On a day when much of the national conversation is on Yahoo Sports’ hard-hitting expose of Miami football (with a touch of basketball thrown in), we here at RTC are really starting to get a jones for hoops again.  Maybe it’s the interminable summer heat of mid-August or the days starting to get noticeably shorter, but even though we’re still a good distance away from practice, much less real games, we’ve been spending more of our free evenings re-watching 2011 NCAA Tournament classics like Kentucky-Ohio State and Butler-Florida.  While Brandon Knight’s and Shelvin Mack’s heroics serve to get us in the mood, we can’t help but look to the future and get excited about the unknown delights that are awaiting us in the 2011-12 season.

We mentioned last week that ESPN had released its 2012 Gameday schedule, and today ESPN gave us the SEC half of the Super Tuesday night games during conference season.  By adding the Big 12 half of Big Monday, which was released a few weeks back as well, we’re already considerably on our way to a January/February schedule to get excited about.  Here’s the so-far list, broken out by week and with a comment associated with each:

Tasty treats, indeed.  Of course, there’s a lot still pending both in terms of the conference and non-conference schedules, but we’ll try to update this in coming weeks as the other halves of Big Monday and Super Tuesday come available, in addition to the full schedules for Wednesday Night Hoops and the Thursday Showcase.  Even though literally hundreds of games can be found on the various tentacles of the WWL’s family of networks, its primary channel (ESPN) is still the flagship and reaches the most homes.  Therefore, these are often the games that they think deserve the most marketing and hype during the season.

***** – quit your job and divorce your wife if that’s what it takes to watch this game live
**** – best watched live, but if you must, tivo and watch it tonight as soon as you get home
*** – set your tivo but make sure you watch it later
** – set your tivo but we’ll forgive you if it stays in the queue until 2013
* – don’t waste bandwidth (yours or the tivo’s) of any kind on this game

Brian Otskey is an RTC contributor.

No matter how many games there are, no night is ever an off night in college basketball. Notre Dame legitimized itself as a Big East double-bye contender with a massive road win at Pittsburgh last night while Kansas State got their must win. What’s in store for us hoopheads tonight? All rankings from RTC and all times eastern.

#12 Purdue @ #1 Ohio State – 9 pm on ESPN (****)

It's a Battle of Player of the Year Candidates In Columbus Tonight

First place is on the line in the Big Ten as these two clubs meet tonight in Columbus. Ohio State has a one game lead over Purdue and can make it two plus the tiebreaker if they win. On the other hand, the Boilermakers can move into a first place tie and will hold the tiebreaker edge (for now) should they come out on top. Obviously the big-time matchup in this game is down inside as freshman Jared Sullinger goes up against senior JaJuan Johnson. Sullinger has a lot more bulk to push people around inside but Johnson has a game that extends out to mid range and even the three point arc on occasion. Look for Matt Painter’s big man to try and pull Sullinger away from the basket, opening up lanes for Purdue’s guards to get to the rim. Each team starts four guards, so Purdue won’t have as difficult of a time as you might think if Johnson is successful.

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***** – quit your job and divorce your wife if that’s what it takes to watch this game live
**** – best watched live, but if you must, tivo and watch it tonight as soon as you get home
*** – set your tivo but make sure you watch it later
** – set your tivo but we’ll forgive you if it stays in the queue until 2013
* – don’t waste bandwidth (yours or the tivo’s) of any kind on this game

Brian Otskey is an RTC contributor.

A few teams face key road tests tonight, one night after the home squads went 3-1 in the season debut of ESPN’s Big Monday. All rankings from RTC and all times eastern.

#19 Michigan State @ #18 Illinois – 7 pm on ESPN (****)

A Top 50 Rebounder, Green Has Been Solid Of Late For MSU (Excepting That 2-10 Against Penn State)

The Spartans needed overtime to dispatch their last two opponents at home, Wisconsin and Northwestern. Michigan State is doing just enough to get by as Korie Lucious and Durrell Summers have struggled lately. Lucious went 0-8 from the floor against Northwestern while Summers has scored just seven points in the last two games. For MSU to have any sustained success going forward, Tom Izzo must get these two players going somehow. Luckily for them, Draymond Green has stepped up, averaging 21/8.5 over the last two games.

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1. A recent report by the AP determined that even though most states have laws on the books to prohibit unethical dealings between agents and athletes, enforcement in most places is almost nil.  Texas is the one state that seems serious about the problem, having taken disciplinary action against 31 agents in the last two years.  Twenty-four states, however, have yet to discipline a single agent in the decade since the Uniform Athletes Agent Act (UAAA) was passed in those jurisdictions.  We’d like to say that we’re surprised by this, but we’re not — local prosecutors are strapped enough in dealing with violent criminals and con artists to worry about the occasional dirty agent.  This is one reason why we’re pleasantly hopeful about the NCAA’s expansion of its basketball enforcement team.  It remains to be seen, though, if this will actually have an impact.
2. Miami (FL) forward Adrian Thomas achieved the rarest of NCAA approvals yesterday, a sixth year of eligibility.  He suffered consecutive years of season-ending injuries in 2007 and 2008 after only four games each time, so the NCAA did the right thing here and will allow him to have a true senior campaign.  This is a pleasant occurrence for Frank Haith’s team, as Thomas is expected to be a key contributor again this season.  He averaged 7/3 and shot an ACC-best 42% from long range in 22 MPG last season.
3. VCU head coach Shaka Smart received a two-year extension that will keep him at the school through the 2015-16 season.  Smart, one of the nation’s youngest head coaches (he’s 33), took the Rams to a 27-9 record and the championship of the CBI in his first season at the helm.  It helps to have had a first-rounder in Larry Sanders anchoring the post, but most everyone believes that Smart, an all-USA Today academic team award winner in 1999, will continue to live up to his name.
4. UNC received some surprising recruiting news earlier this week when Jackson Simmons, a 6’7 forward from Sylva, NC, in the class of 2011, turned down scholarship offers from Davidson, Charlotte and Old Dominion to walk on at his dream school.  We have to give it up for the youngster in terms of his due diligence, as he cited as examples several previous Roy Williams walk-ons who worked their way up to scholarships at both UNC and Kansas (Jerod Haase, Wes Miller, CB McGrath).
5. ESPN announced its Super Tuesday schedule for the 2010-11 season, and as always, with the release of more and more actual game matchups, our excitement meter ticks another notch upward.  Best ST of the season — we’re going with January 25.  A strong Florida team visits a surprising Georgia squad in Athens, followed by a top-five Purdue team going into Columbus to face an excellent Buckeye team.  Your schedule is below.