoops winner. One thing to watch tonight is the atmosphere in the Garden. Syracuse travels well and has lots of fans in New York City so expect a lot of the Orange faithful to make it into the building even though it’s a home game for St. John’s. With snow in the forecast for part of Wednesday however, it’s anyone’s guess how the crowd shakes out. Join us tonight for RTC Live to find out as we bring you what should be an exciting matchup from the hoops Mecca.

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

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

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In an environment where everyone is quicker than a hiccup to play the role of judge, jury and executioner, consider the case of Trevor Mbakwe at Minnesota.  The talented big man and Gophers’ best player was arrested and jailed Monday night for violating a restraining order placed on him by a woman in neighboring St. Paul after he posted a comment on her Facebook page.  The restraining order, placed upon him in 2009, allows no contact whatsoever between Mbakwe and the woman, even through the relatively safe distance of the internet.  Yesterday Minnesota officials released the blurb that Mbakwe wrote:

Mbakwe's Recent Arrest Deserves Context

I know we haven’t talked in forever and trust me I’m not trying to start any drama with nobody in your life or anything. I just wanted to wish u the best with everything and I hope all has been well with you and your family. I am still disappointed how everything played out and I do wish that in the future we could be cool again. Idk how u r going to take this msg hopefully its not bad but I just wanted to wish u a happy new year and send out a congrats for graduating. I’ve been well I’m finally playin bball again in everything down in miami finally got taken care of thank god. Well idk if u will respond or not but best wishes for 2011.

Within an hour after publishing these comments, Mbakwe had the police at his door.  Now, we’re not about to sit here and tell you that the restraining order placed on Mbakwe is meritless or otherwise diminish its seriousness.  Restraining orders are only placed on people through court order, and for a court to make such a decree, there has to be solid evidence that the restrainee has crossed or shows a willingness to cross a common line of civility.  And for the woman involved, she without question would not have gone to such lengths unless she truly felt threatened in some manner by Mbakwe’s demeanor and prior actions.  So in terms of his arrest, we have no problem with it.  The police cannot choose if or when to enforce restraining orders; they have to do what the court tells them to do.  Mbakwe gets no sympathy on this point either — he certainly knew that he was not supposed to contact the woman, and still he chose to ignore that restriction.  Actions beget consequences; Mbakwe begat his. 

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