Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the Missouri Valley and Big 12 Conferences.

Current Records and my standings  (Conference Record)(Last Week Rank)

1. Illinois St. (14-0) (3-0)(2)
2. Evansville (10-3) (2-1) (3)
3. Creighton (12-3)(2-1) (1)
4. Bradley (9-5) (3-0) (5)
5. Drake (11-4) (2-1) (4)
6. Northern Iowa (8-6) (2-1)(6)
7. Missouri St. (7-7) (0-3) (7)
8. Wichita St. (6-8) (0-3)  (8)
9. Southern Illinois (5-9) (0-3) (9)
10. Indiana St. (3-11) (1-2) (10)

The yearly battle in the Valley once again has shown some surprises.  Is the Valley down this year?  Hard to tell.  Check out the teams this week and how they are doing.

GAME OF THE WEEK:

Bradley 60, Wichita St. 58—Bradley got the win on a follow up basket by Sam Singh with almost no time remaining to give Bradley the road win to push them to 2-0 at the time and Wichita St. to 0-2 at the time.  Bradley had held around a 10 point lead the whole game but Wichita St. hung around like they have all season with teams and tied the game with 26 seconds left.   Sam Maniscalco just missed the layup and Singh was there with the rebound and put back to win the game.  As Singh said, “It took a good bounce and I got lucky.”

PLAYER OF THE WEEK:

Osiris Eldridge, Illinois St—Osiris was just dominant this week in Illinois St’s blowout wins against Evansville and Creighton averaging 21 points and 7 rebounds per game.  Illinois St. is still one of 6 undefeated teams in the nation and it has been his stellar play that has helped them dominate games and look almost unbeatable in league play so far.  Maybe they will get that “Undefeated Season” they are talking about…well highly unlikely, but it is nice that they are willing to talk the talk.

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Allen R of Houston Basketball Junkies is the RTC correspondent for Conference USA.

For the last few seasons there’s always been the hope (misguided or not) that Conference USA basketball will return to the level it was prior to the Big East/Atlantic 10 exodus of a few years back.

As we enter the 2009 calendar, it’s looking more and more like the 2008-09 season will be another year of futility for the conference. There are still a few months to go in the season, but it’s clear that the teams in CUSA did not prove much in non-conference play.

1.) Ole Missed: The news has been mostly negative lately when it comes to CUSA basketball, but the Southern Miss program scored a huge win last Wednesday by defeating in-state rival Ole Miss 78-59. It has been an up and down few years for Golden Eagles coach Larry Eustachy, but it appears as though he has a pretty good team now in Hattiesburg. The credit for this improvement also should go to veteran guards Jeremy Wise and R.L. Horton. They are now sitting at 9-4 and have as good of a shot as anyone to be a top-echelon CUSA team.

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Ryan Pravato of College Fast Break is the RTC correspondent for the Summit League. 

1. Western Illinois  (3-0,  6-8)
2. North Dakota State  (3-1,  8-5)
3. Oakland  (3-1,  10-7)
4. IUPUI  (2-1,  9-5)
5. Oral Roberts  (2-1,  4-11)
6. Southern Utah  (2-2, 4-11)
7. IPFW  (1-3,  6-9)
8. South Dakota State  (1-3, 6-10)
9. UMKC  (1-3, 5-12)
10. Centenary  (0-3, 2-13)

Highlights

SDSU – 2 days before Christmas the Jackrabbits beat Iowa State on the road by 7. While the Cyclones are anything but a powerhouse team, props to SDSU for getting this win and holding Iowa State’s second leading scorer to 5 points on 2-12 shooting.

IPFW – The Mastodons finally broke through for a W in league play with a 100-66 smackdown of South Dakota State (Jan.2). Former Kansas St. forward Deilvez Yearby scored 19, grabbed 9 boards and swatted 5 shots. Former Oakland forward David Carson scored 24.

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Rick Henderson of FAUOwlsNest is the RTC correspondent for the Sun Belt Conference.

Current Standings:

Eastern Division

1. Western Kentucky  (2-0,  8-4)
2. Middle Tennessee   (2-0,  8-5)
3. South Alabama  (2-1, 9-5)
4. Troy  (1-2,  5-9)
5. Florida International   (0-2, 5-10)
6. Florida Atlantic   (0-3, 4-10)

Western Division

1. UALR  (2-0,  9-4) 
2. Denver  (2-1,  6-7) 
3. New Orleans  (2-1, 6-7) 
4. Arkansas State   (1-1,  9-4) 
5. Louisiana-Lafayette   (1-1, 4-8) 
6. North Texas  (1-2,  8-5)
7. ULM   (1-2, 4-9)

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Michael Hurley is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-10 Conference.

Conference Notes.

• Last week’s player of the week, UCLA’s Michael Roll, was back in a reserve roll and scored five points in 26 minutes.
• Early on in the Pac-10 schedule will dictate if the Arizona St. Sun Devils are for real, as , their first two games are at Stanford and Cal.  Four of Arizona State’s wins have come against teams with two wins or fewer,  including winless Mississippi Valley State.
• In Arizona’s win Chase Budinger played 40 minutes for already the fifth time this season, In all of last year he only played 40 minutes or more four times.
• Cal is shooting a nation best 50.6 percent from three-point range.  Theo Robertson leads the country at 61.5 percent and Jerome Randle is in fifth at 56.1 percent.
• Stanford is one of only six teams still undefeated in Division I competition.

Player of the week- Calvin Haynes – Calvin Haynes of Oregon State scored 24 of the Beaver’s 59 points in the victory over Seattle.  He shot 6-for-9 from the field and went 10-for-12 from the stripe.

Honorable Mention: Jrue Holiday of UCLA who scored 12 points, had 10 rebounds, and had 5 assists in the Bruin’s win.  James Harden of Arizona State who scored 24 points this week for the Sun Devils.

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Josh & Mike from Big Ten Geeks are the RTC correspondents for the Big Ten Conference.

Looking Back

Conference play is here, and if the early returns are any indication, it’s going to be a topsy-turvy season in the Big Ten.  Illinois made a statement in the opener, taking down Purdue in West Lafayette in a 71-67 overtime win.  We’ve given some grief to the Illini for their strange style – they have all the characteristics of a perimeter-oriented team, except for the whole shooting 3-pointers thing.  Instead, the Illini settle for lots of mid-range jumpers, fueled by the shooting prowess of their All-Mike Frontcourt.  On its face, this is not a recipe for success.  But the Illini made it work again against Purdue, grabbing a road win against one of the best (if not the best) teams in the conference.  A solid start for Bruce Weber’s squad.

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Dave Zeitlin is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League.

In the latest installment of “An Ivy League team nearly beats a school from a major conference but ends up losing by a little and the big school either makes patronizing comments about how hard the Ivy League team tried or instead talks about their own lack of focus,” Yale took Alabama down to the wire before losing 66-63 on Sunday. Even though this dude started his game story by writing “Sometimes Yale has a good basketball team — that is not the case this year” (which is more just bad journalism than it is rude), you might consider this a moral victory for the Bulldogs, who came back from an 18-point second-half deficit, on the road. Yale senior forward Travis Pinick, who was named the league’s player of the week, had 17 points and 11 rebounds against the Tide. Two days later, however, Yale lost to Hampton to fall to 2-8, despite 17 points from Ross Morin and 15 from Alex Zampier.

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Damon Lewis, a reporter and play-by-play announcer for the Horizon League Network, is RTC’s Horizon League correspondent.

1. Milwaukee  (3-0,  7-5)
2. Butler  (2-0, 11-1)
3. Green Bay  (2-0, 9-4)
4. UIC  ( 1-1,  8-4)
5. Valparaiso  (1-1,  4-9)
6. Cleveland State  (1-2, 10-5)
7. Wright State (1-2, 7-7)
8. Youngstown State  (1-2, 4-8)
9. Loyola  (0-1, 8-5)
10. Detroit  (0-3, 4-8)

I’m feeling a little prophetic since the last time we checked in on the Horizon League.  All I’ll say is that the developments don’t bode well for the Horizon League’s two-bid aspirations.  But, it does speak to the level of competition that teams face night in and night out in the Horizon League.  Before we get into some team-by-team breakdowns, lets take a quick look at the league as a whole, which has enjoyed a successful non-conference season.

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Kevin McCarthy of Parsing the WAC and Sam Wasson of bleedCrimson.net are the RTC correspondents for the WAC.

New Beginnings. The WAC begins league play this weekend as many of the teams are eager to put their non-conference pasts behind them and start fresh at 0-0. Overall the league sports a 66-44 record with just two remaining non-conference games on Wednesday night before opening league play on Saturday night. Utah State will host Wyoming and Nevada sports the conference’s marquee non-conference opponent when they host North Carolina in Reno.

The league is a combined 48-12 at home, 15-28 on the road and 1-5 at neutral court sites. The bottom three teams in the standings heading into conference play, Idaho, Louisiana Tech and New Mexico State are a combined 15-2 at home but just 3-17 on the road and 0-2 at neutral court sites. Conversely the top three teams in the league, Utah State, Boise State and Hawai’i are 20-3 at home, 6-3 on the road and 0-1 at neutral court sites while the middle three teams, San Jose State, Nevada and Fresno State are 13-6 at home, 6-8 on the road and 1-2 at neutral court sites.

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Allen R of Houston Basketball Junkies is the RTC correspondent for Conference USA.

Same song, just the second verse now.

This was another tough week for Conference USA basketball as the league desperately tries to find respect in non-conference play.

If we were to stop non-conference play today and commence CUSA play, I’d practically guarantee that this league would only get one bid to the NCAA tournament. But there are a few more opportunities for the teams in this league to prove themselves.

1.)    Let’s Get the Bad News Out of the Way: There were a few losses that were just very tough to swallow in the league. While they have a decent business school SUNY-Binghamton isn’t known for being a basketball powerhouse. You wouldn’t know it though by the way the Bearcats went on the road and beat Tulane 74-73. There will be a heated battle between the Green Wave and SMU for worst team in CUSA.  Really there’s no shame in losing to a top 10 caliber team like Wake Forest. But ECU didn’t just lose, they got hammered 95-54 by the Demon Deacons. But the real embarrassment came this past Sunday when the Pirates lost 63-55 to mighty Coastal Carolina. To put that loss in perspective CCU has losses to Presbyterian, Savannah State, North Carolina A&T and Coker. I wouldn’t call it embarrassing, but Houston needed a non-conference win against Iowa State if it wanted to call itself a contender for the NCAA tournament. The Cougars allowed ISU’s Larry Brackins to have a career day of 38 points and 14 rebounds, as the Cyclones won 71-67.

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