We’re back for the final weekend of regular season Boom Goes the Dynamite for this college basketball season. The highlights of the weekend are obviously the two top 10 match-ups (in Pittsburgh on Saturday and in Chapel Hill on Sunday). We would love to provide you with another RTC Live from those site, but apparently we’re not big enough for them yet. (The onus is on you to spread the word.)

In any event, we’re going to make lemonade out of those lemons so we’ll be providing coverage from our bi-coastal offices covering all the action. Today is loaded with 15 of the top 25 playing with the other 10 playing on Sunday. We will be trying out best to provide you with wall-to-wall coverage of the top teams in action as well as RTC Live from several different locations:

• Colonial Athletic Association at 2:30 PM EST for Hofstra–Loyola Marymount with Ryan Kish courtside
• Missouri Valley Conference at 5 PM EST for Creighton–Illinois State with Patrick Marshall
• West Coast Conference at 9 PM EST for Santa Clara–San Diego with Mike Vernetti courtside

In addition to our on-site correspondents we will be focusing in on a few key games for the majority of the day while also channel surfing over to the other games when the situation merits it. Here are the primary games that we will be covering today:

• #1 UConn at #4 Pittsburgh at Noon on CBS
• Michigan at Minnesota at Noon on ESPN and ESPN360.com
• #25 Syracuse at #15 Marquette at 2 PM on ESPN360.com
• #12 Missouri at Texas A&M at 2 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
• California at #21 Arizona State at 2 PM on CBS
• Oklahoma State at #5 Oklahoma at 3:30 PM on ABC
• Texas at #9 Kansas at 4 PM on CBS
• Washington State at #13 Washington at 5:30 PM on CBS
• Wright State at #22 Butler at 7 PM on ESPNU
• #6 Louisville at West Virginia at 9 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com

As you can tell it’s a pretty ambitious schedule so we are asking you, our loyal legion of RTC followers, to help alert all of us if something interesting is happening. You can contribute by leaving a message in the comment section so we all can follow it.

One piece of RTC breaking news, UNC point guard Ty Lawson injured his left big toe yesterday in practice.

11:30 PM: ESPN GameDay is live from Morgantown, WV and they’re doing their own version of Make Your Case. I feel a little bit like Bill Simmons after ESPN stole his Mount Rushmore, but they aren’t paying me a million dollars a year.

11:45 PM: A couple pieces of NCAA tournament news to wrap-up before we focus on our TV for the next 12 hours: Cornell became the first team to officially get into the tournament last night by winning the Ivy League title and 3 others will join them when the Atlantic Sun, Big South, and Ohio Valley have their championship games today.

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Ryan Kish of George Mason Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the CAA.  He will be reporting from the CAA Tournament this weekend in Richmond, Va.

Having the privilege of attending this weekend’s CAA conference tournament, I’d like to share the fact that it’s probably going to be one of the most exciting in the country.  Starting this Saturday I will be liveblogging the most intriguing game from the sidelines for the CAA faithful (see RTC Live sidebar).  Choosing which game will be very difficult as almost any match-up will be worthy.  This weekend you will get an in-depth hands-on look into the tournament and some insight on what to expect.

Favorite:  VCU

The term “favorite” is kind of a loose term this season in the CAA, and even though VCU was picked by the coaches and media to be where they are now, any CAA fan will tell you that #1 seed won’t guarantee a championship visit.  The Rams have ridden the success of Eric Maynor as he guided his young squad through the CAA schedule but not without their share of bumps and bruises.  Nearly every team in the top of the conference has lost a game or two to the bottom dwellers and much can be said about the fact that VCU only had to face George Mason and Northeastern once each.  But despite that the Rams have shown more consistency in an unstable CAA and they have the tools to run the table in Richmond.  Head coach Anthony Grant has been here before and Eric Maynor is continuing to make his teammates better even with scoring 25+ a night. Forward Larry Sanders has been having a sensational season to date, on both ends of the court.  His play in the front court will be huge for the Rams.  VCU plays an aggressive, rough, in-your-face kind of game and that’s exactly the kind of squad I’d like to avoid in a single elimination tournament.  At times this season that same aggressiveness has led to trouble but if they can keep it under control and they will be the most dangerous team this weekend.

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John Stevens is a featured columnist for RTC.  His columns will appear on Tuesdays throughout the season.

This past Saturday I was watching the North Carolina vs Miami (FL) matchup and simultaneously checking out nvr1983’s live press-row blog of the event.  Just before the second half started, ESPN’s Dick Vitale started talking about his favorite subject, the Duke Blue Devils.  No surprise there, right?  Well, this time he prefaced it by saying, “I know people don’t like it when I talk about Duke, but I’m gonna talk about them!” or something close to that (I don’t have video of this, but if you do, put a link in the comments section and I’ll add it to the post and credit you). 

This tells us that it’s obvious that Vitale is very much aware and maybe even a little sensitive about how the college basketball-loving public perceives him as favoring the Blue Devils.  Heck, I admit, in the past I’ve been quick to jump on the guy with both feet about this.  I’ve rolled my eyes and shaken my head like so many others when he, in a non-Duke basketball game, starts prattling on about Duke like a lovesick 6th-grade girl who has a crush on a boy and wants to talk about it endlessly.

So Vitale said a few things about Duke and that was that.  Big deal.  Big surprise.  But right as the second half began, I began thinking — this wasn’t his usual Thom Brennaman–Tim Tebow hyperbole about the Dukies.  It was — gasp! — actually relevant.  You see, it was the “I know people don’t like it” part that caught my attention, specifically.  That borders on an apology, or at least an acknowledgment of his Blue Devil affinity.  Now, like a lot of college basketball fans, I think, I don’t have a problem with the Duke program (I’m still deciding whether Coach K’s satellite radio show is fair or not) as much as I have a problem with Vitale (and certainly Mike Patrick) bringing it up when it has no relevance to what’s going on in front of him.  That’s the only time it ticks me off.

You know what it reminds me of?  When you’re talking to some girl and she does that “boyfriend” thing, meaning she inserts a random reference of the fact that she has a boyfriend into a conversation the FIRST chance she gets because 1) she really has one, or 2) she’s not interested and this is her way of telling you.  I think you know the conversation I’m talking about.  Who among us hasn’t been here:

Me:  I had a flat tire today.
Girl:  You know what?  My boyfriend’s car has tires.

Or:

Me:  That’s a heavy oxygen tank, there.
Girl:  My boyfriend breathes oxygen!

Or maybe:

Me:  Hi, I…
Girl:  Boyfriend.

I recall that great bit on Seinfeld where George was out on a date with a woman who does that little trick by telling George he has a nice watch, then says, “My boyfriend loves watches, he’s a real watch freak.”  When discussing it with Jerry, Jerry notes, “They just SLIP it right in there, like it’s all part of the conversation.”  Well, I think that’s kind of what Vitale does.  And I think it’s combined with a little bit of that schoolgirl thing I mentioned above.  Or perhaps in Mr. Vitale there’s a little bit of that guy who was affected so much by Star Wars as a kid that he’s never been the same.  You know the guy, the one who makes a Star Wars reference any time he can; the guy who filters his whole existence through that movie, seemingly asking himself at every moment of the day, “What does this have to do with Star Wars?  What possible link can I make between that movie and the things that happen in my life on a moment-to-moment basis?”  I think all of these are at the root of Vitale’s Duke-o-philia.

BUT, my dear readers, I caught myself on this occasion, before I started texting my friends and ripping Vitale.  There’s a difference, this year.  This season, Duke is relevant.  Because Duke is good.  True, Duke is usually good.  But this season is different. 

I see a different sort of energy around this particular Duke squad that I haven’t seen in recent years.  This is a team that has bought into the fact — one that coaches across the country at all levels try SO HARD to get into the collective consciousnesses of their teams — that defense creates offense, that the toughness of your defense will determine your success.  In addition to being 4th in the nation in scoring, themselves, Duke keeps their opponents at 39.6% shooting per game, and they are second in the nation in a statistic I consider very important and telling, that of Turnovers Forced Per Game (17.0!!).  So maybe Vitale, in his Duke love, is to be given a little leeway this year?

I admit, that’s going to be tough.  How many of you recall this incident from last year, where Vitale was calling a Duke game and this was shown:

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This is a huge day here at RTC.  Not only will we be blogging with you all day with this BGTD nonsense, but we’ll also have a presence at ESPN GameDay live from Chapel Hill where our man on the ground will be taking questions and comments from you, the readers, so that you can finally ask Erin Andrews what shampoo she uses and where, exactly, does she find such perfectly fitted tops.  Or anything else you guys may want to know (within reason, of course).

RTC Live: Miami at UNC will be a sticky at the top of the page all day, so be sure to stop by and check it out as you put off going outside into the semi-Arctic environment known as the East Coast Midwest South Mountains USA this lovely Saturday.

As for this post, we’ve got the three-tv setup ready to roll, and with Notre Dame-Syracuse starting off the day in a few hours, we should probably try to get some sleep.  We’ll be back for that one (and all the others), but in the meantime, feel free to peruse our SYT preview of today’s big games.

11:52am – And we’re back.  Let’s get going.  Quick note – lamest sign just spotted at GameDay in CH – Everyone Still Predicts National championship?  Wow, props for creativity there, er, not.

Noon – What’s on your tv right now?  There’s an interesting mid-major on ESPN2 (N. Iowa at Drake).  The Noon FC games aren’t too exciting (Maryland at FSU; Ga Tech at NC State; USF at WVU) – we’ll keep an eye on each, but it’s looking mostly like Cuse-ND and UNI-Drake here.

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Ryan Kish of George Mason Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the CAA.

Power rankings:

1. Virginia Commonwealth (6-3)
2. George Mason (6-2)
3. Hofstra (8-1)
4. Northeastern (5-4)
5. Old Dominion (4-3)
6. Georgia State (3-6)
7. James Madison (4-4)
8. Towson (5-5)
9. Delaware (4-6)
10. Drexel (2-3)
11. UNC-W (3-7)
12. William & Mary (3-6)

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Ryan Kish of George Mason Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the Colonial Athletic Conference (CAA).

Power rankings:

1. Virginia Commonwealth (5-3)
2. George Mason (6-2)
3. Hofstra (6-1)
4. Northeastern (4-4)
5. Old Dominion (3-3)
6. Georgia State (3-5)
7. Towson (4-4)
8. James Madison (4-4)
9. Drexel (2-2)
10. UNC-W (3-6)
11. William & Mary (3-6)
12. Delaware (2-6)

Teams doing well

Hofstra: So far the Pride have been the surprise of the CAA posting a league-best 6-1 record.  After losing a lot of scoring from last year’s team this team was difficult to project.  They haven’t really beaten anybody worthwhile on the out of conference slate but they had a pretty decisive victory over Towson on Saturday to start off 1-0 in the conference.

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