Saturday mornings in the winter have become a schedule of habit for yours truly- stumble out of bed, put the coffee in the pot and settle down on the couch for another edition of College Gameday: Hoops Edition. The likely candidates will return for another run in 2010 including Rece Davis as the host and Hubert Davis, Digger Phelps, Bob Knight and Jay Bilas (assuming Erin Andrews will once again be involved) providing analysis and heated bracket discussion. While I’d love to see Hubert tied up behind the Bristol studios with his mouth taped shut and replaced by someone smart like Doug Gottlieb or Steve Lavin (or anyone who doesn’t think the eye test is the best way to determine NCAA Tournament teams), the Gameday crew has grown on me. Bilas has always been the most informative and intelligent analyst on the network covering college basketball, and once you can look past how big of a buzzkill Bob Knight is, he provides tremendous insight. Much like Chris Fowler on the football counterpart, Davis does a formidable job moderating and challenging his partners.

Here’s the schedule for this season:

January 16th: Storrs, CT- Notre Dame at Connecticut (women’s)
January 23rd: Clemson, SC – Duke at Clemson
January 30th: Manhattan, KS – Kansas at Kansas State (7 p.m.)
February 6th: Champaign, IL – Michigan State at Illinois
February 13th: Lexington, KY- Tennessee at Kentucky
February 20th: Seattle, WA – UCLA at Washington
February 27th: Syracuse, NY- Villanova at Syracuse
March 6th: Durham, NC – North Carolina at Duke

The women’s game doesn’t surprise me; in fact, I viewed it as inevitable for Gameday to make a trip to Storrs this season to commemorate the perfect season for UConn. And why not? I’ve never watched a full women’s college game in my life, and don’t plan on tuning in to that particular edition because Geno Auriemma will be prominently involved, but it’s well deserved. As for the other men’s contests, I think ESPN did a nice job considering they can only work with Saturday games and make the schedule in August rather than on a weekly basis, i.e., college football. You have potential top-ten teams in Duke, Kansas, Michigan State and Villanova entering raucous environments in Clemson, Manhattan, Champaign and Syracuse, respectively. Expect some memorable RTC moments on Saturday nights this season.

Some quick thoughts:

Best Game- UNC-Duke always gets us tingly inside, but the best game takes place in SEC country this season- Tennessee-Kentucky. The Big Blue will be rocking in appreciation of their highly-anticipated top-five team under new coach John Calipari and will surely bring the heat for their most hated sweaty headman, Bruce Pearl. These two bitter rivals will be the top two teams in the SEC this season. Tyler Smith and Wayne Chism battling down low with DeMarcus Cousins and Patrick Patterson will be tremendous to watch.

Likely Stinker- Most would vote for a possible 57-56 final in Champaign as the likely stinker, but I’ll go with Villanova-Syracuse. Some believe the Orange could surprise with the addition of Wesley Johnson, but Villanova is loaded and took care of Syracuse late last season at the Dome even with Jonny Flynn, Eric Devendorf and Paul Harris around. This one has the potential for blowout city rather than upset city.

Who Knows Game- Kansas State isn’t likely anything more than a bubble team this season, yet Gameday is making the trip to Manhattan to see preseason #1 Kansas battle the Wildcats in what should be an insane environment. You’d think the Jayhawks’ immense talent would be able to wipe the floor with Kansas State, but don’t underestimate Denis Clemente, Jacob Pullen and stud frosh Wally Judge. Feels like this could either be an 18-2 KU run to start the game or the most memorable upset of the conference season.

Missing Powers- A little bit surprised to see Texas without an appearance on Gameday. I love their makeup this year under Rick Barnes and coupled with a strong Big 12 + Austin providing a worthy destination = surprised at their absence. Purdue was snubbed. Butler was also a candidate to get some national TV love.

Cult of Personalities- As I mentioned before, the battle between Bruce Pearl and John Calipari, especially coming off the Josh Selby rumors/saga, will be eaten up by ESPN. It’s not exactly Rick Pitino-Calipari, but the storylines will develop.

Plus, we get more halfcourt shots. And those are always fun.

We’ll be doing a full BGtD today so you won’t have any interruptions in coverage tonight. Honestly, last night’s games were kind of disappointing. Pittsburgh–Xavier was entertaining, but that was the only game that I would say was memorable from a pure basketball standpoint. Now the other games did have their own interesting subplots. UConn rolled over Purdue in a game that was close at points in the 2nd half, but I never really got the sense that the Huskies were in any danger of losing. I was particularly impressed with how the Huskies played despite the media circus that is going on around them. Missouri‘s victory over Memphis was entertaining although for me it was marred a little by the atrocious free throw shooting. As we mentioned last night, I really wonder what John Calipari does, if he does anything, for his team’s free throw shooting. At this point, I’m convinced J.J. Redick would have shot 70% from the free throw line if he had gone to Memphis. Also, what happened to vaunted Memphis defense. Missouri has a good offense, but they shouldn’t be able to hit triple digits in regulation against a team that went into the game with the #1 defense according to the Pomeroy numbers. I’m sure some of you took great pleasure in watching Villanova pick apart Duke leading to another early March exit for Coach K, but the game wasn’t exactly exciting if you didn’t have a rooting interest for (or in most people’s case against) a team.

The line-up for tonight should give us a couple of interesting games:

• 7:07 PM: #12 Arizona vs. #1 Louisville
• 7:27  PM: #3 Syracuse vs. #2 Oklahoma
• 9:37 PM: #3 Kansas vs. #2 Michigan State
• 9:57 PM: #4 Gonzaga vs. #1 UNC

We’ll be back around 7 for the start of tonight’s action. Leave your comments/questions and we’ll respond to them as soon as we start.

6:55 PM: A couple quick pieces of news to pass along in the midst of this Billy Gillispie madness and these somewhat important games tonight. Clemson‘s star forward Trevor Booker will return for his senior year. The news out of Iowa isn’t as good after Jake Kelly, Jeff Peterson, and David Palmer announced that they are transfering, which means that Todd Lickliter will need to replace 2 starting guards and a reserve forward.

7:10 PM: Chase Budinger makes a great play to temper Louisville’s great start. He’s going to need to have a great game tonight. If both teams use the press tonight, we’re going to get a blowout (and I think it will end up going in Louisville’s favor).

7:12 PM: I should warn you that I’m a big Chase Budinger fan so you’ve been warned. I haven’t seen a lot of him this year (stupid west coast starts), but I think he has the makings of a very solid NBA player.

7:14 PM: That’s not a good stat for Arizona. Only 6 Wildcats have scored in the NCAA tournament.

7:19 PM: Great play by Edgar Sosa feeding it to Preston Knowles. This pressure is going to kill Arizona if they only go 6 deep.

7:28 PM: I don’t think it will matter tonight, but I hope you paid attention to that FT statistic. Louisville shoots 63.8% as a team (307th out of 334 teams). That will come back to bite them. Just ask John Calipari. Actually he probably wouldn’t admit it because his team was just as bad last night. . .

7:30 PM: I think that any Blue Devil who mentions that they made the 1994 title game should put an asterisk by it on their resume saying that they rode Grant Hill‘s coattails there. If you don’t agree with me, see what happened the next year even if Coach K missed the last 2/3 of the season.

7:31 PM: It looks dead in Memphis. What do you guys think? I’m guessing it’s only 20% full. UNC fans must have bought up most of the stadium.

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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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University of Texas (7, East)

vs. Minnesota (10)
Thursday, March 19, 2009, 7:20 ET tip

Vegas Line: TX -5.5

Thanks to Vegas Watch for providing these graphs that measure the moving average of a team’s spread (moving avg.) over time vs. the spread for each individual game (indiv).  If a team’s moving average is higher than zero, then Vegas currently has a higher opinion of them than Pomeroy, and vice versa.

General Profile

Location: Austin, TX

Conference: Big 12 (at-large bid)

Coach: Rick Barnes, 265 W, 102 L

08-09 Record: 22-11 (9-7 B12)

Last 12 Games: 7-5

Best Win: (three-way tie) vs UCLA (12/4), n-Villanova at MSG (12/9), vs Oklahoma (2/21)

Worst Loss: 61-67 at Arkansas, (1/6)

Off. Efficiency Rating: 110.7 (47^th)

Def. Efficiency Rating: 91.7 (29^th)

Nuts n Bolts

Star Player(s): Dexter Pittman (Junior Center) – 117.3 ORtg, 6.7 FC/40, .619 2ptFG%, 17.9 OR%, 18.0 DR%
Unsung Hero: Dogus Balbay (Freshman PG) – 26.6 Asst Rate, 2.6 STL%, 100% improvement in TX halfcourt offense when he emerged as the team leader at PG
Potential NBA Draft Pick(s): Damion James (late 1^st Rd, early 2^nd)
Key Injuries: None
Depth: 28.4% bench minutes
Achilles Heel: 32.1% 3ptFG shooting
Will Make a Deep Run if…: Pittman and Balbay are 30+ minute per game players
Will Make an Early Exit if…: Foul trouble sends Pittman or Damion James to the bench for any extended amount of time.

NCAA History

Last Year Invited: 2007, South Regional Finalists (L, Memphis)
Streak 11 years
Best NCAA Finish: 2003, National Semifinalists (L, Syracuse)

Other

Six Degrees to Detroit: None with this hoops team, but appropriately enough for a school disproportionately obsessed with its football, WR Roy Williams and NT Sean Rogers both “starred” for hapless Lions teams in Detroit, and Pro Bowl NT Casey Hampton won his first Super Bowl ring with the Pittsburgh Steelers at Ford Field.
Distance to First Round Site: 1,298 miles
School’s Claim to Fame: The nation’s largest university has too many to name
School Wishes It Could Forget: The tragic Charles Whitman shooting
Prediction: The ‘Horns first round contest against Minnesota isn’t being appreciated for the interesting match ups the two teams provide. I’ll be watching how officials not used to Dexter Pittman officiate him with regards to fouls. If he picks up chippies, Texas is one and done. If he’s out there for 30 minutes, the Longhorns are a legitimate threat to beat anyone in the East.

Preview written by… Peter Bean, Burnt Orange Nation

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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We mentioned last night that Blake Griffin didn’t look good at all as he sat on the Oklahoma bench repeatedly rubbing his eyes and putting his head in his hands as a result of a concussion over the weekend.   Today Andy Katz reported that Griffin would likely be back for OU’s Saturday game against Texas Tech, but that report was somewhat contradicted by Griffin’s father, Tommy, who said that his son is a long way from playing basketball again.  Given the evidence that shows athletes have slower brain recovery when they return too quickly from a concussion, the OU doctors will certainly take no chances.  Nor will his father.  From the OKC Oklahoman:

“He’s a little bit better than he was,” Blake’s father, Tommy Griffin said before tipoff of OU’s Big Monday clash.  “But he’s nowhere close to being ready to play.”

How Long Until OU Gets Their Star Back?

What were the odds that the top two NPOY candidates in the country would not be playing as we approach the stretch run of the season?  Griffin has four more days to get ready for Texas Tech, a game where the Sooners can probably win without him.  But there’s no question they’ll need him for the blockbuster game at Missouri next Wednesday.  Will he be ready by then?  And what about his conditioning and timing – every day he sits out makes it that much harder for the ripped big man to get back into game shape.

Another report that came out today was able to isolate when Griffin actually experienced the concussion.  ESPN had been reporting for two days that Griffin suffered the injury as a result of a brush across the nose with UT center Dexter Pittman; however, Texas coach Rick Barnes thinks that it was actually a result of a spin coming off of a screen by guard Dogus Balbay.  We can’t find any video evidence of this yet, so if you know of something, please let us know and we’ll put it up.

Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the Big 12 and Missouri Valley Conferences.

Current Records and My Standings (Conference Standings) (Last Week)

1. Oklahoma (25-2)(11-1) (1)
2. Missouri (23-4) (10-2) (2)
3. Kansas (22-5)(11-1) (3)
4. Kansas St. (19-8) (7-5)(4)
5. Texas (18-8) (7-5) (5)
6. Oklahoma St. (17-9) (6-6) (8)
7. Nebraska (16-9) (6-6) (6)
8. Texas A&M (19-9) (5-7) (9)
9. Baylor (16-10) (4-8) (7)
10. Texas Tech (13-14) (3-9)(10)
11. Iowa St. (13-14) (2-10) (11)
12. Colorado (8-16) (1-11) (12)

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I’m not sure why everyone complains about February. Sure the NFL season is over, but at least we don’t need to hear about steroids, holdouts, and whether or not both feet were in bounds. There isn’t a blockbuster “Game of the Year” match-up today, but there are several solid games for the hoops aficionado. So just settle into your favorite spot on the couch and dig in. In the spirit of promoting healthy habits, we suggest that you try to have some vegetables today so use some ketchup on your food today.

#20 Syracuse at #16 Villanova at Noon on ESPN and ESPN360.com: The appetizer for a great day of basketball. This isn’t necessarily a must win for either team, but a win today would probably boost their NCAA seed by at least a spot on Selection Sunday. Both teams have virtually assured themselves a NCAA bid (particularly with Syracuse’s relatively easy remaining schedule in the Big East). One of the more interesting aspects of this game is that if the Orangemen lose, there is a decent chance that they will drop out of the top 25 leaving the Big East with only 5 teams in the top 25 after having as many as 9 teams earlier this season. Anyways, back to the game. Watch the match-up at point guard featuring Jonny Flynn against Scottie Reynolds. The winner of that match-up will likely win the game barring an explosion by either Eric Devendorf or Dante Cunningham.

Cincinnati at Georgetown at Noon on The Big East Network, ESPN Full Court, and ESPN360.com: Georgetown is killing me this year. I saw them play in Orlando against Tennessee in the Old Spice Classic. They lost that game, but it was pretty clear to me that day that they had the talent to make it to the Sweet 16 at the very least. I never imagined that they might be in a position at this point in the season that they might not make the NCAA tournament. To be fair, at that time I was also operating under the assumption that Tennessee was good. The Hoyas were able to break their 5-game losing streak against Rutgers and will need to beat the Bearcats if they want to get some momentum heading into their game against Syracuse at the Carrier Dome. If John Thompson III is able to figured out a way to keep Deonta Vaughn in check, the Hoyas should be able to ride Greg Monroe and DaJuan Summer to a victory.

Notre Dame at #12 UCLA at 1 PM on CBS: The Irish are desperate for a victory having lost 6 straight games. They will have to end their losing streak in one of the rare non-conference match-ups this month. Everybody knows Luke Harangody is going to get his (25.3 PPG and 13.2 RPG), but Notre Dame will need Kyle McAlarney to break out of his prolonged shooting slump and get a great game out of Tory Jackson, who will be matched up against the Bruins veteran PG, Darren Collison. Look for UCLA to pull away in the 2nd half behind Collison, Josh Shipp, and Jrue Holiday.

Miami (FL) at #3 Duke at 1:30 PM on Raycom, ESPN Full Court, and ESPN360.com: I’m fully expecting Duke to come back strong at home after the massacre at Littlejohn on Wednesday night, which is something that rtmsf actually predicted before the game (sort of), but nobody picked up on until after the game. (Ok, nobody has really picked up on it yet.) On the other hand, Miami was on the right side of the other blowout upset beating Wake Forest by 27. Look for Kyle Singler to rebound with a strong game after a weak “effort” against Clemson that was plagued by foul trouble. Coach K will likely use Gerald Henderson, the only Blue Devil who showed up against Clemson, on Jack McClinton in an attempt to slow down the mercurial Miami star. If Singler and Henderson can contain or at least equal Dwayne Collins and McClinton, respectively, the Blue Devils should return to their winning ways. Well at least until UNC invades Cameron on Wednesday night.

#17 Texas at Nebraska at 2 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: Texas will be looking to rebound after back-to-back losses on the road. Today, they return to Austin to take on the Cornhuskers. Look for A.J. Abrams and Damion James to have big games as Rick Barnes‘s squad will definitely be motivated in this one after falling 3.5 back of conference leader Oklahoma. If Abrams and James have big games that should be enough to hold off Nebraska’s balanced attack.

Michigan at #1 UConn at 6 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: This is a game that the Huskies should be able to win fairly convincingly particularly with the game in Gampel Pavillion, but as this year has taught us never expect too much out of the #1 ranked team in the country. A Michigan win would obviously do wonders for their NCAA tournament chances, but it will tough particularly with John Beilein‘s recent changes in his rotations including bringing DeShawn Sims off the bench in their 71-51 win over Penn State in their last game. The new lineup, which is still led by Manny Harris, may provide some match-up problems for UConn and their big men. I expect UConn to pull this one especially with the recent play of Hasheem Thabeet and Jeff Adrien, but Michigan could give them problems and Beilein certainly knows all about the Huskies dating back to his days as the coach at West Virginia.

Charleston at Davidson at 6 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Most people will tune in just to watch Stephen Curry, but this could actually be a realtively close game (a rarity for the Wildcats in the weak Southern Conference). When these teams met earlier this season, the Wildcats escaped with a 4-point win on the road after Charleston had a chance to tie it with a 3 with less than 10 seconds remaining in the game. This is particularly meaningful as the Wildcats haven’t lost a Southern Conference game since January 20, 2007 (a 43-game winning streak). As an added bonus, you can see Bobby Cremins (former head coach of Georgia Tech) try to come up with a scheme to guard Curry. Cremins is one of the few coaches in the country who has had a player who was at Curry’s level or even above that as he coached Kenny Anderson (along with Dennis Scott and Brian Oliver aka “Lethal Weapon 3”) to the NCAA Final 4 in 1991.

Florida State at #10 Clemson at 7 PM on NESN and Fox Sports: I’m actually more interested in this game than the others for my own selfish reason since I’ll be doing another RTC Live when Clemson comes to Boston College on Tuesday night. It will be interesting to see if the Tigers have returned to Earth after their beatdown the hated Blue Devils just a few days ago. Oliver Purnell‘s squad had better be ready because the Seminoles are a fairly dangerous team (ask Roy Williams, who needed a Ty Lawson 3 at the buzzer to pull out a win against FSU). This is a classic letdown game so it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on it especially if Toney Douglas gets hot or if either Trevor Booker or K.C. Rivers isn’t on his game after the celebrations following the Duke win.

#19 Minnesota at Ohio State at 8 PM on The Big Ten Network: Minnesota will be licking its wounds after getting crushed by Michigan State at the Breslin Center earlier this week. Unfortunately for Tubby Smith, the Gophers have to head to Columbus to take on a Buckeye team that just knocked off Purdue. If Evan Turner is hot, the Buckeyes could make a move into the top 25 with a win here knocking the Gophers out in the process.

#23 Arizona State at Oregon State at 8:30 PM on Fox Sports: James Harden and the Sun Devils will be looking to complete the Oregon sweep against Craig Robinson‘s Beavers. [Ed. Note: Isn’t Robinson related to some famous guy? I thought I heard something about it on the news.] The Beavers, who were undefeated following Barack Obama‘s Inauguration, finally lost to Arizona ending Oregon State’s hopes of riding Obama-mania to an undefeated term. If the Sun Devils can contain Calvin Haynes, they should hand the Beavers a second consecutive defeat.

#15 Memphis at #18 Gonzaga at 9 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: Spokane is the site of ESPN GameDay today and it features a match-up of two highly regarded programs that hit rough patches this season, but have rebounded well. Gonzaga appears to have used their victory over Tennessee in Knoxville as a catalyst for their resurgence (Patty Mills‘s injury didn’t hurt either). Memphis, on the other hand, appears to have found its rhythm again with John Calipari‘s decision to move freshman Tyreke Evans from shooting guard to point guard (the kid is lost when he doesn’t have the ball in his hands). Evans has responded with his best play of the season and the Tigers have not lost since the move. Interestingly, both teams dominance in their leagues means that this is a huge game for each in terms of NCAA seeding. A win today would probably be worth 2 seeds on Selection Sunday assuming both teams are able to run the table for the rest of the regular season. Despite the fact that both teams have pretty balanced scoring attacks (4 starters in double figures for each team), the key to this game will likely be the PG match-up of Evans versus Jeremy Pargo. If the more experienced Pargo can outplay Evans, the Bulldogs should be able to run away with this one. If he isn’t, we could be in for a hard-fought game.

Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the Big 12 and Missouri Valley Conferences.

Current Records and my standings (Conference Standings) (Last Week)

1. Oklahoma (21-1)(7-0) (1)
2. Kansas (17-4)(6-0) (3)
3. Missouri (18-4) (5-2) (4)
4. Texas (15-5) (4-2) (2)
5. Texas A&M (17-5) (3-4) (7)
6. Baylor (15-6) (3-4) (5)
7. Nebraska (13-7) (3-4) (9)
8. Kansas St. (14-7) (3-4)(11)
9. Oklahoma St. (13-7) (2-4) (6)
10. Iowa St. (12-9) (1-5) (10)
11. Texas Tech (11-10) (1-5)(8)
12. Colorado (8-10) (1-5) (12)

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Is It an Upset if Nobody Was There to See It? Ole Miss 85, Kentucky 80. We’ll get to the game in a minute, but did anyone else notice just how empty the premium seats were in the Tad Smith Coliseum tonight?  What gives – an ESPN game against Kentucky, long the standard-bearer of the SEC, and the place is mostly empty at tipoff?  Were all the cows already tipped over in Oxford tonight (sorry, obligatory Mississippi joke)?   Well, all those at-home Mississippians missed a big chance to celebrate in what’s been a trying season at Ole Miss, as the Rebels thoroughly outhustled and outplayed Kentucky in tonight’s win.  Their defense absolutely gobbled up Jodie Meeks every time he touched the ball, holding him to 4-15 from the floor, and generally shutting down everyone else but Patrick Patterson (24/7).  Ole Miss, on the other hand, put three players in the 20+ column (Malcolm White, Terrico White, David Huertas), and it was difficult to believe that we were watching the same team that LSU had obliterated by 32 in Oxford a mere ten days ago.  We have to give credit to Andy Kennedy for this one – it was clear his players believed they could win this game from start to finish despite all the injuries and mayhem, and they did.  By FAR the best part of this game, though, was Billy Gillispie’s response to the dreadful sideline reporter Jeannine Edwards’ questions during the halftime interview.  Remember kids, there are no bad questions, just bad reporters…

Road Team Power.

• Texas 78, Baylor 72. Baylor just cannot beat Rick Barnes and Texas.  It’s now at 23 in a row, dating back to the Tom Penders era in Austin.  AJ Abrams had 19 pts and Damion James 16/12 for the Horns, who were able to keep the home-team Bears chilly (38%) for most of the night.  The bottom half of the Big 12 is really bad this year, so the Bears should still be safe, but if they ever want to be taken seriously in a national way (much less in the Big 12), they’re going to have to eventually beat Texas or Oklahoma (29 Ls in a row vs. the Sooners).
• Purdue 64, Wisconsin 63. This just doesn’t happen.  Bo Ryan teams never lose consecutive home games, much less five games in a row.  And yet, the Badgers now sit at 3-5 in the Big Ten race thanks to getting swept by Purdue tonight.  Robbie Hummell hit a key three with just over a minute left to give the Boilermakers the lead for good, and once again Wisconsin was left to do some soul-searching.  The problem for the Badgers is that their usually-reliable defense is far from it right now – Purdue connected on nearly 60% of its shots tonight, in its last four losses teams have hit at least 47%, and teams are shooting a full 5% higher against the Badgers this year than last.

ACC Tuesday Night.

• NC State 84, Miami (FL) 81 (OT). The Hurricanes are really confounding this season.  Looking at their personnel on the floor, you can easily see a team that will finish in the top five of the ACC and make the NCAA Tournament.  Instead, when you look at their resume, you quickly realize that the only likely tourney team they’ve beaten was Kentucky nearly two months ago.  Games like tonight surely don’t help – they shot 49% and outrebounded the Wolfpack by 11, yet still lost the game when NCSU freshman Julius Mays drilled a by-the-way three with 2.6 seconds remaining in OT to win it (see below video).  Miami had better get it going soon because games vs. Wake, UNC and at Duke are looming.
• Boston College 76, Maryland 67. When is Gary Williams going to hang it up in College Park?  Three days after taking it up the arse at Duke for their worst loss ever in that once-illustrious series, the Terps came back home to blow a sixteen-pt first half lead in yet another head-scratcher.  With only one NCAA Tourney win in the last four seasons (soon to be five), when will the Terp faithful put an end to what is clearly a coach who is simply riding out the string.  As for BC, the Eagles won their third league game in a row to go to 4-3 in the conference, and what’s even more surprising is that their motor, Tyrese Rice, didn’t even play all that well (10/6 assts).  It appears that BC is going to be good enough to compete with Virginia Tech, Miami and Florida St. for the bubble spots in the ACC this year – their schedule is favorable to be at .500 or better the rest of the way.

Some Other Scores.

• Eastern Kentucky 73, Austin Peay 70 (OT). EKU got the home upset to bring Austin Peay back to the pack a little in the OVC race.
• Utah 94, BYU 88 (OT). BYU shot half as many FTs but missed just as many at Utah (9), and that was the key difference in the OT.  Utah’s Luke Nevill blew up for 32/10.
• Northeastern 68, VCU 63. NE got a huge road win to take over sole possession of first place in the CAA despite Eric Maynor’s 30 pts and a furious comeback that fell short for VCU.