David Ely is an RTC Contributor 

Introduction:

It’s Feb. 1. That means there’s only 40 days left until Selection Sunday, or 40 days left for teams to build up their resume so their bubble doesn’t pop. We’re sure there are going to be a lot of heated discussions about teams hovering within that last four in-last four out zone over the next six weeks. Heck, here at TWTW, we’ll probably change our opinion on certain squads three  or four times until the end of the regular season. It should be a crazy six weeks, but we know it’s going to be fun.  

What We learned

After a weekend that saw 13 ranked teams lose (and the entire top 25 go 22-20 for the week, as Seth Davis pointed out on SI.com) the chic thing to do is talk about the gigantic bulging central part of the bell curve that symbolizes this college basketball season. It’s nearly impossible to make sense of who’s good and who’s bad on a weekly basis, as a team is liable to have a monumental win one night and then lose to a lesser school a few days later. Let’s use Georgetown as an example. Just over two weeks ago the Hoyas were a mess at 1-4 in the Big East and losers of four of their previous five games. Now, they’ve won five in a row, including recent triumphs at Villanova and at home against Louisville. Georgetown isn’t the only school that enjoys playing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Check out this paragraph from Davis’ Monday column: 

“Texas can lose at USC and then win at Kansas. Tennessee, which should be this movie’s poster child, can win at Villanova and Pitt (at the Consol Energy Center) and lose to College of Charleston and Charlotte. Louisville loses at home to Drexel but beats UConn on the road. Providence loses to LaSalle but beats Louisville and Villanova. Auburn loses to Samford, Campbell and Presbyterian, but it beats Florida State, which later beats Duke. What, you didn’t know Presbyterian was better than Duke? And on Sunday, St. John’s (which lost to Fordham) blew out Duke.” 

Given all this uncertainty, can anyone honestly say with any assurance that there’s a clear-cut elite set of teams? Ohio State might be undefeated, but the Buckeyes have had their fair share of nail biters over ho-hum teams (Michigan, Penn State, and most recently, Northwestern). TWTW would like to put its eggs into Texas’ basket. The Longhorns are this week’s Team du Jour, having torched four ranked teams in the last 13 days, but you wouldn’t be shocked if Texas didn’t have a hiccup or two to an unranked team before the season’s end, would you?

This Tristan Thompson-Nathan Walkup Encounter Accurately Summarizes Texas' Throttling of the Aggies Last Night (B. Sullivan/Dallas Morning News)

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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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1. A painter can be convinced that they’re in the process of creating a masterpiece and then, suddenly, pick up their brushes one day and lose all feel for what they were doing or what they wanted to say. The only option then is to leave it or trash it and work on something else. A similar thing happens in sports, and especially college basketball. Players and coaches can fall victim to burnout, chemistry problems, communication breakdowns, or any host of difficulties that can ruin a season. Not one person here would be surprised if Michigan State lost the rest of their conference games and then coasted through the Big Ten Tournament, but certainly nobody predicted the kind of season the Spartans are having. MSU site The Only Colors weighs in on what they think the problems are in East Lansing.
2. Sophomore forward Dan Jennings must have had a plane to catch on Sunday, or perhaps he just figured he had better things to do than to sit on the bench with his West Virginia teammates as the Mountaineers defeated South Florida. Jennings, who’s played in 14 of WVU’s 18 games and averages 2.1 PPG and 2.5 RPG in 8.6 MPG, just up and left the bench with about 18 minutes left in the game yesterday, “never to be seen again, I guess,” according to Bob Huggins. Dan, buddy…apologize to your team and your coach and enjoy any role your team gives you. You’re a young forward on a team with a few guys playing better than you at that position. Keep working and your time will come.
3. Having just one loss and a player of the year candidate on your team will put a smile on any coach’s face, but The Daily Herald’sJason Franchuk says the best evidence that BYU coach Dave Rose is having fun this seasonis that the coach has actually made it a point to take time to needle the writer consistently about ths condition of the latter’s cell phone. Franchuk also notes that Jimmer Fredette and Kyle Collinswoth are “looking forward to the fun” of playing San Diego State this Wednesday night. So are we, boys.
4. How would you like to be a D-I baller caught in a situation in which, on one hand, you’ve got mobsters calling you in your dorm room telling you what they’d like the margin of tonight’s game to be, and, on the other, your coaches, university officials, and the FBI telling you how to handle yourself in this little conundrum? This piece from the Jackson Sun describes how former Memphis State player Lowery Kirk found himself in just that spot in 1961, back in the days when college basketball was much more within the reach of the wiseguy demimonde.
5. If you have ESPN Insider access, we encourage you to check out the Doug Gottlieb article about getting comfortable as a college freshman, and not just because it had us reminiscing about those trembling and reluctant first few college days of our own. We certainly won’t give away Gottlieb’s whole list, but two fellows who appear on it whom we’re most impressed by are Missouri’s Phil Pressey and Ohio State’s Aaron Craft. Just a few weeks ago, Pressey was lost and downright intimidated but has found his rhythm and you can see confidence where there once was none. And for a while it looked like Craft would be primarily known as “the guy in the Bruce Pearl photo,” but his solid play for the Buckeyes has been too good for people to even care about that.

The Lede. Saturday afternoon was the first weekend day this year that the game had the sporting world to itself.  And man, was it worth it.  If five games featuring ranked teams playing each other wasn’t enough for you, you were also rewarded with the oh-so-brief return of Tennessee’s Bruce Pearl, several solid upsets, at least one RTC and, of course, another explosion from The Jimmer.  Sunday wasn’t nearly as exciting because most schools and media outlets avoided competing with the NFL playoffs, but the next two weeks are all ours, so lets enjoy it, shall we?

The Horns Hooked KU in Lawrence (AP/O. Wagner)

Your Watercooler Moment.  Texas Ends Kansas’ Home Winning Streak at 69 Games. On a weekend of impressive road victories, this was easily the most compelling.  In fact, a reasonable argument could be made that Texas winning in Allen Fieldhouse for the first time ever and breaking KU’s 69-game homecourt winning streak is the most impressive road win of the season.  Consider that there are second-semester seniors at KU who, until Saturday, had been attending games for nearly four years and never witnessed a KU loss — the looks of disbelief in the eyes of some of those Jayhawk students on Saturday surely told the tale.  We asked our Twitter followers that afternoon, even prior to Texas taking control of this game, who they thought were the teams with the greatest upside between now and March.  We think it’s fairly clear now that the top choice should be Texas — this is a team nobody will want to play in the postseason.  As much as the Horns disintegrated in a quagmire of finger-pointing and poor team chemistry last season, this year’s squad seems to trust one another.  Led by the scoring talents of Jordan Hamilton on the wing and a flypaper defense that holds teams under 40% from two and 30% from three, they have dominated the Big 12 through only four games of the conference slate (average margin of victory = 20.8 PPG).  The UT defense did something in Allen Fieldhouse that we’ve never seen occur — completely shut down the Kansas attack.  After an emotional 18-3 start (Thomas Robinson’s mother unexpectedly died on Friday night) where KU appeared on the verge of blowing out the Horns, Texas instead chipped away the rest of the half and ultimately finished the game with a 71-45 run of its own.  When was the last time anybody went +26 on Kansas in AFH?  Much of it was directly attributable to the work that Texas big men Gary Johnson and Matt Hill did on the Morris twins.  For the better part of this month, the Morrises have run roughshod over everybody in their way, averaging 38/19 combined while dominating the post — on Saturday, they combined to shoot 8-24 FG for a much more manageable 26/12, forcing the KU guards (including the still-struggling Josh Selby, who was 2-9) to beat them.  They could not, as one of the very best offensive teams in the country was completely stymied by the UT defense — there were no open looks as Bill Self’s team bricked its way to one of its worst home shooting games in years (36%).  Rick Barnes’ team is still figuring itself out, but the potential is there — the Horns already have wins at East Lansing, Lawrence and vs. UNC in Greensboro this season.  This Texas team could be scary good, but they have to continue believing in each other this time around and not let the demons re-appear; if they do so, they’re on the short list of teams capable of cutting the nets down in their home state –only 165 miles from campus in Houston — later this season.

Your Watercooler Moment, Part II. Big-Time Road Wins.  We mentioned this above, but Texas wasn’t the only team this weekend that had an impressive road win.  Villanova went into Syracuse and dropped bombs on the one-loss Orange; Ohio State stared down the Illini in Champaign and never blinked; BYU successfully navigated a trap game at Colorado State behind The Jimmer’s 42 points; and Wisconsin reminded Northwestern of the Big Ten pecking order by destroying the Wildcats in Evanston.  We’re all sophisticated enough to know that credibility as a title contender comes from winning on the road when every person in the house hates you with all of their being — each of these teams showed this weekend why they should be taken seriously.  In order to beat them, you’re going to have to play a fantastic game no matter where the venue is situated.

For our BGTD analyses of Saturday’s full slate of games, here’s Part I (early afternoon) and Part II (late afternoon).

This Weekend’s Quick Hits…

• Jared Sullinger as NPOY.  Much is being made about the outward confidence that Sullinger displayed in the huddle prior to Ohio State going on a 14-0 run in the second half of its game against Illinois on Saturday, but the bigger takeaway from that win is that Ohio State has a weapon that nobody else in the country has — a big man who can score at will inside.  Nobody can check this guy, as his 27/16/3 blks against the large front line of Mike Davis and Mike Tisdale attest.  When he doesn’t score off the catch, he forces a foul, drawing almost seven per game, and scores from the line (13-15 FTs Saturday).  The only way to stop him is to deny him the ball, but that will mean doubling him and giving up wide-open shots for his talented corps of teammates including Jon Diebler, David Lighty, William Buford and DeShaun Thomas.  Good luck with that strategy.  To compare him with another great OSU freshman post man of recent vintage, Sullinger isn’t the defender that Greg Oden was, but he’s far beyond Oden on the offensive end.
• The Jimmer as Must-See Basketball.  It was the first sellout in seven years at Colorado State, but the Ram fans all came out to see and scream at Jimmer Fredette Saturday.  Not that it mattered much, as BYU scorched CSU for 65% shooting in the first half en route to a 55-40 halftime lead and kept a good distance the rest of the way.  With top five San Diego State coming to Provo on Wednesday and CSU playing well this season, this could have been a trap game, but Fredette’s 42/4/4 assts on 11-24 shooting ensured that wasn’t going to happen.  The nation’s leading scorer, now at 26.6 PPG, clearly relishes hostile environments to show his stuff — all six of his 30-pt games this season have been away from home.  Something tells us that might change on Wednesday night.

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The great games don’t let up just because we’ve headed into the latter part of the afternoon.  Even though it’s January, quite a few late afternoon games have NCAA Tournament implications.  Let’s see what’s going on out there…

• K-State in Serious Trouble.  No team in America has been more disappointing this season than Frank Martin’s Wildcats.  Not Michigan State, not North Carolina, not Gonzaga, not even Memphis.  In what seems like an eternity ago, K-State was ranked in everyone’s top five coming into the season and the Big 12 media even picked them to win the conference for the first time ever.  After this afternoon’s loss to Texas A&M (who is quickly moving into Bo Ryan/Wisconsin territory with their annual ascent up the rankings no matter the personnel), KSU sits at 1-4 in the Big 12 with two games remaining against Kansas and a pair against Missouri and Texas still to come.  It’s clear that the loss of Denis Clemente has impacted the Wildcats far more than anyone expected, but the NCAA Tournament is starting to appear like a mirage unless they can figure out things in a hurry.
• Maybe Pearl Should Stay Suspended.  It made for a great storyline that Bruce Pearl returned to the sidelines today for a one-game respite from his SEC-mandated eight-game suspension.  But the truth is that Tennessee hasn’t looked all that much different with Tony Jones running the team than it did with Pearl over there on the sidelines.  Despite Kemba Walker’s lowest point output of the season (16 points), Tennessee wasn’t able to capitalize, all too often depending on Scotty Hopson’s wild forays to the rim (and turnovers) to produce points.  UT is without question the most enigmatic team in the country this season, and it wouldn’t surprise any of us if the Vols ripped off its next four before losing six in a row.  You just never know with this team.
• Muskies Doing What They Do.  The Xavier-Temple game in Cincinnati was a pretty important Atlantic 10 matchup because the Musketeers once again are unbeaten in league play and Temple came in with a single loss.  We’re not sure how XU keeps doing this year after year, but they are doing it again.  Just a couple of weeks ago it appeared that Temple was by far the class of the A10 and could quite possibly run away with this thing.  The Muskies did it today with its highly efficient offense, putting four players in double figures and hitting 53% of its shots and 8-13 from deep.  Temple seemed generally flustered on its end of the court in showing that the only way they could score was to bang out threes (11 today).  As a result of today’s game, XU already has a two-game lead over its biggest rival for the crown on its way to its fifth-straight regular season Atlantic 10 title.  Wow.
• Texas Breaks KU’s Homecourt Winning Streak.  Texas exorcised a whole host of demons today by going into Allen Fieldhouse and defeating Kansas, 33-33.  The streaks broken — KU’s 69-game homecourt winning streak; KU’s unbeaten season; Texas’ 0-9 record in Lawrence.  We’ve been saying for a while that among teams populating the top 35 in the country, it’s Rick Barnes’ Longhorns who might have the biggest upside of any team in America.  They are absolutely loaded with athletic talent, and with Jordan Hamilton on the wing as a playmaker, they have one of the very best players in the country at getting points when they need them.  After falling behind 18-3 in the early going and looking on the verge of another Allen Fieldhouse nightmare, Rick Barnes’ team kept its composure and continued playing defense.  The rest of the game:  71-45.  Teams not named Kansas don’t make those kinds of runs in Allen Fieldhouse.  We feel that this game says more about UT than it does about KU, but Kansas isn’t going anywhere in March if Josh Selby continues to struggle (2-9 FG, 4 points, 1 assist).

***** – 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.

Almost all of the action is on Saturday but what a day it will be. A couple of huge games start us off right away at noon but the rest of the day will not disappoint. It’s very unfortunate but #21 St. Mary’s @ #23 Vanderbilt is not on television and neither is Belmont at East Tennessee State on Sunday, a battle for first in the Atlantic Sun. You obviously won’t be able to watch those games unless you’re attending but definitely check and see how they play out. All rankings from RTC and all times eastern.

#1 Ohio State @ #18 Illinois – 12 pm Saturday on CBS (****)

Sylvester and the Buckeyes Had the Last Laugh When Illinois Was #1 in 2005

It should be a crazy environment in Champaign on Saturday when the #1 team in the land pays a visit. Illinois is having a good year but probably not as good as some of the more optimistic Illini fans would have hoped. That can change in a big way with a marquee win over the Buckeyes. You’ll recall what happened almost six years ago in Columbus. Illinois was #1 at 29-0 on the last day of the regular season and lost on a Matt Sylvester three with five seconds to play as the unranked Buckeyes knocked off the eventual national runner up. By the way: Gus Johnson was working that one in 2005 and he’ll be in Champaign on Saturday if you even needed another reason to tune in.

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

Ultimately, it comes down to the players.

Any humble coach will admit, even after accomplishing such feats as a conference title, Final Four berth or national championship, that players decide the outcome of games. Dean Smith repeatedly refused to take credit for his endless list of achievements, constantly effusing praise towards his players during his historic run on the sidelines at North Carolina. Just last season, Mike Krzyzewski raved about the growth of his team and his three seniors on the podium in Indianapolis following his fourth national championship as Duke head coach.

Still, coaches are far from meaningless, especially in collegiate athletics. They’re in charge of developing their kids from freshmen to seniors, running practices and infusing life lessons, recruiting and scheduling, managing fragile egos and making vital in-game adjustments. Coaches are the face of the basketball program and responsible for the accomplishments and failings of said program. Albeit a tricky exercise filled with plenty of variables, let’s try to highlight some of the best and worst coaching jobs of the college basketball season thus far and the reasoning for why these 12 coaches deserve either a heaping piece of the blame pie or an even larger slice of the glory.

UL's success has turned Pitino-related attention from off to on the floor

Best Coaching Jobs

Rick Pitino– One of the premier programs in college basketball, Louisville has faced seemingly endless hardships and obstacles since their Elite Eight berth in 2009. Despite star center Samardo Samuels bolting early and the loss of senior backcourt cogs Edgar Sosa and Jerry Smith, the Cardinals sit at 15-3 (4-1) in the vicious Big East. But the loss of Samuels was just the beginning of the nightmare: heralded recruit Justin Coleman didn’t quality academically, Memphis transfer and impact shooter Roburt Sallie lost his case for immediate eligibility and starting power forward/leading returning scorer Jared Swopshire needed season-ending surgery on his groin. Overcoming such odds is a challenge, but the coaching genius of Pitino, a hectic full-court press that often masks talent disparity and the three-point heroics of Preston Knowles have the 15^th-ranked Cardinals achieving what even the most ardent ‘Ville supporter couldn’t have imagined during a supposed rebuilding season. Give Pitino tons of credit for keeping the ship afloat.

Seth Greenberg– The preseason top 25 Hokies haven’t lit the world on fire this season. They sit at a pedestrian 12-5 (3-2) with decent wins against Oklahoma State, Florida State and at Maryland and blown opportunities against quality opponents along the way. It could have been so much worse given the vast number of injuries that Virginia Tech has sustained, though. Third leading scorer Dorenzo Hudson and expected frontcourt contributors J.T. Thompson, Cadarian Raines and Allan Chaney are all gone. Greenberg has had to manage with a rotation about six or seven deep and also dealt with moving little-used sophomore guard Erick Green to the full-time role of point guard in order for Malcolm Delaney to operate off the ball. Green has blossomed and the Hokies appeared to be an NCAA team with a statement double-digit win last night at Maryland. Not many programs could have overcome such a breadth of injuries up front.

Randy Bennett– Saint Mary’s isn’t Duke, Kansas or Ohio State. Losing all-WCC center and team leader Omar Samhan (21.3 PPG, 10.9 RPG) and not missing a beat is a daunting task for a program located in Moraga, Calif. Utilizing an Australian pipeline second to none in the sport, Bennett and his lethal backcourt tandem of Mickey McConnell and Matthew Dellavedova have the Gaels ranked despite the subtraction of Samhan. Non-power conference NCAA Tournament mainstays like Butler, Gonzaga and Xavier are known for perennially replacing key contributors while other programs take 2-3 seasons to reload. Players like Rob Jones and Mitchell Young stepping in seamlessly for Samhan shows that Bennett is building something awfully similar in the Bay Area.

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The Lede.  There weren’t a multitude of games tonight, but that never stopped us before.  And in fact, there were quite a number of good storylines coming out of a Tuesday night of college basketball.  From the zaniness that is UT basketball to Calipari’s foul mouthed motivational techniques to Jimmer’s bombs to the continuing humiliation of a Clemson visit to Chapel Hill, it’s all here.

Brian Williams Was the Hero On This Night (C. Compton/AJC)

Your Watercooler Moment.  Tennessee’s Season is a Four-Month Comedy Show.  Honestly, if you told us that the next thing Tennessee plans on doing is crushing Connecticut by 40 points in Hartford this weekend followed by Bruce Pearl chaining Scotty Hopson and Tobias Harris to a dogsled to get back to Knoxville after the game, we’d probably just shake our heads and figure that you were telling us the truth.  It’s just been that kind of a season for the Vols, and all indications are that it’s only going to continue on the crazy track.  Witness tonight’s game-winning play against Georgia in Athens.  With Bruce Pearl still watching his team from home during his eight-game SEC suspension, UT’s Tobias Harris threw up a wild airball from the corner as regulation time was running out.  Somehow Brian Williams reached over the top of Georgia’s Chris Barnes and, as the refs all swallowed their whistles, wrestled the ball from behind Barnes’ head as they both fell backwards.  Williams then threw the ball toward the rim while pulling Barnes down on top of him, and, of course… it went in.  He later went on to say that he’s “Kobe mixed with a little Dirk,” clearly aware of the fact that Kobe and Dirk both get away with murder down the stretch of close games.  You can watch the sequence below, but with the win tonight, the Vols have safely navigated the more difficult half of the SEC schedule with Pearl suspended — UT will play LSU and Alabama at home with road trips to Ole Miss and Auburn next.  Again, we wouldn’t be shocked if they lost to Auburn and won the other three at this point — it’s been that kind of a season in Knoxville.

Tonight’s Quick Hits…

• Jimmer Pulls Up From the Marriott.  Yeah, his range is ridiculous, as witnessed by this jumper from Al Dillard/JJ Redick-range during the first half of BYU’s win versus TCU this evening.  Fredette only went for 21/5 assts tonight, bringing down his nation-leading scoring average to 25.8 PPG one week after torching rival Utah for 47.  The Cougars moved to 4-0 in the Mountain West, though, with the easy win, but they’d be smart to focus carefully on their road trip to play Colorado State this weekend prior to the massive showdown against SDSU next week.  The CSU game has all the markings of a classic trap game.

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

– Outside of Duke, if there’s one team in the ACC that I’m not concerned about, it’s Maryland. The Terps are sitting at a pedestrian 11-6 on the season, but Gary Williams challenged his team on numerous occasions in the non-conference and that strategy should pay off as we head into February and March. Despite losing three senior starters and integral pieces in Greivis Vasquez, Eric Hayes and Landon Milbourne, Maryland hasn’t lost by double digits yet this season, a list of competitive contests that includes Pittsburgh, Duke, Illinois, Villanova, Temple and Boston College. The blown 12-point second half lead at Villanova last Saturday had to be the most heartbreaking for Gary and his staff, a true road game against a top ten team squandered when the jump shot evaded them and their guards forgot that Jordan Williams is their best player for about a six minute stretch. Williams continues to play phenomenal basketball and has to be second behind Jared Sullinger as far as true back-to-the-basket post presences are concerned in college basketball. He’s rebounding at a sky-high rate, drawing fouls with great frequency, shoots 56% from the field and rarely makes bad decisions. The Terps currently rank first in the entire country in defensive efficiency, allowing opponents to shoot just 40% from inside the arc on the season. Other than road trips to Virginia Tech and North Carolina, along with a visit to College Park from Duke, it wouldn’t stun me if the Terps ran the table during the rest of ACC play. At 22-9 (11-5) or 21-10 (10-6) with a stellar RPI/SOS, Williams won’t be sweating come Selection Sunday.

– Speaking of Selection Sunday, I released my first Bracketology of the season on Monday and what stood out had to be the Big East garnering 11 bids to the NCAA Tournament out of 16 conference representatives. That is a staggering total and not necessarily controversial. The team that was closest to the bubble in this week’s edition from the Big East was Marquette, who, like Maryland, posted a plethora of competitive losses to elite teams. Had the Golden Eagles just hung on to an 18-point lead late in the second half at Louisville last Saturday, they would be a shoe-in for the bracket. It’s truly been the perfect storm for the Big East this season in terms of collecting bids with the ACC, SEC and Pac-10 experiencing lackluster campaigns and overachievers relative to preseason expectations like Connecticut, Louisville, Notre Dame and St. John’s all throwing their names into the ring for possible berths. I expect the Big East to collect an absolute minimum of nine teams into the NCAA Tournament this season. The most likely squads to sink into NIT status are probably Cincinnati and St. John’s, but the former has collected such a breadth of victories already and the latter has quality wins at West Virginia and home against Georgetown and Notre Dame with plenty more opportunities ahead.

– This surprising statistic was pointed out during the North Carolina-Virginia Tech contest last Thursday and bears repeating: if Harrison Barnes just made one more field goal per game (these stats compiled before the Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech games), his numbers jump to 14.1 PPG, 47% FG and 40% 3pt. To put that into context, Kentucky’ s Brandon Knight, who has been viewed publicly as putting together a respectable freshman campaign, is averaging 17.5 PPG, 46% FG and 41% 3pt. The pressure placed on Barnes’ shoulders as a preseason All-American and savior of such a heralded program was considerable, and despite his perceived struggles, most believe that this kid’s basketball future remains extremely bright. Barnes is still considered by most NBA scouts and general managers as a top five pick in next year’s Draft. While not the near-consensus number one selection he was anointed months ago, nobody would blame Barnes if he left Carolina after this season to make millions as a lottery pick. Despite all of that, it’s my personal opinion that remaining at Chapel Hill for a sophomore year would do wonders for Barnes. If John Henson and Tyler Zeller elect to return, Carolina will contend for an ACC title. As a second-year player, the pressure and spotlight would wane dramatically from this season. Barnes would also have another year at school to refine, perfect and develop his game and he’d still receive boatloads of publicity and attention playing at a premiere basketball institution. If the stigma wasn’t so strong today for star freshmen staying another season, this decision would seem obvious. I’d like to think a kid with the awareness and intelligence of Barnes will ignore that noise.

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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 Game

• West Virginia 68, #8 Purdue 64: “Last year, the Mountaineers were ranked 6th and came into Mackey on Jan 1 and got run out of the gym by the then #4 Boilermakers. This year, Purdue had to travel to the hills of West Virginia and WVU returned the favor.” (Boiled Sports)

Other Game of Interest

• Georgia Tech 78, UNC 58: “A team depends on its starters. They set the tenor of the game from the opening tip; they have a gameplan to execute, and they’re the most talented players on the team. It’s their job to be prepared from the moment the whistle blows. Sure, occasionally you’ll need a bench player to bail them out when the other team has their number, or the rhythm is off and they need a moment to regroup. But for the most part, these are the guys you win the game with. For the second straight game, the entire UNC starting lineup was pulled before the first TV timeout. It only went downhill from there.” (Carolina March)

News/Analysis

• Does Memphis’ Record This Year Prove Cal is a Great Coach?: Asking if the Tigers struggles this season might help John Calipari’s reputation. (A Sea of Blue)
• Breaking News: There Is No News On Bruce Pearl: Questioning the media’s handling of the Bruce Pearl situation. (Rocky Top Talk)
• Four Things We Learned from Maryland’s Loss to Villanova: Looking back at the Terrapins loss at Villanova and what it revealed about them. (Testudo Times)
• A (semi) Statistical Recap of Kansas vs Nebraska: Using KenPom’s four factors to look at the Jayhawks close victory over Nebraska. (Rock Chalk Talk)