David Ely is an RTC Contributor 

Introduction:

It’s Feb. 1. That means there’s only 40 days left until Selection Sunday, or 40 days left for teams to build up their resume so their bubble doesn’t pop. We’re sure there are going to be a lot of heated discussions about teams hovering within that last four in-last four out zone over the next six weeks. Heck, here at TWTW, we’ll probably change our opinion on certain squads three  or four times until the end of the regular season. It should be a crazy six weeks, but we know it’s going to be fun.  

What We learned

After a weekend that saw 13 ranked teams lose (and the entire top 25 go 22-20 for the week, as Seth Davis pointed out on SI.com) the chic thing to do is talk about the gigantic bulging central part of the bell curve that symbolizes this college basketball season. It’s nearly impossible to make sense of who’s good and who’s bad on a weekly basis, as a team is liable to have a monumental win one night and then lose to a lesser school a few days later. Let’s use Georgetown as an example. Just over two weeks ago the Hoyas were a mess at 1-4 in the Big East and losers of four of their previous five games. Now, they’ve won five in a row, including recent triumphs at Villanova and at home against Louisville. Georgetown isn’t the only school that enjoys playing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Check out this paragraph from Davis’ Monday column: 

“Texas can lose at USC and then win at Kansas. Tennessee, which should be this movie’s poster child, can win at Villanova and Pitt (at the Consol Energy Center) and lose to College of Charleston and Charlotte. Louisville loses at home to Drexel but beats UConn on the road. Providence loses to LaSalle but beats Louisville and Villanova. Auburn loses to Samford, Campbell and Presbyterian, but it beats Florida State, which later beats Duke. What, you didn’t know Presbyterian was better than Duke? And on Sunday, St. John’s (which lost to Fordham) blew out Duke.” 

Given all this uncertainty, can anyone honestly say with any assurance that there’s a clear-cut elite set of teams? Ohio State might be undefeated, but the Buckeyes have had their fair share of nail biters over ho-hum teams (Michigan, Penn State, and most recently, Northwestern). TWTW would like to put its eggs into Texas’ basket. The Longhorns are this week’s Team du Jour, having torched four ranked teams in the last 13 days, but you wouldn’t be shocked if Texas didn’t have a hiccup or two to an unranked team before the season’s end, would you?

This Tristan Thompson-Nathan Walkup Encounter Accurately Summarizes Texas' Throttling of the Aggies Last Night (B. Sullivan/Dallas Morning News)

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The Lede.  What a weekend.  Unless you care about the Pro Bowl (and really, other than gamblers, who does?), we here in the college hoops universe had the sports world to ourselves, and the weekend gods in charge made sure that we had a wild and woolly preview of March even though the calendar still said otherwise.  Fully half of the ranked teams in the RTC Top 25 lost over the weekend, and quite a few others including two of the top three teams in America hung on by the skin of their teeth.  What this shows us once again is that there are no dominant teams in basketball this year; even though Ohio State remains undefeated, they’ve had numerous close encounters and it’s clear that the Buckeyes are merely one of a dozen teams with the goods to win six straight this spring.  It should be a wild ride through the remaining five weeks of the regular season; if this weekend’s results are any indication, we should all down a few anti-vertigo meds and strap ourselves in.

St. John's Made the Garden Rock Again Today (Getty/N. Laham)

Your Watercooler Moment.  Duke Destroyed in the Garden.  The last time we saw the Duke Blue Devils so thoroughly undressed as they were in today’s matchup with St. John’s at the Garden, many observers at the time believed that Coach K had lost some of his touch on the recruiting trail and his teams simply could not compete at the highest level of college basketball anymore.  On that day, Villanova used a dominant second half to rattle the Devils with its superior quickness and athleticism, forcing Duke to fire off 22 bricks from beyond the arc (versus five makes) in the game and generally embarrassing a team that had been ranked as high as #1 at one point that season.  Today’s game against Steve Lavin’s fun group of Johnnies was not entirely dissimilar.  Duke looked generally slow, uninterested and incapable of making an outside shot (shooting 5-26 from deep after starting out 1-19) while SJU had all the energy and emotion of a home crowd desperate for a winning program again.  Whether this is emblematic of a bad day for Duke or indicative of a deeper set of problems, we’ll have to see how February goes before making that decision.  Make no mistake, though, today’s result was a major red flag for the defending national champs.  Teams that win titles don’t find themselves down 50-25 to anybody, much less unranked teams.

We have much more on this destruction of Duke from our correspondent’s report from the game here.

This Weekend’s Quick Hits…

• Ashton Gibbs and Jared Sullinger.  A couple of big-time players making big-time shots in the clutch with their teams on the verge of defeat.  #1 Ohio State appeared to be in serious trouble when David Lighty got the ball into Sullinger deep in the post off a steal.  He was fouled and subsequently hit 1-of-2 free throws with three seconds remaining and all the noise and pressure of the Northwestern students weighing on him at the time.  Just another day at the office (21/8) for the impressive freshman.  At Rutgers, it was the junior Gibbs (24/4) who played the role of Mr. Clutch, drilling a 25-footer as the shot clock wound down and the Panthers clinging to a precarious one-point lead.  His three gave Pitt just enough breathing room to keep Rutgers on the fouling strategy, ultimately unsuccessful as Pitt hit twelve down the stretch to salt away another win.
• The Texas Defense.  It’s starting to scare us.  We know that the Longhorn defense is already the most efficient in America, but to put the clamps on an offensive juggernaut like Missouri in holding the Tigers to 58 points (25 below their season average) is ridiculous.  In six Big 12 games, they’re holding teams to 54 points per game, a statistic that is particularly amazing when you consider that three of those wins were against teams in the top 15.  If Rick Barnes can coax a little more offense from his young team, the Horns might end up as the best team in America by March.

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Introduction

We are just about halfway through the conference schedules and the true contenders are beginning to reveal themselves, while the pretenders are wallowing away after deceiving the country for so many weeks. Take a team like Central Florida, for instance. They looked like a legitimate top 25 team and a definite candidate for an at-large berth after breezing through the non-conference with an unblemished record, but their 1-5 record in Conference USA makes that great run in the non-conference all for naught. Conversely, take a gander at Duquesne. The Dukes went a modest 8-5 in the non-conference with losses to Robert Morris and George Mason, but have gone onto take the Atlantic 10 by storm. Suffice to say, it is hard to gauge just how good some teams are based solely on the non-conference. Some coaches will elect to challenge their team by scheduling a tough OOC schedule, while others will stockpile a bunch of cupcakes to pick up easy wins. The distinction between the pretenders and contenders will continue to be illuminated all the way up until the conference tournaments. Up until then, we sit and watch teams rise above expectations heading into conference play and watch others flounder.

The Other 26 Rankings

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If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

Top 25 Games

• Indiana 52, #18 Illinois 49: “These kids have been criticized for their lack of mental toughness. Lambasted for sagging energy and effort. Their coach occasionally derided for his substitution patterns and schemes. But on this snowy late January evening, there were no critics. Only a unified 17,000-plus screaming and shouting and cheering from every nook and cranny in one of college basketball’s great stadiums, rooting their team on to a spirited victory. This, my friends, was Indiana Basketball.” (Inside the Hall: Recap and Post-Game Interviews)
• #20 Vanderbilt 81, Mississippi State 74: “Mississippi State trailed by three with 21 seconds left, but had the ball on their home court and a chance to prove that the Commodores had yet to figure out their late game woes. One monumental Jeffery Taylor dunk later, it was all over. Taylor stole Brian Bryant’s backcourt pass with just 17 seconds to go and threw down a vicious dunk to seal the win for Vanderbilt, securing Kevin Stallings’s first ever win in Starksville as the ‘Dores avoided Mississippi State’s upset bid. Vandy trailed by as many as eight points with 10 minutes to play, but showed that they could win tough conference games on the road with a gutsy performance at The Hump.” (Anchor of Gold)
• Michigan 61, #23 Michigan State 57: “Michigan fell behind 6-0 in the first two minutes and appeared to be headed down the same dark road that we’ve seen far too often over the past 13 years. But Michigan didn’t fold, instead battling their way back to a 20-16 lead with 10:28 to play. I was relieved that they were still in the game at the time and would have never guessed that Michigan would hold onto the lead for the final 30 minutes of the game. Michigan State took its best shot, eventually cutting the lead to two points with less than a minute remaining, but Michigan had just enough answers to escape East Lansing with a victory.” (UM Hoops:Recap and Video Clips of Tom Izzo, Tim Hardaway Jr., Zach Novak and Darius Morris, and John Beilein)
• #23 St. Mary’s 73, Gonzaga 71: “The roller coaster ride that is Gonzaga basketball 2010-11 continued this evening as the Bulldogs fell to the Gaels by a count of 73-71.  Personally, I’m at an interesting place right now in as much as that I think Gonzaga played about as good a game as this team is capable of tonight.  Were there turnovers?  Sure, Steven’s five and Elias’ three were brutal but, and I hate saying this, that is simply what this team is this season.  It is an inconsistent bunch that some twenty-odd games is still grasping at straws to figure everything out.” (The Slipper Still Fits)

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The Lede. Hopefully everyone was over their Jimmer hangovers by the time the games started tonight. Judging by Twitter, and…well, pretty much every sports outlet in the nation, the transitive verb “to Jimmer” has entered the American sporting lexicon with some serious impact. We can’t remember when a college baller’s name has ever been used in this fashion; nobody ever said “You got Turnered/Walled,” or “He Morrisoned them,” or “They Hansbrough’d the heck out of that poor team.” And the only name we can think of that contains a reverent “The” at the beginning that’s in regular use today belongs to U2 guitarist The Edge, though — and credit to Seth Davis for starting the trend — “The Jimmer” is now commonplace usage in referring to just about everybody’s favorite player.

Darius Morris and Crew Start the Celebration (J.Gonzalez/Detroit FP)

But enough of that for now. We’ll have many chances to discuss him later. Tonight we saw three tough conference road wins, two of them in games involving bitter rivals. We have a couple of RTCs we have to weigh in on, and a pair of outstanding tweets from the Gonzaga vs St. Mary’s game. First, though, we start…with Sparty.

Your Watercooler Moment. On the halftime coverage of ESPN2’s St. Mary’s @ Gonzaga game, when asked about how dire the situation was for Michigan State this year after their loss to Michigan tonight, even the understated Dan Dakich hesitated for effect and said gravely, “Well…it’s pretty serious.”

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1. If you watched the Texas–Oklahoma State game you probably heard the Tom Friend article about the Oklahoms State plane crash that happened 10 years ago today mentioned approximately a million times, and if you paid attention during the broadcast, you probably know what the article says, but we still highly recommend that you check it out if you haven’t already.
2. In light of last night’s Jimmer-fest on Twitter, it is worth taking a look at Michael Rothstein’s Player of the Year straw poll that was conducted before last night’s game. Kemba Walker is the runaway winner when these “ballots” were sent in. We are interested in seeing what happens with the voting after Jimmer Fredette‘s performance last night, but we are more interested in knowing which 4, 5, and 8 voters left Walker, Fredette, and Jared Sullinger out of the top three respectively. I think this might merit a Gary Parrish “Poll Attack,” particularly if someone left two or — gasp! — all three of them out of the top three.
3. Some of you may remember our recent post about Roy Williams criticizing callers on his radio show for questioning what the team was doing. We figured the entire thing would blow over in a few days and that the UNC administration would try to pretend that the incident never happened, based on the fact that they wouldn’t comment on it, and said they wouldn’t even contact Williams for a comment on it. It turns out that we were wrong, because apparently someone of enough importance was upset enough with the comments that Williams issued an apology. [Ed. Note: We really doubt that Williams did this without a significant push from someone higher up, and, at a school like UNC, there aren’t too many people with that kind of power.]
4. Even though most of the country has been focused on the Ohio States and Dukes of the world (ok, and the Jimmers), one of the most interesting developments this season has been Gonzaga‘s precipitous decline. Even though they have plenty of talent, Mark Few‘s squad hasn’t managed to put it together and now it looks like St. Mary’s might be the team to finally knock Gonzaga off, and, as Ann Killion points out, the next few games are going to be huge for the Gaels. If they win those games, the WCC crown might be moving down the Pacific Coast for at least one season.
5. Finally, we try not to link to ESPN Insider articles if possible because we know many of you don’t have access, but we enjoy some of these Conference Voices columns that they are putting out. Sometimes the execution doesn’t match the idea, but the recent column by Chris Singleton about how FSU views being ranked and whether or not they consider it important. His assertion that beating Duke was a bigger deal than losing to Auburn is interesting and worth reading.

David Ely is an RTC Contributor

Get ready college hoops fanatics. Get ready for the stampede of casual fans that are about to crash the sports bars once the NFL season comes to a close. They’ll have to find something for their sports fix and they’ll turn to college basketball. So be prepared for people asking things like, “Who’s that big guy for Ohio State? He looks pretty good.” Or “San Diego State’s in the top five? Really?!?” Just try to smile and nod at those fools. No need to let them ruin the season’s stretch run.

What We Learned

TWTW Loves Jimmer and Kawhi, But Prefers E'Twaun and the Boilers Traveling to Columbus This Week

Even with SDSU and BYU squaring off on Wednesday, TWTW feels that if there’s only one game you watch this week, make sure it’s Purdue at Ohio State, tonight at 9pm ET. Matt Painter’s squad is one of our favorites and TWTW thinks they’re a good bet to pull off the upset. Purdue rebounded from back-to-back losses at Minnesota and West Virginia to grind out a win over a plucky Penn State squad and then took care of business against reeling Michigan State. It would have been easy for the Boilermakers to fold at the first sign of trouble this season. They have the built-in excuse of Robbie Hummel’s injury, and no one really believed they could sustain their early-season success once they hit the meat of their schedule, but seniors JaJuan Johnson and E’Twaun Moore wouldn’t let that two-game losing streak turn into a prolonged swoon. Johnson scored 25 points in the win over PSU, while Moore poured in 26 against the Spartans.

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A wild week shook up the rankings last week… so here it is…

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Kevin Doyle is an RTC contributor.

Introduction

The non-conference is often times a good barometer for determining how strong a team will be and how they will perform within their respective conferences during league play. There are times, of course, when a team will challenge themselves by scheduling many BCS opponents and tough mid-majors, and compile a poor OOC record. Despite the lackluster record, they still may be a quality team. In some instances, however, it simply takes teams longer to gel and come together—conference play is when they finally peak. Likewise, there are always a handful of squads that will play nothing but cupcakes with extra frosting on the top, and run up many wins throughout the first half of the year, only to flounder during conference play. After witnessing teams play several games against conference opponents, let’s take a look at who may be exceeding expectations based on a struggling OOC record, and who has fallen flat on their faces after soaring through the OOC:

Surprising

• Binghamton (6-10, 3-0)—Although they have beaten three of the weaker teams in the America East, the Bearcats are out to a nice 3-0 start nevertheless and have one of the best pure scorers in the league in Greer Wright. If Binghamton can knock off Vermont and Maine—two of the top teams—then they will be taken as a serious threa
• Hofstra (11-5, 5-0)—Any team with Charles Jenkins has a fighter’s chance. Jenkins has the Pride as the last unbeaten team in the CAA, but a crucial game looms with ODU this weekend.
• Wagner (8-8, 4-1)—Don’t bet against the Hurley family. Dan and Bobby Hurley are both in their first year with the program, and have already brought in some great recruits and wins to go along with it.
• Holy Cross (3-13, 2-0)—Gone are the days where the Crusaders would breeze through the Patriot League en route to the NCAA Tournament. Now, Milan Brown has the daunting task of building Holy Cross back into the mid-major power they once were. After a disastrous non-conference, HC has won their first two league games.

Falling

• Cleveland State (15-3, 4-2)—The Vikings look to be a notch below the upper tier teams of the league. After winning their first 12 games, Cleveland State had a rough weekend this past losing to Butler and Valpo.
• Loyola Chicago (10-8, 1-6)—Similar to Cleveland State, Loyola Chicago looked like they could be a force in the Horizon League, but have lost all their games to the top five teams in the Horizon. They began the year 7-0, and their first loss was only by two points to Butler
• Northern Iowa (12-6, 3-3)—After defeating New Mexico to win the Las Vegas Classic, UNI looked like they would challenge Wichita State and Missouri State in the Missouri Valley. They are just 3-3 in their last six games, with the most disappointing loss coming in a lackluster effort against Indiana State where they lost 70-45
• San Jose State (9-7, 1-4)—Adrian Oliver, a transfer from Washington, may be the best player in the WAC, but his Spartans have not been able to follow suit. San Jose State went 8-3 in the non-conference, but have gone onto lose four of their last five games.

Granted, conference play is still very young, and no team has even gone through the first go-around of games against their counterparts, so there still is ample time for many things to happen. With that being said, the preceding 10 teams certainly did stick out when analyzing their play in the non-conference and comparing it to their performance in their league.

The Other 26 Rankings

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The Lede. Thursday night was angry because it had to follow Wednesday night’s ridiculous bounty of hoops and the Florida State upset of Duke. Still, there were some compelling storylines to follow on tonight’s slate, including a streak on the line at Minnesota, some serious glare coming off the Jackson Pollock painting that is Oregon’s new floor, and whether or not Seth Greenberg and Virginia Tech would have enough players to finish their game at North Carolina.

Your Watercooler Moment. For those in the East who stayed up long enough to see it, here’s a look at what people saw on the broadcast of the debut of Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena:

The glare you see is not a product of taking a picture of a television with a camera. In reality, it looked even worse than this. The central part (the “non-tree” portion) of the floor is comprised of very light-colored wood, and as you can see, the light from the long strip of lights along the ceiling bounces right off of that wood, through the camera, and onto your screaming retinas. In high-def it was atrocious, and if the game was shown on HDTVs in sports bars around the country, it could aptly be described as a civic danger. During the game, everybody from Sports Illustrated writers to ESPN personalities were commenting on it through Twitter; one friend even said he had to wear sunglasses while watching the game. The hot shots who came up with the design for this court should be able to figure out some lighting scheme that will provide sufficient illumination for basketball while also letting home viewers enjoy the floor in all its, er…glory. Let’s hope so.

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