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

There is no drama left in the race for the WCC conference title and favorite’s role heading into the conference tournament – it’s Gonzaga by a landslide – but that doesn’t mean the excitement is over in the West Coast Conference. With Portland’s emergence as a threat to Saint Mary’s for number two behind the Zags and a wild scramble underway to fill out the top four league spots, the last two weeks of play will be interesting.

Here’s how it is shaping up:

Saint Mary’s vs Portland
The Gaels may have righted themselves following the loss of Patty Mills on Jan. 29 by losing a winnable rematch against Gonzaga 72-70 (2/12) and pulling away from Portland in the second half to win 77-65 (2/14), both games in Moraga. Not only did the win over the Pilots give the Gaels as a team a much-needed confidence boost, it may have given even more to sophomore point guard Mickey McConnell. McConnell rebounded from a miserable outing as Mills’ stand-in against Gonzaga – six turnovers and five points is not a line to be remembered – to score 20 against Portland and post a gleaming line: four-for-four from three-point land and six-for-six from the foul line. McConnell has been up and down this year for the Gaels, but may be coming into his own at a crucial time. A coaches’ son from Mesa, AZ, McConnell has held coach Randy Bennett’s praise and confidence since arriving in Moraga, and now has a perfect opportunity to show everyone else what Bennett sees.

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Starting with some News & Notes…

• Big news from UConn that starting guard Jerome Dyson may be out for the rest of the year with a torn meniscus in his knee.  UConn has sufficient depth in the backcourt to weather this hit, but Dyson has had a great season and he will be missed.
• Knees are the news tonight, as Dayton’s third leading scorer, Rob Lowery, will also miss the rest of the year with a knee injury.
• John Pelphrey’s season at Arkansas just got worse, as he suspended his freshman starting PG, Courtney Fortson, indefinitely.
• This POY straw poll shows that Blake Griffin is running away with it at this point.
• Athletic departments around the country are feeling the economic pinch as well as the rest of us.
• Jonathan Xavier: Time Served.

Tonight’s Big Games.

• Notre Dame 90, Louisville 57. Hey T-Will, maybe you were right… some of the worst teams in the Big East can beat some of the best teams in the…  Big East.  You should recall that Carolina handled the very same team that just pasted you with your worst loss in BE history tonight.  The same team that had just lost its last seven games.  The same team that absolutely had no recourse other than to win this game (and damn near every other game) to try to get back into the NCAA Tournament this season.  The opportunity is there – out of the Irish’s final seven games, only the game at UConn is probably unwinnable.  4-7 in the Big East could turn into 8-7 if they simply handle their remaining home games (USF, Rutgers, Villanova, St. John’s).  Split the two roadies at WVU and Providence (+ the UConn L) and they can get to 9-9.  That’s why tonight’s game was such a must-win.  The Irish lit Louisville up for ten threes and 54% shooting behind Gody’s 32/17 while holding Louisville to 39% on the other end and a mere 16 pts from T-Will and Earl Clark.  Pitino said his team was embarrassed, and they should be – this humiliating loss more or less ensures that the Cards won’t be winning the 2009 national title – teams that lose by 30+ never win it all.  Go ahead, look it up.
• Arizona St. 74, UCLA 67. Apparently UCLA can beat everyone in the Pac-10 except for Herb Sendek’s Sun Devils.  This game was back and forth until a late block/charge call on Darren Collison went ASU’s way, essentially ensuring ASU’s second victory over UCLA this season.  Surprisingly maybe to people who haven’t watched much of UCLA this season but ASU shot 60% and hit eleven threes to keep the game competitive throughout; the Bruin offense is quite a bit further along than its defense this season, which is odd for a Ben Howland team.  Five Sun Devils ended up in double figures, but none more than 15 pts (James Harden and Derek Glasser).  This loss by UCLA really tightens up the top of the Pac-10, with five teams now within one game of first place.
• Gonzaga 72, St. Mary’s 70. We checked into this one to see if St. Mary’s could parlay its raucous home crowd into an upset over Gonzaga without their star, Patty Mills, on the floor.  The answer was no, but one thing is fairly clear to us – St. Mary’s is the best team in the WCC with Patty Mills, and it’s really not close.  The Gaels were unbeaten and whipping Gonzaga when he was injured in Spokane, and the fact that they were this close at home with the mercurial Mills playing announcer (still can’t get over that accent…), convinces us that SMC is the better team.  Gonzaga has better individual talent in our eyes, but for some reason, they’re just not maximizing their potential this season (or any season).  Josh Heytvelt had 20/10 but it was his three missed FTs down the stretch that kept the door open for St. Mary’s, who had two possessions in the last ten seconds to win the game.  Keep an eye on SMC in the NCAAs, but forget about the Zags.

Other Games Heading into the Weekend…

• Illinois 60, Northwestern 59. Utterly heartbreaking loss for NW and inspirational comeback win for Illinois in Evanston.  NW led 57-43 with 5 mins to go, but could only manage two more points as Demetri McCamey’s shot with 2.9 seconds hit bottoms for the Illini win.
• Temple 61, St. Joseph’s 59. Ahmad Nivins had 21/6 in this Big 5 matchup that resulted in St. Joe’s taking its second A10 loss of the year.  Dionte Christmas had 19/11 for Temple.
• Davidson 78, Wofford 61. Steph Curry Watch – 39/5/3 assts on 14-24 FGs (5-8 3FGs).
• Washington St. 67, Oregon 38. Please tell us Ernie Kent is gone after this season.
• Arizona 83, USC 76. The winner of this one was going to have a definite bubble advantage going into the last few weeks of the season, and both teams seemed to know it.  Arizona used a late 6-0 run fueled by USC turnovers to win its sixth in a row and go to 7-5 in the Pac-10.  Nic Wise had 27 pts and Chase Budinger had 25 pts in the win.
• Utah St. 62, Idaho 53. USU struggled for a while in this one, but pulled away late to go to 24-1 (12-0) on the season.  Gary Wilkinson had 17/10.
• Washington 79, Oregon St. 60. No letdown for the Huskies at home tonight, as Justin Dentmon had 28/7 assts to go to 8-3 in the Pac-10 (tied with UCLA).

On Tap Friday (all times EST). Actually, another fairly good Big East game on Friday this week…

• Villanova @ West Virginia (ESPN) – 9pm.  Villanova’s been hot, having won its last six games, but WVU sorta needs this one.  Should be an interesting environment on a Friday night in Morgantown.

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

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

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

Atlantic Coast

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

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

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

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

Big East

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

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

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

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

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A few notes:

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

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

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

1 Seeds

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

2 Seeds

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

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We’re back with another thrilling edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite where we try to cover every single game on TV. Since we have only two people working on BGTD, we appreciate any reader tips on what games everyone should be watching since there are so many on TV and the Internet. For a rundown of the games today, check out today’s Set Your Tivos.

11:40 AM: ESPN GameDay is live from Spokane site of the Memphis-Gonzaga game tongiht at 9 PM. The crowd is fairly small, but I’ll give the Bulldog fans a break since it started at 8 AM local time on a Saturday morning at a school with just 4,515 undergraduates. I’m still waiting for a basketball GameDay to match a college football GameDay in terms of attendance and crazy fans. Looking at the schedule, I’m going to have go with February 21st when Oklahoma plays Texas in Austin, TX as the ESPN GameDay where the fans actually show up.

Noon: Some great work by the ESPN camera crew making Philadelphia look like something other a dump. The Syracuse-Villanova game should be one of the better ones today with both teams being in the 2nd tier in the Big East after UConn, Pittsburgh, and Louisville. The jury is still out on Marquette after last night’s debacle. Like we said watch the Jonny Flynn versus Scottie Reynolds match-up. The Arinze Onuaku injury could be big particularly with Dante Cunningham on the inside.

12:40 PM: Sorry for the delay in posting, but we’re having some problems with WordPress. Anyways, Villanova is absolutely destroying Syracuse right now. A basket by Cunningham stretches the lead to 21 at 36-15. It might be a while before we have another update on this game unless the Orange make a run. If the game continues like this, Jim Boeheim‘s squad will fall out of the top 25 leaving just 5 Big East teams in the rankings.

1:00 PM: The ESPN announcers just said that Donovan McNabb played some basketball when he was at Syracuse. Either he had some ridiculous intramural basketball career that I’m not aware of or they just assume that every mobile black QB was a two-sports star. I’m guessing it is the latter.

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A few notes for this week’s edition:

– Louisville is a 1-seed because they’re the projected Big East champions. This could change in less than 24 hours should they fall to Connecticut at home, a very plausible scenario. Both Louisville and Marquette are undefeated in the conference, but I gave the edge to the Cardinals because I feel they’re the slightly better team. It’s my bracket and I’ll do what I want.

– As much as some will be screaming for Wake to garner the final #1 seed over Duke because of the win on Wednesday, the RPI advantage (Duke: 1, Wake: 13) and 1.5 game advantage in the ACC standings stand taller. Wake and North Carolina grab 2 seeds.

– One thing I anticipated that came to fruition when doing this bracket is the amount of muddled mediocre teams in the 4 seed to 7 seed range of the bracket. It seems as if just a couple outcomes could change vault a team like Kansas from a 4 to a 7/8 or California the other direction. Kansas and Villanova made huge progress this week in the seeding because so many teams in that very range faltered.

– The two conferences that seem to always shift projected winners from week to week are the SEC and Pac-10. It was difficult to deny South Carolina the SEC automatic bid and subsequent leap to a 7-seed after they beat Kentucky in Rupp (5 seed slide for the Wildcats this week). In the Pac-10, UCLA had an impressive couple of games while Arizona State collapsed, California slid and Washington lost to Arizona. The Bruins re-claim the Pac-10 auto bid and a 3-seed, jumping 3 seeds from a week ago.

– Penn State makes their first appearance in the field as a 10-seed. Their 71 RPI and 128 SOS stand out as lacking, but a 6-3 Big Ten record and win at Michigan State and home vs. climbing Purdue help greatly.

– The highest rated RPI team to miss the field? You probably guessed correctly with Georgetown at 17. Oklahoma State missed with a 27 RPI and the highest team to not even be remotely considered was UAB at 44. Disappointing season for Mike Davis.

– Michigan and Wisconsin finally fell out of the bracket. Both still have a chance to make a run, though. Michigan has the wins over Duke and UCLA to boast, while Wisconsin has the #37 RPI and #3 SOS. The Badgers have a crucial week ahead.

– Notre Dame has a long way to go to get back into the bracket. 12-8 (3-6) with a  77 RPI and just 2 wins over the RPI top 100 is a very porous resume at this point. They look like an NIT team.

– Tennessee desperately needed that win over Florida at home and pulled it out. A 19 RPI and 2 SOS with a victory over Marquette will help them. Improved guard play and defensive effort and they’re not out of the picture for the SEC championship.

– Just when you think Arizona is dead, they sweep the Washington schools at home and are lurking.

– Saint Mary’s still remained solidly in the field after their loss to Gonzaga, but fell out following the blowout loss to Portland on Saturday. They have the 179 SOS and zero wins vs.. the top 50. With Patrick Mills out for 4 weeks, they may miss the madness.

– As always, the results/predictions for winners of each game are just for fun.

Last Four In: Providence, San Diego State, Utah, Virginia Tech
Last Four Out: Georgetown, Saint Mary’s, Northwestern, Miami (FL)
Next Four Out: Oklahoma State, Michigan, BYU, Arizona

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The Sharpest Tool in the Shed!! For the second time this season, a player has cracked the 60-point barrier in a single game.  First was Ben Woodside from North Dakota St. with 60 pts in December; tonight Ryan Toolson of Utah Valley St. blew up for 63 in a quadruple-overtime victory over Chicago St (who put two players at 40+).  Toolson, a 6-4 senior, shot 18-31 from the field, 7-11 from three, 20-21 from the line, and he even found time to grab twelve boards and dish six assists while playing all sixty minutes.  Toolson raised his scoring average +2.3 pts (from 22.3 ppg to 24.6 ppg) in one night, and talk about a comeback game – he had a season-low 5 pts on 1-10 shooting in his last outing, a win on Saturday against Savannah St.  For those of you who aren’t mathemagicians, that’s an incredible 58 pt difference between games.  No matter what else happened tonight, Toolson deserves top billing.  Ice that arm, buddy.

Upset of the Night. Washington St. 65, Arizona St. 55. What a strange game.  Wazzu hasn’t shown much of anything this season, especially against any team worth a damn.  Then tonight a freshman guard by the name of Klay Thompson decided to drop eight of ten threes against one of the better three-point defensive teams in the nation on their home floor.  WSU also got 22/9 from Aron Baynes, but only three other players even scored.  ASU was even more sporadic, with James Harden struggling to get his 26/4 on 8-20 from the field.  Amazingly, as bad as Washington St. has looked, and with this win, Wazzu has crawled back into the Pac-10 race at 4-4, only two games behind the leaders UCLA and Washington.

Patty Mills’ Injured Wrist Ended St. Mary’s Winning Streak. Gonzaga 69, St. Mary’s 62. This was far and away the most anticipated game of the night at the RTC compound.  It’s just a shame that we didn’t get to see what would happen when both teams were at full strength.  Well, we sorta did, at least for a half.  In the first half, St. Mary’s came out firing on all cylinders behind all-everything guard Patty Mills.  His six first-half threes led the Gaels to a six-pt halftime lead in front of the hostile Gonzaga crowd.  But when he fell and injured his right wrist, the wheels came off for SMC, as they only scored 23 pts the rest of the way without their team leader on the floor.  Let’s really hope that it’s only sprained, and not broken, because given the intensity and level of skill exhibited by both teams in the first half, we can’t wait for the rematch in late February in Moraga.  Matt Bouldin led the way for the Zags in a balanced attack that saw four starters reach double figures.

VT Will Regret Losing This One. Clemson 86, Virginia Tech 82. With just under 17 minutes remaining, Va Tech looked totally in control of this game and on its way to its fifth conference win.  An 18-0 run over the next six minutes by Clemson (on the road, mind you) totally changed the complexion of this game, and the Tigers were able to hold on to a slight lead down the stretch to get a huge road win in the ACC.  KC Rivers had 27 on 7-10 shooting from three to counter Malcolm Delaney’s 37 on 6-10 from three (including the 60-footer below), but it was Trevor Booker’s 21/13 that made all the difference for Clemson, as it seemed he made big play after big play when they needed it most.  Now, as it stands, both of these teams are tied with UNC in third place in the conference.

This is Why We Can’t Watch the Big 10. Minnesota 59, Illinois 36. Minnesota’s stifling defense held every Illinois player to single figures and 29% shooting from the field (13% from three) in a defensive exhibition that broke a 20-game losing streak to the Illini.  Freshman center Ralph Sampson III has really been coming on of late for the Gophers, and he had another nice outing tonight, with 10/7.  More importantly, Minnesota now sits at 6-3 in the Big 10 and is still well positioned to finish in the top half of the conference and nail down an NCAA bid.  As for Illinois, they’ve now lost their last three road games, and not looked particularly good in any of them.

Pac-10 Thursday. We’re having trouble figuring out this conference.  ASU laid an egg at home and Arizona finally showed up.

• Arizona 106, Washington 97. Just days after taking over the lead in the conference, Washington gave it right back in a high-scoring affair in the desert.  These two teams combined for an absurd 128 pts in the second half, but it was Arizona who seemed to find their confidence scoring seemingly at will, whether it was Nic Wise (29/8 assts), Chase Budinger (25/8/4 assts) or Jordan Hill (18/9).   On the UW side of things, Jon Brockman had 27/16 and Justin Dentmon had 23 in the losing effort, but it was Arizona’s FT shooting (41-51) that made the difference in this game – the Wildcats made 21 more FTs than the Huskies even attempted (20).  SEVEN Washington players had 4+ fouls in this game.  The good news for Arizona fans was that Jamelle Horne was nowhere near the final play of this one, but the bad news is that the Cats are still a long way from becoming relevant again despite this impressive win.
• UCLA 81, California 66.  UCLA bullied the visiting Golden Bears tonight, holding Cal’s top two scorers (Patrick Christopher and Jerome Randle) to a combined 17 pts on 6-18 shooting.  Darren Collison led the Bruin attack with 18/5 assts, as five UCLA players got to double figures.  An early second-half run by UCLA finished off the Bears, who were playing catchup the rest of the way.   This win, combined with the Washington loss, put UCLA into a tie for first place in the Pac-10, while Cal fell into a third-place tie with Arizona St. and USC one game behind the two.
• USC 70, Stanford 69. In a game between two teams that we just don’t believe are all that good, USC withstood a Lawrence Hill shot at the buzzer that rimmed out to get the victory.  USC now sits at 5-3 in the conference, with three of those wins coming by 2 pts or less.  We suppose it’s a good thing to be able to win close games, but to us, it suggests more that USC isn’t elite – they’re just able to sneak by inferior competition.

Other Games While You Were Watching The Office/30 Rock.

• Arkansas 89, Alabama 80.  Arkansas got its first SEC win against new Alabama interim coach Philip Pearson.
• Utah St. 72, Nevada 61. USU contines to roll in the WAC, now 8-0 and a full two games ahead of Nevada after tonight’s win.
• Michigan St. 71, Iowa 56. MSU moved to 7-1 in the Big 10 behind Kalin Lucas’ 24 and Durrell Summers’ 21 tonight.
• Evansville 65, Drake 62. Neither of these teams are going anywhere this year, but what a great finish!

Obsessed With Sports will be providing coverage to RTC throughout the season.

Thursday, January 29th

Clemson (11) at Virginia Tech

Behind The Line:  This is going to be a very small line. VT could be favored at home where they are 7-1 this season. They have also covered 4 in a row against some good competition. Clemson on the other hand is 1-4-1 in 2009 against the spread.

St. Mary’s (18) at Gonzaga (25)

Behind The Line:  Gonzaga is going to be giving points to a good St. Mary’s team. The ‘Zags are 4-5 against the spread in their last 9 games.

Friday, January 30th

No games of note. Prepare yourself for the weekend ahead that included college ball, UFC 94 and the Super Bowl. But now back to the games…

Saturday, January 31st

Notre Dame (22) at Pittsburgh (3)

Behind The Line:  ND finds themselves on the road again, where they are just 2-3 this season. They have faield to cover 6 of their last 7, including 5 in a row.

Georgetown (23) at Marquette (8)

Behind The Line:  The Hoyas have also struggled away from home and are 1-4. They are also 1-6-1 in 2009 against the spread.

Sunday, February 1st

Cincinnati at Villanova (21)

Behind The Line: Two very hot teams. Cincy is 4-1 in their last 5 against the spread while ‘Nova has covered their last 4.

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

So now here it comes, the premiere game we have been waiting for all season in the WCC: Saint Mary’s vs. Gonzaga (1/29 at 11pm EST on ESPN2). Both are ranked, both are undefeated in conference play, and both are really talented.  So with that said lets break this sucker down:

Point Guard – Jeremy Pargo v. Patty Mills:

Advantage: Saint Mary’s

Analysis: A few months ago, most analysts had Pargo winning this matchup. At the time Jeremy was the more physical of the two guards and was believed to be farther along from a maturity standpoint. Fast forward and I think Patty, by many expert’s accounts, wins this matchup. From a draft potential standpoint, one has to say that Mills has the bigger upside, but just looking at the stats, the two are about even. Patty is far and away the more prolific scorer this season, averaging nearly 20 points a game. However Jeremy has over 100 assists and has a 2.76 assists to turnover ratio whereas Patty’s is 1:1. In two matchups last year Pargo beat Patty up with his more physical style of play. I don’t think he will be able to do that this year. Mills’ most improved asset this year has been on the defensive end of the floor. If Pargo holds Patty to under 15, he wins this matchup, as I believe the trio of Bouldin, Downs, and Gray could more than make up those points. However it Patty goes off for 25+, the Gaels have a good shot of scoring the upset

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Carolina Goes Down Again. Wake Forest 92, UNC 89. Roy Williams may want to avoid these Sunday night FSN games in the ACC, as his Tar Heels lost for the second consecutive weekend in the showcase event (UNC only has one more scheduled – Feb. 15 at Miami (FL)).  Unlike last week when UNC lost to BC, an upset in the traditional sense of the word, we don’t consider the #4 team in America beating the #3 team (even if it’s Carolina) as much of an upset (and the Wake students should lose their ticket privileges for their ignorant, inappropriate RTC tonight).  Vegas disagreed (UNC was a 7-pt fav at tipoff), but having watched both teams several times this season, we’re absolutely convinced that Wake (not the more vaunted Heels) is the team with more NBA-level talent on its roster.  It played out tonight, as Wake’s long arms and quick defensive closeouts regularly harassed the Carolina shooters into rushed and contested shots – the Heels shot a season-worst 35% from the floor (26% from three).  This is consistent with Wake’s position as the second most efficient defense in the country – the package of length, size and quickness that players such as Al-Farouq Aminu, James Johnson and Jeff Teague bring to bear quieted the offensive skills of everyone on the Heel roster except Danny Green (22/6/5 assts). Consider that Tyler Hansbrough (3-12), Deon Thompson (3-13), Ty Lawson (4-12) and Wayne Ellington (4-13) threw up bricks from everywhere on the floor; the only thing that kept the Heels in this game was their superior work on the boards (46-35 and 17 off rebs) and 31 made free throws.  On the Wake side, Jeff Teague (career-high 34 pts) is every bit as good as advertised and he may just be the best player in the ACC this year (21/4/4 assts on 53% FG and 54% 3FG for the season) – notwithstanding the hype machine that surrounds Psycho-T’s every move.  Chas McFarland had a quietly efficient game (20/9), but the key to Wake’s victory tonight was reining in Carolina’s breakneck attack that results in easy baskets.  We recall no more than a mere handful of occasions where Lawson was able to actually push the ball into the gut of the Wake transition defense and create good scoring opportunities.  Oh, and this play by James Johnson was simply nasty…

So what does this mean – is UNC overrated?  Probably not in the sense that they’re definitely one of the top five teams in America.  But the ridiculous talk about undefeated seasons and ‘best team ever’ was egregious and irresponsible.  Carolina is an experienced, talented team, but they’re essentially the same team as last year.  Their offense remains spectacular, especially when Lawson can get them running up and down the court, but their defense is almost completely predicated on getting  on-the-fly turnovers to fuel that attack.  When they don’t get takeaways where they can run, they have to rely solely on their halfcourt defense, and as we saw tonight, it can be broken down and exposed by dribble penetration and ball movement.   What about Wake Forest – are the Deacs underrated?  As John Stevens’ showed in his column last week, there are dozens of teams ahead of Wake on the Vegas odds list, so it’s clear that the national consciousness hasn’t caught up with them yet.  But we’re looking at a team with two NBA lottery picks in the starting lineup (Teague/Aminu), the possibility of a third (Johnson), a few other nice parts (McFarland, Williams, Hale, Woods) and we’re wondering if any other team in America, Carolina included, has more talent?  Furthermore, the core of Wake’s team are sophomores and freshmen, which means this team could be markedly better by March (cf. with UNC, where we pretty much know what we’re going to get) – how good could this Wake Forest team ultimately become?  From the looks of it now, this team is clearly one of the top four in America, and probably has more upside than anybody.  The only real question is how the Deacs will perform now that the national spotlight will begin to squarely focus on their program.  This isn’t a program that has traditionally reveled in that role.

Wake's Rush the Court = FAIL

Sunday’s Other Games.

• UCLA 64, USC 60. This USC team is not good – they’ve lost to every halfway-decent team they’ve played (and Oregon St.) – ugh.   We’d rather have Jrue Holiday on our team than Demar DeRozan, though.
• Alabama 65, LSU 59. We do not want to hear about LSU again until they win a game away from Baton Rouge – the Tigers are now 0-3 away from home.
• Purdue 65, Wisconsin 52. Robbie Hummell came back from his back injury and hit four threes in a 16/5 performance.
• St. Mary’s 66, San Francisco 54. SMC continues to roll.  Nobody seemed to see the dagger three that Patty Mills hit to win Friday night’s ESPNU game against Santa Clara at home, so we’re providing it here (start watching at 7:30).