The 2009 NBA Draft Early Entry list is now official, and there are 75 collegiate players with eligibility remaining who think they have a shot at the League this year.  Keep in mind that there are only 60 picks in the 2009 NBA Draft, and the above number doesn’t even include graduating seniors as well as foreign players.  Mathematically speaking, it would serve a number of these players with stars in their eyes well to return to school for at least one more season.  Let’s evaluate each of them.

Players With Agents
First, the players who have already signed with agents, effectively ending their collegiate careers.  For the most part, this group is first-round material, but Brandon Costner, Eric Devendorf, Daniel Hackett and Dar Tucker must know something about their draft status that nobody else does. 

Likely to Stay in Draft 
Next, we have a much smaller group of players who are very likely to stay in the draft, but they have yet to sign with an agent, and there’s been no official word yet.  All five of these players are probably first rounders, but with Nick Calathes, Jrue Holiday and Patty Mills, there remains a possibility of a return to school next season. 

On the Fence
These thirteen players will decide the complexion of college basketball in 2009-10, much as Lawson, Ellington and Green did this season.  For example, if Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson return to Kentucky, that’s a top five team.  If Jeff Teague returns to Wake Forest, same thing.  Derrick Brown at Xavier, Austin Daye at Gonzaga, Luke Harangody at Notre Dame, Gani Lawal at Georgia Tech, Tyler Smith at Tennessee, Jarvis Varnado at Miss. St., Greivis Vasquez at Maryland.  Each of these players is all-american caliber.  This group of players could break a lot of hearts in the next six weeks.

You Gotta be Joking
This group of players has a fair mixture of guys who just want to get evaluated (even though Parrish points out most won’t actually get evaluated) for next season’s draft and players who have no idea what their true value is in terms of NBA scouts.  There are also several who have nowhere else to go, having worn out their welcomes elsewhere.  This list always makes RTC feel a little sad, yet as we now know, the NCAA has enacted a new rule making it so there will be even more ill-informed choices such as these in the future.  Thanks, guys.  Way to look out…

After a thrilling finish last night that made Demetri Goodson a household name for at least a few days, we think the tournament has officially begun. Even being fairly selective, we think there are at least 3 outstanding games today. Here’s a quick rundown of the games we’ll be covering tomorrow:

• 12:10 PM: #6 Arizona State vs. #3 Syracuse
• 2:20 PM: #12 Wisconsin vs. #4 Xavier
• 2:30 PM: #11 Dayton vs. #3 Kansas
• 2:40 PM: #13 Cleveland State vs. #12 Arizona
• 2:50 PM: #8 Oklahoma State vs. #1 Pittsburgh
• 4:50 PM: #6 Marquette vs. #3 Missouri
• 5:00 PM: #10 USC vs. #2 Michigan State
• 5:20 PM: #9 Siena vs. #1 Louisville

A couple thoughts on the scheduling: (1) It’s nice to see the early finish for those of us who have to work on Monday morning and (2) I think the NCAA and CBS might have finally figured out the spacing issue. Outside of the early game, I don’t think there should be any point during the other 2 sets of games where  we have all the games at halftime. I’m guessing the NCAA and/or CBS must have hired a bunch of McKinsey consultants at $500/hr to figure out how to stagger the games. Now I’m looking at it without a fancy Excel model, but this looks like a reasonable set-up, which should get the job done, but I’ve been wrong before. . .

12:08 PM: One piece of big news from the morning: Dominic James has been cleared to play today. I’m not sure what kind of experimental medical techniques they have up at Marquette, but that’s a shocking piece of news. I’d be surprised if he could even go 10 minutes today as he was expected to be out for at least 2 months when he broke his foot (don’t remember which bone) back on Febraury 25th, but we will wait and see.

12:25 PM: This game looks like it should be fairly entertaining and competitive. Interesting back story about Jonny Flynn and James Harden. I know the old school guys won’t like it, but with the growth of AAU and all these summer camps I think it should be expected that stuff like that will happen.

12:30 PM: For those of you who questioned my earlier assertion that the arenas looked dead this year, the NCAA is backing me up. I guess it should be somewhat expected with the economy although most tickets are purchased via the lottery well in advance. The 50% in Miami is appalling though. One more thing to remember about these numbers. . .they reflect the number of tickets purchased not the attendance. I’m sure there are a lot of tickets that have been purchased by ticket brokers that have not been purchased by people who actually go to the games.

12:40 PM: As talented as Harden is, I really question his tendency to disappear for long stretches. Is he unable to play hard for 40 minutes or is he “letting the game come to him”?

12:47 PM: Arizona State is getting run out of the gym right now. I wonder how much the early start hurts the West Coast teams here. I’m not sure if any of you have data on this.

12:50 PM: We just posted the next part of our Mascot Challnege. Be sure to vote for your favorite mascots and help him/her win the national title.

12:52 PM: Rihards Kuksiks is single-handedly keeping the Sun Devils in this game with 15 of their first 30 points. Syracuse goes into half with a 41-32 lead. Harden still doesn’t have a point. If I’m a NBA GM, his tendency to do this drops him a few spots on my board.

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It’s officially here. . .Selection Sunday is upon us. Time for a bunch of whining and complaining by grown men about how their team that went 20-12 deserved to get in or for Billy Packer to rip some mid-major for getting in at 26-7 over an ACC team that went 17-15. Thankfully, the slate today is a little lighter to let us get some work done on our NCAA tournament preview. We’ll be covering all 4 games today and we will be doing a separate live blog (RTC Live style, but we won’t be inside the Selection Committee room although give it time). Here are the games today in chronological order and a brief synopsis of what is at stake in each game:

• 1 PM: #22 FSU vs. #8 Duke on ESPN, Raycom, and ESPN360.com: This is only for seeding purposes. FSU is probably a solid #5 after knocking off UNC yesterday. A win here might be able to move them up to the last #4 seed. Duke is pretty much locked into a #2 seed. There is no way they are getting a #1 seed and they won’t fall to a #3 seed because the two teams above them and three teams below them in the rankings all had worse weeks.
• 1 PM: Tennessee vs. Mississippi State on CBS: This is the biggest game of the day because of its implications on the bubble. I’m guessing 95% of the people who have any rooting interest in this game will be pulling for Tennessee. The Vols are solidly in the field at a #7 seed in most predictions and I can’t see them jumping much higher, which would essentially mean they should be ranked, if they beat a good, but not great MSU team. The Bulldogs on the other hand can wreck a bunch of teams NCAA dreams by winning the SEC title.
• 1 PM: Texas-San Antonio vs. Stephen F. Austin on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: The winner of this game will end up with a 14 or 15 seed. SFA might be an interesting first round opponent since they actually had a decent RPI for a Southland team (#79) and boast a win over #94 North Dakota State. Honestly though, unless you’re a fan/grad of one of the schools, you’re not going to be watching this over the other two games.
• 3:30 PM: Ohio State vs. #24 Purdue on CBS: Another game that is about seeding. I think Purdue has moved up about as far as it can after destroying Illinois in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score indicated. Ohio State has a chance to move up to a 7 if they can win this after knocking off Michigan State yesterday.

12:20 PM: Ok. Some quick questions for you that ESPN.com posed this morning:

1. Which teams are the #1 seeds?
2. Is UConn better off as a #2 seed?
3. Which conference will send the most teams to the NCAA tournament?
4. Will the SEC really only put two of its teams into the NCAA field?
5. Will Arizona’s 24-year bid streak finally end?
6. Which teams will be seeded higher than you think?
7. Which teams will be seeded lower than you think?
8. Which mid-major teams will the big boys hope to avoid in the first round?

Let me know what you think and I’ll give you my thoughts in a little bit.

12:45 PM: Why does CBS drag these Selection Committee people onto the show? I know they’re trying to hype up the Selection Special at 6 PM, but they add absolutely nothing. They just give generic, PR firm answers. I almost prefer the bickering that ESPN has arguing whether or not a team deserves to be in.

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As part of our ongoing quest to provide you with the best college basketball coverage in the nation, we have enlisted the help of some of the finest team-specific bloggers on the planet to help us. With the NCAA Selection Show coming up on March 15th there are still several teams on the proverbial “bubble”. We figured it might be interesting to see what kind of nonpartisan arguments these bloggers could make for their team deserving a spot in the NCAA tournament. We welcome any discussion of their arguments and praise or criticism of their reasoning in the comment section. If your team is on the “bubble” and you would like to submit something, please contact us at rushthecourt@gmail.com.

Creighton– Submitted by Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball.

Creighton Profile
Record: 26-7
RPI: 40
SOS: 108
Record vs. RPI Top 50: 2-2
Record vs. RPI Top 100: 7-3
Best Wins: New Mexico (Home), Dayton (Home), Northern Iowa (Road), and Illinois State (Home)
Worst Loss: Drake (Home)

After last Saturday’s blowout loss in the Semifinals of the Missouri Valley Conference to Illinois State, Creighton is one of those teams that is sitting squarely on the bubble. I am going to state my case as to why Creighton deserves to go to the NCAA Tournament over other bubble teams.

Creighton was favored to win the Missouri Valley Conference this season, and even though they had a slow conference start at 5-4, they started playing better as a team and reeled off 10 straight wins (including a Bracketbuster win against George Mason) to tie Northern Iowa for a share of the MVC regular season title. The Bluejays extended their winning streak to 11 with a first round win in the MVC Tourney against Wichita State in dramatic fashion, but then turned around and got blasted by Illinois State.

Last impressions are hard to erase from people’s minds and the Illinois State loss will be a hard one for people to forget. However, statistical history is on Creighton’s side. There has never been a team with 26 wins in the RPI top 100 that missed the NCAA Tournament. Also, the MVC regular season champion has made the NCAA tournament the last 15 years.

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RTC Aftermath will come to you each night where our correspondents are at the conference tournament games as a part of RTC Live.  Michael Vernetti is in Las Vegas all weekend covering the WCC Tournament for RTC.  RTC Live was onsite Friday through Monday, concluding tonight in the Gonzaga vs. St. Mary’s Championship Game.

It was a Gonzaga party in the WCC championship game as the Zags continued a tournament blitz with an 83-58 victory over Saint Mary’s. Gonzaga featured balanced scoring with five players scoring in double figures, led by Josh Heytvelt’s 17 points. Matt Bouldin played another all-around excellent game, scoring 14 points and handing out 7 assists with no turnovers. Other big contributors for Gonzaga were Steven Gray and Jeremy Pargo.

Matt Bouldin Was Tremendous All Weekend

Saint Mary’s returned-from-injury guard Patty Mills was ineffective in his second game back after suffering a broken hand in a Jan. 29 game against Gonzaga. Mills, showing the rust from his long layoff, went just 2-16 for 5 points and sat out much of the second half. Diamon Simpson and Omar Samhan led the Gaels with 17 points each. Samhan also pulled down 9 boards for the Gaels and Simpson grabbed 6.

Gonzaga dominated the all-tournament team, placing guards Pargo and Bouldin, along with forward Micah Downs, who was voted tourney MVP. The rest of the all-star group included Saint Mary’s forward Simpson and Santa Clara center John Bryant. With the tournament championship, Gonzaga won an automatic bid to the upcoming NCAA championships, where they are hoping to ride their strong performance in Las Vegas to a high seed. Saint Mary’s will have to await the Selection Committee’s decision next Sunday, March 15 to see if they get an at-large bid.

RTC Aftermath will come to you each night where our correspondents are at the conference tournament games as a part of RTC Live.  Michael Vernetti is in Las Vegas all weekend covering the WCC Tournament for RTC.  RTC Live will be there on Monday night as Gonzaga-St. Mary’s Part III occurs.

Gonzaga had five players in double figures – led by Austin Daye’s 28 points – to crush Santa Clara 94-59 in tonight’s first semifinal game of the West Coast Conference tournament. The Zags got 18 from Micah Downs, 16 from Jeremy Pargo, 12 from Steven Gray and 11 from Matt Bouldin to totally dominate the Broncos.

Santa Clara’s stellar post man John Bryant eked out another of his patented double-doubles – 13 points and 12 rebounds – but it was not nearly enough to slow down the Zags. Bronco freshman James Rahon scored 20 points on 8-15 FG shooting to pace his team, which did not even slightly resemble the team that beat San Diego the night before.  With the win, Gonzaga advanced to tomorrow’s championship game against  Saint Mary’s, who defeated Portland 71-61.

Saint Mary’s benefited from the return to its lineup of point guard Patty Mills, who had missed all of February with broken bones in his shooting hand. Mills had 12 points and energized the Gaels on offense and defense. Saint Mary’s featured balanced scoring, with three players in double figures. Omar Samhan notched a double-double, with 12 points and 13 rebounds, while Samhan’s front court mate Diamon Simpson chipped in with 14 boards and 15 points of his own.  Portland was led by guard Nik Raivio with 15 points.

We are finally here. Today is the last day of the college basketball regular season. What’s that? St. Mary’s didn’t get the memo? Ok, after today 99.99999% of the programs will be done with the regular season. After we attempted to write the college basketball version of War and Peace for yesterday’s Boom Goes the Dynamite, we get a little break as there aren’t quite as many high quality games today, but the ones that we do have look like they will be pretty entertaining. Here are the games that we will be following today:

• Noon: #20 Purdue at #8 Michigan State on CBS
• 2 PM: Virginia Tech at #24 FSU on Raycom, ESPN Full Court, and ESPN360.com
• 2:05 PM: Illinois State vs. Northern Iowa on CBS
• 3 PM: Old Dominion vs. Virginia Commonwealth on Comcast, ESPN Full Court, and ESPN360.com
• 4 PM: #7 Duke at #2 UNC on CBS
• 5 PM: Northwestern at Ohio State on The Big Ten Network
• 6 PM: #19 Clemson at #10 Wake Forest on FSN
• 6 PM: College of Charleston vs. Davidson on SportsSouth and ESPN360.com

There are a couple of big story lines here. Outside of the obvious ones happening in Chapel Hill (Tyler Hansbrough‘s last game in the Dean Dome, UNC’s quest for a #1 seed, Duke’s last gasp effort for a #1 seed, and all the injuries including the under-reported–not by RTC–injury to Ty Lawson), we’ll be looking in on East Lansing where the Spartans will be looking to solify a #2 seed (forget all the talk about them getting a #1–not happening), Saint Louis where the Missouri Valley will award a ticket to the NCAA tournament, and Chattanooga where Stephen Curry and his Davidson teammates will be battling for their NCAA tournament lives as they will not get in if they don’t win their conference tournament.

There are also some great games out in Las Vegas for the West Coast Conference tournament with Gonzaga vs. Santa Clara, which will be featured as our RTC Live event, that will be followed by Saint Mary’s vs. Portland (aka “The Return of Patty Mills“). Unfortunately, that’s past my bedtime on the East Coast (tips at 9:30 and 11:30 PM ET respectively) although if you’re really nice you might be able to talk rtmsf into staying up late for you since he’s on the West Coast.

11:30 AM: It looks like we only have 2 games (Purdue-Michigan State and Alabama–Tennessee) worthy watching in the noon time slot. Unfortunately, they’re both on CBS so most of the nation will only be able to follow one on television. Luckily, I’m getting the better of the two games (Purdue-Michigan State), but I will be following the game in Knoxville on GameCast as well. If any of you are in Tennessee or Alabama, feel free to send in your thoughts in the comment section so the rest of us will know what’s going on in the game beyond the box score.

While we’re waiting, I wanted to pass along a photo I found on Deadspin this morning featuring Erin Andrews, who found something in Freedom Hall a little disturbing (probably Rick Pitino‘s yelling).

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Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.  He will be reporting from the WCC Tournament this weekend in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Check for his game liveblogs at RTC Live: WCC Tournament throughout the weekend.

A little unexpected news on the injury front has turned what looked to be a rather drab WCC Conference Tournament into a hotbed of excitement. The news concerned the broken right hand of Saint Mary’s star guard Patty Mills, who had been told by his doctor not to count on being ready for the tournament. That was before a visit with the doc on Monday (3/2), at which time Mills was pronounced fit to resume practicing with the Gaels. Current plans from coach Randy Bennett had Mills participating in non-contact drills on Tuesday and Wednesday and full five-on-five scrimmages on Thursday, Friday and maybe even Saturday since Saint Mary’s doesn’t have to be in Las Vegas for its first game until Sunday at 8:30 p.m.

The condition of Mills’ hand is significant because it permits speculation about a possible rematch between Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga with revenge and an NCAA tournament bid in the balance. As the number one and number two seeds in the tournament, Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s need only to get by a single semifinal contest to face each other for a third time this season in the WCC championship game Monday night, March 9. Their first game on January 29 on Gonzaga’s home court in Spokane was shaping up to be Mills’ finest effort as a collegian, as he rattled the Zags for 18 points in the first 17 minutes of the game. Then as he eluded the Zags’ Jeremy Pargo on a dash into the key, Mills lost his balance and fell to the floor, with his right hand striking the hardwood first. Given the spills taken regularly by the fearless Mills it didn’t seem to be much to be worried about, but appearances were deceiving. He had broken metacarpal bones, requiring surgery, insertion of pins to stabilize the area and fitting of a cast. Things immediately went downhill for the Gaels, who were 18-1 and possessing the nation’s longest active winning streak at 15 heading into the Gonzaga game.

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Hey all, its your faithful intern here trying to bring you the best reading material from across the interweb. You may not have noticed, but there was no Fast Breaks yesterday, so today’s will be longer and will dip into yesterday’s stories as well…Enjoy!!

• The Washington Post questions the legality of Under Armour’s relationship with Maryland and Lance Stephenson.
• Jim Calhoun just can’t escape his infamous press conference, now legislators are getting involved.
• Terrence Williams isn’t just a versatile forward. Apparently, he is also the team comedian.
• Shawn Siegel has his new version of Bracketology out.
• Its been just two days but that is just enough time for Jeff Goodman to take a look at the bubble twice, and the second one is here. Apparently Florida State and Tennessee fans don’t need to hold their breath anymore, and Notre Dame can start looking at the NIT
• Former Syracuse star Damone Brown was busted as a part of a cocaine ring.
• Andy Staples of SI takes an interesting look at how Jim Calhoun‘s salary stacks up against some other CEOs in business.
• Seth Davis answers his mail and takes a peek at Top 10 candidates for coach of the year, although personally I don’t know how you can select Arizona‘s Russ Pennell.
• You think Robin was the best sidekick ? Let’s see how these college basketball sidekicks measure up.
• While the UCONN men are looking to stay atop the polls, the women finished up their regular season undefeated.
• Bizzaro Joe Lunardi takes his March 2nd look at what his namesake has in his newest bracket.
• No matter what URI head coach Jimmy Baron says, it will be tough to make a case for URI in the tournament if they don’t win the A-10 tournament.
• St. Mary’s can thank their lucky stars as they will welcome back star guard Patty Mills just in time for the WCC tournament…Look out Gonzaga.
• Uh-oh.  Former UK player Mike Casey threw head coach Billy Gillispie squarely under the bus in a recent interview.

Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

Bye-Bye Blues
My, my, what an intriguing set of scenarios is emerging in the WCC’s final week to determine the number two seed in the conference tournament. Oh yeah, Gonzaga wrapped up the conference title – its ninth consecutive – with a pair of routine wins over Loyola-Marymount on Thursday (2/19) and Pepperdine on Saturday (2/21).

The two seed is important because the holder gets a bye straight to the conference semifinals. That means no game on Friday, March 6 or the following Saturday – a chance to watch the lower-echelon teams scramble for position from the comfort of the stands. The top two teams play for the first time on Sunday, with the winners advancing to the championship game and chance for the automatic NCAA bid on Monday night in Las Vegas. At this time of year no team wants to play an extra game, and the thought of playing three games in a row over a weekend is daunting. That’s the kind of thing teams do early in the season, in such balmy climes as Honolulu, when they’re fresh.

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