As always, a few bracket notes:

– Shocker: The Missouri Valley and Mountain West are now 1-bid leagues. The strength of the Big 6 “BCS” conferences has never been stronger. Both of the aforementioned conferences are stuck in a period of spread out mediocrity and lack the two or three standout teams to make the field. I simply cannot put Illinois State anywhere near the bracket with three conference losses and a total lack of quality wins. The Mountain West I expect to be a 2-bid league on Selection Sunday. BYU was one of three teams left for the last spot that went to Boston College and Utah was the highest RPI team to be left out of the bracket. San Diego State is also lurking.

– If I asked you to name the team with the most wins against the RPI top 100, you’d probably guess Duke. Or Connecticut. Or Pittsburgh. Maybe North Carolina. Nope, the team with the most top-100 wins is Oklahoma at 12-1, including a 7-0 record against the top 50. The Sooners are surely deserving of their #1 ranking, along with two Big East teams- Connecticut (my projected winner) and Pittsburgh (#2 in RPI). Duke is the #1 overall seed and #1 in RPI, with North Carolina and Wake Forest barely missing the cut.

– Michigan State may have been stunned by Northwestern at home this week, but they still have the computer numbers and the projected Big 10 championship, meaning the Spartans hang on to the last #2 seed. Surging Louisville at 6-0 earns the other, along with UNC and Wake.

– Following their huge win over UCLA at home, the Washington Huskies are now the projected Pac-10 winners. They’re slightly over-seeded at 4 because of that honor. Congrats, you get Tennessee in the first round!

– Wouldn’t guess that Siena has the #20 RPI, #29 SOS and 7 wins against the RPI #51-100, would you? It’s true, folks. Speaking of mid-majors, I’m not sure why anyone can have Davidson higher than a 10 seed. The 37 RPI is decent, but a 115 SOS and 1-3 vs. the RPI top 100 (West Virginia) doesn’t jump out for me. And last year is completely irrelevant.

– The last team out, USC, and the last team in, Boston College, have nearly identical resumes. Fortunately for the Eagles, they have two more wins vs. the RPI top 100 and are boosted by the completely inexplicable win in Chapel Hill. They’ll be riding that win all the way to Selection Sunday.

– UCLA drops all the way to a 6 seed? Considering they haven’t beaten a team in the field of 65, yes. I may have even been generous.

– The most significant Saturday game may have been Xavier toppling LSU in Baton Rouge. An LSU win would have given them a win against the RPI top 25. Instead, they were barely considered at all. Xavier jumps up to a 3 seed with the win. The #4 RPI and #6 SOS doesn’t hurt, either. Runner up: Oklahoma State winning at Nebraska in overtime. They’d likely be out with a loss in that one.

– Notre Dame somehow managed a 68 RPI and 83 SOS in the Big East, meaning their 12-6 (3-4) record looks poor. They need to beat Marquette on Monday night to stay in the field.

– Virginia Tech may have had the best week of any team in the nation, taking down #1 Wake Forest on the road, then beating Miami on the road in overtime Sunday night. That effort is enough to propel them to a #8 seed after they were completely left out of the bracket last week.

Last Four In: Boston College, Tennessee, South Carolina, Dayton
Last Four Out: BYU, Southern Cal, Mississippi State, Texas A&M
Next Four Out: Penn State, Utah, Providence, Stanford

Automatic bids: Binghamton, Xavier, Duke, East Tennessee State, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Weber State, VMI, Michigan State, Long Beach State, VCU, Memphis, Butler, Cornell, Siena, Buffalo, Morgan State, Northern Iowa, UNLV, Robert Morris, Austin Peay, Washington, Navy, Kentucky, Davidson, Texas A&M-Corpus Christ, Alabama State, North Dakota State, Western Kentucky, Gonzaga, Utah State.

Multiple bids per conference: Big East (9), ACC (8), Big Ten (7), Big 12 (6), Pac-10 (4), SEC (4), Atlantic 10 (2), West Coast (2).

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From now until the first tip in Dayton March 17th on the Road to the F4 in Detroit (ugh), roughly 150 or so teams are realistically jostling for position to be selected as one of the Chosen 65.   As we nestle into the familiarity of conference play (only the Ivies have yet to begin) and America once again wakes up to our game, weaknesses will be exposed, experienced teams will try to avoid complacency and young teams will start to figure it all out.  Come Selection Sunday, many of these prospective bracketeers will have fallen by the wayside, but there will be 50 or so at-large teams holding NCAA-caliber resumes, even though only 34 will be taken.   Before we jump in with both feet into the fun that the next two months will bring, let’s take a look back at the first two months to see what we’ve learned.

Carolina is Not Unbeatable, but Are the Heels Still the Favorite? A mere month ago we wrote that North Carolina was playing like  a team with plans to lose no more than a couple of games (if that many) all season.  Then the last eight days happened.  First, UNC lost at home to an underwhelming BC team, followed by a road loss at Wake Forest last night to start 0-2 in the ACC.  So what’s going on – how can this juggernaut of a team with nearly everyone returning look so… mortal?  It’s easy, really.  So far, UNC’s defense hasn’t been up to snuff.  It’s more efficient as a whole than last year’s version, but their statistical profile is elevated on the defensive end by forcing turnovers which in turn fuels their lethal fast break.   In a halfcourt set, as Wake and BC repeatedly and effectively showed, UNC can be penetrated and exposed.  The key to playing with the Heels is limiting those TOs that Ty Lawson turns into the quick strikes that overwhelm teams.  Is it a fatal flaw?  It could be (how’s that for a hedge?).  Teams that can’t consistently make stops don’t win championships, but we really don’t see why UNC’s defense shouldn’t be able to make the commitment to improve over the next two months.  The 2005 title team only became legit once Raymond Felton, Rashad McCants and Sean May got serious about stopping people in addition to outscoring them.  Can the 2009 Heels – specifically, Wayne Ellington, Danny Green, Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Deon Thompson – do the same?  Stay tuned.

They’re Putting It Together. Now that Tom Izzo once again has a full complement of players with Goran Suton back in the fold, Michigan St. has looked much better since their abysmal performance in the ACC/B10 Challenge against UNC.  They’ve run off nine in a row with wins at Texas, at Minnesota and Ohio St. – everyone wrote this team off after that UNC game, but they’ll be heard from in March.  UCLA is also quietly going about its business, also reeling off nine in a row (including a 3-0 start in road games in the Pac-10) since their loss to Texas in mid-December.  Ben Howland is getting production from eleven players, and if anyone really thought the Bruins were going to have a ‘rebuilding’ season, they need to have their head checked.  This team will win close to 30 games again.   It’s amazing how a series of close games that go your way can make or break a team’s confidence.  After Louisville had dropped tight ones to Minnesota and UNLV in late December, everyone was ready to write off the Cards.  Now that they’ve won three of their lost four on the last possession, they sit at 3-0 in the Big East (with two road wins) and appear to be in relatively good shape compared to some of the other Big East contenders (UConn, ND, and Georgetown in particular).  We’ll see just how good they can be when #1 Pittsburgh visits on Saturday.

Pleasant Surprises. Obviously, Wake Forest is a pretty big surprise – we expected them to be pretty good, but nobody saw a top five team coming from Dino Gaudio this year.  What about Syracuse? – at 16-1 and the lone loss to Cleveland St. from 75 feet, Jim Boeheim’s crew has as much talent as just about anybody in the country.  Clemson is pulling its annual ridiculous start, but there are signs that this Tiger team is legit – they have a balanced attack, they’re strong at both ends of the court, and they have good road wins at Illinois, South Carolina and Miami (FL) so far.  Butler is a HUGE surprise, although we shouldn’t ever be surprised with that program.  The Bulldogs sit at 14-1 and two of their top three players are freshmen, yet they once again appear to be the class of the Horizon and a top mid-major.  Tubby Smith has Minnesota playing great ball, and the Gophers are on a fast track to the NCAA Tournament at least a year ahead of schedule.  Coaching matters – Mike Montgomery also has California playing hard for the first time in a decade.  The Bears look like a top three team in the Pac-10 at this point.

Disappointments. Since the Q1 update, Gonzaga has done nothing but crap itself, losing games to Arizona, UConn, Portland St., and Utah.  They did get a key OT win at Tennessee last week, and their defense is still stronger than in recent years, but for some reason or another, the Zags are having trouble putting it all together.  USC is destined to become this year’s NC State (a preseason ranked team that won’t make the NCAA Tourney).  The SEC – Tennessee, Florida and Kentucky – have all been various shades of disappointing.  Between the cream of the SEC East, there’s what, three quality wins?  On the other side of that conference, only Arkansas has even been mildly interesting, with big home wins over Oklahoma and Texas.  At the mid-major level, Southern Illinois (6-8 ) and Wright St. (9-8 ) have a long way to go before they’ll turn their seasons around.

RTC Midseason All-Americans. We’ll take some heat for not putting defending NPOY Tyler Hansbrough on our first team, but his numbers, particularly his rebounding average, are off from last season.  Granted, he’s still probably recovering from a stress reaction injury, so he’ll have time to recover his (rightful?) place on the 1st team, but for now, we like Griffin (obvious choice) and Harangody in our frontcourt.  Curry and Harden are also easy choices in the backcourt, but we’re making a leap of faith choosing Teague – his last two games against BYU and UNC were very impressive performances (he averaged 32/5/4 assts on 59%) and we’re riding on the Wake bandwagon right now.

• Jeff Teague, G – Wake Forest (21/4/4 assts on 54%/54% 3fg shooting)
• Stephen Curry, G – Davidson (29/4/7 assts/3 stls on 45%/37% 3fg shooting)
• James Harden, G – Arizona St. (23/6/5 assts on 56%/42% 3fg shooting)
• Blake Griffin, F – Oklahoma (23/14/3 assts on 65% shooting)
• Luke Harangody, F – Notre Dame (25/13 on 51% shooting)

Knocking on the Door (2d Team).

• Tyler Hansbrough, F – North Carolina (22/8 on 54% shooting)
• Patrick Patterson, F – Kentucky (19/9/3 assts on 71% shooting)
• Dejuan Blair, F – Pittsburgh (15/13 on 61% shooting)
• Manny Harris, G – Michigan (19/8/5 assts on 44%/31% 3fg shooting)
• Ty Lawson, G – North Carolina (15/3/6 assts on 53%/42% 3fg shooting)

All-Freshman Team. Al-Farouq Aminu (Wake Forest), Jrue Holiday (UCLA) and Gordon Hayward (Butler) were tough to leave off this list.

• Greg Monroe, C – Georgetown (14/6/3 assts on 57% shooting)
• Sylven Landesberg, G – Virginia (19/6/3 assts on 49%/30% 3fg shooting)
• Tyreke Evans, G – Memphis (16/6/4 assts/3 stls on 45% shooting)
• Seth Curry, G – Liberty (20/4 on 45%/40% 3fg shooting)
• Paul George, F – Fresno St. (16/7 on 54%/46% 3fg shooting)

RTC Greatest Hits (Q2).

• John Thompson, Sr., gave his son, JT3, some unsolicited advice to cure Georgetown’s rebounding problems.
• Ray Floriani related a hilarious story about Richard Codey, a state senator in NJ, while officiating a youth basketball game.
• Rick Pitino invited his maligned PG Edgar Sosa to transfer, then lauded him for staying the course at UofL.
• RTC asked the question – is Stephen Curry’s hype a little greater than his actual performance?
• John Stevens outlined the rules for when rushing the court is appropriate.
• Former Hoosier Eric Gordon threw the rest of his team under the bus for drug use.
• John Wooden’s grandson saw some action in the John Wooden Classic – isn’t that nice?

Big Games (Q3). Here are the top 10 games of the next month.

• Syracuse @ Georgetown – 01.14.09
• Pittsburgh @ Louisville – 01.17.09
• Georgetown @ Duke – 01.17.09
• Wake Forest @ Clemson – 01.17.09
• Texas @ Baylor – 01.27.09
• Duke @ Wake Forest – 01.28.09
• California @ UCLA – 01.29.09
• Connecticut @ Louisville – 02.02.09
• Duke @ Clemson – 02.04.09
• Michigan St. @ Minnesota – 02.04.09
• Notre Dame @ UCLA – 02.07.09

Extremes. This won’t last much longer, as we fully expect all three of the unbeatens to have a loss by this time next week, if not sooner.  That’s what conference play does to you.  NC Central will get a win against a D2 squad soon, but poor little NJIT has no relief in sight.  They’re sitting on 49 in a row and, according to KenPom’s projections, 60+ in a row is within reach.   Memo to NJIT coach Jim Engles – take a page from the NC Central playbook and schedule some JV High School D2 teams.

Unbeaten (next possible loss)

• Pittsburgh (Big East): 15-0 (@ Louisville 1/17)
• Wake Forest (ACC):  14-0 (@ BC 1/14)
• Clemson (ACC): 16-0 (v. Wake Forest 1/17)

Winless (next possible win)

• NJIT (Ind): 0-16 (Bryant 1/21)
• North Carolina Central (Ind): 0-18 (D2 Central St 1/16)

News & Notes.

• Miami (FL)’s Eddie Rios was suspended indefinitely for the second time this season for a violation of team rules.  Missouri’s Leo Lyons was also suspended indefinitely relating to his arrest for failure to pay an outstanding traffic ticket.   Pay your tickets, kiddies.
• Billy Packer (where’s he been?) and Bob Knight plan on doing their own show on FSN during March Madness between filling out parlay cards at the Wynn Las Vegas this year.
• LMU’s Bill Bayno resigned due to medical reasons; he will be replaced by assistant coach Max Good (currently 1-11 this season).

The First of Many Ginormous Mondays.

Louisville 87, Notre Dame 73 (OT). This was a fantastic game, and the third in a row that came down the last possession of regulation for the battle-tested Cards (who won all three).  The Big East is going to be like this all year long, and the teams that can make plays in the last two minutes will be sitting at 11-7 and staring at a top four NCAA seed, and those that don’t will be at 7-11 and needing a nice run in the Big East Tournament to get back on the bubble.  Terrence Williams and Luke Harangody were both pretty much unstoppable in a mano-a-mano passion play that rivaled anything we’ve seen in a while.  T-Will blew up the stat sheet, going for 24/16/8 assts/3 stls, while Harangody showcased a variety of spins and fadeaway jumpers in a 28/13 night.  Both teams stepped up their games defensively down the stretch, as Louisville outscored ND 3-2 in the last seven minutes.  Harangody in particular didn’t score a single point during that period and overtime.  Louisville moved to 3-0 in the conference, with #1 Pitt coming to Freedom Hall on Saturday.  It’s amazing to think that a mere two weeks ago everyone was writing the Cards off, including us.  A couple of final notes on this game – the Earl Clark slam “over everyone in the building,” according to Jay Bilas, was phenomenal (see below).  It really seemed as if his arms were something like the trees in Lord of the Rings on that dunk.

Also, the final play of regulation where ND threw the ball into the backcourt did not appear from our view to be a backcourt violation as it was called by the ref.  It was a harmless error from Louisville’s perspective, but how amazing would that ending have been if T-Will had ended the game on a wild play like that?

Oklahoma 78, Texas 63. What was most surprising about this game was just how uncompetitive Texas was throughout.  Texas couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn (34%), and AJ Abrams was the chief culprit (8-27 incl. 3-15 from three).  Blake Griffin was his usual self, going for 20/10, but he was assisted by three other Sooners in double figures.  Honestly, we keep waiting for the other shoe to drop in terms of production for Oklahoma outside of Griffin/Warren, but it hasn’t happened yet.  Jeff Capel really has this team playing well.

Other Games of Mild Interest. Not much on the slate tonight, but Davidson and Steph Curry were in action.

• Davidson 70, Appalachian St. 52. Curry Watch – 16/6 assts for Curry on 7-13 shooting in a road win.

Set Your Tivos is back with a loaded schedule. It looks like the NCAA is kicking the season into full swing this weekend with that pesky little college football sport and its antediluvian method of determining a champion out of the way, we can all focus on what’s really important.

Saturday
Noon
– NC State at #11 Clemson on Raycom Sports and ESPN Full Court: The Wolfpack will be looking to hand the Tigers their first defeat. Just based on history, I don’t have a lot of faith in Clemson and it looks like the pollsters don’t either. I don’t think this is a particularly interesting game based on the teams playing (especially when you look at the other games you can watch in this time spot), but keep an eye on this one particularly around the end when you could see a team fall from the ranks of the unbeatens.

– #21 Louisville at #17 Villanova on ESPN and ESPN360.com: Will Edgar Sosa’s resurgence lead more disgruntled college coaches to adopt the Rick Pitino method of motivation? Pitino will need Sosa, Earl Clark, and Samardo Samuels at the top of their game if he wants to go into Philadelphia and get Louisville its first quality win of the year. Jay Wright will counter with Dante Cunningham and Scottie Reynolds as the Wildcats hope to return to form after 2 rough games on the road. We’ll be interested to see if Louisville can ride the momentum off their big win over Kentucky to finally play up to the form that we expected them to earlier in the season.

– #22 West Virginia at #15 Marquette on Big East Network, ESPN Full Court, and ESPN360.com: Honestly, I don’t know if any Big East team is going to be able to make it out of the conference with less than 4 losses. The scary thing is that both of these top 25 teams will struggle to go 8-8 in the conference this year. After a tough loss to Connecticut, the Mountaineers travel north to face the Golden Eagles. Alex Ruoff and Da’Sean Butler will need to outplay Wesley Matthews, Jerel McNeal, and Lazar Hayward if they hope to get a road win, which will be a rarity this year in the Big East.

1 PM
– Kansas at #12 Michigan State on CBS: Tom Izzo has his Spartans playing well after some early struggles. Does anybody want to work out a comparative score about how bad Harvard would beat Michigan State? Bill Self will rely on the inside-outside combo of Cole Aldrich and Sherron Collins if he hopes to steal one in East Lansing. The key to this game will be how Collins does against Kalin Lucas. If Collins can outplay Lucas, don’t be surprised if the Jayhawks extend their impressive recent run including a win over Tennessee.

2 PM
– #2 Duke at Florida State on ESPN and ESPN360.com: This could be  potential letdown game for the Blue Devils after their win over Stephen Curry and Davidson on Thursday. [Yes. Curry played well. Much better than he had in previous BCS games, but I don’t buy the starting PG, 18-20 PPG as a rookie, and NBA superstar stuff that ESPN was trying to stuff down my throat. I’ll post more on this in the near future.] I’m sure that Coach K will remind his team that the Seminoles have knocked off heavily favored Duke teams several times in the past few years (I attended the most shocking of these upsets). I would normally say that Duke should win this type of game without any problem, but with the recent history of this “rivalry” I wouldn’t be too short of anything. As usual with Duke, watch the officials closely.

7 PM
– Miami (FL) at #24 Boston College on ESPNU: As we earlier wrote this week, we have no idea what to make of the Eagles. Beat UNC then lose to Harvard the next game. The Hurricanes have been winning all the games they are expected to, but they need to start winning some of the tougher games on their schedule if they want to live up to their preseason top 25 ranking or even make the NCAA tournament. This game will likely come down to a showdown between Jack McClinton and Tyrese Rice. Well that and whether BC decides to show up for this game.

Sunday
Noon
– St. John’s at #1 Pittsburgh on Big East Network, ESPN Full Court, and ESPN360.com: The Red Storm are coming off a shocking victory over Notre Dame. I don’t really think they should pose much of a challenge to the #1 team in the country, but momentum has a funny way of affecting games like these that shouldn’t be competitive. The Red Storm lost Anthony Mason Jr (son of that Anthony Mason) three games into the season, but have a balanced attack with 4 players averaging between 10.1 and 13.0 PPG. As you’re aware (since you visit this site), the Panthers aren’t quite as balanced, but Sam Young and DeJuan Blair may be one of the best 1-2 combo in nation. Look for this one to be closer than you would expect.

1:30 PM
– Wisconsin at #14 Purdue on CBS: After years of bashing the Big 10, it looks like the conference is slowly making a comeback. The problem they have now is that they have a lot of solid teams, but no great teams (with the possible exception of Michigan State). After a big win over Michigan at Crisler last weekend, the Badgers go into Indiana looking to pull off another upset. I’m guessing most people will probably be watching the NFL playoffs around this time, but keep this one on “Recall”, “Last”, or whatever function your remote has so you can flip back and forth between the games.

8 PM
– #3 UNC at #4 Wake Forest on FSN: Without question, the biggest game of the weekend features the experienced Tar Heels going into Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum to face the extremely young  Demon Deacons. I don’t think there is much to say about the Tar Heels, but here’s a brief summary: Tyler Hansbrough hustles and pulls in the ladies; Ty Lawson is fast, inconsistent, and shouldn’t be let near a car; and Roy Williams wears goofy ties and has a tendency to make comments he wishes he could take back. Oh yeah, they also ball with the President Elect. The Demon Deacons are still kind of an unknown to most of America, but with their win at BYU (ending the Cougars NCAA-leading home winning streak at 53) may be our first glimpse at how good this team could be in the very near future. Al-Farouq Aminu may get the headlines nationally, but be sure to watch for Jeff Teague, James Johnson, and Chas McFarland who are all at least as important to Wake as Aminu is. A win here could be big for Wake in getting a high seed in the NCAA tournament. I’d like to take Wake here, but I think the BC game may have woken up the Tar Heels who may have been buying into the hype that was being thrown their way (definitely not from us).

10:30 PM
– #7 UCLA at USC on FSN: The Bruins have quietly rebounded from a couple of close, early-season losses to roll off 8 straight wins (against admittedly weak competition). The Trojans have been inconsistent with some solid wins followed by some horrible losses (Oregon State). This will be one of our East Coast offices first good looks at the Pac-10, which only has two top 25 teams currently. There are a couple of intriguing aspects in this game. How has Darren Collison  adjusting to not having Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook? How is Demar DeRozan adjusting to college hoops and is he legit? Do teenage girls still love Lil’ Romeo? If any of these mysteries interest you or you want to see one of the better crosstown rivalries in recent years, we recommend you tune in at the end of a long weekend. If none of that interests you, tune in to see what Jordan Farmar was complaining about.

How is This Humanly Possible? Harvard 82, Boston College 70. In one of the biggest transitive property sequences we’ve ever seen, Harvard, a school who had never in its illustrious basketball history defeated a ranked team, went to BC and knocked off the newly-ranked Eagles a mere 72 hrs after those same Eagles had gone into the nation’s #1 team, North Carolina, and knocked them off.  Sure, this kind of scratch-your-head stuff happens every year to a certain extent.  But rarely is it in back-to-back games, and even more rarely is the difference in talent so great in the larger of the two upsets (according to Sagarin, BC was #40 in America; Harvard #247).  Of course, we know that the transitive property doesn’t work in basketball, but it’s fun to talk about.  What’s also fun to talk about is the word “letdown,” and BC may have redefined the word by completely failing to show up for a crosstown rival that its second team should be able to handle (esp. love the cheerleader angle below on the video).  Credit is due to Tommy Amaker’s crew, who took advantage of an opportunity to catch an ACC team sleepwalking – the Crimson took the lead 19-17 with 7:32 remaining in the first half, and never lost it again, even extending into the 12-16 pt range deep into the second half.  Jeremy Lin was the story, dropping 27/8/6 stls, and perhaps signaling to the rest of the Ivy League that Amaker’s influx of talent will be heard from this season.  As for BC, Tyrese Rice, who was outstanding against Carolina, had a quiet 14-pt foul-out game.   In the long run, this game won’t hurt BC too terribly much if they reboot and have a good ACC slate (8-8 or better, for example).  But if they go 6-10 or even 7-9 in conference, this could end up being a bubble knockout game for the Eagles.

Curry Watch. Duke 79, Davidson 67. This game wasn’t as close as the floor, but we do have a few points to make about this one.  First of all, the announcing trio of Tirico/Jackson/Van Gundy was soooooooooooooooooooo much better than it would have been listening to Dickie V. chortle about Curry and K, Duke and Carolina, Roy and Dean, and various other interludes for two hours.  Secondly, COMPLETE AGREEMENT with Van Gundy and it took an NBA guy to point it out, but the charge call in the NCAA (perfected by Duke) where a player stands underneath the rim waiting on a driving player to run into him has got to end.  College basketball needs the NBA block/charge semi-circle, we’ve been saying it for years – it would put an end to that gimmicky nonsense and avoid penalizing players who make fantastic drives to the rim without running through someone (standing under the basket Battier-style does not qualify).  About the game, Stephen Curry was cold early, made some shots late, and turned the ball over a lot (but he still ended with 29/8/6 assts to go with his 7 tos).  Davidson isn’t as good as they were last year, but heck, they lost all these type of games in the pre-conference season in 2008 too, so we won’t write them off  for a March run just yet.  Other than that, we’ll have to respectfully disagree with Mark Jackson’s assessment of Curry’s game as a PG – we’re more in concert with SVG’s thoughts – great shooter who has questionable decisionmaking skills.  For Duke, Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer had twin 22-pt games.

Overtime Madness. There were two games tonight that went into OT and, in both cases, the home team outplayed the visitor for the majority of the contest, only to be shocked by furious comebacks which led to OT losses for Indiana and Tennessee.

• Gonzaga 89, Tennessee 79 (OT). This game probably shouldn’t have gone into overtime, as Matt Bouldin’s final shot in regulation should have counted due to a missed goaltending call where a UT player’s hand went up through the net and into the rim as the ball flew over the goal.  Thanks, Jay Bilas.  Nevertheless, Tennessee’s porous defense caught up with them tonight and ended their 37-game homecourt winning streak, as they allowed Gonzaga to get off the schneid and pull out a key road victory thanks to 53% shooting and Bouldin’s 26/4/5 assts.  Austin Daye added 20/8, but more importantly for the Zags, they held UT to only 36% shooting, their worst home performance since late in the 06-07 season.  Does this mean that the Zags we saw a month ago – the ones who played defense – are back?  Obviously, it’s uncertain, but at least they appeared to be interested in the concept tonight.  Or maybe they just know how to play Tennessee.
• Michigan 72, Indiana 66 (OT). We’ll give credit to Tom Crean’s kids – they’re playing extremely hard.  They just don’t have the kind of talent to hold good teams down when they wake up and realize they’re down 20 pts to an inferior squad, as Michigan did in the second half tonight.  We were sure this was going to be an L for the Wolverines when we saw the early score, but Manny Harris, Laval Lucas-Perry and DeShawn Sims (49 pts combined) didn’t allow that to happen.  UM improves to 2-1 in the Big Ten.

Edgar Sosa Watch and Other Interesting Things.

• Louisville 71, S. Florida 57. Tonight’s Edgar Sosa Watch: 5-9 for 12 pts.  Verdict: not invited to transfer after this road win for the Cards.
• Syracuse 85, Depaul 68. Andy Rautins hit five threes to continue his hot streak over the last few games (25-44).  Cuse’s main six players all scored between 12-17 pts.
• Providence 87, Cincinnati 79. If PC is going to make a run at an at-large, it’s games like this on the road that they have to win.  The Friars are now 3-0, but they’ve played three of the four bottom-feeders in the league so far (St. John’s and Depaul in addition to Cincy).
• Morgan St. 66, Maryland 65. Horrendous home loss to a MEAC team (albeit probably the best one in that conference).  Very rough night for the ACC.
• Marquette 81, Rutgers 76. Rutgers is making it known they’ll not be a pushover in the RAC this year.  Wes Matthews was perfect from the field (10-10) for 23/6 in a game where MU had to hold on down the stretch despite having a 21-pt lead earlier in the second half.
• Wisconsin 74, Northwestern 45. UW moved to 3-0 in the Big 10 in an easy home win over the Wildcats (now 0-3).
• UNC 108, Charleston 70. Carolina rebounded from its first loss of the year with a huge second half against Charleston, putting all five starters into double figures (led by TH’s 24/7, of course).

Tonight’s a special night at the East Coast RTC headquarters, as I will intently be watching a game on ESPN based on a little column I wrote a few days ago. The results of this game (more specifically how one player does) will lead to one of two options:

(1) He will go off and the site will be bombarded by hateful comments by people questioning my manhood and my intelligence.

(2) He will pull a 7-for-25 or something similar and the site will be silent. It’s not really right, but that’s just the way these things work. I guess I can be like a superstar walking out of an opposing stadium enjoying the sweet sound of silence. [Note: This doesn’t mean I would enjoy seeing Curry struggle. It would just add some validity to my theory.]

Anyways, onto the games. . .

7 PM
– Davidson at #2 Duke on ESPN and ESPN360.com: Even though Duke is the obvious favorite here and the Goliath to Davidson’s, uh, David, I think the Wildcats have more pressure on them going into this game. They have had 2 shots at the big boys (Oklahoma and Purdue) and came up short both times including a beat-down at the hands of the Boilermakers. Even with a win over West Virginia, the Wildcats non-conference resume is a little weak for a team that came into the season ranked 20th in the nation after their scintillating run last March. If they lose this one, they can forget even getting a 6 seed. This isn’t a death knell for the Wildcats season (see last year), but it would be disappointing for Bob McKillop’s crew after coming into the season with such high expectations. To get a win at Cameron, Stephen Curry will need to have a huge game (40+ points) and get some help from Andrew Lovedale, who will probably have his hands full with Kyle Singler. In addition, McKillop will have to hope that the Blue Devils have an off-night beyond the arc like they did in their only loss this year. As you know the Blue Devils have a much more balanced attack led by Singler with help from Jon Scheyer, Gerald Henderson, and Nolan Smith. One of the interesting things to watch for early in the game will be the mobility of Smith, who will be guarding Curry and is coming off a knee injury. If Smith isn’t up to the task, the task of guarding Curry will be left up to blogosphere whipping boy Greg Paulus. If that is the case, I will be taking back my earlier prediction for Curry for tomorrow night.

– #21 Louisville at South Florida on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: The Cardinals will be riding high after their rollercoaster win over intrastate rival Kentucky on Sunday afternoon. They should be careful though going into the Sun Dome where the Bulls nearly beat then #11 Syracuse in a 59-54 game despite a horrendous night from Jesus Verdejo (3/17 FG including 0/10 from 3). Rick Pitino will be expecting a more consistent performance out of freshman sensation Samardo Samuels, who only had 4 points and 1 rebound in 11 minutes due to foul trouble. I’m sure Pitino will be praying for another solid performance from Edgar Sosa, who responded to Pitino’s interesting motivational techniques (reminiscent of my high school coach threatening to put all of us on JV before every game) with a season-high 18 points including a game-winning 3 with 2.8 seconds against Kentucky. Like usual, Louisville has the talent to run away with this game, but the question is whether they will continue to play down to the level of their competition.

7:30 PM
– #15 Marquette at Rutgers on ESPN Full Court and ESPN360.com: Honestly, this isn’t a particularly exciting game, but it should be fun to see if Rutgers finds the Golden Eagles below the level of their typical competition (last 3 games vs. last week’s #1 UNC, #2 UConn, and #3 Pittsburgh). The Golden Eagles are only considered the 15th best team in the country. You gotta love the Big East this year.

9 PM
– College of Charleston at #3 UNC on Fox Sports South: See if the Tar Heels, currently in last place in the ACC, can dig its way out the cellar. Don’t say we didn’t warn you about the Tar Heels.

– Gonzaga at #24 Tennessee on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: That’s not a typo. The Bulldogs, who were once ranked 4th in the country, are no longer ranked. I’m not sure what to make of Gonzaga. After being the underdog for so many years, they suddenly became a favorite, but have continued to disappoint and frustrate the nation each March after repeated failures to live up to their NCAA tournament seed. This year, they rose to their 2nd highest ranking ever (spent 2 weeks at #3 at the end of the 2004 regular season) before going into a freefall losing their last 3 and 4 of their last 5 games. To be fair, those 4 losses have been by a combined 18 points and included 2 road games and an overtime loss to then #2 UConn. Despite that, there’s no reason that a national title contender should go through a stretch like that. The Volunteers will be looking to bounce back from a tough loss at Kansas. The key to this game will be on the inside with Tyler Smith and Wayne Chism battling against Josh Heytvelt and Austin Daye.  If the Volunteers are able to control the paint, they will have a good shot at knocking off the Bulldogs, who will also need some help from their perimeter guys (Matt Bouldin, Steven Gray, and Jeremy Pargo).

Obsessed With Sports will be providing coverage to RTC throughout the season.

Tuesday, January 6

Connecticut(5) at West Virginia(22)

Behind the Line: WVU is on fire and have covered their last 3 games while Uconn has failed to cover their last 2.

Ohio St. at Michigan St(12)

Behind the Line: The Buckeyes have dropped their last 3 against the spread while the Spartans have done the exact opposite.

Wednesday, January 7

Davidson at Duke(2) 

Behind the Line: Similar to the first game, Davidson is not so hot while Duke is scorching. Davidson has dropped 4 straight against the spread and Duke has covered their last 3.

Gonzaga at Tennessee(25)

Behind the Line: Two teams that are not playing their best ball. The Zags have lost 3 straight and the Vols are coming off a loss at Kansas. Tennessee is undefeated at home while Gonzaga is just 1-2 on the road. Both of these teams score a lot of points. Combined, 6 out of their last 9 games have gone to the over.

Thursday, January 8

Wright St. at Butler(20)

Behind the Line: Wright State is 7-7 this season and are 1-5 on the road. However, they have covered their last 4 games against the spread albeit against lesser competition. Butler has covered 4 of their last 5 games. There is a possibility that the line could be friendly due to these occurrences.

With most conference schedules starting to get into full swing, I thought I would start doing Set Your Tivos daily with a weekend edition to cover the games on Saturday and Sunday.

7 PM
– #5 UConn at #22 West Virginia on ESPNU: Just another night in the Big East for the Huskies, who responded to last week’s  loss to Georgetown with a 80-49 beatdown over an exhausted Rutgers team. Tonight, Jim Calhoun’s Huskies go to Morgantown, WV to face Bob Huggins and the Mountaineers. Joe Alexander is gone, but Alex Ruoff and Da’Sean Butler have stepped up to fill the void. The Mountaineers have been impressive this season with wins over Ohio State (on the road), Iowa, Ole Miss (on the road), and Cleveland State. However, their lack of a solid interior presence could mean a big game for Hasheem Thabeet IF (big if) the Huskies decide to use him. If A.J. Price and the Huskies utilize Thabeet, they should roll in this one.

– Ohio State at #12 Michigan State on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: The Spartans are finally starting to show the form that earned them an early-season #5 ranking. Honestly, outside of this being a league game, I don’t really expect this one to be close just based on the momentum these two teams have (along with the continued absence of David Lighty). Of course, since it’s a league game, I’ll probably be completely wrong. In either case, this game will be worth watching to see what kind of shape the Buckeyes are in. I don’t think they will be able to beat the Spartans in East Lansing if Raymar Morgan and Kalin Lucas are playing well, but it should be entertaining to watch.

9 PM
– #7 Texas at Arkansas on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: A week ago I wouldn’t have even thought about watching this game and I think the Longhorns may have been just as disinterested. However, with the Razorbacks victory over Oklahoma on New Year’s Eve this game has suddenly become more interesting. I’m not quite sure what to make of the Razorbacks who lost to Missouri State back in November, but haven’t lost since before Thanksgiving. The key to the game will the play of Michael Washington, the Razorback center who played national POY favorite Blake Griffin to a virtual standstill on New Year’s Eve. It will be interesting to see the match-up at the 5 as Rick Barnes will likely counter with Connor Atchley, who has the outside game to take Washington away from the post. I’ll also be intrigued to see what Arkansas does to neutralize A.J. Abrams after Willie Warren went for 35 points against the Razorback guards.

– Alabama at #11 Clemson on Fox Sports South and ESPN Full Court: I’m interested in this game more to see if the Tigers are legit. It just seems like they always start the season off undefeated amassing a 15-0 record before falling apart and usually missing the NCAA tournament. However, this year they managed to win a few good out-of-conference games (Temple along with road wins at Illinois, Miami, and South Carolina). The Crimson Tide will need big games out of their backcourt of Alonzo Gee, Ronald Steele, and Senario Hillman if they want to pull off the upset. The Tigers will need to start winning games like this if they ever want to break into the ACC elite and compete with UNC, Duke, and Wake Forest for a league title.

– #14 Purdue at Penn State on The Big Ten Network: The Boilermakers will be looking to rebound after opening Big Ten playing with an OT loss to Illinois. Prior to that, the Boilermakers had been playing very well with a big win over Davidson. They will have to do it against the Nittany Lions who also are coming off a loss (at Wisconsin). The game will likely come down to how each team’s top 3 players play. The Boilermakers will be relying on E’Twaun Moore, Robbie Hummel, and JaJuan Johnson while the Nittany Lions will count on Talor Battle, Jamelle Cornley, and Stanley Pringle (possibly the only college basketball player in the nation who would be advised to stay out of the library).

Since his 40 point explosion in Davidson’s first round victory over Gonzaga last March, college basketball fans have been bombarded with the Stephen Curry lovefest that has been spearheaded by Dick Vitale and ESPN. The WWL and other hoops aficionados loves to point out that Curry was ignored by every major school including Virginia Tech, the alma mater of his father NBA All-Star Dell Curry. Like every other basketball fan we love the way Stephen plays and his sweet stroke from the perimeter that has been augmented by a surprising ability to get to the hoop and finish. Since last March, it has been hard to find anybody that would be critical of the baby-faced assassin from Davidson, but here at Rush the Court we like to let our minds not our hearts analyze the situation.

Credit: www.zimbio.com

Like many NBA scouts, I have had my reservations about anointing Stephen the next great NBA player much to the chagrin of some Davidson fans. However, I continued to marvel (see my post minutes after Davidson knocked Gonzaga out of the NCAA tournament in the first round last year) at his ability to put up numbers despite the best efforts of the opposition (with the exception of the antics of Jimmy Patsos). After watching his performance against Purdue (5/26 FG), his third sub-par game this year against quality (BCS-level) competition, I started to wonder if all those BCS conference coaches and NBA scouts may have been on to something. So I started to crunch the numbers, which led to some very surprising results.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you know anything about us here at RTC, you know that we love numbers.  We love breaking down game stats and looking for secrets in the offensive and defensive efficiency ratings that will help us better understand why Team X is playing so poorly or why Team Y is much better than their ranking.  We also love statistical oddities – little factoids of generally meaningless but still interesting data that we can bring up at RTC office parties and cocktail functions so that we’ll seem edumacated and wicked smart about the ins and outs of college basketball.  Or at least so that we can impress Dickie V when we next run into him at a spring training Rays game.  Yeah, that.

So here are a few of the statistical items that we find interesting as we approach conference season – perhaps you will also.  (all stats furnished by basketballstate.com)

• These guys had better avoid foul trouble. UAB’s Robert Vaden, Texas’ AJ Abrams and Virginia Tech’s AD Vassallo each average over 36 minutes per game for their teams.
• Get these men the ball! Among players scoring 15+ ppg, St. Joseph’s Ahmad Nivins (74.2%), Kentucky’s Patrick Patterson (71.5%), Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin (67.9%) and Michigan St.’s Raymar Morgan (65.3%) are burning up the nets.
• Double-Double Trouble. Of the 19 players averaging double-figure rebounds, all of them also average double-figure points.  But only two of them are 20/10 guys – Blake Griffin (23/14) and Notre Dame’s Luke Harongody (23/12).  Patrick Patterson is just a whisker shy of 20/10 (19.6/9.5).
• Betcha Didn’t Know That…
  • Stephen Curry leads the nation in scoring (30.0), but Tyler Hansbrough puts up the most points per 40 minutes (34.4)
  • North Dakota State’s Ben Woodside, he of the 60-pt explosion two weeks ago, is #2 in the nation in assists (7.6 per game).  Or that Davidson’s Mr. Curry is 12th nationally in dime-dropping.
  • Kentucky guard Jodie Meeks is averaging 24.2 ppg so far this season.  The last Wildcat to average that many points per game was Dan Issel in 1969-70 (33.9).
  • VMI’s brother tandem Travis and Chavis Holmes are 1-2 nationally in pilfering the ball (4.0 and 3.7 spg).
• Tempo Free Stats.
  • UNC is the most efficient offensive team in the nation (1.19 points per possession), but did you know that Purdue is the most efficient defensive team around (0.79 ppp)?
  • The tops of the ACC and Big East have extremely efficient teams on both ends of the court – UNC, Wake Forest, Duke, UConn, Pittsburgh and Georgetown all have large differentials (approaching or above 0.3 ppp) resulting in an extra point every three or four possessions down the court.
  • The slowest paced “good” team is Wisconsin, with 61.4 possessions per game.  UNC, unsurprisingly, is averaging 79.3 possessions per contest.
  • Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and West Virginia own the boards, each team getting at or nearly 60% of the available caroms.  It’s difficult to find a “good” team that can’t rebound the ball, but Creighton is the best candidate for this award, only getting its Blue Jay hands on 48.2% of rebounds.
  • Notre Dame only turns the ball over one of every eight possessions (13%), but Kentucky gives it away nearly a quarter of the time (24%) and has still managed to go 10-3 thus far.  Incidentally, the Irish also rarely foul opponents (#1 in the nation with only 11.8 per game).  Tennessee, with all of its reaching and grabbing pressure defense, garners 21.3 fouls per game.
  • Georgetown, Connecticut, Xavier and Oklahoma live at the foul line, each getting a quarter or more of its points from the charity stripe.  Illinois, on the other hand, only gets about 14% of its points from the line.
  • The best offensively efficient performance by one team in a legit game this season so far was UNC  vs. Notre Dame, where the Heels averaged an astonishing 1.53 ppp in that demolition.

Got any others?  Feel free to pass them along in the comments!