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

26 days. That’s all that separates us and live, meaningful, regular season college basketball.

Every week from now until opening night, I’m here to be your tour guide for the 68 must-watch games of the upcoming season. The list includes 15 conferences from the Pac-12 to the CAA and covers everything from rivalry games dating back a half century, non-conference RPI-boosting tilts and intense battles for state supremacy. Games in February and March, when the margin for error is slim to none, are valued more than contests in November and December. The large majority of these games will have a lasting effect when the bracket is unveiled on that early spring late afternoon in March.

Get your pens and calendars out, folks. These are 68 games that college hoops fans can’t afford to miss (all rankings derived from RTC’s post-draft deadline top 25 and all times EST).

68. January 19: #1 North Carolina at  Virginia Tech (9 PM, ESPN)- The Tar Heels have some challenging tests on their schedule prior to this trip to Virginia Tech, including home/neutral dates with Michigan State, Wisconsin and Texas and road swings to Kentucky and Florida State. If the ultra-talented Heels can navigate those treacherous waters, their #1 ranking will be put to the test in Blacksburg. Tech returns a handful of intriguing players primed to make a leap forward, including double-digit scorer Dorenzo Hudson and breakout candidate Erick Green. Freshman Dorian Finney-Smith is a smooth and skilled freshman forward that could make an immediate impact for the Hokies.

Seth Greenberg won't be so relaxed when UNC comes to town

67.  February 4: Detroit at Butler (12:00, ESPN2)- If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best. Detroit aims to claim their first Horizon League title since 1999 behind the guard play of Wooden Award watch list honoree Ray McCallum and all-conference second teamer Chase Simon. The Titans hope forward Eli Holman, a double-double threat who is currently on a leave of absence from the team to address personal matters, returns in time to bang bodies with a strong Butler frontcourt bolstered by the skilled Andrew Smith and athletic Khyle Marshall.

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It’s a new week, and a new college basketball landscape. As last week closed, our game continued to be slowly and forcibly moved toward the feared four-headed superconference era, with the Pac-12, SEC, Big Ten, and…wait, who was the fourth supposed to be? The Big East? The ACC? It was likely that those two would have had to fight it out (or combine) for survival, but the first blow struck in that conflict may turn out to be the killing shot. Over the weekend and seemingly from nowhere, the ACC made a pre-emptive strike on (sucker-punched?) the Big East, absorbing Syracuse and Pittsburgh like the Germans taking Danzig. The Big East — at least the glorious version of it we’ve enjoyed all our lives — is in serious trouble, with the code called and the crash cart on the way. On Friday, we were all talking about how those ineligible St. John’s recruits would affect their Big East campaign for 2011-12. We never thought we’d wake up today doubting there would even BE a Big East in three years. Is the Big East now the Big Deceased? Or, as Dan Wetzel tweeted, will it survive but simply be “less big and less east?” All that in mind, you can guess what dominates the M5 this morning:

1. We first heard news of the defections of Syracuse and Pittsburgh via CBSSports.com’s Brett McMurphy. On Saturday he also speculated on how he thinks the rest of the conferences will respond, as well as how those football-independent (but Big East basketball) Irish of Notre Dame might have their hands forced into choosing a new home. By the way, Coach K is totally on board with this whole expansion thing, is proud of the ACC leadership on the matter, and wants two more (Hi, Connecticut and Rutgers!). Not so keen on the idea are ESPN’s Dana O’Neil and evidently some guy named Jim freakin’ Boeheim.
2. It’s tough not to be a little disillusioned after reading Sunday’s article by Dennis Dodd, another CBSSports.com college football scribe, but that doesn’t mean his assertion is wrong regarding how difficult it is to find an honest man among those who run college sports. Some interesting takes therein, from Louisville AD Tom Jurich and an unnamed Big East source, especially. If you doubt that the conference realignment mess is about pride, power, and money, click the link above and get back to us when you’re done.
3. The case of Pittsburgh is an interesting one, because the Panthers happen to be led by one Jamie Dixon. An RTC favorite, the man unquestionably has one of the more clever minds in the basketball coaching biz, and he’s a young coach who — sorry, Pitt supporters — won’t be a Panther forever. Could the move to the ACC also be the thing that soon prompts Dixon to accept an offer from one of his many suitors? Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy spells out how the defection from the Big East might sound the death knell for Pittsburgh basketball.
4. Since we referenced them earlier, what do you do if you’re Louisville? The ACC has its own agenda and would probably prefer to add UConn and Rutgers. Would the Big Ten or SEC welcome U of L? How proactive can the Cardinals actually be? Can they afford to wait until the Big East disintegrates, or see if it survives by adding schools that could actually turn a profit? And if the conference survives, who does it go after? TCU is on the way (*forehead slap*). But on who else should the Big East set its sights? East Carolina? Xavier?!? BUTLER??? [Ed. Note: Butler. In the Big East. Whoa, time out on the floor. Getting…dizzy…may pass out…]
5. The final item here far supersedes in importance anything mentioned above, though the irony cannot be ignored. The moves out of the Big East by Syracuse and Pittsburgh first came to light on Friday, and people quickly began speculating as to whether it signalled the end of the conference. On Friday, Dave Gavitt, the man considered to be the founder of the Big East Conference, died at his home in Rhode Island of congestive heart failure, aged 73. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family today. Requiescat in pace, sir.

With the completion of the NBA Draft and the annual coaching and transfer carousels nearing their ends, RTC is rolling out a new series, RTC Summer Updates, to give you a crash course on each Division I conference during the summer months. Our latest update comes courtesy of our Horizon League correspondent, Jimmy Lemke.

Reader’s Take

Summer Storylines

• End of an Era – Homer Drew may have done his best work in the Mid-Continent Conference (now Summit League), but that doesn’t bar the Horizon League community from recognizing the tremendous stature of the now-retired Valparaiso coach. He’s done it before – briefly retiring earlier in the decade to pave the way for son Scott Drew and promptly retaking the reins after Scott took the very difficult job at Baylor – but this time you could tell it was final. His ability to recruit overseas is second to none, and we will always remember the feel-good story of his1998 team. Speaking of that year, the coach to now replace him? None other than his other son, all-time Crusader great Bryce Drew.
• Dickie V. Rules In Motor City – The Detroit Titans made a big splash this summer by deciding to name their court for former Titans coach and renowned broadcaster, Dick Vitale. While he spent only four years as head of the Titans before taking over as coach of the NBA’s Detroit Pistons, Dickie V’s exploits on behalf of college basketball are immeasurable. Dick Vitale IS college basketball, regardless of how you feel about him. As a longtime follower of the Milwaukee program, I see the court naming as a disappointment for Perry Watson, who coached the Titans for a considerably longer stretch and was very successful in that time, but there’s no doubting the decision from the future point of view. This season, St. John’s will play at Detroit on ESPN following a ceremony celebrating the honor, and I’d be willing to bet the Titans are banking on any Dick Vitale anniversaries falling on Detroit’s home schedule with a visit from ESPN.
• Big Names Depart – Brandon Wood took a highly-publicized transfer to Michigan State and will be able to play immediately because he finished his degree at Valparaiso where his graduate program isn’t offered. Shelvin Mack declared for the draft and stayed put, going early in the second round to the Washington Wizards. But the biggest move in the conference is from the graduating senior class. Nearly every big team lost multiple big time competitors. Butler, of course, lost Mack, but they also lost Zach Hahn, Shawn Vanzant and, most importantly, Matt Howard. Milwaukee loses Anthony Hill and streaky-but-dangerous shooter Tone Boyle. Wright State, already on the downturn, lost Cooper Land, Troy Tabler, Vaughn Duggins and N’Gai Evans. Cleveland State waved a heartfelt goodbye to perhaps the most talented of them all, Norris Cole, now with the Miami Heat. Put simply, eight of the ten 2010-11 all-Horizon League team members have exited the conference, with only two remaining: Ray McCallum, Jr. and Eli Holman, both of Detroit.

Brad Stevens Led The Bulldogs To Another Title Game Appearance, But He Faces Life Without Matt Howard and Shelvin Mack in the 2011-12 Season.

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Over the weekend, we were once again regaled and entertained by a conference realignment passion play, this one involving the forlorn and lost souls of Texas A&M, veritable auslanders in their own backyard, and the biggest, baddest bully on the football block, the Southeastern Conference (SEC).  The brass in College Station, you see, is legitimately chafed that the monolithic academic and athletic powerhouse located 100 miles west in Austin — the University of Texas — will soon be rolling out its very own Longhorn Sports Network, a cable and satellite channel that can be beamed coast to coast to tens of millions of interested eyeballs while TAMU is stuck with its online channel, 12thManTV.  Their anger is understandable — not only do the Horns regularly whip the Aggies on the gridiron (10 of the last 15 games) and the boardroom (Texas athletic department’s operating budget was $60M more than A&M’s in 2009-10), but they’re now positioned to permanently write their own ticket for the foreseeable future.  That gap is unlikely to narrow.

No Doubt It Feels Like This at A&M

As of Monday afternoon, a Texas A&M move to the SEC was still on hold.  A&M’s regents need to first formally agree to approach the SEC, and then the Texas state legislature would have to be involved in some capacity as well.  But whether it happens this week, next week, or even a couple more years down the road — this, and other moves like it, are inevitable.  The astronomical number of dollars available to schools through BCS bowl payouts and television contracts ensures further positioning; in some ways, the search for a bigger and better deal is capitalism at its finest.  But like any marketplace unfettered by regulation and common sense, individuals acting rationally for their own best interests can ultimately lead to irresponsible and undesirable outcomes.  Two pieces published this morning hit on such a distinct future possibility.

Gary Parrish at CBSSports.com and Eamonn Brennan at ESPN.com both write that if realignment continues moving in such a way where each school and conference continues to chase dollars at the trough of football exposure, we’re ultimately faced with an endgame of the 65 or so biggest schools doing an end-around on the NCAA by breaking off and starting its own governing organization.  We’ve discussed this rather apocalyptic possibility before here, and from a purely football (and financial) perspective it makes perfect sense, but Parrish and Brennan’s argument is a salient one.  Such a conclusion would effectively end the mythical David/Goliath beauty of the NCAA Tournament as we know it.  As Parrish states:

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ESPN released their GameDay lineup for the 2011-12 college basketball season earlier today. As Dana O’Neil points out, the list includes five new stops out of eight games. It starts on January 14 and will (for the most part) resume the previous format, meaning an hour broadcast on ESPNU at 10 AM ET followed by a second hour on ESPN at 11 AM ET, then the 8 PM ET show before the feature game tips off at 9. The January 14 visit to Tallahassee is for a 2 PM North Carolina at Florida State game, so obviously there’s no nighttime show for that one.

Prepare Yourselves, GameDay Sites, For the Great Bilas Cometh Soon

Here’s the list in full:

• January 14, Tallahassee FL — North Carolina at Florida State
• January 21, Pittsburgh PA — Louisville at Pittsburgh
• January 28, Tucson AZ — Washington at Arizona
• February 4, Columbia MO — Kansas at Missouri
• February 11, Nashville TN — Kentucky at Vanderbilt
• February 18, Ann Arbor MI — Ohio State at Michigan
• February 25, Storrs, CT — Syracuse at Connecticut
• March 3, Durham NC or Lawrence KS — UNC at Duke (7 PM) or Texas at Kansas (9 PM)

A solid list, we think. We respect GameDay’s desire to visit new places. There’s pretty good distribution, as well; you’d get a good scattering of pins on a map of those games. A couple of questions, though:

Why is the last game a “flex” game? If UNC-Duke is listed as an option, there can’t be much of a chance that they’d not go with that game. They’ve had UNC-Duke as the GameDay choice in every even-numbered year they’ve done this. We would have loved to have seen this as a double-header, even if they didn’t designate Texas-Kansas as the feature game. Hey, better yet, go with two (*gasp!*) GameDay crews and have face-offs between the fans at Phog and those at Cameron, i.e. who’s crazier/louder, best signs, and so on.

No surprise here, but there’s not a single mid-major among those squads (either home or away), meaning that in its eight-year existence, Rece Davis and company will have only been to two mid-major spots — Gonzaga in 2006 and 2009, and Southern Illinois in 2008 — and featured just three mid-major teams (SIU played Creighton). Certainly Butler, with its two consecutive appearances in the title game, deserves a visit from Erin and the fellas (except for a certain former Indiana coach, most likely), right? Then again, as cozy as Hinkle Fieldhouse is, we don’t know if it could contain the magnetic field of smoothness that would theoretically be generated by having the hairstyles of Davis, Jay Bilas, and Brad Stevens within 15 feet of each other. Better safe than sorry.

One of the lessons that most people learn fairly early in life is that sometimes it is just better to take your punishment rather than trying to run from it. It appears that Kaylon Williams, the starting point guard at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, has not learned that yet (at least not as of this morning). Williams, a transfer from Evansville, who averaged 8.3 PPG, 5.6 RPG, and 5.4 APG (1st in the conference) in his first season in Milwaukee while leading the Panthers to a three-way split of the Horizon League regular season title and a runner-up appearance in the conference tournament to Butler, was arrested on a drunken driving charge at 1:40 AM in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Unfortunately, the UWM administration wishes it was that simple.

Lesson: You can't run from the law

After initially being stopped for not having a front license plate, Williams reportedly drove off swerving in and out of the grass before getting out of the car, which was not put in park, and then tried to run away. Williams was initially able to lose the police, but a K-9 unit dog was able to find Williams and tackle him. Williams, who had a blood-alcohol level of 0.228 (nearly three times the legal limit in Iowa), was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated, attempting to elude and interfere with official acts (running from the cops), driving without a valid driver’s license, violating his driver’s permit regulations, and driving without insurance. After he was finally apprehended, Williams was taken to a county jail (no word on what the bail situation is). While Williams has not released a statement, his coach, Rob Jeter, has. In a statement from UWM, Jeter said, “We are aware of the situation involving Kaylon Williams. We are disappointed and will take appropriate action as we gather more information and the legal process runs its course.”

We have seen enough athletes get in trouble with the law to know that this is the standard response from school officials (you could probably find the exact wording in several other recent press releases), but you have to assume that Jeter and the school’s administration will come down pretty hard on Williams. Outside of the obvious embarrassment of the DUI arrest, the way that Williams handled it will make him and the program a joke around basketball circles for at least the next few weeks. Jeter probably will not throw Williams off the team, but at the very least Williams should be looking at a very long suspension along with whatever community service and jail time he has coming.

If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• Austin Hatch Makes Slow Progress: An update on Hatch and his family. (UM Hoops)
  
• Immediate help on the way? 2011 PF Jaylen Bond commits to UT: “Much has been made of the lack of depth in Texas Basketball’s 2011 – 2012 frontcourt. The Horns return seniors Alexis Wangmene and Clint Chapman as their only experienced post players. Obviously, Texas needed some help in the frontcourt, and they might have gotten it this evening with the commitment of 2011 Plymouth Meeting, PA PF Jaylen Bond.” (Burnt Orange Nation)
• Rotnei Clarke will not be a Sooner after all: “Clarke has instead chosen Brad Stevens and the Butler Bulldogs as the destination for his final year of eligibility. Clarke will have to sit out the upcoming season due to NCAA transfer rules. It was believed that Clarke was on the verge of choosing OU, however when news broke last week regarding the NCAA/Tiny Gallon issue that caused enough uncertainty on Clarke’s part to go another way.” (Crimson adn Cream Machine)

1. It turns out that Oklahoma actually paid a price for being a repeat offender. No, the NCAA didn’t come down with the hammer on them. Instead, Arkansas transfer Rotnei Clarke elected to go to Butler over the Sooners. Clarke didn’t say that the uncertainty about Oklahoma’s situation was the key factor, but did mention it among his reasons for turning down a chance to play in his home state. Although Clarke won’t be available next season as he sits out per NCAA rules (yes, they enforce some — only for players) he should be a major asset for a Butler team that will be rebuilding and should provide them with one of the most dangerous long-range shooters in the nation.
2. Defending national champion Connecticut released their non-conference schedule yesterday. Let us just say we are underwhelmed. While they do play a few big-name programs all of them are rebuilding so realistically their most difficult out-of-conference opponent may be Harvard, who they could play twice in about 10 days. From UConn’s perspective it is understandable that they want to ease the team into the post-Kemba Walker era, but if they don’t play well in the conference and manage to lose a few of these games they could find themselves on the bubble having to defend an atrocious out-of-conference schedule (don’t forget that they were in a three-way tie for 9th in the Big East at the end of the regular season before they began their run to the national championship).
3. Over the weekend, Jerime Anderson was still listed as the host for the upcoming “I LOVE COLLEGE!!! ATHLETES PARTY!” on August 5th even after his arrest for stealing a Macbook and suspension from the UCLA basketball. In fact a co-planner of the event had confirmed that Anderson would be coming. It appears that Anderson (or someone in the UCLA athletic department) had the good sense to realize that throwing a party a few days after you were suspended for an on-campus arrest might not be the best PR move.
4. Dana O’Neil provides an interesting feature on Brian Gregory, who left Dayton to take over a mess left by Paul Hewitt at Georgia Tech. The background on Gregory is interesting and the Atlanta-area has more than enough to field a decent team (certainly better than the 13-18 record and 11th in the ACC that the Yellow Jackets were last season), but I can’t shake the feeling that if people are expecting Gregory to turn the Yellow Jackets into the third best program in the ACC (seriously, there is no way they ever challenge Duke or UNC) then they are going to disappointed. While Dayton did have a few solid seasons under Gregory every other season he was there they finished in the middle or back of the pack in the Atlantic-10. If Gregory can’t cut it in the Atlantic-10 with a fairly talented team, how is he going to survive in the ACC?
5. Finally, we wanted to send along our best wishes to St. Louis coach Rick Majerus, who had a stent placed in one of his coronary arteries at a hospital in Salt Lake City on Sunday. Based on reports, it appears that Majerus is doing well after what appears to be an uncomplicated procedure. The announcements that have been made by the school have not indicated a specific time for Majerus to return to St. Louis as his team prepares for a 10-day trip to Canada starting on August 19th. We hope to see Majerus on the sidelines in the near future although we have to admit that we always enjoyed his random non sequiturs as an ESPN analyst.

If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• 2011 Cougar Hardwood Classic: Washington State, Pepperdine To Play At Key Arena: “Another year, another mid-major conference opponent.” (Coug Center)
• Michigan Expected to Face Arkansas During 2011-12 Season: “ESPN’s Andy Katz is reporting that Michigan is likely to add Arkansas to its 2011-12 schedule. Katz notes that the Arkansas game is expected to be lined up sometime during the Big Ten season.” (UM Hoops)
• The latest on LSU transfer Garrett Green: An update on Indiana’s attempt to land the 6’11” center. (Inside the Hall)
• Turgeon Will Play Four Guards “on a Consistent Basis”: “A four-guard look, ala old-school Villanova, is pretty much the only way Maryland can get five ACC-starter-level players on the floor at the same time. They’ll obviously be left with a pretty massive size deficiency, but it’s nothing Maryland fans aren’t familiar with: remember, this is the team that made the NCAA tournament with a 6-6 center. I’m assuming they’ll try to run-and-gun to make up for the overall lack of size, pushing the tempo in an attempt to tire out the bigger players.” (Testudo Times)

1. Yesterday, Oklahoma released a 430-page report (full report here) regarding its investigation into wrongdoing by former assistant basketball coach Oronde Taliaferro, who is accused of committing two major violations while he coached under Jeff Capel (yes, this happened after the Kelvin Sampson fiasco). The first violation was failing to report impermissible benefits to an unnamed player (Tiny Gallon), who received $3,000 from a financial adviser linked to Taliaferro to pay for his high school transcripts and enable him to enter college. The second violation was the standard lying to the NCAA about the first violation. The most important part about this report is that the school concedes that, by definition, it is a “repeat violator” and thus subject to a minimum penalty of having the sport dropped for one or two years with no scholarships provided during those seasons. Of course, the NCAA can override that minimum and impose less harsh sanctions, which is what Oklahoma is hoping for as it claims that Taliaferro acted alone with Capel and the rest of the staff had no knowledge of the wrongdoing. Oklahoma has asked the NCAA to put its basketball program on two years of probation, vacate its 2009-10 season, and take away one scholarship, two official visits, and 10 in-person recruiting days during the upcoming academic year. With the NCAA’s apparent indifference to schools breaking its rules (it’s OK for the schools run by grown men, but not for teenagers) there will be a sizable group calling for the NCAA to take a stand here, but we wouldn’t count on it.
2. The big winner out of the Oklahoma scandal? It might be Butler, who is the other reported finalist for the services of Arkansas transfer Rotnei Clarke. With just one year of eligibility remaining the Oklahoma native and all-time leading scorer in Oklahoma high school basketball history may have to think twice about transferring to a program that has asked the NCAA to put it on probation for two years. Clarke was supposed to make his decision by the end of the week and many expected him to select Oklahoma, but with the new report he may wind up at Butler or at the very least will spend some more time before deciding where to transfer.
3. Speaking of scandals and programs in trouble, UNC athletic director Dick Baddour stepped down yesterday, a day after the school fired its football coach. Although the scandal appears to be just within the football program, Baddour’s decision to leave, which was thought to be inevitable after Davis was fired, may have a significant ripple effect in the college sports community as many athletic administrators will be angling for a move up the ladder when the dominoes start falling as the first athletic director moves from his or her current position to take over at UNC. We doubt that this will have much of an effect on the well-oiled UNC basketball machine, but it may have a much larger effect on many other schools.
4. With the NBA lockout in place, many former college stars are having to find ways to keep themselves occupied. Nolan Smith is one such player who has chosen to do so by coaching a DC-based AAU team. On Wednesday night, Smith, who had never been ejected from a game as a player, was tossed out of the game with his team down by 19. Smith claims that the “refs were missing some obvious calls.” (Duke haters can make their own jokes here.) Smith’s team ended up losing the game by two (perhaps from the two technical free throws that the other team shot?) and ended up going 8-2 in the tournament. While some might criticize Smith as another arrogant Duke player, it is nice to see that he learned something from Mike Krzyzewski during his four years in Durham.
5. The top 100 players in Division 1 list by Basketball Prospectus generated a lot of debate (mainly on where individual players were ranked). It appears that there may not have even been a consensus within the Basketball Prospectus office as Drew Cannon, the person who came up with the list, and several other members of the staff engaged in a friendly debate about how to rank players. There isn’t really anything ground-breaking in it, but it is interesting to see how these basketball analysts evaluate players and make their predictions at least on a theoretical level.