1. CBSSports.com’s Matt Norlander notes more questions than answers at Memphis after coach Josh Pastner indefinitely suspended junior Wesley Witherspoon. He is the team’s second-leading scorer at 11.5 points per game and No. 1 rebounder with 4.9 boards per game.
2. Former top 100 recruit Shawn Williams has decided to play closer to home, at SMU, according to the Associated Press. The former Dallas high school star left Texas in November.
3. In other transfer news, California guard Gary Franklin is leaving the Golden State for Baylor, according to the Associated Press.
4. A columnist for UWire finds plenty of negativity in San Diego State’s win against UNLV Jan. 12, even though the Aztecs are now one of only four remaining undefeated teams in Division I.
5. In a reply to his fan mail, SI.com’s Seth Davis outlines four of Michigan State’s flaws that make it unlikely that the Spartans meet their preseason expectations.
6. Don’t send your ex-girlfriend Facebook messages, especially if you’re Minnesota’s Trevor Mbakwe and you have a restraining order against any contact with said ex-girlfriend, according to the Associated Press.
7. Pepperdine coach Tom Asbury has his priorities straight: family comes first. According to the Associated Press, Asbury missed the Waves’ game against Gonzaga Jan. 12 to be with his newborn grandchild, who was born nearly three months early.
8. In this notice to inform you that Dick Vitale has signed an extension with ESPN that will keep him on air through 2014-15, we will resist using any clichés that Vitale has invented and made ubiquitous since he joined the cable network in September 1979. It wasn’t easy to resist, but we did it.

1/13
• Minnesota 70, Purdue 67
• Rhode Island 78, Richmond 74
• Drexel 62, Old Dominion 57

1/12

• Florida State 66, Duke 61
• Syracuse 76, St. John’s 59
• Pittsburgh 72, Georgetown 57
• Villanova 88, Louisville 75
• Colorado 75, Kansas State 66
• Texas A&M 71, Oklahoma State 48
• Wichita State 68, Creighton 54

1/11

• Michigan State 64, Wisconsin 61 OT
• Penn State 57, Illinois 55
• BYU 104, Utah 79
• Florida 81, Tennessee 75 OT

1/10

• Marquette 79, Notre Dame 57

1/9

• Ohio State 67, Minnesota 64
• Villanova 72, Cincinnati 61
• Duke 71, Maryland 64
• Missouri State 59, Wichita State 56
• Boston University 74, Vermont 65
• Valparaiso 64, Cleveland State 58

1/8

• Connecticut 82, Texas 81 OT
• Georgia 77, Kentucky 70
• West Virginia 65, Georgetown 59
• Oklahoma State 76, Kansas State 62
• Penn State 66, Michigan State 62
• Colorado 89, Missouri 76
• Austin Peay 66, Murray State 64
• Gonzaga 74, Portland 61

In Hoopville’s latest player rankings for the Big East and Pac-10, Michael Protos gives some props to Arizona’s Derrick Williams and Seton Hall’s Jeremy Hazell — whose importance has grown even though he hasn’t played since November.

1/14:
• Valparaiso at Wright State
• Butler at Detroit

1/15:

• Missouri at Texas A&M
• Illinois at Wisconsin
• Cincinnati at Syracuse
• Marquette at Louisville
• Maryland at Villanova
• Vanderbilt at Tennessee
• Marshall at Memphis
• Old Dominion at Hofstra

1/16:

• Purdue at West Virginia
• Notre Dame at St. John’s
• Valparaiso at Detroit

In February 2008, the 18-0 New England Patriots entered Super Bowl XLII — 42, for those of you who don’t want to stop to think about Roman numerals — as the prohibitive favorite to go undefeated and win the championship as the first undefeated NFL team in more than 30 years.

Despite a nearly two touchdown spread, no one told the New York Giants that they were supposed to lose. Instead, the opportunistic, tough, defensive-minded Giants shocked the world with a 17-14 victory. The pressure of going undefeated gets blamed for influencing the Patriots, and more than one player recognized the historical rarity of an undefeated championship season before the game. But by the end of the night Feb. 3, coach Tom Coughlin and the Giants’ defensive players simply outplayed and outcoached the most dominant offense of the decade.

Simply put — no team figured out how to beat the Patriots until the Giants devised a game plan to harass one of the best quarterbacks of all time, Tom Brady, and neutralize most of his arsenal of weapons. The Giants had nearly beat New England in the regular season finale, and they had a good idea of what their personnel could do to pull off the victory in the rematch, with everything on the line.

So when Duke lost to Florida State this past week, all the talk about the Blue Devils possibly going undefeated went silent. If the Blue Devils enter the NCAA Tournament with only one or two losses, someone will inevitably make the stupid comment that the Blue Devils don’t have to worry about the pressure of matching the 1976 Indiana team’s undefeated season and championship. No, the Blue Devils just need to worry about the possibility that a team will replicate the Seminoles’ performance and that Duke won’t be able to adjust. If another team beats Duke between now and then with a game plan that doesn’t involve dominating the post and shutting down the Blue Devils’ perimeter players, Duke will then have two blueprints that they must overcome.

Perfection is so rare because no team is perfect. The collection of players who form a team have strengths and weaknesses. An ingenious coach or gifted player might exploit the weaknesses and shut down several strengths. The measure of perfection is a team’s ability to take an opponent’s best shot using its best strategy and still win.

Duke might not have been perfect on the road in Tallahassee, but you can bet that coach Mike Krzyzewski will use the game as a teaching opportunity that will make it even tougher on opponents to come up with a game plan that can beat the Blue Devils. And in the NCAA Tournament, all that matters is finding a way to finish a perfect 6-0 en route to the national championship.