Each day this week during the regional rounds of the NCAA Tournament we’re asking some of our top correspondents to put together a collection of notes and interesting tidbits about each region.  If you know of something that we should include in tomorrow’s submission, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

West Region (Andrew Murawa)

• Usually in college basketball, when you say a team is going home, you mean they just lost and their season is over. For Butler, there are no such problems; they just upset Kansas State in Salt Lake City and are headed back to Indianapolis, the site of this year’s Final Four, to compete in their first National Semifinal just a few miles from their campus.
• How did they do it? The easy answer is defense, mostly controlling KSU’s explosive backdoor pair of Denis Clemente and Jacob Pullen and, rather surprisingly, getting the best of the Wildcats on the glass, winning the rebounding battle 41-29, an astounding number for the smaller, less athletic team.
• The Bulldog win was a complete team effort, with stars like Shelvin Mack and Gordon Hayward having their usual strong performances, role-players like Ronald Nored and Willie Veasley adding their gritty play, but also players like little-used freshman center Andrew Smith giving head coach Brad Stevens quite a few strong minutes in the wake of Matt Howard’s foul trouble.

East Region

• Andy Katz writes that despite Kentucky’s presumed coronation coming up a few games short in Syracuse tonight, the Cats are back, and the health of the UK program is an overall good thing for college basketball in general.
• Mike Freeman skewers Kentucky for whining and complaining to the refs in most of this game and refusing to give West Virginia responsibility for winning the game.  Interesting stat that Bob Huggins is now 8-1 against John Calipari in head-to-head matchups.
• West Virginia’s Wellington Smith stated after the Mountaineers defeated Kentucky that they were looking at that as the ‘national championship game’ and had no trouble claiming that WVU should be the resounding favorite in next week’s Final Four.
• The great game that WVU’s Joe Mazzulla put forth in the regional finals today may have bought enough time for his teammate Truck Bryant to get healthy.  He says that he’s 90% sure that he’ll be able to play in the Final Four next weekend.

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Blah Night of Games.  So given the way this Tournament has gone through the first three rounds, we should be heading into two classics on Saturday evening in the West following by the East Regional finals.  On consecutive Thursdays we had an incredible set of games followed by a rather pedestrian Friday set.  Last Saturday was another blockbuster, while Sunday was relatively tame.  Don’t let us down, K-State, Butler, Kentucky and West Virginia.

Midwest Region

NPOY Evan Turner Couldn't Get His Three to Tie Off (AP/J. Roberson)

Tennessee 76, Ohio State 73.  On Selection Sunday, every pundit talked about how great the teams were at the top of the Midwest Region, but they may have forgotten the Volunteers who were grossly underseeded. Now they are showing the Selection Committee and the rest of the nation just how good they are. In a rematch of a 2007 Sweet 16 game that ended with Greg Oden blocking a shot by Ramar Smith that could have won the game for UT, the Volunteers got their revenge in a similar fashion. This time it was Tennessee’s J.P Prince who saved the day, blocking a desperation off-balance three by NPOY Evan Turner that could have tied the game at the buzzer. While this game wasn’t quite as spectacular as the Kansas State-Butler game last night, it certainly lived up to the expectations we would have of a Sweet 16 game as neither team was able to open up more than a seven-point lead and for most of the last 35 minutes of the game it was a one-possession difference. Thanks to a strong performance by Wayne Chism who had 22 points (18 in the second half) and 11 rebounds the Volunteers were able to overcome another phenomenal performance by Turner who finished with 31 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists. Unfortunately for Turner, Thad Matta was unable to coax similar performances out of any of Turner’s teammates who were 3-16 from the field during the second half when Turner scored 21 of his 31 points. Perhaps it was the ridiculous minutes that Matta made his rotation play recently, but the Buckeyes just didn’t see to have the necessary spark. Without the necessary support, Turner was forced to try win the game in the final minutes when David Lighty hit consecutive baskets to give OSU a 70-68 lead. After Chism responded with four straight to give the Vols a 72-70 lead, Turner hit a three that put OSU up one and had everybody believing that maybe, just maybe, he could be enough to carry his team to Indianapolis. Those hopes were dashed when Brian Williams converted a tip-in with 32 seconds to go and Turner was unable to make a driving layup with the ensuing loose ball ending up in Tennessee’s hands. After Tennessee converted a pair of free throws, the stage was set for Turner to etch his name into Tournament lore, but after missing a good look with a little over five seconds left he chased down the ball only to have an off-balance shot blocked by Prince. Despite the disappointing finish, this year will go down as Turner’s year in the minds of everyone who watched him this season. Although Turner says he isn’t sure what he will do with regards to the NBA Draft, we suspect that he will be headed toward NBA millions very soon. Next up for the Volunteers (playing in their first Elite Eight in school history) will be Tom Izzo’s Michigan State Spartans. With the Vols on the verge of a Final Four trip less than three months after their season fell apart on New Year’s Day during the Tyler Smith fiasco, we have to ask the question that we asked almost a month ago: How is Bruce Pearl not mentioned as a legitimate National Coach of the Year candidate? Nobody has overcome more adversity than the Vol coach and yet he didn’t even finish in the top two in his own conference voting (behind Kevin Stallings and John Calipari).

MSU Just Squeezes the Life Out of Teams in March (AP)

Izzo Does It Again. #5 Michigan State 59, #9 Northern Iowa 52.  It’s starting to feel like Tom Izzo could take a group of circus animals, screw around with them for a few months and then have them all come together just in time to make a run to the Final Four.  With tonight’s win over Cinderella and Kansas-slayer Northern Iowa, Izzo’s team will return to the Elite Eight for the seventh time in his fifteen years at the schools (he’s 5-1 in this round).  It’s especially amazing considering just how banged up his Spartans are and how inconsistent they’ve been throughout this season.  But MSU did what they do, which is play inspired defense, make just enough plays on offense to put together a mini-run and squeeze the life out of the game in the final minutes to seal the victory.  Northern Iowa is just another victim on a long, long list of teams that have fallen as a result of this strategy.  As usual, the Spartans shut down the key players for UNI, with last weekend’s hero shooting a rough 2-9 from the field and contributing only nine points, Adam Koch struggling to get the ball in the right places and adding only 13 in 18 foul-plagued minutes, and Jordan Eglseder coming up with only nine himself.  The Panthers shot only 39% from the field, which is on par with what they were able to hit against Kansas last weekend, but they were unable to force as many turnovers against MSU and they were absolutely ice cold during the last quarter of the game (zero FGs in the last ten minutes of action).  Northern Iowa was undoubtedly one of the best stories of this year’s Tournament, and they have nothing to be ashamed of in losing a defensive grinder with the team that wrote the template.  Any of a number of other surviving teams in the Elite Eight could have been challenged by the Panther defense and style of play, but it was quite simply a bad matchup for them.  Even a battered and beat up Michigan State team isn’t going to allow another team to out-Izzo them, which is what would have had to happen for UNI to win this game tonight.

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Each day this week during the regional rounds of the NCAA Tournament we’re asking some of our top correspondents to put together a collection of notes and interesting tidbits about each region.  If you know of something that we should include in tomorrow’s submission, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Midwest Region (Tom Hager)

• Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson has insisted that his players are handling the added attention well, but it is hard to keep your composure when you walk into a lecture hall and receive a standing ovation, as Ali Farokhmanesh experienced on Monday.
• Many people know that Farokhamnesh transferred to UNI, but most people do not know that UNI, like most other schools, knew about him in high school and passed up on him.
• According to Dan Blank, the key for Michigan State will be to push the ball (something Kansas failed to do when they let Jordan Eglseder score 14 points in 18 minutes).  However, given the injuries they have recently sustained, Blank says hastening the pace may not be so easy.
• Ohio State has been criticized for a lack of bench production, but Blank points out that the short bench may benefit the Buckeyes.
• The Buckeyes are underdogs in this game, but Inside Tennessee’s Patrick Gibson reported that the Vols had a solid practice session on Monday.  That should come as no surprise, as this week Doug Gottlieb listed Bruce Pearl as one of his top coaches in the country.

West Region (Andrew Murawa)

• Here we are, a couple of days away from the start of the Sweet 16 round and Syracuse is a likely favorite to play in the national championship game in two weeks, a lofty set of expectations that were entirely unlikely four and a half months ago when expectations for the Orange were low, and got even lower with an exhibition loss to LeMoyne.
• While Syracuse is led by a Hall-of-Fame head coach, their opponent in the Sweet 16 has a coach that is younger than Jim Boeheim’s coaching career. Butler head coach Brad Stevens is 33; Boeheim is in his 34^th year as the Syracuse coach.  Nevertheless, Stevens has his Bulldogs a weekend away from potentially playing in the Final Four down the street from the school’s campus.
• In the other regional semifinal, Xavier will face Kansas State, a matchup between two balanced teams. Xavier head coach Chris Mack sees his Musketeers playing their best offensive basketball of the year, but a key may be their ability to keep their strong offensive rebounding opponent off the glass. Beyond that, the Muskies will need to have answers not only for stars like Jacob Pullen, but also role players like Dominique Sutton.

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Each day this week during the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament we’re asking some of our top correspondents to put together a collection of notes and interesting tidbits about each region.  If you know of something that we should include in tomorrow’s submission, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

South Region Notes (Patrick Sellars)

• Everybody expects Baylor to have problems with  Old Dominion’s zone in their second round matchup. The zone ODU ran against Notre Dame in their first round game was one of the key reasons the Monarchs came out on top. Here is a great breakdown of tomorrow’s game from the American Chronicle.
• The Boston Herald takes a look at St. Mary’s center Omar Samhan and how much his opponents respect him , despite the trash talking.
• ESPN’s Brian Bennett questions whether this Duke team is different than the recent Blue Devils teams that lost early in the NCAA tournament.
• Mark Turgeon is one of the best up and coming coaches in college basketball, and here is an article recapping his unique coaching style. As a former Oregon assistant there are whisperings over in Eugene about whether they will offer Turgeon the job, and if he would even consider leaving what he has at Texas A&M.
• The New York Times sums up Cal’s first round win over Louisville. It’s pretty amazing that the Pac-10 is 2-0 in the tournament thus far, both wins coming against Big East teams.

Midwest Region Notes (Tom Hager)

• Tennessee head coach Bruce Pearl says that Ohio is a lot like his previous team, UW-Milwaukee.  In addition to being an extremely confident group, they Bobcats rely heavily on three point shooting.
• President Obama is at the 96.6th percentile of ESPN brackets after the first round.  However, he did have Georgetown going to the Elite Eight, so his chances at the grand prize may be less promising.
• For one of the first times all season, Cole Aldrich will be going up against somebody who is actually bigger than him in UNI’s Jordan Eglseder.  The Panthers’ big man was arrested earlier in the year on DUI charges, and his numbers have taken a slight dip since his return, but he will play a huge role in any upset bid by Northern Iowa.
• CBS Sports’ Gregg Doyel said that this Northern Iowa team is like other memorable cinderellas such as George Mason and Davidson.  His reasoning?  He has gone on record saying how UNI has no chance of winning,and that is what he said about the Patriots a few years ago.
• Despite playing for two previous teams before the Bobcats, Mike Freeman says that no player typifies Ohio basketball more than Armon Bassett.  Bassett was a key catalyst for Ohio’s rout of Georgetown, and he has 148 points in his last five games.

East Region Notes (Ryan Restivo from SienaSaintsBlog)

• Don’t look now but Kentucky coach John Calipari said he is concerned about Wake Forest who outrebounded Texas by 25 in their win Thursday. “They got 20 offensive rebounds against Texas, who prides itself in that toughness and that rebounding,” Calipari told the AP. “I just watched tape and, you know, you get sick to your stomach.” The Demon Deacons have momentum and nothing to lose against the Wildcats, the New Orleans Times-Picayune points out.
• Cornell waited for its moment for two years and finally put on a show over Temple using players that were largely overlooked by major college basketball.
• Wisconsin barely survived its first-round game against Wofford, who caught a tough break to end their first NCAA Tournament appearance.
• Is Washington soft? No way. The Seattle Times said Coach Lorenzo Romar let his players play in the final seconds and won the game his way.
• Darington Hobson hurt his wrist but he still has New Mexico thinking big.
• Missouri shut down Clemson’s Trevor Booker in their win today. CBSSports asks, will Bob Huggins and West Virginia be able to handle the pressure?

West Region Notes – (Andrew Murawa)

• While Murray State and its 31 wins didn’t exactly come out of nowhere to beat Vanderbilt in the first round, they know for sure now that they won’t be catching anyone by surprise, especially their second round opponent, Butler.  And even though senior forward Danero Thomas has become an overnight star in the wake of his buzzer-beating game-winner on Thursday, it’s back to business for him and his teammates who still have work to do.
• For its part, Butler will lean heavily on Kentuckian Shelvin Mack to help send the Racers back to Kentucky with just a single NCAA win. The Bulldogs, however, find Murray State to be a very familiar team: a very good college team hidden away in a relatively nondescript Midwest midmajor conference.
• While Jimmer Fredette has more important things on his mind today, BYU fans can look forward to sweating out his NBA draft decision this offseason.  While the Cougars have relied heavily on Fredette this season, it may have been his struggle with mononucleosis in January that helped BYU head coach Dave Rose discover what sophomore Michael Loyd, Jr. could do when given the chance
• Kansas State’s focus on Saturday will be to contest every shot Fredette takes and that challenge will primarily fall to Jacob Pullen. Meanwhile, BYU knows that they’ll need to improve their effectiveness on the glass against the Wildcats after getting outrebounded by Florida on Thursday.
• And, once again, Sunday’s game times have been released, with Syracuse and Gonzaga getting the early spotlight at 12:10pm EDT and Xavier/Pitt among a trio of games wrapping up the first weekend of the tournament with an estimated start-time of 4:50pm.

Few college basketball fans are born with their love for the game. For most aficionados, at some point on the way from infancy to college hoops fan, there is a moment. A single play, shot, player, game, or event at which point they say to themselves, “I will always have this in my life.” Because it is the time of the season that carries the most gravitas, these things often happen in March. We asked some of our friends and correspondents: what was the thing that turned you into a lifelong college basketball fan? What was your…March Moment? We’ll be posting some of their answers for the rest of the month.

In this submission, RTC contributor and bracketologist-in-residence Zach Hayes illustrates one of the many reasons why the NCAA Tournament is the greatest event in American sports — a good deal of the time, it’s not just about basketball:

There’s something different about growing up rooting for a mid-major.

It’s elementary rooting for perennial powerhouses like Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina or Michigan State, teams that may experience hardship once a decade but can always be counted on to reload sooner than later, similar to playing the Rookie level on Madden.

When that special season comes along for a mid-major, the urgency is palpable, the intensity unmatched, the hope for that perfect slipper fit lingers. Fans of mid-majors often see their small, unknown program wallow in the depths of obscurity playing in front of 1,000 fans for years, unable to migrate up the standings. Then that miracle-working coach comes along, diamonds in the rough begin to fill out the roster, and finally the school faces that one opportunity to achieve the previously unthinkable.

For me, that team was the 2002-03 Milwaukee Panthers. For me, that coach was Bruce Pearl.

As any college basketball fan knows, the conference tournament is the be-all and end-all for mid-major programs. A team can suffer through a losing regular season, reel off three straight wins and find themselves in the Big Dance. But on the flipside, a team can coast to the regular season title, play one bad 40-minute stint and miss out on a chance that may never present itself again.

That was the situation facing the Panthers during Pearl’s second season at the helm and my first season with season tickets at THE MECCA, the downtown arena that Kareem and Oscar formerly patrolled for the Bucks back in the early-70s. The middling Horizon League program had been lingering in the shadow of Marquette in our own city and Butler in our own league for the bane of our Division I existence.

Then the perfect concoction came together for that 2002-03 season. We found a legitimate post player in Dylan Page, a sharp-shooting 2-guard in Clay Tucker, a steady point guard in Ronnie Jones and complimentary players like Jason Frederick and Nate Mielke that executed Pearl’s patented full-court press to a tee. It was a team incredibly easy to get attached to at 12 years old. Just me, my dad, our favorite coach and a mid-major trying to make a name for themselves.

Our Panthers ended up toppling mighty Butler in the Horizon finals. The court filled in a matter of seconds with gold-clad students lifting players into the air. The previously unimaginable had been accomplished. But all I remember from that moment is hugging my father and the beaming smile that covered his face. He’s taught at Milwaukee since 1982 and had experienced the lowest of lows with the program. It was for him.

We ended up losing to 5th seeded Notre Dame in the first round nine days later after Page missed a game-winning layup at the buzzer. The game ended around 11 PM on a school night, but of course my father let me stay up for the end. When Page’s miss trickled around the rim and out and the Irish celebrated at center court, I remember expecting the tears to stream down my face.

Instead, a smile of appreciation broke out. I looked over at my dad and he began to applaud.

We were too proud of them to do anything different.

Over the next two days in a series of separate posts, RTC will break down all 32 of the first round games using our best analytical efforts to understand these teams, the matchups and their individual strengths and weaknesses.  Our hope is that you’ll let us know in the comments where you agree, disagree or otherwise think we’ve lost our collective minds.  Here are the Thursday evening games.

7:10 pm – #8 Northern Iowa vs. #9 UNLV  (Oklahoma City pod)

The Midwest Region’s first game of the tournament features two teams battling for the privilege of going up against Kansas in the next round. What press there is about Northern Iowa, Jordan Eglseder gets most of it. UNLV will also have to watch out for senior guard Ali Farokhmanesh, a streaky three-point shooter who’s had five straight games in single figures and is due for a run. It was thought at the beginning of the year that UNLV’s Tre’Von Willis and Oscar Bellfield would do a little more sharing of the scoring burden for the Runnin Rebels this year, but it’s been Willis who’s shouldered most of the load. At 17.5 PPG, he averages a full seven points more than the Rebels’ next leading scorer, sophomore forward Chace Stanback. Both of these teams take good care of the basketball and, even though neither of them is going to give the scoreboard operator much of a workout, the game itself should be a good one between two teams of similar talent. We hope all these guys get to enjoy the trappings of the tournament… because it won’t last long, sorry to say.

The Skinny: In a game played in the mid-50s (both in tempo and era), look for UNI to make the key plays down the stretch to win this one by four.

7:15 pm – #1 Kentucky vs. #16 ETSU  (New Orleans pod)

If any #16 seed is going to be the first to topple a top seed in this bracket, here’s your best shot. East Tennessee State was in this exact position one March ago and took #1 Pittsburgh to the wire. In fact, the Buccaneers trailed by just three points with 2:47 left in a contest usually reserved for monumental blowouts. ETSU was expected to rebuild after losing four starters from the Atlantic Sun champion of 2008-09, but the Bucs pulled off two upsets in the A-Sun Tournament and toppled Mercer in a true road game, meaning ETSU and former UAB headman Murry Bartow are dancing for the second straight campaign. One player who may give the top seed Wildcats some trouble is a 6’4 wing named Tommy Hubbard that has finally harnessed his talent and is one of the most improved players in the nation. Let’s be honest here, though: Kentucky should roll over the underdog Bucs. The Big Blue has more athleticism and pure ability than any team in the field, never mind the A-Sun champion that finished the season with 14 losses. No guard can come close to contain the blazing speed of John Wall. DeMarcus Cousins and Patrick Patterson should have their way on the boards. Even a few breathtaking alley-oops could be in store for the ESPN folks to feast on. Last year Cal State Northridge gave John Calipari’s Memphis team a real scare in the first round. Expect the Kentucky head coach to learn from that game and have his squad prepared to blow the doors off ETSU from the opening tip to the final buzzer.

The Skinny: Kentucky will spend most of the game up 20+ before calling off the dogs Cats to win by fifteen or so.

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Statement Wins.  It was Super Tuesday tonight, and two teams came into this evening with a little something to prove to America on national television.  Or at least, that’s the way it looked from our perspective.  Two black-and-gold colored teams — Vanderbilt and Purdue — played with meaningful purpose, as if to overcome the perception (right or wrong) that they were the weaker sister in the games tonight.  Memo to those teams residing in Nashville and West Lafayette: message received, loud and clear.

Purdue With Statement Win in E. Lansing (Kevin Fowler)

• #6 Purdue 76, #10 Michigan State 64. We’re a little tired of harping on this because, frankly, it’s too easy.  But once again Purdue got a strong performance from their center JaJuan Johnson, and once again they won the game.  Since Matt Painter called out everyone on his team except Robbie Hummel and E’Twaun Moore three weeks ago, the Boilermakers (led by JJJ’s additional production) have reeled off six straight wins.  And while those six wins included a trio of B10 dogs, they also included a home game against Wisconsin and road games at Illinois and tonight at the Breslin Center — not exactly the easiest three teams from which to come out of a slump.  Robbie Hummel (15/5/5 assts) and E’Twaun Moore (25/3/6 assts) continue to hold up their end of the bargain for Purdue, but the addition of JJJ to the offensive repertoire instantly turns the Boilermakers from a top twenty team into a top five team.  Now it’s Michigan State who is slumping, and as Tom Izzo put it, the Spartans haven’t “checked in three games” and the fact that Purdue shot a scorching 57% for the game in East Lansing illustrates his point.  The last three games have been the three worst defensive performances for MSU all season long, and shooting in the low 30s (32% tonight) in two of those contests does not help matters.  Obviously, the loss of Kalin Lucas has a lot to do with this.  Even though Lucas played tonight (12 pts in 29 minutes), it was clear that he was still gimpy out there, and as the point man in Izzo’s tough-nosed M2M defense, his presence at full strength is a factor that cannot be measured just in numbers.  Still, after holding what seemed to be a commanding three-game lead in the Big Ten standings a mere week ago, the Spartans with this loss are now tied with Illinois at 9-3 and only a half-game ahead of Purdue and Ohio State (both 8-3), setting up a fun final three-plus weeks of the regular season for the conference crown.

Vandy Dominated the Vols Tonight (Jae S. Lee)

• #24 Vanderbilt 90, #12 Tennessee 71.  Mismatch.  Vandy stormed out of the gates to a lead of 19-4 en route to a seventeen-point halftime lead, soon to be outdone by a twenty-seven point difference in the mid-second half.  Jimmy Dykes said it early and often, but Vandy was simply the more poised team tonight.  They were quicker to move their feet, hungrier for loose balls, and generally played like the Vols were trying to steal something out of their pockets.  Vandy’s Jeffery Taylor exploded for a career-high 26/7/3 assts (including a perfect 12-12 from the line), and Jermaine Beal added 20/4 stls.  It’s probably coincidental that tonight’s game represented the most depth Bruce Pearl has had at his disposal since the New Year’s incident and yet the Vols played their worst game, but it’s worth noting that the same edge with which UT beat #1 Kansas and six SEC teams was sorely lacking tonight.  Tennessee leading scorer Scotty Hopson has a tendency to let his offensive game impact his entire performance, and that was once again the case tonight as his 4-14 shooting seemed to make him invisible everywhere else.  Vanderbilt moves to 7-2 in the SEC East, while Tennessee fell to 6-3, but it is the guys in orange who have the unenviable trip to Lexington on Saturday for Gameday against the second-ranked Wildcats.  For UT to have any chance whatsoever, Bruce Pearl will have to tap into that ‘behind-the-eight-ball’ reserve he found when #1 Kansas visited Knoxville five weeks ago.

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Each week RTC will posit a That’s Debatable question or topic that is relevant to the world of college basketball.  Sometimes whimsical, sometimes serious, we’ll post the thoughts from our core editing crew (in 200 words or less), but we’ll also be expanding to include our contributors and correspondents as appropriate throughout the season.  We also invite you, the readers, to join us as we mull over some of the questions facing the game today.  Feel free to send us your takes and/or leave them in the comments below.

This Week’s Topic: It was Upset Weekend in college basketball, as more than half the ranked teams took a loss.  What was your favorite part of the weekend?

nvr1983 – editor/contributor

Without question the best part of the weekend was watching depleted Tennessee “shock the world” on Sunday afternoon against #1 Kansas while most of the country was focused in on the awful NFL wildcard games (ok, the Green Bay-Buzzsaw game was pretty entertaining). Although Tennessee has managed to continue to disgrace itself (first Lane Kiffin’s football players now Bruce Pearl’s carful of idiots) the university can take some pride in Bruce Pearl’s six scholarship players and the handful of walk-ons that did suit up and play. While the upset showed us some of Kansas’s weaknesses that most people saw in their narrow victory at home over Cornell, the game was more important for what it showed us about the Volunteers, which may be an appropriate name for a team using so many walk-ons. Right now there might not be a more difficult to read team in the nation. And isn’t that part of what we love about college sports?

john stevens – editor/contributor

Are you kidding me with this?  My favorite part of the weekend?  Did you not read about how I met Ashley Judd while on my assignment in Lexington for Kentucky/Georgia?  Please.  The woman shook my hand, looked me straight in the eye and spoke to me.  What, you expected me to write something about Tennessee/Kansas?  Get over yourself.  Fine, if you need more of a basketball answer, for me the best part of Upset Weekend was playing the waiting game.  Weekends like the one we just had occur once or maybe twice in a season.  One of the coolest things about it is wondering what the next upset’s going to be as you move through the day.  After a couple of early ones, you start wondering if you might have a true Upset Weekend on your hands, and then it happens.  Teams just start falling, one after the other, in exciting games that often have incredible finishes.  The trend spreads across the country like a virus and, as the upsets get bigger, the phone calls and text messages and tweets from friends and fellow hoop-lovers really start cranking up.  That’s why this version of Upset Weekend was special: it ended with the biggest surprise of them all, with everyone watching.  Hmmm.  I wonder if Ashley enjoyed Upset Weekend…

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RTC contributor and bracketologist Zach Hayes will deliver ten permeating thoughts every Tuesday as the season progresses.

1. Other than Kansas students, graduates, former players and all former or current residents of Lawrence, was there anyone in this fine country of ours rooting for the #1 Jayhawks to beat a depleted Tennessee team, a group of kids and a stunned head coach that just dealt with the suspension and/or dismissal of four of its regular rotation players? All of the events that occurred in that two-hour window in Knoxville Sunday was a release of pent-up frustration and anxiety from a tumultuous week in which Tennessee was considered a prime threat to upend favorite Kentucky in the SEC one day and counted out as a SEC contender that must scratch and claw the final two months for an NCAA berth the next. Renaldo Woolridge banking in a three, the Vols maintaining their lead with Wayne Chism and J.P. Prince on the bench with four fouls, the coach’s son Steven taking a critical charge, a miracle Skyler McBee (one of three walk-ons playing substantial minutes) leaning trey that iced the game, and coach Bruce Pearl aiding the Volunteer mascot in waving the orange Tennessee flag while the sounds of Rocky Top reverberated throughout Thompson-Boling Arena summed up what college basketball should be about. Bill Self pointed this out after the game, but there are some moments during a season when a team officially becomes a team instead of a group of individuals. Even though Pearl would gladly reset the timer to New Year’s Eve and prevent four scholarship players from getting in that car, sometimes it takes a catastrophic occurrence that truly tests the mettle of a unit for them to band together and accomplish lofty goals. I think it’s fair to say Tennessee became a team Sunday night.

2. As long as Mike Anderson is employing his Forty Minutes of Hell hellacious press on demoralized opponents, especially on a home floor where his team has won 30 consecutive games, Missouri should never be totally counted out of the Big 12 race. Losing DeMarre Carroll, Leo Lyons and Matt Lawrence from an Elite 8 squad isn’t easy to overcome, and certainly the ceiling for the Tigers isn’t nearly as high, but the ultra-talented and quick Mizzou backcourt should have enough firepower to carry them to an NCAA berth. Missouri carried an impressive 12-3 record into their Big 12 opener with #10 Kansas State Saturday, yet their overall resume wasn’t incredibly awe-inspiring with their best wins over Old Dominion, Illinois, Georgia and Oregon and opportunities lost in defeats at the hands of Richmond, Vanderbilt and Oral Roberts. The win Saturday was clearly a statement that Missouri will be a contending force in the Big 12 for that #3 spot behind Texas and Kansas. Anderson looks to have a workable combination with experienced seniors J.T. Tiller and Zaire Taylor (evident by Taylor’s tie-breaking 3 with under a minute to play) making plays in late-game situations, a promising sophomore backcourt duo of Kim English and Marcus Denmon carrying most of the scoring load, and a defensive unit that ranks seventh overall in D efficiency, first in turnovers forced and gives Missouri a fighting chance on any night.

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1. #1 Kansas Goes Down.  Given the circumstances involving Bruce Pearl’s team, a lot will be written about this game in the next 24 hours.  Here are some of the better takes we’ve found.  Mike DeCourcy calls the Tennessee win miraculous, Luke Winn points out (correctly) that Cole Aldrich cannot be a forgotten man in the KU offense, and we over here at RTC had a bit of take on that game as well…
2. You don’t see this often, and it was hidden in the Friday night news feeds, but Dartmouth head coach Terry Dunn was fired (“forced to resign”) after his entire team mutinied by signing a document stating they refused to play for him anymore.  The players then took the court on Saturday and were run out of the gym by thirty against Harvard.
3. Injured center Gregory Echinique announced that he is transferring from the Rutgers program, and one possible destination for the talented big man from Venezuela is Tom Crean’s Indiana program.
4. From last week, CBS/FSN announcer Tim Brando apparently (allegedly?) got into a bizarre email exchange with a Kentucky fan over his comments regarding DeMarcus Cousins’ elbow in the UK-Louisville game.  It doesn’t seem real, but whoever wrote it trashes the SEC and the “limited knowledge” of Kentucky fans outside of their own team.
5. Midnight Madness on October 1 as well as a shortened regular season could come to fruition if the NCAA Board of Directors proposals are approved this week in Atlanta.  Another key proposal is the elimination of the hire-the-AAU-coach loophole to get a top prospect to attend your school, which is a fantastic piece of legislation if you ask us.
6. BONUS:  Late-breaking news but DePaul’s Jerry Wainwright will be removed as head coach today, according to Andy Katz.  Wainwright seems like a good guy, and he’s had coaching success at the mid-major level, but he could never get it going there in Chicago.