I. Renko is an RTC columnist. He will kick off each weekend during the season with his analysis of the 26 other non-power conferences. Follow him on Twitter @IRenkoHoops.

It was a wild week for the TO26’s best teams, as seven of the teams ranked in our top ten — including our top five — all suffered losses. With Gonzaga, Creighton, VCU, Butler, and UNLV all going down, who has a rightful claim on the number one ranking?  Does New Mexico slide all the way from 6th to 1st after their win over Colorado State?

Not quite.  Yes, Gonzaga lost to Butler in a game played without Rotnei Clarke, Butler’s leading scorer. But it was in a hostile road environment, and even under those conditions, Gonzaga had a victory in hand with just a few seconds left on the clock. And on Thursday, the Zags followed up the loss with a 20-point drubbing of conference rival BYU. So Mark Few’s men will continue to hold the top spot in our rankings. But all of the action elsewhere will produce a substantial reshuffling. Without further ado, on the substantially revised Top 10, our weekly Honor Roll, and a few games to keep an eye on as the week unfolds.

Top Ten

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1. With many observers expecting the NCAA to hand down its notice of allegations soon to Miami, the NCAA instead revealed that it was essentially putting its investigation from the Nevin Shapiro scandal on hold while it hires an external agency to look into a charge of improperly obtaining information for its investigation. The NCAA has retained the services of Kenneth Wainstein, who has previously served in the roles of Homeland Security Advisor, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and FBI General Counsel. It is a rather sudden turn of events and means that both Miami and other involved parties (see: Missouri’s Frank Haith) can breathe easy for a little while. It remains to be determined whether this will affect any punishments that are ultimately handed down or if in fact the NCAA will have to abandon the entire case, but if the latter is true, it’s safe to say that it will probably be the most embarrassing moment in the NCAA’s long history of rules enforcement.
2. Leslie McDonald, who missed North Carolina‘s last three games with an injury to his right knee, will be out for another three games, but not because of his knee. Instead, he will miss the additional games because he did not take care of his “responsibilities as a student-athlete.” While this could mean a variety of things, we are assuming that the “student-athlete” bit means scholastic problems. In any event, the Tar Heels will need to overcome McDonald’s extended absence as they appear to have turned a corner (for now) but have games at home against Georgia Tech and on the road at North Carolina State and Boston College. With the weakness of the top teams in the power conferences so far this year, North Carolina would still be in the NCAA Tournament as of today, but they cannot afford too many more mistakes.
3. After quite a bit of drama and instability in the first couple months of the season, UCLA has seemed to put the pieces back together in recent weeks but there are still some loose ends to tie up. Enigmatic former center Josh Smith has resurfaced at Georgetown, but until yesterday, it was still undetermined where former guard Tyler Lamb would end up. While Smith looked to get as far away from Westwood as possible, Lamb is simply moving about 30 miles southwest to the LBC. He will suit up for Dan Monson’s Long Beach State squad beginning in 2013-14, bringing a solid scoring punch and ability to distribute the ball to a team that appears to be following the Missouri template for adding talented high-major transfers in bulk (Keala King, Dan Jennings, and Tony Freeland). Lamb chose LBSU over San Diego State and began practicing with the team yesterday.
4. Luke Winn‘s weekly Power Rankings came out prior to Wednesday night’s games, but as we all know, the real value in his column comes from the unique statistical analysis and sartorial commentary that Winn provides each week. Perhaps portending Duke’s struggles at Miami (FL) last night, Winn examines the Blue Devils without Ryan Kelly in the lineup while also making time to evaluate a disturbing trend in Nike uniforms adding a logo to the team’s chest (we completely agree, by the way). As always, you’ll learn more reading this column in 10 minutes that you will reviewing 95% of the college basketball coverage on the web, so get on over there and give it a try if it’s not part of your weekly routine.
5. A final note about a quirky scheduling anomaly where the nation’s highest scoring team, Northwestern State (85.0 PPG), will face the nation’s lowest scoring defense, Stephen F. Austin (allowing 49.4 PPG), in a battle of contrasting Southland Conference tempos this coming weekend. According to a press release put out by the league on Wednesday, this is the first time that anyone can remember in college basketball history that such a game will occur. We can’t say that we’re going to set aside two hours to watch this one at 4:00 PM ET on Saturday, but we will keep an curious eye on the result to determine whether the old coaching adage is true that great defense is preferred over great offense.

As college basketball fans we like to poke fun at college football for its use of computers to determine its champion (or at least its championship match-up), but we have to be fair and note that we use computers fairly often particularly when looking at Ken Pomeroy’s ratings, which are probably the most trusted computer ranking system in all of sports. At other times computers can be less reliable as the public was made aware after the BCS Championship Game when The Colley Matrix still ranked Notre Dame #1 even after it got destroyed by Alabama. It appears that we have our own flawed computer system in college basketball and frankly it might even be more embarrassing than Colley telling us that Notre Dame was still the best football team in the country. Earlier today we received an e-mail announcement from STATS LLC promoting its new ranking system. The e-mail began like this:

UPS (NYSE:UPS), a global logistics leader, today announced it has joined with STATS LLC, the world’s largest sports technology, data and content company, in expanding its proprietary UPS Team Performance Index (TPI) efficiency measurement platform to men’s and women’s college basketball.

Sometimes The UPS Truck Gets Lost

It then went into detail about how the UPS TPI was calculated using a database that “will comprehensively measure offensive and defensive efficiency” and “will include six key statistical components with a proven correlation to a team’s overall success.” Here are those six key statistical components:

• Offensive Measure – Effective Field Goal Percentage
• Defensive Measure – Effective Field Goal Percentage Against
• Rebounding – Rebounding percentage amongst all rebounds in a game (If there are 100 rebounds in a game, and your team grabs 60, your rebounding percentage is 60 %.)
• Ball Handling – Assists/game, steals/game, opponent assists/game, opponent steals/game
• Overall Miscues Measure – “Non-steal” turnovers/game, fouls/game, opponent non-steal turnovers/game, opponent fouls per game
• Success Measure – Winning Percentage

On the surface it seems a little too rudimentary and appears to stress some unnecessary statistics, but being mathematically inclined and analytic individuals we were intrigued by this new rating system. That is until we saw the results. On the women’s side they had what appeared to be a reasonable top four: Connecticut, Baylor, Duke, and Notre Dame. [Ed. Note: In the interest of full disclosure, the extent of our women’s basketball knowledge is being “tricked” by women’s scores on ESPN’s scroll every night.] The men’s rankings, on the other hand, are a little more questionable.

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Who Won the Week? is a regular column that will outline and discuss three winners and losers from the previous week. The author of this column is Kenny Ocker (@KennyOcker), an Oregon-based sportswriter best known for his willingness to drive (or bike!) anywhere to watch a basketball game.

Sorry about the hiatus. Let’s get on with the show.

Winner: Doug McDermott

Doug McDermott is Blowing Up Again (USA Today)

After coming into the season as one of the top NPOY candidates, the Creighton forward has backed that up on the court. He took that to the next level in the Jays’ convincing wins over Missouri State and Northern Iowa last week. McDermott had a season-high 39 points on the road against the Bears, shooting 15-of-19 from the field and 3-of-4 from three-point range, while also grabbing 10 rebounds. He then turned around and went for 31 points against the Panthers, getting back-to-back 30-point games for the second time this season. For Creighton, tomorrow’s game against fellow conference undefeated Wichita State will be the first of two (and hopefully three, if the MVC Tournament breaks right) match-ups between the two elite teams in the Missouri Valley. And no player is a bigger part of what the Bluejays do than McDermott, whose 24 points per game is second best in the country.

(Related winners: Creighton. Related losers: Nets, because McDermott keeps burning them up; the MVC, in which the Jays are 6-0 so far.)

Loser: Wyoming

The Cowboys were one of the darlings of the non-conference season, remaining as one of the last four unbeatens before leading scorer Luke Martinez broke a bone in his hand during an altercation at a bar in late December. Since then, the wheels have started to fall off the cart for coach Larry Shyatt’s bunch. Wyoming started out Mountain West play by losing on a buzzer-beater to Boise State, and it didn’t get much better last week. The Cowboys went on the road to beat Nevada in Reno, but didn’t put up a point per possession in the 59-48 win. Meanwhile, police reports were released about Martinez’s fight, which said the guard admitted to kicking a defenseless man in the head as he was knocked out on the ground. Then the Cowboys capped off their week by producing one of the most unwatchable games of the season, a 49-36 snooze-fest of a loss at a mediocre Fresno State, in which they shot 24 percent from the field, 5-of-27 from three-point range and an abysmal 7-of-20 from the free throw line. Wyoming has gone from aspiring to get to the NCAA Tournament to a team that needs to quickly right its ship.

(Related winners: The top of the Mountain West, which will benefit from Wyoming’s heretofore nice computer numbers; Fresno State, for shooting 52 percent against what was one of the best defenses in the country. Related losers: Martinez, who is at risk of serving jail time.)

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Zach Birdsong is the RTC correspondent for the Southland Conference. You can also find his musings online at houstonianonline.com or on Twitter @Zachbird_nerd

Reader’s Take 

The Week That Was

• Conference play opens up: Southland Conference play has opened up and even though we are just a few games into the conference schedule, the games have already been exciting and closely contested and featured some real nailbiters. Out of the 12 teams in the conference, just four of the teams remain unbeaten as this season already looks to be competitive. Every season proves that the later we get into these games, the more dominant teams start to show. It will be exciting to see which teams emerge as contenders for the conference title and whether or not there will be a surprise team this year.
• Mike James repeats as Player of the Week: Lamar senior guard Mike James has been sensational this year. In three out of the last four weeks, he has been named conference “Player of the Week.” His recognition comes after he averaged 26 points in the first two games of conference play. In one of those games, against A&M Corpus Christi, he finished with a season high 31 points. Against Central Arkansas, the senior was able to put up 21 points in an easy victory for the Cardinals. During those two games, James shot 65% from the floor (19-of-29) including 85% from three-point territory (6-of-7).
• Two top teams clash early in conference play: Early into the Southland Conference schedule, fans were treated to a delight as last year’s regular season conference champion McNeese State took on Pat Knight’s Lamar Cardinals. Before the season, the Cowboys were predicted to win the conference, but they struggled during their non-conference schedule. Lamar on the other hand was looking great despite having played three of the top 10 teams in the country. That being said, both teams battled to a close contest as the Cowboys eventually won a close one, 57-54, proving that experience matters. These teams still have to play one more time this season, and just like this meeting, expect it to be a good game.

LaMarcus Reed III Has Been One Of Many Standouts For Texas-Arlington (uta.edu)

Power Rankings

1. Texas-Arlington (10-5, 3-0): Three games into conference play and no team has been more impressive than the Mavericks. In their three Southland games against SE Louisiana, Nicholls, and SHSU, they have won by an average margin of 31 points. They have been doing it on both sides of the ball as well. As a team, the Mavericks are shooting 46.5% from the floor and are holding teams to shooting just 34% and 16% from beyond the arc. Senior LaMarcus Reed III has been a leader for the Mavericks, averaging 16 points in those three games. Read the rest of this entry »

Zach Birdsong is the RTC correspondent for the Southland Conference. You can also find his musings online at houstonianonline.com or on Twitter @zachbird_nerd.

Readers Take

The Week That Was

• Lamar battles tough opponents: Pat Knight has certainly had his hands full during his time as the Lamar head coach. So far this season, the Cardinals have battled some quality top-10 opponents that included Louisville and more recently, Ohio State and Kentucky. Despite losing all three of those games by an average margin of 20 points, the Cardinals have actually been quite competitive in those games and seen some different players step up. While those games have added losses to the Cardinals record, Knight is pleased with what he is seeing. In fact, he thinks these tough games will help the Cardinals, stating: “This is just going to help us in conference.” They will open up conference play on January 4 against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
• Fortenberry missing playing time: Southeastern Louisiana’s leading scorer, forward Brandon Fortenberry, missed his third straight game when the Lions traveled to take on South Carolina. In his absence, the team is 1-2, and struggling offensively. On the road against Arkansas and South Carolina, the Lions shot just 33% from the floor including 28% from three-point territory. In his absence, senior guard Elgin Bailey returned and has been the team’s predominant scorer averaging 13.5 points per game. In that span of three games, Bailey is also averaging nine rebounds per game. While Bailey has been a big contributor, the Lions are hopeful that Fortenberry will be ready for conference play which begins on January 4 when the team travels to UTA.
• Ingram named Conference Player of Week: Texas-Arlington forward Bo Ingram was selected as this week’s Southland Conference Player of the Week. Over the past week, the Mavericks competed in the Athletes in Action tournament that saw the Mavericks go 2-1. In that three-game span, Ingram averaged 19.3 points per game, including 21 points against both Utah State and Saint Peter’s. During the tournament, Ingram also averaged 5.3 rebounds per game, including 11 offensive rebounds. Ingram is peaking at the right time and they are hopeful that it will continue as conference play begins January 4 for the Mavericks. They will open up conference play against Southeastern Louisiana and that game is scheduled for 7 PM.

Texas-Arlington's Bo Ingram Had An Outstanding Week (southland.org)

Power Rankings

1. Lamar (8-5): Despite going just 1-2 over the last two weeks, Lamar has continued to impress. The team faced and defeated Rice by the score of 87-81, before stepping up and playing some big names. First the Cardinals traveled to Columbus to take on the #2 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes before heading over to Lexington to take on the #3 Kentucky Wildcats. Both games ended in losses for Pat Knight’s squad. However, they were able to keep it competitive and playing these caliber of teams in their non-conference schedule will help out the Cardinals when they open Southland Conference play. Senior guard Mike James has been impressive for the Cardinals, averaging over 21 points a game over the last two weeks, including a 29-point performance against Kentucky.
2. Texas-Arlington (6-5): From a fan’s perspective, no team has been more fun to watch over the last two weeks than the Mavericks. The team may be 2-2 over that time period, but the team had its share of nail biters as each game was close. The first set of games for the Mavericks required them to travel to Tulsa and then play at Utah State. Despite hanging in there with Tulsa, the Mavs lost by five, 80-75, in overtime. They would also fall at Utah State, 73-69, despite a 21-point performance by senior forward and Southland Conference Player of the Week Bo Ingram. However, the Mavs would get back on track as they traveled back to Arlington and defeated Kent State, 74-73, and St. Peter’s, 73-68. Against St. Peter’s, Ingram had another 21-point performance, shooting 7-of-14 from the field and 3-of-5 from three-point range. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a slow basketball week in the Atlantic Coast Conference as students presumably take exams and wrap up their semester by focusing on their academics. Or play a lot of video games. Something like that. In any case, there is only one interesting matchup the entire week and thank your lucky stars — it’s going down tonight.

The Only ACC Game Between Sunday and Saturday

• Florida International at Maryland at 7:30 PM on ESPN

Okay, so maybe this isn’t exactly a great game, but it’s all we have until Saturday so let’s try to look at the interesting parts about it. Isiah Thomas‘s team is not a good one. Despite a season-opening overtime win over George Mason, the team has only managed to win two more times. Two-point wins against the likes of Coastal Carolina and Stephen F. Austin aren’t impressive, but at least they are wins. FIU also has more than a couple of bad losses on the books including losses to Alabama State, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, and NAIA school Texas Wesleyan, a school best known in athletics for it’s dominance/scholarships in table tennis. Maryland should win this game to get its third win in a row. The reasons why the Terrapins don’t take this in a walk? The few strengths of the Panthers align well with Maryland’s weaknesses. The Panthers are a good offensive rebounding team while Maryland struggles on the defensive glass. Likewise, outside of the remarkable Terrell Stoglin, the Terrapins guards have had trouble maintaining control of the ball while the Panthers have been fairly effective at forcing turnovers. It’s a long shot, but if FIU gets easy buckets off turnovers, a good number of second chance shots, and gets hot against Maryland’s indifferent defense, they have a reasonable shot at the win. Otherwise, the Terrapins should dominate every other facet of the game, and, provided they take the game seriously, should win easily.

Khris Middleton could be returning to Texas A&M at exactly the right time.

The preseason All-Big 12 wing played in the Aggies’ season opener, but he underwent surgery for a partially torn meniscus in mid-November and has not played since. According to a tweet by Jon Rothstein today, Middleton participated in a full practice yesterday for the first time since his injury. Although no news outlets have reported anything about his official return yet, we’ve got to think A&M will have its star back by the time it plays Florida on December 17.

Middleton Is Back on the Practice Court After a Knee Injury

Without Middleton, the Aggies have managed to avoid disaster. At 6-1, they own a one-point win over St. John’s and have handled all of the inferior opponents on their schedule. But Billy Kennedy’s squad has also looked far from perfect. In its only true test of the season against Mississippi State in the NIT Tip-Off at the Garden, the Bulldogs embarrassed the Aggies, running away with the game during the first 10 minutes of regulation. Without Middleton, A&M looked lost offensively, and that has carried over throughout his month out of action. A&M struggled to pull away from the likes of Alcorn State and Stephen F. Austin, and they have been especially poor from three-point range. Against Alcorn, for example, they missed all 17 three-pointers they attempted.

If Middleton can return to A&M sometime during the next week, he could suit up for the game on Saturday against Louisiana-Monroe. The Aggies can survive without Middleton in the short term, but they’ll need him at full strength when they face the Gators. Middleton brings more than just his 14.4 points per game from the 2010-11 campaign. With a developed inside game as well the ability to shoot, he’s a matchup problem for almost every team. When he hits the court for the first time since his surgery, the dynamics of A&M’s team will change dramatically — for the better.

Zach Birdsong is the RTC Correspondent for the Southland Conference. You can also find his musings online at houstonianonline.com or on twitter @zachbird_nerd.

Readers Take

The Week That Was

• Pat Knight Era Begins at Lamar: The Pat Knight era at Lamar University began in earnest last Friday as the Cardinals took on Arkansas State in their home opener. Knight and the Cardinals picked up the win, 65-62, as Brandon Davis led all scorers in the game with 17 points for the game. Devon Lamb also contributed 13 points and picked up 15 rebounds. After that, the team traveled and lost to #8 Louisville, 68-48. Knight and his team endured its first loss of the season. Despite the score, Lamar was able to hang with Louisville for awhile before Rick Pitino’s team took control of the game. Two days later the team fell in their second consecutive game at Ohio in overtime, 85-78, but followed that up with an 18-point pasting of Charlotte on Saturday night.

Pat Knight Takes Over at Lamar

• Sam Houston A Growing Team:  Last season, the Bearkats won the Southland Conference West Division. However, they lost numerous players including Conference Player of the Year Gilberto Clavell.  This season, Sam Houston has just three returning players, including one starter (Antuan Bootle), so SHSU is still looking to find its identity. In the season opener, the team beat Howard Payne, 76-42, and shot the ball at 40% from the field and 12.5% from three-point range. In the second game of the season, the team traveled to South Bend, dropping a 74-41 game to Notre Dame. SHSU had trouble shooting, with a clip of just 34% from the field, faring even worse from the perimeter. Overall, the young team is shooting 37.2% from the field and 16.1% from beyond the arc. They have also turned the ball over 33 times in two games as they struggle to find consistency.
• Southland Schools Battle Power Conference Squads: Four schools in the Southland Conference battled teams from the Big 12 and Big East. Last Friday, Texas A&M-CC lost to Oklahoma State; then, on Sunday, November 13, Lamar traveled to Louisville and lost, followed by a game on  Wednesday, November 16, where Sam Houston State traveled to Notre Dame while UTSA lost a heartbreaker to Oklahoma State. Despite not having their leading scorer, Melvin Johnson III, who was serving his second game of suspension for violating team rules, UTSA built a lead before a miracle sequence from Cezar Guerrero eventually sunk the Roadrunners.

Power Rankings

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Zach Birdsong of The Houstonian is the RTC correspondent for Southland Conference. You can find him on Twitter at @zachbird_nerd. 

Readers’ Take I

Top Storylines

• McNeese State Returns Championship Squad: Last season, the McNeese State Cowboys finished conference play with an 11-5 record. That was enough to claim the regular season league title, but the team was knocked out of the conference tournament by UT-San Antonio. McNeese returns eight players from last year’s team, though, including team MVP and All-Southland Conference forward Patrick Richard. With an experienced team, the Cowboys are hoping to break through to win the conference tournament and get to the Big Dance for the first time in ten years.
• A Knight In Sight: Pat Knight, son of legendary head coach Bobby Knight, was signed as Lamar‘s new head coach. After being fired from Texas Tech back in March, the Cardinals signed him to take over the program in April. With a new setting and bringing his Big 12 experience to the Southland, it will be interesting to see if Knight can improve on last season’s disappointing 7-9 finish.
• Bearkats Move On Without Clavell: Sam Houston State will be without star forward and Southland Conference Player of the Year Gilberto Clavell, as he graduated in May. Clavell averaged 19.5 points per game and 7.3 rebounds per game last season. Head coach Jason Hooten will be bringing in a younger team as he looks to limit any slippage as a result of Clavell’s departure.

Pat Knight Is Ready To Lean In For His First Season At The Helm Of Lamar's Program.

Predicted Order of Finish

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