Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the Big 12 and Missouri Valley Conferences.

Current Records and My Standings (Conference Record)(Last Week Rank)

1. Northern Iowa (18-8) (12-3)(1)
2. Creighton (21-6)(11-4) (2)
3. Illinois St. (21-5) (10-5)(3)
4. Bradley (14-12) (8-7) (4)
5. Evansville (15-10) (7-8) (5)
6. Wichita St. (13-13) (7-8) (8)
7. Drake (15-12) (6-9) (6)
8. Indiana St. (7-19) (5-10) (10)
9. Southern Illinois (11-15) (6-9) (7)
10. Missouri St. (10-16) (3-12) (9)

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It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these, and we’re trying to get back into gear here…

• Reason #73 to love college basketball – apparently, us.  Sweet. 
• How about reason #70 – Duke is All Things Evil and Sweaty.  We thought that was Sarah Palin, no?  Politically speaking, Washington insider and Terp fan Robert Novak says he will no longer inveigh against Duke after he had his successful cancer treatment at their medical center.
• Kentucky is using an NCAA rulebook loophole to get a leg up on Midnight Madness this year.  Apparently you can use 2 hrs/week for instruction prior to the traditional mid-October practice starting date, and UK will use their 2 hrs on Oct. 10 to get going early. 
• Dickie V. is in the Hall of Fame!  Supposedly his bust will be enshrined perilously close to the Coach K wax figure anus. 
• Patty Mills is back at St. Mary’s enjoying his lavish praise from the Olympic experience, unless you ask this writer.  Editing, people!
• All the BracketBuster information you could ever want…  including 102 teams and nine conferences sending their entire rosters this season (MAC, MVC, OVC, CAA, Horizon, Big West, WAC, MAAC). 
• Kevin Love is the cover boy of 2009 NCAA Basketball (formerly March Madness) for all you gamers out there.

Some older stuff you might have missed…

• American’s Jeff Jones parlayed the school’s first ever NCAA appearance into a nice contract extension through 2014. 
• Tom Crean can’t catch a break (other than his new bitchin paycheck).  His only returning scholarship player, Kyle Taber, injured his knee and will be out of action for 10 weeks.   
• Ty Lawson confirmed that he “probably” would be in the NBA right now had it not been for his “drinking while driving” arrest in June.  If Lawson had left, would Danny Green and/or Wayne Ellington have stayed too?  UNC fans should be thanking their lucky stars for Lawson’s (mis)fortune this season. 
• Wow, do you think the NCAA micromanages much?  Arkansas recently self-reported six violations, and some of them just seem silly.
• Oklahoma’s Mr. Dub-Dub, Blake Griffin, was ticketed for outraging public decency, also known as the piss-and-walk. 
• Thanks to the SEC’s new comprehensive tv package deal ($2B!!!) with ESPN, there will be two more nights of SEC coverage (in addition to Super Tuesday) on the network starting in 2009-10.  In related news, Time Warner Cable has picked up the Big Ten Network (whew!  glad we’ve got Comcast at the RTC abode!!).