1. For a Kansas team hoping to push for a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, finishing the remainder of the season without another loss looks like it’ll be a necessity, and even that might not be enough to earn a spot on the top line on Selection Sunday. One of the teams that appears to be poised for a #1 seed ahead of Kansas is, of course, Wichita State. On Thursday, Kansas head coach Bill Self said that he believes the Shockers should earn a #1 seed if they finish the season unbeaten, given how hard it is to consistently win on the road regardless of strength of schedule. If things play out like they could, we might find a situation where Wichita State and Kansas are in the same region as the #1 and #2 seeds. That would certainly be all the Sunflower State could handle.
2. Competition in the Big 12 has been nothing short of stellar for most of the season, but as Dave Skretta of the Associated Press points out, we might be reaching a point where the league is cannibalizing itself. Because there are so many quality teams from top to bottom, beating each other could potentially have a negative impact on the number of berths that the league receives to the NCAA Tournament.  The last two weeks of the season are sure to have several games that will have a significant impact on the postseason, let’s just hope the selection committee is aware of just how tough it is to win in the Big 12 this season.
3. In a sport like college basketball where so much of the talk is centered around underclassmen, it’s refreshing to hear some of the senior night stories that will take place in the next few weeks — such as this one about Oklahoma seniors Cam Clark and Tyler Neal.  While Neal has the luxury of welcoming his parents to every home game, Clark will for once have his parents in attendance as he plays his final game in Norman.
4. One of the biggest reasons for the turnaround that Rick Barnes’ team has experienced at Texas this season is the improved play of big man Cameron Ridley. On Wednesday night, Ridley saw the type of size on Baylor’s front line that he can expect to see at the NBA level, and his performance didn’t disappoint. We’ve seen similar play at times from Ridley throughout the season, namely the home game against Kansas where Ridley dominated the talented Jayhawks’ frontcourt. For Texas to excel in postseason play, you can bet that Ridley will need to continue to have a significant influence.
5. Speaking of postseason play, Bob Huggins’ West Virginia team is currently in the hunt for an NCAA Tournament bid, but will need some big wins down the stretch to get there. Unfortunately for the Mountaineers, they will continue to be without the services of Terry Henderson, who has been out of action with an undisclosed illness since a game against Kansas on February 8. While West Virginia officials couldn’t get into the details of exactly what is wrong with Henderson, they believe he is appearing to come out of whatever is bothering him. It looks like superbly talented point guard Juwan Staten will continue to shoulder most of the load for the Mountaineers.

Daniel Evans (@bracketexpert) is Rush the Court’s resident bracketologist. He will update his brackets at least twice a week through the rest of the regular season here at RTC, but his updated brackets can be viewed daily at Bracketology Expert. As we approach March Madness, he’ll also provide occasional blind resumes. Evans has been ranked by the Bracket Matrix as the nation’s 11th-best bracketologist out of hundreds of entries. 

With Syracuse‘s surprising loss to Boston College Wednesday night, the Orange are still a top seed but they are no longer the top overall seed. I now have Florida, which has won 18 straight games after last night’s overtime victory over Auburn, as the top overall seed. The Gators have not lost this season while at full strength and their worst loss is at Connecticut on a buzzer-beater. Compared with a loss to a bad BC team in the Carrier Dome, that sounds very forgiving. Arizona also survived at Utah on Wednesday night  and remains on the top line,  although the Wildcats are playing with fire recently.

The biggest loser Wednesday night was Minnesota, which lost to Illinois at home. The Gophers remain in the bracket, but barely. Baylor enters the field after a win over Oklahoma State, and the Cowboys hung on to their slot, although I’m not confident either one of those Big 12 teams will be in the field come Selection Sunday.

Last Four In: Oklahoma State, Saint Joseph’s, Baylor, Tennessee (note: #12 Georgetown was slotted down for bracketing reasons)
First Four Out: Dayton, BYU, West Virginia, Oregon

Bids by Conference: Big 12 (7), Pac-12 (6), Big East (6), Big Ten (6), Atlantic 10 (5), ACC (5), SEC (4), AAC (4), Mountain West (2)

Nick Fasulo is an RTC correspondent who writes the column College Basketball By the Tweets, a look at the world of college hoops through the prism of everyone’s favorite social media platform. You can find him on Twitter @nickfasuloSBN.

College basketball had its Richard Sherman moment Saturday night in Lubbock, Texas, as Oklahoma State superstar Marcus Smart shoved a notable Texas Tech fan named Jeff Orr to spark a flurry of discussion via Twitter. Even if you weren’t watching the Cowboys suffer their fourth consecutive loss, one quick check of your news feed would have immediately brought the story to your attention, along with varying opinions and perspective surrounding the incident. We now know that Smart has been suspended for three games. Below is how the story evolved from the initial reaction up through Sunday’s announcement of Smart’s suspension.

The Initial Reaction

It all started — for me at least — with a Vine of the Smart shove posted by CBSSports.com‘s Matt Norlander:

Wow. Suspension? RT @MattNorlander: Marcus Smart pushes a fan/older man. Video https://t.co/jRczeykegj

— Nick Fasulo (@nickfasuloSBN) February 9, 2014

Within minutes, everyone had responded to the shove.  Some people immediately knew a developing story was afoot. The very first with the trigger was Pat Forde:

Good lord Marcus Smart just lost his mind. Shoved a fan at Texas tech.

— Pat Forde (@YahooForde) February 9, 2014

The subsequent knee-jerk tweets are fascinating to look back on. Certainly nobody is in the wrong, but based on what we learned, these now feel like nascent observations.

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It’s been an interesting week around the college basketball universe, and the RTC Podblast is back to lead you through it. Actually, that’s not true. This is a bit of a different podblast, mostly because we weren’t able to get our Rush the Takes segment recorded as early in the week as we usually do. So in this one, we review a few of the week’s better results but also spent some time talking Big 12 basketball with ESPN analyst, Fran Fraschilla. As always, he was an informative and engaging guest, and we were pleased to hear his takes regarding what some argue is the best league in college basketball this season. The full rundown is below.

Make sure to subscribe to the podcast/podblast on iTunes so that you’ll get all of them immediately downloaded to your listening device.

• 0:00-4:11 – Michigan Launches Themselves Towards the Top of the Big Ten
• 4:11-7:50 – Minnesota Notches Another Big Ten Upset While Wisconsin Continues Their Slide
• 7:50-19:10 – Rush the Takes With Fran Fraschilla
• 19:10-23:25 – #RootForTheSuit and Top 25 Weekend Preview
• 23:25-30:09 – Non-Top 25 Weekend Preview (With a Pac-12 Digression)

As Brian Otskey noted earlier this week, January losing streaks have caused a number of once-top teams to tumble down, and in some cases, out of the polls. The rigors of conference play have deflowered those gaudy late December records, prompting a number of far-sooner-than-expected reality checks. Past history will tell you that some of these January slumps will be reduced to mere blips on the radar by March (e.g., the defending champion Louisville Cardinals lost three in a row in the first month of 2013), while others are indeed the beginning of a fade into college hoops oblivion. Wondering about future prospects for fading powers? Here’s a look at where the panic meter should be (10=High Panic, 1=Nothing to worry about) for five of college basketball’s most downward-trending squads.

Georgetown: Panic Meter=10

John Thompson III, Markel Starks And Georgetown Suddenly Have Their Backs Against The Wall

With Jabril Trawick not expected back anytime soon (broken jaw), and Josh Smith out indefinitely due to academics (don’t forget that Greg Whittington’s “indefinite” academic suspension a year ago eventually caused him to miss the Hoyas’ final 19 contests), Georgetown is clearly undermanned right now. D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera has been brilliant, and Markel Starks intermittently so, but finding offensive contributions from players who aren’t 6’2” guards has proven impossible since Smith‘s suspension began. With the 10-day forecast looking especially gloomy — top-15 teams Creighton, Villanova and Michigan State are up next for JT3’s club – Georgetown’s season could be very close to finished by the time Super Bowl Sunday arrives. Even if the Hoyas can get Smith and Trawick back by early February, a challenging closing stretch awaits: Six of Georgetown’s final seven opponents are currently ranked in KenPom’s top 75. It’s probably not the way Georgetown wanted to find March peace, but Hoyas’ fans may finally avoid their annual NCAA Tournament heartbreak.

Wisconsin: Panic Meter= 1

If you play basketball in the Big Ten, you are going to lose games. The league is simply too strong top-to-bottom to cruise the entire winter without resistance. Yes, Michigan and Michigan State – losses are coming for you as well (beginning for one of the two on Saturday). In any case, Wisconsin should be just fine. Aside from some struggles from three-point range (likely temporary), the uber-efficient Badgers’ offense has continued to roll, even through their current three-game losing streak. The defense could stand to improve marginally (55th nationally in defensive efficiency), but there is just too much offensive firepower in Madison for Bucky’s train to go too far off the tracks.

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We’re a bit later this week because of some issues involving Richard Sherman, MLK Day and a snowstorm named Janus (seriously?), we’re back with this week’s RTC Podcast. Of course, if you were already an iTunes subscriber, you would have already listened to the recording because it dropped much earlier on Wednesday over there. We highly suggest that you make it a part of your regular podcast rotation by subscribing on iTunes. What’s the worst that could happen?

In this week’s edition, hosted by the inimitable Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114), we forgo the Rush the Takes segment in favor of really digging into the key midseason question of distinguishing between a team’s ranking and a team’s resume. And never the twain shall meet. We go back and forth on this during a discussion of several teams, and as always, have a great time doing it. The full rundown is below.

• 0:00-7:52 – Kansas and the End of the Big 12 Title Race
• 7:52-18:22 – Fallout From Creighton’s Three-Point Shooting Clinic in Philly
• 18:22-23:50 – Syracuse and Pitt Have a Classic Big East Battle (in the ACC)
• 23:50-28:59 – #RootForTheSuit and #CheerForTheEars in the Rankings
• 28:59-33:50 – Concern for Struggling Teams
• 33:50-38:54 – You, Me and the AP (Florida)
• 38:54-44:13 – You, Me and the AP (Louisville)
• 44:13-47:33 – Week Preview

The Baylor Bears are currently the 12th best team in the land (says the Associated Press), and are considered by many to be both a Big 12 title contender and Final Four threat. The Bears are deep and talented (as usual), and Kenny Chery has been remarkable enough to make Bears fan already forget their preseason fears of a life without Pierre Jackson. But after Wednesday night’s discouraging no-show of an 82-72 loss to Texas Tech – a game in which Baylor trailed by 21 at halftime – I think it’s high time we reassess Scott Drew’s team. They are a talented bunch, no doubt; but are the Bears as good as we first thought?

Cory Jefferson And The Defensively Challenged Bears Would Be Well-Suited To Replicate Their Offensive Efficiency On The Other End Of The Floor

Baylor had already risen all the way to seventh in the polls this season, but another decisive Big 12 road loss (at Iowa State) knocked them down to their current spot. The Bears followed the standard prescription for reaching the upper realms of the poll: Enter the season ranked, possess a solid reputation of recent success, and then it doesn’t really matter who you beat — just win a bunch of games. Twelve of 13 did the trick for Scott Drew’s team, and that one loss was commendable – a seven-point defeat to second ranked Syracuse in Maui. But if we reevaluate Baylor’s current list of victories, the rise in profile that accompanied its jaunt up the polls may feel a bit hasty. Wins over Kentucky and Colorado are nice, but Arkansas and Washington can also claim that. Furthermore, make sure to note that those two games – both played in Dallas/Fort Worth — should be considered far friendlier for Baylor than the attached “neutral site” title would suggest – especially as the Bears struggle on the road here early in conference play.

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A week ago now, Matt Norlander of CBSSports.com tried to determine which was the best basketball conference in America this year. He broke down overall records, record vs. top 25 RPI, record vs. top 50 KenPom, record vs. the top 10 conferences, and more. The numbers have changed a bit since then, what with an extra week of games, but the post is still worth a look as conference play has tipped off in earnest this week. Below, we’ll reference those numbers and some of his findings as we try to determine the answer to the following question — Is the Pac-12 really in the hunt for the title of best conference in the nation?

Is The Pac-12 The Best Conference? Here’s A Hint: Probably Not

First, understand that this exercise is really sort of meaningless. Conferences don’t advance to the Final Four or win national championships – teams do. And depending on what criteria you’re looking for, you can make all sorts of arguments as to which league is the best. Is it more important to have a grouping of elite teams; or do you want to have a big chunk of teams that are good; or are you impressed by conferences where the bottom quarter of the league is capable of beating anybody? (Note: if you are interested in that last criterion, feel free to throw the Pac-12 with its triumvirate of Oregon State, Washington State and Washington out.) But it is a fun argument to have over a few cold beverages, or over Twitter or, really, anywhere. So, why does the Pac-12 deserve to be in this discussion?

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We all know Marcus Smart. We first met him last winter, when he was busy terrorizing Big 12 opponents as a freshman. However, it turned out we didn’t know everything about Marcus back then, because he wound up shocking us all in April with his decision to eschew the NBA Draft for a year. But boy, have we had the chance to get to know him all over again this winter. By virtue of conducting Oklahoma State’s red-hot start, Smart’s name has dominated headlines for the past six weeks, and rightfully so. After all, among the many individual stretches of Smart’s dominance was this display. And this shot. Many will tell you he is the current favorite for National POY, and if you feel like arguing with them, good luck. So far, Smart has been that good.

Markel Brown — Not Marcus Smart — Took Center Stage For The Cowboys On Saturday Night

But hiding somewhere behind the nation’s love affair with Marcus Smart – a fling I’m OK with, for the record – is a pretty freaking good basketball team. That basketball team improved to 11-1 on Saturday night in Las Vegas, dispatching a solid Colorado club (now 10-2) in the process. Smart was his typically proficient self (18 points, three assists), but that night served to remind us that he has some pretty capable teammates as well. Phil Forte, owner of the nation’s third-best individual efficiency rating entering the night, made four threes en route to a 16-point effort. Le’Bryan Nash pitched in with 15 points of his own, and did a little bit of everything else, contributing six rebounds, two assists, two steals, and three LOUD blocks. But of all the Cowboys who contributed to the cause, it was senior Markel Brown who offered the biggest lift. The senior scored 23 points, grabbed 11 rebounds, and even chipped in three assists: a domineering effort, indeed, and on a sizable stage. If you didn’t know all that much about the Pokes before Saturday night, Brown’s performance surely rated as eye-catching. But if you did? Just another lethally efficient demonstration from one of the nation’s most underrated players.

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One of the best games of the weekend should take place in Ames, Iowa, on Friday night, as Iowa State hosts Iowa for state bragging rights. Big Ten correspondent Brendan Brody and the Big 12’s Brian Goodman decided to address some key questions heading into the contest in the hopes of providing some insights for the viewers to watch for as the game plays out.

Roy Devyn Marble will play a vital role if the Hawkeyes want to pull off a road upset against Iowa State Friday night (Joe Camporeale/USA Today Sports).

B12: Iowa State has risen to the Top 25 and is getting contributions from a number of players, but what is Iowa’s best bet to contain the three-headed monster of Melvin Ejim, Georges Niang, and DeAndre Kane?

B1G: The best way that Iowa can do this is to force turnovers and bad shots with their diamond press that they employ on a good number of possessions. Aaron White and Mike Gesell are the key defensive players here, with White’s length a problem for Iowa State at the head of the press. Gesell harassed Farleigh Dickinson’s best guard, Sidney Sanders, into a 5-of-17, four-turnover evening recently, so look for him to start off on Kane to try to force similar results. Another advantage the Hawkeyes have is strength in numbers. They have multiple players who they can rotate in and out to cover each of the Cyclones’ Big Three. Speaking of which, Iowa has one of the deepest teams in the country, with 10 players averaging over 15 MPG. How can the Cyclones negate this Iowa advantage?

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