Jimmer Fredette Eviscerates Arizona.  BYU 99, Arizona 69.  It was a Jimmer Fredette kind of night in the desert tonight, as he torched the home team Arizona Wildcats for 49 points from everywhere on the court, setting a new BYU player and McKale Center record in the process.  Fredette said afterward that he “had a good stroke,” and that’s the understatement of the decade, as he hit 16-23 shots (along with seven boards and nine assists), including 9-13 from three and 8-9 from the line to end up with the record in 36 minutes of play.  More importantly, BYU served notice to the national media (ahem…) that the Cougars deserve consideration for the top 25 as they now sit at 13-1 with the sole loss at rival Utah State nearly a month ago.  Arizona had been skating by with recent home wins thanks to Nic Wise’s heroics last week, but BYU left no doubt tonight as to who the superior team in this game was.  A fifteen-point lead only continued to grow after the half as Fredette’s jumpers rained from everywhere on the court.  What’s even more interesting is that BYU continues to play well and win games while getting almost nothing from their other “star” Jonathan Tavernari, who had two points and five rebounds tonight in 22 minutes of action.  His numbers this season (9/5) are way down versus last year (16/7), which might explain why Fredette is feeling the need to pick up the slack (82 pts the last two games).  If Dave Rose can get his other star player’s confidence back, BYU will absolutely be a team to watch coming out of the Mountain West this season.

32? Try 49!! (Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)

RTC Live.  North Carolina 81, Rutgers 67. Would you believe that with 2:11 to go in this game in Chapel Hill tonight that the score was 71-67 with the home team barely hanging on?  Luckily for UNC fans, Dexter Strickland’s three from the corner with 2:01 remaining gave the Heels just enough breathing room to salt the game away, and Carolina hit FTs for the last ten points of the game and the final margin.  Still, Roy Williams was hopping mad afterward, unhappy with just about everything about this game, not least of which was what he felt was poor decision-making throughout… including the decision to shoot the game-clinching three by Strickland mentioned above: “I hated the shot, but it went in and talent took over above coaching and intelligence,” Williams said.  Sixteen turnovers (including seven by the PG duo of Strickland and Larry Drew II) undoubtedly contributed to Williams’ ire, as many times those TOs could have extended a lead in the first half but instead led to a fast-break bucket by Rutgers.  Mike Rosario led the Scarlet Knights with 22/3 assts on 10-21 shooting, but it was his 1-9 from deep that really hurt their comeback attempts (the whole team was miserable from outside, going 3-23 from three).  Despite Strickland’s career-high night in points and assists (18/4), our third on-site viewing of Carolina this year revealed many of the same problems that we saw a month ago.  Point guard play isn’t consistent and as such, the fortunes of this year’s Carolina team will largely depend on just how dominant the big men can be inside and on the boards.  Against most teams, they’re good enough to rely on that aspect of their team; but the ACC is a different animal, and early games against Clemson, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest will test their mettle.

Other Games of National Interest.

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Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West Conference.

Standings (as of 12/23)

1. New Mexico    12-1
2. UNLV   12-1
3. BYU   12-1
4. San Diego State   9-3
5. Colorado State   8-4
6. Air Force   6-4
7. TCU    6-6
8. Wyoming       6-6
9. Utah   5-7

Superlatives

Team of the Week. BYU – The Cougars split their time this week between Provo and Las Vegas and came out of the week with a Vegas Classic title to show for it. After coasting against Wagner easily at home (especially after a 22-4 run to start the game) and then hanging a 57-point whooping on Eastern Washington, BYU then survived a run-and-gun battle with Nevada before dispatching of Nebraska easily in the final behind torrid shooting as the Cougars shot 67% from field in first half on way to 49-35 halftime lead and 61% shooting for the game.

Players of the Week. Jimmer Fredette and Jackson Emery, BYU. I can’t pick one of these guys and leave the other one unmentioned. Just can’t do it. While both were very quiet in the win over Wagner, each exploded in the Cougars’ three remaining Vegas Classic games, Fredette averaging 26 points and five assists and Emery averaging 21 points, six rebounds, three assists, three steals and four threes in those three games. These two have become the dynamic duo for a potent BYU offense.

Newcomer of the Week. Chace Stanback, UNLV – Stanback, a transfer from UCLA, has been a steady influence for the Rebels so far this year, doing a little bit of everything to help a guard-heavy team from the frontcourt. This week was no different as he averaged 11 points and six rebounds per game to help UNLV advance to the final of the Diamond Head Classic in Hawai’i.

Game of the Week. BYU 110, Nevada 104 – The score alone makes this one the easy pick for game of the week, especially when you check out the box score and find that this game didn’t go to a few overtimes like the score suggests. Both teams were on fire all night.  BYU shot 63% from the field, Nevada 59%, and the teams combined to go 13-28 from three. But the difference in the game was likely BYU’s ability to hit 27 of their 28 free-throw attempts to hold off the Wolfpack. Three Cougars set career highs in this game, with Fredette going for 33, Emery pouring in 25, and freshman Tyler Haws adding 20.

Games of the Upcoming Week. Texas Tech @ New Mexico – This matchup lost a little bit of its luster when Texas Tech lost its first game of the year against Wichita State last Saturday, and Oral Roberts hung the first loss of the year on the Lobos on Wednesday night, but this still remains a meeting between a 10-1 Red Raider squad and a 12-1 Lobo squad, both of whom like to get up and down the floor and play an exciting brand of basketball. This game could feature some very interesting matchups, with each team’s leading scorers (New Mexico junior Darington Hobson and Texas Tech junior Mike Singletary) figuring to see a lot of each other throughout the game. The toughest matchup for the Red Raiders may be in finding someone to stick with Roman Martinez on the perimeter when the Lobos get penetration from Hobson, junior guard Dairese Gary and others.

League Notes

For the most part, it was just a really ugly week for the MWC. Aside from BYU’s win in the Vegas Classic and UNLV’s success in the first couple rounds of the Diamond Head Classic (and really, despite their names, neither of the fields at those tournaments deserved the “Classic” label), there was carnage all around. New Mexico survived an upset bid by Creighton, only to slip up at Oral Roberts for their first loss of the year. Utah lost to Illinois State and Pepperdine (yes, Pepperdine, a team who improved their record to 4-10 with that win over Utah). Air Force fell to Northern Arizona. TCU got drilled by Houston. San Diego State looked lost against Arizona State. Colorado State couldn’t take advantage of a weakened UCLA team. And, Wyoming fell apart in the second half at Northern Iowa, and in the process the MWC lost the inaugural MWC/MVC Challenge (although, given the results, perhaps they ought to switch the conference billings in the title) 5-4.

Team Roundups

New Mexico

Looking back: While the next couple New Mexico matchups against Texas Tech and Dayton looked to be far sexier games than this week’s slate, no one expected either a home game against Creighton or a trip to Oral Roberts to be easy. The week got off to a slow start with a tough first half against Creighton with the Lobos shooting 20% in the first half and finding themselves behind by 12 at the break. But the Lobos picked up the effort in the second half, and despite continued cold shooting, fought back to grab an  inspired five-point win. Against Oral Roberts, the Lobos got off to a similar slow start, trailing by as much as 14 in the first half, but this time after fighting back to get in the game, their opponent fed off their home crowd and responded with a 10-0 run that provided the eventual margin of the game. While the Lobos are still a dangerous team to face, they will have to turn their shooting around, as team leaders Hobson and Martinez combined to shoot 18/56 from the field in the two games this week.

Looking ahead: New Mexico will get a chance to bounce back against strong competition when the host Texas Tech next Tuesday and then Dayton on New Year’s Day to wrap up a tough non-conference schedule.

UNLV

Looking back: The Rebels bounced back from their first loss of the season with a grind-it-out victory over Weber State and a blowout of overmatched South Carolina-Upstate to start the week before heading to Hawai’I for the inaugural Diamond Head Classic, where they continued their roll with wins over SMU and Hawai’i. UNLV’s balanced scoring continued as seven different players scored in double figures at least once in these four games. Tre’Von Willis missed the game against SC-Upstate with a sprained ankle, but returned for the first two rounds of the Diamond Head games.

Looking ahead: UNLV will face USC (Southern California, that is, not South Carolina) in the Diamond Head Final on Christmas Day, then doesn’t play another game until opening the conference season on January 6^th at BYU.

BYU

Looking back: While it was mostly sunshine and flowers for the Cougars this week (as detailed above in the superlatives section), the disappearance of senior Jonathan Tavernari as an offensive threat for this team remains somewhat puzzling. While Tavernari has always been streaky, there usually have been hot streaks to match the cold streaks (often in the same game, or even the same half). Last year he averaged almost 16 ppg and over 7 rpg, but after a slow start to the season, he headed off to the bench and has been heard of very little since then. For instance, as BYU was hanging 91 on Eastern Washington on their way to the biggest win over a D-1 school in the program’s history, Tavernari got off the bench for five quiet minutes. As the Cougars racked up another 110 against Nevada, Tavernari got plenty of time – 29 minutes – but managed only five field goal attempts and four rebounds. While it remains to be seen if he will regain a key role in Dave Rose’s offense, so far it seems like a long fall for a guy who was supposedly considering entering the NBA draft in the offseason.

Looking ahead: BYU travels to Arizona on Monday, then hosts Eastern New Mexico to wrap up its non-conference schedule.

San Diego State

Looking back: The Aztecs had a couple tough road games this week and came away with a split in a pair of tight game. After a game at Arizona State on Saturday, during which the Aztecs struggled to find any consistent offense against the Sun Devil zone, en route to 24 turnovers and a three-point loss despite a furious rally in the second half to scrape back from an 18-point deficit, San Diego State visited Drake on Tuesday for their MWC/MVC Challenge game. The Aztecs controlled the glass (much as they did against Arizona State) and got balanced scoring (really, as they have all season), but needed overtime and some unlikely clutch free throw shooting to outlast Drake, 76-73. Freshman forward Kawhi Leonard continued to be a terror on the glass the week, grabbing 11 rebounds in each game, and juniors Billy White (9.5 rpg this week) and Malcolm Thomas (9 rpg this week) lent a hand.

Looking ahead: The Aztecs have wrapped up the significant portion of their non-conference schedule, as home games against UC Riverside (12/29) and Division III Pomona-Pitzer (12/31) are all that remains before they open conference play on January 9^th at Wyoming.

Colorado State

Looking back: The Rams started their week out by extended their winning streak to four with a win over Northern Arizona behind 22 points and six rebounds from junior forward Travis Franklin, and the team’s ability to force NAU into 20 turnovers. However, in a trip to Pauley Pavilion to face struggling UCLA, while the Rams still forced turnovers, they were unable to find a go-to player offensively down the stretch while the Bruins went on a 29-9 run to break open a game that Colorado State had controlled for 31 minutes. The Rams shot a mere 36% from the field in the 2^nd half, and allowed a poor UCLA offense to shoot 60% in the same time span, as all five Bruin starter scored in double figures on their way to a 12 point victory.

Looking ahead: Colorado State travels to face Fresno State on Monday, then returns home to host Yale on New Year’s Eve in their final non-conference game of the regular season.

Air Force

Looking back: Air Force spent the week without leading scorer and rebounder Grant Parker, who missed his third consecutive game this week with a groin injury, but were fortunate enough to have junior forward Tom Fow step up with consecutive career highs this week, 15 points in a home loss to Northern Arizona, then 30 points in a win over UC Davis. Senior forward Mike McLain also helped fill the void left by Parker, averaging 8.5 rebounds this week.

Looking ahead: The Falcons travel to El Paso to participate in the Sun Bowl Invitational, where they will face a tough Niagara team in the first round before facing either UTEP or Norfolk State in their second game of the weekend. Although there has been no official word on the status of Parker for the tournament, he could play in both games.

TCU

Looking back: TCU’s up-and-down season continued in unspectacular fashion this week with a 27-point win over NAIA member St. Gregory’s, before heading to Houston to get bombed by the Cougars. While senior forward Edvinas Ruzgas was able to light up the lesser competition to the tune of 32 points, Houston was able to hold him to 12 points on 4-12 shooting. Turnovers were a big problem for the Horned Frogs this week, as they coughed it up 20 times against St. Gregory’s and another 18 against the Houston. Possibly more disturbing? Only forcing four turnovers against the up-tempo Cougars.

Looking ahead: TCU hosts Northern Colorado and Rice in the final prep for conference play. While both games are winnable for the Frogs, the Northern Colorado team they’ll meet on New Year’s Eve should not be overlooked.

Wyoming

Looking back: To get right to the point, this Cowboy team is very young. With only one senior on the team and only two upperclassmen, coach Heath Schroyer had to expect some struggles and growing pains early. Well, he’s got exactly what he expected. While the Cowboys have been good enough to beat teams like Northern Colorado and Loyola Marymount earlier in the season and South Dakota this week, they have only been good enough to hang with the stronger programs for 20 minutes before falling off in the second half. The Cowboys displayed this tendency against Tennessee last week, and repeated it last night at Northern Iowa. Wyoming hung right with the Panthers for one half, then got outscored by 17 in the second half on the way to an 18-point loss. Afam Muojeke led the Cowboys with 19.5 ppg this week, even tossed in five threes against South Dakota, but Wyoming is still struggling in the half court offense, accounting for only three assists (with no one recording more than one assist) compared to 17 turnovers against Northern Iowa.

Looking ahead: Wyoming hosts Akron and Adams State in the final tune-ups of the non-conference schedule.

Utah

Looking back: Utah’s struggles continued this week as they dropped both of their games, extending their losing streak to three. To top it off, the Utes lost sophomore center David Foster to an ankle sprain in the first of those losses (at home to Illinois State) and missed junior forward Jay Watkins in both games due to an abdominal strain. If there was good news this week, it was the strong play of junior guard Carlon Brown, normally a starter for the Utes who came off the bench in both games this week. Brown shot the ball well in both games and averages 18 points per game this week, but has the tendency to play out of control at times and turn the ball over. While turnovers have been a problem for the Utes, the only real consistency they’ve had at all this season is in the inconsistency. They have struggled shooting at times (including 4-19 3pt shooting against Illinois State), they have struggled on the glass (getting outrebounded by Pepperdine in their game last night 45-26, and 18-9 on the offensive glass), they have struggled defensively at times and they have struggled with ballhandling.

Looking ahead: The Utes get a chance to right the ship by hosting Texas-San Antonio on Tuesday, then travel to Baton Rouge for a matchup with LSU on January 2^nd to wrap up their non-conference schedule

If you’re an obsessive schedule-tracker like we are — and you sorta have to be in this business — you quickly realize the rhythms of game scheduling.  It becomes more stark during the conference season when most schools play a regular schedule of two games per week (usually on the same days), but you can still see it in November and December based on general patterns of tv viewership, travel and holidays.  By way of example, Mondays and Fridays are usually not very good nights for games, as most teams are either going into or coming out of a weekend game (usually on Saturday).  Conversely, Tuesdays and Thursdays are often busy, with the penultimate day of the work week being preferred for many western-based teams.  Wednesdays, the Hump Day, are often busy just because it’s the middle of the week and games on that day maximizes rest and practice time for students before the next one on the weekend.  If you’re reading this site, none of this information will be new to you; you already inherently know it. 

Is There a Basketball Under There? Why Yes, There Is.

So it’s a little odd that this week — Christmas week — a random Tuesday night will be the biggest game night of the entire slate of games this week (Mon-Sun).  Most teams take time off for the holiday, allowing their players to spend some quality time at home if they’re close enough to travel and/or with friends and other teammates if they’re not.  To that end, there are a grand total of zero games this Thursday and Friday, one game on Saturday (RTC Live will be at WVU-Seton Hall), and only eleven games on Sunday.  Our point: if you want to satisfy your hoops jones, you’d best tune in tonight (91 games) and tomorrow (39 games) to cure the anxiety. 

And what a schedule of games it is!  Our little box of  Nightly Nonsense listings wasn’t big enough to hold all of tonight’s goodies, so we will do you the service of listing the games you should be tracking along with us throughout the day and evening (yes, there are day games!) and into tomorrow.  It may not be Christmas just yet, but the treats have come early this year.  Settle in for your long winter’s nap with nonstop hoops over the next two days. 

Christmas on December 22

• 3 pm – Nevada vs. BYU (ESPN360).  This game, as part of the Las Vegas Classic, features a MWC/WAC matchup between two talented teams that could really use this RPI-increasing victory. 
• 3 pm – Northeastern vs. St. Mary’s (ESPNU).  This 10 am (local time) game from Hawaii wil be one of your few opportunities to watch SMC’s Omar Samhan, who is averaging 22/12/2 blks while shooting over 60% from the field this season.
• 5:30 pm – Tulsa vs. Nebraska.  Tulsa has looked good this year, but they’ve played nine home games (all wins) and dropped their only game away from home (@ Missouri State).  This neutral-site game in Las Vegas is a must-win if the Golden Hurricane want to position themselves for an at-large berth in March.
• 7 pm – #9 Michigan State @ #2 Texas (ESPN2).  The Horns are plowing through teams to the tune of a 29-pt average margin of victory, but MSU has had their number the last three seasons (all neutral court wins, though).
• 7 pm – South Alabama @ #18 Florida (ESPN360).  The Gators try to get off of a two-game losing streak with a home date against USA.
• 7 pm – Ohio @ Pittsburgh (ESPN360).  These two top 35 defenses should deliver a close game that you probably won’t want to watch, so keep this one on in the background.

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Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West Conference.

Standings (as of 12/16):

1. New Mexico 11-0
2. UNLV 8-1
3. BYU 8-1
4. San Diego State 8-2
5. Colorado State 7-3
6. Air Force 5-3
7. TCU 5-5
8. Utah 5-5
9. Wyoming 5-5

Superlatives:

Team of the Week.  New Mexico – As the lone remaining undefeated team in the Mountain West, this one is a no-brainer.  The Lobos combined a hard-fought semi-neutral site win over Texas A&M in Houston with an absolute blowout of Northern Arizona yesterday to improve their record to 11-0, and, especially against Northern Arizona, were the epitome of a team, with all ten of the players who got minutes scoring, and eight players scoring more than eight points.

Player of the Week.  Roman Martinez, Sr, New Mexico – It’s a clean sweep for New Mexico at this point, with Darington Hobson taking home the first two POTWs and Roman Martinez grabbing the last two.  Martinez wins the award this week by averaging 19.5 PPG and knocking down eight more three-pointers, to bring his season total to 40 while shooting 55% from behind the arc.

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Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West Conference.

Standings (as of 12/10)

1. New Mexico      9-0
2. UNLV     7-0         
3. BYU        7-1
4. San Diego State    7-2         
5. Air Force      5-2         
6. Colorado State     6-3
7. Utah     5-4         
8. TCU      5-4
9. Wyoming   4-4         

Superlatives

Team of the Week. Utah – I’m not sure why, but I’m just fascinated with this team. There’s no real point guard here, but there are several different guys that can handle a little and make an amazing play, only to follow it up by turning it over on consecutive possessions. Their most athletically-gifted player (junior Carlon Brown) can do a ton of useful things, but unfortunately, shooting from the outside consistently is not one of them. They have a 7’3 monster in the middle in sophomore David Foster, and can run out a starting five that goes 6’4, 6’5, 6’7, 6’10, 7’3, and yet they get outrebounded by Idaho State. They can go through a whole game with only a handful of assists one night, then have senior guard Luka Drca run the offense like a dream the next. And here we are, almost a month into the season, and I still have no idea what to expect from this team. Head coach Jim Boylen could pull an Izzo and get this team together to compete for a conference title. Or more likely, they mix in a handful of wins over teams like BYU, New Mexico and UNLV with sleepy losses to Air Force, Wyoming and Colorado State on the way to a middle-of-the-pack finish. Either way, give credit to the Utes for pulling it together long enough to string together a couple wins this week, including a strong performance against slumping Michigan on Wednesday night.

Player of the Week. Roman Martinez, Sr, New Mexico – Three times we’ve caught up with the MWC, and three times a Lobo has taken home these honors. Martinez gets the nod this week after Darrington Hobson’s previous two wins, following a week in which nets from Albuquerque to San Diego have cowered in fear under Martinez’s gaze. In two games, Martinez knocked down 13 three pointers (on just 17 attempts) and racked up an average of 23.5 points a game.  Throw in eight rebounds and five steals against New Mexico State, and a couple more wins for his undefeated team and things are looking up down in The Pit.

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Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

Standings (through games of 12/8/09)

1. Saint Mary’s 6-1
2. Gonzaga 6-2
3. Portland 5-3
4. Santa Clara 4-4
5. San Diego 4-5
6. Pepperdine 3-5
7. Loyola-Marymount 3-6
8. USF 2-6

The Best

With approximately one-quarter of the 2009-10 season completed, does it make any sense to designate the league’s best team so far? If so, what criteria should be used? Saint Mary’s has the best winning percentage and leads the conference in several key statistical categories (scoring offense, scoring defense, scoring margin, rebounding margin, and blocked shots), but has compiled that record against a mixture of strong (Vanderbilt, San Diego State, and Utah State) and weak teams (Cal Poly, New Mexico State, and San Jose State).

Gonzaga has two losses, but they came against powerhouse Michigan State on the road and up-and-coming Wake Forest at home. The Zags’ three wins at the Maui Invitational were over a resurgent Colorado, Big Ten stalwart Wisconsin and potential Big East contender Cincinnati. That performance, plus a come-from-behind 74-69 victory over Washington State at home on Dec. 2 was enough to vault the Zags to a high of No. 16 in the ESPN/USA Today poll before they fell to No. 22 following the loss to Wake. Zag fans would argue strongly that their more difficult schedule in the early going gives them the nod over the Gaels, and the national media agrees by awarding Gonzaga a Top 25 ranking while casting only a few votes for Saint Mary’s.

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Jimmy V Classic.  As someone whose family and loved ones have been seriously impacted by cancer, this is always one of our favorite events of the season.  We vividly remember the night at the ESPYs in March 1993 when Jim Valvano gave his inspirational speech, and even sixteen years later, it continues to stand the test of time.  “Don’t Give Up, Don’t Ever Give Up” became a mantra for people of our generation, and the positive effects that the Jimmy V Foundation has produced over the years gives Valvano a lasting legacy that many of his fellow coaches, many of whom were more successful at coaching basketball, will never know.  As long as this site exists, we’ll do this every year, and we’ll do it for the Green Bay Packers, Coach!

And now, on to the games…  RTC Live was in the building.

• #13 Georgetown 72, #20 Butler 65.  Georgetown got 25 points and 14 rebounds from Greg Monroe as the Hoyas dominated Butler on the inside, outrebounding the Bulldogs 43-30. Perhaps Monroe’s biggest impact came on the defensive end, as he helped force Matt Howard into one of the worst games  of his career as he finished 1-9 from the floor while looking intimidated in the post before fouling out. Georgetown jumped out to a 52-35 second-half lead, which Butler couldn’t bounce back from. Austin Freeman was 4-5 from deep in adding 18 points for the Hoyas, who picked up a must-needed statement win. Butler, who got 24 and 8 boards from Gordon Hayward, is not the top 10 team that many predicted they would be during the preseason right now, but this is still an impressive win nonetheless. For Butler to be in position to earn an at-large bid should it come to that, they are now probably going to have to beat both Ohio State and Xavier in coming weeks.
• Indiana 74, Pittsburgh 64.  Indiana picked up their first relevant win over a BCS team (beating Iowa last year doesn’t count) in the Tom Crean era as they thoroughly outplayed Pitt in MSG tonight. Indiana go 20 from Verdell Jones and 18 from Christian Watford as they finally broke through for a good win after losing three heartbreakers this season. The Hoosiers are going to be a dangerous team, as they do have some talented youngsters (we didn’t even get a good feel for Maurice Creek tonight), but IU may still be a year away from really being able to compete and make a run at the NCAA Tournament. Pitt, on the other hand, didn’t look like Pitt. They struggled defensively, they were beat up inside, and they settled for tough, deep jumpers. If Ashton Gibbs hadn’t been hitting from three (he had 25 on 8-25 shooting, 5-15 from three), this one could have been ugly (although, uglier than being down 17 to Indiana in this stage of their rebuild is tough to do).

Not an Upset of the Night.  Illinois 79, #24 Vanderbilt 68. Yes, Vandy was the ranked team, but Illinois was ranked as recently as last week and these teams are roughly even in our eyes.  A very nice intersectional matchup nonetheless.  The Illini shot a lights-out 59% from the field and ran out to a 9-0 early lead that put Vandy behind the eight-ball from the beginning.  Illinois guard Demetri McCamey lit up the Commodore defense for 8-10 from the field and 23/5 assts, while DJ Richardson added 16/3/3 assts in the win.  The Illinois defense has been somewhat maligned thus far this season, but they did a good job tonight of limiting AJ Ogilvy’s (8/3) touches and forced Jermaine Beal into a 4-14 shooting night.

Some Mid-Major Revenge (Some Not).  There were a few good opportunities for mid-majors to take down BCS teams tonight, and the little guys got a split this evening among the four games up for grabs.

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Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West Conference.

Standings (as of 12/4)

1. New Mexico    7-0
2. UNLV    6-0
3. BYU     5-1
4. San Diego State   5-2
5. TCU    5-3
6. Air Force    3-2
7. Colorado State    4-3
8. Utah      3-4
9. Wyoming     3-4

Superlatives

Team of the Week. UNLV – The Running Rebels had the toughest week of any Mountain West team, playing two down-to-the-wire games against two major national programs in Louisville and Arizona, and came through with their perfect record intact.

Player of the Week. Darrington Hobson, Jr, New Mexico – The nod goes to Hobson for the second week running, after he turned in a monstrous 22 points and 15 rebounds against Cal Wednesday night. Coupled with a 21/10/5 asst game in the Lobos visit to Hawaii, Hobson looks to have a lock on the MWC Player of the Week.

Newcomer of the Week. Hobson. Again.

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Wisconsin: First RTC of the Season? If anyone knows of another one, let us know.  But this is the first one we’ve seen this year.  But c’mon Musberger, get it right!  RUSH.  THE.  COURT.  (Ed. note – apparently UNLV fans RTC’d on Saturday after defeating Louisville, which is about as unjustified of an RTC as we’ve ever heard of… goodness gracious, folks, it’s Vegas.  And beating an overrated Louisville team excites you?)

Story of the Night.  Big Ten Finally Gets Monkey Off Its Back.  It didn’t turn out the way we thought it would tonight, but it did end up as a 6-5 victory for the Big Ten schools over their ACC counterparts.  Two unexpected events conspired to make this possible — Illinois’ inspirational comeback win at Clemson after being down by as many as 23 points in the second half, and Wisconsin’s home victory over Duke in the type of game the Blue Devils always seem to win (because, well, they do — Duke was 10-0 in the ACC/B10 Challenge prior to tonight).  These two surprises combined with Ohio State’s expected win over Florida State at the end of the evening resulted in three straight victories at the end of the Challenge to put the midwesterners on top for the first time EVER.  So what does that mean?  Does it prove once and for all that the Big Ten is better than the ACC this year?  Well, not at all.  In fact, if anything, this year’s Challenge has shown us that the middle of the ACC might be a tad bit stronger than we thought it was (Wake, Miami, BC, Clemson).  Now… about our predictions for tonight.  Regression to the mean is the lesson here.  After a perfect 6-0 start over the first two evenings of play, it all crashed and burned with a 1-4 record tonight.  But yeah, at least we called it, baby!  That’s all that matters!  6-5 Big Ten over the ACC, just like we said!*

*note – our Caribbean friends disagree with this assessment.

Game of the Night #1. Wisconsin 73, #5 Duke 69. Duke took its first ever loss in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge tonight for two reasons as we saw them.  First, their big men other than Kyle Singler (28/6/3 assts) were virtually nonexistent.  Lance Thomas, Brian Zoubek and the Plumlee brothers combined for just six points and fourteen rebounds.  Compare that with 16/27 against UConn last week, and you’ll see that almost all of the scoring burden fell onto the Duke backcourt + Singler.  Second, Wisconsin’s Trevon Hughes was spectacular tonight.  The senior guard shredded the Duke defense for a career-high 26 pts, using an assortment of drives to the basket to go along with a solid outside stroke (4-7 threes).  After taking an 11-pt lead with five minutes to go, though, Duke guard Andre Dawkins nearly brought the Devils back all by himself, hitting three straight triples to cut the lead down to 2 with two minutes left.  It appeared that this was going to be one of those epic Duke comeback wins, but UW ran clock down the stretch (surprise) and when Singler missed a wild layup attempt off the bottom of the backboard with under thirty seconds left, it was clear the Badgers were going to take the win tonight.  One odd situation occurred in the very last few plays, when color commentator Bob Knight seemed to lose his mind for a moment as he stated that Wisconsin was “for sure” at worst going to overtime after only going up two with 4.9 seconds left (he clearly thought they were up three), and then contemplated whether Trevon Hughes should intentionally miss his second FT (again, thinking up three).  What’s that phrase coaches like to use?  Time and score? Can you imagine if one of Knight’s players had made a similar mistake at such a key juncture?  Maybe now we know why Texas Tech wasn’t nearly as good as Knight’s Indiana teams — he wasn’t paying attention!

Game of the Night #2.  Illinois 76, #19 Clemson 74. What can you say about Bruce Weber’s young backcourt of Brandon Paul and DJ Richardson tonight other than we’re extremely impressed.  There is absolutely no way that Clemson should have lost this game.  The Tigers ran out to a 20-pt halftime lead, pushed it up to 23 early in the second half, and had Littlejohn rocking.  But Weber’s kids dug deep, showed the kind of composure that belies their age, and dropped a combined five threes in the next ten minutes of a 35-10 run that got the Illini back into the game and ultimately allowed them an opportunity to steal this one away from Clemson and the ACC.  The Clemson players suggested that they relaxed after getting such a big lead, and from our viewpoint, there’s probably something to that.  It certainly appeared that Illinois was the team with the drive and moxie throughout most of the second half, and when it came down to Demontez Stitt’s driving layup attempt at the buzzer, we just had a feeling that it wasn’t going down.  It didn’t, and Illinois has a rallying cry for the rest of this season no matter how badly they’re playing.  Mike Davis had 22/9 for the Illini, but as mentioned above, it was the youthful backcourt of Paul and Richardson (34/8/5 assts) that made tonight happen.

Game of the Night #3.  #21 UNLV 74, Arizona 72 (2OT).  The Runnin’ Rebels justified their shiny new Top 25 ranking by taking to the road for the first time this season, heading down to Arizona, and knocking off the Wildcats in double-overtime.  Despite poor overall shooting from both teams (UNLV 39.7%, UA 36.5%; both teams less than 20% from three!) this one was neck-and-neck from the tip, as neither team ever led by more than six points the whole way.  Arizona got up three in the second OT but UNLV’s Derrick Jasper (12/7/5/3 stls) hit one from deep to tie it at 70, and the Wildcats never led after that.  Tre’Von Willis continued to carve his name out on the national scene with 25/4 for the Rebs, and Arizona got a huge game from freshman forward Derrick Williams with 28/5 on 10-15 shooting.  This kind of win in such a difficult and hostile setting can only help Lon Kruger’s club, which has a few easy ones coming up except for a home game against Kansas State thrown in there on 12/12.  If they can get by those Wildcats, there’s a very good chance UNLV will be 12-0 going into a pair of tough road games in early January at BYU and at (currently undefeated) New Mexico. 

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Welcome to another edition of RTC Live, coming to you from freezing cold Logan, Utah. Tonight we bring you a heated in-state rivalry. BYU makes the two hour drive north on I-15 to take on the Utah State Aggies. The Cougars come in with a spotless 5-0 record, and are putting the hurt on opponents with a 27-point average margin of victory. Meanwhile, Utah State bounced back after a couple of heartbreaking road loses to Utah and Northeastern by beating Idaho State and Southern Utah at home by a combined 77 points. Last year, this rivalry game came down to the final minute when BYU won by fivce at Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City. Will Utah State’s vaunted home court advantage (36 straight home victories, 2nd longest streak in the nation) be enough to stop the Cougars? Join us tonight on RTC Live and find out.

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