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.

• Boston University was not rebounding well in the early portion of their seven-game winning streak. But in the last two games, the Terriers have dominated the glass, and keeping that up will only help. Granted, it came against two of the worst teams in the conference, but one of them (UMBC) is normally a decent team on the glass. Part of that has come from an emphasis on rebounding of late, but not just at the defensive end.“The last two games, we’ve done a much better job on the glass,” said head coach Joe Jones. “We’re just trying to make a concerted effort to be a better offensive rebounding team as well.”
• One of the keys to Marquette‘s play has been the play of transfer Jamil Wilson. The Oregon transfer isn’t putting up big numbers, but he had 16 points on Saturday night at Providence to go with three blocked shots. Three nights later, he blocked three more shots to help the Golden Eagles shut down USF, and he is filling the stat sheet more and more.”I think he’s become incredibly, incredibly important to what we’re doing,” said head coach Buzz Williams. “I think with each passing day, regardless of game day or practice day, I think his confidence continues to grow. I think he helps us hide some of our deficiencies because of his intelligence, particularly on the defensive end.”
• Northeastern somehow pulled out a win on Wednesday night over Delaware that may make a difference for them. The Huskies had lost two straight after a good start, but came home for a win that may get them going again. Joel Smith hit his second game-winning basket in less than a month, having made a buzzer-beater at Vermont on December 30, and looks to be playing much better although he struggled in the two recent road losses. The big key, he said, is being engaged at both ends of the floor, and head coach Bill Coen noted that they have only lost once when Smith has six or more rebounds.”I’m trying to be more involved, especially rebounding and defense,” said Smith. “Once you do the little things, the game just flows and it comes to you.”
• St. John’s showed on Wednesday night that although they are young, they will be able to beat a top team or two before the season is out. They beat West Virginia convincingly, and all along they have looked like a scrappy team that will not go down easily.
• Staying in the Big East, Notre Dame‘s win at Seton Hall is another solid win for the Fighting Irish. If they keep this up, Mike Brey should be in the mix for Big East Coach of the Year. Meanwhile, Seton Hall has come back to earth a bit of late as they are now 4-4 in Big East play.
• St. Mary’s picked up a big road win on Thursday night as they went to Los Angeles and came away with a 71-64 win over Loyola Marymount. There are more road tests ahead for this team, but getting a win in LA is a good way to keep up the winning.
• Five teams are tied atop the Atlantic 10 with 4-2 records, but Xavier and Temple are not among them. Instead, it’s Dayton, La Salle, UMass, Saint Louis and St. Bonaventure. Temple and Xavier are right behind them, but chances are few figured a five-way tie would not include those two.
• Iona heads to Fairfield on Friday night in a game that may have lost a bit of luster from before MAAC play began in earnest. The Stags are 5-3, and they could make things a little more interesting with a win as Iona is 7-2 and being talked about as a team that should be in one of the better BracketBusters matchups.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

1. Winning three of the Four Factors does not guarantee a victory. Dean Oliver’s Four Factors tell us a great deal of why teams win or lose. Having the advantage in them is desirable but, as noted, getting three of four does not always mean a W in the ledger. The example:

The Blue Demons had slight advantages in free throw rate, Offensive rebounding percentage and turnover rate. They were though, badly beaten in the main objective of Dr. Naismith’s game. They did not put the ball in the basket as often or as proficient as Seton Hall. DePaul was 23 of 67 (5 of 20 from three) from the field. The Pirates were 37 of 63, including 11 of 21 (52%) from beyond the arc. That was a difference DePaul found too much to overcome.

1. The Hall has multiple choices. Fuquan Edwin followed up his 24-point performance at Providence with a game-high 28 points. Edwin had 24 at the half. The second half Aaron Cosby heated up, shooting three for five from deep and scoring 14 of his 15 points. Herb Pope had another solid 11-point, 13-board night and Jordan Theodore had another outstanding 26-point, 11-assist effort. Edwin’s emergence of late as a scorer and added offensive option couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.
2. DePaul is in the middle of a tough stretch. The game at Seton Hall was the second of three straight on the road. The Blue Demons will visit Louisville on Saturday. Still, after the Hall contest they stand at 1-3 in the Big East and 10-6 overall.
3. What DePaul did well. Compete and get to the line. Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard was impressed with their constant full court pressure and the fact they kept working. The Blue Demons whittled the halftime deficit to a three-possession game midway through the second half before the Hall went on a game-clinching run. DePaul was able to draw fouls and made the most of their chances, shooting 22 of 25 from the line. Those 22 makes led to their impressive 33%  free throw rate (FTM/FGA). DePaul does have some young talent for Oliver Purnell to build with. Notable in that group is sophomore guard Brandon Young, who led the Blue Demons with 16 points. Cleveland Melvin, another sophomore, at forward, is an 18-points-per-game scorer. Cleveland did add 14 points but was held to 4 of 13 from the floor.
4. The Hall is not resting on laurels. That was a mantra repeated in post-game comments by players and the Seton Hall coaching staff. They have a ranking but are not resting on laurels. Chalk a lot of that up to chemistry. “We have a lot of freshmen and sophomores and it is easy to maintain their attention,” Willard said. “We also have two seniors (Theodore and Pope) who not only want to make their last season special and want to further their careers.” Translated, everyone is on the same page, focused and working hard.

• Earlier in the afternoon/evening it was officiating at Hudson Catholic. The Jersey City-based school coached by Nick Mariniello is building into a legitimate state power. Even the sub varsity teams are strong. My JV game saw Hudson win 106-34 (no misprint). At any rate a familiar face was in the stand: Mike O’Koren, who starred at Hudson with Jim Spanarkel and later North Carolina before an NBA career, was in attendance. As an alum of Hudson, he is happy regarding the program’s new found strength and to be a part of it. “Nick (Mariniello) has been wonderful inviting me back and keeping me involved and close to the program. O’Koren takes in as many games as he can, especially in the gym where he and Spanarkel lead the Hawks to county and state titles.

The game wasn’t an absolute indicator of how good the team is, but the Cardinals’ fourth loss in five games – granted, not exactly coming against Division III teams – is concerning, although head coach Rick Pitino summed the game itself up quite succinctly: “We had one of those nights.”

The first half was bad enough, as Louisville shot just over 30 percent and went into the locker room down 43-25. In the second half, it went from very bad to worse quickly for Louisville. Peyton Siva picked up two quick fouls and had to head to the bench with four fouls less than two minutes into the half. Then, after a short jumper by Kyle Kuric, the Cardinals had a chance to get into their press for a change – and fell asleep, allowing Kadeem Batts to get behind everyone for a dunk and conventional three-point play.

Siva would come back five minutes later, with the Cardinals figuring they had nothing to lose. He fouled out with 11:05 left. After that, Vincent Council was more free than ever to help the Friars run circles around the Cardinals, and they did just that as they led by as many as 34.

The Cardinals have good talent, but not great. There’s no one on this team that leaps out at you as a future lottery pick, and their best players have their flaws. Siva is very quick, but can’t shoot and only has one speed. Kuric is a nice scorer with the way they play, but not a spot-up shooter and isn’t good at creating his own shot. Chane Behanan is talented but not an instant high-impact player. Gorgui Dieng has had a nice run this year with six double-doubles, but NBA scouts aren’t exactly breaking his door down as foul trouble is an issue. Jared Swopshire, who is coming off an injury, is a nice player, and Rakeem Buckles is similar in both respects. Buckles missed some early games this season recovering from a torn ACL.

Louisville has other players who were either overrated coming out of high school, like Angel Nunez, or just aren’t Big East players, like Chris Smith. There’s also freshman Zac Price, a nice prospect who isn’t ready for big minutes just yet and has been in just five games, and classmate Kevin Ware has barely gotten off the bench after missing the first semester.

To be fair, the Cardinals are without perhaps their most talented player and a key complementary player due to injury. Wayne Blackshear could suit up later this month, while Mike Marra is done for the season with a torn ACL. Losing Marra means they have lost a veteran shooter, while Blackshear is their most talented player.

In light of the personnel issues, the Cardinals played a lot of zone on Tuesday night. They didn’t make enough shots to ever really get into their press, so it wasn’t much of a factor. But it might have been a little surprising to see so much zone from the Cardinals, which the Friars picked apart thanks in part to going 9-15 from three-point range, led by Bryce Cotton’s 5-5 night.

“We weren’t ready tonight to play man for a variety of reasons,” said Pitino. “We’re just not ready right now.”

Last year, Louisville was truly less talented than the Cardinals have been in a long time, and Pitino did perhaps his best coaching job. This time around, he’s had to make do with less than it looked like he had, and while they have played well considering their talent, a night like Tuesday night showed that this team is good, but not a top 10 team in the country. With four losses in five games, now we’ll see if this team can overcome adversity instead of letting the season get away from them.

As Pitino noted, we will have an idea of that soon. After hosting DePaul, they travel to Marquette and struggling but dangerous Pittsburgh, come home for Villanova and then head to Seton Hall to close out the month.

Tuesday night’s game will ultimately stand out as an outlier among the Cardinals’ results this season. The games going forward will tell us if this team is more like the one that was right there with Georgetown and Kentucky, or the one that lost by 31 at Providence.

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.

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

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.

The Pirates are not going to win a contest for the most experienced team in college basketball. They have just two seniors who play and no juniors on a roster that features seven freshmen. That means five of the seven regulars are underclassmen, and that means the seniors need to be leaders more than with many teams. They have been just that, but the Pirates had to go without one of them for a lot of the first half.

Jordan Theodore might not be the first to come to mind among the top Big East point guards, but he’s starting to look the part. He’s having a big senior season, as he leads the conference in assists and is second in assist-to-turnover ratio. Just four games into conference play, he’s well on his way to blowing away his previous career high in assists for the season, and all of his numbers are up noticeably in early Big East play.

“I don’t think anyone is sleeping on Jordan anymore. I don’t think they can,” said Willard. “To press all game, to play defense all game against someone like Vincent Council, and then to run everything that we do, I think he’s proved to himself that he’s one of the elite point guards in the country.”

He showed his mettle on Saturday night as he calmly ran the show and hit some big shots en route to scoring 14 points and handing out nine assists with just two turnovers. None were bigger than the mid-range jumper he hit to give the Pirates some breathing room after Providence got within 54-53. It started a decisive 9-0 run.

With all of that, and the importance of the point guard spot, it’s not a surprise that the Pirates are 3-1 in the Big East at this point. Theodore said he understands the offense better, and feels that makes a big difference for him. Right now, it is showing up in his play.

“I definitely feel like he should be on any list for point guards, because what more can you ask for?” said senior forward Herb Pope, who had 11 points and 10 rebounds. “That’s what a point guard has to do, not to mention he scores 14 points per game.”

Pope is playing like the player he was reputed to be in high school. He’s been through quite a bit in college, but his talent was never in question and as such it’s not a big surprise that he’s averaging a double-double on the season. With the youth on this team, he’s been needed as a leader, and has provided that thus far.

As much as Theodore reaffirmed that he’s become one of the better point guards and the Pirates won without Pope having a big night, both players were quick to talk about what Fuquan Edwin did for the team. Edwin had 23 points, 16 of them in the first half when Pope had to go out with a minor eye injury on a scary play where it looked like both he and Providence’s Gerard Coleman could have come away seriously injured.

“He was huge,” said Willard. “We had three freshmen, a sophomore and a senior for nine minutes in the first half, and Fuquan pretty put us on his back and got us into the second half when Herb came back in the game.”

“Fuquan held us down tonight,” said Theodore. “He kept us alive in the first half.”

While Edwin’s scoring numbers are noticeable, Willard looks at the other end for where he can be at his best.

“There’s a reason he leads the country in steals because he’s a heck of a defensive player,” said the Seton Hall mentor. “I don’t look at the offense, he’s so fun to watch on defense.”

Seton Hall is 14-2 overall and 3-1 in the Big East. At this point, the Pirates have made a case to be ranked, although they feel it doesn’t matter save for being nice for the fans. More importantly, their NCAA Tournament profile is looking better all the time. The only losses are to Northwestern in the championship of the Charleston Classic and at Syracuse, while they have wins over Saint Joseph’s, Dayton, West Virginia and Connecticut. They are 3-1 in true road games and 5-2 overall away from home.

They know their work is far from done yet, and not just because it’s early in Big East play.

“Right now, we’ve got to continue to try to become an NCAA Tournament team,” said Willard. “We’ve given us a chance, we’ve got to continue to get better.”

With the improvement the seniors have made, and the continuing development of their youngest players, who aided a 47-33 rebounding edge on Saturday, the Pirates appear to be well on their way.

From the outset, the BCS was a joke as far as its place in college football is concerned. There is no national championship in the Football Bowl Subdivision; the winner of the BCS Championship Game is like the winner of the NIT Season Tip-Off or the Maui Invitational in basketball, not a national champion. (The Division I national champion will be either Sam Houston State or North Dakota State, who will play on Saturday.) The system is your basic old boy network applied to college football, as it’s designed to benefit the six conferences that were in on the whole deal all along. The Big East has been a laughingstock in football for a while now, yet it still gets its champion into a BCS bowl while more deserving teams – which often have included Petersen’s Broncos – are pushed back into less prestigious bowl games (and ones without nearly the same payout).

This year was a perfect example of that last point. West Virginia, who finished 23^rd in the final BCS standings, was in the Orange Bowl, while Boise State finished seventh was relegated to the Maaco Bowl and annihilated an Arizona State team that frankly had no business playing in a bowl game with a 6-6 record and a coach that was fired effective after the game.

It doesn’t end there, though. Additional teams in BCS bowl games that finished below Boise State are Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, Michigan and Clemson. In other words, fully half of the ten teams in the BCS bowls finished below Boise State in the BCS rankings, showing that the bowl selections clearly were not made based on who the best teams were. Several of those teams – West Virginia, Clemson and Wisconsin – made it with automatic bids, but that still means two teams were selected over Boise State and clearly not on merit.

And in light of that, Petersen asked a very sensible question: “Why are we even voting?”

Petersen has generally bit his tongue over the years on the subject, but everyone has a threshold before they finally tell how they really feel. There’s no issue here; what he said made a lot of sense.

“I think everybody’s just tired of the BCS and that’s the bottom line,” Petersen told reporters. “Everyone’s just frustrated, no one even knows what to do anymore – it doesn’t make sense to anybody. I don’t think anybody is happy anywhere.”

One of the many flaws of the system is that the results of the weekly USA Today Coaches Poll is one of the factors in the scoring. Leaving out the obvious issue of human polls playing a role in this, Petersen also noted the conflict of interest for those who vote: “I know what I’m trying to do is make the best case for Boise State to get in there, I probably shouldn’t be a voter.”

But Petersen’s school is currently in the middle of the biggest reason the BCS is exceptionally bad for college sports. Boise State and San Diego State will be changing conferences in football only to – get this – the Big East. That’s right: the Big East, with its headquarters in Providence, R.I., is the future home of schools that are about 2700 (Boise State) and 2600 (San Diego State) miles away.

Indeed, all of the conference maneuvers we have seen in recent years – ones that make school presidents and conference commissioners look like they flunked geography, to say nothing of the sacrificing of great rivalries in some cases – can be traced to the BCS. These moves have only made less and less sense as time has gone along, and while basketball is not driving the train, it is taking a hit.

Miami and Virginia Tech leaving the Big East for the ACC made sense geographically. That started the domino effect: Boston College followed suit, fearing that the Big East was in jeopardy and that being in the ACC meant they would be in a powerhouse conference. The former happened, the latter has not, but the Eagles are an ACC outlier all the same; until Syracuse and Pittsburgh arrive, the closest school in the ACC to them is Maryland, more than an eight-hour drive away.

The Big East is really the epicenter of the insanity. Sure, the Pac-10 expanded to 12 schools (and changed its name to the Pac-12), and the SEC is headed to 14 by adding two from the Big 10, er, 12. But the Big East is where it really gets out of hand.

It started with the five schools they brought in from Conference USA after the aforementioned departures to the ACC, which expanded the conference’s footprint away from the east coast. It was set to continue with TCU, a four-hour flight from the conference headquarters, before TCU went to the Big 12 before they ever played an athletic contest in the Big East. Now Syracuse and Pittsburgh will leave, robbing the conference of two basketball powerhouses and some great rivalries, from the signature Georgetown-Syracuse to West Virginia-Pittsburgh (with West Virginia also leaving for, of all conferences, the Big 12, where they will be the easternmost school) and ones that both have developed over time with Connecticut.

But where things go beyond head-scratching is with the five schools that the Big East will soon add. Boise State and San Diego State make no sense geographically and are joining for football only. UCF makes sense since it is in the east coast, but Houston and SMU do not. Just the fact that some schools are joining in football only should illustrate the ridiculousness of it all. Boise State and San Diego State will be leaving the Mountain West in other sports, as the former goes back to the WAC after just one year and the latter will go to the Big West, where it should instantly be the signature program in basketball.

The real motivator on both ends is none other than the BCS and the added money it potentially brings a school. Boise State and San Diego State, along with the three schools joining in all sports, want access to the bowls that are under the BCS umbrella, to go with their higher payouts. The easiest way to do it is to get into one of the big six conferences. Meanwhile, the Big East has to at least look the part of a conference that is deserving of having its champion play in a prestigious bowl, not to mention they have to make up for three schools that are already slated to depart from the conference in the next few years. While Boise State will help them, and Houston might as well, the jury is out on the others.

The Big East is a basketball conference at heart. It was founded solely as that, adding football later. It became a powerhouse in basketball long before it added the best basketball schools from Conference USA several years ago, and has a great history. Now, football has co-opted the conference, leading to moves that hurt the end product on the hardwood. The conference is selling out basketball in the name of preserving the chance to add football dollars.

Boise State will instantly be the best team in the Big East on the gridiron. The question will be if the added money they might get from a BCS bowl appearance will offset the added costs of travel for many of their road games enough to be worth it. Additionally, will the other teams appreciate having to spend big money to travel across the country for a conference game? Plus, with all due respect to the programs, I’m not sure a matchup like Connecticut at San Diego State excites a lot of people as far as getting television interest goes.

What’s worse is that the conference maneuvering is probably not done yet. The BCS is, unfortunately, not going away anytime soon, so we shouldn’t expect all the ridiculousness to depart, either. Chris Petersen was on to something, although for just one of the reasons. The BCS is not good for college sports, only for those who are chasing dollars – even if chasing those dollars leads to losing some of the soul of college sports, which is something that should never be sacrificed.