1. Blogger So Dear: John Mundy is back at the keyboard, so his story is back on top of the Morning Five. This time he (and a photographer) visited two of the great arenas of ACC lore, Carmichael Auditorium (the current home to North Carolina’s women’s team) and Cameron Indoor. He went to see the Wake Forest women compete, but his real purpose was to soak up the ambiance of the two venerable old gyms. Interestingly, he came away with two very different reactions: At Carmichael, he found a reflection of North Carolina, but “at no point in my trip to Duke did I think one second about Duke University,” Mundy recalled. He only thought about basketball.
2. Fayetteville Observer: Speaking of Duke, the Blue Devils have a tough week ahead of them with games at Virginia and against Miami over the stretch of three days. It will be a good test for both the ACC and NCAA Tournaments, where talented opponents will be waiting around every corner. Duke’s ACC schedule was backloaded (both in talent and frequency), as it took the Blue Devils 34 days to play the first half of ACC play and will take only 28 for the last half.
3. Charlottesville Daily Progress: For at least the second straight year, an important ACC freshman has gone down with mononucleosis. Mike Tobey will be back for Virginia after missing five games with the long, strength-sapping illness, which is much less time than Patrick Heckmann missed for Boston College last season. That bodes well for Tobey, who may be able to avoid losing the amount of ground Heckmann did (when he came back, he was a shadow of his former self). Tobey came back for Virginia’s beat-down of Georgia Tech, which should be a warm-up for Duke later this week.
4. Spartanburg Herald-Journal: Freshman Jordan Roper has been seeing his role grow in importance since day one at Clemson. The South Carolina native has played more than 30 minutes in the Tigers’ last four games. He’s scored in double figures in three of those four games, including a career high 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting against Miami. Roper is a good shooter, a rarity on this year’s Clemson team, but he needs to work on facilitating more when he’s in the game.
5. ESPN: Dean Smith is the godfather of tempo-free statistics. He started charting points per possession way before it was cool. Tempo-free stats still haven’t taken off like advanced baseball statistics (which are terrific predictors), but they’re picking up force. More and more you hear announcers talk about “efficiency” or “effective field goal percentage”. Myron Medcalf talked to Jim Larranaga, who quoted Sun Tzu to emphasize the importance of stats (Miami charts points per possession on a special scoreboard during its practices).

Though there were some dandy match-ups over the weekend, there was something in the water that led to some strange outcomes. The best team in the conference lost to one of the worst ones and the worst team in the conference finally got a win after nine straight conference losses. So sure, things got a little weird, but what did we learn?

Wake Celebrated Its Biggest Win in Years Saturday

1. No, Seriously, It’s Hard to Win On the Road in the ACC. Miami learned this the hard way on Saturday after Wake Forest handed the Hurricanes their very first conference loss. It was the first time Miami had lost a game since Christmas. Meanwhile, although Wake Forest certainly enjoyed celebrating the big upset, no one knows the sorrows of the road and the comforts of home better than the Demon Deacons. Wake Forest is 5-2 at home (the two losses were by a combined total of six points)  and 0-7 on the road within the conference. Of course, maybe a big part of that is just Wake Forest: Over the course of the season the team has won exactly one true road game, against UNC-Greensboro, thirty minutes down the road (assuming no traffic) at the traditional venue of the ACC Tournament.
2. Maryland Is Making Progress On Its Turnover Problem. In a win over Clemson, Maryland had only eight turnovers while the Tigers had 11. That counts for something! Seriously, things were getting pretty ridiculous: On the season Maryland has had 408 turnovers while their opponents have posted only 279.  Those extra possessions make winning tricky, and if Maryland wants to keep their bubble from bursting, they need to hold onto the ball if they want any chance of winning critical games against North Carolina and Virginia down the stretch.
3. North Carolina State Is Not Making Progress on Its Defensive Problem. NC State made the game interesting for North Carolina, but on the whole, the Wolfpack’s inability to stop an improving but still middling Tar Heels offense made a victory all but impossible. UNC did a fine job at slowing the Wolfpack’s potent offense and managed to do enough offensively to stymie the conference’s biggest disappointment. NC State is still an incredibly talented team, but it also seems like a squad that hasn’t improved as the season has progressed. Something needs to change, but the tail end of February seems like it might be far too late. Read the rest of this entry »

Brendon Mulvihill is an RTC contributor. You can find him @TheMulv on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

There are four games left in the regular season for most teams and the conference battles are still going strong. The last week and a half of the season should be exciting for everyone. Let’s not waste any time and get to the breakdowns.

#11 Syracuse at #19 Marquette – 7:00 PM EST, Monday on ESPN (****)

Can Michael Carter-Williams cause Marquette to turn the ball over?

• Both of these teams are coming off losses that have dropped them one game behind Georgetown for the Big East lead. The final four games of the season are certainly no cakewalk for Syracuse as they have to play at Marquette, home against Louisville and DePaul, and then at Georgetown to close out the regular season. Marquette has it slightly easier as the will play at home against Syracuse and Notre Dame and then on the road against Rutgers and St. John’s. The Orange are 4-4 in their last eight games and have struggled offensively. They shot below 40% eFG in all four of the losses. Their three-point shooting has been particularly bad as they have gone 5-of-14, 3-of-14, 4-of-23, and 4-of-20 in those games. A road game at Marquette will not be easy since the Golden Eagles are 9-0 at home this year. Turnovers have been the problem for Marquette but mostly away from the Bradley Center — if Marquette can protect the basketball and the perimeter, they can win this game. Syracuse simply needs to knock down its open shots. If they are going to break out of their three-point shooting slump, Marquette is the team to do it against because Buzz Williams’ perimeter defense is suspect at best. Watch out for James Sutherland, as he has been hot and cold from deep since returning to the Orange lineup. If they can get a solid performance from him, SU will be in good shape. Also, keep an eye on the match-up between Michael Carter-Williams and Junior Cadougan. Cadougan is prone to turning the ball over, so if Carter-Williams can use his long arms to poke a few balls away and get the Orange out on the break, his team has a definite shot at a big road win against Marquette.

#7 Kansas at Iowa State – 9:00 PM EST, Monday on ESPN (****)

• Iowa State took Kansas to the brink in their first contest in early January, only to cave in overtime at Allen Fieldhouse. With four games to play in the Big 12 season the Jayhawks are currently tied with Kansas State for the lead, which puts the Cyclones squarely in the spoiler role. In the first game, Iowa State shot the ball an absurd 38 times from three. Expect more of the same in this contest as Kansas possesses a significant size advantage down low. Given that advantage, look for them to pound the ball inside to Jeff Withey early and often. Iowa State has no answer for Withey inside. If he is able to establish himself in the paint, it opens the floor for Ben McLemore to take over. If Kansas can defend the three and utilize its advantage in the paint, they should have no problem knocking off the Cyclones. However, if you see that three-pointers are raining down from Fred Hoiberg’s squad early, it’s going to be another nailbiter.

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1. Miami Herald: Massive news out of Coral Gables, as Miami received its notice of allegations from the NCAA, just days following the conclusion to the NCAA’s investigation of itself (that included firing an up-and-coming executive). Despite throwing out nearly a fifth of its evidence, the NCAA still went after the dreaded “lack of institutional control.” Apparently Miami asked to meet with the NCAA’s Committee of Infractions this weekend, which tells me they’re not interested in doing any soul-searching. Relatedly, unlike a previous report stated, Frank Haith was not alleged to have committed unethical conduct. More from Miami’s side of the story below.
2. Miami Herald: While it was in the article above, I didn’t want you to miss this. So here’s Donna Shalala, Miami’s president, taking a war club to the NCAA in her statement on receiving the notice of allegations. The statement is an evisceration. Miami and Shalala mean business.
   

   The NCAA enforcement staff acknowledged to the University that if Nevin Shapiro, a convicted con man, said something more than once, it considered the allegation “corroborated”—an argument which is both ludicrous and counter to legal practice. […] Finally, we believe the NCAA was responsible for damaging leaks of unsubstantiated allegations over the course of the investigation. […] We trust that the Committee on Infractions will provide the fairness and integrity missing during the investigative process.

   This is going to be big and it’s going to be ugly. At this point — barring the NCAA backing down in a big way — I’d be shocked if this didn’t end up in court. And Shalala isn’t someone you want to mess with.

3. Baltimore Sun: Speaking of things bound to get ugly that are already in court, a North Carolina judge denied Maryland‘s motion that the ACC’s suit over the conference exit fee is invalid. Basically, the easy way out has been closed. Now Maryland has to decide whether to try and settle — the most likely outcome — despite the ACC holding the cards, or keep fighting the suit. Regardless, a lot of money will no doubt change hands.
4. Wilmington Star News: Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams aren’t usually thought of as coaching award candidates unless their teams are doing what Miami is currently doing in ACC play. But this year both coaches faced a challenge. Krzyzewski got hit with another injury to arguably the team’s second most important player (along with a nagging injury to the third). Despite Duke’s three losses since Ryan Kelly went down with injury, the Blue Devils have generally held their own. There aren’t many coaches in the country with the ability to alter their style mid-season as seamlessly as Krzyzewski. On the other end of Tobacco Road, Williams also is experimenting with minor changes in his system — namely, playing small ball. It’s a moot point (Jim Larranaga will win the award this year), but don’t overlook good coaching because there’s ample talent to be coached.
5. Basketball Prospectus: Another man doing some serious coaching is Tony Bennett, whose team has thus far edged out Duke for runner-up in conference efficiency. Miami leads the way — and it’s not really close — thanks to the Hurricanes’ stifling defense. There’s a really big drop-off after Virginia and Duke. The ACC could have two Final Four caliber teams when all is said and done if Kelly returns from his injury long enough before the postseason to be reintegrated at Duke. Miami’s proved its worth in conference play; Duke proved its in non-conference play. The battle next Saturday should be epic regardless.

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

Tonight’s Lede. Fun, Fun Night Of Hoops. The night began with a top-five match-up of seismic proportions. Indiana-Michigan State didn’t just have conference bragging rights on the line, nor was it just another hard-fought Big Ten game. It was arguably the biggest regular season game in any league this season, and it fully met the wildly attendant expectations. That game, and its crazy finish, will dominate Tuesday night’s headlines, but the schedule was flush with intriguing fixtures. Were there a stat for nightly scheduling intrigue efficiency, Tuesday night – with its stable of appealing match-ups and only 30 total games – would set the bar awfully high.

Your Watercooler Moment. No. 1 Has Arrived, I Think.

Excluding last season’s Kentucky win, there’s an argument to be made that beating Michigan State on the road is the most important victory of Crean’s IU tenure to date (Photo credit: AP Photo).

Another grand referendum on the nation’s No. 1 team, one of many in a season defined by near-constant alpha-dog flux, took place in East Lansing on Tuesday night. In this year’s revolving door of number ones, over the past two weeks Indiana had looked as sure a thing on top of the polls as Duke, back when the Blue Devils were smiting elite non-conference foes with Ryan Kelly in the lineup and Mason Plumlee leading the NPOY chase. The Hoosiers were good, and no one was going to question that. Whether they could maintain their grip on the top spot through Tuesday night, where a physical, deep, hard-nosed, trademark Izzo MSU stood on the brink of a major national breakthrough, was the ultimate test of No. 1 worthiness. Winning at Ohio State earlier this month was probably Indiana’s best win at that point in time, but because it came three days after a two-point loss at Illinois, no one could be completely sure exactly how the Hoosiers would handle their next huge road challenge. Now we know. The details of the game – Victor Oladipo’s tireless two-way contributions, Jordan Hulls’ three-point shooting, Cody Zeller standing tall against MSU’s bruising bigs – are just as important as the implications, I’d wager, because not only is Indiana now the clear-cut favorite to win the conference title and claim a number-one seed. It also earned itself the inside track on a highly desired spot at the Lucas Oil Stadium NCAA Tournament regional hosting site in Indianapolis. And for as long and as unstable as that fuzzy No. 1 label has felt all season, for as many weeks and words we’ve spent debating the topic, Tuesday night brought some finality to the matter. I’m willing to go ahead and throw it out there (with the caveat that IU could lose their last game of the season at Michigan): Indiana is the best team in the country.

Tonight’s Quick Hits…

• Move Over A-10 Newbies. For much of this confusing and utterly mystifying A-10 season, that would seem like a totally unreasonable claim to make. Butler and VCU had taken the league by storm, each with a unique stylistic strength. VCU had its smothering press and turnover-prying defense, whereas Butler had toughness and Rotnei Clarke and — let’s just be honest — a coach with the prime time chops to elicit the very best from his team against bigger, stronger and more talented opposition. Saint Louis has something else. It has the extra emotive urge to give everything and anything on any given night for fallen coach Rick Majerus. Aside from a two-game losing streak in mid-January, the Billikens are unbeaten since Majerus passed away. But Saint Louis has a lot more than an emotional drive to win in Majerus’ honor. The Billikens have held opponents to fewer points per trip (0.90 PPP) in conference play than any other A-10 squad, and scored more than all but one of them. They stomped VCU at home Tuesday night, nearly three weeks removed from delivering the same brutal treatment upon Butler. This team, who in beating the Rams jumped into first place in the conference standings, is just as good as any shiny new toy the A-10 inherited as part of this past summer’s realignment add-on. Read the rest of this entry »

Brendon Mulvihill is an RTC contributor. You can find him @TheMulv on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

We are in the final stretch before conference tournaments tip off and there are several key match-ups this week that will help to determine not only postseason seeds but regular season titles. Let’s not waste any time and get to the breakdowns!

Indiana at Michigan State – 7:00 PM EST, Tuesday on ESPN (*****)

How does Tom Izzo stop Indiana’s Victor Olidipo from lighting up the Spartans again?

• It doesn’t get any bigger than this game this week, as the Hoosiers and the Spartans battle for sole possession of first place in the Big Ten. Michigan State faces a gauntlet of games as it goes up against Indiana at home, Ohio State and Michigan on the road, and then back home against Wisconsin. It is highly unlikely that they will get through the next four unscathed, so this first game at home is crucial if they want to win a regular season Big Ten crown. In the teams’ previous game this season, IU defeated MSU 75-70 in Bloomington. Tom Izzo’s squad turned the ball over too many times, couldn’t hit their two-point shots, and didn’t get to the free throw line enough. Since then, the Spartans have won five straight and are looking better and better each game. They are being led by point guard Keith Appling. Appling is averaging 16.4 points per game in their current five-game winning streak, since going 1-of-4 with three points in the loss to IU. Appling will once again be a key factor as the Spartans will need his scoring and play-making abilities. Izzo will also need his defense to figure out a way to stop Indiana’s Victor Olidipo. Olidipo torched the Spartans last time out for 21 points on 9-of-12 shooting. If Indiana is allowed to go 19-of-32 again from inside the paint, Michigan State will struggle to find a way to win. The Spartans need a better defensive effort on the interior and better rebounding if they are going to overtake the Hoosiers for the Big Ten lead.

  Virginia at Miami (FL) – 9:00 PM EST, Tuesday on ESPNU (****)

• While Miami remains undefeated in the ACC and is aiming for a #1 seed in the NCAA Tourney, they face two tough tests the remainder of the season against Virginia at home and against Duke on the road. The Cavaliers have been anything but road warriors in the ACC (2-4), but they present a tough match-up because of their ability to shoot the ball, especially from three. Keep a close on Virginia’s Joe Harris and Akil Mitchell. If they are to knock off the Hurricanes, these two players must have very big games. If UVA is still without 6’11” Mike Tobey (mononucleosis), scoring on the interior will be tough against Miami’s 6’11” Kenny Kadji and 6’10” Reggie Johnson. The three-point shot is a significant part of the Cavaliers’ offense, so pay close attention to their effort early from beyond the arc. If they can stay in the game with some made threes, they will have a shot to win it in the end. However, the Hurricanes play lockdown perimeter defense too. This is a tall task for the Cavaliers, but it will still be an interesting match-up nonetheless.

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As we’re now fewer than four weeks from Selection Sunday, it’s always fun to start speculating about resumes of teams on the bubble. On some of the days when Daniel Evans (@bracketexpert) isn’t providing us with his updated Bubble Watch (Sunday nights and Thursday afternoons) or his weekly Bracketology (Fridays), he’ll give us an interesting comparison or two of teams that he finds difficult to compare. Today, he offers up a couple of bubble teams that have made considerable news in the past week as to their placement (in or out). Here are their blind resumes:

Team A

• Record: 18-7
• Conference Record:  8-4 (major conference)
• RPI: 77
• SOS: 181
• BPI: 45
• Sagarin: 35
• KenPom: 19
• Record vs. RPI top 50: 3-1
• Record vs. RPI top 100: 6-1
• Record vs. teams below top 100 in RPI: 12-6

Team B

• Record: 17-8
• Conference Record:  8-4 (major conference)
• RPI: 44
• SOS: 50
• BPI: 39
• Sagarin: 20
• KenPom: 29
• Record vs. RPI top 50: 0-4
• Record vs. RPI top 100: 5-8
• Record vs. teams below top 100 in RPI: 12-0

The two teams are revealed after the jump…

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Brian Otskey is an RTC columnist. Every Tuesday during the regular season he’ll be giving his 10 thoughts on the previous week’s action. You can find him on Twitter @botskey

1. As we hit the stretch run of the college basketball season, tight conference races begin to captivate the nation. There are terrific regular season title races going on in a bunch of conferences, including the Atlantic 10, Big 12, Pac-12 and Big Ten but the best race is happening in the Big East. In the conference’s final season as we have come to know it, three teams are tied atop the league standings at 9-3 heading into Tuesday’s action with three more nipping at their heels. It’s only fitting that two of the Big East’s heavyweight rivals, Syracuse and Georgetown, are among the group at 9-3. Joining them is an upstart Marquette team, picked seventh in the 15-team conference. Right behind the leaders is a team some seem to have forgotten about at 9-4, the Louisville Cardinals. Notre Dame at 9-5 after an important win at Pittsburgh last night and 7-5 Connecticut round out the teams within two games in the loss column. The great thing about this race is the best games are still to come. Syracuse and Georgetown hook up twice down the stretch, including on the final day of the regular season. The Orange have the toughest schedule with the aforementioned games against the Hoyas plus a trip to Marquette and a visit to the Carrier Dome from Louisville still on tap. Marquette plays four of its final six games on the road beginning this evening but gets Syracuse and Notre Dame at home where the Golden Eagles have won 23-straight games since a loss to Vanderbilt last season. Luckily for Marquette, its four road games are against a hit-and-miss Villanova team, St. John’s and two of the teams near the bottom of the league standings. It’s never easy to win on the road but Marquette has a somewhat favorable schedule. In the end, my money would be on a 13-5 logjam between Syracuse, Georgetown and Louisville with tiebreakers determining the team that gets the top seed at Madison Square Garden next month.
   

   Otto Porter and Georgetown will have a say in the Big East title race (M. Sullivan/Reuters)

2. For the final time this Saturday, ESPN’s BracketBusters event will pit non-power league teams against one another, some in major need of a resume-building win as the regular season begins to wind down. Denver against Northern Iowa and Ohio at Belmont are solid matchups but the best game by far is Creighton visiting St. Mary’s on Saturday.The Bluejays have lost five of their past nine games heading into tonight’s game with Southern Illinois, one they should win, after a 17-1 start to the season. Quality non-conference wins against Wisconsin, Arizona State and California (all away from Omaha), plus a good home win over a solid Akron club, have Creighton in a pretty good spot for a bid relative to other teams in the mix. The problem for Greg McDermott’s squad is that it hasn’t done much of anything in calendar year 2013. The good news for Creighton is the NCAA Selection Committee says wins in November and December mean just as much as February and March. As long as Creighton splits its upcoming games with St. Mary’s and Wichita State, I feel that should be good enough to merit an NCAA berth no matter what happens in the Missouri Valley Tournament. As for St. Mary’s, it is even more desperate. The only semblance of a quality win on the Gaels’ resume are wins at BYU and Santa Clara, the former coming thanks to Matthew Dellavedova’s miracle buzzer beater in Provo. To have a chance at the NCAA’s I feel St. Mary’s has to beat Creighton and run the West Coast table while making the finals of the conference tournament. There just isn’t enough meat on its resume to justify a bid despite having one of the nation’s strongest offensive attacks. Read the rest of this entry »

Exactly 26 days from now, brackets for the NCAA Tournament, NIT, and CBI will be revealed on Selection Sunday. In this piece, we’ll put together where each Pac-12 team fits into the picture as of today. To see last week’s projections, click here.

*Conference Champ

Definitely Dancing: Despite their recent struggles, both Arizona and Oregon remain locks at this point. I have the Wildcats a tad lower on the S-curve than most prognosticators, but they get to go to either Salt Lake City or San Jose instead of being shipped back east. Nothing is very special about their first round opponent, Stony Brook. The Seawolves, who I project to win the America East, currently sit at 19-6 and have notable seven- and one-point losses in games at Maryland and Seton Hall, respectively. Oregon cannot do anything to play itself out of the field of 68 thanks to its road sweep of the Washington schools. The Ducks have a great shot at winning the regular season championship, as they are already a full game up on UCLA and don’t play a team currently in the upper third of the league from here on out. Being the lowest #5 seed on the board, Dana Altman’s squad gets Virginia, the top #12 seed, in their NCAA opener. The Wahoos have won seven of their last nine and are rising on mock brackets everywhere pretty quickly.

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Kellen Carpenter is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after Saturday’s game between North Carolina and Virginia in Chapel Hill.

When media members participated in the mock NCAA tournament selection panel, Virginia found itself on just the right side of the bubble, picked to play one of the “First Four” match-ups for one of the last at-large seeds. North Carolina, on the other hand, found itself on the outside looking in. Obviously, no one should draw too much from a fake committee making selections for a hypothetical Tournament, but the bracket that this group managed to draw up reflects the prevailing thought about both team’s NCAA chances: Each team is squarely on the bubble and, at least on Friday afternoon, it seemed like Virginia was the better team.

UVA Found Its Way to the Basket But Still Lost the Game

It will be interesting to see how Saturday’s result, a UNC victory, will influence the real committee. The Cavaliers shot a blistering 58.5% from the field and 57.1% from beyond the arc, with Joe Harris scoring 27 points from all over the court. Yet somehow, North Carolina won this game, and the manner of victory signals an interesting transition for this team’s identity. The Tar Heels won at the free throw line, and while that phrase has been written countless times, there has been little occasion to use it this season. Roy Williams‘ offensive philosophy has historically been largely based around getting his team to the free throw line at a very high clip. Yet this season, his team gets to the line with somewhat dramatic infrequency. The Tar Heels’ free throw rate this season is only 28.5%, good for 331st in the nation — the worst a Roy Williams-led North Carolina team has ever performed in this category. His second-worst season by this measure was last year, where UNC still managed to put up an above average 37.3% rate. In this game against Virginia, the team started to look more like the UNC teams of the past decade. North Carolina went to the line 30 times and converted on 22 attempts from the line. It was a surprising change from the way the team has played for most of the season.

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