There are some REALLY good games on tonight and many of them will be somewhere on the tube, so we figured tonight we’d step up with a special edition of our weekend live-blogging feature.  To start off, we’ll be checking on Boston College at Duke (ESPN), Pittsburgh at Connecticut (ESPN2), and Cincinnati at St. John’s (ESPN-U), and we’ll branch out to other networks as well throughout the night.  We want to know what you’re watching, as well.  Keep hitting that refresh button and we’ll see you in the comments section.  It’ll all start off momentarily…

7:03 pm ET: Wow, where to start?  This is a ridiculous night of hoops.  SO many games on, which is why we’re here.  The first thing I notice is the wardrobe symmetry between play-by-play man Rece Davis (?!?) and Bobby Knight.  Both in the v-neck sweaters.  Is it good when Bobby Knight is influencing your wardrobe choices?  I guess Rece can make it work.

7:07: Yeesh.  Not exactly a good trip for Nolan Smith.  A missed dunk and then a missed 10-foot jumper from almost behind the backboard.  Meanwhile, over on the Big Ten Network, Minnesota is keeping up with Michigan State early; MSU has a 24-21 lead at the under-4 TVTO.  I’m especially fired up for this UConn-Pitt game.  Can Pitt continue this ascent after being basically forgotten about in the early part of this season?  Up on the Huskies early in Storrs…

7:20: UConn looks like a YMCA club team.  They’re straight up on defense, if you can call it that.  At this point they seem severely uninterested.  Pitt has guys moving on offense without the ball, talking on defense, etc.  That’s how you build an early ten point lead on a team in their own house.

7:23: Maybe that Jerome Dyson dunk will get UConn going.  UConn’s strategy is obvious, and that’s to run Pitt into the ground.  UConn scored on four straight possessions so it looks like they’ve finally shown up mentally.  But what’s this?  Interesting score…South Florida up at home on West Virginia 23-12 over on ESPN 360 with about 7:00 left in the first.  Virginia has an early lead on Georgia Tech and BC just got a NICE dunk by Reggie Jackson to go up one on Duke.

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Steve Moore is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic Coast Conference.

There may not have been a ton of games this week in the ACC, especially games that looked good on paper heading in. But there were more than a few interesting results and developments. So let’s get on with it. Be sure to scroll to the end and see if you can beat my predictions for this week’s biggest games.

ACC POWER RANKINGS (record as of Tuesday, Jan. 5)

1. Duke (12-1, 1-0)

PAST:  After splitting the top spot last week with rival UNC, the Blue Devils sit atop this week’s rankings all by themselves. No, it wasn’t the win over Long Beach State or the 59-point demolition of Penn. Duke pretty much dismantled highly regarded Clemson Sunday night, posting a 21-point win that was never even remotely that close. Jon Scheyer is scoring more than enough for Duke, and Kyle Singler and the Devils’ frontcourt proved it could handle a seasoned big man like Trevor Booker. An impressive win, to say the very least.

FUTURE: The Blue Devils face two interesting road tests this week — something they’re not really used to this season. They face Iowa State in Chicago on Wednesday, then head to Georgia Tech for a big date on Saturday. A win there would keep Duke on top of these rankings for another week.

2. North Carolina (11-4, 0-0)

PAST:  Well, there was that Charleston thing on Monday night, but that’s not enough for us to drop them this week. 

FUTURE:  The Heels host Virginia Tech this weekend, leading up to next week’s trip to Clemson and home game against Georgia Tech.

3. Wake Forest (11-2, 1-0)

PAST:  The Deacons take the award for most basketball played this week — and they have two impressive wins to show for it. Wake needed overtime to shake off a very, very good Richmond team on New Year’s Eve (a game I predicted to be a dogfight last week in this space), then went two overtimes to beat Xavier on Sunday in a game I am sad I couldn’t see. More on this game later.

FUTURE:  Fortunately for the tired Deacons, just one game is on the slate this week — a trip to sunny Coral Gables to face Miami on Saturday.

4. Georgia Tech (11-2, 0-1)

PAST:  I won’t waste anyone’s time with details of Tech’s rout of Winston-Salem State, but the 9-point road win at Charlotte is worth mentioning, if only because it was a near disaster. Tech held a 15-point lead in the second half, and needed some big free throws from do-everything-star Gani Lawal to ice it late. Lawal scored 29 points in the win over a good Charlotte team that entered the night with 10 wins.

FUTURE:  A short trip to rival Georgia tonight, then a huge home date with Duke on Saturday afternoon.

5. Florida State (13-2, 1-0)

PAST:  The Seminoles thumped Alabama A&M by 47 points, and followed that up with a 40-point pasting of Texas A&M – Corpus Christi.

FUTURE:   The Seminoles head to Maryland on Sunday.

6. Miami (14-1, 0-1)

PAST:  I almost bumped the Hurricanes up a spot after two more wins this week — except they were against Bethune-Cookman and Pepperdine. No matter the schedule, 14 wins is nothing to laugh at, so beware the ‘Canes as ACC play kicks into gear.

FUTURE:  Saturday’s home game with Wake Forest is one the Hurricanes have to have to be taken seriously as ACC contenders. And I’m gonna predict a win for my new ACC darkhorse (after preseason pick Maryland let me down — big time).

7. Clemson (12-3, 0-0)

PAST:  I really can’t bump Clemson down more than one spot for a loss at Cameron Indoor. But Booker and Co. better find a way to hang around with the ACC’s best if they want to be taken seriously.

FUTURE:  Clemson hosts the ACC’s trainwreck of the year — Boston College — on Saturday. Lose there, and I will find a way to bump the Tigers down more than one spot.

8. Virginia Tech (12-1, 0-0)

PAST:  On the surface, Saturday’s overtime win over Seton Hall in Cancun was nothing exciting. But when you realize that ACC leading scorer Malcolm Delaney missed the game, and Dorenzo Hudson dropped in 41 points, you realize how big a win it was. So far this season, the Hokies have been a one-man show, with Delaney carrying the load. Maybe one or two games without Delaney might be just what Virginia Tech needed with ACC play coming up.

FUTURE:  ACC play couldn’t open in a much tougher fashion for the Hokies, as they head to North Carolina on Sunday. Fortunately, the week-long layoff should be enough time for Delaney’s ankle to heal.

9. N.C. State (10-4, 0-1)

PAST:  Just when you thought last week’s heartbreaker at Arizona was a punch in the gut, N.C. State falls victim to Chandler Parsons’ 75-foot 3-pointer at the overtime buzzer to lose to Florida Sunday night. If you want to be optimistic in the new year, NC State fans, just think that you’ve used up all your bad breaks so far this year, and you’re still 10-4.

FUTURE: The Wolfpack host Holy Cross on Wednesday.

10. Virginia (7-4, 0-0)

PAST: Last week, I said a win for Virginia over UAB would get them out of the cellar. In fact, the 9-point win bumped them up two spots (nearly three, but I just couldn’t pile onto the poor N.C. State fans). The win was easily the biggest ever for coach Tony Bennett in his short career in Charlottesville, with Sylven Landesberg leading the way with 19 points. UAB didn’t help its own cause though, missing 10 of its 15 free throws.

FUTURE: Virginia hosts Texas-Pan American on Tuesday night.

11. Maryland (8-4, 0-0)

PAST:  Maryland, you disappoint me. I piled on the praise in my preview, and thought you were the darlings of the ACC. Then you go out and lose at home to William & Mary. Now I know the Tribe are one of the nation’s top mid-majors this season, but you can’t drop that game at home. Your other three losses (Villanova, Wisconsin, Cincinnati) are nothing to be ashamed of, but this is one the Terps needed to have. Not even a rout of ACC whipping boy UNC-Greensboro on Sunday was enough to help you.

FUTURE:  Maryland hosts Florida State on Sunday.

12. Boston College (9-5, 1-0)

PAST: Just when you thought home losses to Harvard and Rhode Island were bad, the Eagles go and lose — AT HOME — to the University of Maine. This is a team that is not even in the upper echelon of the America East, but the Black Bears still found a way to beat the Eagles at Conte Forum. It’s bad enough for BC fans that the biggest one I know (who also happens to share lots of my DNA) is calling for Al Skinner’s head. Skinner is one of those guys that everyone seems to love, and he has gotten plenty of great years out of teams that no one expected to be great. But it’s hard to ignore these three simple names: Harvard, Rhode Island, and MAINE.

FUTURE: I’ve made this joke before in this space, as BC continues to host what should be easy cupcake opponents in Chestnut Hill. But the Eagles better watch out for NJIT this week. The same NJIT that set the standard for Division I futility. Sorry Eagles fans, but I think you should get comfortable at the bottom of these here rankings.

WEEK THAT WAS…

ACC-TUAL ACC GAMES: Duke’s anticipated date with Clemson turned out to be a real dud on Sunday. The Blue Devils man-handled the Tigers, and proved that their seemingly easy early-season schedule was nothing to laugh at. The frontcourt-heavy Dookies are proving that they can change their style on the fly. Sadly for ACC fans, we have to wait another month for the first Duke-North Carolina game of the season (February 10 in Chapel Hill).

WAKE UP WAKE: The Demon Deacons might be dragging around campus a little bit this week after playing a season’s worth of overtimes in just a few days time. The win over Richmond is nothing to laugh at, especially considering the Spiders are a likely Tournament team. The double-OT shootout with Xavier would have easily been the ACC game of the week, if not for N.C. State’s stunning loss to Florida. Ishmael Smith took over for the Deacons in extra time, dropping nine of his 28 points to cap a 10-for-14 day from the floor. Not only was it a big win for Wake, but it came in the inaugural Skip Prosser Classic, as two programs with direct ties to the late coach got together for a whale of a game.

HOKIE, HOKIE, HIGH: Sadly, because of my paying job (blogging just isn’t profitable), I was only able to watch pieces of a few ACC games this week. One that I did catch most of happened to be Virginia Tech-Seton Hall. At first, I was disappointed not to get a chance to watch Malcolm Delaney play, but Dorenzo Hudson made me forget about that in a heartbeat. Hudson made shots from all over the floor, and literally strapped the Hokies to his back in the second half and overtime. His 41 points was the best scoring effort at Virginia Tech since Bimbo Coles in 1990 – now there’s a name from my childhood. This kid could be a true ACC star in the coming years, and if he can find a way to be a complement to a healthy Delaney, the Hokies could be trouble for the rest of the league.

CRYSTAL BALL TIME…

With conference play really getting under way, we’ll highlight a few (hopefully five each week) specific games in this space (in chronological order), and have a little fun with predictions. Predicting final scores is crazy, but I’ll try to give you the winner and a margin of victory. Each week we’ll keep track of my overall record, and the +/- on my scoring margins. Feel free to play along in the comments and pick the same games as I do. The winner will get the greatest prize in the world: my undying respect

VIRGINIA at N.C. STATE – Saturday, Noon (RAYCOM): Lady Luck has gotta side with the Wolfpack at some point, right? Unfortunately, they get to open up the year of conference play with a tough game against a surprising Virginia team that just posted a top-25 win over UAB. I see the Pack rising to the challenge, and posting an important home win over the Cavaliers.

PREDICTION: N.C. State by 4

DUKE at GEORGIA TECH — Saturday, 2 p.m. (ESPN): After Sunday’s Duke/Clemson showdown turned into a rout, here’s hoping the Yellow Jackets can put up a fight. The frontcourt matchup should be fun to watch, as Singler, Scheyer and the big men try to figure out Lawal, Derrick Favors and Georgia Tech. I’m going with the Yellow Jackets in a semi-surprise.

PREDICTION: Georgia Tech by 2

WAKE FOREST at MIAMI – Saturday, 6 p.m. (ESPNU): The Hurricanes will finally get to see what a real opponent looks like, but they get to do it at home. Unlike some, I won’t completely disregard the Hurricanes’ 14-1 record on account of their joke schedule, but I don’t expect the Deacons to play their third-straight close game. Wake wins this one relatively easily.

PREDICTION: Wake Forest by 8

FLORIDA STATE at MARYLAND – Sunday, 5:30 p.m. (FSN): The Terrapins’ pre-conference slate has been one to forget, and they need this win much more than the Seminoles. I expect Maryland to find its stride and pick up a critical victory.

PREDICTION: Maryland by 5

VIRGINIA TECH at NORTH CAROLINA – Sunday, 7:45 p.m. (FSN): If Delaney’s ankle heals, and Hudson continues his strong play, the Hokies could make this interesting. But I see the Heels running away with it at the end.

PREDICTION: North Carolina by 10

Steve Moore is the RTC correspondent for the ACC.

To call last week’s slate a light one in the ACC would be like saying Roy Williams is a little bit sensitive — it’s a drastic understatement (more on that in a minute). Only 11 games were played by ACC teams this week, and most were completely uninteresting. But there were two games of note…

ACC POWER RANKINGS (record as of Sunday, Dec. 13)

1. North Carolina (8-2, 0-0)

PAST: The Tar Heels destroyed Presbyterian on Saturday, 103-64. But Roy Williams turned it into a story, anyway, even though he said to “not make it bigger than it is.” More on that later.

FUTURE: UNC travels to Austin, Texas for a showdown with the Longhorns on Saturday. UNC not only sits atop these rankings, but continues to play the most must-watch games in the ACC. It’s not even close.

2. Duke (7-1, 0-0)

PAST: Did not play this week

FUTURE: Duke warms up its week with Gardner-Webb at Cameron on Tuesday, before playing a very good Gonzaga team at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. You better not make any plans on Saturday, with UNC-Texas at 2:00 (ESPN) and Duke-Gonzaga at 4:00 (CBS).

3. Georgia Tech (6-1)

PAST: Did not play this week

FUTURE: The Jackets play a non-traditional ROAD game AT Chattanooga tonight, before hosting Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Wednesday.

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Since it’s the weekend, we’ll allow you a couple more hours to sleep in after last night’s mammoth-sized slate of games.

1. Kevin Coble Watch: Northwestern announced Friday that Coble will be seeking a second medical opinion on his foot injury.  Does that mean he didn’t like what he heard from the first doctor?
2. Three BC players (Rakim Sanders, Corey Raji and Courtney Dunn) have been suspended by coach Al Skinner for unspecified team rules violations.  It didn’t impact the Eagles tonight in a 31-pt thrashing of Dartmouth (look at Tyler Roche with 30/5 blks!), and it won’t on Tuesday night against St. Francis (NY) either…
3. Colorado head coach Jeff Bzdelik had to miss his team’s opener against Arkansas-Pine Bluff due to a family emergency.  Assistant coach Steve McClain, who was a head coach at Wyoming for ten years, took over admirably, leading the Buffs to an 88-72 win over UAPB last night.
4. This is a really great story.  BYU head coach Dave Rose, who battled and defeated pancreatic cancer over the summer, was rewarded with a five-year contract extension today that will ensure his family’s security over the next half-decade and beyond.  Does he deserve it? — well, he’s only off to the best four-year start in the school’s history (97-34, .740) — so we’d say that’s a resounding yes.
5. Shameless self-promotion – remember that RTC Live will have two really good mid-major battles today.  We’ll be at the Creighton-Dayton game beginning at 1pm ET and the Davidson-Butler game starting at 2pm this afternoon.  We hope to see you stop by.

Boston College (#7, Midwest, Minneapolis pod)
vs. USC (#10)
Fri., 3/20 at 7:20 PM
Vegas Line: Boston College, +2

Thanks to Vegas Watch for providing these graphs that measure the moving average of a team’s spread (moving avg.) over time vs. the spread for each individual game (indiv).  If a team’s moving average is higher than zero, then Vegas currently has a higher opinion of them than Pomeroy, and vice versa.

General Profile
Location: Chestnut Hill, MA
Conference: ACC, At-large
Coach: Al Skinner, 232-148
08-09 Record: 22-11 (9-7 in the ACC)
Last 12 Games: 7-5
Best Win: At UNC (when they were undefeated and “unbeatable”), 85-78 on January 4th. A close second is their victory at home against Duke, 80-74 on February 15th.
Worst Loss: Following their win at UNC, they lost to Harvard 82-70 at home on January 7th.
Off. Efficiency Rating: 113.9, 27th
Def. Efficiency Rating: 99.3, 132nd

Nuts ‘n Bolts
Star Player(s): Tyrese Rice (17.1 PPG and 5.4 APG); Joe Trapani (13.5 PPG and 6.6 RPG)
Unsung Hero: Rakim Sanders (13.0 PPG and 4.5 RPG)
Potential NBA Draft Pick: Rice, projected at #43 (in 2009). Trapani and Sanders are potential late 2nd round picks when they decide to leave.
Key Injuries: N/A
Depth: 29.7% (200th nationally); percentage of minutes played by reserves
Achilles Heel: Inconsistency. See their January 4th/7th Jekyll and Hyde where they knocked off #1 UNC on the road and then lost the next game to Harvard at home.
Will Make a Deep Run if…: Rice can play consistently and within himself. He tries to get too fancy sometimes with the alley-oops when a simple bounce pass will do.
Will Make an Early Exit if…: The supporting cast (outside of Rice, Trapani, and Sanders) doesn’t step up.

NCAA History
Last Year Invited: 2007; lost to Georgetown in the 2nd round
Streak: N/A
Best NCAA Finish: Elite 8 (1967 and 1982)
Historical Performance vs. Seed (1985-present): +0.28. On average, the Eagles win 0.28 more games than they would be expected to based on their seed compared to historical norms.

Other
Distance to First Round Site: 1,389 miles
School’s Claim to Fame: The Eagles boast three famous QBs (Heisman trophy winner Doug Flutie, one-time All-Pro Matt Hasselbeck and the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year Matt Ryan)
School Wishes It Could Forget: The 1978-79 basketball point shaving scandal, but Bill Simmons won’t let them.
Prediction: The Eagles have played well at the end of the regular season, but they drew a hot USC team. They should be competitive against the Trojans, but in the end Taj Gibson, DeMar Derozan, and Daniel Hackett will be too much.
Major RTC stories: RTC Live: Wake Forest @ Boston College and RTC Live: Clemson at Boston College

Preview written by Rush The Court.

We’re back for the final weekend of regular season Boom Goes the Dynamite for this college basketball season. The highlights of the weekend are obviously the two top 10 match-ups (in Pittsburgh on Saturday and in Chapel Hill on Sunday). We would love to provide you with another RTC Live from those site, but apparently we’re not big enough for them yet. (The onus is on you to spread the word.)

In any event, we’re going to make lemonade out of those lemons so we’ll be providing coverage from our bi-coastal offices covering all the action. Today is loaded with 15 of the top 25 playing with the other 10 playing on Sunday. We will be trying out best to provide you with wall-to-wall coverage of the top teams in action as well as RTC Live from several different locations:

• Colonial Athletic Association at 2:30 PM EST for Hofstra–Loyola Marymount with Ryan Kish courtside
• Missouri Valley Conference at 5 PM EST for Creighton–Illinois State with Patrick Marshall
• West Coast Conference at 9 PM EST for Santa Clara–San Diego with Mike Vernetti courtside

In addition to our on-site correspondents we will be focusing in on a few key games for the majority of the day while also channel surfing over to the other games when the situation merits it. Here are the primary games that we will be covering today:

• #1 UConn at #4 Pittsburgh at Noon on CBS
• Michigan at Minnesota at Noon on ESPN and ESPN360.com
• #25 Syracuse at #15 Marquette at 2 PM on ESPN360.com
• #12 Missouri at Texas A&M at 2 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
• California at #21 Arizona State at 2 PM on CBS
• Oklahoma State at #5 Oklahoma at 3:30 PM on ABC
• Texas at #9 Kansas at 4 PM on CBS
• Washington State at #13 Washington at 5:30 PM on CBS
• Wright State at #22 Butler at 7 PM on ESPNU
• #6 Louisville at West Virginia at 9 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com

As you can tell it’s a pretty ambitious schedule so we are asking you, our loyal legion of RTC followers, to help alert all of us if something interesting is happening. You can contribute by leaving a message in the comment section so we all can follow it.

One piece of RTC breaking news, UNC point guard Ty Lawson injured his left big toe yesterday in practice.

11:30 PM: ESPN GameDay is live from Morgantown, WV and they’re doing their own version of Make Your Case. I feel a little bit like Bill Simmons after ESPN stole his Mount Rushmore, but they aren’t paying me a million dollars a year.

11:45 PM: A couple pieces of NCAA tournament news to wrap-up before we focus on our TV for the next 12 hours: Cornell became the first team to officially get into the tournament last night by winning the Ivy League title and 3 others will join them when the Atlantic Sun, Big South, and Ohio Valley have their championship games today.

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Welcome back to another edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite. I’m back as your semi-regular host after a day off with John Stevens covering for me. Today is a kind of weird day of basketball with the best games later in the day going head-to-head against the NBA All-Star game. So hopefully everyone will be sticking with us throughout the day and the real basketball fans (the ones who actually like defense and competition) will stay with us into the night.

1:00 PM: Our early games today are Illinois at  Indiana on CBS and Clemson at Virginia on ESPN Full Court and ESPN360.com. We’ll be updating you with highlights of those games throughout the day, but like always if there is something going on that we are missing or we make a mistake leave us a message in the comment section.

1:10 PM: Illinois is up 10-7 early. Bruce Weber‘s club must be riding high after their amazing comeback at Northwestern in their last game. Clemson is tied 3-3 in Charlottesville with 15:54 left in the first half. I’m guessing today is Sean Singletary day at UVA today based on the parts of the pre-game that I caught. Singletary, a 3-time 1st team All-ACC player, is one of three players in ACC history (Danny Ferry and Johnny Dawkins being the others) to have 2,000 career points, 500 career assists, and 400 career rebounds.

1:25 PM: Illinois is up 15-7 as we go to a TV timeout. CBS just showed a graphic about Indiana’s tough losses this year by featuring the games they led, but lost. You know the Hooisers are having a bad year when having a lead of 2 points at some point during the game is highlighted as a tough loss. Meanwhile, UVA is up 16-7 with 11:54 as they head into a timeout as well.

1:30 PM: I just noticed the electronic board on the side of the court at Assembly Hall. I guess it’s a nice fan friendly feature and probably generates some revenue through ads, but I think it looks horrendous in this famous arena. I haven’t noticed it at Cameron Indoor, but I think they should avoid it in the historic arenas.

1:40 PM: Jeff Jordan just hit a jumper for Illinois. As we noted before, he was recently was given a scholarship at Illinois. For those of you who haven’t seen him play, we think you might have missed his only big play of the day if his performance this season is any indication of what we can expect today. He’ll probably be out there quite a bit since Indiana is awful so watch for #13 on Illinois.

1:45 PM: UVA is up 22-16 coming out of a timeout with 5:11 left in the first half. Illinois is up 27-13 with a little less than 5 minutes left in the first half. I’ll be focusing on the UVA-Clemson game for now unless the Illinois-Indiana game gets interesting.

1:55 PM: UVA is up 33-25 at half. That 3 by Terrence Oglesby with a little over a minute left in the first half was Clemson’s first of the day after the Tigers missed their first 10 straight. The Cavaliers might have a chance if the Tigers continue to have difficulty hitting from the outside. Trevor Booker has had a big first half with 10 of Clemson’s 25 points, but it wasn’t enough as none of the other Tigers are playing well today. Illinois is up 38-21 at half.

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I don’t think there is any game tonight that really stands out as “Game of the Night”, but there are several intriguing games tonight. I know that everyone is waiting for the “Title Bout” tomorrow night (Duke at Wake Forest).

• Boston College at Maryland at 7:30 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Normally I wouldn’t include a game featuring two unranked teams from BCS conferences, but these have been two of the more confusing teams this year. BC finally appears to recover from the hangover (4-game losing streak) following their big win over UNC. The Eagles are led by All-ACC guard Tyrese Rice, who, like his team, has shown flashes of brilliance (25 points on 7/13 FG, 8 assists, and 5 rebounds in the big UNC win) and been awful at other times (6/18 FG against Miami and 6/19 FG against Virginia Tech). Al Skinner will need a solid performance out of Rice along with Joe Trapani to pick up a big road win at struggling Maryland. As for the Terrapins, I’m not even sure what to say about a team that trailed by as much as 44 points against its rival after its star player (Greivis Vasquez) called out the opposing team and its fans. I would check out this game if only to see the look on Gary Williams‘s face at the start of the game after what happened at Cameron on Saturday.

Rough Day at the Office (BaltimoreSun.com)

• #12 Texas at Baylor at 9:00 PM on The Big 12 Network, ESPN Full Court, and ESPN360.com: Baylor is looking to bounce back after getting blown out at Oklahoma on Saturday. The good news for the Bears: The game isn’t on the road where they have just 5-30 in the Big 12 in the last 5 season. The bad news for the Bears: Texas is ranked and Baylor is just 1-18 in their last 19 games against ranked opponents. To stay in the upper half of the Big 12, Baylor will need to get solid performances out of Curtis Jerrels and LaceDarius Dunn. The Longhorns come in tonight looking at what is most likely their last tough game before a surprisingly easy stretch of six Big 12 games before they get another shot at Oklahoma in Austin. Rick Barnes will look to A.J. Abrams and Damion James (fresh of a 28-point performance in his last game) to come up big for the Longhorn, who should be a top 10 team heading into their rematch against Oklahoma if they win tonight.

• #17 Purdue at Wisconsin at 9 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: After starting its conference season with 3 wins, the Badgers have lost 4 in a row and are in jeopardy of falling out of contention for a NCAA bid unless they right the ship quickly. As a result of a quirk in Big Ten scheduling, Wisconsin will be attempting to do it against Purdue, the team that they started their skid against just 16 days ago. Bo Ryan will need a solid effort out of Joe Krabbenhoft and hope that the Badgers can limit the production out of E’Twaun Moore, Robbie Hummel, and JaJuan Johnson. On the other sideline, a win in Madison would position Matt Painter‘s crew to challenge Illinois and Michigan State for the Big Ten title.

Thanks to the good folks at the BC athletic department we will be trying our first ever live game blog that actually occurs at the game.

– I’m sitting courtside right now (actually 2nd row) across from the Wake bench.
– Wake goes up 2-0 on a tough lay-up by James Johnson.
– Great play off the alley-oop from Al-Farouq Aminu. Going to the line for the old-fashion 3-point play.
– Should be a good match-up between Tyrese Rice and Jeff Teague tonight.

Teague Splits the BC Defense

– Wake up 10-2 and BC calls a timeout. Crowd is pretty quiet right now. I guess that’s what happens after watching your team lose to Harvard and Miami back-to-back.
– Nice spin move by Corey Raji to get the crowd back into it and Rice follows with a 3. Rakim Sanders going to the line.
– Rice gets stripped again and Aminu leads the break before dishing off to Teague who finishes. I’ve been impressed by Aminu’s handle so far. Much better than I expected.
– Teague and Aminu head to the bench. Let’s see if BC can capitalize and cut into the lead here.
– Wake is really struggling to get into its offense without Teague and Aminu.
– Dino Gaudio appears to be reading my mind or my laptop and signals for both guys to head to the scorer’s table.
– Rice just got run over there leading to a steal and a Wake Forest fast break. The crowd is less than pleased with the officiating so far.
– Rice with a big 3 to get the crowd back into it.
– Aminu goes behind his back and dishes to Gary Clark for the easy layup. Aminu has been ridiculous so far.
– Wake with another alley-up. That has to at least be a half a dozen just 15 minutes into the game. Isn’t Al Skinner telling his guys to stay with their men?
– Teague and Rice both have 10, but Teague has been much more efficient in doing it. Teague is totally dominating Rice right now. Teague is making a case to be 1st team All-ACC and possibly All-American.
– Wow. The new BC head football coach has been sitting in front of me the entire time and I had no idea. I wonder what kind of contract he had to sign after the Jagodzinski fiasco.
– Wake gets bailed out after an ugly possession before the half. The Demon Deacons go into the break with a 47-24 lead.
– Just had a discussion with a BC official about how he doesn’t like the flex offense they run. I told him I don’t care what type of offense you run as long as it doesn’t look as bad as BC’s tonight. I wonder if I am going to get invited back. Maybe I should keep those thoughts to myself. . .
– Nice alley-oop by Rice to Reggie Jackson pulling the Eagles to within 19. The crowd goes wild. . .
– I wonder if anybody calls Reggie “Mr. October”. Great nickname for baseball not so much for college basketball. . .
– Another 3 by Rice pulls BC back to 16. They can’t possible make this a game. Can they?
– Teague almost threw down a nasty dunk. That might have gotten press row out of its chairs.
– Things getting physical now. An altercation between Rice and L.D. Williams. What’s Rice doing getting involved with L.D. Williams?
– Rice is out of the game for BC. I think this is the first time all night. I wonder how long Skinner will rest him.
– Rice is already standing up next to the BC assistant coach.
– Chas McFarland has been having a solid if quiet game and gets into double figures with that tip in.
– BC cuts it to 13 with 9 minutes left. How are they still in this game?
– Offensive foul on McFarland. BC ball now with a chance to cut it to 10.
– Huge 3 by Rice to cut it to single digits and the crowd erupts. Could we have a “Rush the Court” situation at RTC’s first game as a “media member”?
– Errant pass by Rice. He is a great scorer, but sometimes I question his decision-making. He’s thrown a couple awful alley-oops tonight.
– Strong finish by Teague bumps the lead back up to 14 and quiets the crowd.
– Rice needs to step up here.
– And he does with a nice driving lay-up.
– It looks like it is going to be Teague vs. Rice to finish the game off tonight.
– The crowd is heading to the exits with the Eagles down by 14 with 3:23 left.

The BC Student Section Didn't Have a Lot To Cheer About

– Teague just sealed it with a 10-foot runner in the lane to put Wake up by 15 with 1:30 left.
– “Let’s go defense!” chants from the crowd down by 15 with 50 seconds left.
– Teague with the exclamation point dunk and now Aminu with an alley-oop in the last 30 seconds. Not going to say it’s classless, but I don’t think BC appreciated it. Rice said something to Teague after his dunk.
– Well that’s a wrap for our first live blog at an actual game. Let me know what you think since I’ll be at the Miami-UNC game on Saturday night. Feedback, suggestions, and criticism are all welcome.

We felt tonight’s ATB of #1 UNC losing to Boston College deserves its own post.

#1 No More (photo credit: Robert Willett/Raleigh News-Observer)

Boston College 85, UNC 78. It’s conference season, isn’t it?  In just the last seven days, we’ve now had the consensus way-better-than-everyone-else teams (UNC and UConn for those of you just tuning in) lose to conference foes.  At home.  In games where neither appeared to be the better team.  There was considerable talk in the last couple of weeks of the likelihood of Carolina going undefeated this season, and we always sorta rolled our eyes when we heard such talk.  There are several reasons for this:

• First, it just doesn’t happen.  A hunted team like Carolina simply will not bring its A+ game every single night, no matter how good they are or how faux-slighted they feel (and how slighted can you feel when you’re being told how great you are at every turn?).  There are always a couple of games where that team will come out flat or fail to properly motivate because their press clippings have gone to their head.
• Second, while this UNC team is stacked relative to the rest of college basketball this season and remains the prohibitive favorite to win the national title in April, the level of talent of their individual players simply isn’t so otherworldly ridiculous that other teams can’t play and compete with them.  As evidence here, we saw what Kansas with its two lottery picks (one actual and one shoulda-been) did to them in the first half of last year’s F4 game (40-12), and much of the reason behind this year’s hype is because all of UNC’s players returned to school, and the reason for THAT is that none/zilch/zero/nada would have been lottery picks had they entered  the NBA Draft last spring.  Put simply, nobody in college basketball is so talented that they can play half-assed  or have a bad game collectively and still win every game.
• Third, Carolina plays in a conference like the ACC, and leagues like that are simply too good on a yearly basis to allow teams like UNC to run roughshod over them.  There are exceptions – we know Duke in 1999 went 16-0 in that league, and more recently, Kentucky went 16-0 in the SEC in 2003, but those teams had already lost a pre-conference game(s) so there wasn’t nearly the same pressure that an unbeaten #1 will face throughout the conference slate.  The only possibility for an unbeaten team in today’s early-entry NCAA basketball environment is something akin to what Memphis was able to do last year or UNLV in 1991 – roll through its vastly inferior conference unbeaten and (for the most part) untested.  The problem is that scenario tends to catch up with those teams during March Madness, as both of those teams in that example learned.

So what happened tonight?  It’s simple and it’s the same problem that Carolina had last year.  Their offense is unmatched by anybody in the country, but their defense sometimes takes nights off.  Against the 68th toughest schedule to date, the UNC offense is the second-most efficient offense in America, but only the 18th most efficient defense.  Most of that ranking is attributable to Carolina’s ability to force turnovers (4th in the nation), but the Heels simply don’t get enough stops  from their halfcourt defense – it ranks 60th at defending twos and 81st at defending threes – not exactly national-title defensive numbers there.  (To be fair, last year’s Heels were even worse defensively, but UNC’s schedule will only get tougher from here on out, which should negatively impact those numbers.)

Let's Hope For His Sake He Didn't Get a Ticket After All (photo credit: Robert Willett/Raleigh News-Observer)

Tonight BC never flinched, shooting 45% from the field and hitting nine threes in the Dean Dome, led by Tyrese Rice’s 25/5/8 assts (who continues his torching of Carolina with 91 pts in his last three games against UNC) and Rakim Sanders’ 22/6/7 stls.  BC not only got the lead in the first half (no big deal), but they held on to as UNC repeatedly got it down to two and even in the last few minutes as BC predictably went cold and UNC made its last-ditch efforts.  Carolina didn’t help itself, though as the Heels were ice cold, especially in the second half (29%) and even more especially Ty Lawson (3-13), and the typically excellent Tar Heel free throwers (#13 nationally at 75%) only managed 5-12 in the last 8 minutes and 15-27 for the game.   Perhaps most importantly, the Heels only forced BC into 10 turnovers, and it was clear that this was something head coach Al Skinner had drilled into his players’ heads, realizing that TOs are the kindling that fuels the UNC attack.

But BC was not to be denied tonight, and #1 goes down, only slightly spoiling the juicy UNC @ Wake matchup scheduled for next weekend.  Whether BC uses this win as a springboard to a surprising season remains to be seen, as its only truly bad loss thus far was at St. Louis, but for tonight they are the giant-killers and the Eagles should be commended for taking it to the vaunted Heels in their house.  Come Monday morning, we’d expect to see BC ranked for the first time in a couple of years, and that gasp you hear from western Pennsylvania has nothing to do with the Steelers – rather, it’s Jamie Dixon’s team prepping itself for it’s school-first #1 ranking in the AP Poll.   College hoops, you gotta love it.