Evan Jacoby is an RTC columnist. You can find him @evanJacoby on Twitter. Night Line will run on weeknights during the season, highlighting a major storyline development from that day’s slate of games.

The major focus on day one of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge was the thrashing suffered by No. 5 Duke in Columbus at the hands of No. 2 Ohio State. But before the Buckeyes finished off their 85-63 beatdown of the Devils, fellow Big Ten schools Northwestern, Illinois, and Purdue had already completed at least nine-point victories of their own. The Big Ten now holds a 4-2 advantage over the ACC at the halfway point of the competition, and its teams are favored in five of the six remaining games on Wednesday. The Big Ten has only won this inter-conference challenge twice in its 12-year history, and never by more than a single win. We could be looking at the first-ever convincing Big Ten victory in the event, and it’s fitting given the strength and depth of the league this year.

While Beating Duke, OSU's Jared Sullinger Proves He's the Best Player in the Best Conference (Credit: Jay LaPrete, AP)

With Ohio State’s domination of Duke, the Big Ten clearly outclassed the ACC in a battle of two of its top teams. The Buckeyes improved to 7-0 on the season, one of five undefeated teams in the conference, and that includes Illinois and Northwestern, both of whom won convincing road games on Tuesday over Maryland and Georgia Tech, respectively. Neither team has looked spectacular as of yet, but both the Illini and Wildcats are building solid non-conference resumes to boost the Big Ten’s early RPI ratings. Purdue’s win over Miami improved the Boilermakers to 7-1 on the year, with a loss only to a very good Alabama team, and Robbie Hummel is leading the push for Matt Painter’s team to return again to the NCAA Tournament.

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Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist for Rush the Court.

Feast Week is one of my favorite portions of the college basketball season. There’s no better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than hunkering down on the couch, flipping through various tournaments and getting that first glimpse at intriguing players and programs around the country. As enjoyable as those matchups may have been — from Duke outlasting Kansas in a Maui classic to UCF shocking UConn in the Bahamas — this upcoming week is even more delectable. Look no further than the perennially awesome batch of games courtesy of the incomparable ACC/Big Ten Challenge. Here are the five headlining matchups accompanied by the biggest key for victory for both teams:

Will Plumlee's defense frustrate Sullinger tonight?

Duke at Ohio State (Tuesday, 9:30 PM ET, ESPN)

How Duke wins: Repeat performance from Mason Plumlee. One of the most compelling post battles of the early season was undoubtedly Kansas’ Thomas Robinson banging bodies with Plumlee in the post during the Maui final last Wednesday night. Robinson finished with his usual double-double, but Plumlee’s athleticism, size and tremendous post defense limited the centerpiece of the Jayhawks offense to six field goals in 36 minutes. His coach was certainly impressed, calling Plumlee’s efforts to contain Robinson “the key to the game” and declaring that although Ryan Kelly took home MVP honors, Duke doesn’t beat Kansas without Plumlee’s post defense. Life in the paint doesn’t get any easier for Plumlee on Tuesday against near-unanimous preseason All-American Jared Sullinger, but if there has been a chink in the armor for Sully, it has come when facing an athletic post big that can force him off the block. Duke is a heavy ball-screen action team that loves to spread the floor with their plethora of capable shooters. If Plumlee can muscle Sullinger away from a comfortable position on the floor and force him to exert energy defending high ball screens, he’ll be much less effective and Duke will take a big step towards garnering another huge early season triumph.

How Ohio State wins: Dribble penetration from their guards. If there’s one glaring weakness that painfully obvious through Duke’s first handful of games, it is perimeter defense out of their guard triumvirate Seth Curry, Andre Dawkins and Austin Rivers. From Belmont’s Kerron Johnson to Michigan’s Trey Burke to Kansas’ Tyshawn Taylor, opposing guards have had a field day breaking down Duke’s guards through dribble penetration. Duke’s best on-ball defender is actually reserve guard Tyler Thornton, so much that Coach K sat Rivers down the stretch against Kansas in favor of Thornton and his defensive acumen. Ohio State’s backcourt, specifically Aaron Craft, offensive-minded reserve Shannon Scott and wing William Buford, must maintain an aggressive mentality for 40 minutes. Craft could be especially effective against Curry, the weakest of the lot, with his repertoire of hesitation dribbles and ability to get into the late and draw help, while Duke doesn’t have a clear matchup against the 6’6” Buford and his explosive scoring ability.

Wisconsin at North Carolina (Wednesday, 9:30 PM ET, ESPN)

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As good as the games were last week with many upsets and teams taking the country by storm—looking at you UNLV, Harvard, Creighton, and St. Louis—this week has the potential to be even better with eight games pitting Top 25 teams against each other. A scary thought considering the strong dosage of hoops we saw over the Thanksgiving holiday. The big shocker of the week came in Vegas as UNLV knocked North Carolina off their pedestal. As a result, Kentucky was a unanimous #1, but will be challenged by UNC later this week. Not to be outdone by the Rebels are Harvard and St. Louis who posted several impressive wins and have climbed into the poll as well. QnD after the jump…

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Jack Campbell is the RTC correspondent for the Big Ten  You can also find his musings online at CBBJack or on Twitter @CBBJack.

Reader’s Take – How Many Big Ten teams will make the NCAA tournament?

The Week That Was

This is the first Conference Check-In for the 2011-2012 season, so this is less a review of the past week than it is a review of the season to date.  It is far too early to be passing judgment on surprise teams but there are three Big Ten teams who have impressed us enough in the first couple of weeks to warrant mention right away.

Indiana, Northwestern, and Nebraska were each picked by most to finish in the lower half of the Big Ten, but they produced some of the Big Ten’s most impressive wins this week. Indiana won a true road game at Evansville, a good MVC program, in dominant fashion. Nebraska, went on the road and beat USC in overtime before coming home and dominating a pretty good A-10 foe in Rhode Island.  Finally, Northwestern took out an SEC team in LSU and a Big East team in Seton Hall, along with one of the better C-USA programs in Tulsa on the way to winning the Charleston Classic.

These three teams have started the season in fine fashion and they are worthy of our attention.

Michigan State's Loss To The Tar Heels Is Unforgettable For Its Setting, But Tom Izzo Hopes The Schedule Strength Will Pay Dividends Down The Road.

Power Rankings

1. Ohio State (3-0) Thad Matta’s Buckeyes looked good against a Florida Gators team that some believe is a contender for the national title.  One of the interesting things to watch in Columbus is to see if Matta will look to play a big lineup using either Amir Williams or Evan Ravenal along with Jared Sullinger or if Matta will be content to surround the big man with wings and a PG again.
2. Wisconsin (3-0) Wisconsin is thoroughly dominating overmatched competition from an efficiency standpoint.  It is early, but this Wisconsin team looks poised to live up to its preseason ranking and more. Read the rest of this entry »

North Carolina still sits atop the rankings, but they have a partner with them this week as Kentucky has slipped into the top spot as well. The Wildcats were impressive in posting wins against Kansas, Penn State, and Old Dominion to move to 4-0 on the young season. On the whole, very little change in the Top 10 other than Pittsburgh predictably dropping out after their loss to upstart Long Beach State. The Quick ‘n Dirty after the jump…

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John Templon of Big Apple Buckets is an RTC contributor. You can find him on Twitter at @nybuckets.

Reader’s Take I

Top Storylines

• Mid-Majors Newcomers Will Make Major Impact – Two graduate student transfers from mid-major schools are going to make an instant impact in the Big Ten. Brandon Wood could start in Michigan State’s backcourt after scoring 16.7 points per game last season for Valparaiso. Sam Maniscalco averaged 9.7 points per game for Bradley last season and might end up scoring even more for Illinois. Both players give their teams veteran pieces at positions that would’ve otherwise been dominated by youth.
• Healthy Living – Robbie Hummel returns for Purdue and has the opportunity to make a big impact for the Boilermakers now that his former classmates have graduated. While Matt Painter couldn’t get Hummel on the court with JaJuan Johnson and E’Twaun Moore, he does get the added bonus of having an All-America caliber forward to help shepherd this team into the postseason. Injuries also delivered a blow to Indiana, as Maurice Creek is going to miss the entire 2011-12 season. That’s after missing all but 18 games last season, and it’s a big blow to the Hoosiers’ NCAA hopes.
• A New Head Coach In University Park – After leading Penn State to its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2001, and falling to in-state rival Temple, Ed DeChellis saw the writing on the wall and left PSU for a more stable job at Navy. His replacement is former Boston University head coach Pat Chambers, who has a big rebuilding job on his hands after graduation of star guard Talor Battle.

Predicted Order of Finish

1. Ohio State (16-2) 
2. Wisconsin (12-6)
3. Michigan (12-6)
4. Michigan State (10-8)
5. Purdue (10-8)
6. Illinois (9-9)
7. Minnesota (9-9)
8. Northwestern (8-10)
9. Indiana (8-10)
10. Iowa (6-12)
11. Nebraska (4-14)
12. Penn State (3-15)

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1. After the ongoing fiasco at Penn State we have become a little numb to old-fashion college sports scandals, but Central Florida appears to be embroiled in a pretty big one. Yesterday, the NCAA delivered its 16-page notice of allegations to the school, which led athletic director Keith Tribble to resign and men’s basketball coach Donnie Jones to be suspended for three conference games. According to reports, the NCAA is alleging that a recruiter for a sports agency paid for tuition and travel expenses for players and recruits. The recruiter and his associate reportedly brought in six basketball players and five football players to the program with Jones and other high-level people in the UCF program being aware of the illegal actions and doing nothing about it. On the bright side for Jones, he was the only one who was not cited for an ethics violation (lying to the NCAA). As Mike Bianchi writes, “At least it’s not Penn State.”
2. When BYU suspended center Brandon Davies for violating its “Honor Code” last season plenty of people chimed in with their thoughts on the matter, but one person we had not heard from was Davies himself. That is until yesterday. For his part, Davies claims to feel that he was “definitely treated more than fair”. While some will argue with this saying that Davies does not really have any choice but to say that we would argue like we did last March that Davies entered into the contract knowing what the expectations were and that he broke that contract so he should have expected repercussions.
3. Speaking of contracts that may carry repercussions, yesterday was the first day that recruits could sign their National Letter of Intent. Despite our warning, many top recruits signed these documents that are only binding on their end, but not binding for the university or the coach. Things went about as expected with Arizona being the big winner. One surprise was that Gary Harris, one of the top shooting guards in the class, committed to Michigan State spurning his home state schools (Indiana and Purdue).
4. In September, we introduced you to Damiene Cain, the highly touted recruit who turned down a Division I basketball scholarship to focus on academics. It turns out that we may have been wrong as now Cain might end up playing for Colorado and that medical issues may have been the actual reason that he left the team in the first place. Normally, we would expect a coach to hesitate to take a player back if he had left the team previously unless he really did leave for medical reasons, but Tad Boyle could really use some help inside and Cain would certainly add some depth on a thin Colorado team. We don’t expect Boyle to make a decision for a few weeks so don’t be surprised if Cain isn’t in a Colorado uniform until after conference play begins.
5. What happens when you are really bad at your job? You probably get fired and hope to collect your pension assuming that some idiotic portfolio manager has not made some bad investments. In the world of corporate America and big-time college sports that is not always the case. Take Jeff Capel, the former coach at Oklahoma, who was fired this year after back-to-back losing seasons (in the post-Blake Griffin era where it is a lot harder to win without a player who is twice as good as everybody else on the court). Documents released yesterday revealed that in addition to collecting four extra months of salary after being fired in March, Capel also received two additional payments in excess of $1.75 million. The four extra months of salary and an additional $1.25 million (his base salary over the five years remaining on his contract) were part of his original contract, but we are not sure where the extra $504,000 came from and apparently the school is unwilling to release any additional information about his buyout. Nice work if you can get it.

Predicted finish: 5th

2010-11 Record: 23-11, 8-8 (5th, Big 12)

Head coach: Frank Haith, first season

Key losses: Justin Safford (6.4 PPG), Ricky Kreklow (2.1 PPG), Laurence Bowers- (11.6 PPG, injury)

It’s amazing the Missouri Tigers are still standing. After experiencing one of the roughest offseasons in recent memory, it’s a wonder MU didn’t simply fold its basketball program up and leave it for dead. First, in March, head coach Mike Anderson left for Arkansas, just weeks after telling a local sportswriter he planned to retire in Columbia (Firestorm #1). Then, several reporters erroneously reported this spring that athletic director Mike Alden had hired Purdue’s Matt Painter (Firestorm #2); when that didn’t materialize, Alden announced the hiring of Frank Haith, a coach who had gone 43-69 in ACC play at Miami (Firestorm #3). Later in the summer, a Yahoo! Sports investigation of the Hurricanes’ athletic programs accused Haith’s staff of paying $10,000 to a recruit (Firestorm #4), and there’s still no closure on that case. And, last but not least, starting forward Laurence Bowers tore his ACL this fall (Firestorm #5). He’s out for the season. After all that, Missouri is still ranked #25 in the preseason polls. That’s because the Tigers bring back a veteran group, headlined by terrific guard play and Big 12 Player of the Year candidate Marcus Denmon.

Marcus Denmon Is an Unselfish Star. (AP/M. Schiefelbein)

The Stars: It’s rare to find a star like Denmon. He’s one of the nation’s top three-point shooters and can score almost at will, but he’s sometimes criticized for playing too unselfishly. That’s part of his game, though. Denmon rarely forces a bad shot, but when he does, it usually goes in. He scores within the flow of the offense, he passes well, he plays tough defense, he rebounds in traffic, and he hustles his tail off. It’s almost as if Denmon is a star with a role player’s attitude, and that’s exactly the way Frank Haith would prefer it. This team feeds off Denmon’s work ethic and leadership, and his 16.9 PPG and 44.8% from three-point land doesn’t hurt, either.

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Today is the day! Not only does this evening mark the opening night of college hoops, but it is also represents the unveiling of our preseason edition of the weekly Top 25. From now until the conclusion of the regular season, you can count on our editing team here at RTC to provide you with their rankings of the Top 25 every Monday afternoon. In the interest of full disclosure, we’ll be sure to show our editors’ ballots so if you’re wondering how on earth your team could possibly be ranked so low, you’ll know who the culprit is that didn’t give your guys the respect. In conjunction with the rankings, we’ll also provide our quick ‘n dirty analysis that notes any trends and interesting items each week to give the poll a little more context. To see how we did last year, check out our 2010-11 preseason poll – some good (Butler, Kentucky); some not so much (Michigan State, Villanova).

QnD after the jump…

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It’s Halloween night across college basketball nation and all the ghouls, goblins and ghosts are out trolling for sugary goodness. Whether Gary Williams shows up on your doorstep requesting a chicken wing or it’s an exasperated Jay Bilas wearing VCU garb from head to toe, Halloween is the only night of the year where everyone can act how they really want to act if there were no social mores, norms or YouTube. With the start of the season only one week away, RTC has put together a list of five tricks and treats for some of college basketball’s most notable people, places and things. Here’s our list of Halloween night goodies for all of college basketball’s kiddies, but don’t blame us if the bullies from over at Chapel Hill Street or Lexington Avenue jump out from behind a bush and steal all of your candy.

• Treats to Purdue’s Robbie Hummel & Arizona’s Kevin Parrom— in the form of  confident minds and an even more explosive sets of wheels. The good-guy Hummel returns for his senior season after rehabilitating his knee from a second ACL injury last October. He’s taking it slowly, wearing a massive knee brace and practicing only on second days, but the obvious fear is that he’s one of those hard-luck cases who simply can’t get healthy (he has also experienced back issues in the past).  Parrom, on the other hand, found himself a victim of a shooting in September as he was home visiting his mother with terminal cancer (who has since passed). The versatile wing is projected to be back in the Arizona lineup in about a month, but despite his positive attitude and diligent rehabilitation of a leg pierced by a bullet, both he and Hummel will have to overcome the mental hurdles necessary to compete at the highest level of college basketball.  Let’s hope both players find all kinds of treats as two of the biggest success stories of the season.
• Tricks to Connecticut Basketball – for using a wink-and-a-nod to find a scholarship at the last minute for superstar freshman Andre Drummond, while former orphan Michael Bradley volunteered to give his up for the good of the team.  No matter what the courageous Bradley says publicly, we still find the whole thing rather smelly. The NCAA may have stepped in and already provided a nasty little trick for the Huskies, though, in the form of an APR ban from participation in the 2013 NCAA Tournament — which, incidentally, is likely to impact Bradley rather than the one-and-done Drummond. Oy.

Treats to These Two For Finding Their Confidence in 11-12

• Treats to Kansas’ Thomas Robinson — this kid more than any other deserves a breakout 2011-12 campaign. After a nightmarish year in Robinson’s personal life where he lost both of his maternal grandparents and his 37-year old mother in a span of a mere month, the talented big man is on the credit side of karma in a huge way and hopefully ready to cash it in. We’d like nothing more than to see Robinson become an All-American this year by leading Bill Self’s team to its eighth consecutive Big 12 regular season title, before heading off to the NBA Lottery as a superstar in the making. 
  
• Tricks to the NCAA’s $2,000 Optional Stipend –– although we agree that football and basketball student-athletes are vastly underpaid relative to their value to the schools, making the stipend optional at the leisure of the conference only opens the door for even more of an inequitable distribution of talent than already exists. The power conferences can easily weather the extra couple million bucks such a measure will require, but as for the mid-majors… they’d best keep scouring those patches for the Great Pumpkin of Mid-Major hope to find their future stars.