1. Let’s just get this out of the way early: Damon Evans has officially resigned as Georgia’s AD.  He’s got enough on his mind, so we see no need to pile on any further.
2. Stan Heath guided South Florida to a tidy 20-13 record last year and 9-9 in the Big East, a 125% improvement in the Bulls’ best-ever Big East tally.  He was rewarded with a four year extension to his current contract, so he’s locked down until 2015.
3. Ouch.  Former Kentucky big fella Daniel Orton’s line in his first summer league game for the Magic:  three points (on 1-8 shooting), five fouls, four turnovers, and an ejection.  But that’s one of the purposes of the summer league, right?  We’re sure Orton will get the kinks worked out, and kudos to him for staying positive.  But some of the takes on his rocky debut have been pretty funny.
4. Rivals.com lists ten hot-seat coaches for next season.  We don’t know about Bruce Weber, but it’s hard to argue with the other nine.
5. The gentlemen at Scout.com have released their spankin’ new top 100 list of high school recruits for the class of 2011.  It’s always fun to look at the “Schools of Interest” column on these lists; of the top six, John Calipari’s already nabbed two of them and is in the running for three others, but, examining the whole list, one can tell that the boys at Ohio State and North Carolina aren’t exactly sleeping on the job.

We’ve been anxiously awaiting the next thirty days for the last eleven months.  You have too.  In fact, if this isn’t your favorite time of year by a healthy margin then you should probably click away from this site for a while.   Because we plan on waterboarding you with March Madness coverage.  Seriously, you’re going to feel like Dick Cheney himself is holding a Spalding-logoed towel over your face.  Your intake will be so voluminous that you’ll be drooling Gus Johnson and bracket residue in your sleep.  Or Seth Davis, if that’s more your style.  The point is that we’re all locked in and ready to go.  Are you?  To help us all get into the mood, we like to click around a fancy little website called YouTube for a daily dose of notable events, happenings, finishes, ups and downs relating to the next month.  We’re going to try to make this video compilation a little smarter, a little edgier, a little historical-er.  Or whatever.  Sure, you’ll see some old favorites that never lose their luster, but you’ll also see some that maybe you’ve forgotten or never knew to begin with.  That’s the hope, at least.  We’ll be matching the videos by the appropriate week, so all of this week we re-visited some of the timeless moments from the regionals of the NCAA Tournament.  Enjoy.

NCAA Regionals

Dateline: 2005 NCAA Regional Finals – Illinois vs. Arizona

Context: There are so many tremendous regional final games to choose from, it’s incredibly difficult to pick just a few.  But in trying to remind ourselves of some of the less well-known but still great moments of this round, we finally settled on this game from 2005 that was without question a comeback for the ages.  There was no one particular shot or moment that everyone remembers like Christian Laettner or Scottie Reynolds, but as a collection of steals, big shots and sustained excitement, it ranks right at the top of the list in our view.  Illinois had gone pretty much wire to wire as the #1 team in America that season, but with four minutes to go, Bruce Weber’s Illini were down 75-60 to Arizona and seemingly on their way home a little short of their Final Four dream.  And that’s when the threes started falling… (start at about 1:45 in the below vid)

Tenth
Georgia Tech at Clemson on Raycom/ESPN Full Court at 8 PM on Tuesday – This game is important not just for NCAA seeding, but also for ACC seeding. Both teams are currently occupying a position in the ACC standings where they could easily rank anywhere from 3rd in the conference all the way down to 7th in the conference. That conference rank could be the difference between having to play Duke or having to play UNC (ok, I’ll admit that was a cheap shot Tar Heel fans) early in the ACC Tournament. As you would expect from fairly similar teams, they both sit in the middle of most brackets. I could see either one going as high as a 6-seed or as low as a 9-seed when Selection Sunday roles around and these head-to-head match-ups will play a huge role in where they fit in the bracket.

Ninth
Memphis at UAB on Comcast Sports South at 9 PM on Wednesday – It still seems incredible after all these years of John Calipari‘s teams dominating Conference USA that the Tigers are no longer dominating CUSA any more. In fact, these two Conference USA teams will be playing for more than the #2 seed in the CUSA Tournament (UTEP is in the driver’s seat for the #1 seed) when they meet in Birmingham. They might be playing for an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament as well. Most bracketologists have the Blazers as one of their last teams in while the Tigers are one of the last teams out. A win by Josh Pastner‘s squad could cause the teams to flip positions into and out of the bracket overnight. Normally I might make this game even higher, but I’m not buying the UTEP Kool-Aid and the loser could still get in with either a win in the conference tournament over the other or could potentially win the CUSA Tournament outright.

Eighth
Oklahoma State at #24 Texas A&M on ESPN at 9 PM on Wednesday – Both teams are coming off huge home wins. Now the question is whether they can sustain the momentum. The Cowboys will need to show they can win away from the land of perpetual T. Boone Pickens money and the Aggies will need to show they can win against a team that isn’t collapsing. Both teams are currently in a group of five Big 12 teams with in-conference records of either 8-6 or 9-5. A win here or there could mean the difference between finishing 3rd in the conference or finishing 7th in the conference and even though OSU has a win over KU everybody in the Big 12 (and the country) wants to avoid the Jayhawks for as long as possible in any tournament (Big 12 or NCAA). Right now both teams are in the 6-8 seed range, but a hot or cold streak to finish the season could mean anywhere from a 5-seed to a 10-seed for these two teams.

Seventh
#19 Vanderbilt at Florida on ESPN at 7 PM on Tuesday – The Gators are coming off a tough two-point loss at Georgia, but their prior three-game winning streak has assured them a spot in the NCAA Tournament. Now they are entering a two-game stretch (home versus Vanderbilt then at Kentucky) where it might appear that they can only help their NCAA seed and a win could boost them 2-3 spots, but if they lose these two and their opener in the SEC Tournament a four-game losing streak might be enough to take them to the NIT for the third straight year. As for the Commodores, they have a treacherous two-game finish in Gainesville then at home against Devan Downey and company. They are currently chasing a #3 or #4 seed, but a loss in either of those games could cripple their chances at getting a top-4 seed (barring an upset victory over Kentucky in the SEC Tournament). Technically they still have a chance of winning the SEC regular season title (if they win out and the Wildcats finish on a 3-game losing streak), but we don’t see that happening.

Can Chandler Parsons and his Gators shoot their way into the field?

Sixth
#9 Villanova at Cincinnati on ESPN2 at 7 PM on Tuesday – The question here is how these teams respond to difficult loses on Saturday. Villanova’s loss was more visible and watched (by just about everyone in upstate New York–aka everything outside of NYC), but the Bearcats suffered a difficult loss in Morgantown where they blew a 2nd half lead before falling just short. The Wildcats loss likely will keep them out of a #1 seed, but the Bearcats loss might be enough to keep them out the NCAA Tournament altogether. A win here for Villanova would be big to ensure that they stay on the 2-seed line while Cincinnati needs a win here and probably at Georgetown along with 1 or 2 wins in the Big East Tournament to punch their ticket to the Big Dance.

Fifth
Illinois at #7 Ohio State on ESPN at 9 PM on Tuesday – Heading into their first meeting on Valentine’s Day, it looked like the Illini were a lock to make it to the NCAA Tournament. Then the Fighting Illini got crushed by 19 at home. Now after losing 3 of their last 4 games Bruce Weber‘s squad is in danger of playing their way out of the NCAA Tournament especially with a game against Wisconsin looming to finish the season. The Buckeyes are probably set as a 3-seed at worst (and might possibly get to a 2-seed if they win out) and have a solid shot at sweeping the Big Ten regular season and Conference Tournament having won 12 of their past 14 games with the two losses against a pair of top 10 teams (West Virginia and Purdue) by a combined 9 points.

Fourth
#20 Georgetown at #8 West Virginia on ESPN at 7 PM on Monday – The marquee game of “Big Monday” with a pair of teams heading in the wrong direction late in the season. Georgetown is coming off an awful loss at home against a Luke Harangody-less Notre Dame team. Now they will be without Austin Freeman who is out with what appears to be gastroenteritis. The Hoyas have slipped from a certain 3-seed to a questionable 4-seed who might not get to stay in their home pod thanks to the loaded Big East and some other teams in their geographic region. The Mountaineers are also a difficult team to get a good feel for, but should stay at the 3-seed line or above thanks to a strong RPI (6th) and SOS (7th). They should be able to pull out a win here despite their fairly weak backcourt play thanks to Freeman’s absence and the homecourt.

Third
Connecticut at Notre Dame on ESPN at 7 PM on Wednesday – Two bubble teams that appear to sit on opposite sides of the bubble with the Huskies on the inside and the Irish on the outside. That could all change with this game. The difference between this game and our #9 game is that there is no way the loser of this game will win its conference tournament to get an automatic bid to make up for a loss here. Without Harangody, we would normally lean heavily towards the Huskies, but this game is at the Joyce Center and the Irish are coming off a huge road win at Georgetown while the Huskies are coming off a bad home loss to Louisville. We guarantee that every coach and fan of a bubble team will be keeping an eye on this game as it will be the biggest of the week for that group of teams.

Second
#5 Kansas State at #2 Kansas on Big 12 Network/ESPN Full Court at 8 PM on Wednesday – As we mentioned before, we cannot fathom how this game is not on national TV. Having said that, this is huge game. It is only the second top-5 match-up of the season and we might not see another one all season including in the Final 4. Kansas comes in licking its wounds from an embarrassing road loss at Oklahoma State, but they boast the nation’s longest home win streak and have won 34 straight at home against their in-state rivals. Having said all that there is much more on the line for the Wildcats. Bill Self‘s crew already has a #1 seed and the Big 12 regular season title wrapped up so they “don’t have a lot to play for” although we are sure they’re going to be amped up to crush Frank Martin‘s squad. On the other sideline, the Wildcats will be playing for a chance at a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The only thing holding this game back from the #1 spot in this week’s rankings is that it basically has no impact on the conference rankings. It is almost enough to make you think it should be on national TV. . .

First
#4 Duke at #23 Maryland on ESPN at 9 PM on Wednesday – I know what all of you are thinking: How can this game beat out a top-5 match-up? (Other than the fact that this one will actually be televised for most of the nation.) The answer is quite simple. Not only is it a huge rivalry game, but for Duke it also could help determine a NCAA Tournament #1 seed for one team and for Maryland it could help clinch a share of a shocking ACC regular season title (seriously, did you have any idea that the Terrapins were even close to that) or win it outright (you know that UNC would love to ruin Duke‘s Senior Day) and boost them into consideration for a 4-seed. In addition it will probably go a long way towards determining the ACC POY award: Jon Scheyer versus Greivis Vasquez. While this game isn’t quite what the 2001 Duke-Maryland games were, it has just about everything you could ask for in a RTC Daily Bracketbuster.

Hello everybody, welcome back to another thrilling edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite.  If you haven’t noticed, we’re at the point of the season where every game has a little more intensity, a little more pressure, a little more edginess, as each team tries to attract the eye of the fickle Selection Committee.  Whether in an attempt to lock up a high seed or simply to make the darn thing, the next three weeks will present ample opportunities for every team to make its case, for better or worse.  As always, we’ll be right there with you throughout the day, checking in on the big games and others of varying importance.  While today isn’t a blockbuster day in terms of key games, there are always going to be a good number at this time of year.  Below are the ones we’ll be keeping an eye on…

11 AM: Siena @ #13 Butler on ESPN2 – RTC Live
12 PM: Florida @ Ole Miss on CBS
12 PM: Seton Hall @ #8 West Virginia on ESPN
12 PM: Morgan State @ Murray State on ESPNU
1 PM: Louisiana Tech @ Northeastern on ESPN2
1:30 PM: #22 Baylor @ Oklahoma State on ESPN360
2 PM: #17 Texas @ Texas Tech on ESPN
2 PM: Georgia Tech @ Maryland on ESPN360 – RTC Live
2 PM: Xavier @ Charlotte on CSS
4 PM: Illinois @ #4 Purdue on ESPN
4 PM: UTEP @ Tulsa on CBS CS – RTC Live
4 PM: Colorado @ #1 Kansas on ESPN360
6 PM: #2 Kentucky @ #19 Vanderbilt on ESPN
6 PM: #7 Kansas State @ Oklahoma on ESPNU
8 PM: Charleston @ George Mason on ESPN2
9 PM: UCLA @ Washington on ESPN
12 AM: Wichita State @ Utah State on ESPN2 – RTC Live

11:02: And we’re live with another BGTD. Interesting decision by ESPN to keep GameDay at 11 AM with the Siena-Butler game on ESPN2. We already have someone doing a RTC Live for the Siena-Butler game so we’ll focus more on GameDay than we otherwise would. Definitely check out our RTC Live of the game though.

11:07: The ESPN analysts are really going out on a limb saying the Big East Tournament will be the best of the conference tournament. Digger breaks with the group and goes with the Big Ten. Surprisingly Bobby Knight calls out the Big Ten saying the Big East would beat them head-to-head.

11:09: In another surprise, Jay Bilas goes against Coach K by saying that the conference tournaments effectively act as a huge NCAA Tournament and if you win you are into the real NCAA Tournament. Digger agrees with him while Hubert Davis attempts to make a ridiculous argument against the automatic bid saying it penalizes teams like Siena that dominate their conferences, but might choke in the conference tournament. Personally I think if you’re that good you can earn an at-large bid with your play throughout the season. Knight holds the coaching fraternity party line saying that he wants to expand the tournament. Translation: Nobody gets fired ever.

11:15: Just flipped over to ESPN2 where the announcers were comparing Gordon Hayward to Mike Dunleavy Jr. I’m not sure if they are talking about their games or the way they look. Where is the college basketball Spike Lee who will call out these announcers for comparing the two only because they are white guys who look fairly similar? For the record their games are pretty similar. Feel free to call me out in the comment section. . .

11:20: Knight wants “The Committee” to get an ex-coach on there (like him?) and the team’s last 18 games. I have no idea how he decided on 18. Why not 20? The other talking heads rip the RPI. Davis wants to take the strength of schedule component out of the RPI and wants to use an “eye test” to replace it. I’d like to see Professor Davis come up with a quantitative way to come up with the “eye test” score.

11:22: I’m beginning to think Hubert is just trying to give me an aneurysm today. He just criticized the strength of schedule component saying that you can manipulate by picking the teams you play against. That’s the entire point!!! Don’t schedule awful teams. Play decent teams instead and if you do relatively well you will get rewarded. I can’t wait for him to compliment a team on their strong out-of-conference schedule in a few minutes. If I happen to stop commenting for a long time between now and noon, please send an ambulance to my apartment because Hubert might have caused that aneurysm to burst.

11:35: Decent piece by Bilas on the Syracuse 2-3 zone with Jim Boeheim talking about his theory and why he uses it. I like the analysis by Boeheim about how his team positions itself with examples from games this year. Knight just informed us that there are 5 gaps in the zone, which happen to be where the 5 offensive players are. . .Wow. Knight actually responded to the crowd booing him crediting the Syracuse zone as the best defense in the country by mocking Washington’s defense. Overall a solid segment that I wish they would try to do more often instead of the usual fluff pieces they try to do on these type of shows.

11:45: Interesting interview for Erin Andrews with John Calipari. Seemed more extemporaneous than your typical interview with a coach. Isn’t she usually with the GameDay crew for their game or do they keep her in the southeast the entire season? I don’t think I have seen her at a game west of the Big Ten in a while.

11:50: There is no way he makes this…Awful form from a big guy.

11:55: ESPN majority picks: UK over Vanderbilt, South Carolina over Tennessee, Purdue over Illinois, and Washington over UCLA.

Noon: We didn’t feature it on our schedule, but an interesting game on The Big East Network with St. John’s at USF. They are starting to be mentioned as a bubble team. Dominique Jones will need to come up big today to get them to .500 in the Big East, which should be a strong argument to get them into the NCAA Tournament given how high everybody is on the conference although some people might criticize their unbalanced schedule.

12:06: A battle of two disappointing teams in Chestnut Hill and the crowd reflects it. It looks like it is about 50% full at Conte Forum, which is weak even for the SuperFans who have only really shown up for the Duke game this year. In case you forgot, BC beat UNC last year (better times for both schools) when they played at Conte in Chapel Hill then lost their next game to Harvard and a relatively unknown at the time Jeremy Lin. No sign of Tyler Zeller yet, but we are interested in seeing him return. It says a lot about how weak this UNC team is that Roy Williams had to bring him back this late in the year in order to get into the NIT.

12:10: Strong start from Zeller who just checked in. A pair of offensive rebounds and draws a foul and a technical on Boston College. Greg Anthony seems to think the Tar Heels can win the ACC tournament. They have the talent and the conference is down this year, but I just don’t see it happening.

12:20: Mississippi is out to a 13-6 lead at home against UF. It is beginning to look like this will be the third straight NIT trip for Billy Donovan. I bet coaching Dwight Howard seems pretty tempting right now. Has anybody had a more up-and-down coaching career than Donovan? 2 titles and 1 title game appearance surrounded by numerous underachieving teams. Personally I think he is extremely overrated due to having the good fortune of having a nucleus that stuck around longer than they had to–Joakim Noah and Al Horford have obviously proved to be elite talents now that they are in the NBA.

12:30: Wow. Senior Day at Butler? I knew it was late in the season, but I thought they had another home game. The Bulldogs are up by 8 midway through the 2nd half, but Matt Howard is on the bench with 4 fouls. Is there another player in the country who gets in as much foul trouble as Howard? It seems like he is in foul trouble every time we watch Butler play.

12:35: Jeremy Hazell has been very quiet so far for Seton Hall. Is it the 8 stitches on his shooting hand, the Mountaineer defense, or a little bit of both? Without Hazell’s offense the Pirates are in trouble. Already down by 8 with Devin Ebanks going to the line for a pair of FTs with 6:53 left in the half.

12:40: Huge 3 by Shelvin Mack to put Butler up 53-43 with a little over 6:30 left in the game. The Bulldogs are doing a great job maintaining their lead with Howard on the bench for the last 9 minutes of game-time. Siena can’t buy a bucket right now. Fran McCaffery might want to measure the height of the baskets and the distance from the free throw line after the game.

12:45: Slow start out of the USF Bulls in Tampa. They’re down by 8 with 2 minutes left in the first half. It’s very quiet in the Sun Dome right now. Dominique Jones needs to take over. A loss today might leave them on the outside looking in on Selection Sunday.

12:50: It looks like Butler has this one wrapped up. Siena is going to have to win their conference tournament to make the NCAA Tournament. I don’t think they deserve an at-large bid at this point and they don’t have any games left to convince me or the committee otherwise.

1:05: First time I have seen Northeastern play since Jose Juan Barea was there. Decent atmosphere for a CAA crowd. Boston fans will remember that pass on the fast break from Antoine Walker’s days in a Celtics uniform. Ugly start from both teams.

1:20: Hazell just hit his first show of the game with Seton Hall down 47-30 almost 5 minutes into the 2nd half. Not a good sign for the Pirates. Elsewhere in the Big East, USF has cut the lead to 4 against St. John’s with 12 minutes left in the game and the crowd is finally involved in the game.

1:30: Tight game at Conte with BC leading UNC by 1 with 11:43 left. Back in Boston, Northeastern is holding onto a 24-18 lead at Matthews Arena. It’s interesting to think that the game at Northeastern might have more of an impact on the NCAA Tournament.

1:35: Ugly sequence out of UNC. If you want a sequence to describe their entire season that was it. Zeller misses an open lay-up (get his rebound and scores), but Corey Raji beats everyone down the floor for a lay-up and Zeller tries to throw a quick in-bounds to a UNC guard who doesn’t bother to look for the ball. BC ball and Raji hits a jumper from the corner. BC up by 6 with 8:50 left. This would be a nice win for Al Skinner to show to the boosters who probably won’t realize that UNC isn’t any good this season.

1:45: Interesting action out of the Big 5/Atlantic-10 with St. Joe’s up by 1 on Temple late in the 2nd half. Would be a big upset and a crushing blow to Temple’s chances of getting a high seed in the NCAA Tournament.

1:50: On a day where most of the college basketball world will be focused on the BracketBuster match-ups, St. John’s beating USF might have the most immediate impact on the NCAA bubble. USF is down by 10 with only a few minutes left in the game. Jones is going to have to catch fire if the Bulls want to win this game and keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive.

2:00: Big shot by Rakim Sanders to give BC a 4 point lead with a little over a minute left. And the SuperFans finally wake up. Gus Johnson: “Carolina doesn’t want to foul. . .and they do.” It’s been that kind of year for Roy. Has anybody asked Roy if they have held a telethon for the basketball program yet? Reggie Jackson dominated this game today. Just a solid overall performance filling up every column in the box score. BC wins 71-67. UNC is 14-13 and has lost 9 of 11 since beating Virginia Tech.

2:05: Nice timing for the switch by CBS. UF up by 3 with 12 seconds left. I would say this is an elimination game from the NCAA bubble, but it seems like too many teams are getting eliminated recently.

2:07: Terrico White misses a good look at a 3 with less than 5 seconds left and the Rebels go down. Interesting stat: UF was 25/27 from the FT line on the road while Mississippi was 9/11. So much for the officials being intimidated by the road SEC crowd.

2:10: For those of you who are interested, we have a correspondent at the Georgia Tech-Maryland game for another RTC Live. We will be keeping an eye on that game here too, but if you want a closer focus on that game be sure to check it out.

2:15: Great start from Texas in Lubbock. They’re up 16-8 just 4 minutes into the game. Rick Barnes and the Longhorns need to turn things around and build some momentum for March if they are going to get to the 2nd weekend.

2:20: Nice job by Temple rallying to win against St. Joe’s in OT. They’re already in the tournament (barring a collapse), but it’s too late in the year to lose games they should win easily.

2:25: Dogus Balbay just went into the locker room with what appears to be a knee injury. He wasn’t putting any weight on that leg. Hopefully he is ok. The Longhorns could use some good news now. A physical game so far in Lubbock. Three guys have already went down just 7 minutes into the game.

2:40: Northeastern up by 2 with 4:20 left after Louisiana Tech hits three free throws. We will be sticking with this one until it finishes.

2:45: Northeastern up by 4 with 2:35 left and the Huskies have the ball. For some reason, they are insisting on taking NBA distance 3s the last few possessions. LA Tech responds with a 3 to cut it to 1 with less than 2 minutes left.

2:49: Huge 3 by DeAndre Brown with 24 seconds left. Banked it in from NBA range. The crowd at Northeastern is silent.

2:54: LA Tech pulls off the comeback as Northeastern misses several desperation 3s at the end of the game. Big win for the WAC. I still don’t think they will get an at-large, but they can still keep hopes alive now.

3:05: Hey folks, John S. here taking over for NVR, as the second leg in today’s Three-Man Weave.  Let’s see what we’ve got going, here.  Right now we have Tennessee up only a point on South Carolina 47-46 on the SEC Network and DePaul — yes, DePaul — AHEAD of Louisville 41-37 with about 14 minutes left in that one over on ESPN-U.  And at 4pm, about a hundred other games tip off.  Great afternoon of hoops ahead.

3:19: And since so many people seem to be into it, the US Men’s Curling team just beat Sweden in the 11th end.  I cannot BELIEVE I just typed that, but my goodness, is it me or has that sport’s popularity taken off during these Olympics?  Everybody’s talking about it — and the USA isn’t even in medal contention, it looks like.  This’ll be a prime-time event in future winter games, jeez.

3:27: Anyway, back to the hoops — Devan Downey has 15 pts for SC right now with 5:33 left, but it’s a 4-17 (yeesh) shooting day.  Jamal Mashburn’s definitely got some chops as a color commentator.  This would be a nice road win for UT and put them in a tie for third with Florida if they can pull this out.

3:39: Wow, can’t believe South Florida dropped that home game to St. John’s.  That’s going to take them off of bubble watch and they’re going to need a heck of a run in the conference tournament.  Tennessee is barricading the inside against South Carolina.  The Gamecocks can’t get ANYTHING in the paint and they’re not defending in the lane at all, seemingly content to foul.  UT is separating themselves with 2 minutes left, up 60-49.

3:48: How well is Xavier playing late in the year?  They’re up 61-46 against flailing Charlotte with 7:18 left.  It’s coming in pretty badly on the satellite feed and it’s not much of a game right now, but it’ll probably end up being XU’s 19th win, their third straight and 9 out of 11, and it will pull them back into a tie for first in the A-10 with Temple and…yep, Richmond.

3:56: UTEP @ Tulsa is a biggee today, and we’ve got our guy there for RTC Live.  Meanwhile, back on ESPN, Texas just had to call time out because Texas Tech has turned up the defense and scored a couple of baskets to cut it to 67-60.  Gary Johnson has been a workhorse today.  New career high for him with 22.  But holy COW, Nick Okorie has decided to get nuts, hitting a three and responding to a Damion James silky jumper with a three-point play of his own.  Okorie has 19 (before the FT attempt).

4:07: Turnover, Texas.  Okorie gets 1 of 2, then Texas misses two FTs!  With 21.6 left, TTU has it down by two.

4:15: Okorie had a ten-foot bank shot to tie it and it looked like he got a little cute with it, and it rimmed out.  Texas held on to win by two on the road.  But WHAT A FINISH in the Maryland-Georgia Tech game where Cliff Tucker drills a three to win it right after Greivis Vasquez had hit a half-court shot that was nullified by a Gary Williams time-out.  WOW.

4:25: Mike Davis came to play for Illinois, man.  Already has 6/5 and we’ve barely started this one.  Purdue has been looking more and more like a one-seed recently.  I have to say this — Illinois’ Mike Tisdale might be 7’1 but my boy has a STROKE from outside.

4:37: Great line from Demetri McCamey right now — zero points, EIGHT assists at the under-8 TVTO.

4:44: A quick check on one of our RTC Lives for today — UTEP is drilling Tulsa, 41-24 with 2:40 in the first half.  Tulsa was a popular pick to win the CUSA — including us.  At least we had UTEP second.

4:51: Illinois…hanging around, man.  McCamey just dished his ELEVENTH ASSIST on that three from the corner, and still has no points, only two shot attempts.  But still, a GREAT half.  The Illini are going to go in up by three, here.  They’ve done it with great defense and the selflessness of McCamey.

5:06: You have to wonder what did it at UNC this year.  Coaches don’t just “lose” teams for no reason.  Roy Williams lost this team after that Charleston/Clemson stretch.  Team chemistry?  Loss of respect by the players?  Something with Roy? Oh, and this just in — no, Ed “Too Tall” Jones is not too tall.  Quit asking me, Brothers McMullen guy.  I’m vamping because UTEP/Tulsa isn’t exactly a game, still — 43-26.  Randy Culpepper’s got 15 and UTEP is shooting 58% from the field…AT Tulsa.

5:20: McCamey’s first bucket comes with a minute gone in the second half.  And he just racked up another assist to Mike Davis.  That’s 12.

5:26: One reason Illinois is still in this is because JaJuan Johnson has been absent for Purdue.  He’s got three points and five rebounds, and those five rebounds came in about the first five minutes of the game.  Barely heard his name when he’s been out there.  And Robbie Hummel’s 3-12.

5:30: A couple threes from Purdue don’t hurt.  E’Twaun Moore’s decided to assert himself with a three and a nice drive, and the Boilers have gone up by four, but Illinois doesn’t look shaken.

5:41: You see what Illinois is doing, here.  Clever stuff from Bruce Weber (who looks like he’s dropped about 25-30 pounds since this time last year).  McCamey has so many assists because his teammates are doing a GREAT job of finding soft spots when he penetrates, specifically drifiting out a little to the 10-12 foot range.  Davis and Tisdale have LIVED on that mid-range jumper today.

5:57: Incidentally, I’m not even checking on Kansas/Colorado on ESPN 360.  KU’s up by about 30.  Back here, THERE’S that man Tisdale again, from just inside the FT line.  It’s been there ALL day — and they’ve taken it.

6:00: Whoa, don’t know about that one.  That moving screen call on Davis is questionable.  Kramer’s a big dude, but there was a little exaggeration there; Davis may have moved slightly to his right when he set it, but it didn’t give Kramer the hockey check that he made it out to be.

6:04: Purdue is starting to get to the loose balls and most rebounds.  Illinois looks a tad fatigued, and Purdue’s gone up by 8 after that three by Keaton Grant.  That might be the killing blow.

6:13: McCamey has 16 assists, tying this year’s national record for a single game.  But Purdue holds on, 75-65.  I’m going to be handing the ball off to rtmsf for the last part of the 3MW.  Enjoy the late games, folks!

6:20: Good evening, folks.  I’m going to be taking over for the evening session, and it’s already been a pretty damn good day across the nation.  The Maryland ending was ridiculous, there have been several good BracketBuster games, and the Big 5 battle in the Palestra was a great one.  So what’s cooking for the six o’clock hour on my tv?  I’ve got (obviously) the big SEC East battle between Kentucky and Vandy on ESPN, K-State at Oklahoma is on the, UNLV is already destroying Colorado State on CBS College Sports (20-3), and Michigan-Penn State is on the Big Ten Network.  I’ll see what else I can find in a few minutes.

6:29: UK so far has quieted this raucous Vandy crowd, but it’ll take more than a four-pt lead to put them to sleep today.  Hard to believe that Vandy has beaten UK four straight times in this building.  K-State has its hands full in Norman, currently 20-20 mid-first half.

6:33: The agile/mobile/fragile thing that Vitale spouts off is a little tiresome after the twentieth straight year of hearing it.  There was a time in his career when he was coming up with new material, and although it was always a little hokey, it was at least original.  I honestly can’t remember the last time he had something original.  The target of his phrase, DeMarcus Cousins, has already shown his worth, drop-stepping for an and-1 and then following it up with a nice block on Ogilvy.  For my money, Cousins will be the reason (or not) that Kentucky wins it all this year.  Nobody else has anything quite like him inside.

6:36: Since when does Vandy dunk all over a team like Kentucky?!?!!?  That’s two pretty sick dunks in the last several plays for the ‘Dores!

6:39: Quick check-in on UNLV shows the Rebs up 22 now, which means that game is quickly going off my viewing list.  Cal and Oregon are in a tight one, and Oklahoma is up eight on K-State.  Definitely going to keep that one on my radar.

6:44: Interesting that the game is tied and Vandy is outrebounding UK by four yet only 1-8 from three so far in this one.  Thanks to Cousins’ work inside, UK is the #1 offensive rebounding team in America, but only two so far tonight.

6:47: Checking in on the K-State-OU game, and it’s back to tied again.  The downfall for Oklahoma this year has been their usually stalwart defense.  They just can’t get stops.  Whether that comes from a lack of buy-in, leadership or something else, I’m not sure about.  But Jeff Capel’s teams have always gotten after it on the defensive end, so something went horribly wrong with this year’s Sooners.  Denis Clemente just helped the ballboys clean up the floor with one of those round OU mop thingys.  Foreshadowing?

6:54: Back to Nashville, and we’re still tied in this one.  I forgot to mention the end of that LSU-Miss State game, which was almost as exciting as the Maryland-Ga Tech finish with about 10% of the hype.  Back-t0-back dagger threes by each team led to MSU pulling out the one-point victory on the road.  MSU  couldn’t have afforded a loss to an 0-11 SEC team, and they survived to fight another day.

6:56: Nice mini-run by UK, with Wall throwing down a nasty dunk on the break and Eric Bledsoe with a great looking pass underneath for another dunk on the next play.  For a moment it looked like Vandy was going to be in trouble, but the Commodores managed to crawl back within two at the half.  I have to figure that Kevin Stallings is feeling ok.  Vandy shot terribly (29%), hit one three and got only  three points from AJ Ogilvy.  Nothing much magical about that.

7:05: J-Will not making many new fans in the UK/UNC camps with this halftime.  First he says UK is not elite b/c they don’t have a killer instinct, and then he clowns the Heels for not being NIT-eligible if they keep this losing up.  Go J-Will.

7:07: Just flipping around and caught a glimpse of the UNLV cheerleaders on CBS College Sports.  Um, their cheerleaders don’t look like other teams’ cheerleaders.  I’m not sure what it is or how exactly to describe it, but they have a much closer likeness to NBA/NFL-style dance team members.  There’s a word that’s on my tongue, but I can’t quite remember what it is.

7:12: I’m over on K-State-Oklahoma and it’s difficult to believe how bad OU has been this year given the talent they can put on the floor.  But enough harping on that. K-State is up six now, and Denis Clemente is doing ridiculous things with the basketball. According to a for-fun-only site named after a southern European people, Vandy is a half-point favorite in the second half.  Which means that Vegas thinks this game is going down to the wire.

7:20: Wow, Jeffery Taylor with his best John Wall impression on that dunk.  Looked very similar.  Bledsoe just pushed Taylor after that dunk, which makes me think that Taylor was woofing at him a little bit after that throwdown.  This doesn’t bother me at all.  I love the intensity of late-season college basketball.  Is there anything better?  Well, other than ice dancing, of course.

7:25: Why is the ref letting Vitale know what the call is there?  Is he the official scorekeeper that I don’t know about in this game?

7:26: I’m really not sure I agree that John Wall is as speedy as Ty Lawson, as the announcers mentioned earlier in this game.  I want to be clear, he’s definitely better than Lawson, but as fast end-to-end?  Seems a little ridiculous.

7:29: If Vandy continues to keep this close, and I think they’re going to, one of these threes is finally going to drop and Memorial is going to explode.  UK has to really close out on the delayed-break threes to prevent that from occurring.  As much as possible.  The good news for the Cats is that Beal and Jenkins are a combined 0-7 right now.  Wall was not happy about the last drive where he got hit pretty hard after the foul and ended up on his back under the basket.  Let’s see if he tries to make up for it here.

7:33: Quick check of other scores, and K-State is up ten in Norman, UNLV is still bombing Colorado State and Cal is up five at Oregon.  Mizzou is up about ten at Nebraska and same for BYU at Wyoming.

7:36: Wall hit hard again on a drive.  It’s clear that Vandy is going to make him hit the floor ala Dwyane Wade to earn his keep here.  I’m very interested to see the kid handle some physical play, though.  It’ll show me a lot if he sticks it right back into Vandy’s eye.

7:39: This game is why players spend all summer in the weight room, boy.  Someone is gonna get decked here in a minute.  It may not be a matter of the more talented team as much as the tougher team this evening.

7:41: Cousins fires up the crowd and Calipari just about threw him into the stands for that display.  It’s great that Cousins is having fun with it, but I certainly understand Calipari’s ire there.  This is an intense game, fellas.

7:47: Wow, Shan Foster looks a little frightening in there.  I keep waiting on that big three and here’s Vitale talking about it as well.  Thet two teams have combined for 3-27, which is amazing considering how much of a shooters’ gym this place is considered.

7:49: Ogilvy picks up his fourth on a cheap one.  Do we have a repeat of Tuesday in Starkville when Jarvis Varnado sat on the bench in foul trouble?  And Cousins picked up a pretty cheap one himself.  He was falling backwards as he was fouling?  Couple of strange calls there.

7:54: Thought Vandy was going to hit a three that last possession, but UK was good at getting out into the shooting motion to force a pass-off each time.  Still, I have a slight sense that Vandy is about to go on a small run.  In this game 5-0 would be a run.

7:55: I’m still keeping an eye on the other games, but they’re not very compelling.  K-State is up fifteen and finishing off Oklahoma.  Same with Mizzou over Nebraska.  This is the only thing worth really concentrating on right now.

7:58: I slowed that down a couple of times but I’m still uncertain that was a goaltend.  Wish we could see an angle from underneath the basket.  To me, it appeared the ball was already coming off the rim from the front.

8:00: Wall with 8 pts and 2-10 shooting… brings us back to this NPOY race that keeps getting discussed.  Wall typically closes strong, so this would be his opportunity to try to get back in front of Evan Turner in front of a national audience heading into Gameday.

8:05: Cousins comes back in with Vandy up four.  Danger time for the #2 team in America right now.  Eric Bledsoe got bailed out with a foul call on what looked like a blocked shot there.  Which fouls out Festus Ezeli with his fifth.  Foul trouble stacking up right now.

8:08: Let me say it again.  UK is doing a fantastic job at closing out on the three-point shooters.  Credit to Vandy that they’re not still chucking up bad shots, but the Kentucky defense is the reason that VU has only hit one of those all night long.

8:10: Hmm… best big man since Shaquille O’Neall in the SEC?  I think Antonio McDyess is probably a little better, but it’s a close call.  WOW, look at P-Pat with the huge three from the corner.  UK is on a 7-0 run right now.  Shades of Miss St.

8:13: Less than three minutes to go here, and Vandy could not afford their last couple of mishandles near the basket on both ends.  Two offensive mishandles would have resulted in layups, and the latest one would have secured a rebound instead of allowing Cousins to get it again and head back to the line.

8:16: Beal hits a two to stop the Kentucky 8-0 run, but I still feel like the only way Vandy is going to win this game is if they can find a three from someone.  The emotional lift it would give the Dores would be huge.  But who will it be?  Beal is 0-5, Jenkins and Tinsley 0-4 each, and Walker 0-2.

8:20: 56.3 left and even-steven in Nashville.  Kentucky has excelled in these situations all year long.  The call is to give it to John Wall and let him create something.  Even though he’s 3-11 with four assists so far.

8:22: Vandy finally got a wide-open three and it wasn’t close after Wall had put in a layup on the other end to give UK a two-point lead.  It certainly wasn’t pretty and may not help his NPOY candidacy, but once again it’s John Wall who gets it done in the clutch.

8:24: Haha, a double-clutch three is the one Vandy finally hits with a man right in his face?  Still not over even if UK hits their FTs here.

8:26: Eric Bledsoe is pulling his best Darius Washington, Jr., here at the line.  Wouldn’t be something if Vandy hits another three here after whatever happens with Bledsoe to either tie or win after so long without one?

8:29: Why are Calipari teams such a disaster on the line?!!?!?  Bledsoe bricks both and now Wall hits one of two.  Vandy will still have time — 2.5 seconds — to get another shot up to tie or win.  Like it or not, Wall hasn’t played all that well tonight but in the last minute, he’s for the most part come through.  The block on the three on John Jenkins was nasty.

8:32: Wow.  I bet that AJ Ogilvy will have nightmares about that play for a while.  That was a very makeable shot, and I’m surprised he decided to shoot the runner rather than pull up for the J.  The UK/Calipari haters have to live through another week of crowing.

8:36: Bilas just laid the blame on Jermaine Beal for going weak to the hole and putting John Jenkins into a situation as a freshman that he probably shouldn’t have been in.  I can live with that, as Beal is the upperclassman, and it did appear that he had the lane if he had just gone stronger to the rack there.

8:44: Whew, I’m a little tired after that game.  Does anyone in America believe that Vandy should have been hosting Gameday tonight rather than Washington?  This is the problem with doing Gameday sites ahead of time.  We end up with a garbage game like UCLA-Washington because it looked good on paper in September.  I realize the issue is that they want to ensure that they’re actually covering the game they’re doing, but it seems with something like 30 games a week ESPN and their affiliates are covering, they could still pick a pretty good one on a weekly basis.

8:48: Digger at Pike’s Place Market catching fish.  Y’know, he looked pretty comfortable in that role there.  Other than the catching of the fish part.  On 360, we have an interesting game between George Mason and College of Charleston right now.  I’m going to keep an eye on that one until we reach the top of the hour.

9:08: We’re now live in Seattle and I’m just realizing that Vitale usually does this game but he was in Nashville instead.  Does he just refuse to travel farther than the eastern and midwest time zones?  I dunno what it is, but I really like the purple you see everywhere in this arena, although the giant W in the middle of the floor I could have a little smaller.

9:19: More west coast ball on various channels.  Gonzaga is 8-8 already against Pepperdine on one of the FSNs, up 20-7 early.  And Utah is taking on SDSU over on CBS CS.  The game I can’t take my eyes off though is Charleston-George Mason, heading back east.  The intensity of this one exceeds what I’m seeing elsewhere.

9:22: Some interesting scores while we were focused on other games…  Texas A&M held on at Iowa State by four, Penn State won its sec0nd road game in a row with a win at Michigan today, UNLV blitzed Colorado State by 31, Auburn put a stop to the Arkansasa momentum, and Richmond kept up their hot streak with a win vs. GW.  One game in progress, Minnesota is ripping Indiana in Minny.

9:27: I should probably focus a little more on this UCLA-Washington game, but it’s hard to do so given the status of these teams.  They just showed the plights of UNC, UConn and UCLA this year, and I’m getting a little tired of hearing about all the players these teams have lost when we all know that they replace them with more studs.  Carolina has seven on their team right now.  UCLA has several more.  UConn the same.  We know that it takes a while for talent to come together and win consistently, but let’s not pretend that there’s no talent in these programs.

9:36: Washington up thirteen now, and I’m losing focus.  Charleston is up eight on Mason on the Deuce.  The CAA has been a very interesting league this year, with ODU, Northeastern, Mason and W&M all battling at or near the top of the league.  Not a good weekend for the conference in the Bracketbuster, though, as every one of those teams lost (Mason pending).  Haha.  Way to beef up the RPI there, fellas.

9:40: This is getting ridiculous in Seattle.  UW up 36-16 already.  It’s amazing how much better the Huskies play at home, and I say that with the knowledge that they’ve already lost to USC and Oregon there this year.  Not exactly Kansas and Kentucky.  Among the biggest underachieving teams of the year, Washington clearly is on our list, but the three we just spoke of a few minutes ago overshadow the Huskies, who are at least an NIT team.

9:48: Mason with a Kiffney-three to cut it down to five as the pace has seriously picked up in this one in Fairfax.  This is a much more interesting game so I’m sticking here for the next few.  We expect to see Bobby Cremins’ team giving someone hell in a first-round matchup in about four weeks.  They’re currently 13-3 in the SoCon, and their top competitor in terms of talent (W. Carolina) has fallen off considerably.  Wofford is actually pushing them now, but it’d still be surprising to see them lose this conference.

9:58: Big, big three by Mason star Cam long to cut it to one, followed by a layup by Charleston.  Ouch, Mason had a point-blanker that came off long, and it looks like it’s time for the fouling game for GMU.  But missing the front end gives Mason a chance here to cut it back to one…  could be interesting as we hit the last few seconds.

10:01: As we start our twelfth hour of BGTD today, Mason is killing themselves with missed FTs, once again bricking the front end of a 1-and-1 that would have cut the lead down to one if they hit both.  Now they’re going to have to foul and hope at this point.  WOW.  Mason got a layup and then forced the turnover to get the ball back down two with 8.1 seconds remaining.  Big turnover there.

10:07: Ouch!  Mason’s Pearson charged into the lane on a shot he put in the bucket to tie the game.  Fans are not happy with that call.  Very tough call there, but probably the right one.  Charleston knocked down the last two FTs to get the really nice win on the road tonight.  Not at all a good weekend in BracketBusters for the CAA.

10:12: Back over to the Washington-UCLA second half, and UW shot 68% in the first half, which probably explains the 49-26 halftime score.  Also on CBS CS, San Diego State, trying to make a run into the at-large conversation in the Mountain West, is up eleven on Utah in the second half.  I’m going to keep an eye on both of these to see if they’re worth continuing to follow.

10:17: UCLA just getting embarrassed right now.  Again.  I was talking to a Bruin fan recently and he said that the alumni were willing to give Ben Howland a pass this year, no matter what.  But he’d best get things moving in the right direction soon thereafter, or they’ll turn on him quickly.  UCLA fans don’t do mediocre.

10:22: Just wanted to peek back over at Gonzaga and the Zags are still kicking Pepperdine all over the court, and this one at UW isn’t getting any better.  Ok, looks like SDSU-Utah with the Aztecs up five with 12 minutes to go.

10:30: Man, there’s a nominee for Dunk of the Day as SDSU’s Billy White just extended his robo-arm for about ten yards to throw down over Utah.  Incredible flush.

10:34: Funny game, basketball.  Mere minutes after Billy White brought the house down with his nasty dunk, he takes it into the paint again only to have it rejected back into his face.  Bring out the robo-arm, BW!

10:39: Utah’s Marshall Henderson is scorching from deep, 4-4 so far in this game.  He only shoots 34% on the season from out there, but when he gets rolling, he’s difficult to stop.  SDSU is still up four with about 5:40 remaining.  The Aztecs are in a battle with UNLV for the third position in the underrated Mountain West, and fighting for their bubble lives here.  Their best win was at home against New Mexico, but they’ll get another good chance at BYU this coming week.

10:44: Utah is all the way back, now leading by one.  Well, they were.  In the time I wrote that, SDSU has come back to go up by one themselves.  This has turned out to be a pretty nice game here.  A little over two minutes left, and we’re locked in until the end.

10:51: Btw, for any night owls still up for some hoops, we’re going to have a fourth RTC Live event tonight at Midnight ET with the final BracketBuster game of the day — Wichita State at Utah State.  Could be a very good one — Wichita is solid if they’re not playing Evansville, and we know that USU is tough to beat at home.

10:53: SDSU has gone back up by four points and they have the ball after a big offensive rebound by Kawhi Leonard.  Leonard is one of the nation’s best freshman that you may not have heard of.  He averages 13/9, using his athleticism to lead the MWC in rebounding.

10:57: Another offensive rebound for SDSU and it’s going to take a couple of breaks for Utah to get back on top of this one.  Amazing, Malcolm Thomas just missed the front end and airballed the second end of a two-shot foul.  The airball looked about four feet short of the basket.  Not sure what happened there, but he’s 7-14 for the game now.

11:00: Twelve hours of BGTD.  You know you love it.  Utah just made a drive into the lane that ended up as an airball layup that somehow ended up going back to Utah, but it isn’t going to matter much because the fouling game has already started.

11:06: A late three by Utah cuts it to five, but this one is probably in the books with 6.3 seconds remaining.  With THIS word, we just passed 7,000 words on this post.  Additional awesomeness.  Twelve hours, 7,000 words, and where is everybody else, huh?  Drinking those $2 PBRs, probably.  Sorry, I’m just getting a little giddy myself and the spousal unit anxious.

11:09: That’ll do it for SDSU and Utah, with the Aztecs keeping hope alive for the NCAAs with a 7-pt win.  Glad that one kept me busy instead of that dog over on ESPN with UCLA and Washington.  And that’ll also do it for today’s edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite.  It’s been a really fun day and for those of you who stopped by today, or those of you reading later, we appreciate it.  We’ll try to have more of these as we march on into the last few weeks of the season.  Take care everyone — stay safe out there tonight.

]]> http://rushthecourt.net/2010/02/20/boom-goes-the-dynamite-02-20-10-edition/feed/ 13 http://rushthecourt.net/2010/02/06/boom-goes-the-dynamite-02-06-10-edition/ http://rushthecourt.net/2010/02/06/boom-goes-the-dynamite-02-06-10-edition/#comments Sat, 06 Feb 2010 07:44:24 +0000 rtmsf http://rushthecourt.net/?p=17145

Another weekend means that the RTC crew is back with another thrilling edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite. This weekend’s games are not as strong as you might expect for an early February weekend, but that just means the rest of the month is going to be stuffed to the gills with great matchups.  Still, any Saturday that has a total of 147 games on the slate is going to have quite a few goodies.  Here are the games that we plan on trying to keep an eye on today…

12 PM: #2 Villanova @ #7 Georgetown on ESPN – RTC Live
12 PM: Xavier @ Dayton on ESPN2
12 PM: #6 West Virginia @ St. John’s on ESPNU
12 PM: Wake Forest @ Virginia on ESPN360
1:30 PM: Mississippi State @ Florida on ESPN360
2 PM: #10 Duke @ Boston College on ESPN
2 PM: #19 Temple @ Richmond on ESPNU
4 PM: #16 Wisconsin @ Michigan on CBS
4 PM: California @ UCLA on CBS
4 PM: #9 Texas @ Oklahoma on ESPN
4 PM: #17 Gonzaga @ Memphis on ESPN2
4 PM: #12 BYU @ UNLV on Versus
4 PM: #20 Baylor @ Texas A&M on ESPN360
6 PM: South Carolina @ #14 Tennessee on ESPN
6 PM: San Diego State @ #15 New Mexico on The Mtn.
6 PM: Seton Hall @ #22 Pittsburgh on ESPN360
9 PM: #5 Michigan State @ Illinois on ESPN
10 PM: Tulsa @ UTEP on ESPN2
10 PM: Nevada @ Utah State on ESPNU – RTC Live

We’re sure you know how the drill works — we’ll update accordingly throughout the day as we try to test the limits of our televisions’ channel-changing mechanisms — and we hope to see you around in the comments.

12 noon: Here we go.  JStev to start out with you here, then rtmsf will guide you through the latter part of the day.  Pretty good slate of early games, as you can see above.  Looks like the ESPN Gameday guys are split on the evening game, with Digger the only one taking the Illini.

12:04: Also, as you can see from the link above, we have a man at Georgetown vs Villanova for RTC Live.  Man, it looks like DC got walloped by this storm.  I’ll be checking in quite often on Xavier at Dayton over on ESPN2. since we have live coverage in DC.  I’m also thinking WVU at St. John’s could get interesting on the U.

12:13: I wasn’t aware of this 72-hour stretch for Villanova.  AT Georgetown and then AT West Virginia.  Yeesh.  If they win both of those, it’d be hard to begrudge them the number one spot in the rankings, if Kansas/Texas on Monday is even CLOSE.  Who was the last #1 to get demoted to #2 without losing?  I think it was a Kentucky team in like 1986 or 1987, with Arizona taking #1.  Verification pending…

12:20: Dayton has come out on fire at home against Xavier, already up by ten.  They’ve hit 7-13 and 3-5.  I was courtside at Dayton vs Creighton to start the season and let me you, folks…I was impressed by the passion brought to the table by the Dayton fans.  I’ve seen many games in many places from media seats this year, and Dayton’s fans were some of the loudest.  You know what?  So were Xavier’s.  One of the great things about A10 basketball.  SO many great rivalries.

12:30: It’s obvious that Brian Gregory has made it clear to his team how important this game is.  They are OWNING the Muskies right now.  They’re on fire from everywhere on the floor.  They have five times the assists (5-1), double the rebounds (14-7), and Xavier doesn’t have an assist yet.  Five minutes left in the first half and Dayton is up 31-17.

12:40: Again, I’m keepin’ tabs on Dayton/Xavier since we have a guy at Villanova/Georgetown doing RTC Live.  But, there’s a shocker happening there, too as Georgetown is thumping Villanova, 43-25, at the under-4 MTO.

12:47: Two things have happened, here.  Dayton has slacked off a bit on the interior defense and allowed XU a couple of layups, and XU has showed a little more interest in hitting the boards, but Dayton maintains their lead because of a couple of XU turnovers.  At the half, 39-26.  Chris Wright has 10/4 for the Flyers but Devin Searcy has been great on the glass with six boards.

1:00: Halftime at Georgetown:  GU 50, ‘Nova 31.  Wow.

1:09: Dayton has continued playing well and Xavier has layup disease.  Despite the 14 pt lead for UD, we have guys really GOING for plays, getting up for dunks, etc, lots of play ABOVE the rim.  I think these fellows are aware that when you are 16-6 and 15-6 and you have about 7-10 games left, you’re at a season-determining point.  Although you gotta figure Xavier’s in with their current 8-1 A10 record.

1:27: Georgetown is still putting the wood to Villanova by SEVENTEEN with 15 minutes to play, and before you accuse ‘Nova of looking ahead to the WVU game…over on ESPN-U, St. John’s is still up on WVU 45-40 early in the second half.  Look out, though…Chris Wright just went out for G’Town with his 4th foul.

1:40: I was all ready to take huge credit for my prescience in this St. John’s/WVU game, but it looks like that dream is done.  WVU has just hit two straight threes as part of a 32-9 run, and are now up 64-54.  Xavier has been totally unable to make any real dent in this Dayton lead, showing little life this half.  It’s 70-63 with less than seven minutes left.  XU has been forced into 38% shooting but the story here is the board work.  Dayton has shown MUCH more enthusiasm than their counterparts in that aspect of the game and it’s led to a 34-20 margin.

1:50: Chris Mack just got T’d up.  I think that’s a result of overall frustration throughout the day, not so much because of the (admittedly tick-tack) foul call on Terrell Holloway just now.

1:58: My 360 feed was hit-and-miss at best, JR, so I haven’t been commenting on that game, but you are totally correct about that UVa/Wake game, and ESPN has just gone to a little bonus coverage of that game…

1:59: And then they switch almost immediately to Marquette/Providence, where we got to see a missed three to tie.  Perhaps ESPN2 will go to Wake/UVa.  Meanwhile, it just got interesting in DC, where we have a 10-point game with five minutes left and G’Town’s Chris Wright just fouled out.  This is the time that guys like Scottie Reynolds find that extra gear.

2:08: Dayton waxed Xavier, 90-65.  Chris Johnson led the Flyers with 18/6/3, and at this point in the season, 16-6 looks a LOT better than 15-7.  Major help to the Flyers’ tournament hopes.  I STILL cannot get a good 360 feed, but ESPN just updated Wake/UVa, where Wake is up four in OT.

2:17: Props to the folks in DC who showed up for the game there, almost 11,000.  And I LOVE the move by the Georgetown players going into the student section before the game to say thanks.  Still an 11-point game with 96 seconds left.  Wake is up 64-61 on UVa with 20 seconds left; Sylven Landesberg has blown up for Virginia with 28 but Ish Smith (15/6/5) and Al-Farouq Aminu (13/10) have been phenomenal for Wake.  That just went final with Wake pulling it out.

2:25: So, who predicted Georgetown would put up a hundy against Villanova?  Well, claim your prize, my friend.  The Hoyas take it 103-90, so we’ve had #2 go down already today.  AND NOW, the second flight of games.  Looks like the primary will be Duke/BC and we’ll definitely be checking in on Temple/Richmond on ESPN-U.  Richmond is an underrated squad and they’re at home.  Oh, and they’re up 31-17 on the Owls early.

2:35: Holy crap, Richmond is shooting 72% at the under-4 MTO.  BC is hanging around against Duke, 29-26, with 2:26 left in the first.  T.J. DiLeo just took a HARD foul on a steal and conversion, but Richmond nails a three and gets a HUGE block from Justin Harper at the other end…this is a DOMINATING performance so far by the Spiders.

2:45: At the half, it’s 44-26 in favor of the Spiders.  Duke is up by ten, 35-25, and Kyle Singler barely has a hair out of place.  Nolan Smith has 13 on 6-9 shooting, and Duke is a different team when he’s got his confidence.

2:53: What is this, no Lowell Galindo and crew in the ESPN-U halftime show?  I was kind of looking forward to that.  I guess the guy’s got to sleep sometime (he’s always there in some capacity).  I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears saying again.  How much has THAT bunch improved as the season has progressed?  I wasn’t very nice to them during/after that Midnight Madness show they did, but I think they fell victim to some bad timing issues (like long volleyball games) and the like during that broadcast, but since then they’ve really stepped it up.  Galindo provides good insight and therefore brings it out in the discussion with his panel.  It’s not just the usual platitudes or segueways between repeated highlight reels of other games.  You get fresh analysis and — best of all — they look and sound like they’re having a LOT of fun.  It’s a shame so many fewer people have the channel, because I’d put their halftime show and nightly roundup right up against anyone’s.  Try it when you get a chance, and tell me what you think.

3:05: And we’re back in action.  BC has started with a 6-0 run to cut it to 35-31, so that might get interesting.  Richmond is throttling Temple, 53-30.  We knew Richmond was a good squad and that it might be a tough game for the Owls, but JEEZ.

3:18: A little jawing at BC/Duke!  To be honest, I think BC needs to cultivate that kind of atmosphere in this one.  I don’t mean they have to be unsportsmanlike, but Duke is actually playing pretty well and is capable of exploding at any second and putting this away early.  If I were BC, I’d make this as much of an up-and-down affair as I could, and I’d irritate the Devils in whatever way I could.

3:26: Gotta give props to commenter JR with those Wake/UVa updates since my 360 feed was spotty.  And I think Duke’s tournament fortunes are SO altered when Nolan Smith plays confident basketball.  He has a tendency to drift in games, but when he’s focused Duke is so much tougher.

3:35: Checking some of the 360 games, Florida is in a tough one at home against Mississippi State in a game that both of these soapy teams could REALLY use.  64-59 Gators with 36.8 seconds left.

3:44: Richmond has closed to within 57-49 and Florida’s going to close this one out against MSU.  Duke has a little eight-point cushion against BC now, and, since he’s now gotten his full 16 hours of sleep, I’ll hand it off to rtmsf who will set the schedule and guide you through it for the rest of the day.  Great day of hoops still to come!

3:52: One of these weeks he’s going to have some new material, but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt – he’s pretty old.  Anyway, I’ve got six games going on my “favorites” right now…  well, I did, and then Florida finished off Mississippi State in the SEC, and Texas Tech is giving OSU’s Travis Ford a headache, as he just got teched up in Lubbock.  That one appears to pretty much be over.  I also have Minnesota in a must-win situation, up four on Penn State with 2:26 left on the BTN.

3:57: Duke remains in a comfort zone of around 6-10 points against BC.  In years past, this has been a very tough place for teams to visit, but BC has already dropped five games there this year, including Ls to Harvard and Maine.  The Eagles still have life, though, after Plumlee makes a silly foul on a rebound.  If BC can get this to four…  could be interesting.

4:00: Minnesota  had the ball up three on Penn State with under a minute and drew a foul to push it up to five before Talor Battle nailed a top-of-the-key three to cut it back to two.  This is an absolute must-get for Tubby’s Gophers.  If they win today, they’ll be 5-5 in the league with a favorable home schedule in the last eight games.  I think 10-8 would get the Gophers in.

4:05: Wow, Penn State just tied up Minnesota and got possession back!  They’re going to have a shot to tie or win the game here in the final 35 seconds.  Over in Boston, Duke is up four with 52 seconds, and I’ve got an eye on that one too.

4:07: WILD ending at Penn State.  First, Talor Battle got rejected not once, but twice (!) before a loose ball that Minnesota thought it had ended up in the hands of Battle for a wide-open thir layup attempt, which he converted.  Then Lawrence Westbrook came up for the Gophers and hit a stepback fadeaway at the buzzer to win the game.  As I said, must-win for Minny, and they did just enough today to get it.

4:11: Duke just fouled Corey Raji to send BC to the line for two with the Eagles down four.  He converted both and BC will have a chance at this if Duke doesn’t hit all their FTs.

4:13: Um, Reggie Jackson just hit a long three to cut it to ONE in the Duke-BC game.  Really, Mike Patrick?  Really?  Could you suppress your adulation for Duke any less?  Looks like Richmond finished off Temple – that’s a really nice win for that program.  Ok, back to Duke, and Jon Scheyer will go to the line.  Not who BC wanted to foul, but even when he hits both, they’re not sunk.

4:15: BC got a three off from Joe Trapani, but I think they made a mistake not penetrating and kicking out rather than dribbling around the perimeter hoping for a shot to open up.  Duke survives to move to 7-2 in the ACC.

4:23: Ok, so now we’re working into the 4pm games today, and this is by far the best group of games.  I’m going to keep an eye on all of them, and I’ll focus appropriately depending on how they’re going.  For now I’m going to start with Memphis hosting Gonzaga and UCLA-Cal.  The second game because I just can’t get enough Verne Lundquist.  UCLA is already up 24-11 on the Bears.  And you guys know my dream scenario is that every Pac-10 team ends up at 9-9 this season, so I’m definitely rooting for UCLA here.

4:30: Oklahoma is up early on Texas, 20-13, and Kentucky-LSU are in a 12-10 slogfest in Baton Rouge.  I’m also trying to monitor Baylor-A&M on 360, and the Bears are up early 18-10 on that horrible A&M court.

4:31: Wow, another game I briefly forgot about in this time slot is UNLV up 30-11 on BYU in the Mountain West.  That one is on Versus, and I haven’t found that on my package yet.

4:35: I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a dunk attempt that never hits the rim before that one by Wesley Witherspoon.  Granted, he got hammered, but it was strange to see someone tomahawk a ball six feet away from the rim.  I love these kinds of games between the national programs that aren’t in major conferences.  Can we add Butler, Davidson, St. Mary’s, BYU, Siena and Utah State into a basketball-only super-mid-conference?

4:43: Um, BYU is now down 45-18 in Vegas.  Ya think that the Rebels were hyped for this one?  Ok, it’s getting easier to tell which games are going to keep my interest.  Oklahoma is playing well vs. Texas, up nine still, and Cal is back in the game, down two at UCLA.  I’m putting UK-LSU off to the side for now, as the Cats are already up twenty.  Baylor-A&M remains close.

4:48: I’m getting a good look at Texas here prior to Monday night’s showdown against Kansas.  Do you guys feel like the Horns are missing something – one piece that would make this team almost unbeatable?  The foul shooting is an obvious problem, but where do the Horns go when they absolutely need a basket?  While James is a great piece to have, I don’t view him as a get-his-own-shot guy like I do Wall, Collins, Reynolds and others.  I readily admit I could end up being wrong about this, but there’s something that bugs me about this team on the offensive end.

4:55: Memphis hit a three at the buzzer to cut an eight-point Gonzaga lead back to five.  The Zags had a really nice push in the last couple of minutes before the half.  Back to OU-Texas, and the Sooners look as good as I’ve seen them all year.  Maybe the secret for Jeff Capel is to put orange unis on all of his opponents this year.  Everyone knows that Oklahoma should be better than they are this year with the talent they’ve got on the floor.  Willie Warren hasn’t been a leader, though, and when a player that good isn’t taking ownership, it presents a tough situation for Capel.

5:00: Egads, the one thing you should be able to expect from Texas is solid defense, but giving up 48 pts in a half to a pretty average offensive team in OU is incomprehensible.  I know I was talking about their offense above, and that remains a problem as well (D. James has 4 pts), but Texas is right now looking like a team that is one-and-done come Tournament time.  Barnes has to get their attention in the next couple of weeks.

5:03: A few other halftime scores here…  Kentucky up 29 on LSU, holding the Tigers to a mere 14 first-half points…  Wisconsin is up 14 at Michigan, and a mild surprise as NC State is leaing Georgia Tech in Atlanta by two at the half.

5:10: Ok, second halves are getting started… I suspect the Memphis-Gonzaga game is going down to the wire, and you’d have to figure that Texas will make some kind of a run on Oklahoma.

5:16: Robert Sacre of Gonzaga is a really intriguing prospect.  He’s a legit 6’11 and he’s thick.  He lacks explosiveness but he has a nice touch around the basket.  DraftExpress has him as a second-rounder in the 2011 draft, and I think he can go higher than that with another year-plus of improvement.

5:22: Switching over to Texas-OU for a minute, and Avery Bradley came downcourt, chucked a jumper that missed, and nobody bothered to stay back to protect transition, which as you might expect resulted in an Oklahoma runout.  To me, that’s just poor execution.  How can a top-10 team make that kind of rotation mistake down fifteen points on the road?

5:26: Fran Fraschilla just referenced it, but you just saw what he called the “Ginobili step-through” on the fast break by OU there to avoid the charge.  I was just thinking about how prevalent that move has become in the college game, and I was wondering when it really started to take off.  My shoddy memory tells me it’s exploded in the last five years (sorta like how the jump stop got huge in the mid-90s).  So where did that move come from?  Did Manu Ginobili really popularize it, or is it from Europe?  Somewhere else?  Hoopheads want to know…

5:31: ESPN2 just informed us that BYU is getting pounded at UNLV, but the Cougars have actually cut the 30-pt lead in half.  I’m back with Gonzaga-Memphis right now and Baylor-A&M on 360.  Matt Bouldin is playing well today, and I’m actually noticing his production.  More than any other player in the country, I feel that he’s the quietest really-good player in college basketball.  In a normal game, you figure he’s got 6/4, and you look at his final stats only to learn he’s contributed 19/7/6.  Right now he has 13/3.

5:37: With Elliot Williams quiet (7 pts), the fourth foul on Wesley Witherspoon is huge.  He’s got 22 of Memphis’ 42 total points.  I’ve seen Williams take over games this year, so look for the sophomore guard to start looking to score a little more.

5:41: On cue, Williams has taken it to the hole the last two trips.  He charged on the first, but it’s clear that he’s being more aggressive with the ball now that Witherspoon is out of the game.  Over in the Big 12, Texas has cut the Oklahoma lead to nine and are threatening to do more.  From what I’m seeing, Rick Barnes has reminded his team of all the powerful players they have inside.  They’ve gone in there the last several possessions, and guess what, it’s working.

5:48: Memphis is back within one point, so it’s split-screen time.  DJ Stephens with an airball followed by a foul call on what appeared to be a pretty good block attempt.  Shots aren’t falling anymore for the Zags, and they’re having trouble stopping the penetration of the Memphis guards.  Elliot Williams had a nasty baseline drive where he seemed to float for about 20 feet before dropping it in.

5:57: Texas is just a disaster at the line.  9-24 today, and 62% on the season.  Damion James is 4-12 by himself.  In a seven-point game, that’s the equivalent of a couple of extra turnovers.  Quick update on CBS – Cal is finishing off UCLA.  The Bears’ late first-half run continued into the second, and so Cal is now 7-4 in the Pac-10.  Not good for my chaos theory hopes.  Gonzaga is now up three with a minute remaining and Matt Bouldin going to the line.

6:08: The Zags are closing out a solid OOC road win that will improve their seed a little bit.  Memphis still has work to do.  At 16-7 with an RPI in the 60s, they’re probably going to need to have a strong second half in the CUSA to position themselves well for Selection Sunday.  Back to OU-Texas, and the Horns are back within five after a Gary Johnson three-point play (assuming he can make the upcoming FT).

6:12: A&M used a late run to knock off Baylor by seven in College Station.  That team just continues to impress me – Mark Turgeon should be in contention for Big 12 COY along with Frank Martin of K-State, as the Aggies move to 6-3 in league play.

6:16: It looks like Texas is going to drop its fourth game in the last six here in Norman this afternoon.  The Horns just never appeared all that together in this one, and it manifests as Oklahoma gets by far its best win of the year.  Maybe this will get the Sooners off the “last four out” list on our NCAA96 Bracket analysis.  Wayman Tisdale Day is going to be a good one for OU, and the question becomes whether Jeff Capel’s team can put enough together down the stretch to try to sneak into the back door of the NCAAs?  The short answer is “unlikely,” but the next three games are winnable, and if they got all three they’d be sitting at 7-4 in the conference.  The remainder of the schedule is a beast – K-State, Texas again, Kansas, Baylor and A&M to finish the year, but I’m not saying that it’s impossible.  I’d give it about a 25% chance at this point, though.

6:22: A couple of other scores we were keeping an eye on… in the ACC, Georgia Tech survived its bout with NC State by a mere two points, and Virginia Tech is about to finish off Clemson up in Blacksburg.  The two Virginia teams reach the halfway mark of the ACC with identical 5-3 records, and I don’t think anyone had that prediction before the season.

6:31: Ok, we’re hitting the slow part of the day, but there are still a couple of games going that are interesting.  Tennessee is taking on South Carolina on ESPN, Kansas hosts Nebraska on the U, and if you haven’t seen them this year, Northern Iowa has Southern Illinois in town on ESPN2.  If you get the Mtn, there’s also a good New Mexico-SDSU game on that channel in this slot.

6:41: I know a lot has been said and written about Tennesse in the wake of their personnel losses after New Year’s Day.  The Vols have gone 7-2 since the incident, and it does call into question whether Bruce Pearl might be better as a coach when he’s limited in options.  It seems that when his teams are loaded with talent from 1-10 on the bench, there are problems with the definition of player roles.  I’m not saying that I completely agree with that, but it is interesting how his team has responded in the last month to the crisis.

6:47: I just switched over to the U as Tennessee has jumped out to a double-digit lead over the Gamecocks, and Kansas is currently only up six on Nebraska.  I think KU is the most complete team in America, and right now, I’d only put Syracuse and Kentucky as the two teams most likely to beat them, but they don’t have a killer instinct that I’d like to see against inferior opponents.  I saw it the other night in the Colorado game, and we’re seeing it here again.  If KU is clicking, the Huskers would have no business staying with twenty points of this team.

6:56: Some oddities from around the country right now – Alabama is doubling up Ole Miss at the half, 40-20.  Tough day for the Mississippi schools.  If they keep this up, the SEC may be looking at a four-bid year, all from the Eastern Division.  Pitt is trying to avoid a meltdown at home, up five at the half on Seton Hall.  I’m trying to find that one on my satellite package, but to no avail so far.

7:06: Can we fast-forward to Monday night already?  The Big Monday games this upcoming week should be epic.  WVU-Villanova followed by Kansas-Texas.  The sheen has been slightly tarnished with Texas’ recent slide and today’s Villanova loss, but I’m pretty sure all four of these teams will be jazzed and show up for those two games.

7:11: I cannot locate that Pitt-Seton Hall game even though my guide says I have it on three separate channels.  Oh well.  I’ll have to settle for Kansas-Nebraska and the others.  NU came right out of the half and cut the game to two.  Kansas is clearly sleepwalking through this game.

7:14: And the Huskers now have the lead after a three drops for Doc Sadler’s team.

7:17: A 10-2 run for Nebraska now and the KU fans are in shock.  Surely they thought after the lousy performance at Colorado the Jayhawks would come out like gangbusters in this one.  Not so much.  The problem as I’ve seen it in both games is their offense is getting bogged down, and Cole Aldrich needs to touch the ball more.  Sherron Collins is 3-9 right now, Xavier Henry is 2-5, and Marcus Morris is 6-10.  That’s 24 shot attempts between the three, and Aldrich has one.  I repeat, the 6’11 all-america center has one shot attempt.  I understand that Nebraska’s defense is taking that option away, but come on!  One attempt!

7:24: And there he is.  Finally.  He had to get it off a rebound though.  If I were Bill Self, I would demand that Aldrich get ten shot attempts this half, and if he doesn’t get it, then he makes people run.  They simply cannot continue to forget about a player that good inside.  Well, as I type this, Aldrich picks up his third foul, but again, if I’m Bill Self (and I’m clearly not), I would challenge my team and Aldrich to get it done even with he (and Morris) in foul trouble.

7:30: Quick check on other games…  Tennessee is absolutely throttling South Carolina, doubling up the Devan Downeys 49-24.  Northern Iowa and SIU are playing first-one-to-40 wins, with NIU up one with 12:32 left, and Pitt has opened up a double-digit lead on Seton Hall.

7:32: Thanks Hemoglobin.  I tried to keep an eye on that one with the split-screen but the pace was so slow it looked like my right half of the tv froze.  Or maybe that was me.  So I’m sticking with KU-Nebraska until the Jayhawks have their inevitable run to put the Huskers away.  Still can’t find the Pitt-SH game anywhere.

7:39: The KU defense has now held Nebraska without a field goal for the last seven minutes of action.  This is completely expected in Lawrence.  I’d give NU three minutes to make another run to give themselves a shot; otherwise, they lose this game by 15-20.

7:46: Ok, we just got an upset from ESPN on the Michigan State-Illinois game and Kalin Lucas will not play this evening.  Korie Lucious is a more than capable backup, though, and I’m still not sold on the offensive capabilities of the Illini guards other than Demetri McCamey.  We’ll see how it plays out, but I still like MSU in that one later tonight.

7:50: Why can’t these Big 12 teams make foul shots?  KU missed 20 in the OT win at Colorado the other night, and they’ve missed ten today in the friendlier confines of Allen Fieldhouse.  They’re at 69% for the year, way better than Texas at 62%, but they’ve not been good lately by any stretch.  Speaking of lately, KU is now pushing it out to double-digits and Nebraska looks cooked.

7:53: Nebraska was ahead in this game 43-39.  Since that time, they’ve scored five points while Kansas has dropped 27.  This game is clearly over.  On ESPN, Tennessee is up 25 on South Carolina, while Pitt is blowing out Seton Hall.  Ohhh…. the other interesting game is that Ole Miss has come all the way back from 20 down vs. Alabama and now leads the game!  So I’m going to flip back and forth between that one and the SIU-NIU game.

8:00: That’s right, eight straight hours with you so far today…  I’m watching Ole Miss hang onto a 4-pt lead over Alabama right now, and this is definitely a game that the Rebels couldn’t afford to lose.  Great second half comeback for Andy Kennedy’s team.  A 5-4 record in the SEC West is awaiting if they can hang on.  Over in the Valley, NIU is down five to SIU now.  Still 3:32 left in that one, but NIU hasn’t lost at home all season, so this would be a pretty major upset against a 5-7 team in the MVC.

8:07: Tie game as Jake Koch lays it in at Northern Iowa with 1:36 to go…  I just noticed that New Mexico beat SDSU by one point in the MWC as well, when the Aztecs missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with a second remaining.  Ole Miss, Kansas and Tennessee all won.  Remember when SIU was one of those teams mentioned above, like Gonzaga and Memphis, who you could count on being solid every single season?  Not sure what’s happened to that program, but this is the third straight year that the Salukis have been “down.”

8:17: These last two minutes illustrate the difference between good teams and not-so-good teams.  Good teams make the right plays in the last few minutes, while not-so-good teams don’t.  UNI will keep their home unbeaten record intact, and are getting very close to salting away the MVC with several weeks left in conference play.  Scratch that update from above about New Mexico and SDSU b/c apparently they’re now in OT even though the ESPN feed had that game as over.  Must have been something weird going on down in the Southwest.

8:20: Digger’s favorite phrase is that some team, player or coach is “on a mission.”  You’d think that the Franciscan monks were still traveling up and down the El Camino Real as much as he throws that phrase around.  Well, folks, it’s been another great afternoon of games here on BGTD.  But it’s not over.  I’m going to shut it down for a bit, but we’ll be back for the 9pm showcase game between Illinois and the Kalin Lucas-less Michigan State.  So check back when that one starts as we finish up the day…

9:10: Mike Tisdale and the Illini have decided to show up today, which is bad news for Tom Izzo and the Spartans who are already down 12-4 just 3 minutes into the game. If Lucas is out more than a week or two, the Spartans can forget about the Big Ten regular season title.

9:25: I’m all about school spirit, but that thing that Bruce Weber is wearing might give me an aneurysm. How about an orange tie? The Spartans have managed to tie it up at 16. Meanwhile, in Indianapolis, Butler is up by 14 despite relatively modest efforts out of Gordon Hayward and Matt Howard.

9:30: 23k for GameDay?!? Say what you want about the state of Kentucky, but they do love their basketball.

9:50: Interesting take from the coaches and analysts on ESPN2 covering the Wright State-Butler game where they don’t want to expand the NCAA tournament. Perhaps they read our 96-team tournament preview. . .

9:55: Michigan State has recovered from their awful start to go into half down by just 1, but that doesn’t seem to bother the Illinois students who are letting everyone know they are #1. In the state of Illinois?

10:07: Quick check of the scoreboard reveals a pretty big upset brewing as Georgia (9-11) is up by 10 with less than 90 seconds left against #20 Vanderbilt (17-4). In Storrs, UConn survived what would have been a humiliating home loss to Will Walker (24 points) and DePaul (8-14 coming into the game) thanks to a late run after trailing by 1 with less than 5 minutes left.

10:15: Vanderbilt goes down by 14. And the SEC will have 2 teams in the Top 25 next week. . .Meanwhile, it looks like we might have a legitimately great game at Illinois with the score tied at 41. Dan Shulman just complimented the Illinois student section while taking a shot at the much-criticized West Virginia student section. Have they become the media’s anti-Cameron Crazies?

10:25: Just as I was about to make a Big Ten offense joke, Dan Shulman chimes with a shot at them saying the score with 12 minutes looks a lot like the final score of many Big Ten games. Having said that  both teams are really heating up now. The final score should be in the high 70s and maybe even the 80s. For each team.

10:37: Illinois is threatening to blow this game wide open. A series of open-court dunks has the Orange Crush going crazy. Izzo can sense this one getting out of hand. The Illini are up by 7 with 7:17 left. Demeteri McCamey is destroying the Spartans with 19 points and 10 assists so far.

10:55: Vitale ripping apart the 96-team tournament? I would have assumed he would want everybody to get to the postseason so all of his coaching buddies could keep their jobs instead of getting fired. . .and getting rehired somewhere else by some braindead AD who thinks hiring retreads is a great idea.

11:00: One minute and eight seconds left on ESPN with Illinois up by 2. Who will step up for the Spartans with Kalin Lucas on the bench? Draymond Green would be my guess. He seems to have stepped up tonight with Lucas in street clothes.

11:01: Onions!!! McCamey with a huge 3 to put the Illini up by 5 with 37 seconds left, but Green responds with a tip-in (17 points and 15 rebounds). Illinois up by 3. Now it’s just up to Illinois to hit their free throws and this game is theirs.

11:04: Hello Durrell Summers! A quick 3-pointer to cut it to 1 with 17.4 seconds left.

11:07: “Oh. You don’t rush the court!. . .I don’t buy this!” – Dick Vitale. Can we count that as an endorsement for the site? I mean he mentioned us, right? With some creative Michael Moore-style editing, we can spin this into an endorsement, right? By the way, that’s an unapproved RTC. Has West Virginia RTC’d this year? Normally I would know this, but everybody seems to be doing it this year so it is hard to keep track.

11:15: In what will probably be the final BGTD game of the night, Tulsa and UTEP are tied in basically every category at half. This should be an interesting match-up of Derrick Caracter and Jerome Jordan.

11:30: UTEP is using an 8-0 run to go up by 4 with 13:23 left in the game as Ben Uzoh picks up a dumb offensive foul. Are the Miners starting to pull away here?

11:40: UTEP up by 9 now off a 14-1 run. Caracter is starting to dominate.  Tulsa is about to get run out of El Paso. Uzoh or Jordan need to step up here.

11:54: Normally I wouldn’t call a 13-point game with 6 minutes left, but the way Tulsa has been executing on offense this half I might be ready to call this one for the Miners.

12:00: I have to say it is a little weird to see the C-USA standings and not see Memphis at the top. It looks like UTEP will be on top of C-USA as we enter “Rivalry Week” unless Jerome Jordan can take over because Ben Uzoh is having an off-night.

12:10: Barring a huge collapse, the Miners will take over control of C-USA.

12:12: Ok. The Miners are attempting to collapse right now. This could be ugly.

12:13: Wow. The finish of this game is sloppier than the finish of today’s BGTD and they have only been playing for 2 hours. I don’t doubt that these teams have players with the athletic ability to compete with the big-time schools. I doubt that these teams have players with the basketball fundamentals to compete with those same schools.

12:17: Despite the sloppy finish, UTEP holds on for the victory to advance to 17-5 and are in 1st in C-USA at 8-1. That does it for another edition of BGTD. Thanks for following us and commenting. Keep checking in on RTC for the latest college basketball news and analysis.

Northwestern at #25 Ohio State at 7 PM on Big Ten Network: This is clearly a big game for both teams. As has you may have heard (from basically every site covering college basketball) Northwestern has never made the NCAA tournament, but despite the loss of Kevin Coble the Wildcats are firmly on the bubble this year. A victory over Evan Turner and the Buckeyes in Columbus would be a big boost following their upset win at home over a Purdue team that is rapidly falling apart (more on this in a bit). To knock off the Buckeyes in Columbus (where they are undefeated this season), they will need big games from John Shurna (16.8 PPG and 7.1 RPG) and Michael Thompson (14.4 PPG and 4.4 APG with a 2.7 to 1 assist to TO ratio). The key for Thad Matta‘s squad will be Evan Turner being Evan Turner (my choice for national POY) and someone else (David Lighty, Jon Diebler, or William Buford–all averaging 13.3 PPG) helping him out so the Wildcats can’t throw double teams at Turner all night. As much as the Northwestern story intrigues us, we suspect that tonight will not help their case as The Villain and the Buckeyes should be able to hold on for the win, but given what happened this weekend a Big Ten upset wouldn’t shock us.

#16 Clemson at #18 Georgia Tech at 7 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: For the Duke haters out there, this game could be viewed as a match-up of the two teams most likely to challenge the Blue Devils in the ACC this season (we’re almost ready to give up on UNC this season). Paul Hewett”s Yellow Jackets have been maddeningly inconsistent alternating between wins against Duke and UNC and losses against Georgia and Virginia. Meanwhile, Oliver Purnell‘s Tigers have started off with their customary impressive early season record with their only losses coming against Duke, Texas A&M, and Illinois with a majority of their wins coming against a bunch of cupcakes in non-conference play (ok, the Xavier win was nice) and they just blew out UNC in Littlejohn Coliseum. The key to this game will be the match-up on the inside with Trevor Booker (15.4 PPG and 8.3 RPG) going up against Gani Lawal (15.2 PPG and 9.2 RPG) and Derrick Favors (11.5 PPG and 8.6 RPG). Despite the Yellow Jackets’ inconsistency lately, we’re going to go with the homecourt and the fact that we never trust Clemson in big games here.

#15 Purdue at Illinois at 9 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: The big question here is how the Boilermakers will respond to Matt Painter calling out the entire team except for Robbie Hummel and E’Twaun Moore after their three-game losing streak. The key for Illinois will be if they can get Demetri McCamey going against Chris Kramer. They will probably rely on their running him through a bunch of screen in their motion offense (ESPN Insider required) to get Kramer off of him. On the other side of the ball, Purdue needs JaJuan Johnson to start playing like the All-Big Ten player that he is and not the guy who scored 17 points combined in their last three games (all losses). If Purdue plays the way they did early in the season, they are clearly capable of pulling off the road win. Given the experience on the Boilermakers team, we’re going to go with them bouncing back on the road against Bruce Weber and the Illini.

Not Quite the Same, But We'll Take It (photo credit: cnnsi.com)

1. Will Jeff get his scholarship back?
2. Is there any way that Illinois could schedule FIU next year (assuming Isiah Thomas hasn’t run the program and the university into the ground)? This would be a ratings hit (as much as a game involving Illinois and FIU could be) because of the possibility of two things occurring–MJ showing up for a game (and possibly trying to get in uniform to stick it to Isiah one more time) and the return of the “Jordan Rules” (if Isiah is looking for a little payback for the Hall of Fame speech).

It turns out that there may be something behind that comment as the news coming out of Illinois today suggests that Jordan may lace them up again. Before you start going on a rant about how he is going to ruin his legacy by the returning to the court (an argument that I never bought into), there’s one important thing to consider–the Jordan who is returning is not Michael Jeffrey Jordan (career average 30.1 PPG), but instead it is his son Jeff Jordan (career average 1 PPG) who has expressed interest in returning.

I know some of you are probably having the same thoughts that I had when I heard the news namely “I didn’t even know that he left”. It appears that young Mr. Jordan may have more than his name in common with his father as Jeff “retired” back in June. Unlike his father, Jeff never claimed to have run out of challenges. Instead, he cited a desire to focus on his studies, which given his basketball future didn’t seem like a crazy thing to do even though he had been awarded a basketball scholarship just a few months earlier:

“I loved playing for the Fighting Illini and appreciate the support I was given by my teammates, coaches and the great fans here, but I have come to the point where I’m ready to focus on life after basketball. I will concentrate on earning my degree from the University of Illinois and the opportunities that await upon graduating.”

While there isn’t much information about why Jordan changed his mind (we can’t imagine it was the tuition and room and board that he would have had to pay), it seems like his academic schedule may have gotten a lot lighter or he realized the “opportunities that await upon graduating” could involve globe-trotting with his famous father. In any event, Jordan tweeted (is that the correct conjugation?) about his change of heart:

“wanna go 2 open gym with the squad like old times,but dnt knowif im still allowd up ther lol they might have banned me from the facility GNR”

Although the discussion appears to be in the preliminary stages (Jordan hasn’t met with coach Bruce Weber yet), Jordan’s return could have a significant impact on the Illini by providing them with a perimeter defensive presence that any college team would benefit from having.

Ed. Note: for all of the posts in the RTC 09-10 Class Schedule series, click here.

The Final Four in Indianapolis sets up a dream scenario for Purdue coach Matt Painter. Much like Michigan State last season, who cruised through Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Detroit en route to the national title game, Purdue has the potential to set a goal of playing in front of their Indiana faithful at Lucas Oil Stadium for Final Four 2010. With a first/second round site in Milwaukee and the Midwest Regional located in St. Louis, Purdue could go the route of their Big Ten rivals a year ago by garnering a #1 seed on Selection Sunday.

Does Purdue have the tools to reach such lofty goals? Absolutely. For the second straight season, the core of the Boilermakers return to try and make the next step in March after falling in the second round in 2008 and in the Sweet 16 in 2009. You know the names by now- 6’10 forward JaJuan Johnson, whose numbers improved drastically from his rookie campaign, Chicago scoring guard E’Twaun Moore, team leader and potential Big Ten POY Robbie Hummel, defensive stalwart Chris Kramer and the emerging young point Lewis Jackson to compliment Keaton Grant. In addition, Painter lured in four talented Indiana recruits.

In order to reach Indianapolis, the Boilermakers must trek through this challenging schedule:

Non-Conference Schedule Rank: 7.5. The non-conference schedule is fairly demanding for the Boilermakers. One of the best non-conference games of the year takes place on New Year’s Day between two of the most rugged teams in the nation- Purdue and West Virginia. The Mountaineers return Devin Ebanks, Da’Sean Butler and Darryl Bryant for a team that could contend for a Big East crown.  Purdue also plays in the Wooden Tradition on December 19 against an unknown opponent (it’s getting late, kids) and takes on Wake Forest at home in the ACC/Big Ten challenge a year after Duke entered West Lafayette and dominated. Painter and Co. must also travel to Tuscaloosa to take on new coach Anthony Grant and Alabama. The real tests could come in November at the Paradise Jam.

Cupcake City: Not too many cupcakes for Matt Painter this non-conference season which makes sense given his team’s talent level. Purdue faces Memphis’ favorite team, Cal State Northridge, to open the campaign with an easy first round Paradise Jam game and Central Michigan rounding out November. Ball State, Valparaiso and SIU-Edwardsville rounds out the cupcake list.

Toughest Early Season Test: Since the January 1 meeting with West Virginia at home isn’t quite early enough to qualify, the Paradise Jam should pose quite a challenge. After taking care of South Dakota State in the first round, a likely contest with top-five ACC team Boston College looms. The Eagles did lose Tyrese Rice, but the rest of the roster returns for Al Skinner. Should Purdue beat BC for the second straight season, they’d likely match up with Tennessee in the Jam final (assuming they get by MVC preseason favorite Northern Iowa). The Vols have oodles of talent from forwards Tyler Smith and Wayne Chism to guards Scotty Hopson and J.P. Prince. The final would take place on November 23, meaning a very early test against a top-15 team could be ahead for the Boilermakers.

Easiest Conference Stretch: Much like fellow conference favorite Michigan State’s schedule, it’s difficult to find an easy stretch in the Big Ten this season. There may not be a ton of depth in terms of high-potential teams, but there are very few walkovers and plenty of teams that will contend for a postseason berth. A four-game stretch where Purdue could find definite success starts at the end of January with three home dates against Michigan, Wisconsin and Penn State. Only the Wolverines are a surefire NCAA team. The Boilers then travel to bottom-dwelling Indiana for a rivalry game on February 4. If they can avoid an upset at the hands of Michigan, a 4-0 stretch should be fairly simple.

Hardest Conference Stretch: The end of February will be a challenge for Purdue, testing the club before March and the games heat up even more. The four-game stretch includes road games at Ohio State and Minnesota with home dates against Illinois and Michigan State. All four of those teams are expected to reach the NCAA Tournament and both of those road dates will feature hostile atmospheres with hopes of knocking off an elite Purdue team. Plenty of pundits believe Michigan State has the returning talent to win a Big Ten title, too. If Purdue can take survive this late season stretch, they may take that crown from the Spartans.

Most Difficult Road Test: It has to be Michigan State on February 9. Much like last preseason, there will be many-a-argument regarding the favorite in this conference, and the discussion will revolve around the Boilermakers and Spartans yet again. Michigan State returns Kalin Lucas, wings Durrell Summers and Chris Allen, big men Draymond Green and Delvon Roe along with Raymar Morgan. That’s plenty of talent to take down all of those returning Boilermakers, especially in East Lansing. The two meetings between Michigan State and Purdue will be super-anticipated and vital towards grabbing a #1 seed for both teams.

Most Anticipated Home Date: The return date from Michigan State in late February should be pretty good. Purdue routed the Spartans at home last season. This rematch could very well decide the Big Ten title with a win maybe wrapping it up for Purdue with Indiana and Penn State their final two contests to round out the campaign.

Best Individual Matchup: Assuming they’re both healthy (and this may be a mistake judging by both players injury histories), Raymar Morgan taking on Robbie Hummel is one to watch. Hummel, along with teammate Chris Kramer, are known as superb defenders, while Morgan has the scoring potential to drop 25 on any given night if the effort is present. Morgan is extremely athletic and may be one of the few players in the conference to give Hummel fits. In 43 minutes played last season in two games vs. Purdue, Morgan scored just 10 points. Another interesting matchup will be sophomore point guard Lewis Jackson against Penn State’s Talor Battle.

Upset Watch: The orange-clad Illini faithful surrounding their home floor in Champaign poses one of the loudest threats to the opposition in the entire conference. Bruce Weber has a fairly decent team at his disposal, as well, with Mike Tisdale, Mike Davis, Demetri McCamey joining elite freshmen guards D.J. Richardson and Brandon Paul. Teams like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio State and others will be difficult road tests, but I’d say Illinois has the best chance to knock off mighty Purdue.

The sky’s the limit for Purdue in 2009-10 and expectations are unlimited. The Baby Boilers are all grown up and have more on-court experience with one another than any team in the land. Anything less than a Final Four appearance in Indianapolis will be disappointing for Matt Painter and the Purdue faithful. One thing fans can count on is effort and intensity from a Boilermaker team looking to make the next step.

Direct Links to the Top Ten.

1.  UNC
2.  Kansas
3.  Florida
4.  Duke
5.  Michigan St.
6.  UConn
7.  UCLA
8.  Memphis
9.  Syracuse
10.  Maryland

Intro.  Welcome back.  We wanted to use this post to wrap up the loose ends with an endeavor such as this one.  Let’s talk about our methodology, the teams who were easiest/most difficult to place, the Memphis quandary, and the teams who were on the outside of the top ten looking in.   As always, feel free to disagree in the comments.

Defending Our Methodology.  One of the more interesting things about releasing these rankings has been the reaction from various fan bases. Some have been very measured in their response and criticism (such as the people in Lawrence, Kansas) while others have been a little more vitriolic (fans of another program in the center of the country). Most of the criticism has been directed at our methodology. There seemed to be quite a bit of confusion on this, so let’s clear it up immediately.  Some people have misinterpreted our table (below) as if the listed criteria were all considered totally and equally in how we ranked teams. Nothing could be further from the truth – rather, the table  was intended to be used as a tool showing the universe of relevant statistics that our panel might find useful when making their decisions.  There was no formula that a panelist was obliged to follow – instead, each panelist had complete discretion to consider or ignore any statistic he deemed important (or irrelevant).  Once each panelist submitted his list, we then took a holistic view of the world when determining where to rank certain teams.  Obviously we all considered winning percentage, NCAA Tournament success, conference achievements, etc., but in varying degrees.  That’s what makes these debates work – while one panelist may think that the NCAA Tournament is all that really matters and wants to weight teams almost exclusively on that metric, another panelist may want to give more substantial weight to the regular season.  Here’s the thing, though – reasonable minds always differ, and both conclusions are completely ok.  We believe that this sort of subjective analysis – review the available stats, pre-rank a list, reconvene to discuss, finalize the rankings – gives such a ranking system more credibility than simply weighting and re-weighting a formula until everything “feels” right.  For those of you who wanted a completely “objective” ranking system… well, here’s an example we did last spring that shows how the BCS formula would have applied to the NCAA Tournament.   Hint: F4 participants Villanova and UConn wouldn’t have even been invited to the Ball. In sum, we think that our methodology resulted in a solid, defensible list of the top ten programs of the 2000s.  Not everyone can be happy, but we’re comfortable with the results.

Hardest Teams to Peg.  There were three teams that the panel had the hardest time nailing down – #4 Duke, #5 Michigan St., and #8 Memphis.  Both Duke and MSU received a #1 vote in our initial analyses, although to be fair, those were outliers among the panel.  Memphis was equally contentious, with half of the panel initially placing the Tigers in the top seven, while the other half didn’t even have them ranked at all.  It probably makes sense that we’ve received the most criticism based on these difficult-to-peg teams.

Easiest Teams to Peg.  On the other hand, the top three teams – #1 UNC, #2 Kansas, #3 Florida – were unanimous in order (although not in ranking).  Every panelist rated those three in the same order relative to one another, and the lowest any of the four teams were rated was fourth.  Interestingly, criticism died down on the placement of these teams.  Perhaps our panel was representative of what Average College Basketball Fan would choose as well?

What About Memphis? After the news that the NCAA vacated Memphis’ 38 wins and title appearance from the 2008 season, there was some buzz about what we should do with our list.  By our estimation, Memphis was rated as the #8 program of the 2000s, but if we removed that year, they most undoubtedly would have dropped out of the top ten.    After some internal discussion, we’re unwilling to go there.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  First and foremost, we don’t want to.  We watched Memphis play its way into the national finals, we saw Derrick Rose clang his first FT with nine seconds left, and we remember the shocked look on Calipari’s face in the interview room afterwards.  We also remember Michael Redd’s shooting in 99, Marcus Camby blocking everything in sight in 96, C-Webb calling timeout in 93, and several other vacated performances over the years.  Those games and moments happened.  They’re seared into our memory.  The NCAA can vacate whatever it wants, but we’re not going to join forces with them in their legal fiction.  Which brings us to our second point on this topic.  The NCAA’s application of these penalties is so wantonly inconsistent that if we gave credence to this one while ignoring such wholesale violations known to the general public – Sam Gilbert at UCLA and Reggie Bush at USC should immediately come to mind – that we’d be doing our readers a disservice.  We recognize that cheating at some level happens nearly everywhere, but our stance is that if the NCAA doesn’t catch it and punish the school prior to the games affected, then we’re not going to join them in their after-the-fact erasures.  Sorry.  Memphis stays at #8.

Honorable Mention (in no particular order).

• Illinois. On three of our personal Team of the 2000s rankings, Illinois barely missed the cut, meaning if the Bruce Weber-led 2005 squad managed to topple North Carolina for a national championship, they’d likely be included in the top ten. Illinois has also flamed out a bit at the tail end of the decade, finishing with a losing record in 2007-08 (16-19) before rebounding to a 24-10 mark in 2008-09 and eventually falling victim to a 12-5 upset by Western Kentucky. Bill Self and Bruce Weber have built a phenomenal program throughout the decade, though. The 2004-05 team featuring Deron Williams, Luther Head, Dee Brown and James Augustine was one of the top teams of the 2000s, flirting with an undefeated mark until Ohio State knocked them off in Columbus, then pulling off one of the most sensational comebacks in NCAA Tournament history in the Elite 8 against Arizona. Illinois has tied or won the Big Ten three times in the 2000s and finished as high as second three more times. What holds Illinois back from garnering a spot on the list? They haven’t reached the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament or won a conference title since that special 2004-05 campaign. Borderline teams have experienced more success in March, both in the Big Dance and in conference tournament play, than Illinois. For example, Maryland has two Final Fours, a national title and never finished with a losing record in the decade. Illinois hasn’t won the Big Ten Tournament since 2004-05. With packed recruiting classes ahead and a top-notch leader in Weber, Illinois will look to turn around a program that hasn’t been nearly as feared since watching Carolina cut down the nets on that fateful April night four years ago.

• Gonzaga. The Zags undoubtedly were the most successful mid-major of the decade (moreso than Xavier and Butler), but their overall profile simply didn’t have enough juice to vault Gonzaga into the top ten. They dominated the WCC, winning the league eight times en route to an average of 26+ wins per year, an outstanding 80% winning percentage, and ten straight NCAA appearances.  But when it came to the NCAAs, Mark Few’s squads were only able to make it to the Sweet Sixteen four times.  And how many times in the decade were they able to advance past the third round?  Um, try zero.    Nevertheless, we believe that Gonzaga rates a tick higher than other such notable programs as Louisville, Wisconsin, Arizona and Oklahoma (all of whom made one F4) because they were so consistently good despite their scheduling limitations.  The worst Zag team (2006-07) still had 23 wins, and as a result of the weaker schedule of the WCC, their average NCAA seed was easily one of the lowest on our list.  Yet, as we all know, Gonzaga has tried to load up on high-impact RPI games during the nonconference slate, and we give them credit for that.  Fans of the other programs may quibble with this selection, but we can live with including at least one mid-major for consideration as the Team of the 2000s, and Gonzaga is our choice.

• Arizona.  The obvious question here for Wildcat fans is how can a team that made the NCAA tournament every year for the past decade (and 25 straight if you don’t take away their vacated 1999 appearance) not be considered one of the top ten programs of the 2000s behind four teams that failed to make the tournament twice, two teams that failed to make the tournament three times, and another team that failed to make the tournament four times?  While the answer probably won’t satisfy Wildcat fans, it comes down to a few key things for us:

1. Barely having a winning percentage at 70% despite playing in the Pac-10. Save the whining, West Coast people. The Pac-10 has only been one of the best conferences in the nation once in the past decade (2008 comes immediately to mind).
2. Averaging 1.7 wins per NCAA Tournament appearance, which is lower than any other team in the top 10. The only team that they are close to is Syracuse and the Orange have a national title (wouldn’t be in the top 10 without it).
3. Mediocre performance in the Pac-10. The Wildcats had 2.5 regular season conference titles (one being a split title) and 1 postseason conference title (since it was started in 2002). Like we said before, the Pac-10 might have the most attractive co-eds in the nation (although the SEC has a strong case), but the Pac-10 pales in comparison to the ACC, Big East, Big 12, SEC, and the Big 10 over the past decade in terms of the quality of their basketball teams.
4. You could argue that the Wildcats got lucky with many of those NCAA tournament bids, most notably two years ago when they got in ahead of an Arizona State team that had a very strong case for being in above their rival.

• RIP Wayman. You’ve undoubtedly heard the sad news about 44-year old Wayman Tisdale’s passing on May 15.  Obviously, we never met Tisdale, but everyone agrees that he was a person who touched the lives of many through his athletic and musical career.  ESPN takes a look back here, and CNNSI reflected on his legacy in the state of Oklahoma here.   Jeff Goodman tells a story about Tisdale following through on a promise to a budding jouralist (him).   Tisdale’s public memorial service was last Wednesday.
• Smoke, then Fire.  We mentioned previously that it’s unfathomable to us that USC wouldn’t take Renardo Sidney, given their astonishing and proven ability to look the other way.  Maybe they knew that Rodney Guillory’s associate, Louis Johnson, was chirping like a parrot to anyone who will listen that he witnessed Tim Floyd handing Guillory a cool grand in return for the delivery of OJ Mayo.  Now Mayo’s talking to the feds about Guillory, and at least one writer thinks the whole darned ship is going up in flames.  The million-dollar question is whether the NCAA investigators have the sack to do it.  (our response: yes, but half-assed).  Update: Noel Johnson, a 2009 signee, left the program today, leaving Dwight Lewis, and um, Lil Romeo?
• Transfers. Iowa’s Jeff Peterson (11 ppg) will transfer to Arkansas for the 2010-11 season; Indiana’s Nick Williams (9/5) will return to the South to play for Ole Miss (he was the Alabama POY in 2008); and, Clark Kellogg’s kid, Alex, will leave Providence for Ohio University (Bobcats, not Buckeyes) to play his senior season.  In corollary news, Oklahoma’s Juan Pattillo was shown the door by Jeff Capel for undisclosed team violations.
• NBA Draft News.  Duke’s Gerald Henderson made it official and signed with an agent, forgoing his final year in Durham.  Xavier’s Derrick Brown, a borderline first-rounder, is highly unlikely to return to XU next season.  Meanwhile, word last week was that Florida’s Nick Calathes signed a contract for $1.1M/year (+ a home, car and tax credits) to play in Greece (where he holds dual citizenship), and Clemson’s Terrence Oglesby is leaving school after his sophomore year to pursue a pro career in Europe (he’s also a dual citizen with Norway).  Southern Miss’s Jeremy Wise will not return either.  BYU’s Jonathan Tavernari decided to wise up and will return to the Cougs for his senior season, as will Arkansas leading scorer Michael Washington.  FYI, now that the draft lottery is set (Clips win!), the new mocks are coming out.  Here’s NBADraft.net’s Top 14.
• Obligatory Kentucky News.  It’s out with the old and in with the new, as three scholarship at Kentucky are given the pink slip to make room for Calipari’s motherlode of talent.  The buzz is already loud for Kentucky as the preseason #1 next year, but we’re a little surprised Jodie Meeks hasn’t made his decision yet (he’s unlikely to move up to the first round).
• Coaching News.  Illinois top man Bruce Weber got a $500k raise and a three-year extension based on his stellar work in Champaign last season.  Villanova’s Jay Wright talked to and then withdrew from the search for a new Philadelphia 76ers head man.  Wazzu’s new man Ken Bone signed with the school for seven years and $650k per year, according to school records.   Michigan’s John Beilein will chair the NCAA’s Ethics Comittee, featuring Johnny Dawkins, Jeff Capel and the omnipresent Dave Odom…  does anyone else find it odd that Beilein’s charge here is to clarify the rules as written, even though he used legal loopholes to get out of his stated buyout with WVU when he left for greener pastures?   Finally, here’s a rather-suspect list of the top ten coaches in America today – it omits Bill Self and John Calipari, which leads us to believe that the author did not watch the 2008 national championship game.
• Other Errata.  CJ Henry is officially enrolled at Kansas and will get to play with his brother, super-wing Xavier Henry, next season in Lawrence.
• Former Tennessee guard Ramar Smith (whom Coach Bruce Pearl kicked off the team in 2008) was arrested for robbery (the holy trinity: money, guns and marijuana) last week, and he’s currently awaiting trial.
• Luke Winn gives us a glimpse at what Mississippi St. will look like next year (with John Riek and Renardo Sidney in the fold).
• Please tell us that some irate Kentucky fan with rivers of money will buy these and burn them.
• What WILL we do with those nefarious message board posters!?!?
• Campbell University will rejoin the Big South (its former home until 1994), leaving the Atlantic Sun after the 2010-11 academic year.
• The Big Sky is moving to a Friday/Saturday conference weekend model to save costs beginning next season.
• This is a sad story, but we’re glad that the authorities found this Olympic champion safe and sound.
• Well, sucks for them (next, USC?).

vs. Western Kentucky (#12)
March 19th, 9:55 P.M.

Vegas Line:  Illinois -4.5

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: Champaign, Illinois
Conference: Big Ten, conf./at-large
Coach: Bruce Weber, 150-53 at Illinois
08-09 Record: 24-9, 12-8 Big Ten
Last 12 Games: 7-5
Best Win: 75-59 v. Missouri, December 23rd
Worst Loss: 36-59 v. Minnesota, January 29th
Off. Efficiency Rating: 106.0/ 98th overall
Def. Efficiency Rating: 85.9/ 4th overall

Nuts n Bolts

Star Player(s): Mike Davis- 11.4 points/game, 8.0 rebounds/game, 53.7 FG%

Unsung Hero:  Chester Frazier- 5.7 points/game, 5.3 assists/game, 4.8 rebounds/game, 1.4 steals/game

Potential NBA Draft Pick(s): None

Key Injuries: Frazier was hurt during the Big Ten tournament because of a badly bruised hand, but I seriously doubt he would miss the tournament, especially in his senior season.

Depth: 24.8%/ 306th overall

Achilles Heel: Illinois is one of the best defensive teams in the country let alone the Big Ten, but they just can’t seem to score the ball on a consistent basis. Davis and Demetri McCamey are the two best offensive players on the Fighti Illni squad, and even they aren’t scary to opposing defenses. Their offensive efficiency is just 98^th in the country, and they don’t have a real three-point threat outside of Trent Meacham. Teams will try to push Davis out of the box and keep McCamey from penetrating in order to force someone else to step up.

Will Make a Deep Run if… The Illini will make a deep run if they continue to play stifling defense and if they find a third option on offense. Dominique Keller, Meacham, and Alex Legion all have the potential for big games offensively, and if one of them plays well offensively the Illini could give a lot of teams headaches.

Will Make an Early Exit if… If the shots aren’t falling for Bruce Weber’s team and Mike Davis is neutralized by another athletic big man, you can almost write the Illini off right away. Not many teams scored less than 40 points this season, but Illinois did it twice, and both nights they had almost no offensive identity. If Davis gets in foul trouble, the Illinois offense disappears.

NCAA History

Last Year Invited: 2007, lost in the first round to Virginia Tech

Streak None

Best NCAA Finish: They lost in the National Championship game to North Carolina in 2005.

Historical Performance vs. Seed (1985-present): -0.25 wins per appearance

Other

Six Degrees to Detroit: None

Distance to First Round Site: 2120.17 miles away from Portland, Oregon

School’s Claim to Fame: They do have Michael Jordan’s son on their basketball team, but even more important is how impressive a public institution Illinois is. The Illini are ranked the No. 10 public institution by the U.S. World News Report, and No. 40 in national institutions by the same report. Did I mention that Michael Jordan’s son goes there?

School Wishes It Could Forget: Ah the good ole days of Chief Illiniwek had been the mascot for Illinois since 1926, until in 2007 when Native Americans complained about the borderline racism and inaccurate representation of indigenous culture. Nothing like realizing the University has been making a mockery of indigenous culture for almost a century.

Prediction: The Illini have struggled to put the ball in the basket, and as a result they find themselves almost the underdog in their first round game against Western Kentucky. The Hilltoppers are a very dangerous team in the backcourt, and Chester Frazier is gimpy. Unfortunately for Illinois, that adds up to a first round exit.

Major RTC stories: MJ Just Saved Himself $63,426…

Preview written by…Mike Lemaire

The Season That Was
Politicians often talk about “Two Americas” – there’s the super-rich, lighting Cuban cigars with $100 bills, and then there’s the rest of us. Well, this year, there were “Three Big Tens.” First, there was Michigan State, who won the conference title in a walk by four games. That’s the largest margin in a very long time (over 10 years). And just like this little credit crisis hasn’t forced Warren Buffett to fly coach [Ed. Note: Having read about Warren, he might fly coach anyways.], Raymar Morgan‘s long bout with pneumonia didn’t slow down the Spartans one bit. We predicted Michigan State to win, we just didn’t know it would be this easy.

Then there’s the middle, which was filled with parity. Second place through ninth place was separated by 3 games. Call it the Big Ten’s middle class. Purdue didn’t develop into the team everyone thought they would. Sure, Robbie Hummel‘s extended absence hurt, but it was really the big steps back taken by E’Twuan Moore and Keaton Grant that made the biggest difference. Illinois actually overachieved this season, after last year’s debacle. The truth is that the Illini weren’t that bad last year, but suffered a lot of close losses. A big turnaround was to be expected. But to go from 16 wins to 23 (and counting) without adding a single player of significance was beyond optimistic. That’s exactly what Bruce Weber‘s team did though. Wisconsin will see their streak of 30-win seasons come to an end this year, and despite what you might read or hear about this team, it was the defense that let them down. In fact, the Badgers sported the league’s best offense on a per possession basis. But without twin towers Brian Butch and Greg Steimsma, opponents shot much better from inside the arc.

Penn State continued its happy-go-lucky ways, going 10-8 in conference play despite being outscored (handily) by its opponents. But good for the Nittany Lions, it’s wins that punch Dance tickets, not scoring margins. Ohio State might have had the most talent in the league, but finished right in the middle of the pack. We said that before the season started that Ohio State would be hard-pressed to improve on last year’s performance. We were right – Thad Matta is finding out that landing All American Recruits isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Speaking of attrition, Northwestern had virtually none, and that went a long, long way into fueling their best post-war season. The Wildcats will come up short for landing an NCAA Tourney bid unless they win the conference tournament, but that shouldn’t diminish the job Bill Carmody‘s done. Another turnaround was present in Ann Arbor, where John Beilein has Michigan on the brink of their first NCAA Tournament appearance in over 10 years. The Wolverines have looked like giant killers that took down Duke, UCLA, and nearly UConn; but this is also the same team that was outscored by opponents in conference play. They need to find that early-season magic for the stretch run. Minnesota has been somewhat of an oddball team as well this year in that this is the worst field goal shooting team in the conference, but they’re also tied for the best free throw shooting team in the conference. Clearly they have the talent to score more, but it just hasn’t happened.

Then there’s the third sector of the Big Ten, inhabited by Iowa and Indiana. It’s probably unfair to lump the Hawkeyes in with the Hoosiers – compared to Indiana, Todd Lickliter‘s team looks herculean – but these teams have taken quite a bit of abuse from the rest of the conference. Iowa continues to struggle with turnovers, though a late-season trend gave some reasons for hope going into next season. Jake Kelly‘s play down the stretch was also very inspiring.

For Hoosier fans, their season of torment is nearly over. It’s very popular to say that Tom Crean has done an excellent job this season, but I’m not sure you can measure the on-court results to figure that out. Indiana was about as bad as a BCS team can be this year, and the whole “could they have done worse?” discussion is just too hypothetical to take seriously. Besides, wins were never going to be the point this season. The point was whether Crean could keep his players happy, keep boosters happy, keep fans happy, and keep recruits happy. So far, so good. But as good as IU’s 2009 incoming class is, it’s not good enough so that Hoosier fans should start planning their Sweet 16 parties just yet. The fall is quick, but the climb back up the mountain is slow, sometimes painful, and often frustrating. Ideally the patience of Hoosier fans extends into 2010.

Tournament Time!
Outside of Michigan State, Purdue, and Illinois, just about everyone in this league is on the freaking bubble. Ok, Iowa, Northwestern, and Indiana would each need to win the tournament, but everyone else will be doing some scoreboard-watching this week. Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Penn State all appear to be on a better-looking bubble than Minnesota and Michigan. Even if those 3 lose their 1st round game (which won’t happen, because Wisconsin and Ohio State play each other, but you know what I mean), they’re probably in, unless the mid-major tournaments are uncharacteristically wacky. But Minnesota and Michigan probably each have to win their first games to feel good about their chances.

As for the tournament itself, it looks like four teams have a pretty good shot at taking home the hardware. But I don’t feel confident enough to place any bets, so I’ll just Chuck Kimmel this – one of these 11 teams will win the tournament, and the other 10 will almost certainly come up short.

Big Ten Geeks, going out on a limb.

11:00 AM: Just to set the table for today (and before I run out to grab some lunch before the games start), we’ll be following all three of the major games today, which will all be on CBS. At noon, Dominic James-less #10 Marquette will travel to #6 Louisville. Then at 2 PM, #8 Missouri will travel to Lawrence to take on the defending national champs, #15 Kansas. (CBS will also be airing the Tennessee-Florida game at 2. We will be very unhappy if we end up with that game instead.) The last time these teams met, Missouri shocked the Jayhawks with a Zaire Taylor 10-footer to hand Kansas its only loss in their last 13 games. A win here for Kansas would essentially seal the Big 12 regular season title for Kansas since they own the tie-breaker over Oklahoma (thanks to Blake Griffin‘s absence). Finally at 4 PM, #9 Michigan State will go to #20 Illinois. Like the preceding game, a win here would essentially clinch the Big 10 regular season title for the Spartans. In addition, we will be following the aforementioned UT-UF game (hopefully online instead of on our TVs) as well as a handful of bubble match-ups (Providence at Rutgers, Cincinnati at Syracuse, Michigan at Wisconsin, and West Virginia at South Florida).

11:50 AM: If any of you are wondering if I might decide to ditch this and go outside to enjoy the beautiful March weather, here’s your answer. On a side note, I just saw myself on ESPN for the second time this season (thanks to the miracle of HD).

11:55 AM: Wow. I just saw the Blake Griffin play from yesterday where we went over the scorer’s table. Pretty impressive after his concussion against Texas.

Noon: CBS just announced they will be have an interview with Jamie Dixon at halftime. So the Pittsburgh fans might want to tune in for that if a top 10 match-up in their own conference wasn’t enough.

12:05 PM: Rick Pitino is wearing his Colonel Sanders suit for the white out. As the CBS guys mentioned, last year he had to switch at halftime. Let’s see if it is more effective this year.

12:15 PM: Marquette has used a 7-0 run to go up 7-3 less than 4 minutes into the game. These timeouts are killing me. What’s was that? 2 timeouts in 2 minutes?

12:20 PM: These Marquette uniforms are hideous. Are these a version of the even uglier uniforms that the Cleveland Cavaliers wear?

12:22 PM: Thanks to Josh for pointing this out to us. We try to be fair and balanced here so we’re providing you with this play where Duke remarkably got the short end of the stick.

12:30 PM: Rick really could have completed the look if he had gone with some nice white alligator leather shoes.

12:40 PM: Jerel McNeal looks like he is pressing in an attempt to make up for Dominic James. He is 1/10 from the field so far. Buzz Williams might need to sit him down for a bit.

12:50 PM: Louisville is up 28-25 at half. Williams has to be thrilled that his team is this close on the road against the #6 team in the country playing with out James and having his best player (and potential Big East POY) McNeal playing poorly. I’m glad that Louisville is leading right now. It’s not that I am a fan (I honestly don’t root for or against either team). I am just looking forward to seeing Pitino wear that suit in the 2nd half.

12:55 PM: Did they just really talk about Nick Calathes? I know he’s a Naismith finalist, but do they really need to talk about him for the award? I’d be shocked if he even makes third team All-American.

1:00 PM: Quick points from Dixon’s interview: He isn’t worried about the grind that winning the Big East tournament might put on his team before the NCAA tournament. DeJuan Blair hyper-extended his knee and will play on Wednesday. Dixon and Blair are going to meet with the trainer right after the segment wraps.

1:05 PM: Josh, I’m not sure what effect these “white outs” have.  I think their biggest effect might be galvanizing the student body to be a single entity rather than a bunch of random people watching a game. To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of it, but at least it’s better than what the Miami Heat did a couple years ago during the championship run (aka Dwayne Wade‘s “Fall down 7 times, shoot 14 free throws” campaign) when the fans treated it like a South Beach white party.

1:10 PM: I meant to comment about the Louisville uniforms earlier. They looked different. A little bit like Indiana‘s actually (might be a bad thing this season). And I didn’t need to hear about Wes Unseld‘s underwear. . .

1:20 PM: That has to be embarassing for Earl Clark. I believe that’s the definition of an “own goal”. It’s a good thing he doesn’t play soccer for Columbia or he might be in trouble.

1:25 PM: Great job by Marquette to cut the lead to 4. Wesley Matthews (15 points) is doing a great job picking up the slack for an injured James and a might-as-well-be-injured McNeal.

1:30 PM: Ugh. Buzz Williams sweating through his shirt in making it see-through. That’s the downside of HD. I might have to switch to standard definition if CBS insists on showing him. Seriously though, Buzz or Gary Williams? Who sweats more during the game?

1:40 PM: Interesting decision by Pitino to put Will Scott in during this stretch of the game. It’s nice that Scott’s father is the New York Knicks team doctor and he is going to study modern Chinese at Oxford, but is that a reason to put in a guy who gets most of his PT in garbage time?

1:45 PM: Big 3 by Edgar Sosa (aka Pitino’s whipping boy) to give Louisville a 7-point lead. He follows it up with an ugly lay-up attempt that Samardo Samuels puts back to stretch the lead to 9 with 5:44 left.

1:50 PM: McNeal makes a 3 to raise his shooting percentage for the day up to 16.7% (3/18 FG). Marquette will need to get him going if they want to pull off the upset here.

1:52 PM: Louisville is going to be kicking themselves away if they don’t close this game out. They still have an outside chance at a #1 seed if either UConn or Pittsburgh falter down the stretch and Louisville can win out.

1:55 PM: Louisville needs to hit its free throws down the stretch to close this one out.

2:00 PM: I’m pretty sure this is the first time I have watched a complete Marquette game and I have to say I’m really impressed with their resiliency. It’s too bad that they lost James (outside of just the personal reasons) because they would have been a tough out in the NCAA tournament.

2:02 PM: It looked like there was some contact on that 3 by Matthews even if he was trying to draw the foul there. I’m sort of surprised that they didn’t foul Louisville at the end there because they had almost 10 seconds left on the clock and it was only a 4-point game.

2:05 PM: Ok. I’m happy now. I’m getting the KU-Missouri game instead of UT-UF. To all of you who are getting the latter, I’m sorry.

2:10 PM: Couple quick things about Allen Fieldhouse that I hadn’t noticed before. (1) The TV cameras are positioned on the opposite side of the court. Usually you can see the benches facing you (except at Duke), but that isn’t the case here. (2) Why do they have the gaps along what I guess is media row? That’s basically inviting Jonathan Xavier to come onto the court.

2:15 PM: After watching Cole Aldrich dunk, I have to ask some of our more athletic readers something. Doesn’t it hurt when you dunk a ball off your head? Why don’t these guys grab their face after doing that?

2:20 PM: To those of you in Kentucky and other regions of the Southeast watching  the UT-UF game, I feel your pain. After being raised in the South on college football, I’ve been stuck in the Northeast watching awful college football on Saturdays for the past 8 years.

2:23 PM: Kansas is blowing Missouri out right now. They’re up 21-5 with 12:14 left in the first half. It’s important to remember that Missouri rallied from 14 down at halftime in the first meeting so this one is far from over? Isn’t that right, Billy Packer?

2:30 PM: Quick scoreboard check: Kansas 25, Missouri 12; UT 29, UF 19; Providence 14, Rutgers 10; Syracuse 22, Cincinnati 11; Wisconsin 24, Michigan 15.

2:40 PM: Missouri is in danger of getting run out of the building by halftime if they don’t pick it up.

2:55 PM: Sorry for the long break. I was responding to an angry reader who was upset about our post on Kyle Singler getting elbowed. This KU-Missouri game is basically over. A 26-point deficit at half on the road should be too much to overcome, right?

3:05 PM: Last team out according to the CBS guys: Ohio State (Greg Anthony) and Oklahoma State (Seth Davis). Player to take the last shot: Jeff Teague (Anthony) and A.J. Price (Davis). I’m surprised that neither of them took Stephen Curry.

3:20 PM: Syracuse and Kansas have huge leads right now while Tennessee and Providence merely have double-digits leads so I’m going to turn my focus to Wisconsin-Michigan where it’s a 39-36 game with 15:34 left.

3:22 PM: Sorry. I was enjoying watch the clip of Paul Pierce (aka “The Truth”/”The Kobe Killer”) from his days at KU. Back to following the other games.

3:25 PM: Wisconsin has used a 13-2 run to grab a 9-point lead with 11:28 left in the game. UT is up by 15, Providence is up by 12, Syracuse is up by 33 (!), and Kansas is up by 25.

3:30 PM: I’m not getting either of these games on TV so maybe one of you can give me an update on what’s going on. Wisconsin is up by 6 with 9:33 left and the UT lead is down to 8 with 9:03 left. Calathes has 18 so far.

3:40 PM: Mercifully, CBS switches over to UT-UF, which is the game I didn’t want to see when the day started. . .

3:45 PM: Wisconsin is hanging onto a 2-point lead with 3:57 left in the game. UT has stretched it out to a 14-point lead with less than 4 minutes left.

3:55 PM: Well we have a pair of great finishes here. UT is up by 6 with 2:15 left off a short jumper by Wayne Chism. Wisconsin is up by 3 with 52 seconds left and Michigan has the ball.

4:00 PM: It looks like DeShawn Sims is trying to get it back 3 points at a time. He missed two consecutive 3s and it looks like Wisconsin will escape behind a great performance by Trevon Hughes (19 points so far). We were down to a 3-point game at UF, but Chism made a shot to extend it to 5 with 1 minute left.

4:02 PM: Big block by Scotty Hopson on Erving Walker‘s 3-pointer from the corner that could have tied it. A free throw and big rebound by Tyler Smith over Calathes should just about do it. This will be Billy Donovan‘s first loss at home since almost a year ago when they lost to. . .Tennessee. Will this be enough to get Bruce Pearl and the Vols into the NCAA tournament?

4:05 PM: Can’t Jeremy Foley find a seat for Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow? Maybe it’s part of the new “Give a dime back” program for big-time college coaches.

4:07 PM: Wow. Hopson almost fouled Walker on that last 3 for what could have been a tying 4-point play. Did anybody else notice Walker kick in the direction of Hopson after the play? I’m not sure if it was just frustration or he was just fortunate that Hopson got up quick and had already run away to start celbrating. Meanwhile, Wisconsin hung on to win 60-55 thanks to Michigan’s inability to hit a 3 down the stretch (6/21).

4:15 PM: Scott, thanks for the comment. I’d have to say that they might be the last team left out at this point. However, their easy finish (USF and Seton Hall) to finish the season gives them the realistic shot at going 10-8. If they reach that and win a game in the Big East tournament, I can’t see how the committee can leave that record out particularly this year when there aren’t many good mid-majors (assuming that something crazy doesn’t happen in a few conference tournaments).

4:20 PM: Chester Frazier just took a hard fall, but he seems to be ok and hit both free throws to cut it to an 11-9 Michigan State lead with 13:39 left. Bruce Weber just took him out (probably just to be safe).

4:30 PM: We’re going to be following 2 games the rest of the day. They will be Michigan State at Illinois and West Virginia at USF. 

4:40 PM: Tom Izzo needs to work on some of the finer points of ball-handling as his team had turned it over on an obvious travel and a blatant carry in the past 5 minutes.

4:45 PM: At this point, West Virginia is in the tournament barring a collapse, but they are struggling today at USF . If they manage to lose here and it’s  not inconceivable (ask Buzz Williams and Jerel McNeal), they could end up at 9-9 unless they beat Louisville, which will be a difficult task even if the game is in Morgantown. At 9-9, they might need to win a game or two in the Big East tournament to ensure themselves a spot in the NCAA tournament. It might sound ridiculous, but if they lose tonight, lose to Louisville, and don’t win a post-season game, the Mountaineers would finish by losing 4 of their last 5 games.

4:55 PM: Michigan State is up 37-30 after closing the half on a 10-4 run.

5:10 PM: Questionable call on Mike Davis there, but I didn’t get a good look at it. This is where we could use a courtside reporter like we had yesterday. Illinois needs to start hitting some 3s pretty soon (1/7 isn’t going to get it done).

5:15 PM: Well it looks like Bob Huggins and the Mountaineers were checking out our site at half (much like every single person ever affiliated with Duke) as they have come out of halftime on fire going on a 10-1 run. That one could be over very soon.

5:20 PM: Great play by Kalin Lucas to extend the lead to 47-38 with 15 minutes left in the game. Is he a potential Big 10 POY?

5:25 PM: “Down goes Frazier!” – Dick Enberg after Chester Frazier goes diving for a loose ball. Quick question: Nothing against the Big 10, but why in the world is Dick Enberg doing a Big 10 regular season game? Did he give some of his money to Bernie Madoff?

5:30 PM: CBS just listed the following teams being on the bubble: Arizona, Cincinnati, Miami, Ohio State, and Providence. How would you rank those teams 1-5 in terms of whether or not they deserve a NCAA bid? Leave a comment below letting us know what you think.

5:35 PM: Big sequence there. It looked like Demetri McCamey was fouled, but it wasn’t called and Delvon Roe converted a 3-point play for a 5-point swing. Nice work by the CBS crew pointing out that holding a left-handed player’s right arm when he’s going up for a lay-up isn’t the most effective play. Did the Illinois players bother reading the scouting report? Or was that cut from the budget?

5:40 PM: Out of curiosity, does anybody know if Michael Jordan shows up for any of Jeffrey Jordan‘s games at Illinois? Nice finish by the younger Jordan there to tie it at 58 after he turned the ball over a little bit earlier.

5:45 PM: West Virginia is letting USF hang around. They’re only up by 9 points with 3:38 left. They need to put the Bulls away pretty soon or they are going to have make free throws down the stretch. Fortunately for Huggins, they can just give the ball to Alex Ruoff (80.6% FT) if that happens.

5:50 PM: I like how the CBS guys just ignored the figure showing that Lucas’s his assists have dropped by about 50% between the two splits.

5:55 PM: Tight game on CBS with 2:25 left. Illinois can’t seem to get a lead, but it’s down to 1 point now. Meanwhile in Tampa, West Virgina pulled off a 64-50 win so they’re definitely in now even if they collapse.

6:00 PM: Awful decision by Davis to throw into a triple team there. Are we sure that wasn’t Rex Grossman?

6:05 PM: The ref at Illinois is looking at himself on the courtside TV, which is showing him looking at himself on the courtside TV, which is showing him looking at himself on the courtside TV. . .

6:10 PM: Well Michigan State wrapped up the Big 10 regular season title. I don’t agree with Seth Davis that they have an outside chance  at getting a #1 seed, but they should be set for a #2 seed. Well that’s it for us for this edition of BGTD.

]]> http://rushthecourt.net/2009/03/01/boom-goes-the-dynamite-030109-edition/feed/ 11 http://rushthecourt.net/2009/02/18/did-the-big-ten-ban-the-shot-clock-tonight/ http://rushthecourt.net/2009/02/18/did-the-big-ten-ban-the-shot-clock-tonight/#comments Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:41:27 +0000 rtmsf http://rushthecourt.net/?p=4960 No, this is not a typo…

Penn St. really did win a 38-33 thriller in Champaign tonight.

Apparently, with six minutes remaining, the score was 31-24 in favor of the Illini, but PSU made a mad rush to outscore Bruce Weber’s team 14-2 down the stretch (a veritable blitzkrieg) to secure the win.  Or, as ESPN’s copy editors put it, Penn St. powered past Illinois.

The two teams combined to shoot 28-96 (.292) from the field and 6-33 (.180) from three, which by any objective measure is also known as an abortion on the court.  There were more bricks thrown up in this one than in Modesto and West Palm during the height of the housing bubble.   One of our earliest memories of basketball was this crime against hoops-manity which helped inspire the original 45-second shot clock in 1985-86; it’s nice to see that we can count on the Big Ten to set new modern records for offensive futility.  The combined total of 71 pts is the lowest output in four years (since Monmouth defeated Princeton 41-21 in 2005).  We have no idea how long it’s been for a BCS conference, but this might just be the worst of the shot-clock era.  Ugh.

We just saw ESPN break down the NCAA Tourney chances of both of these teams, and we’re disgusted that either of these teams are even in the conversation given the putrid display they each put forth tonight.  Oh, it was a defensive battle, right?