Plenty of teams prepare to jockey for seeding, selection tonight

In the immortal words of the Black Eyed peas, tonight’s gonna be a good night.

There are 40 teams in action tonight, and more than half of them are likely to appear in the NCAA Tournament or seriously challenge for their conference’s automatic bid. We’ve got elite powers like Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio State in addition to upstarts that could make life miserable for those powerhouses, such as Vermont, Valparaiso and Cleveland State.

Here’s some of the top games to track tonight.

• Kansas State at Missouri, 7 ET. The Tigers are looking to solidify their case for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament in addition to inching closer to their first regular-season title in the 16-year history of the Big 12 Conference. It’s also their last chance before bolting for the SEC next season. K-State wants to keep the mojo rolling after beating Baylor last weekend.
• Illinois at Ohio State, 7 ET. Poor Bruce Weber desperately needs a win for his Illini, who have lost five straight and eight of nine. But Ohio State should be playing plenty mad after losing at rival Michigan on Saturday prime time. The Buckeyes need to win to keep pace with Michigan State.
• Vermont at Binghamton, 7 ET. Vermont needs to win to maintain a tie with Stony Brook atop the America East standings. A lot is at stake as the top seed — which is the Catamounts right now based on their win against Stony Brook — would host the conference title game if they get that far. For Binghamton, the Bearcats are down to three regular-season chances to avoid a winless season.
• Xavier at Massachusetts, 7 ET. Xavier needs to find a road win against a winning team — something the Musketeers haven’t done since early December at Butler — to avoid falling out of the Atlantic 10′s top four, which get a bye in the conference tournament. UMass, for its part, is looking to move into the top four and set itself up for a bid-stealing run in Atlantic City.
• North Carolina at NC State, 8 ET. This might be the last stand for the Wolfpack, which desperately need a quality win or two to add to their résumé. The best wins thus far are against Texas in Madison Square Garden and at Miami. A loss to hated rival UNC would mean the Wolfpack likely need to reach the ACC Tournament title game to pick up enough wins to warrant an at-large bid.
• Michigan at Northwestern, 8 ET. Will the Wolverines suffer an emotional letdown a few days after a massive upset of Ohio State? Michigan has just two road wins, and the Wildcats could really use another solid win to boost its NCAA Tournament chances.
• Kentucky at Mississippi State, 9 ET. The Wildcats are perfect in SEC play while the Bulldogs are fading fast after losing three straight to Georgia, LSU and Auburn. With Alabama’s lineup decimated by suspensions, this is Mississippi State’s last chance to pick up a quality win before the SEC Tournament.
• New Mexico at Colorado State, 10 ET. The Mountain West’s hottest team hits the road to play the Mountain West’s most desperate team. New Mexico is riding a seven-game winning streak into Fort Collins, including back-to-back wins against San Diego State and UNLV. The Rams haven’t won two straight since mid-January and need to hold court against the Lobos before facing San Diego State and UNLV in their next two games.

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In case you missed it somehow, Shabazz Napier delivered a stay of execution for UConn when he nailed a deep game-winning 3-pointer in overtime at Villanova, as Troy Machir notes at Ballin Is a Habit. Arguably, Napier got a little premature with his shot instead of waiting another second or two to guarantee his shot would be the last of overtime. But at least he had a better sense of the space-time continuum than his teammate Andre Drummond. As Machir highlights, Drummond decided that a rocket-launched shot from 94 feet away would be a good idea with six seconds to go. Ugh.

Maryland’s athletic director threw down the gauntlet at Georgetown, proclaiming that the Hoyas and Terps should play each other in all sports or not at all, writes USA Today’s Erick Smith. The two Washington, D.C., area teams haven’t met in the regular season in nearly 20 years.

Just a few days after getting ignominiously tossed from a place they used to call home, former NC State players Tom Gugliotta and Chris Corchiani will be honored during the Wolfpack’s game against North Carolina tonight, along with the rest of their 1989 teammates. That squad won NC State’s last regular-season ACC title.

The New York Times’ Ray Glier chronicles the tough choices Alabama coach Anthony Grant has made this season, sacrificing immediate success for sound principles.

Western Kentucky must be pretty impressed with Ray Harper’s plan for the future because the university has decided to ditch the interim tag and make former coach Ken McDonald’s replacement the official Hilltoppers coach, according to an Associated Press report.

Florida coach Billy Donovan delivered some good news to Gator fans Monday when he announced that guard Mike Rosario, who averages just short of eight points per game, should be back in the lineup against Auburn after missing three games with a hip pointer, according to an Associated Press report.

Steve Yanda blogs for the Washington Post that Virginia still might not have sophomore sharpshooter Joe Harris at 100 percent yet. But that’s better than senior center Assane Sene, who might not be back this season from his fractured ankle.

BracketBusters takes center stage once again

Every year, there is a lot of talk about how to make BracketBusters better, or if it should just go away entirely. While teams have undoubtedly benefited from it over the years of its existence, the feelings on it seem a bit mixed, and it’s debatable whether or not it has been good as a whole. Right now, it’s what we have, and on Saturday it was center stage.

Proponents have talked about teams getting an extra national television appearance for people to see them. They have also cited the chance to get an RPI boost. Certainly, some of the teams that have benefited can look back and argue that they would not have made the NCAA Tournament if not for a win in the BracketBusters, including Final Four teams from George Mason and VCU. In 2006, George Mason beat Wichita State (and then beat the Shockers again in the NCAA Tournament), while last season VCU also beat the Shockers in Wichita as part of this. It’s also one less game to worry about in terms of putting together a schedule, and at a time when it’s well-documented how difficult scheduling has become for many schools – especially the better mid-majors.

That is all well and good. But only a handful of teams get to play on television against a team that may give them an NCAA Tournament profile boost. Some of the other teams pay a price if they get matched up with a team at the opposite end of the country from them. (At least if it is a televised game, like Nevada at Iona this year, it takes the sting off the travel part.) Some good matchups are tough to make happen because teams are designated as home or road teams in advance. As one example, Long Beach State couldn’t play St. Mary’s because bother were designated as road teams. This also impacts conference scheduling, as it’s one reason why a number of conferences have games in the midst of non-conference play in December.

And while the boost some teams have had from it is nice, they don’t make the NCAA Tournament if they don’t win other games in addition to the BracketBusters game they play. George Mason and VCU needed to win a number of other games along the way to be in position to get the at-large bids they received in 2006 and last season, respectively.

In the past, one proponent talked about how a team has some incentive to play well enough to get a televised game in the BracketBusters. While that sounds good in theory, the NCAA Tournament is a far bigger prize, and if a team is good enough to be in the discussion for a televised game in this there’s a chance they will be in the discussion for an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. I highly doubt a televised BracketBusters game against one of the best teams in the field moves the needle much in terms of motivators for teams.

So what can be done? Not much with this format, really. Teams have to be designated as home and road teams for it in advance because arena dates need to be booked well in advance. Schedules have to be done, and the only way to ensure a large number of the best mid-majors play each other is to have a large pool of teams. Hands are tied, in other words. This year’s event is the 10^th annual, and it’s undergone a few changes in that time, but it is what it has been all along: a decent but flawed idea with big pros and cons.

BracketBusters was surely never intended to solely solve the problem of good mid-majors getting games against good opponents, or getting chances to be seen by members of the NCAA Tournament selection committee. But how much it has helped in that regard is debatable, and other issues with it raise a serious question of whether or not it is good for college basketball in the aggregate. This isn’t to say it needs to be done away with, only that its impact is limited and there are bigger problems that aren’t solved so easily.

Drexel blew out Cleveland State 69-49 in a game that may have lost some luster due to recent losses by the Spartans. It’s a big win for Drexel to come into their arena and win with a very early start (11 a.m. Tip), but the RPI boost the Dragons get is likely to be negligible since Cleveland State’s RPI was 80 entering the week and Drexel’s was 82.

Wichita State handled Davidson 91-74 for a nice road win in another early game. That will help the Shockers only marginally; they’re already in good shape with an RPI of 17, while Davidson entered the week with an RPI of 72. Wichita State has wins over UNLV and Creighton and no bad losses, so the Shockers would likely have been okay if they didn’t play this game.

In one matchup mentioned earlier, Iona beat Nevada in a game pitting two teams whose RPI was separated by three entering the week against each other.

In what was probably the most anticipated matchup, Murray State cruised to a 65-51 win over Saint Mary’s, which will boost the Racers in the event they don’t win the Ohio Valley Tournament.

Late in the evening, Creighton beat Long Beach State in a game that they hope will help them get back on track. Long Beach State, meanwhile, could have used the win since they lack one over a top 50 team in the RPI.

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Florida State went to Raleigh and took care of North Carolina State, but the talk of the game is the ejection of Wolfpack greats Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta. The Seminoles needed another good win to be in a good place, while this loss hurts NC State’s NCAA Tournament hopes as they are running out of chances for significant wins.

Meanwhile, just down the road from there, Clemson still has never won at the Dean Dome.

Michigan held off Ohio State, which puts Michigan State all alone atop the Big Ten.

Marquette got a big game from Jae Crowder (29 points, 12 rebounds) to beat Connecticut, and simply put, the Huskies don’t look good at all.

Notre Dame rallied from a 20-point deficit to beat Villanova in overtime.

New Mexico blew out UNLV to give the Lobos the signature win they have lacked thus far. The real stunner in the Mountain West was San Diego State losing at Air Force, the Aztecs’ third straight loss.

Kansas State got a much-needed win at Baylor.

Washington knocked off Arizona 79-70 to keep pace with California, who knocked off Oregon State 77-63, atop the Pac-12.

UTEP beat Memphis at the FedEx Forum, but they weren’t alone in Conference USA as Houston beat Southern Miss to keep the Tigers and Golden Eagles tied at 9-3 atop the conference.

Bucknell looked like they were in control of the Patriot League a week ago. After a second straight loss, this one at arch-rival Holy Cross, along with American and Lehigh winning, the Bison are now just a game up on the Eagles and Mountain Hawks. Bucknell still has to play at American.

Middle Tennessee clinched at least an NIT bid by way of winning the Sun Belt’s regular season title.

Sunday’s key matchups:

• Michigan State at Purdue
• Indiana at Iowa
• South Florida at Pittsburgh
• Oregon at Stanford

The countdown to Selection Sunday starts — less than a month to go

It’s hard to believe, but Selection Sunday is officially less than a month away — 26 days to be precise.

That means it’s separation time. The best teams throughout the nation need to raise the bar to claim a regular-season conference championship and jockey for NCAA Tournament seeding.

For the vast majority of the 31 conferences that receive automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament, winning a regular-season conference title is about more than bragging rights. In many conference tournament formats, the regular-season winner gets a bye or home court advantage — sometimes both — at some point in the upcoming conference tourneys. Teams like the America East’s Stony Brook, Big Sky’s Weber State, and SWAC’s Mississippi Valley State won’t be getting at-large bids to the Big Dance if they don’t capture a conference championship in the tournaments. So they’ll take any advantage they can get.

For teams that regularly see their names on cable channels’ TV lineup, now is the time to impress the selection committee. Kansas and Duke are making moves now that might pay off in the form of a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Besides playing for seeding, teams from the top conferences are also playing for location. One of the regional locations is St. Louis. Don’t you think Missouri would love to play its Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games there while Kansas gets shipped to Phoenix? That kind of location advantage will be at stake during the next few weeks.

It’s a wonderful time of year, with so much at stake. We’ve started our annual bracketology sessions, joining the myriad experts out there who publish their predictions on a regular basis. Although the early predictions often look nothing like the finished product delivered by the Selection Committee, the exercise is fun and enlightening — every game matters now. A road win against an elite team could be worth a two or three seed jump, while a bad home loss to a conference cellar dweller could move a team slotted as a No. 11 or 12 seed straight out of the tournament.

So tune in, and enjoy the next eight weeks of basketball nirvana.

We take you coast to coast with news from around the college basketball nation.

From the ashes of the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA, a new, yet-to-be-named creature will emerge. The remaining schools from the two conferences will form a new association that will include Air Force, Colorado State, East Carolina, Fresno State, Marshall, Nevada, New Mexico, Rice, Southern Miss, Tulsa, UAB, UNLV, UTEP and Wyoming. For football, Hawaii also will compete in the conference, according to ESPN.com’s Andy Katz.

Florida and Alabama will have some key players but not others when the two square off Tuesday night. Alabama has reinstated Trevor Releford and Andrew Steele after suspending them for Saturday’s loss at LSU, according to the Associated Press. However, a couple of other Crimson Tide players won’t be back yet. And the Gators will play without Will Yeguete (concussion) and Mike Rosario (hip pointer), according to another AP report.

North Carolina coach Roy Williams is unsure whether the Tar Heels will have freshman shooter P.J. Hairston available for the game at Miami Wednesday after missing the Virginia game with a sore foot, writes Robbi Pickeral for ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nation” blog.

Virginia suffered some damage in that loss in Chapel Hill last weekend, with sharpshooter Joe Harris breaking his left hand. According to the Washington Post’s Steve Yanda, coach Tony Bennett won’t know until game time whether Harris will be ready to play tonight at Clemson.

After a great game against Wisconsin, freshman Andre Hollins will likely return to Minnesota’s starting lineup, coach Tubby Smith told the Associated Press. Hollins started earlier in the season before injuries and a lack of confidence slowed his effectiveness.

Lipscomb has booted the best 3-point shooter in the country, showing senior Jordan Burgason the door after the guard, who shoots 52.6 percent from 3-point range, for breaking university policies, according to an ESPN.com news services report.

From fury to funding charity, a Michigan State bench chair has seen it all recently. Granted, it might not be the precise chair that Iowa coach Fran McCaffery roughed up during the Hawkeyes’ 95-61 beatdown in Lansing, but Iowa put a Michigan State bench chair to good use by auctioning it off for charity, writes the Iowa City Press-Citizen’s Ryan Suchomel.

Although the NCAA finds the Fighting Sioux nickname hostile and abusive, North Dakota might begin using the nickname again for its sports teams if a petition is successful to put the issue to a state vote, according to an Associated Press report.

Baylor is clearly third in the Big 12

At this time of the year, we find out who teams are. The importance of each game in the standings is clearer, teams have injuries, seniors are playing their final games and freshmen have about 20 games under their belt.

Every season, there are some teams that look very good for a while, even good enough in our minds to be Final Four and/or national championship contenders. They have the talent, experience and early on a few good wins. They might not lose a game for a while, even beating some good teams. Then sooner or later, they get tested, and we find that they’re not quite at that level.

Enter this year’s Baylor Bears, 72-57 losers at Missouri on Saturday.

Baylor had a pretty solid non-conference run. Sure, they had the easy ones like Texas Southern and Jackson State, along with South Carolina State, Prairie View A&M, Bethune-Cookman and even Paul Quinn. But they also beat San Diego State, Northwestern (road), BYU (road), Saint Mary’s and West Virginia in Dallas, and Mississippi State in Dallas. They ran out to a 17-0 mark.

The Bears’ first loss came at Kansas. That wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, but it was a convincing loss in Allen Fieldhouse that had to raise a little question: does the Big 12 still belong first to Kansas, not a comparative upstart like Baylor? The Bears couldn’t bounce back with Missouri a few days later, losing a tough one by one in Waco.

Fast forward to this week. Kansas came to Waco and scored another convincing win on Wednesday, and now Missouri took care of them on Saturday. It was a repeat of the earlier matchups.

The Bears have lost four times on the season, and all four have come against the stalwarts of the Big 12 in Kansas and Missouri. Thus we have established that if the Bears are Final Four or national title contenders, they’ve got company in their conference. But what’s more likely is that the Bears are a little short of that level. The pecking order in the Big 12 is crystal clear right now: Missouri and Kansas are at the top, and Baylor leads the next tier.

Perhaps it was best summed up by Baylor forward Anthony Jones: “We just have to hope a lot of stuff goes our way. We’ve got to win out for the rest of conference and hope some games go bad for Missouri and Kansas.” In other words, it’s out of the Bears’ hands at this point.

There is still time for Baylor to correct things from these games. If they meet either or both squads in the Big 12 Tournament, a victory would not be a shocker. But the results are what they are and tell us something right now.

We take you coast to coast with news from around the college basketball nation.

Lipscomb kicked the top three-point shooter in the country out of the school for an undisclosed violation of team rules. Jordan Burgason, a senior guard, was shooting 52.6 percent from long range on the season and led the team in scoring at 16.4 points per game.

The New York Post is reporting that a top official at St. John’s is suspected of being involved in widespread ticket scalping, notably from last season’s game against Duke and the Big East Tournament.

Michigan State won a Big Ten showdown, and on the road no less, to pull into a tie for first with Ohio State.

Syracuse pulled away from Connecticut, which puts the Huskies in a tenuous position as far as the NCAA Tournament goes. The Huskies are 5-7 in Big East play and don’t look like they have a run in them like they did a year ago.

Louisville pulled out a 77-74 road win at West Virginia. That puts the Mountaineers below .500 in Big East play, so they don’t have a lot of room for error down the stretch.

With Kentucky pulling off a big win at Vanderbilt and Tennessee knocking off Florida in Gainesville, the Wildcats are in command with a three-game lead in the SEC.

UNLV pulled out a thriller against San Diego State.

Wichita State went to Omaha and blew out slumping Creighton 89-68.

Arizona got a scare from Utah, but survived in Tucson. A loss to the Utes is about the last thing the Wildcats needed.

The Ivy League race got a lot more interesting as Princeton beat Harvard and Yale mounted a furious rally to win at Columbia and stay a game back. Harvard and Yale meet next Saturday night in Cambridge and could be doing so with first place on the line.

Middle Tennessee now has a clear path to a regular season Sun Belt title after knocking off UALR to go two games up in the loss column.

Mississippi Valley State improved to 12-0 in SWAC play, and with Arkansas-Pine Bluff knocking off second-place Southern, Mississippi Valley State is now three games up in the loss column.

Sunday’s key matchups:

Illinois at Michigan
St. John’s at Georgetown
Northwestern at Purdue
Washington at Oregon State
Stony Brook at Vermont
Fairfield at Loyola (Md.)

Round 233: UNC vs. Duke tips off with more than pride at stake

The first of two regular-season meetings between two of the most hate-filled rivals in American sports goes down tonight when Duke makes the short trip to the Dean Dome to visit North Carolina.

As is usually the case in recent years, this game has significant importance in the standings, with both teams jockeying with Florida State for the top spot in the ACC. North Carolina enters the game at 7-1 in conference action, while Duke slipped to 6-2 after losing to Miami. Duke can ill-afford another loss, especially because the Seminoles and Tar Heels will not meet again this regular season.

Besides the usual hostility generated by one of the most intense rivalries in the game, the 233rd match up between these teams — UNC leads the all-time series 131-101 — is critical for both teams. Duke is facing more than its fair share of critics after a lackluster performance against the Hurricanes. Meanwhile, North Carolina needs to prove it can beat an elite team, sometime the Heels haven’t done in a few months.

For the Blue Devils, coach Mike Krzyzewski will be looking for renewed passion from his team after calling them out for lacking the energy to compete with the Hurricanes in the overtime loss at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Expect his team to rally around his battle cry, especially on the road surrounded by the Enemy in Powder Blue. To win, Duke will need to play smart defense, something the Blue Devils haven’t done consistently this season.

On the other hand, North Carolina seems to be on the rise, especially after a gutsy win in College Park last weekend in which Maryland tried to beat up the Tar Heels. Unlike the game in Tallahassee in which Florida State annihilated UNC, the Tar Heels responded after getting hit in the mouth and clamped down in the second half to erase a nine-point deficit to win by nine. However, the Tar Heels haven’t beaten a team guaranteed to be in the NCAA Tournament since they knocked off Wisconsin in Chapel Hill Nov. 30. North Carolina needs a win at home against the team’s arch rival to validate the argument that this team should be in the conversation for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

That adds a lot of pressure to both teams, and that might favor North Carolina. The Tar Heels have a roster full of players who have been through this rivalry at least three times after last season. Duke has struggled with leadership on the court, and the Blue Devils must get someone to step up or else things could ugly for Duke pretty quickly.

Let the battle begin.

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Louisville coach Rick Pitino got his wish with Memphis, as the Tigers will be joining the Big East starting in 2013-14, according an ESPN.com news services report. Pitino had lobbied for the Conference USA’s Tigers to join the Big East to help replace the power that will be departing with West Virginia, Syracuse and Pittsburgh in coming years.

Florida coach Billy Donovan tried to preach that Kentucky faced all the pressure entering the Gators/Wildcats clash Tuesday night, with the home team trying to extend a 15-game winning streak and 48-game undefeated streak at Rupp Arena, according to the Associated Press. That psyche-out didn’t seem to work as the Wildcats clobbered Florida 78-58.

If Connecticut can rally around the toughness of coach Jim Calhoun, the Huskies won’t be out of the picture despite a bleak couple of weeks, including a horrid loss Monday night at Louisville. Calhoun told ESPN’s Andy Katz that he doesn’t plan to let spinal stenosis to force him into retirement, and the coach could return to the sidelines sometime this season if the pain in his legs and back subsides.

There’s also health concerns for another coach: College of Charleston’s Bobby Cremins. The 64-year-old Cougar coach took a leave of absence Jan. 27, and he told people that he’s just taking a break to recuperate from a lack of energy, according to a CBS Sports.com wire report.

Alabama’s tournament chances could be in some jeopardy after the team indefinitely suspended junior Tony Mitchell for misconduct, writes TideNation’s Alex Scarborough. The junior forward averages 13.1 ppg and 7.0 rpg in more than 30 minutes per game for the Crimson Tide.

Notre Dame reminds us that we don’t play the games on paper

We always talk about how the games aren’t played on paper when looking at teams that don’t do what we expect. It’s a cliché, and it sticks around because everyone loves to predict how things will turn out in sports, no matter how wrong we could wind up being. All the while, the teams that end up better than we project can just laugh at us all they want.

Enter the 2011-12 Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Notre Dame lost a great deal from last season’s team that entered the month of March playing about as well as any team in the country. Gone from that team are Big East Player of the Year Ben Hansbrough and important role players Tyrone Nash and Carleton Scott, the latter a big defensive leader for that team and a surprise early defection. Already, projections for this team were going to be that they were unlikely to contend for the top of the Big East. When they went 0-2 in Kansas City, including an 87-58 thrashing at the hands of Missouri, it looked like they would be who many thought they would be.

That wasn’t all. The Fighting Irish were not certain to have Tim Abromaitis back, as he played in two exhibition games in the 2008-09 season where he redshirted. But the NCAA granted him this year, so that helped as he was an experienced player and was second on the team in scoring last season. Then in late November, he tore the ACL in his right knee in practice, putting him out for the season.

At that point, the outlook was decidedly not good. But no one told head coach Mike Brey and his team that, and after Saturday’s convincing 76-59 win over Marquette, the Fighting Irish are alone in fourth place in the Big East.

“From the start of the season, no one thought we would be here,” said sophomore point guard Eric Atkins.

Notre Dame hasn’t compiled its record by beating up on the bottom feeders of the conference. Along the way, they have knocked off Louisville, Seton Hall and Connecticut on the road, and now Syracuse and Marquette at home.

“I am very proud of my group,” said Brey, who at this point looks like the runaway Coach of the Year in the Big East, if not nationally. “I told them in one of the final media timeouts that I felt like I was coaching men today. Last year’s team was men. That had a look of more than one fifth year senior on the court. I am thrilled where we are.”

Notre Dame can only get better given that this is a young team with a lot of players who are just finding themselves. Scott Martin is the only other senior besides Abromaitis on the team, while the emerging perimeter unit of Atkins, Jerian Grant and Pat Connaughton are sophomore, sophomore and freshman respectively. Connaughton wasn’t expected to play much, but he scored 21 points on Saturday and now starts on the hardwood as well as the mound (the San Diego Padres drafted him last year).

“Right now, we’re really confident that we can beat any team – we can play with any team,” said Grant. “Our team confidence is really high right now, and I’d like to keep it that way because we are playing really well.”

That’s one thing no one can doubt at this point. The Irish have proven that to this point, and as a more confident team they will be even tougher to beat.

We take you coast to coast with news from around the college basketball nation.

Arizona had a big weekend, sweeping their trip to northern California after a 56-43 win at Stanford on Saturday. The Wildcats may be starting to come alive at a good time.

Syracuse got Fab Melo back for Saturday’s game, and they rolled to a 95-70 blowout win at St. John’s. The win was the 879^th in Jim Boeheim’s career, tying him with Dean Smith for third on the all-time list.

Seton Hall’s struggles continued as Connecticut annihilated them 69-46 in Hartford.

Kentucky had an easy time at South Carolina, committing just three turnovers in their blowout win.

The Big 12 gets a little more interesting at Missouri rallied to knock off Kansas in a big rivalry showdown. Both teams are now 8-2 in conference play.

Who’s on top of the ACC? No, not Duke, although the Blue Devils will be tied if they beat Miami on Sunday. North Carolina is in a tie after a big 83-74 win at Maryland to move into a tie for that spot. The team they are tied with is Florida State, as the Seminoles are 7-1 after a 58-55 win over Virginia.

Temple is now alone in first place in the Atlantic 10 after a 73-56 win at Rhode Island, combined with Saint Joseph’s knocking off La Salle earlier in the day. Temple’s perimeter trio continues to be the driving force for this team.

Wyoming knocked off road-weary UNLV in a close one after the Runnin’ Rebels ran into snow-related travel delays en route to Laramie.

Northern Iowa beat Creighton on a buzzer-beater, right after Creighton had tied it on a big shot.

Iona won a big showdown against Manhattan for the lead in the MAAC.

George Mason grabbed a share of the lead in the Colonial Athletic Association with a 54-50 win over Old Dominion in a first-place showdown. The Patriots are joined by VCU, 59-56 winners over Northeastern, and Drexel, 65-57 winners at Towson, at 11-2 in the conference.

Mississippi Valley State is now 10-0 in the SWAC and two games ahead in the standings, after knocking off Alabama State.

Sunday’s key matchups:

• Michigan at Michigan State
• Miami at Duke
• Northwestern at Illinois
• Stephen F. Austin at McNeese State
• The biggest one of all: New York Giants vs. New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI

Percolating hoops intrigue makes February a fantastic month for sports

It’s February — one of the most underrated sports months of the year.

With the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, the biggest event in U.S. sports will command the attention of tens of millions of viewers, generating tens of millions of dollars for everyone associated with the event.

A few weeks later, the NBA All-Star game will show the NFL how exhibition weekends should be run. In my opinion, the NBA All-Star weekend festivities are the best of any pro sport, with baseball coming in a close second. Did anyone actually watch the Pro Bowl last weekend?

We don’t have any winter Olympics this year, but that’s a February event, too.

And then we have college hoops. To casual fans, March is the month of joy. But February is the month that sets the table for March. Dozens of teams are jockeying for position right now, fighting for a better seed and location or merely a bid to the Big Dance.

The schedule-makers know what they’re doing, too. Next Wednesday — just days after the Super Bowl — the top rivalry in college hoops will go down for the first of two meetings in a month when Duke visits North Carolina. That’s a nice way for the NCAA to tell America: “Guess what? Football is over. It’s time to set your sights on the hardwood.”

And of course, as we work through the thick of conference play, we’ll have the rush of bracket projections to feed the hoops addiction. Hoopville will join the fray as usual, starting this Friday. We choose to wait until February because it just feels right. By now, we have a large enough sample size to judge teams’ résumés and make projections that have a good shot of standing up during the final few weeks before Selection Sunday.

We take you coast to coast with news from around the college basketball nation.

Get ready for more technical fouls and a shorter leash on players or coaches who act out. Eamonn Brennan of ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nation” blog reports that John Adams, the NCAA’s national officiating coordinator, sent a notice to all officials that implored them to clamp down on bad behavior.

Clemson has indefinitely suspended junior Milton Jennings, a former McDonald’s All-American, because of academic reasons, according to the Associated Press. Jennings averages 8.9 ppg and 5.4 rpg.

Arizona will finish the season without junior Kevin Parrom, who broke his foot in a loss to Washington last weekend, according to a CBS Sports.com report. He averaged 4.9 ppg, 2.9 rpg and 1.7 apg this season.

Iona is looking to remain one of the premier programs in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, and the university extended the contract of coach Tim Cluess to help make that happen, according to a CBS Sports.com report.

Don’t mess with a player’s routine. North Carolina’s Harrison Barnes shared some of the details of his routine with Andrew Jones of Fox Sports to explain why he changed his shoes at halftime of the Tar Heels’ win against Georgia Tech. Like the rest of the team, Barnes started the game with pink shoes to help promote breast cancer awareness. But he went with his usual Kobes in the second half.

VCU coach Shaka Smart stirred some commotion in the commonwealth during a teleconference Monday, writes Myron Medcalf for ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nation” blog. Smart asserted that Virginia’s best schools reside in the CAA. He didn’t call out the ACC teams in Blacksburg or Charlottesville by name, but Smart felt compelled to give UVA coach Tony Bennett a call to clarify his comments.

The NCAA won’t be seeking any further action against Connecticut freshman guard Ryan Boatright regarding an investigation into his eligibility because of money and benefits that he and his mother received, according to the Associated Press. But the AP reports that the Boatrights’ lawyer isn’t finished with his actions against the NCAA, lambasting the organization for releasing private information.

The only coach to ever lead Canisius to an NCAA Tournament win died Saturday, according to the Associated Press. Joseph Curran, 89, passed away in Mystic, Conn. He led the Golden Griffins to a 76-66 record in six seasons, which included a shocking four overtime victory against No. 2 North Carolina State in the 1956 NCAA Tournament.

Monson’s 49ers reap the rewards of a tough schedule

If any team could claim to be battle-tested heading into conference play, it had to be Long Beach State.

The 49ers loaded up their nonconference slate with the likes of Kansas, North Carolina, San Diego State, Louisville and Xavier. The team struggled through many of those games, ending up with a 7-6 record heading into Big West play.

But don’t be fooled. The 49ers were more than competitive against the big boys, with single-digit losses on the road at San Diego State, Kansas and North Carolina. Plus, the 49ers beat Pittsburgh, Xavier and Auburn. None of those are particularly outstanding — the Xavier win came during the Musketeers’ tailspin following the brawl against Cincinnati. But in short, Dan Monson’s team learned how to win and how to believe in itself.

This team has taken that lesson and applied it well through the first seven games of Big West play. Long Beach State sits atop the conference standings with a 7-0 record, and only Cal Poly stayed within 10 points of the 49ers.

If Long Beach State can continue to plow through the Big West and claim an automatic to the NCAA Tournament, the 49ers should be a popular first-round upset pick. Their lack of hefty wins will prevent the team from earning a seed much higher than a No. 12 or 13 spot. But that just makes this team a sound pick to upset any No. 4 or 5 seed from a major conference on a neutral court.

The benefits of such a tough schedule might not show up in the win-loss columns immediately. But if Long Beach State goes 1-1 or 2-0 during the first weekend of March, that tournament success will be partially due to the team’s preparation early in the season.

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Murray State will get back leading rebounder Ivan Aska, who grabs 6.0 rpg and scores 12.6 ppg, for the team’s game against Eastern Illinois Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

Michigan could have big Jon Horford back for the Wolverines’ game against Purdue Tuesday, coach John Beilein told Wolverine Nation’s Chantel Jennings for ESPN.com. Horford has been out with a stress fracture since early December.

Arguably the most intense and spite-filled rivalry in the ACC, Maryland and Duke will clash for the first time this season Wednesday night in College Park. And the Terrapins will likely have freshman 7-footer Alex Len, even though he twisted his ankle during the Terps’ loss at Temple last weekend, according to the Washington Post’s Liz Clarke.

Of course, that’s no disrespect to the North Carolina vs. Duke rivalry. And this year, coach Roy Williams won’t have his best defender, Dexter Strickland, who tore his ACL in the team’s win against Virginia Tech Thursday, according ESPN.com’s Robbi Pickeral.

Arkansas coach Mike Anderson is considering adding a hometown hero to the Razorbacks squad, according to the Associated Press. Former Oklahoma State guard Fred Gulley has enrolled at Arkansas and plans to play for Anderson as a walk-on or scholarship player. He was a star high school basketball player in Arkansas before leaving the state to play for the Cowboys.

Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan railed against the rule that allows graduated players to transfer and play immediately during a news conference Monday, writes Benjamin Worgull for Badger Nation.com.

Three coaching legends lose on the same day

It’s not every day that three of the greatest coaches ever lose a game on the same day. Yet that’s what happened on another Saturday full of noteworthy games, as Syracuse suffered its first loss on the season, Duke lost at home to put an end to a long home winning streak and Connecticut lost as well.

And it all happened, ironically, on the day that a football coaching legend appeared close to losing his life. On Saturday night, there were conflicting reports about former Penn State coach Joe Paterno, but we did not learn for sure that he had passed until about 10:30 this morning. We send our condolences to Joe’s family and friends at this time.

The last time Jim Boeheim, Jim Calhoun and Mike Krzyzewski lost a game on the same day was January 18, 2003. The three coaches have combined for over 2,600 wins, so they have won a little more than they have lost, and one might even be surprised that this wasn’t the first day all three lost.

It started in the middle of the afternoon, with two of the games. Connecticut took on Tennessee in Knoxville, a return of a game played last year. The Volunteers got a double-double from freshman Jarnell Stokes and fended off a late Husky rally for a 60-57 win. Turning the ball over one time in the second half certainly helped, especially as taking care of the ball had been a problem for Tennessee of late. Connecticut shot just 36.4 percent from the field.

Around that same time, Florida State looked like they had a shot to end Duke’s 45-game home winning streak, as they were right there with the Blue Devils at Cameron Indoor Stadium. They had leads late in the game as well. And finally, with the game tied at 73 in the final seconds, the Seminoles got the ball up the floor to Michael Snaer in front of his own bench, where he hit a three-pointer just as time expired to give Florida State their second big win in as many Saturdays, a 76-73 decision over Duke.

Not only had Duke not lost at home since North Carolina knocked them off in February 2009, but they also had a longer (64 games) home winning streak against unranked opponents. They had a chance to tie their own ACC record of 46 straight home wins, set between January 13, 1997 and February 9, 2000.

Florida State is now looking more and more like the team some thought they would be this season. In the preseason, a good number of prognosticators thought they might be the third-best team behind Duke and North Carolina. Virginia had emerged as that team, and probably still is, but now the Seminoles look like another formidable team in an ACC that is not looking much better than last year. They are in a three-way tie atop the ACC at 4-1, along with the two teams they have knocked off the past two Saturdays.

By the time the evening came around, one already had a sense that Syracuse could suffer its first loss of the season. The team announced earlier in the day that sophomore center Fab Melo would not make the trip to Notre Dame and Cincinnati and that junior forward Mookie Jones had left the school for personal reasons. The Orange are so deep, it would not have been a shocker if they came away with two wins, but if they dropped one it would not have been a surprise. Sure enough, a Notre Dame team that knocked off Louisville a couple of weeks ago beat Syracuse 67-58 in South Bend.

Notre Dame led throughout the game and beat a No. 1 team for the eighth time, which ties for the fourth-highest total. They did it led by junior big man Jack Cooley, who went for 17 points and 10 rebounds as the Fighting Irish out-rebounded Syracuse 38-25. While Melo’s absence hurt there, it wasn’t a big factor in the Orange’s offensive struggles on the night.

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With Syracuse losing, that left just one team undefeated: Murray State. The Racers were 82-65 winners at SIU-Edwardsville to improve to 20-0 on the season.

Missouri got perhaps its most impressive win yesterday, going on the road to beat Baylor. That’s two in a row now for Baylor, and it seems that at the moment, Baylor is close, but not there when it comes to the top of the Big 12.

Georgetown got all they could handle from Rutgers, and needed to score the game’s last seven points to eke out a 52-50 win in the nation’s capital.

Louisville continued Pittsburgh’s misery as they went into the Peterson Events Center and left with a 73-62 win over the Panthers, who are now 0-7 in the Big East and have lost eight straight.

UNLV convincingly won a key matchup with New Mexico, the second straight loss for the Lobos as they took on the two favorites in the conference this past week.

Mississippi State won an overtime thriller at Vanderbilt in a key matchup among teams chasing Kentucky in the SEC.

Todd Bozeman returned to the bench at Morgan State, but his team’s struggles continued as they lost for the fifth time in seven games by dropping a 62-61 decision against visiting North Carolina A&T.

Late Saturday night, Long Beach State picked up a key road win at UC Santa Barbara. That makes the 49ers 7-0 in conference play, a full two games ahead of three teams in the loss column.

Undefeated teams remain focused on the task at hand

As we approach the end of January, we still have two undefeated teams out there: Syracuse and Murray State.

The Orange and Racers will take their undefeated records on the road this weekend as Syracuse visits Notre Dame and Murray State faces SIU-Edwardsville. In both games, the undefeated squads should win. But that word “should” is a funny thing.

In conference play, you just never know when a rival will step up and pull off a major upset. Look at Florida State, which got amped for the team’s home game against North Carolina last weekend. Given the Seminoles’ defensive prowess, it wouldn’t have been a shock if they kept the game close or even eked out a slim victory. But a 30-point trouncing of a top five team? That’s ridiculous.

So as Syracuse and Murray State continue to plow through their schedules, plenty of onlookers will speculate about whether these teams can finish the regular season with a perfect record. Murray State will get a bunch of speculation because the Racers are head and shoulders above the rest of their Ohio Valley Conference competition. In the Big East, the general consensus is at least one team will knock off the Orange. But in a rebuilding year for many teams in the conference, it’s not unreasonable to think that Syracuse will be a favorite in every game the team plays.

But there we go again with the speculation. I can almost guarantee you that coaches Jim Boeheim and Steve Prohm aren’t looking further than Saturday’s game. And nor should they lest the Fighting Irish or Cougars come up with a big game to protect their home court like the Seminoles did against North Carolina last weekend.

Here are some of the big games on tap for this weekend.

Saturday:

• Missouri at Baylor
• Purdue at Michigan State
• Florida State at Duke
• Syracuse at Notre Dame
• Cincinnati at West Virginia
• Alabama at Kentucky
• Mississippi State at Vanderbilt
• Xavier at Dayton
• Marshall at Southern Miss
• Kansas at Texas
• New Mexico at UNLV
• Murray State at SIU-Edwardsville
• Rutgers at Georgetown
• Maryland at Temple
• Kansas State at Oklahoma State
• Stanford at Washington
• Arizona at Colorado
• Old Dominion at VCU
• Long Beach State at UC Santa Barbara

Sunday:

• Virginia Tech at Virginia
• NC State at Miami
• Wisconsin at Illinois
• Milwaukee at Cleveland State
• Boston U. at Hartford

Several teams get much-needed resume wins on Saturday

Saturday saw a few teams get a victory they needed to jump-start their NCAA Tournament resume. A few others suffered bad losses in games they needed, or missed opportunities, but we’re going to stick with the positive and focus on the teams that got big wins. It’s too early to declare a number of these teams locks after what they did on Saturday, but they are in a better place than they were to start the day.

Let’s start with Florida State, which annihilated North Carolina 90-57 in Tallahassee. The Seminoles had a so-so non-conference run, as they came into Saturday lacking a win against the top 50 in three tries. Beating the Tar Heels is a remedy for that, although they need to make it relevant come March by playing well the rest of ACC play.

Next, we go to Northwestern, a team for whom heartbreak has become a regular occurrence. The Wildcats have had chances to play their way into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in recent years, but haven’t been able to pull out the games they needed to. It looked like this year might be another case of that, too, although they did win the Charleston Classic over Seton Hall, a win that is looking better all the time. They won at mediocre Georgia Tech and lost to Baylor, which is hardly a bad loss. But then they lost at Creighton, got hammered at Ohio State and lost tough ones to Illinois and Michigan by a combined three points. And on Saturday, they knocked off Michigan State in Evanston for their best win of the season. Add that to the Seton Hall win and the Wildcats, who don’t have a bad loss and an RPI of 33 at the start of the week, are in a good place for the moment.

Then there is Oklahoma, a team thought to be rebuilding. But the Sooners knocked off Kansas State 82-73 for their second win against a top 50 team. The Sooners are now 1-3 in Big 12 play, so they have a good deal of work to do. But if they get to .500 in conference and win a game or two in the conference tournament, they may have done enough work by then to be in the discussion for an NCAA Tournament team.  It helps that they don’t have a bad loss.

Lastly, San Diego State knocked off UNLV in a thriller, 69-67. The Aztecs were actually in a reasonably good place before Saturday, but perhaps now they can be called an NCAA Tournament lock if they win the games they should the rest of the way. The Mountain West figured to be rebuilding this season, but that hasn’t been the case thus far as both of these teams look like they will be in the field of 68.

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Pittsburgh lost at Marquette, 62-57, and is now 0-5 in the Big East for the second time in program history and first in 12 years. They have never started 0-6, but they play at Syracuse on Monday.

Connecticut freshman Ryan Boatright was suspended by the NCAA and did not play in the Huskies’ 67-53 win at Notre Dame. The NCAA is investigating more eligibility matters with the freshman guard.

Iowa handily took out Michigan 75-59, and continues to be something of a Jekyll and Hyde team.

Jarnell Stokes gave Tennessee a boost in his debut, but Kentucky prevailed in Knoxville 65-62. The thinking is that although it was a loss, Saturday’s game bodes well for the Volunteers.

The Ivy League has started the season a little differently this time around, and Penn has started off 2-0 with wins at Columbia and Cornell. Normally teams play their travel partners over two weeks, save for Penn and Princeton, before the Friday-Saturday weekends start.

No America East team will go undefeated in conference play this season, as Stony Brook had its six-game winning streak end at Boston University, who has won three in a row after losing six straight.

Plenty of great games on tap for this weekend

We’re entering the second weekend of heavy conference play. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the best match ups on the menu, starting with tonight’s action. The NFL playoffs are quite compelling, but be sure to check out some of these games, which promise to be just as entertaining.

Friday:

• Creighton at Illinois State
• Cleveland State at Butler
• Missouri State at Northern Iowa
• Seton Hall at South Florida

Saturday:

• UNLV at San Diego State
• Alabama at Mississippi State
• New Mexico at Wyoming
• Kentucky at Tennessee
• North Carolina at Florida State
• Rutgers at West Virginia
• Texas at Missouri
• Colorado at Stanford
• St. Bonaventure at Xavier
• Connecticut at Notre Dame
• Kansas State at Oklahoma
• NC State at Wake Forest
• Oregon at Arizona
• Ohio at Akron
• UCF at Marshall
• La Salle at Dayton

Sunday:

• Indiana at Ohio State
• Cleveland State at Valparaiso
• Youngstown State at Butler
• Loyola (Md.) at Iona
• Georgia Tech at Maryland
• Washington State at Washington

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In case you missed it earlier this week, Pitt kinda struggled against Rutgers. And by kinda, we mean the Panthers totally stunk. According to ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nationg” blog, the Panthers had their worst home performance in more than 60 years, scoring only 39 points in the 23-point embarrassment against the Scarlet Knights.

Texas Tech’s Terran Petteway will miss tomorrow’s game against Texas A&M because coach Billy Gillispie suspended Petteway for elbowing Kansas’ Connor Teahan, earning himself an ejection, according to an Associated Press report.

Chairs, beware. Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said he has no regrets for slamming a chair on the court to motivate the Hawkeyes during a 28-point beatdown at Michigan State, according to an Associated Press report.

Fresh off a national championship in football, Alabama fans got to stick it to LSU once again Wednesday night when the Tigers came to Tuscaloosa. One of the more creative Bama fans brought a sign that mocked the Tigers football team’s struggle in getting past midfield in the BCS Championship Game, writes USA Today’s Nicol Auerbach. Check out the Tide fan’s cheeky taunts here.

Former Clemson guard Cory Stanton hopes he’s found a basketball home in Knoxville after walking on to the Volunteers, according to an Associated Press report. Stanton arrives at Tennessee via Lipscomb after playing one season at Clemson.

Will Syracuse’s hot start cool off this winter?

Syracuse is officially on the clock.

As of Jan. 9, the Orange look an awful lot like the best team in the country. But considering that it’s still early January, that’s not terribly surprising. The question is whether Syracuse will still look like the best team in college hoops in another two months as the NCAA Tournament approaches.

Since the Orange won the championship in 2003, Syracuse has made a habit of starting hot, building a record at least nine games better than .500 each season. In half of those seasons, the Orange have had a record as gaudy as at least 15 games better than .500.

But each season, the team has fallen apart for one reason or another. In some cases, it’s a lack of leadership to handle adversity when the team inevitably drops a tough Big East game or two. In other cases, the downfall has been rifts in team chemistry, sometimes leading to suspensions or poor play. And injuries have factored into a few of the collapses.

In sum, Syracuse has not finished a season better than three games above .500 after the Orange’s struggles creep into the picture. Why would this team be any different?

To start, this team has fantastic depth. Ten players average at least 12 minutes per game. Seven players contribute at least seven ppg, but no one scores more than 14.1 ppg, and that’s senior swingman Kris Joseph. In addition, the Orange have superior height than nearly any other team in Division I, with nine players who stand 6’4” or taller.

Coach Jim Boeheim has helped this team navigate through the tumultuous Bernie Fine affair without any semblance of a disturbance on the court. Compared to the off court drama, Boeheim must be happy dealing with any complaints about playing time that come from his talented players — if there have been any at all. Only two players are averaging more than 25 minutes per game, but as far as we can tell, everyone has embraced his role on the team. And that is leading to win after win.

At some point, the Orange will likely drop a game or two in Big East play. Road games against Cincinnati, St. John’s, Louisville, Rutgers and Connecticut are potential land mines. But unlike in recent years, this team seems built to overcome the struggles of one night. Boeheim has the Orange playing their best basketball in eight years, according to Ken Pomeroy’s efficiency stats. If Syracuse can maintain its 1.202 points per possession on offense and 0.883 points per possession on defense, both those numbers will be the best marks for offensive and defensive efficiency for the years that Pomeroy has data available (since 2003).

In a season filled with talented teams, Syracuse has earned its No. 1 ranking, and the Orange should remain near the top from wire to wire. And for Syracuse fans, a strong finish to bookend a strong start would be a refreshing change of pace.

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Morgan State coach Todd Bozeman is in the thick of serious allegations after several people at the Bears’ game at South Carolina State said the coach punched Morgan State senior Larry Bastfield during the game, according to ESPN.com news services. The school has indefinitely suspended Bozeman while looking into the accusations. Bozeman and Bastfield say the news is much ado about nothing — with that nothing being an accidental bump during the game, as Bastfield described it.

Xavier coach Chris Mack made his point, then paid the price. Mack missed the past couple of days after tearing a tendon in his left knee while dunking to re-energize the struggling Musketeers, who are 2-5 in the past few weeks, writes USA Today’s Marlen Garcia.

Arizona State coach Herb Sendek has accepted the departure of leading scorer Keala King, who left a few days after Sendek suspended him for unacceptable conduct, according to a CBS Sports.com wire report. King’s departure is a massive loss for a pretty bad Sun Devils team. King averaged 13.7 ppg, 4.9 rpg and 3.3 apg.

St. John’s scored a talented point guard when former Texas A&M sophomore Jamal Branch decided to transfer to the Red Storm, writes the New York Daily News’ Roger Rubin. Branch averaged 4.2 ppg and 2.5 apg for the Aggies, and he chose St. John’s over several other suitors.

Michael Jordan’s son Jeff has decided to leave Central Florida, according to an Associated Press report. His brother, Marcus, remains with the Golden Knights, as Jeff cited personal reasons for his decision.

New year, higher stakes with conference play intensifying

With the new year arriving in a few days, we’re about to bite into the meat of conference schedules.

Already, about half of Division I conferences have played at least one conference game. The Summit League’s South Dakota State sits at 3-0, giving the Jackrabbits the most conference wins of any team in the country. There’s a random fact for you.

In many ways, it feels like the season starts anew when conference play begins in earnest when the calendar turns to a new year. Yes, there are plenty of fantastic nonconference games throughout the season, and some of the best rivalries involve teams from different conferences, such as this weekend’s bout featuring Louisville and Kentucky. However, no matter how intense those rivalries might be, the stakes just aren’t as high when the winner doesn’t gain ground in the win-loss column of its conference standings.

I like to view the nonconference schedule as a time for growth. Teams get two months to adjust to new arrivals — on the roster or coaching staff — while playing only a few games conference games. That gives the coaching staff a chance to settle on an effective rotation and integrate any late additions because of transfer rules or early season suspensions.

In addition to growth as a team, the nonconference slate gives teams a chance to build their résumé for the NCAA Tournament. For the vast majority of D-1 programs, the only route to an NCAA Tournament is the automatic bid awarded with a conference tournament championship. However, for a bunch of teams, November and December help set expectations for conference play. Just look at Indiana, which entered the season unranked. The Hoosiers beat up some overwhelmed competition, which wouldn’t do Indiana any good in the eyes of the selection committee members come March. Then the Hoosiers went out and beat Kentucky. That’s a massive win that will help solidify Indiana’s NCAA Tournament status, even if the Hoosiers scuffle a bit in Big Ten play, finishing with only a .500 Big Ten record.

On the other hand, teams like Vanderbilt enter conference play knowing they have some work to do. The Commodores started the season as a top 10 team, but they have dropped games to Cleveland State, Xavier, Louisville and Indiana State. A couple of those losses are surprising while a couple are missed opportunities. Right now, the Commodores’ best wins are against Oregon, Oregon State and North Carolina State. None of those teams is a lock for the NCAA Tournament. So Vanderbilt must make hay in the SEC, especially against Florida, Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi State. The Commodores get those teams six times, and Vanderbilt probably needs to win at least three — preferably one on the road — to feel secure about an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

And that just spices up already-compelling conference slugfests.

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We’ll have at least two undefeated teams heading into 2012, as Baylor and Syracuse don’t play again in 2011 after winning last night. And that’s more than previously unbeaten Indiana and Louisville can say after dropping their first game of the season last night. Missouri plays Old Dominion Friday, and fellow unbeaten Murray State will also be in action Friday, against Eastern Illinois.

Connecticut might not be undefeated, but the Huskies are 1-0 without Jim Calhoun on the sidelines this season, CBS Sports.com reports. The Huskies beat South Florida last night, the first game of Calhoun’s three-game suspension, which is his punishment from a recruiting scandal in which he was cited for creating an atmosphere of compliance in Storrs.

Rhode Island is 1-11 this season, and that’s with senior guard Jamal Wilson in the lineup for 11 of those games. Life won’t be any easier for coach Jim Baron after he suspended the team’s leading scorer for breaking team rules, according to an Associated Press report. Wilson is averaging 17.5 ppg for the struggling Rams.

One of the complaints about conference expansion/realignment/destruction is the loss of rivalries that get the fans going. The Big Ten and Pac-12 are looking to avoid those situations via a strategic partnership that will allow the conferences to schedule multiple games between its members to encourage compelling match ups, which could include rivalry games, according to an ESPN.com report.

Maryland had to wait 10 games to get Ukrainian big man Alex Len on the court, writes Eamonn Brennan for ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nation” blog. However, he could become a critical player quickly, as evidenced by his 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting in his first game Wednesday against Albany.

In case you missed the big news of yesterday, Louisville coach Rick Pitino announced that he intends to call it a career when his contract expires in 2017, according to the Associated Press. At 59, Pitino is already looking ahead to the end of his coaching run, which includes trips to the Final Four with three different teams (Providence, Kentucky and Louisville).

CBS’ Doyel has the guts to step back from the controversy trap

Good journalism isn’t easy.

That’s especially true when a juicy story comes along that’s sure to rile up the masses, generating lots of readers and charged opinions. Those stories force editors and reporters to make critical decisions about the validity of sources and effort required to seek comment from an opposing side.

In the emerging brouhaha about the transfer of Todd O’Brien from Saint Joseph’s to UAB, we have an awful lot of information spewing from the O’Brien side and almost nothing from the Hawks’ side.

If you missed the background, Sports Illustrated’s website ran a lengthy column by O’Brien, who outlined his journey through college basketball, which has landed him at UAB as a graduated senior with one remaining year of eligibility. However, before O’Brien can play for the Blazers, Saint Joseph’s must grant him a full release from his scholarship. And supposedly coach Phil Martelli refuses to do so. Without that release, O’Brien won’t play college hoops again.

Frankly, it’s hard to imagine a legitimate reason for not letting a guy play, especially for a team in a different conference and not on the Hawks’ schedule. But that’s not the point.

As the media outcry has sided with O’Brien — who is seeking legal recourse to force his way onto the court — only a handful of commentators have taken a measured approach to this story. So I tip my hat to CBS Sports’ Gregg Doyel, a man with plenty of strong opinions, for leaping into the fray waiving a gigantic caution flag.

While everyone is crying foul, Doyel cried, “Wait!” He rightfully observed that Saint Joseph’s is remaining mum because they are respecting student-athletes’ privacy. The bottom line is we don’t know the Saint Joseph’s side of the story, and we might not for some time. So it’s presumptuous at best and flat-out wrong at worst to side with the supposed victim in this story.

Of course, it’s far less engaging to remain on the fence when others are going all in and calling for Martelli’s ouster. That bloodlust is unhealthy and not reflective of this country’s innocent-until-PROVEN-guilty judicial system. If mob rule dictated justice, we’d have a lot of major mistakes to apologize for whenever we learned the truth — if we ever learned the truth.

A good journalist’s duty is to present clear, accurate and precise information. Commentators who espouse opinions based on incomplete information aren’t doing anyone any good. As unsexy as it may be, we all need to follow Doyel’s lead and wait and see. Let the established rules play out in the NCAA, and if the courts get involved, let the state and local laws as interpreted by the courts decide the matter.

But there’s no need to call for Martelli’s head on a platter until there’s substantiated evidence that he acted like a callous, vindictive control freak.

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Kentucky had no problems getting past Samford, 82-50, even without Terrence Jones, who missed the game to recuperate from a dislocated pinky, writes the Associated Press’ Colin Fly.

California will be without one its big men this week as sophomore Richard Solomon recovers from a left foot injury, writes Diamond Leung for ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nation” blog. The sophomore forward is one of the team’s best rebounders, averaging 6.9 rpg, and he’ll miss at least the team’s games against UNLV Dec. 23.

Miami will get back DeQuan Jones, who figured to play a bigger role for the Hurricanes this season — if for no other reason than he’s one of the bigger players on the teams. Jones missed the first month and a half of the season because the school suspended him for the season while the NCAA investigated his possible involvement in the recruiting scandal that has rocked the university. However, according to an Associated Press report, the Hurricanes have reversed that decision, and Jones could be back in the lineup as early as this week.

Some tech-savvy pranksters punked Oregon’s website Sunday night and Monday morning, writes the Washington Post’s Steve Yanda, and the hackers posted some disparaging comments about Virginia that were attributed to Oregon coach Dana Altman. The Ducks lost to the Cavaliers 67-54, and the hacker made up comments ranging from Mike Scott’s hair to the Ducks’ pregame meal. Oregon apologized to the Cavaliers for the malfeasance.

New Mexico State is bringing suspended guard Christian Kabongo back into the fold after the sophomore had been suspended for two games for making obscene gestures in a game against UTEP, writes ESPN.com’s Diamond Leung for the “College Basketball Nation” blog.

NCAA Division I programs couldn’t get enough support to overturn a rule that bans universities from hosting high school prep tournaments, according to an Associated Press report.

Houston boosters might have lost as much as 40 percent of their investments in the David Salinas Ponzi scheme affair, according to the Associated Press. Salinas committed suicide last year, a few weeks before the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit that detailed the deceptive investments and behavior that swindled a bunch of Division I programs and coaches.

The NCAA’s $2,000 hot mess

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The NCAA is entering new levels of ridiculous mismanagement. The Associated Press reports that the NCAA might reconsider giving new scholarship student-athletes a $2,000 stipend, though it would have to allow players who have already signed letters of intent to receive the extra cash while banning those who sign later.

Ohio State superstar Jared Sullinger is still hurting from recurring back spasms, and coach Thad Matta didn’t want to say when Sullinger will be back in the lineup for the Buckeyes, according to a CBS Sports.com wire report. But Sullinger answered that question Wednesday night when the Buckeyes beat down USC Upstate 82-58 and Sullinger played 24 minutes and got 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Nobody will face criminal charges in the Xavier/Cincinnati brawl, the Associated Press reports. Joe Deters, a Hamilton County, Ohio, prosecutor, looked into the matter, deciding not to pursue charges against anyone. One of the factors was Xavier center Kenny Frease’s satisfaction with an apology from Cincinnati’s Yancy Gates, who decked Frease in the head during the debacle.

Seton Hall will gain some more depth this weekend with the return of freshman Brandon Mobley, who had been out with a dislocated shoulder and torn labrum since the summer, according to the Associated Press.

Don’t skip your court appearances. Nothing good can happen. Just ask Kansas’ Ben McLemore. The freshman is under arrest after skipping a Dec. 6 court appearance for a citation related to underage alcohol possession, according to a CBS Sports.com wire report.

Also on the list of bad behavior is taunting fans by grabbing your crotch. New Mexico State sophomore Christian Kabongo did that, and now he’s suspended, writes Diamond Leung for ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nation” blog.

Syracuse still has Melo — Fab Melo that is. If you thought I was talking about Carmelo Anthony, well, I kinda was. The NBA star who led the Cuse to a championship is convinced that Melo 2.0 and the rest of the crew have the talent to win another championship for the first time since 2003.

I’m not gonna lie — I love the fan experience. And if you tell me that a team in California’s tradition is to throw tortillas when a victory is in hand, I find it amusing. I mean, a flying tortilla — presumably uncooked soft tortilla — won’t hurt anyone. Except when your team is only up two and the officials consider giving the home crowd a technical. Yep, that’s how UC-Santa Barbara’s 65-61 win against San Diego went down, writes Diamond Leung for ESPN.com. When the fans started tossing tortillas, the officials considered tossing out a T. They opted to go with a public announcement that any more thrown items would produce two free throws for the Toreros. The fans settled down, and the Gauchos won.

Stepping back to look beyond basketball

This past weekend has reminded us that there are bigger things than basketball. Most teams are off for final exams for some/all of this week, and a major brawl on Saturday also brought out that sentiment. While we’ll have more on the brawl later, right now there’s something else to think about in keeping with the theme.

I’m sure others have said it, but I remember ESPN’s Buster Olney once remarking that when you’re in the media, you become a fan of the game instead of a particular team. It’s very true, and part of that is being a fan of the people involved in the game. This is a people business in every respect, and those who succeed the most in this industry, no matter what capacity they are in, know how to deal with people.

To that end, I give you Ken Dempsey, the associate head coach at New Hampshire. Tuesday is an important day for him.

Dempsey recently shared on the National Coaches’ Diary Series on College Chalktalk that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. On Tuesday, he goes for surgery to address it, and will take an undetermined leave of absence from the basketball team. He is not the first and won’t be the last college coach to have to deal with this dreaded disease, but fortunately the outlook is good and there’s some personal significance.

We all have people who have helped us get where we are. Dempsey has helped many people in that respect in 25 years of coaching at several Division I schools, but it isn’t just players who have benefited from knowing him. I have no better friend in basketball than Ken Dempsey.

When I was an undergraduate at Northeastern, Dempsey joined the basketball staff when Dave Leitao took over as the head coach my freshman year. Dempsey was the first coach I met, and after a badly failed attempt to walk on to the team, he didn’t forget me. I would see him around the gym (back then, Cabot Gym was not only where the team practiced, but also the student recreational facility), especially if I was playing basketball before the team came to practice. He sensed that I liked the game, and encouraged me to join them as a manager. I would stop by the office and have conversations with him and Darryl Hilliard, also an assistant there at the time, and the relationship grew from there.

The next year, I became a manager. My experience in doing that was tremendous for a lot of reasons, from being so close to the game that I love to traveling to places I had never been to understanding what goes into a team’s season. There is not enough space to share how much that helped me to get where I am today, and that’s before I mention some of the things external to my role as a manager. Dempsey gave me access to recruiting reports so I could see what they looked like and start having a feel for the next college stars, and introduced me to Bob Gibbons when he visited Northeastern one time. This was back when there weren’t nearly as many people covering recruiting as there are now, as the Internet was still in its infancy in terms of its effects on athletic media.

That was only the beginning. When Dempsey left Northeastern just before I graduated, we made sure to stay in touch, and have done that. After some time away from the northeast, he’s been back for several years now. Interestingly, I covered what proved to be his last game as an assistant coach at UMKC before coming to New Hampshire – a tough loss in the then-Mid-Continent Conference (now the Summit League) Tournament in Tulsa.

Dempsey is optimistic that his leave from the team will be on the order of weeks. He is well-connected and has been in contact with some people who have dealt with this to learn from their experiences, and has had great support from everyone in Durham. And as he goes in for surgery on Tuesday to start the battle against prostate cancer, I know I am one of many people who is praying for a positive result at the end of all of this.

We go coast to coast with other news from the college basketball nation

• About that brawl: Cincinnati and Xavier each suspended four players for their roles in the well-chronicled brawl at the end of Saturday’s meeting between the two teams. Cincinnati suspended Yancy Gates, Cheikh Mbodj and Octavius Ellis for six games each and Ge’Lawn Guyn for one game, while Xavier suspended Dez Wells and Landen Amos for four games each, Mark Lyons for two and Tu Holloway for one.
• Indiana scored a dramatic win over Kentucky with a buzzer-beater on Saturday. It’s the biggest win for the Hoosiers under Tom Crean.
• Murray State knocked off Memphis on Sunday night, which improves the Racers to 10-0. But what has unfortunately received a little more buzz from that game than how good the Racers look is Memphis’ public address announcer announcing John Calipari as the Tigers’ head coach, which was greeted with a round of boos.
• It’s a light week of game action, and Monday night was no exception as the most notable game was probably Oregon’s 79-70 win over Portland State.

Games to watch on Tuesday

• Wisconsin at Milwaukee, 8 pm EST
• Belmont at Middle Tennessee, 8 pm EST

Plenty of great action on the menu this weekend

We’ve got plenty of great games on tap this weekend. Here’s what you can look forward to watching in between shopping online for holiday gifts.

Saturday:

• Kentucky at Indiana
• Ohio State at Kansas
• Long Beach State at North Carolina
• Washington vs. Duke at Madison Square Garden
• Cincinnati at Xavier
• Oklahoma State vs. Pittsburgh at Madison Square Garden
• UNLV at Wisconsin
• Creighton at Saint Joseph’s
• Michigan State at Gonzaga
• Akron at Cleveland State
• Milwaukee at Northern Iowa
• Clemson at Arizona
• Villanova at Temple
• Miami at West Virginia

Sunday:

• Murray State at Memphis
• Iona at Marshall
• Norfolk State at Virginia Tech

We go coast to coast with other news from the college basketball nation

• Before we even get to the games today, there’s intrigue building in Cincinnati with the Bearcats’ Sean Kilpatrick calling out Xavier’s Tu Holloway, writes Myron Medcalf for ESPN’s “College Basketball Nation” blog. Kipatrck told a radio host that Holloway isn’t good enough to start for the Bearcats, which seems laughable considering Holloway is averaging 17.7 ppg, 4.2 rpg and 4.7 apg for one of the top teams in the country. But there you have it. That should make the Skyline Chili Crosstown Shootout extra spicy today.
• Northern Arizona is in the market for a new coach already after Mike Adras resigned unexpectedly Dec. 9, according to the Associated Press. The Lumberjacks are off to a rough start at 2-7, with no Division I wins yet. However, in his previous nine seasons as Northern Arizona’s coach, Adras had only two losing seasons for a 133-131 record at the school.
• Marquette will play without one of its biggest defensive presences after center Chris Otule injured his left ACL in the Golden Eagles’ win against Washington Dec. 8, according to Fox Sports’ Andrew Wagner. Otule has been averaging 5.0 ppg, 4.4 rpg and 1.6 blocks in just less than 18 minutes per game.
• Arizona State won’t get its top recruit this season after the NCAA Eligibility Center ruled Jahii Carson academically ineligible for 2011-12, according to an Associated Press report.
• You also won’t see Washington’s Scott Suggs this season. The senior guard broke his foot in October and had hoped to be ready to go by late December, but coach Lorenzo Romar announced that Suggs will redshirt this season, according to the Associated Press.
• Staying in the Pac-12, UCLA has dismissed embattled junior forward Reeves Nelson, according to the Associated Press. Coach Ben Howland had already suspended Nelson twice this season for conduct detrimental to the team before making the decisions to kick him off the team.
• The last thing we want to report is more molestation charges, but here we go again. ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” reported that two former basketball players are accusing Amateur Athletic Union president Robert “Bobby” Dodd of molesting them more than 20 years ago. The AAU gets plenty of criticism already, but nothing of this caliber. The AAU said that Dodd has colon cancer and will not be returning to his post, according to a CBS Sports report.

In a time of tribulation, college hoops shows the good in sports

The Jimmy V Classic couldn’t have come at a more necessary time this year.

College sports have had a rough run in recent months. Throughout the summer, fans had to try to figure out which conference their favorite team would be playing in when all the moving and shaking subsides. The motivation for conference realignment is all about the dollar bills, often at the expense of any sport not named football — and with little consideration for rivalries that make sports thrilling to watch and play.

But conference realignment was utterly benign compared to the chaos that erupted in State College, Pa., when one of the NCAA’s premier football programs crumbled under the weight of allegation after allegation of sexual misconduct by Jerry Sandusky, a former coordinator. Exacerbating the situation, coach Joe Paterno and Penn State officials appear to have covered up the activities, and it cost one of college football’s legends his job.

Then scandal crept into college hoops, at another sacred program. Coach Jim Boeheim has built Syracuse into a top program, and he relied on his top assistant, Bernie Fine, to help get the Orange there. But allegations of sexual abuse have surrounded Fine, and university officials fired him. Syracuse has received plenty of criticism for possibly failing to do enough to report the rumors of the abuse to police nearly 10 years ago, and Boeheim passionately defended his friend and assistant when ESPN first reported the allegations. He has had to backtrack from those statements, and some experts are calling for his ouster.

Yuck.

With such greed and alleged corruption percolating in college sports, it’d be easy to become disillusioned.

But resist the urge. Or to put it another way: “Don’t ever give up.”

Former NC State coach Jim Valvano made that phrase the motto of the foundation named for him after he died of cancer in 1993. Since his death, ESPN has partnered with the Jimmy V Foundation to raise funds for cancer research. The money goes directly to research, and it goes to a broad range of medical experts toiling to find a cure, not just for popular causes such as breast or prostate cancer but also rarer cancers that have a far worse death rate.

The annual Jimmy V Classic serves as a forum for ESPN to reach a national audience to urge donations, in addition to showcasing a few of the country’s best teams. If that’s not a great role for sports in U.S. society, I don’t know what is.

We go coast to coast with other news from the college basketball nation

Utah doesn’t have a Division I win yet on the season, and the Utes could struggle some more to pick that up after indefinitely suspending Josh Watkins, according to the Associated Press. Watkins has been Utah’s best player by far, averaging 17.7 ppg and 4.9 apg.

Things aren’t much better for one of the Utes’ biggest rivals, the Utah State Aggies. Diamond Leung, of ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nation” blog, writes that Brady Jardine could be out all season after injuring his foot Nov. 19 in the team’s win against Southern Utah. Jardine is one of the team’s top rebounders, averaging 7.7 rpg.

West Virginia v. the Big East continues to froth in the legal system, with the Big East’s lawyers moving for a dismissal of West Virginia’s lawsuit attempting to get the Mountaineers out of the conference and into the Big 12 ahead of the Big East’s mandatory 27-month waiting period, according to the Associated Press’ Vicki Smith.

We don’t place a ton of stock in the polls in general, but Harvard’s arrival this week is newsworthy. As CBS Sports.com reports, it’s the first time that the Crimson have ever appeared in the top 25, and they are the first Ivy League team to reach the polls since Princeton in 1998.

Games to watch Tuesday

• Missouri vs. Villanova, 7 pm EST (Jimmy V Classic)
• George Mason at Virginia, 7 pm EST
• Kent State at James Madison, 7 pm EST
• Robert Morris at Duquesne, 7 pm EST
• Iowa at Northern Iowa, 8 pm EST
• Washington vs. Marquette, 9 pm EST (Jimmy V Classic)
• Long Beach State at Kansas, 9 pm EST
• Memphis at Miami, 9 pm EST

North Carolina-Kentucky lives up to the hype

The matchup between North Carolina and Kentucky lived up to its billing. It was a well-played game that came right down to the wire, and was close throughout. The eighth-largest crowd in Rupp Arena history saw it, and even more watched on television. And it’s possible that the game will mirror the teams’ seasons.

Kentucky probably has the most talent of any team in the country, but the Wildcats’ youth hasn’t been hard to see. Their freshmen have had their share of growing pains, from Marquis Teague’s early struggles taking care of the ball to Anthony Davis learning how physical the college game can be. It’s for exactly that reason that senior Darius Miller has never been more valuable than much of the early going this time around.

North Carolina is right up there with the Wildcats, but this is an older and more mature team. Whereas the Wildcats start three freshmen, the Tar Heels only played two freshmen yesterday and both came off the bench. But they start a senior, two juniors and two sophomores, and on the whole this is a team quite a ways from its ceiling just like Kentucky.

In the first half, North Carolina led by as many as nine and was the better team. They were hot from long range, going 6-9 from behind the arc in the opening frame. But Kentucky scored seven in a row at the end of the first and start of the second half, momentarily grabbing the lead and then staying right with the Tar Heels until they took the lead for good on a Davis jumper with less than eight minutes to play.

The Tar Heels had one more chance after Teague missed the front end of a one-and-one with 21 seconds left. They got the ball to John Henson, known more for his shot-blocking than scoring, and in a length-versus-length matchup, Davis got a hand on his short jumper and the Wildcats were able to run out the final seconds for a 73-72 victory.

It’s a game that many would love to see a rematch of, and considering that both teams are a ways from their respective ceilings, no one would be surprised if it materialized in the month of March.

While that was the best matchup of the day, there were a few other teams, conferences and player of note.

Marquette

Winning at the Kohl Center is hard for visiting teams to do, but Marquette pulled it off on Saturday and did so without their starting point guard. Before the game, the Golden Eagles announced that Junior Cadougan was suspended for the game due to a violation of team rules. Wisconsin has lost two straight, but neither is a bad loss as they lost to North Carolina earlier in the week. The Golden Eagles, meanwhile, are 7-0 with a blowout win over Ole Miss and Saturday’s win at Wisconsin.

Xavier

Xavier is becoming quite the second-half team. On Monday, they trailed by ten in the second half before rallying to beat Vanderbilt in overtime in Nashville. But yesterday they did themselves one better, as they trailed Purdue by 11 at the half and 19 in the second half before coming back to edge the Boilermakers 66-63. In the last 10:44, Xavier outscored Purdue 30-8.

Illinois

It seems like Bruce Weber has been on the hot seat forever in Champaign, but let’s acknowledge not only the job he has done thus far but especially what he is doing this season. After an 82-75 win over Gonzaga on Saturday, the Illini are 8-0 with wins over Richmond and at Maryland as well. Neither of those two is a big NCAA Tournament resume win, but they are worth noting because the Illini haven’t beaten up on a slew of terrible teams and could be 12-0 when they take on Missouri on Dec. 22, though they will have to get by UNLV at home before then. Saturday was the first time all season Gonzaga did not have at least four players score in double figures.

Brigham Young

No Jimmer, no problem for Brigham Young. After Saturday’s 79-65 win over Oregon in Salt Lake City, BYU is 6-2 with a win over Nevada included and the only losses being at Utah State and against Wisconsin. Granted, this isn’t the Oregon team we all thought we would see before the season with the departures of Jabari Brown and Bruce Barron, but the Ducks aren’t pushovers.

Head-scratching in the CAA

A number of conferences have their opening games this weekend before teams resume non-conference play for a little while longer. Perhaps none has had results that might leave one scratching their head as much as the Colonial Athletic Association, where three teams won on the road and preseason favorite Drexel lost to Delaware by 11 (albeit on the road). The Dragons have had a rough go of it thus far, but Chris Fouch is back so they’re closer to having their full team together. Still, Fouch was 0-9 yesterday and the Blue Hens won the battle on the glass by a 40-32 margin over a Drexel team that routinely beats up opponents on the boards.

The one other score that jumps out is Georgia State thumping William & Mary 66-34 in Atlanta. The Tribe didn’t look to be far from being a good team last season, but they’re struggling mightily out of the gates and Saturday may be the low point thus far.

We go coast to coast with other news from the college basketball nation

• Ohio State didn’t miss a beat despite Jared Sullinger being out with back spasms.
• College of Charleston lost a wealth of talent and experience from last season’s team, but the Cougars are 7-1 overall and are one of four teams that went 2-0 in early Southern Conference games this weekend. Chattanooga, who the Cougars beat last night and was picked to win the North Division, is 0-2.
• Connecticut got a big lift from Ryan Boatright with 23 points and six assists in his home debut.
• UCLA is now 2-5 after a home loss to Texas that saw them blow an 11-point lead.

Some of Sunday’s Key Matchups

Sunday is a day full of interesting matchups of teams that we’re trying to find out something about. None of these are like North Carolina-Kentucky, but they will be worth keeping an eye on.

• Baylor at Northwestern
• UNLV at Wichita State
• California at San Diego State
• Dayton at Murray State
• North Carolina State at Stanford
• Notre Dame at Maryland
• VCU vs. George Washington (BB&T Classic at the Verizon Center)
• Kansas State at Virginia Tech