Brian Otskey is an RTC contributor. He will analyze the Southeast Region throughout the NCAA Tournament.

Throughout Monday, we’ll be releasing our Bracket Prep analyses of each of the four NCAA Tournament regions.  The order will be as follows — please check back throughout the day for all four (all times eastern).

• West – 9 am
• Southeast – 11 am
• Southwest – 1 pm
• East – 3 pm

Region: SOUTHEAST

Favorite: #1 Pittsburgh (27-5, 15-3 Big East). The Panthers won the Big East regular season title and now have their best chance to finally advance to the Final Four under Jamie Dixon. Pitt has made just one Final Four in their history (1941).

Should They Falter: #2 Florida (26-7, 13-3 SEC). Billy Donovan’s club racked up 11 top 50 wins this season and won 10 of their last 12 games. The two seed was surprising, but not unreasonable when you look deeper into their resume.

Grossly Overseeded: #8 Butler (23-9, 13-5 Horizon). Could last year’s success have played a role in their seeding? The Bulldogs are a solid team and won the Diamond Head Classic in December but their best non-conference win was over Florida State, a team that could only manage a #10 seed in this tournament. Butler lost three times to sub-100 RPI opponents, including #289 Youngstown State. A #10 or #11 seed would have been more appropriate.

Grossly Underseeded: #9 Old Dominion (27-6, 14-4 CAA). ODU has won nine straight and 13 of their last 14 games. The Monarchs beat NCAA teams Xavier, Richmond, Clemson and St. Peter’s out of conference, split with George Mason and beat VCU twice on their way to the CAA tournament title. Blaine Taylor’s team arguably should have earned a #6 or #7 seed.

Sweet Sixteen Sleeper (#12 seed or lower): #12 Utah State (30-3, 15-1 WAC). The Aggies are actually ranked well ahead of their first round opponent, Kansas State, in the Pomeroy Ratings. Utah State plays at a slower tempo and can grind Kansas State to a halt. Stew Morrill’s team is also terrific on the defensive end, ranking sixth in efficiency and second in defensive rebounding percentage. If they can make K-State shoot jump shots all night, Utah State will have an excellent shot to pull the #12 over #5 upset. Should they get by the Wildcats, Utah State will face Wisconsin or Belmont. They’d be comfortable in the pace Wisconsin plays and can use their stellar defense to slow Belmont’s up-tempo pace and efficient offense.

Final Four Sleeper: #5 Kansas State (22-10, 10-6 Big 12). The Wildcats had won six in a row and eight of nine games before slipping up against Colorado for the third time this season in the Big 12 Quarterfinals. Kansas State has a talented senior in Jacob Pullen, a guy capable of willing this team all the way to Houston. This club can play with anyone when they’re hot and has the toughness to stand up to any team in this bracket, including Pittsburgh. A surprise trip to the Final Four would be sweet redemption for this team, one that was picked to advance there by many before the season started.

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RTC is pleased to announce that we’ll be covering all of the major conference tournaments this year — the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, and SEC — in addition to the strongest two high-middies, the Atlantic 10 and the Mountain West.  Each day for the rest of this week, we’re asking our correspondents to provide us with a Daily Diary of the sights and sounds from the arena at each site.  Equal parts game analysis and opinion, the hope is that this will go beyond the tiresome game recaps you can find elsewhere and give you an insightful look into Championship Week.  Today’s coverage:  ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Mountain West & Pac-10.

ACC Tournament – by Kellen Carpenter

• Miami-Virginia.  This was a truly bizarre game that I’m still not sure makes any sense.  Greensboro Coliseum was surprisingly packed for a 12 pm game between the 8 and 9 seed. Both teams boasted sizable and vocal fanbases who were each treated to a game of runs. Miami jumped out ahead, leading by six at the half, and then one of the weirdest second halves I have ever seen happened. Miami only scored eight points over the first 18 minutes of the second half. Virginia, rallying strongly, jumped out to a 50-39 lead with 2:15 left on the clock. Then Miami went nuts.  No, really. I’m still not sure what happened. The crowd was whipped into a frenzy by a series of weird, truly improbably events. Miami cut the eleven point deficit and forced an overtime which the Hurricanes suddenly dominated and walked away with a truly unexpected win. For a the first game of the ACC Tournament, it was not just a dinger, but a hum-dinger. Whenever you can get a crowd of Floridians and Virginians to scream their heads off in the early afternoon in North Carolina, you’ve put on quite a show. Beyond that, nothing about this game mattered.
• Wake-BC.  After the drama of the Miami and Virginia game, any game with a team that had only managed to win one ACC game over the course of the season was bound to be a letdown. What was surprising to me, was the letdown in crowd energy. Winston-Salem, home of Wake’s campus, is a mere 20 minutes away, yet it seemed like the Demon Deacons had fewer fans present than Miami. Boston College had a very small and quiet contingent who seemed happy to quietly watch as the Eagles just took apart Wake. It really wasn’t much of a game, with the hyper-efficient Boston College offense firing on all cylinders (well, excepting the Raji cylinder). Reggie Jackson scored 27 points on 13 shots. Joe Trapani scored 22 points on 12 shots.  Nicholas Biko scored 21 points on 12 shots. Wake Forest’s porous defense could do little to stop them, and their impotence on the offensive end doomed them. Freshman Travis McKie was a bright spot, going 6-8 in the first half while the rest of his team struggled. But, for some stupefying reason, McKie only got two shots in the second half, one of these being a put-back dunk of his own manufacture. If there is a silver lining to that second half, it’s the fact that Wake actually managed to outscore BC, 36-34. Sadly, this was clearly not enough to make up for the 16 point deficit incurred in the first half. My favorite part of this game, was clearly the few, loud Wake Forest fans sitting directly behind me. One woman seemed particularly keen on trying to coach Travis McKie’s admittedly poor free throw shooting (2-5). Every time he got to the line she would yell “Bend your knees! Follow through!” If only he had listened? The season is mercifully over for Wake, and BC will get it’s chance at tougher competition tomorrow when they take on Clemson.
• NC State-Maryland.  There were, as you might expect, an alarming number of loud, red-wearing people at this game. Maryland jumped out to an early lead which energized/enraged these loud, red-wearing fans. In response, the N.C. State band played Cee-Lo’s “Eff You,” which, when you think about it, is a perfect pep band song: catchy and insulting to the other team, while the lack of singing effectively makes it family friendly. Well-played, Wolf Pack band. That said, the pep band arrangement of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song was pretty excellent as well. And if the bands played with flair, the teams did too. There was more speed, athleticism, and acrobatic drives on display in this game than in the first two games combined. Cross-overs, spin moves, and behind the back dribbles on the fast break had the crowd frequently on its collective feet. Does Tracy Smith have the MVB (Most Valuable Beard) of this tournament? It’s hard to see anyone overtaking him. Maryland looked in command the whole game, but since Miami’s Miracle, there was a palpable nervousness in the crowd until the buzzer finally went off.
• Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech. Virginia Tech controlled this game from the start and once it became clear that Georgia Tech could never catch up, the crowd that had gathered for the previous game started to vanish. Virginia Tech’s fans were consistently loud and even when the Hokies’ lead exceeded twenty, the fans took every call against them as if the game depended on it. Meanwhile, the Georgia Tech fans seemed resigned to his fate. Georgia Tech never managed to score more than a point per minute in the first half. It was one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen in a tournament setting, and remember, I watched the Wake Forest game earlier today. Virginia Tech played well enough, but I couldn’t help but be concerned about the minutes that the starters were playing. Malcolm Delaney played 39 minutes despite the massive lead VT held throughout. He only sat for the final minute of the game and that was after he had taken a needless hard foul. You have to wonder how such long minutes on consecutive days are going to affect the Hokies hopes of going deep into this tournament. Well, you don’t have to worry, but I would.

Big East Tournament – by Rob Dauster

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Games #179-180.  The Jayhawks and Wildcats hit the hardwood in Kansas City to take on two winners of Wednesday’s opening round matchups.

12:30 pm – Kansas vs. Oklahoma State. After winning the Big 12 for the seventh straight season, the Kansas Jayhawks received a first-round bye in the conference tournament and now draws the Oklahoma State Cowboys. OSU ended any realistic chance of Nebraska making the NCAA Tournament with a 53-52 victory on Wednesday. Bill Self’s team is a sure thing for a number one seed, but must keep up its momentum if it wants the tournament’s top overall spot. KU won the first meeting in blowout fashion, 92-65, in Lawrence two weeks ago, but Travis Ford’s team is eager to play spoiler.

3:00 pm – Kansas State vs. Colorado. The second game will pit Kansas State against Colorado. The Wildcats have used a month-long surge to return to its preseason status as a team that no one wants to play in a tournament situation. The Buffaloes need a high-profile win to strengthen their case for a tournament bid, and while Kansas State is hot, Colorado beat them in both regular season meetings. We’ll also be treated to a matchup of high-level individual scorers with Jacob Pullen and Alec Burks sharing the court.

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1. The biggest news of Tuesday was undoubtedly the loss of BYU’s Brandon Davies, a sophomore forward who was banging his way to 11/6 nightly, picking up scraps left over from Jimmer Fredette and Jackson Emery, the two leading scorers.  Davies allegedly broke the school’s honor code, and he was suspended for the rest of the season.  The Cougars are tracking toward a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but they’ll need to prove that they can play just as well without Davies in the lineup as they have with him to satisfy the NCAA Selection Committee.  Forward Noah Hartsock is expected to move into Davies’ vacated center position, but Hartsock’s power forward spot will need to be filled by a less experienced player such as Kyle Collinsworth or Charles Abouo.  Very tough break for Dave Rose and the BYU program in its best season in a generation.
2. In other news involving personnel losses (or non-losses), UNC backup guard Reggie Bullock will miss the remainder of the season with a torn lateral meniscus that he suffered during the weekend’s Maryland game.  This is not a huge loss for the Heels, as Bullock was only contributing 6/3 in about fifteen minutes per game this season, but he was third on the team in three-pointers made (29) and this will make Roy Williams’ team a little more suspect against zone defenses the rest of the year.  In much better news, Kansas State’s Jacob Pullen had his right wrist x-rayed after banging it in Monday night’s game against Texas, and although it was sore and swollen, there is no broken bone.  He is expected to play this coming weekend in Senior Day festivities at Bramlage Coliseum against Iowa State.
3. Luke Winn gives us his top eight potential bid stealers for the next two weeks — teams who could make strong runs through their conference tournaments to knock someone like Virginia Tech or Michigan off the ‘last four in’ line.  Winn’s list is a good one, but we’d perhaps add a few more names to the discussion: Washington State (Pac-10), Alabama (SEC), San Francisco (WCC) and any number of teams from Conference USA.
4. Remember former Binghamton guard DJ Rivera, the former America East star whom coaches refused to vote for POY in 2009 even though he was clearly the best player in that league?  Oh, he also was partially responsible for the implosion of the Binghamton program when he was arrested in the fall of 2009 for swiping a debit card and subsequently using it to purchase snacks, cigars and a large-screen television before getting caught.  His arrest along with Tiki Mayben’s commensurate arrest for selling crack cocaine resulted in several players getting kicked off the team and a national scandal that the school is still recovering from.  Why is this relevant now?  On Monday, Rivera pleaded guilty to the crime — fourth degree criminal possession of stolen property — and he will face nine months’ probation, which, if he keeps his nose clean, will allow him to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor and pursue a basketball career overseas.  This plea marks the final chapter in the scandal — BU has gone 20-40 since the program was destroyed that summer.
5. Maybe these guys should talk to our friends at HSAC so as to learn how to properly perform an interesting study.  Virginia Tech, fresh off three straight years on the wrong side of the bubble, commissioned statisticians at the College of Science to determine what the biases are that go into making bubble selections into the NCAA Tournament.  Their conclusion: a team’s RPI, its strength of schedule, and its historical pedigree factor prominently into successful bids.  In other words, everything you already knew.  Across campus, no doubt, Hokie researchers have recently proven that water is indeed wet and sunshine comprises the majority of daylight.  Here’s a memo to Seth Greenberg: how about instead of hanging your hat on a few big-time wins every season, you beat the teams you’re supposed to beat, especially at home.

The Lede.  The last Big Monday of the 2010-11 season was short on games, but heavy on lessons learned.  So what did we learn, exactly?  That one team left for dead in the Big 12 race at midseason is completely back behind a guy playing with a giant chip on his shoulder; that another team who looked like a #1 seed lock two weeks ago is dangerously close to another epic collapse; that a Big East team whom nobody had much faith in (ourselves included) is turning heads on its way to a top two seed in the NCAA Tournament; and that another Big East team that looked Final Four-caliber in January is limping into the postseason with a couple of bloody appendages.  In other words, what we thought we knew we didn’t actually know, and what we think we now know probably isn’t what we know either — all of this is just a convoluted way of saying that, once again, it’s March.

With Digger Young & Old Watching, ND Crushed It From Deep (CT/M. Cashore)

Your Watercooler Moment.  The Longhorn Collapse Came Later Than Usual This Year.  We got concerned when the Horns gave up 70 points at Nebraska a little over a week ago; we tried to ignore it when they gave up a 58-point half over the weekend at Colorado.  But to drop a game at home against a team that couldn’t beat anybody a few weeks ago proves that we need to stand up and take notice.  Rick Barnes’ team is going through another one of his patented collapses — it just took longer this year for it to manifest itself.  With its third loss in four games, Texas is beginning to resemble the Horns of the last two vintages, both of whom looked great at midseason only to fall apart as the days grew longer and the calendar turned to March.  In tonight’s game against surging Kansas State, it was once again the Longhorn defense, so spectacular for most of the season, that failed.  The Horns gave up 50% shooting to the Wildcats, the first time all season that a team has reached that mark for the game, and K-State’s 1.15 points per possession is the second-best against UT all season (Colorado’s 1.17 PPP two days ago was the best).  Much has been written already about how Jordan Hamilton cannot hit a shot right now, and that much is true (25.9% in the last three losses), but Rick Barnes knows that it’s his defense that is abandoning him.  Whether that’s a function of players like Hamilton, Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph looking forward to pay-for-play, it’s difficult to say, but without question the tight chemistry that this team showed in dominating the Big 12 defensively during January and most of February is now gone.  As for K-State, Frank Martin has done an excellent job in getting his Wildcats back into the hunt in both the Big 12 and the postseason conversation.  Having now won eight of ten Big 12 games after a miserable 1-4 start, K-State is trending quickly as one of the teams nobody will want to see opposite them as a #4/#5 seed in two weeks.

Your Watercooler Moment, Pt. II.  Irish Eyes Smile to the Tune of Twenty Threes.  If you predicted that the top four teams in the 2010-11 Big East regular season would be Pitt (ok), Notre Dame (what?), Louisville (huh?) and St. John’s (no way!), give yourself a one-way ticket to Vegas because you are clearly some kind of expert soothsayer.  Yet that’s where we stand on the last Big Monday of the season after Mike Brey’s Fighting Irish nailed a school-record twenty threes in an explosive performance to dominate Villanova tonight, 93-72.  Notre Dame star Ben Hansbrough hit for 30/10 assts on 7-10 shooting from deep, while Tim Abromaitis went for 30/4/4 assts while shooting 9-13 from deep.  For the pair of seniors who have led Notre Dame to a surprisingly exceptional season causing Irish fans to think Final Four, it was a capstone performance for a season that has wildly exceeded all reasonable expectations.  The question is whether the Irish are in fact a serious threat to make a run to Houston, and we still hesitate to place this team on the top tier because of its sometimes-questionable defense.  But with shooters like Mike Brey has at his disposal (both Hansbrough and Abromaitis are 40%+ guys) and an ability to dictate pace with less disciplined teams, the Irish are going to be a very tough out both in the Big East and NCAA Tournaments later this month.

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The Lede.  It’s Wednesday night, so that of course meant a lot of action around the country tonight.  From a new conference scoring record to a ridiculous banked buzzer-beater to an unfortunate injury to a star player, it’s all here tonight.  We have to jump in, though, with a performance by a guy who doesn’t get much in the way of pub, but who has put together an outstanding season for his school in the toughest environment in the country.

Feet Set, Shoulders Square... (ProJo/R. Perez)

Your Watercooler Moment.  Marshon’s Moment.  It’s been a trying year for Marshon Brooks and his Providence Friars.  In any number of other leagues, PC might have been good enough to finish in the top third and make a legitimate run at the NCAA Tournament.  Not so in the Big East.  The Friars have struggled through a 3-12 conference season after a solid 11-2 non-conference slate which was short on quality wins but long on confidence.  In many ways, tonight’s one-point loss to Notre Dame, 94-93, was a microcosm of a year that has included a number of close losses to good teams.  Senior Marshon Brooks did his best to change that fortune tonight, dropping a historic 52-point night on the Irish, including an absurd 35 points in the second half, to give his team a realistic chance to pull off the upset.  The victory didn’t happen, but Brooks’ performance was one for the ages, representing the best scoring output in a Big East regular season game EVER.  Considering the number and quality of players who have come through this league, it’s fairly amazing that Brooks now owns this record.  His he-man sized performance matches Lamar guard Mike James’ surprising 52-point effort back in early January (remember him? — he’s only scored 131 points since!) for the best scoring night of 2010-11, and without question tonight at the Dunk will be an evening that the fans and players in attendance will never forget.  For a team going nowhere fast this season, sometimes it’s moments of individual glory such as these that give a team something to hang its hat on.

Your Watercooler Moment, Pt. II.  Josh Gasser, I-Banker.  Josh Gasser, a freshman guard on the Wisconsin Badgers, ended up with the ball in his hands after his teammate and star player, Jordan Taylor, was double-teamed on the last possession.  Down two, he fired away from long range, banking the ball into the basket and causing a fit of Badger mayhem at center court after the ball fell through the net.  Sometimes it’s just your year, and sometimes it’s not.  The home team, Michigan, has taken much more of the latter than the former, losing multiple close games that have put John Beilein’s Wolverines squarely on the thin side of the bubble.  Bo Ryan’s team, on the other hand, continues to win games to pressure Purdue and Ohio State in the Big Ten race; with the nation’s most efficient offense and the occasional stroke of luck as performed by Gasser tonight, the Badgers are going to be a major headache for teams that face them this postseason.

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The Lede.  What a wild, wild President’s Day weekend it was.  The second-, third-, and fourth-ranked teams all took a loss over the weekend to join #1 Kansas  from the previous Monday night, the first time that such a thing had happened in a little over seven years.  BracketBusters was in full effect across the land, and although there were some interesting games during the event, only a couple of teams actually helped themselves.  Over the three days, we saw RTCs ranging from relaxed ambivalence to firecracker intensity, another bizarre diatribe from Jim Boeheim, and a number of great games befitting the time of the season where so much is on the line.  Let’s jump in…

Note: For our BGTD coverage from Saturday, please see these three posts examining the early games, the late afternoon/evening games, and the BracketBuster games.

No, That's Not the Actual Ref Screaming Amidst the Mayhem... (AP/N. Harnik)

Your Watercooler Moment.  1, 2, 3, 4… The last time that the top four teams in the national polls lost in the same week of action, Barack Obama was an unknown state senator in Illinois and Saddam Hussein was hiding in a hole in somebody’s backyard.  It was November 2003, and the names Bieber, Gaga and Twitter had no meaning to anybody yet, but UConn, Duke, Michigan State and Arizona each dropped a game over Thanksgiving week that year and the result was a significant re-ordering of the poll.  The big difference this time around is that we’re two weeks from the end of the season as opposed to two weeks from the start, so the likelihood of four established teams dropping games over the same week was far more unlikely.  So what happened, exactly?

We already knew that #1 Kansas lost to K-State in rough-and-tumble fashion last Monday.  But the next three teams waited until the weekend to join the polling bloodbath. It began on Saturday with the first game of the day — Steve Lavin’s rejuvenated and tough-as-nails St. John’s program took down #4 Pittsburgh on the back of Dwight Hardy’s 19 points and his tap dance routine along the baseline to win the game.  It was the cherry on top of the sundae in a season of breakthroughs for the Red Storm program, and as you can see below, Madison Square Garden has become something more than just the place where Amare and (now) Melo play.

A little later Saturday afternoon, #2 Texas was in trouble at Nebraska late when its vaunted defense and some brain-farts on the part of the Huskers led to a ridiculous 12-1 in a span of thirty-four seconds to tie the game in the final minute, 65-all.  What appeared to be a major meltdown in Lincoln, though, turned to bedlam as Doc Sadler’s team regained its composure enough to hit their FTs down the stretch and notch possibly their biggest win in years.  UT is more than its individuals, but when Jordan Hamilton struggles as he did on Saturday (3-16 FG), the Horns have trouble putting enough points on the board against quality teams.  With the win, Nebraska has vaulted itself back onto the bubble — with a favorable schedule down the stretch, the Huskers could potentially get back into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in thirteen seasons.  Nice RTC, fellas.

On Sunday it was Ohio State’s turn to again do battle with a Big Ten road crowd and team dead set on knocking off the much-hyped Buckeyes.  Purdue’s E’Twaun Moore ensured that the home crowd got what they paid for, as the senior guard went Kemba/Jimmer on the Big Ten leaders, scoring in just about every possible way en route to a superb 38/4/5 asst afternoon on 13-18 shooting.  His 13-point stretch over the last three-plus minutes of the first half was as impressive an offensive display as we’ve seen all season, punctuated by an acrobatic circus shot layup (see below) that told the viewers that this was going to be his game.  Talk has increased about Purdue as a legitimate Final Four contender after wins over OSU and Wisconsin last week, but the Boilermakers are an excellent home team.  We’re not as sold on Matt Painter’s team outside the friendly confines of Mackey Arena.

There you have it.  Three of the top four losing over the weekend, and nobody having a clue as to how to rank the top six today.  The AP Poll had six different teams receiving #1 votes, while the ESPN/Coaches had five.  Even the RTC poll, consisting of only six voters, had four different teams ranked at the top.  The takeaway from this weekend, and really, much of the season, is that there are a bunch of really good teams but certainly no great ones.  The NCAA Tournament could look a lot more like the 1997 (Arizona), 2003 (Syracuse), or 2006 (Florida) versions given this season’s continuing and obvious level of parity.

Your Watercooler Moment, Pt. II.  Another Diatribe From Jim Boeheim.  Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim must really be frustrated with his team this season.  The smiles and self-knowing mockery that he engaged with the media last season appears to have migrated south with the rest of the snowbirds.  After tonight’s win (note we said “win”) at Villanova, Boeheim again lashed out at the media for its stupid questions and representations about his team. Mike Miller at MSNBC has the goods here (via Soft Pretzel Logic), and we’re a little bit at a loss ourselves as to why Boeheim is acting like such a prima donna lately.  With respect to the questions about “toughening” up one’s team, he can choose to not believe in such a thing but we dare say that he probably does.  Most coaches who have been doing this for as long as he has would probably believe there’s real team-building value in gutting out close wins ten times even if you end up losing a similarly-situated game in the postseason.  We weren’t at the presser in Philadelphia tonight, but it sounded like someone arguing for the sake of being argumentative.  Lighten up, Jim — the university pays you a LOT of money to answer a few minutes of questions after each game, not to berate people and make them feel stupid for doing their jobs.

This Weekend’s Quick Hits…

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The Lede.  Big Monday came through with a shocker tonight, and only part of it involved Jim Boeheim attacking the Syracuse media for what he deemed unfair reporting.  We’ll discuss this more below, but did Kansas State turn the proverbial corner on its season this evening with a superb showing against its bitter rival, or did we just witness the 2011 version of Devan Downey knocking out #1 Kentucky?

Start of Something or Highlight of the Year For Pullen?

Your Watercooler Moment.  K-State Obliterates #1 Kansas, a Nation Wonders How? Everyone in the building and watching on television knew exactly the moment when it was over.  Not over in the scoreboard sense necessarily — after all, there was enough time for a big comeback by Kansas — but over in the heads-hanging, back-breaking sense.  With about ten minutes to go in the game, K-State’s Jacob Pullen, who had broken out of his season-long slump with 25 points in the first half, shot a long three that spun around the rim, bounced up to hit the backboard, and dropped right back in.  It’s the kind of shot you only get when the night is yours, and Pullen, on his way to a 38-point masterpiece, the second-most points scored in a game against a #1 team ever, drained it for his fourth trey of the evening.  It was almost as if all of the team’s pent-up frustrations about preseason expectations, the suspensions, the finger-pointing, the NIT flap, the overriding average-ness of this team, came out in one glorious game against its hated rival.  As it turns out, the Wildcat victory tonight represented only the third such win in its last 45 tries against Kansas, a streak so unbelievable on its face that you start to think maybe K-State should only agree to play the Jayhawks when they’re ranked #1 in the polls (two of those three wins came as such).  As for tonight, Kansas State hit everything it threw up (56% FG), out-rebounded (+4) and generally out-toughed Bill Self’s top-ranked team.  They played like a team with something to earn, while Kansas played like a team with something to lose.  The big question is whether this transcendental win for Frank Martin’s guys means anything in the long run — conventional wisdom is that KSU still has some work to do before getting itself back onto the NCAA bubble, but only Florida State, Wisconsin and the Wildcats have wins over #1 teams this season.  It’s not a matter of whether — obviously if Frank Martin’s team can beat KU by nearly twenty points — they have the capacity to win four of five games the rest of the way (we’re assuming Texas in Austin is a loss).  But will the same Pullen and the same aggressive defense that we saw in Bramlage Coliseum tonight show up against the likes of Oklahoma and Nebraska, Missouri and Iowa State?  Kansas, on the other hand, once again looked completely listless in a game where we can only presume that they expected K-State to kneel down and take the beating like they had done in Lawrence a few weeks ago.  That’s what really scares us about Bill Self’s team — it’s not that they don’t have the talent and experience in droves, because they do — it’s that, as we saw in the Northern Iowa game last year and a few other near-misses since then, sometimes they’re just not mentally all the way there.  Tonight the Jayhawks were down 30-16 (thanks to a 20-8 run) before they seemed to realize they were going to have to play to win the game.  They are good enough to win the national title when playing full bore, but as Self alluded to in the postgame, if they think they can waltz in and intimidate teams with their pedigree alone, they’re vulnerable to getting shocked.  Pullen and K-State definitely did the shocking tonight; it’s up to those capable individuals to determine if it’s sustainable.

Your Watercooler Moment, Pt. II.  Boeheim Wins #850, Trashes Media Afterward. Coming into tonight’s game having lost five of seven games and two in a row, the Orange needed a home win to remind everyone of the team that ran out to an 18-0 start earlier this season.  Despite the same bugaboo that has caused major troubles in the Syracuse defense appearing again (three-point defense), the Orange were able to shut down WVU in the last eight minutes of the game, holding the Mountaineers to a mere three points during that stretch and pulling away.  WVU hit 11-22 from deep, though, which means that the vaunted 2-3 defense employed by SU is still having trouble getting to shooters; luckily, West Virginia didn’t appear to have much other offense than that outside the arc (6-25 from two).  The win moved Syracuse to 21-6 (8-6 Big East) and was also Jim Boeheim’s 850th win in his career (second only to Coach K among active coaches).  Boeheim used the post-game presser to rip the media about their preseason predictions and comparing his record against other coaches.  Here’s the entire thing, but we’d suggest you watch starting at around 3:00 to get the gist of it.

Tweet of the Night.  Complete agreement… during the Kansas-KSU game, it was incredibly distracting.

The Lede.  Who knew that a medium-sized flyover state known more for its brats and cheese could become the center of the American sports universe, even if just for a bit?  But with the top ten seasons of both the Wisconsin Badger football and basketball teams (now including victories over #1 Ohio State in both sports), plus a little Super Bowl-winning team a couple hours to the northeast in Green Bay, a fair argument could be made, couldn’t it?  This too shall pass, but what will not is that Bo Ryan is an unbelievable coach and we should just go ahead and slot his teams into the top twenty every season regardless of the personnel he has returning.  Honestly, it’s getting a little ridiculous just how successful this guy is year after year.

Jordan Taylor: King of Madison, Wisconsin (Cap Times/A. Mertz)

Your Watercooler Moment.  Unbeaten Ohio State Goes Down.  When the nation’s #1 team dunks, bombs and outmuscles you in your house on its way to a fifteen-point lead in the second half, most teams wilt as quickly as those flowers you bought for your girlfriend surely will about 48 hours from now.  Wisconsin does not wilt.  In fact, the Badgers don’t even bend much, at least not in their Big 10 House of Horrors known as the Kohl Center.  Matching like with like, Bo Ryan’s team simply upped its resolve, made some stops and ripped off a 15-0 run of its own (ten points by Jordan Taylor) to tie the game at the 9:49 mark.  The last ten minutes of this game represented some of the most exciting basketball of the season, with each team taking turns showing how to score until Taylor (and his 24/4/7 assts) created some separation with his fifth three-pointer of the game at the 5:34 mark.  From that point on, it was clear that the Badgers were going to win the game and put an end to the Buckeyes’ unbeaten season, in much the same way that their football counterparts had last October 16 at Camp Randall Stadium.  When OSU cut the lead to two with just under a minute to go, it was the floppy-haired Mike Bruesewitz direct from central casting who shot-faked and nailed a ginormous three to effectively salt the game away and set the Kohl Center on fire.  At the end of the game, there was the obligatory RTC, as it was only the second time in history that the Badgers had knocked off a #1 team, and this particular OSU team was also the last remaining unbeaten.  Full and complete coverage of the court was achieved, as viewed in the video below.  Well done, Badgers.

This Weekend’s Quick Hits…

• Pitt Without Ashton Gibbs.  It was one thing to win the Backyard Brawl without Ashton Gibbs on the floor last Monday night; but to waltz into the Pavilion on ESPN Gameday and beat the Wildcats in their on-campus building where they had not lost in four years?  Very impressive work, Panthers.  We realize that Villanova played with Corey Stokes as well, but on this night it was Jamie Dixon’s team who was simply tougher than Jay Wright’s.  The physical play and three technical fouls as a result are characteristic of Pitt’s wheelhouse, and when push came to shove, it was the Panthers showing that they are indeed the Big East’s best team and a possible #1 seed next month.  Their toughest remaining game is a trip to Louisville, but would it surprise anyone if the Panthers ran the table the rest of the way to 17-1?
• Norris Cole’s He-Man Game.  20/10 nights are damn impressive in the college game, but try doubling it.  Norris Cole became just the second player in the last fifteen seasons to drop a 40/20 in a single game — and the other was an athletic specimen you might have heard of named Blake Griffin (40/23 against Texas Tech in 2009).  Cole went for an absurd 41/20/9 assts against Youngstown State on Saturday, leaving us to wonder if he also ran the sound system, operated the scoring table and mopped up the soda residue and popcorn stains afterward.  Sheesh…  We know that Cole has had a handful (three, to be exact) of double-figure rebounding games this season, but how a 6’2, 170-pounder can pull down twenty makes no sense to us — he’s up for the Cousy Award as the best point guard in America, and with Cleveland State near the top of the Horizon League standings, let’s all hope that we get to see this kid play on the biggest stage this March.

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The Lede.  It might have been a Super Weekend elsewhere in the American sports universe, but this weekend’s college hoops slate left a lot to be desired.  There were few good matchups on paper, and even fewer in practice.  It’s hard to get through approximately 165 games, though, and not have something worthwhile to talk about, so we’ll of course ferret out the best of the weekend here.

Derrick Williams & Arizona Are On the Rise (Az Daily Star/D. Sanders)

Your Watercooler Moment.  Game of the Year? Arizona Beats Cal in a Regular Season Classic.  RTC Live was lucky enough to be there for the 107-105 thriller, and we’re not sure we’ve seen a more back-and-forth, exciting game in a random regular season setting.  Certainly not in person.  The comparison that immediately comes to mind was the 2007 Texas-Oklahoma State game, another game where nobody outside of certain local viewing areas actually saw the action.   With around ten minutes to go, in what had to that point been a fun high-scoring game that visiting Arizona appeared to be in control of, the Wildcats’ Solomon Hill elbowed Jorge Gutierrez on the break, drawing an intentional foul and handing the momentum back to Cal.  From that point on, with the score 59-54, both teams punched and counter-punched each other in a classic final twenty-five minutes of action with more twists and turns than Highway 1 up the Big Sur coast.  The game ultimately changed hands seventeen times and was tied fourteen other times, including after regulation and a first and second overtime.  So many players stepped up for both sides, including Pac-10 FrOY candidate Allen Crabbe (27/7), POY candidate Derrick Williams (12/18), but the star of stars on this night was UA’s sophomore guard Lamont “MoMo” Jones.  The brash New Yorker hit a tough runner (and-1) from behind the basket to send the game into the first overtime, then drained a 22-footer with six seconds to go in the second overtime to tie the game, then made the go-ahead layup with a minute left in the third overtime.  “Just a day in the life of MoMo Jones,” he said afterward, but with Arizona now at 9-2 in the Pac-10 and a game ahead of UCLA in the loss column and two games ahead of league favorite Washington, people around the country should do themselves the favor to learn that Sean Miller’s desert rats are more than simply a dominant post player on the blocks in Williams.  This Wildcat team is a year or more ahead of schedule, but should anyone who has tracked Miller’s career to this point be surprised?

This Weekend’s Quick Hits…

[ed. note: our BGTD coverage of Saturday’s games is located here, in three parts.  Early Games; Late Afternoon Games; Evening Games.]

• Buckeyes Roll On.  After Ohio State’s Sunday win over Minnesota in Minny, the Buckeyes are 24-0 with its next game scheduled on Saturday, February 12, in Madison.  The last time any team has gone this late in the year with an unbeaten record was Memphis in 2007-08, a team that didn’t lose until February 23 that year.  The last time a power conference team went undefeated this late was the 2005 Illinois Fighting Illini, who ran out to a 29-0 record before losing in the final regular season game against none other than Ohio State.  That Illini team also went to the national title game before losing a close one to North Carolina.  Certainly with a diversified offense that includes Jared Sullinger as its centerpiece (18/13 against the Gophers), OSU has designs on a similar or even better track than their conference brethren from a half-decade ago.
• A Wildcat Sort of Saturday.  We mentioned the Arizona Wildcats above, but a couple of other sets of Cats had pretty a pretty good weekend as well.  The Northwestern Wildcats kept what little NCAA pulse they have alive with a nice win over Illinois in Evanston, and the Kansas State Wildcats did likewise with a one-point road win over Iowa State.  Jacob Pullen used the bounce to get to the rim for the game-winning layup with three seconds remaining.  Neither of these wins are blockbusters, but they’re the type that you simply must have if you have designs on making a final push.  The Big 10 Wildcats next five games are against unranked teams, while the Big 12 Wildcats face similar in three of the next four — does either team have the guts to save its once-promising season?  Other Wildcat teams — Davidson, New Hampshire, Villanova and Weber State — also won on Saturday.  Apologies to Kentucky and Bethune-Cookman, though, the sole losing felines.

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