Running Late.  Apologies to the twelve loyal readers of this nightly update, but we ran into some other issues that got into the way of a fully fleshed-out post tonight.  So we’re just going to do some quick takes and leave it at that.  We’ll be back stronger tomorrow night.

• Northwestern 64, Purdue 61. It’s really quite the shame that NW didn’t get the Illinois and Michigan games; otherwise, the Cats would be a serious bubble team.  Did you know that NW has never made the Big Dance?  Not once.
• Louisville 95, Seton Hall 78. There is no more talented dynamic duo than T-Will (14/12) and Earl Clark (27/14), but does UL have consistent enough guard play to win it all?
• NC State 74, Boston College 69. BC is as tough of a team to figure as anybody this year – they should probably make sure to beat Ga Tech on Saturday to feel safe.
• UNC 86, Virginia Tech 78. Another season, another 17-12 Va Tech team.  Hansbrough with 22/15.
• Georgia Tech 78, Miami (FL) 68. Another major disappointment in the ACC.  Does 7-9 with a 40-something RPI get it done this year?
• Pittsburgh 90, Marquette 75.  The Marquette exposure tour continues.  We thought Dejuan Blair (23/9) was seriously going to Shaq-truct the basket stanchion on one thunderous dunk (start at the 0:29 point).

• Georgia 90, Kentucky 85. Completely unacceptable loss for Billy Gillispie at home at this point in the season.  Georgia hit 11-16 from long range.
• Vanderbilt 75, LSU 67.  LSU was unbeaten at home in the SEC before tonight.  AJ Ogilvy dropped 33/10 on the Tigers, who were clearly looking ahead to next week’s SEC Tourney after clinching the top seed last weekend.
• Memphis 69, Houston 60. For about a half-second, we thought Houston might have a chance in this one.  That’ll be 57 in a row in CreampuffUSA for the Tigers.
• Mississippi St. 80, Florida 71. Another devastating loss for an SEC bubble team.  Is anyone else wondering if the Donovan magic was based solely on his O4s – Noah, Green, Horford and Brewer?
• Minnesota 51, Wisconsin 46.  Huge bubble win for the Gophers to sweep the season series against the Badgers.  If it comes down to these two teams, Minny will have the advantage.
• Texas A&M 72, Colorado 66.  With five straight Big 12 wins to get to 8-7, TAMU is getting in.
• Missouri 73, Oklahoma 64.  Mizzou finished its home slate 18-0 and “held” Blake Griffin to 16/21 in setting up a shot at sharing the Big 12 regular season title with a win this weekend (+ another KU loss).
• Texas Tech 84, Kansas 65.  No explaining this one, but KU is still a team we really like in two weeks.

QnD Conf Tourney Update.

A-Sun.  Only one game where #2 seed ETSU advanced to the semis.

Patriot.  All four quarters were at home sites tonight.  #1 American, #2 Holy Cross and #4 Army advanced.  The upset was #6 Colgate knocking off #3 Navy in OT.  The semis will be Sunday and our RTC correspondent Rob Dauster will be at American to liveblog the game between Am.U. and Colgate.

Sun Belt.  Five games at campus sites also.  Higher seeds North Texas, MTSU, S. Alabama and Denver all advanced.  The only (mild) upset was Florida Intl. over La-Lafayette.  The quarters continue on Sunday.

Upcoming: The MVC gets started with its opening round tomorrow night, and the NEC and A-Sun have their entire quarterfinal rounds tomorrow.  The Big South will have its semifinals, and all of the top four seeds are still alive.  Should be fun.

Well it’s finally here. The month of March is upon us. Here at RTC, we’ll be coming up with a ridiculous number of posts (I’m not sure how we will be able to do it with our other “lives”) so be sure to check back throughout the month as we will have posts for conference recaps, our unique bubble watch, frequent bracket updates by our resident bracketologist Zach, our favorite NCAA tournament memories, and the most comprehensive NCAA tournament preview anywhere. Ever.

11:00 AM: Just to set the table for today (and before I run out to grab some lunch before the games start), we’ll be following all three of the major games today, which will all be on CBS. At noon, Dominic James-less #10 Marquette will travel to #6 Louisville. Then at 2 PM, #8 Missouri will travel to Lawrence to take on the defending national champs, #15 Kansas. (CBS will also be airing the Tennessee-Florida game at 2. We will be very unhappy if we end up with that game instead.) The last time these teams met, Missouri shocked the Jayhawks with a Zaire Taylor 10-footer to hand Kansas its only loss in their last 13 games. A win here for Kansas would essentially seal the Big 12 regular season title for Kansas since they own the tie-breaker over Oklahoma (thanks to Blake Griffin‘s absence). Finally at 4 PM, #9 Michigan State will go to #20 Illinois. Like the preceding game, a win here would essentially clinch the Big 10 regular season title for the Spartans. In addition, we will be following the aforementioned UT-UF game (hopefully online instead of on our TVs) as well as a handful of bubble match-ups (Providence at Rutgers, Cincinnati at Syracuse, Michigan at Wisconsin, and West Virginia at South Florida).

11:50 AM: If any of you are wondering if I might decide to ditch this and go outside to enjoy the beautiful March weather, here’s your answer. On a side note, I just saw myself on ESPN for the second time this season (thanks to the miracle of HD).

11:55 AM: Wow. I just saw the Blake Griffin play from yesterday where we went over the scorer’s table. Pretty impressive after his concussion against Texas.

Noon: CBS just announced they will be have an interview with Jamie Dixon at halftime. So the Pittsburgh fans might want to tune in for that if a top 10 match-up in their own conference wasn’t enough.

12:05 PM: Rick Pitino is wearing his Colonel Sanders suit for the white out. As the CBS guys mentioned, last year he had to switch at halftime. Let’s see if it is more effective this year.

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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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Normally, I would assume that most of you have seen the #1 team in the country getting knocked off, but thanks to some horrible TV scheduling only 2% (all numbers are estimates) of college basketball fans ended up seeing Providence beat Pittsburgh at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center (DDC) on Senior Night. While the 11,187 in attendance and a few fortunate television viewers were able to witness what makes college basketball our favorite sport, we know that many of you were less fortunate. That’s where RTC Aftermath comes in. As part of our RTC Live coverage we answer questions from fans and also bring those questions to the players and coaches to answer. Last night, we were at the DDC for the fourth installment of RTC Live. Our first three games (Wake Forest at Boston College, Miami at UNC, and Clemson at Boston College) were all solid games, but I don’t think any of them would qualify as memorable games from a pure basketball standpoint. Being in the Dean Smith Center for an ESPN GameDay was a fun experience, but nothing like last night.

Pre-Game: The Friar fans (at least the ones in the student section) got there pretty early. The Friar fans were a lot more intense than I expected, but looking back on it I seem to remember some PC grads telling me that their student section was pretty crazy. I think they were even more amped up than usual though because they were facing the #1 team in the country (even if the SportsTicker fax at the game still had them at #4) and it was Senior Night (something I wasn’t aware of until they started the ceremony). After the ceremony, which went on for quite a long time (8 seniors), the Friars and their fans made it clear pretty early that they weren’t going to go quietly on Senior Night.

First Half: As I mentioned in last night’s After the Buzzer, the Friars got out to a quick start jumping out to a 15-4 lead after the first 5 minutes. The primary reason that they were able to do this was  a strong opening 5 minutes by Jonathan Kale, who scored 6 points on 3/3 FG to open the game, and their ability to force Pitt into 5 turnovers that they converted into 9 points during that stretch. The Panthers were able to cut the lead to 6 with 5:01 left in the first half thanks to Ashton Gibbs who hit two 3-pointers, but the Friars then proceeded to blow the game open with 13-1 run to close the first half. At that point, the crowd and Rush the Court (who had thought that it might have been a mistake to travel over an hour down to Providence as opposed to 15 minutes down Commonwealth Avenue to the FSU–Boston College game) began to sense that something special might be happening at the “Dunk”.

Second Half: Pitt was able to cut into the Providence lead (up to 20 just 17 seconds into the 2nd half) getting it down to a 10-point game with 13:50 left in the game. The Panthers were able recover from the awful ball-handing (at the 15:26 mark of the 2nd half they have 5 assists and 12 turnovers compared to Providence with 14 assists and 3 turnovers) and seemed to have the momentum, but that quickly changed with a little over 10 minutes remaining in the game when DeJuan Blair picked up his 3rd and 4th fouls in a 17-second span that sent the Friar fans into a frenzy. With the low-post player that they couldn’t match-up with out of the game, Providence was able to get the lead back to 17 with 6:30 remaining. The Panthers were able to mount a furious comeback that nearly silenced the rabid Friar fans after Blair tipped in an Ashton Gibbs miss to make it a 5-point game with 50 seconds remaining. The Friars managed to hold them off despite not making a field goal in the last 4:21 of the game thanks to a lot of trips to the free throw line (18-of-25 in the 2nd half).

Rushing the Court
When you name your blog “Rush the Court”, you are expected to stay there (and possibly join in) when the fans rush the court. We managed to do just that (the only media entity to not run in fear, much less join in). Some of the better pictures are below (try rushing the court with a laptop in your hands sometime). If you have some pics, send them into rushthecourt@gmail.com.

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Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist.  He’ll be regularly out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next three months.

02.23.09 Bracketology

 Last Four In: Kansas State, San Diego State, Maryland, UNLV
Last Four Out: Michigan, Oklahoma State, Saint Mary’s, Miami (FL)
Next Four Out: Cincinnati, Southern Cal, Virginia Tech, Providence
Also Considered: Notre Dame, Temple, Nebraska, Georgetown, UAB, Rhode Island, Illinois State, Northern Iowa, Mississippi State

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It’s BracketBuster Saturday, and we’re back with another compelling edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite.  We don’t know how it is where you live today, but it’s rainy and chilly here at the RTC Western Compound, which means it’s a great day for huddling up on the couch, firing up the three tvs, ordering up some pie and watching hoops all day.   There are some pretty strong games on the slate today, starting with Butler v. Davidson early and finishing with BYU v. UNLV late.  Settle in and feel free to make your own observations in the comments section.

12:08pm. Oh no, Steph Curry’s mom is NOT at the Davidson game today!!!!  Who will the cameras show in the crowd?!?!!?  Oh yeah, Dell’s there.  Ok.  Whew.

12:10pm. Wonder how ESPN decides who gets to host these games?  Seems like a pretty big decision considering Butler and Davidson are so tough at home, and the loser could drop a seed line or two based on this game.  Curry doesn’t like quite as quick as normal so far – the ankle is probably a little tender.

12:17pm. Our new uber-intern sent over some interesting news today – looks like Patrick Patterson might go for Kentucky today against Tennesee (coming up at 1pm), and surprise of all surprises, the NCAA is investigating USC with respect to recruiting Daniel Hackett.   His dad is the strength and conditioning coach at USC (which is legal, btw).

12:30pm. There are a couple of other BB games that started at 11am, and the most interesting one is Northeastern at Wright St., which is on ESPN2.  NE is leading by six right now, while CAA sibling ODU is crushing Liberty and Seth Curry.

12:46pm. How many games this year have we watched Davidson only to hear some announcer talking about Steph Curry having an “off” game.  It would be nice if he’d just come out and blow up one of these nationally-televised games.   As it now stands, he’s 1-10 and 0-6 from three.

12:50pm. Interesting stat from Brad Nessler there – that if Curry continued his 30 ppg pace for another season-plus at Davidson, he could conceivably catch Pete Maravich’s all-time scoring total record.  Of course, Pistol Pete did it in three years, but that would be a phenomenal record to approach.  We’ll see if we can figure the math and get back on that.

12:52pm. Early afternoon bubble watch.  Miami is smoking BC in S. Florida at halftime (up 12) and ND is also up 12 at halftime on Providence.  These are both pretty much must-wins, although Notre Dame needs it a little more than Miami.

12:57pm. Somehow three of the top four CAA teams drew road games in the BracketBusters event.  So far, the CAA looks good.  VCU only lost by one at Nevada last night, and Northeastern is finishing off Wright St.  ODU already won, and it’ll be very interesting to see what George Mason can do at Creighton later this evening.

1:02pm. Wow, Doug Gottlieb just eviscerated Jay Williams as to why Georgetown was going to make the tournament.  He must have thought he was back on that motorcycle there.  No inside presence?  Except the best freshman big in the country, Greg Monroe.  We get his point about frontcourt depth, but we’re with Gottlieb here – we think Georgetown makes a run to get to 9-9 in the Big East.

1:06pm. We’ve got some 1pm games starting here, incl. Bruce Pearl’s orange blazer at Kentucky (speaking of bubbles), Buffalo at Vermont on the deuce, and the second half of ND-Providence on ESPN FC.  Oh, and did we mention Gus Johnson is in Lexington today.  Oh yes.

1:11pm. Thanks CBS for showing me a graphic telling me that UK is on a 5-0 run in the last 3:20…  or, to start the game.  Brilliant.

1:18pm. Ok, here’s the deal on Curry catching Maravich.  Curry had 2414 coming into today.  Maravich ended with 3667 pts.  If we assume eight more games this year (three regular season; three SoCon Tourney; two NCAA Tourney), and 35 games next year, that’s 42 games.  He’d have to average 29.84 over that stretch to pass him.  Since he’s averaging 29.0 already this season, this is eminently possible should he stick around another season.  That would be fairly cool to track next season – let’s hope he returns.

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Welcome back to another edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite. I’m back as your semi-regular host after a day off with John Stevens covering for me. Today is a kind of weird day of basketball with the best games later in the day going head-to-head against the NBA All-Star game. So hopefully everyone will be sticking with us throughout the day and the real basketball fans (the ones who actually like defense and competition) will stay with us into the night.

1:00 PM: Our early games today are Illinois at  Indiana on CBS and Clemson at Virginia on ESPN Full Court and ESPN360.com. We’ll be updating you with highlights of those games throughout the day, but like always if there is something going on that we are missing or we make a mistake leave us a message in the comment section.

1:10 PM: Illinois is up 10-7 early. Bruce Weber‘s club must be riding high after their amazing comeback at Northwestern in their last game. Clemson is tied 3-3 in Charlottesville with 15:54 left in the first half. I’m guessing today is Sean Singletary day at UVA today based on the parts of the pre-game that I caught. Singletary, a 3-time 1st team All-ACC player, is one of three players in ACC history (Danny Ferry and Johnny Dawkins being the others) to have 2,000 career points, 500 career assists, and 400 career rebounds.

1:25 PM: Illinois is up 15-7 as we go to a TV timeout. CBS just showed a graphic about Indiana’s tough losses this year by featuring the games they led, but lost. You know the Hooisers are having a bad year when having a lead of 2 points at some point during the game is highlighted as a tough loss. Meanwhile, UVA is up 16-7 with 11:54 as they head into a timeout as well.

1:30 PM: I just noticed the electronic board on the side of the court at Assembly Hall. I guess it’s a nice fan friendly feature and probably generates some revenue through ads, but I think it looks horrendous in this famous arena. I haven’t noticed it at Cameron Indoor, but I think they should avoid it in the historic arenas.

1:40 PM: Jeff Jordan just hit a jumper for Illinois. As we noted before, he was recently was given a scholarship at Illinois. For those of you who haven’t seen him play, we think you might have missed his only big play of the day if his performance this season is any indication of what we can expect today. He’ll probably be out there quite a bit since Indiana is awful so watch for #13 on Illinois.

1:45 PM: UVA is up 22-16 coming out of a timeout with 5:11 left in the first half. Illinois is up 27-13 with a little less than 5 minutes left in the first half. I’ll be focusing on the UVA-Clemson game for now unless the Illinois-Indiana game gets interesting.

1:55 PM: UVA is up 33-25 at half. That 3 by Terrence Oglesby with a little over a minute left in the first half was Clemson’s first of the day after the Tigers missed their first 10 straight. The Cavaliers might have a chance if the Tigers continue to have difficulty hitting from the outside. Trevor Booker has had a big first half with 10 of Clemson’s 25 points, but it wasn’t enough as none of the other Tigers are playing well today. Illinois is up 38-21 at half.

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Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist.   He’ll be regularly out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next three months.

Welcome to the first edition of Your Bubble Has Burst here on the new and improved RTC. I’m your resident bracketologist Zach Hayes here to give you a midweek update on the state of the all-important bubble, my favorite topic of conversation this time of year. I’ve classified every team in NCAA contention under four categories: locks (certainly in the field), comfortably in (they can pretty much depend on their name being called barring an epic collapse), work left to do (teams that need to win games to ensure their spot or risk being left out) and on the brink (teams not quite on the bubble that need to win and win often immediately). Let’s get right into it:

Note: all computer numbers prior to Thursday’s games.

Atlantic Coast

Locks: The three ACC locks- Duke, North Carolina and Clemson– are all likely top-four seeds in the NCAA Tournament. They boast RPIs in the top 15, with Duke landing at #4 and North Carolina at #5. The Tar Heels victory Wednesday in Durham drops Duke to a likely #2 seed with Clemson in the 3-4 range. These three teams should stay around this spot and are all Final Four threats in the top-heavy ACC.

Comfortably in: Wake Forest’s loss to their fourth unranked ACC team pushes them down a level. We’d still bet on them being a top-four seed on Selection Sunday, but you never know with this amount of youth, inexperience and inconsistency. Wins over Duke and Carolina help tremendously. Florida State has established themselves as a likely top-6 seed in the field by nearly defeating #1 seeds Pitt and North Carolina at home along with a huge comeback win at Clemson on Saturday. They also have excellent computer totals (20 RPI, 32 SOS) and 4 wins against the RPI top 50. The Seminoles need to stay focused due to a challenging schedule down the stretch, with vengeful Clemson and desperate-for-wins Miami and Virginia Tech visiting Tallahassee and trips to Wake, Duke, BC and Virginia Tech. There are no softies down the stretch.

Work left to do: Boston College could have used a win over Clemson Tuesday at home; instead, they risk going 0-4 (Duke and @ Miami) during a crucial ACC stretch. Luckily, they finish with Florida State and Georgia Tech at home with a visit to NC State, so they should be able to end strong and feel fairly good. Virginia Tech is aided by Duke and North Carolina visiting Blacksburg down the stretch, but let’s not forget those are games against Duke and North Carolina. They must take advantage of games at home vs. Georgia Tech and Florida State, along with a road contest at ACC punching bag Virginia. Miami is only 4-6 in the conference but seems to be improving with a beatdown of Wake Forest and near win at Cameron. They sit squarely on the bubble but end the campaign with BC, @Virginia, @Georgia Tech and NC State, four very winnable games. It could come down to the ACC Tournament for these four teams.

On the brink: Believe it or not, 15-8 (4-5) Maryland is still alive. They absolutely MUST beat Virginia Tech at home on Valentine’s Day to have a chance. Then they’d hope to win at NC State and Georgia Tech while stealing a home game against the top 3- Wake, Duke and North Carolina. This is a very high hill to climb for Gary Williams who I’m sure wishes he could have another shot at Miami and Florida State (two last second losses). They really hope to get to 8-8 and make an ACC Tournament run.

Big East

Locks: The Big East currently boasts two projected #1 seeds- RPI #1 Pittsburgh and #3 Connecticut. It’s extremely likely the Big East will garner two #1 seeds on Selection Sunday, and I’d be shocked if Pitt and Connecticut weren’t the two represented at the top of the bracket given their non-conference performance (as opposed to Louisville) and overall talent level. Louisville has rebounded nicely to a #2 seed in the projected field and have a favorable yet dangerous schedule down the stretch with road games against Notre Dame, Cincinnati, Georgetown and West Virginia (combined: 18-25). Villanova made tremendous progress towards moving to a 2-seed with their convincing win against Marquette last night. They hold a 10 RPI and 22 SOS down the stretch, while Marquette is trending the other way with a horrifying schedule (UConn, @Pittsburgh, @Louisville, Syracuse, @Georgetown remaining).

Comfortably in: Syracuse has hit a rough patch lately, but still should feel pretty good about where they stand. A 22 RPI and 21 SOS are solid numbers. They still have home games vs. Cincinnati, Rutgers and Georgetown with a visit to St. John’s on the slate.

Work left to do: West Virginia didn’t qualify for the comfortably in category because of their 5-6 conference record, but I’ll be shocked if they don’t make the field. They have a great chance in every single game the rest of the way with road contests at Rutgers, Cincinnati and South Florida and Louisville posing the toughest home threat. Their 15 RPI and 6 SOS are excellent totals. Bob Huggins’ former school, Cincinnati, still needs more wins to make up for a lacking non-conference resume. The win at Georgetown on Saturday was huge as are home games vs. West Virginia and Louisville near the end of February. Providence holds a 7-5 record in the conference with word before the season that 10-8 should be enough. Considering they have two games vs. Rutgers and Notre Dame at home, it may happen. Georgetown is also lurking as a team that probably needs to get to 9-9 and win twice in New York. They’ll have to sweep Marquette, Louisville and DePaul at home and steal a game on the road, a daunting task.

On the brink: Seton Hall has won five in a row to creep within bubble territory, fattening up against inferior competition. With their next three vs. Connecticut and at Marquette and pesky St. John’s, it could end soon. Much like Georgetown, the goal is to find a way to get to 9-9 and make a Big East Tournament run. Notre Dame is 3-7 and needs a miracle to find themselves in the field with a 79 RPI and weak non-conference SOS. They also play road games against Connecticut, West Virginia and Providence.

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A few notes:

• As you’ll notice, I included a comment about each and every team in the bracket. I’ll be doing this in each of my final four brackets (2/16, 2/23, 3/2 and 3/7) as we head towards Selection Sunday.
• Expect a Bubble Watch post from me on Thursday updating the current bubble picture, a feature that will run very similar to ESPN’s weekly bubble watch.
• As always, any questions/comments/complaints about this week’s bracket, feel free to comment.

Automatic Bids: Boston University, Xavier, North Carolina, East Tennessee State, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Weber State, VMI, Michigan State, Long Beach State, Northeastern, Memphis, Butler, Princeton, Siena, Buffalo, Morgan State, Northern Iowa, San Diego State, Robert Morris, Morehead State, UCLA, Holy Cross, LSU, Davidson, Sam Houston State, Alabama State, North Dakota State, Western Kentucky, Gonzaga, Utah State

Last Four In: Arizona, Miami, Nebraska, Michigan
Last Four Out: Wisconsin, BYU, UNLV, Kansas State
Next Four Out: Mississippi State, Oklahoma State, Providence, Penn State
Also Considered: Georgetown, Texas A&M, Baylor, Creighton, Maryland, Saint Mary’s, Northwestern, Tulsa

1 Seeds

• Connecticut- The #1 overall seed and #1 team in the polls, Connecticut boasts 6 wins against the top 50 and still has two contests against Pittsburgh remaining on the schedule.
• Oklahoma– The Sooners have the most wins vs. the top 100 (15) of any team, but only 1 of those victories has come vs. the top 25. They’re the #2 overall seed.
• North Carolina– The projected ACC champion has continued to win while Duke and Wake Forest slipped up multiple times. The showdown with Duke on Wednesday is for a #1 seed.
• Pittsburgh– Despite two conference losses, Pitt garners the final #1 seed due to their #2 RPI, 4 wins vs. the top 25 and a much stronger non-conference resume than Louisville.

2 Seeds

• Duke– Despite the throttling by Clemson, Duke still owns the top overall RPI and have 7 wins against the RPI top 50. They can reclaim the ACC automatic bid this week.
• Louisville– A sexy 9-1 Big East record and 4 wins vs. the RPI top 25 keep Louisville a comfortable 2. They should watch out for pesky Notre Dame this week.
• Michigan State– The projected Big Ten champion has stayed the same all season- Michigan State. A 7 RPI, 6 SOS and comfortable lead over Ohio State and Illinois means they should stay there.
• Marquette– The final #2 seed goes to the fourth Big East team in the field already- Marquette. They slipped in Tampa but still 9-1 and 20 wins overall is enough to grab the honor.

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Weekend Wrap.  We did a pretty good job of keeping up with most of this weekend’s key games in semi-real time in our Boom Goes the Dynamite series (Saturday and Sunday), so with this weekend’s ATB we decided to test our viewing comprehension and determine what we learned over two days of high-level hoops.

• The Mess in the Middle of the ACC. The Noles’ comeback win at Clemson put them at 5-3 in the conference, tied with Wake, Clemson and Virginia Tech at the halfway point.  Throw in Miami (4-6), who lost a heartbreaker at Duke but proved itself as more than capable in its previous outing against Wake last week, and you’ve got five ACC teams (Maryland too) fighting for anywhere from 2-4 more bids to the NCAA Tournament.  All but Maryland already have a marquee win and everyone but the Terps also have a top 50 RPI rating.  BC, with only two road games remaining, and Miami, with only one game left against the top four of UNC, Duke, Wake, and Clemson, appear most well positioned to take advantage down the stretch.
• Marquette is a good, not great, team. The Golden Eagles benefited from a fortuitous Big East slate of opponents that averages #85 in KenPom’s ratings to date, with their best wins coming against Villanova and WVU at home.   Regardless of South Florida’s upset win on Friday night, their fortunes were poised to change, as six of their final eight games are against the KenPom top 35, four of which are on the road.  We love how Jerel McNeal is playing, and Buzz Williams should be commended for their 20-3 (9-1) record, but we’re afraid that their marginally effective defense will catch up with them in the last few weeks of the season.
• Short of a miracle run, Georgetown and Notre Dame are officially DOA. ND’s best win all season is a one-point win over Texas in Maui, and it’s second-best win?  Probably fellow Big East swooner Georgetown.  The Irish have dropped seven Big East games in a row in all shapes and sizes, its RPI is at 81, and they just got humiliated on national tv by UCLA (including a putrid 5/1 effort from their usually consistent dub-dub machine, Luke Harangody).  So what’s wrong?  Put simply, they don’t play defense: the Irish are currently ranked #276 in the nation.  At 3-7 in the Big East, ND has eight more games to turn this wreck around, and they probably need to win a minimum of six of those to just get back on the bubble.  Highly unlikely.  In our mind, the Georgetown collapse is even more confounding because of the pieces they have on that team with Wright, Summers and Monroe.  Still, the Hoyas have dropped six of seven after their OT loss vs. Cincy on Saturday, and sit barely above ND in the conference standings (4-7).  There are seven games remaining on their schedule, and JT3’s team must win all three against the bottom-dwellers and split the remainder to get to 9-9.  With a strongish RPI (36), Georgetown is in better shape than its Catholic friends to the west, but the Hoyas simply cannot afford another slip-up (and in fact, they need a couple of upsets down the stretch to feel safe).
• UCLA is showing signs of making another run. Behind Alfred Aboya’s rise (15/8 over his last four games), the Bruins suddenly have the look of a team where things are starting to click for Ben Howland.  The upcoming road trip to the Arizona schools may tell the tale, but UCLA’s last four opponents were beaten down with highly efficient offense.  You can always count on UCLA to defend, so what might stand in the way of a fourth straight trip to the Final Four for UCLA?  Probably only the lack of a go-to scorer who they can count on for instant points.  Regardless, those who wrote off UCLA around midseason will likely regret that decision.
• Memphis shouldn’t be forgotten.  It was easy to write off John Calipari’s Tigers after losing all the players they lost from last year’s national runner-up team, but much like Bill Self’s Kansas team, there were plenty of pieces on that bench to make another run.  We don’t expect this version of Memphis to make it back to the F4, but they could definitely play into the regional round.  Their dismantling of Gonzaga in Spokane Saturday night was nothing short of masterful.  Gonzaga hadn’t seen defense like that all year long (incl. Connecticut), and they’re getting just enough offense from the troika of Tyreke Evans, Antonio Anderson and Robert Dozier to keep teams honest.  Watch out for this Memphis team next month.

Some News & Notes.

• Oklahoma’s backcourt depth took a hit with freshman guard Roy Willis’ DUI arrest over the weekend.  He was suspended indefinitely by Jeff Capel for the transgression.
• Indiana suspended their best player Devan Dumes for his elbow-happiness during Saturday’s game with Michigan St.  On video review, he was spotted Chris Pauling Goran Suton on their way upcourt (see below).

On Tap Monday (all times EST). Just a couple of Big Monday game border wars.

• West Virginia @ Pittsburgh (ESPN) – 7pm.  In the last matchup, a 12-pt win by Pitt on 1/25, the Panthers hit 55% behind Sam Young’s 22 and Dejuan Blair’s 16/11.  As long as DB is on the floor, the Panthers should be ok in this one.
• Kansas @ Missouri (ESPN) – 9pm.  KU brings its 8-0 Big 12 record to Columbia, where Mizzou if 14-0 and it’s clear that Mike Anderson has finally turned the corner with his style of play there.  While we know that Kansas isn’t anywhere near as good as last year’s team, they’re playing very well and Mizzou will have to bring its best tomorrow night to get this win.

Shameless Plug.

• Keep an eye out for RTC Live returning on Tuesday night of this week, as Clemson visits Boston College at 9pm EST.  Rush the Court will be courtside live-blogging the game, and you will have a chance to submit questions so that we can ask coaches and players whatever you like.  Yes, you will even be able to ask Oliver Purnell to explain his reaction to this atrocity.