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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Wichita State Rides Defense to NIT Title

NEW YORK – In a battle of two programs, frequent participants but never an NIT champion, Wichita State emerged victorious. The Shockers defeated Alabama 66-57 in the title game on Thursday at Madison Square Garden. A tempo-free look follows.

Possessions:

Wichita State 65

Alabama 65

Offensive efficiency:

Wichita State 102

Alabama 88

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NIT Semifinal Games Are Another Study in Contrasts

NEW YORK – “Déjà vu all over again,” to quote a wise sage. The NIT semifinal doubleheader was similar to the semis of the recently completed Newark Regional in the NCAA. Washington State versus Wichita state was a one-sided rout devoid of ties or lead changes. Following that, Alabama and Colorado saw five ties, nine lead changes and an SEC team emerge victorious in a game not settled until the final shot.

A tempo-free look follows.

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