***** – 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 tivobut 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.

Maui lived up to the hype. Kansas City? Not so much. We’ve got two more good ones from paradise today, Thanksgiving Eve. Rankings as per the latest RTC Top 25. All times eastern.

Maui Invitational Third Place Game: #3 Michigan State vs. #15 Washington – 5 pm on ESPN2 (****)

All Walker, All the Time in Maui

How’s a top 15 matchup for a third place game? Courtesy of Connecticut’s upset of Michigan State, that’s what we have. The Spartans were the latest team to fall victim to the Kemba Walker show as the Connecticut point guard put up 30 points yet again on 10-19 shooting. Tom Izzo’s Spartans did not hold their customary edge rebounding wise which cost them and poor games from Kalin Lucas, Delvon Roe and Korie Lucious certainly didn’t help the cause, either. Washington lost one of the hardest fought, intense games you’ll ever see this time of year to a Kentucky club that dominated the boards and got to the line enough to win. Former Washington commit Terrence Jones torched the Huskies with 16/17 as he and Brandon Knight (24 points) led Kentucky to the championship game. This figures to be another war but Michigan State must get meaner and more physical if they hope to beat Washington. The Huskies are going to get it up and down quick meaning Michigan State has to hold their ground defensively, be active in the passing lanes and stay in front of the Washington guards. Lorenzo Romar hopes Isaiah Thomas can rebound from a sub-par outing and help prevent a 1-2 finish in Maui. The unbelievable thing is that a top 15 team is going home 1-2 no matter what happens in this game tonight. This is a noon local tip so one or both teams may get off to a sluggish start. If Washington can get better looks and shoot it well, Michigan State will have their hands full. Matthew Bryan-Amaning and Justin Holiday need to be strong in the post against a tough Spartan front line for Washington to get an edge on the glass. We don’t think it’s crazy to think Michigan State will be the top 15 team to leave Maui with two losses on the young season.

NIT Season Tip-Off Semifinal: #6 Villanova vs. UCLA – 9:30 pm on ESPN2 (***)

Villanova has defended much better so far this year, ranking 14^th in defensive efficiency. That’s a big improvement from last season’s 62^nd ranked defense which failed the Wildcats down the stretch and ultimately resulted in a second round exit to St. Mary’s after being pushed to overtime by #15 seed Robert Morris. Offense is not a problem for Villanova but defense will determine how far they can go this year. So far, the early returns look good. Jay Wright loves to get his team out in transition by causing turnovers. Villanova is in the top ten in steal and turnover percentage and ranks 30^th in two point FG%, probably a result of all the layups created through turnovers. One thing the Wildcats have not done, surprisingly, is shoot the trey well. That’ll play right into UCLA’s hands as they rank 8^th in three point defense. There is reason for optimism in Westwood after last year’s disaster as the Pac-10 is weak yet again and Ben Howland’s team has a great chance to finish second and get back to the NCAA Tournament. The Bruins have been led by 6’8 sophomore forward Reeves Nelson (19/10) and Tyler Honeycutt (16/8). These two more athletic players could cause problems for Villanova’s Antonio Pena and Mouphtaou Yarou inside tonight. While UCLA can hold their own there, the Wildcats will have a big advantage in the back court. Malcolm Lee is listed as probable for UCLA but will still be hampered by a bum ankle. The Bruins will count on Lazeric Jones to steady the ship and control the basketball against the aggressive Villanova defense. Try as they might, Villanova is too tough for UCLA to handle behind a trio of stud guards. Corey Fisher and Maalik Wayns lead the way and Corey Stokes is a big guard who can really shoot it. Villanova simply has too much talent and depth for the thin Bruins, playing with just ten scholarship players. It’s not impossible for UCLA to win but it seems highly unlikely tonight under the bright lights of the big city at Madison Square Garden.

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If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com.

Top 25 Games

• #2 Ohio State 64, Morehead State 45: “Entering the season, many prognosticators pegged Morehead State as one of the upper echelon mid-majors in the country. The last two games have shown that may be the case. Morehead fell, 61-55, to Florida on Sunday and hung with Ohio State for much of the game Tuesday before being dispatched, 64-45, at Value City Arena.” (Eleven Warriors)
• UConn 70, #3 Michigan State: “Tonight the Huskies beat Michigan St., the No. 2 team in the country. Tomorrow they’ll play either Kentucky or Washington in the championship game of the most prestigious early-season tournament in the country. Next week they’ll be ranked. Life is good in Husky Nation.” (The UConn Blog)
• #8 Purdue 87, Austin Peay 65: “Purdue used their Johnson to slap around Austin Peay, 87-65. JaJuan Johnson, that is. The big man had 21 and 11 while E’Twaun Moore added 17 points as the Boilers moved to 4-0 on the season. Austin Peay hung tough for a half, trailing by eight at the break, but DJ Byrd hit a three on the first possession of the second half to put it into a double-digit lead and Purdue never looked back.” (Boiled Sports)
• #10 Kentucky 74, #15 Washington 67: “Many Washington Huskies fans had been waiting anxiously for a shot at the Kentucky Wildcats in Maui after two former Husky recruits, Terrence Jones and Enes Kanter, famously changed their pledge to the Wildcats. The old saying, ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ comes immediately to mind. Some times, wishes come true, but the desired outcome doesn’t.” (A Sea of Blue)
• #18 Illinois 73, Yale 47: “That was probably one of the least exciting blow outs I have seen in some time. Yale is not a good team, I honestly have no idea how they beat Boston College earlier this year (does BC suck that bad?) Had the Illini faced a better, perhaps more talented mid-major, this could have been a real game.” (Hail to the Orange)
• #23 Gonzaga 66, Marquette 63: “Mark Few’s Bulldogs found another way to keep MU at bay by owning the backboards in the game’s crucial stages. To say that Marquette was destroyed on the glass would be an understatement; Gonzaga ripped down 15 of its 17 offensive rebounds in the second half. That is not a misprint. The Warriors were no match for the Bulldogs’ toughness. All told Gonzaga earned a 42-26 rebounding advantage and a startling 17-6 advantage on the offensive glass including the 15 they claimed in the second half alone. Despite the beat down in the paint Marquette closed the gap to just two points late in the game but failed to launch a quality shot as time expired.” (Cracked Sidewalks or The Slipper Still Fits or Anonymous Eagle)

Other Games of Interest

• Maryland 72, Delaware State 54: “One shooting problem: solved. I think. Terps’ FT shooting: 14-17. Jordan Williams’: 4-6. That’s good.” (Testudo Times)
• Indiana 72, North Carolina Central 56: “Now 5-0, this team is starting to exude a little confidence — something we’ve yet to see in the Tom Crean era. If they keep up this kind of play during the non-conference slate, such confidence will continue to grow and should suit them well by the time Big 10 play rolls around.” (Inside the Hall)

News/Analysis

• Malcolm Lee Probable Against Villanova: UCLA is hoping to have their junior guard available for their game against Villanova tonight. (Bruins Nation)
• Syracuse Basketball: Opinions Vary: “Normally, we’d look at the AP Basketball Poll, see Syracuse is ranked No. 9 and be done with it. But this season has been such a strange one and the Orange are such a weird kind of 4-0 that we need to dig deeper to find out what everyone is thinking. And what everyone is thinking is…something different.” (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)
• Rodney Purvis wraps up visit to Louisville: “Rodney Purvis, the 2012 prospect who Jerry Meyer calls ‘one of the best scoring guards I’ve scouted in the eight years I’ve been doing this,’ just wrapped up his Louisville visit and told Jody Demling that it was ‘wonderful.'” (Card Chronicle)

While this week’s CBE Classic will showcase some of the best players and top coaches in college basketball right now, the game paid tribute to a group of dignitaries whose contributions to the game over the last 70 years Sunday night.

Christian Laettner, David Thompson and Jerry West were among those inducted to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in Kansas City. Laettner, who is still asked about his famous jump shot to beat Kentucky in 1992, left his mark as the NCAA Tournament’s all-time leading scorer and the only player to start on four Final Four teams. During his induction speech, Laettner recalled his connection to the game and to Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski.  “I knew he was passionate about it and I wanted to be a part of it,” he said.  Another of Laettner’s March records is a 21-2 record in the Big Dance, a mark that he says may not fall due to the trend of players leaving early and the overall competition that the NCAA Tournament brings.  “There’s a good chance that it won’t happen because the kids want to get to the big money so fast. You never say never, though. After we repeated (in 1991-1992) everyone said ‘no one will ever repeat again,’ and Florida did it.”

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Andrew Murawa is an RTC contributor.

When the format of the new 68-team NCAA tournament bracket was announced back in July, we wondered exactly what type of effect this would have on our bracket pools. With just one opening round game in the past ten years (since the expansion of the tournament field from the sensible 64 teams to the odd 65 team field in 2001), that opening round game in Dayton was safely ignored by the vast majority of the college basketball fanbase. But when the NCAA announced that the First Four would not only include a couple of games between the four lowest-seeded automatic bid earners, but also two games between the last four at-large teams, ignoring the opening round games for bracket pools no longer seemed to be a viable option. With the odds of one of those final four at-large teams advancing not only past the opening round game, but then beating their higher seeded opponent in the second-round game (the Thursday/Friday set of games, which in the past was considered the First Round, but is now officially the Second Round) being fairly reasonable, we wondered how some of the larger online NCAA bracket pools would handle this situation. The early answer? Continue ignoring the opening round games.

Why Would We Ignore This?

“We’re not set in stone, but we’re leaning towards not using those opening round games, similar to what we’ve done in the past,” said Jason Waram, Vice President of ESPN Fantasy Sports. “Basically, the player would get both of those two teams (in the opening round game) for the price of one.” In other words, if you fill out your bracket prior to the completion of the Opening Round game, and you wish to select one of the participants in the opening round game to advance, say to the Sweet 16, you would get both teams. As an example, using RTC’s preseason bracketology projection of St. Mary’s/UCLA as one of the four opening round games, if on the Selection Sunday evening I wanted to fill out my bracket and pick UCLA to advance to the Sweet 16, I would get credit for a correct pick if either St. Mary’s or UCLA advanced to that round. If you were filling out your bracket after the completion of the opening round games, obviously those outcomes would be known so only the winner of that opening round game would be an available option.

Given that many casual college basketball fans who fill out an office pool are used to the tournament proper starting on Thursday morning, asking players to pick just four of the games early could have caused confusion for many.  “The current format is something that people have gotten used to,” said Waram. “There is a lot of analysis that goes on between Sunday night at 7 pm eastern time right up until tipoff on Thursday, so giving the users that same opportunity to use all of that time and to get their picks in while introducing them to what the new tournament format is going to be is important.” Given that ESPN wants as many people as possible to compete in these games, keeping the requirements of the players simple is a priority. “You want to keep the fan experience simple, keep it easy and keep it fun. And the more games that people have to pick and the shorter time that people have to pick those games, the more drop off there is going to be.”

CBS Fantasy Sports has confirmed that this is their working model as well. “Although our plans have yet to be finalized, the likely scenario is that CBSSports.com won’t count any of the four play-in games,” said a spokesman. “If you fill out a bracket before those games are played, you will see both teams listed on the #16 seed line vs. the #1 seed.”  Both ESPN and CBS Sports are quick to point out that nothing is currently set in stone, but as of now, this is where they’re headed. “We’ll definitely re-assess where we are and what our colleagues within the industry do, and we’ll still talk about this as we lead up to the tournament; we’re not set in stone, but that’s definitely the way we’re going right now, to approach it like the opening round game from last year,” said Waram.

Don't Crumple It Yet -- Your Loser Might Make You a Winner!

The fact is, there is no really great solution to this problem. If you bump the deadline up until tipoff of the opening round game, you probably lose many of the casual college basketball fans who are used to having their office pool ready to go by Thursday morning. If the opening round games are merely optional, that adds a whole other level of complexity, not only to the programming of the game, but to the casual player’s perception of the bracket game. But is simply ignoring the opening round games a great solution? Of course not. To expand on our St. Mary’s/UCLA example above, if I pick UCLA to go to the Final Four, and they lose in the opening round game and their opponent miraculously advances to the Final Four, does it make any sense that I should get rewarded with a bucketful of points for essentially making an incorrect pick? This isn’t merely wild speculation, as George Mason, one of the last at-large teams to make the field in 2006 and awarded with an 11-seed, proved that it is possible for a bubble team to get hot and go on a deep run in the tournament. If the field had been 68 teams in 2006, GMU would almost certainly have been slated for one of those opening round games. Clearly, this solution is not the perfect one, but the fact is, as was the case when so many decisions were made regarding our beloved tournament over the past several months (the 68-team format, the makeup of the opening round games), this may just be the best of a bad set of choices.

Your Watercooler Moment.  Yes, Paul Hewitt is still at Georgia Tech, and yes, the Ramblin’ Wreck is still one.  If your memory was hazy as to why major conference schools don’t like visiting mid-majors on their home floors, Kennesaw State’s blitzing of Georgia Tech tonight, 80-63, is your reminder.  But be honest — have you even heard of Kennesaw State before?  The Owls joined Division I a mere five years ago and its best win in five-plus years of basketball at the highest collegiate level was a two-point victory over conference rival Belmont in 2007-08.  It’s quite a leap to go from sneaking by a mid-100s RPI conference opponent to obliterating an ACC foe from start to finish, even one as generally unpredictable and disappointing as Georgia Tech, but the sellout crowd at the school a half-hour north of Atlanta loved it.  Kennesaw State took a fourteen-point lead into the half, and except for a couple of minor pushes by the Jackets, they were never truly threatened tonight.  Paul Hewitt reportedly has a huge buyout in his contract, but we figure eventually Georgia Tech is going to tire of year after year of mediocrity despite the lure and promise of star recruits coming onto campus, right?  We think there’s no greater tell of the abilities of Hewitt to get it done at Georgia Tech than the fact that he’s never in ten years in Atlanta finished better than 9-7 in the ACC — and he’s only done that once (in 2004).  And consider the players who have come through GT: Chris Bosh, Jarrett Jack, Will Bynum, Javaris Crittenton, Anthony Morrow, Thaddeus Young, Derrick Favors, Gani Lawal.  Only a handful of schools nationally have put more players into the NBA than Paul Hewitt, yet this surfeit of talent simply hasn’t translated to success at the collegiate level.  He needs to go, and this loss may have been the ugly slap to the face that Tech administrators need to finally cut him loose.

Hewitt Has No Answers (AJC/C. Compton)

Tonight’s Hits…

• Mini-RTC at Kennesaw State.  Honestly, we’re not sure when a school like Kennesaw would get another shot at something like this, so we’re somewhat shocked that the entire student body wasn’t immediately on the floor after the final buzzer.  Maybe they’re still new to this whole basketball thing.  Nevertheless, there was a mini-RTC of which we found photographic evidence.  If anyone has a better photo or can show more students filling the floor, we’ll count it as a full one, and the first of the 2010-11 season.

There Was a Mini-RTC at Kennesaw Tonight

• Clarence Jackson. During several portions of tonight’s Siena game at Minnesota, it appeared that the confident Jackson was going to win the game all by himself.  He had 29/5/4 assts including five threes and if he’d gotten any help from his teammates — he had more FGs and points than the other four starters combined — Siena may have been able to walk out of the Barn with a big win.
• Fordham’s Streak. It took 322 days and 23 games but the nation’s current longest losing streak ended tonight when Fordham defeated Sacred Heart, 69-51.  Good for those guys, and even better that they really did it in a convincing fashion.  Chris Gaston had 12/17/4 blks.
• Nikola Vucevic. Could be one of the more underrated and unknown big men in the nation — through two games the USC forward is averaging 21/13 against not-terrible competition (UC Irvine and Santa Clara).
• Double Your Morris Trouble. The Kansas twins Marcus and Markieff Morris both had dub-dubs tonight — Marcus went for 22/11 while his brother dropped 12/13 in an easy win over Valparaiso.  The win was also KU’s 61st consecutive home victory, one short of its all-time record.  Watch out, North Texas (Friday night’s opponent).
• Atlantic Sun! Just a few days after Stetson took out Wake Forest, Kennesaw State did the same to Georgia Tech.  What’s the lesson here?  Maybe yellow and gold teams shouldn’t play A-Sun squads?  Or maybe those ACC teams are really struggling right now.
• Oakland.  The Golden Grizzlies going into the MAC favorite’s gym and easily dispatching them after getting rolled up over the weekend by WVU was an impressive win, and the kind of thing that will be very helpful come March.  Keith Benson didn’t even play all that well (10/6/3 blks while in foul trouble), but OU was still able to win easily.
• Steve Lavin. Lavin gets a nod here for having the cojones to schedule his team to play 3,000 miles away in a bandbox gym at 2 am ET.  This was going to almost assuredly be a loss for his team, but we have a sneaky suspicion that putting his players through this will be a good learning and bonding experience for them that will help come the rigors of Big East play later this year.

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PUT. THAT COFFEE. DOWN.

For the third year in a row, ESPN is bringing us what we consider one of the great television events on the sports television calendar, the 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon. That means that for the third year in a row, I’ll be live-blogging the whole thing from start to finish — and this year, we’re climbing this hoops blogger’s Everest without supplemental oxygen. That is to say…I’m going caffeine-free. More importantly, here is the schedule of games for this year’s marathon (all times Eastern):

• 12:00 midnight — Miami (FL) at Memphis (ESPN)
• 2:00 am — St. John’s at St. Mary’s (ESPN)
• 4:00 am — Central Michigan at Hawaii (ESPN)
• 6:00 am — Stony Brook at Monmouth (ESPN)
• 8:00 am — Robert Morris at Kent State (ESPN)
• 10:00 am — Northeastern at Southern Illinois (ESPN)
• 12 noon — Oral Roberts at Tulsa (ESPN)
• 2:00 pm — La Salle at Baylor (ESPN)
• 4:00 pm — Virginia Tech at Kansas State (ESPN)
• 5:30 pm — Marist at Villanova (ESPNU)
• 6:00 pm — Ohio State at Florida (ESPN)
• 7:30 pm — Miami (OH) at Duke (ESPNU)
• 8:00 pm — Butler at Louisville (ESPN)
• 9:30 pm — Belmont at Tennessee (ESPNU)
• 10:00 pm — South Carolina at Michigan State (ESPN)
• 11:00 pm — San Diego State at Gonzaga (ESPN2)
• 11:30 pm — Pacific at UCLA (ESPNU)

The first attempt at this resulted in some hallucinations and arrhythmias as the hour got late (I had been up for 16 hours before starting the live blog) and I required a few caffeine-laden beverages. Last year, we had a technical glitch that kept us on our toes, but the live blog survived. This time, to raise the standard yet again, I’ll be sans caffeine. I know that without a webcam (we’re not that kind of site) you have no reason to believe that I’m not pounding sodas and cappuccinos and Five Hour Energy drinks by the blender-full. Since I believe RTC is the only site that’s done this all three years, well…you’ll just have to trust me. After two years, I think our relationship is in that kind of place. I hope you’ll join us right here (the live blog will continue in this post) a few minutes before midnight. Now, for my pre-live-blog meal. How’s a little turkey and wine sound?

11:47 PM Monday — Here we go. The high-def at the RTC Southern Compound is rockin’. We’ve checked the router and the internet connection to the building (which bit us in zee buttocks last year), and it appears solid. The football game is all but over (as it has been since halftime). Let’s go.

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1. Have you heard a little something about a 24-hour hoops extravaganza that might be starting at Midnight ET tonight over on ESPN?  Yeah, us too.  Well, for the third year in a row (as in, 1… 2… 3…), our very own John Stevens will be Boom Goes the Dynamiting (that’s a form of live-blogging for the newbies) the proceedings from reasonable start to ridiculous finish.  Just as he did in 2009.  Just as he did in 2008.  Now we’ve caught wind that there are some other bloggers out there who have a half a mind to try to replicate what John has already perfected in years past.  Good for them.  The standard has been set exceptionally high, so we’re interested to see how they stack up.
2. The biggest non-game related news of the weekend came out of the Memphis camp, as the Tigers’ Jelan Kendrick was dismissed from the program.  Dan Wolken has been all over this story with reports of Kendrick’s antics releasing at seemingly an hourly basis.  As he put it, there was no single incident that led to  dissolution of the hoops marriage, but there were a series of insubordinate acts, clashes with teammates, outright lies and other distractions that finally reached a breaking point for the coaching staff.  6’7 burger boys don’t grow on trees, though, and we fully expect that Kendrick has already received a dozen offers from other schools around the nation, attitude be damned.  One note pointed out by Wolken in last night’s tweets — Memphis is unlikely to release Kendrick to another CUSA school (read: Tim Floyd’s UTEP), but we’re guessing there are several SEC and Big 12 schools willing to at least take a look.
3. You just never know when you  might be in danger of an injury, as new UConn assistant coach Kevin Ollie learned last week when an elastic band he was using for stretching purposes snapped back and hit him in the eye.  The eye started filling with blood and he subsequently was ordered by his doctor to bed rest, causing him to miss the Huskies’ season opener against Stony Brook on Friday night.  UConn travels to Maui next weekend, but Ollie may have to miss that trip as well due to the possibility of stressing the injury through changes in air pressure.  Ollie, one of our favorite Huskies of all-time, has certainly had a crazy start to his coaching career, so we wish him a speedy and successful recovery.
4. You may have noticed that preseason Big-12 first teamer Curtis Kelly was held out of K-State’s first game on Friday night against James Madison and the Wildcats’ front line struggled as a result (2/5 from Wally Judge and Freddy Asprilla).  Jeff Goodman reported that KSU head coach Frank Martin is unhappy with the leadership (or lack thereof) that Kelly has shown over the last two weeks in practice, so he probably won’t play in Tuesday night’s game against a much more talented Virginia Tech team either.
5. Section 103B, Row 2, Seat 1.  That was the location of a certain Wizard of Westwood for the last three-and-a-half decades at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion when he called upon his old school to watch a game, a frequent occurrence up until the last year of his life.  That seat was kept empty in honor of  John Wooden for Friday night’s game when the Bruins easily defeated Cal State Northridge, 83-50.  Frankly, UCLA brass should bronze over that chair and  keep it vacant for as long as the building is standing.

1. Unless Iowa State wins an appeal, Royce White will not play for the Cyclones this season. Having never played a game for Minnesota after signing with them last year, White is more famous for his method of leaving teams than what he can actually do when playing for one. White and ISU were hoping that the absence of court time last season would allow him to transfer to Ames without sitting out a year, but the NCAA was having none of that.
2. An alum of San Diego State is threatening charges against unnamed current Aztec ballers who he says jumped him outside of a San Diego nightclub on Sunday morning. As the linked FanHouse report explains, though, the alleged victim has presented only some scrapes on his body as evidence, and so far there’s been no mention of witnesses actually fingering any players as responsible for those injuries. Until that happens, we’ll assume that SDSU will begin the season with their roster intact.
3. Villanova freshman JayVaughn Pinkston was reportedly involved in an incident on Sunday morning that unfortunately might not go away as easily. Pinkston was allegedly involved in an altercation that led to an assault report and police departments talking to each other about whatever happened in Upper Merion Township. The school is now investigating. Understandably, head coach Jay Wright is withholding comment pending the outcome of that inquiry, but the SI.com report from this encounter sounds a bit more troubling than the San Diego incident from the same night described in #2.
4. UCLA’s Reeves Nelson was impressive in the Bruins’ first exhibition game against Westmont on Thursday, contributing 20 points and 10 boards. The next day, the sophomore woke up with what has been diagnosed as a strained hip flexor, and he’ll miss UCLA’s final exhibition tonight against Cal State Los Angeles. Freshman Matt Carlino will also miss the game with a concussion. Nelson should be ready for their first official game against Cal State Northridge.
5. Illinois is enjoying some lofty predictions for this season [ed. note: how sweet is it now to say the words, “this season?”] but everyone knows those expectations can only be met if senior Demetri McCamey has the kind of season of which everyone thinks he’s capable, including his coaches. The Rockford Register Star explains how McCamey considers his final season a chance to “make up for the last three years.”

Just when you figured that the Recruiting Rumor Mill would start to slow down one teenager start makes news by changing his mind about having previously changed his mind while another does so by deciding to go to college early.

• The biggest news of the week was of course Myck Kabongo deciding that he did want to go to Texas after all. We are going to wait until he signs on the dotted line before we go ahead and write it down in ink. Fool us once. . .
• Rutgers commit Kadeem Jack, who has already graduated from high school, but opted to take a prep year, has decided that he wants to go to Rutgers sooner rather than later and will reportedly enroll there in January. He tried talking the coaches into letting him play this year, but they talked him out of it and he will play for Scarlet Knights in the fall of 2011 as previously anticipated.
• Tyler Adams, who made news by backing out of his commitment to Duke, has committed to Georgetown, which shouldn’t be that surprising since Adams attended Georgetown’s Midnight Madness even when he was still committed to Duke.
  

  Tyler Adams: The Player Who Turned Down Coach K

• Speaking of Duke they landed a commitment from Quinn Cook, one of the top point guards in this year’s class. Normally this would be bigger next except Duke already has a commitment from Austin Rivers, the top guard in the class. And they also have Kyrie Irving, Andre Dawkins, and Seth Curry, all of whom will have eligibility left after this season although Irving could be gone after this year.

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1. It’s been 217 days and nights since Duke and Butler thrilled us for two hours on a warm Monday night in Indianapolis, but ladies and gentlemen, make sure that you have your affairs in order because starting tonight college basketball shall be lovingly (re)welcomed into our homes.   For the next 147 days until we convene in Houston on another warm spring night for a championship, our season is back in session.  Twenty-one pending weeks of squeaking sneakers, packed gyms, ridiculous finishes, burgeoning controversies and “fear the beard” chants.  You know us — we’ll be right there from start to finish with the high-quality analysis and coverage you’ve come to expect.  But you know what might be the best part of all?  The silence.  We will not be talking about the BCS, Brett Favre or the LeBron James Nike commercial.  Here you won’t find Randy Moss analysis, Hot Stove rumors or coverage of whatever Phil Jackson/Jerry Buss fracas develops this year. If you want that kind of coverage, we’re quite sure you can find plenty of it elsewhere.  No, we’re happy to put our fingers into our ears and descend back into the college hoops bubble;  and, frankly, we really aren’t all that interested in resurfacing again until April.  Our invitation to join us is open and can be executed at any time — won’t you be our hoops neighbor?
2. We already know that Washington’s Isaiah Thomas has a lot to say, and he often reaches to his Twitter account to express himself.  On Friday the talented Husky guard went after Fox Sports’ Jeff Goodman for his preseason all-Pac-10 selections which did not include he nor any of his teammates (we think Thomas should have been chosen too, actually).  Thomas specifically called out UCLA’s Tyler Honeycutt and USC’s Nikola Vucevic as players who shouldn’t have been chosen on the team, which means that there are at least three opponents now on the UW schedule whom he has provided bulletin board material for (Kentucky is the other).  Lorenzo Romar’s Huskies are quickly becoming must-view television this season.
3. If you consider yourself at all a hoops prognosticator, you need to get over to Vegas Watch this week and submit your preseason picks for the top four seeds in each region of the 2011 NCAA Tournament.  The person who is closest to the actual seed placements on Selection Sunday will win a cash prize, and surely the majority of our readers will be interested in this, right?
4. Former Cornell guard Jon Jaques writes in his “Blue Chips” blog that UCLA fans shouldn’t be throwing themselves off the nearest rooftops with the news late last week that prep star Quinn Cook committed to Duke despite the obvious need and a promise from Ben Howland that he could have the starting point guard position.  While everything Jaques says is true about UCLA competing in the Pac-10 this season and the deep and rich pool of talent that Howland has at his disposal in Los Angeles, he doesn’t seem to recognize that goals such as finishing second in the Pac-10 and winning recruiting battles are not appropriate analgesics for the Bruin faithful.  That program measures itself not even by Final Four appearances but by championships, and right now UCLA seems quite a few years away from competing for that kind of hardware again.
5. We rarely like to mention exhibition games because they simply don’t hold much predictive value as coaches experiment with lineups and different sets, but there were two notable events from the weekend.  First, Xavier lost to D2 Bellarmine (Ky) 63-61 on Saturday night as the Musketeer frontcourt laid a giant egg (1o points).  XU of course lost leading scorer Jordan Crawford along with big man Jason Love from last year’s Sweet Sixteen team, so it will take some time for the Musketeers to adjust.  Make no mistake, though; with Tu Holloway outside and Chris Mack on the sidelines, XU will be dealt with this season.  The other notable exhibition news from the weekend involved the first preseason AP All-American ever chosen, UNC’s Harrison Barnes.  Citing a case of what Roy Williams called “freshmanitis,” the freshman wing shot 2-9 from the field for seven lackluster points while committing six turnovers.  Don’t get used to it, though — he may not end up in single-figures again this season.