The best preseason tournament begins today in Anaheim, CA, which is a bit of a shame because The OC isn’t exactly a hotbed of college hoops fans.  Nevertheless, the good news is that on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, ESPN and its family of networks will be carrying all of the games from the 76 Classic, and we’ll all be treated to a tournament that hosts four currently-ranked teams and anywhere from 6-8 likely NCAA teams next spring.  Our on-site correspondent, Ryan ZumMallen, will be performing RTC Live for us on Thursday and Sunday, but even we won’t ask him to live-blog every game.  So, for Thursday night, he will be covering the evening session games, starting with #22 Minnesota vs. #12 Butler and ending with Portland vs. UCLA.  The first game features a Minnesota team that has yet to be tested in three games against, well, nobody, and a Butler squad who shares an identical 3-0 record but has been in three relatively close games so far.  With the coaching going on between Tubby Smith and Brad Stevens on the sidelines, this should be a really good battle.  The late game features local favorite UCLA who is clearly trying to find its identity this season after losing so many stars the last two years (Nikola Dragovic will be back in action, however) vs. a Portland team that returns all five starters and has designs on overtaking Gonzaga for the WCC title this season.  The Bruins cannot afford another loss to a mid-major (Fullerton got them last week) and Portland could really use another RPI boost by defeating a Pac-10 team (they beat Oregon in their last outing).  All in all, it should be a great evening of hoops in the heart of Disneyland, and we invite you to join us instead of watching some terrible or lopsided football game.

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Now that every team has a handful of games under its belt, we feel a little more justified in moving teams around based on what we’ve seen and read so far.  With that in mind, here’s this week’s RTC Top 25.  Analysis to follow after the jump…

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It’s Feast week and RTC Live will once again be covering games from coast to coast.  This week is tournament-heavy, as we’ll have correspondents in Kansas City for the CBE Classic, Anaheim for the 76 Classic, New York for the Preseason NIT, Atlantic City for the Legends Classic, and Orlando for the Old Spice Classic.   We’re not crazy enough to cover every game at these venues, but we will try to get ourselves to the best games for your live-blogging enjoyment.  We may add a couple more games during the week, so check back periodically.

Monday November 23 (click here for post)

• Wichita State vs. Pittsburgh (in Kansas City, MO) – 7:30 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – the undercard in terms of the evening, but probably the much better game.  Pitt is trying to figure out how to move past the DeJuan Blair/Sam Young era without taking too many losses, and this will be a quasi-home game for the Shockers.
• #3 Texas vs. Iowa (in Kansas City, MO) – 9:45 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – Iowa has already taken losses at the hands of Texas-San Antonio and Duquesne, so this could get extremely ugly for Todd Lickliter’s team in dealing with Texas’ hordes of young talent.

Tuesday November 24

• CBE Classic Finals (in Kansas City, MO) – 10 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – we’d expect this one to match up Texas and Pitt, but it wouldn’t shock (heh) us if Wichita State ended up there instead of the Panthers.  Either way it’s an opportunity to get another look at Rick Barnes’ outstanding freshmen corps of Jordan Hamilton, J’Covan Brown and Avery Bradley.

Wednesday November 25

• #13 Connecticut vs. LSU (in New York, NY) – 7 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – the Huskies will have a home crowd as they return to NYC to take on a depleted LSU team that was the SEC champion last year.  This doesn’t mean that UConn should sleep on the Tigers — Tasmin Mitchell and Bo Spencer are a formidable duo, and Trent Johnson knows how to coach. 
• #8 Duke vs. Arizona State (in New York, NY) – 9:30 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – Herb Sendek gets another look at Coach K in the nightcap, which would have been a spectacular game last season.  Former Dookie Eric Boateng is averaging 12/8 for the Sun Devils, who come into this game scorching hot. 

Thursday November 26

• #24 Minnesota vs. #11 Butler (in Anaheim, CA) – 8:30 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – Butler continues its difficult nonconference schedule with an opportunity to play three ranked teams in three days at the 76 Classic, starting with Tubby Smith’s Gophers.
• Portland vs. UCLA (in Anaheim, CA) – 10:45 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – UCLA bounced back from its loss to Fullerton with a win over Bakersfield, but Portland will be in a class above those teams.  Howland’s team better be able to improve upon it’s 21.4% from three percentage if they hope to come out of the 76 Classic with a winning record.

Friday November 27

• Preseason NIT Consolation & Finals (in New York, NY) – 2:30 pm & 5 pm (also on ESPN2/ESPN) – if everything goes according to plan here, we’ll have an undercard game of Arizona State vs. LSU followed by a blockbuster of #9 Duke vs. #12 Connecticut.  You could spend your “Black Friday” afternoon fighting crowds in the stores, or you could watch some great early-season basketball with us — your choice.
• 76 Classic Semifinals (in Anaheim, CA) – 2:30 pm & 9:30 pm (also on ESPN/ESPNU) – we would expect to see two phenomenal games involving #8 West Virginia vs. #22 Clemson and UCLA vs. #11 Butler, but other teams such as Long Beach State, Texas A&M, Portland and Minnesota may have other ideas.

Saturday November 28

• Legends Classic Consolation & Finals (in Atlantic City, NJ) –  5:30 pm & 8 pm (also on HDNet) – we’d expect to see an undercard of Florida vs. UMass in a run-n-gun showdown, followed by the finals featuring loaded #2 Michigan State vs. Rutgers in an upset bid in its home state.

Sunday November 29

• Old Spice Classic Consolation & Finals (in Orlando, FL) – 5 pm & 7:30 pm (also on ESPNU/ESPN2) – there’s no telling who these teams will be at this point, but our best guess results in Creighton vs. Baylor as the consolation game and Florida State vs. #15 Michigan in the title tilt.
• 76 Classic Consolation & Finals (in Anaheim, CA) – 5pm & 10 pm (also on ESPN2) – again, this is a very difficult tournament to project, but if things go according to favorites, then we’ll see #24 Minnesota vs. #22 Clemson for third place and #8 West Virginia vs. #11 Butler in a slugfest for the 76 Classic title.

A quiet day following the storm of the 24-hour marathon and on the eve of two tremendous CvC semifinal matchups tomorrow night in New York City…

Story of the Day.  Butler Passes Its First Non-Conference Test. #10 Butler 67, Northwestern 54. It was a balanced effort last night for the Bulldogs who shook off a sluggish opener against Davidson to down the shorthanded Wildcats. Northwestern could have used leading scorer and rebounder Kevin Coble along with senior forward Jeff Ryan (both out with season-ending injuries) against a deeper Butler squad that saw five players notch nine points or better. The effort was led by sophomore point guard Shelvin Mack’s 15 points and eight assists while Gordon Hayward chipped in with 14 of his own. Butler was able to win despite shooting a lackluster 8-16 from the charity stripe, a statistic I’m sure coach Brad Stevens won’t ignore. Butler now has a road date with Evansville before departing for Anaheim next week.  For mor e details from this one, our RTC Live post is on it.

Longhorn Domination (or Was It?). #3 Texas 73, Western Carolina 41. Dominating win for the Longhorns against weak competition, but 21 turnovers and 18-31 from the free throw line have to be concerning numbers for Rick Barnes. A balanced scoring effort last night with some highlights including Damion James ’18/7/2 on 4-9 FG, 2-3 3pt and 8-10 FT, Gary Johnson with 10 points on 4-4 FG and potential starting point guard J’Covan Brown with 10 points on 3-3 FG. Remember: the Longhorns still don’t have Jai Lucas eligible. This is still the second-best team in the nation in my humble estimation.

Other Games of National Interest.

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Welcome back to RTC Live as we continue our coast-to-coast coverage of key games of national interest.  Tonight we’re coming to you from the campus of Northwestern University, along the shore of Lake Michigan, as the Wildcats take on #10 Butler in an interesting game between the Big Ten and the Horizon League.  As I’m sure you’re well aware, Northwestern has been hit with a string of bad news lately, losing star forward Kevin Coble to a foot injury for the season and reserve Jeff Ryan to an ACL tear.  Butler returns at full strength with stars Gordon Hayward, Shelvin Mack and Matt Howard, but as we saw on Saturday afternoon, they struggled for a good portion of the game before finally putting away Davidson in a battle of mid-majors.  Both teams will need to have this win on their resumes for March – Butler to have a quality road win over a Big Ten foe and Northwestern to have a win over a ranked team.  Our correspondent John Templon will be onsite tonight at Welsh-Ryan Arena, and we invite you to join him tonight with your questions and comments.

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We’re back with the second version of the RTC Top 25.  Not a lot of movement this week, but Ohio State and California must have made an impression (in opposite ways) on some of us, because OSU jumped four spots while the Bears dropped four.  With the games on the schedule this week, we’ll definitely start to see some separation next time around. 

What a week of RTC Live events, huh?!?  We managed to cover a total of six games literally from coast to coast, and this coming week should be even better.  RTC Live will be at no fewer than eleven games this week, including four top ten teams and two tremendous events, the Hall of Fame Showcase in St. Louis on Tuesday night, and the Coaches vs. Cancer semis and finals in Madison Square Garden on Thursday and Friday evenings.  We hope to see you with us along for the ride!

Monday November 16

• Miami (OH) @ #5 Kentucky – 7 pm ET (also on ESPN FC) – John Wall’s collegiate debut is all we need to say here.
• Pennsylvania @ #6 Villanova – 7 pm ET – Big Five games are always intense, and this one should be no different as the Quakers visit the top ten Wildcats.
• San Diego State @ St. Mary’s – 2 am ET – SDSU is a little banged up, but this has been a great series over the past several years.

Tuesday November 17

• Arkansas vs. #23 Louisville (in St. Louis) – 7:30 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – John Pelphrey takes on his collegiate mentor as part of the Hall of Fame Showcase event, but we’re more interested in seeing how the Cardinals react to their offseason of turmoil.
• Fairfield @ Maryland – 8 pm ET – we’ll also be coming live from College Park for our first visit to the Comcast Center to see Greivis Vasquez and company in action.
• Memphis vs. #1 Kansas (in St. Louis) – 10 pm ET (also on ESPN) – The showcase game of ESPN’s 24 Hours of Hoops pits the top-ranked Jayhawks against Josh Pastner’s revamped Tigers.  This game should have an NCAA Tournament environment.

Wednesday November 18

• #10 Butler @ Northwestern – 8 pm ET (also on BTN) – this would have been a little more exciting had NW’s Kevin Coble not injured his foot, but Butler is going to have to be ready for this one if they want the win in addition to the RPI boost for playing a Big Ten team away.
• Utah State @ Utah – 8 pm ET (also on The Mtn) – Utah is coming off a home loss to Idaho where they allowed the Vandals to drop 94 pts on them.  It’ll be interesting to see how the Utes respond against one of their in-state rivals, a very good team in their own right.

Thursday November 19

• #12 California vs. #25 Syracuse (in New York) – 7 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – semifinal matchup of the Coaches vs. Cancer between Cal’s exceptional shooters and the long, sticky Syracuse zone defense should result in a great game at MSG.
• #17 Ohio State vs. #4 North Carolina (in New York) – 9:30 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – the other semifinal will feature Mr. Everything Evan Turner for OSU navigating the athletic frontline of UNC.  Who will be tasked with guarding Turner — Marcus Ginyard?  John Henson?

Friday November 20

• Coaches vs. Cancer Consolation Game – 5 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – we expect to see Cal vs. UNC in this matchup after Ohio State pulls the upset the night before.  If so, UNC will dominate the much weaker California front line.
• Coaches vs. Cancer Championship Game – 7:30 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – in the title tilt, we’re expecting OSU to take on the near-home crowd of Syracuse, with Evan Turner leading his team to the early season championship and a top ten ranking.

Another intriguing “opening” day of college hoops, as mostly everybody who didn’t play yesterday played today.

Story of the Day. Manny Harris Records Michigan’s Second Ever Triple Double. These triple-double things are spreading among Big Ten players, as Michigan guard Manny Harris today dropped 18/13/10 assts in 29 minutes in a 97-50 shellacking of D2 Northern Michigan. Does it matter that Harris had his historic night (Gary Grant in 1987 was UM’s only other) against a non-D1 school? Not to us — Harris is a tremendous player and a dime is a dime. Passing the ball should always be rewarded, and Harris did his best today to make his teammates happy. DeShawn Sims could only muster a dub-dub (22/10), but his biggest crime was one of omission, as in, zero assists — share the wealth a little bit, DeShawn!  Harris’ achievement joins fellow Big Ten-er Evan Turner as the second player with a trip-dub in the last week, as the Ohio State star recorded his first on Monday. These Big Ten guys can play a little bit, which is once again why we expect the league to do some great things this year. Other than Turner and Harris, who’s next? Talor Battle? Robbie Hummel? Kalin Lucas?

photo credit: AP/Mike Ding

Upset of the Day.  Cornell 71, Alabama 67. Another day, another SEC team embarrasses itself at home.  Did anyone in Alabama care?  Probably not.  Don’t get us wrong here – Cornell is a fantastic Ivy League team with all five starters returning and gobs of game experience under their collective belt.  And Alabama is dealing with a new coach, a new system and a fanbase that is on its best day mildly interested in basketball, to put it nicely.  But an SEC team with two top 25-type players in its lineup should never lose this game at home (sorry, Goodman, but we disagree with you here).  This is not to take anything at all away from Cornell, who completely deserved the win today and will assuredly push everyone on its schedule this year, BCS team or not.  The Big Red shot 10-18 from three, and when Bama made a run to cut a 15-pt second half lead to two, Ryan Wittman (23/3), Louis Dale (13/4/5 assts) and Jeff Foote (17/7/3 blks) held steady down the stretch.  When Anthony Grant gets this thing going later this year, and we honestly believe he will, this win alone will probably be worth an additional seed line for Cornell.  Its first win over an SEC school since 1973 (!!) is quite simply a huge boon for this program, and the forty-plus excited comments on Cornell Sports Blog seems to confirm it.  Congrats, fellas.

RTC Live. We were privileged to provide online coverage for four of the top mid-major programs in America today.  Here are a couple of recaps.

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Welcome back to our big opening weekend of RTC Live.  After visits to Wake Forest on Friday night and Butler and Dayton on Saturday afternoon, we finish off the weekend with a visit to see Isiah Thomas bring his FIU Golden Panthers to the University of Tulsa for a matchup against the CUSA favorite and the inside/outside duo of Jerome Jordan and Ben Uzoh.  Big things are expected in Tulsa this year, and we’re anxious to see how last year’s CUSA runner-up that returns 77% of its minutes and 83% of its scoring from 2008-09 will respond to being a favorite in that league for the first time in a long while.  We’re also interested in seeing Isiah’s coaching for the first time in person so that we can make our own determination if what all the Knick fans say is true.  Should be a great afternoon!

Since it’s the weekend, we’ll allow you a couple more hours to sleep in after last night’s mammoth-sized slate of games.

1. Kevin Coble Watch: Northwestern announced Friday that Coble will be seeking a second medical opinion on his foot injury.  Does that mean he didn’t like what he heard from the first doctor?
2. Three BC players (Rakim Sanders, Corey Raji and Courtney Dunn) have been suspended by coach Al Skinner for unspecified team rules violations.  It didn’t impact the Eagles tonight in a 31-pt thrashing of Dartmouth (look at Tyler Roche with 30/5 blks!), and it won’t on Tuesday night against St. Francis (NY) either…
3. Colorado head coach Jeff Bzdelik had to miss his team’s opener against Arkansas-Pine Bluff due to a family emergency.  Assistant coach Steve McClain, who was a head coach at Wyoming for ten years, took over admirably, leading the Buffs to an 88-72 win over UAPB last night.
4. This is a really great story.  BYU head coach Dave Rose, who battled and defeated pancreatic cancer over the summer, was rewarded with a five-year contract extension today that will ensure his family’s security over the next half-decade and beyond.  Does he deserve it? — well, he’s only off to the best four-year start in the school’s history (97-34, .740) — so we’d say that’s a resounding yes.
5. Shameless self-promotion – remember that RTC Live will have two really good mid-major battles today.  We’ll be at the Creighton-Dayton game beginning at 1pm ET and the Davidson-Butler game starting at 2pm this afternoon.  We hope to see you stop by.