Ed. Note: for all of the posts in the RTC 09-10 Class Schedule series, click here.

As we continue our ongoing feature RTC’s Class Schedule for the upcoming 2009-10 season, let’s delve into the slate for the national runner-up of a season ago out of the Big 10: Michigan State. The Spartans entered last season with expectations to win their first regular season conference title since 2000-01 and accomplished said feat with a 15-3 Big 10 record, overcoming two stunning losses at home to Penn State and Northwestern along the way. The Spartans entered the tournament with high hopes as a #2 seed and, after dodging two bullets from USC and Kansas, smoked #1 seed Louisville and edged past Connecticut in the national semifinals before running into the buzzsaw known as North Carolina. With 2008-09’s successful season in the past, Tom Izzo is moving on with his point guard (Kalin Lucas), sharpshooter (Durrell Summers), enigma (Raymar Morgan), sophomore stud (Delvon Roe) and emerging big man (Draymond Green) all in the fray. Michigan State fans will accept nothing less than Tom Izzo’s sixth Final Four appearance this season in East Lansing.

Let’s take an in-depth look at the game-by-game journey Michigan State will have to endure if they wish to meet such lofty expectations. The official schedule can be found here:

Non-Conference Schedule Rank: 9.5. Tom Izzo never backs down from a challenge. Last season, Izzo traveled to the loaded Old Spice Classic, a trip halted by a stunning defeat at the hands of Maryland. He also faced Texas in Houston and North Carolina at Ford Field for the ACC/Big Ten challenge. Both the latter contests will also be featured in the 2009-10 edition of Michigan State’s non-conference slate, but this time as true road games rather than semi-neutral floors. That’s right, on December 1 the Spartans will play UNC in Chapel Hill and, on December 22, Texas in Austin. Rarely do you see a team with the status of Michigan State play such challenging road contests in non-conference play. Victories in either venue will provide Izzo with a significant quality win to tout during arguments for top seeds in March. Izzo also signed up his Spartans for the Legends Classic in November in Atlantic City where he’ll face Florida and either Rutgers or Massachusetts in the final (you’d think it would be Florida-Michigan State in the final, but I digress). Another program with a perennially loaded non-conference slate is Gonzaga. Mark Few’s team will travel to East Lansing for one of the top November contests, even with Austin Daye, Jeremy Pargo and Josh Heytvelt departed.

Cupcake City: In between the two road games in North Carolina and Texas, Michigan State packed in some much-deserved cupcakes. The challengers will be Wofford, The Citadel (that game being played in Charleston, oddly enough), Oakland and IPFW. While The Citadel had a surprising 20-win campaign last year, the only team that may be able to stay on the floor with Michigan State is Oakland, a 23-13 squad from a year ago that nearly toppled North Dakota State in the Summit final. Michigan State will also face Florida Gulf Coast and Texas-Arlington at home.

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Ed. Note: for all of the posts in the RTC 09-10 Class Schedule series, click here.

I’m extremely proud to introduce a new feature here at Rush the Court, one you’ll be seeing every few days or so up until the much-anticipated opening tip in November, called RTC’s 09-10 Class Schedule. The premise is simple: dissect and analyze the schedules of the most notable teams in the nation this season, from the easiest to the hardest stretch, the most intense rivalry to the early season tune-ups, upset watch to RTC potential. If your team is lingering around the expected preseason top-25, their schedule will be scrutinized in the next couple of months. There’s no rhyme or reason to the madness (we won’t be going conference-by-conference or ranking each team), just a prominent school every few days as the releases begin to trickle out from the respective schools.

We figured it would be appropriate to begin the feature with the team expected to represent the class of college basketball in the 2009-10 campaign: Kansas. Here’s the official team schedule:

Non-Conference Schedule Rank (ranked 1 thru 10, 10 being the most difficult): 8. Bill Self realizes he must challenge his Jayhawks if they wish to reach the promised land in April this season, and while the Big 12 certainly provides distinct challenges, Self has loaded the non-conference slate with three games against potential top-15 competition and two more storied programs on the fringe of being ranked. Kansas will take on Michigan and California at home in back-to-back contests in December, two teams returning plenty of talent from a season ago and featuring playmakers like Manny Harris and Jerome Randle. Self also scheduled a home-and-home with Tennessee (last season’s barn burner) and the Jayhawks will make their return trip on January 10 in one of the more anticipated non-conference games this season. Other than Tennessee and a trip to Philly to take on Temple, Kansas’ only true road game during non-conference play is a meeting with UCLA as part of the Big 12/Pac 10 Hardwood Series. They also travel a short ways to St. Louis for a matchup with Memphis. While Kansas playing such big name schools sounds sexy, neither should pose an enormous conundrum for a loaded KU squad. Overall, give Self credit for challenging his team rather than padding the record. The RPI will notice when they’re battling for a #1 seed in February and March.

Cupcake City: The Jayhawks may have scheduled their fair share of below-average competition, but Self did a fairly decent job of bringing teams to Lawrence with a recent history of success. Even the typical November and December schools are somewhat formidable in the big picture (they may not be against KU, of course): Radford, Belmont and Cornell have recent tournament experience, Oakland is the favorite in the Summit and La Salle is one of the sleepers in the Atlantic 10. The portion of the schedule covered with frosting, though, has to be November 19- December 2 with Central Arkansas, Tennessee Tech and Alcorn State coming to Lawrence. I’m not going out on a limb when I say some lopsided scores could be in order.

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It’s been a light few days, but we’re here to get you caught up on the few things surfacing…

• Florida’s Alex Tyus was transferring, now he’s not.  This confused us until we remembered that he learned from Donovan two-step from the master himself. 
• Bruce Pearl’s romantic overtures know no bounds… not even the head football coach’s wife (not that we blame him). 
• Oddly, USC is no longer recruiting big man Renardo Sidney (who moved to LA three yrs ago for marketing purposes).  Now he may be heading back home to Mississippi St?  Stay tuned on this one.
• Will Syracuse be the one-year football destination for Greg Paulus?
• The NBA’s early entry deadline was Sunday – here are a few of the last-minute entries:  Mississippi St.’s Jarvis Varnado (no agent), UConn’s Ater Majok (no agent), Tennessee’s Tyler Smith (no agent), USC’s Taj Gibson (no agent) and BYU’s Jonathan Tavernari (no agent). 
• Returning:  Iowa St.’s Craig Brackins (a major coup), Michigan’s Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims.
• Gary Parrish doesn’t believe that Davidson will recapture the Curry magic for quite some time. 
• It’s hard to believe this didn’t happen now that the FBI has brought charges against Karen Sypher for attempting to extort Rick Pitino for $10M, two cars, a paid-off house and college tuition.  Wow.  Regardless, we have to agree with Goodman when he says nothing good is ultimately coming from all of this.
• He was only “holding it” for someone named “Luck.”  Welcome to Nevada basketball in the post-Mark Fox era.
• Wichita St.’s Gregg Marshall got a one-year contract extension (to 2015) after an improved second year at the school.
• Good to see the NCAA gumshoes going after the big boys like Northeastern, who received two years probation on Friday.

After a relatively weak set of 1st round games (except for very late last night), we’re looking to forward to our beloved tournament returning to form with a strong set of 2nd round games. One of the benefits of the lack of shocking upsets in the first round games is that we get a good set of 2nd round games that won’t be blowouts. Right? Anyways, here is your slate of games.

• 1:05 PM: #6 UCLA at #3 Villanova – RTC Live will be there
• 3:20 PM: #10 Maryland vs. #2 Memphis
• 3:35 PM: #9 Texas A&M vs. #1 UConn
• 5:40 PM: #5 Purdue vs. #4 Washington
• 5:45 PM: #8 LSU vs. #1 UNC
• 5:50 PM: #10 Michigan vs. #2 Oklahoma
• 8:10 PM: #12 Western Kentucky vs. #4 Gonzaga
• 8:15 PM: #7 Texas vs. #2 Duke

We’ll be starting this post around 3:20 so head over to the aforementioned RTC Live before that time for our coverage of the start of round 2.

3:23 PM: Memphis starts off like they did in the 1st round with a 35-second violation that wasn’t called because Maryland stole the ball as the shot clock expired. Greivis Vasquez just got called for his first foul 57 seconds into the game. That’s definitely something to watch for.

3:27 PM: Nice run by Memphis to silence any of the early doubts after their ugly opening game. This is the Memphis team I put in the Final 4.

3:40 PM: Sorry for the delay. I was busy responding to an e-mail from the NCAA trying to get you coverage from the NCAA East Regional (they’re pretty myopic in Indianapolis). Anyways, back to the game. . . John Calipari has to be  pleased with this start. His Tigers have come out much sharper than they did against Cal State-Northridge.

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North Carolina v. Radford (#1 v. #16)

This is probably the most interesting 1 v. 16 in the tournament. North Carolina will be heavily favored, and will probably win the game, but the Radford Highlanders are no slouch. They have four players that score in double digits, led by 7-foot-0 Artsiom Parakhouski, who is leading the team in scoring (16.3), rebounding (11.2). Matching Parakhouski with Tyler Hansbrough will be fun to watch. One analyst said the Tar Heels don’t even need to start Ty Lawson, but this is the NCAA Tournament, if he is ready to go, he will play.

The Tar Heels are more talented and deeper than Radford, so this wouldn’t be the game to hope for a monumental upset. Radford’s best win is against VMI in the Big South Conference Final, and they have been blown out by every team they have played in a major conference. I will still tune in, just to see Hansborough post up Parakhouski.

LSU v. Butler (#8 v. #9)

This game pits two teams that were under-seeded by the NCAA and as a result, will give the viewers a competitive, fast-paced game to watch. Both teams are in the middle of the tournament pack in terms of offensive and defensive efficiency but they both have great athletes and fun players to watch.

The key match-up will be on the wing where Butler’s Gordon Hayward and LSU’s Marcus Thornton will see a lot of each other. Both players can light it up offensively in a number of ways. Matt Howard and Chris Johnson should be a good one down low. Johnson has a significant height advantage, but Howard scores  a lot of points of hustle, and can be a crafty scorer in the post.

Illinois v. Western Kentucky (#5 v. #12)

Everyone’s trendy upset pick is looking even better with the news that the Illini senior point guard, and best defender, Chester Frazier, is a “long shot” to play according to coach Bruce Weber. But, the Hilltoppers are not the same team they were last year when they made it to the Sweet 16 before losing to UCLA; however, they are good.

Illinois has not played well away from home (4-6), and Portland is quite a trip from Champaign. The Illini have not shot well from the field, and they will need to get Mike Davis (11.6 pts/game, 53.2 FG%) involved early if they want to keep up. The Hilltoppers have four players between 6-foot-1 and 6-foot-5 who average double digits and they will run away with this one if the Illini aren’t careful.

Gonzaga v. Akron (#4 v. #13)

I don’t think this game will be as close as many people think. The ‘Zags are one of the hottest teams in the country having won 18 out of their last 20 games, and dismantled Saint Mary’s 83-58 in the WCC Final.

The ‘Zags are in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency, and Akron just does not have the firepower or the athleticism to keep up with Gonzaga for 40 minutes. Akron has the advantage in depth though. The Zips can go ten deep, and defend well. If they can wear down Jeremy Pargo, they have a chance.

Arizona State v. Temple (#6 v. #11)

Anyone who thinks these teams are both one-man shows is sadly mistaken. There is absolutely no doubt the Sun Devils’ James Harden and the Owls’ Dionte Christmas can take over a game offensively, the there will be another battle to keep an eye on down low.

ASU’s Jeff Pendergraph (14.5/8.4/66.5%) and Temple’s Lavoy Allen (10.9/8.9/57.9%) will be banging on the low blocks, and crashing the glass will be extremely important for both teams. The role players will be the deciding factor in this game, and if ASU point guard Derek Glasser minimizes mistakes, and finds Harden often, ASU has the advantage over the surprising Owls.

Syracuse v. Stephen F. Austin (#3 v. #14)

The Orange enter the tournament playing some of their best basketball of the season, and despite their fatiguing run through the Big East Tournament are a heavy favorite over the Lumberjacks. Jonny Flynn and Andy Rautins have been absolutely on fire, and there is no one on the Lumberjacks roster to match up with them.

The Lumberjacks are an interesting case. They are in the top 20 in defensive efficiency, but are 242^nd in offensive efficiency. They beat Drake in December, but they also lost by 16 to Arkansas and 14 to Texas Tech, and neither one of those teams are as good as the ‘Cuse. The Lumberjacks will rotate in a lot of guys, and they only stand a chance if Syracuse isn’t fresh and comes out slow.

Clemson v. Michigan (#7 v. #10)

Both teams and their coaches come into the game with something to prove. The Tigers have to prove they are for real this year, and that they can make noise in the tournament, and the Wolverines need to prove their system works outside of the plodding Big Ten.

The game will feature two of the more athletic combo forwards in Clemson’s Trevor Booker and Michigan’s DeShawn Sims. It will be interesting to see if the two guard one another. But, the Wolverine offense goes as Manny Harris goes, but he is inconsistent as he has nine games with single-digit point totals. If Clemson’s KC Rivers can frustrate Harris, the Wolverines will have a tough time offensively.

Oklahoma v. Morgan State (#2 v. #15)

On paper, the Sooners have a clear advantage in every facet of the game, but the Bears have beaten both DePaul and Maryland, and played close games with Mississippi and St. Mary’s. The problem is, they don’t have anyone who can guard Blake Griffin, or Willie Warren.

Oklahoma has been struggling late and if ever there was a time to strike for Todd Bozeman’s club, now is the time. But they might not have enough weapons to keep up with the Sooners, and Griffin will get to have his way on the low blocks.

Michigan (#10, South, Kansas City pod)

vs. Clemson (#7)

Thurs. 3/19 @ 7:10pm
Vegas Line:  Michigan +5

General Profile
Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan
Conference: Big 10, at-large
Coach: John Beilein, 30-34
08-09 Record: 20-13, 10-10
Last 12 Games: 6-6
Best Win: vs. Duke, 81-73, 12/06
Worst Loss: @ Iowa, 60-70, 2/22
Off. Efficiency Rating: 111.4, 41st
Def. Efficiency Rating: 95.5, 67th

Nuts ‘n Bolts
Star Player(s): Manny Harris (17/7/4 assts); DeShawn Sims (16/7)
Unsung Hero: The freshmen corps of Laval Lucas-Perry, Zach Novak and Stu Perry
Potential NBA Draft Pick(s): None
Key Injuries: None
Depth: 35.3%, 72nd nationally (Percentage of minutes played by reserves)
Achilles Heel: The really good Beilein teams can shoot it from deep.  This team can’t (33%, 10th in the Big 10).
Will Make a Deep Run if…: Harris and Sims both play well and getting help from their freshman teammates.
Will Make an Early Exit if…: Either of the two has an off game and the threes aren’t dropping.

NCAA History
Last Year Invited: 1998, lost 2d round to UCLA 85-82
Streak: 1
Best NCAA Finish: 1989, National Champions
Historical Performance vs. Seed (1985-present): +0.38 Ws per appearance

Other
Six Degrees to Detroit: Umm… other than the fact that Ford Field is only 38 miles away, both Harris and Sims are from the Motor City.
Distance to First Round Site: 751 miles to Kansas City.
School’s Claim to Fame: UM is a world-class academic institution and, of course, the Fab Five.
School Wishes It Could Forget: The whole sordid Ed Martin scandal surrounding the aforementioned F5.
Prediction: Befitting a young team, Michigan has been terrible on the road (3-8); there’s really no reason to believe that they’re going to win a neutral site game against a more experienced team like Clemson.
Major RTC stories: The Fraud Five or Fab 5?

Preview written by Rush the Court

West Virginia (#6, Midwest, Minneapolis Pod)
vs. Dayton (#11)
Fri. 3/20 @ 3:00 PM
Vegas Line: West Virginia, -8.5

General Profile
Location: Morgantown, West Virginia
Conference: Big East, at large
Coach: Bob Huggins, 47-21
08-09 Record: 24-11, 10-8
Last 12 Games: 8-4
Best Win: 74-60, Pittsburgh, 3/12/2009
Worst Loss: 65-61, Cincinnati, 2/26/2009
Off. Efficiency Rating: 115.3, 15th
Def. Efficiency Rating: 88.0, 7th

Nuts ‘n Bolts
Star Players: Da’Sean Butler – 17.3 ppg/6.0 rpg; Alex Ruoff – 15.9 ppg
Unsung Hero: Devin Ebanks – 10.4 ppg/7.7 rpg
Potential NBA Draft Pick(s): Devin Ebanks – 8th overall in 2010; Da’Sean Butler – 41st overall in 2010
Key Injuries: Joe Mazzulla – out for season (shoulder)
Depth: 25.5% (289 nationally); percentage of minutes played by reserves
Achilles Heel: Inconsistency. WVU is the most inconsistent at-large team in the tourney, and 325th out of 344 in NCAA Division I. Since the start of conference play, their longest win streak is three games.
Will Make a Deep Run if…: Freshman Devin Ebanks continues to post personal bests in points and rebounds like he did in the Big East tournament.
Will Make an Early Exit if…: The Mountaineers keep up this hot-then-cold phenomenon that plagued them during the season.

NCAA History
Last Year Invited: 2008, Sweet 16
Streak: This is WVU’s 3rd straight trip.
Best NCAA Finish: 1959 Final Four
Historical Performance vs. Seed (1985-present): Not enough data (requires 8 bids in the period).

Other
Six Degrees to Detroit: Before hiring current head coach Bob Huggins, the WVU basketball team was under the charge of John Beilein. Beilein now coaches at Michigan, and his star player, Manny Harris, is a Detroit native.
Distance to First Round Site: 936 miles.
School’s Claim to Fame: The man on the NBA logo, Jerry West, is WVU’s greatest basketball alum, holding the school records for points and rebounds.
School Wishes It Could Forget: When football coach Rich Rodriguez left Morgantown for the University of Michigan, many Mountaineer fans were not pleased. Rodriguez and his family were the target of hate mail, vandalism, and death threats from fans angered by his departure.
Prediction: On paper, West Virginia looks like a team that can beat Kansas and Michigan State to make it to the Midwest Regional Final. However, the wild inconsistency that characterized the regular season will show up in the tournament. WVU loses in the Sweet 16, just like 2008.
Major RTC stories: Where 2008-09 Happens: Reason #20 Why We Love College Basketball and Huggins Takes the Fall

Preview written by Matt the Intern of Rush the Court

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

Looking Back
As Lester Bangs told William Miller, “you’ll meet them all again on their long journey to the middle.” He could just as well have been talking to most of the Big Ten this season, as we now see 5 conference teams bunched up with 7 or 8 losses, all fighting for their NCAA Tournament lives. Penn State got a big boost from their ugly 38-33 victory at Illinois, then lost a winnable game at Ohio State to rejoin the masses. Penn State now has a 3-2 record against the top of the conference (Michigan State, Purdue, and Illinois), with a home game still remaining against the Illini. This ability to hang with the best of the conference is their sole basis for an at-large bid – their best non-conference win was at Georgia Tech (currently 1-12 in the ACC), so the Nittany Lions figure to need at least 10 Big Ten wins to even be considered.

Speaking of Illinois, they shook off the Penn State loss to get a nice road victory at Ohio State, putting them back on track for at least third place in the conference. Mike Davis continued his superb sophomore season, dropping floater after floater over Ohio State’s shot-blockers. Davis shot 11 for 14 from the field to finish with 22 points to go along with 8 rebounds and continues to lead the Big Ten in Defensive Rebound %.

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Our intern comes through with a great set of links again today.

• With Pat Knight suspended for one game, Ray Glier at NBC says blame coaches for the sport’s poor behavior.
• With Arkansas Little-Rock right in the thick of the Sun Belt Conference Title race at 20-7 (13-3), Coach Steve Shields has kicked his leading scorer off the team.
• Michigan coach John Beilein defends his decision to bench star Manny Harris for OT in the crippling loss to Iowa.
• Better late than never. . . Joe Sheehan at BP with his BracketBusters wrap-up.
• Dennis Dodd thinks Kansas is just that good, but he acknowledges that Blake Griffin averages double the nine-point difference in the game.
• Searching For Billy Edelin thinks that Georgetown is cooked. So does the Dagger.
• Former Ohio State point guard Jamar Butler likes the wacky weed
• Former SI writer Steve Rushin comes out of nowhere to write a brief essay about Marquette basketball
• The Bracket Board takes a look at the stretch run to win conference tournaments
• Apparently Kyle Whelliston loves Gordon Hayward just as much as we do. He also takes the time to break down the mid-major game of the night.
• AP thinks that the Buckeyes miss their early entrees to the draft last year…So maybe that’s why BJ Mullens doesn’t play
• Forget the tournament, Mike Brey just wants “to make it interesting”…Umm Mike, thats nice and all, but I am not sure Fighting Irish fans or boosters agree with you.
• Andy Glockner at SI becomes the latest to analyze the bubble watch.