ESPN Men's Basketball

CHICAGO -- Hours before Virginia Commonwealth took the floor to play No. 6 seed Georgetown on Friday, coach Shaka Smart gathered his players for a prepared video session.

It wasn't for extra, last-minute film study. It wasn't an impromptu team movie to lighten the tone. And it wasn't home footage of a family trip to Disneyland.

No, to hear Smart describe it, VCU's pregame video session was a fiery mix between motivational seminar and George Orwell's Two Minutes Hate.

"Today, before we had lunch, we sat down and watched a video of Joe Lunardi saying we couldn't guard him," Smart said. "He said over and over in the video, they can't guard me, they can't guard me. We were showing clips of Chris Wright and Austin Freeman and Jason Clark."

Smart watched as his players responded. He liked what he saw.

"They don't like it," Smart said. "They don't like it. They grit their teeth, and they -- you know, you can see them ready to kind of fight back. That's what we're looking for."

If that sounds a bit over the top, well, it is. But it's hard to argue with the result.

On Sunday, VCU was one of two at-large tournament inclusions that many believed didn't belong in the field of 68. Two days later, the Rams knocked off USC and then polished off one of the more impressive wins of this young NCAA tournament, a 74-56 thrashing of No. 6-seed Georgetown in the final game of Chicago's first-round action.

Few lines are as overused in sports as "no one believed in us," but maybe there's a reason coaches seem to trot out that old cliché so frequently. Maybe, just maybe, it's the added edge those teams need.

At the very least, it can't hurt. Clearly, this VCU team wears it with pride.

"Any time people disrespect you, especially on national TV, it kind of hurts you a little bit," said Rams point guard Joey Rodriguez. "We had an opportunity to come out here and prove people wrong. Hopefully we keep it going. That's really it."

Whether they're proving people wrong is up for debate. After all, the Selection Sunday surprise at VCU's inclusion was never about whether the Rams could play. It was about whether their accomplishments were more impressive than those of a handful of teams left out of the tournament. VCU's pre-tournament résumé won't change no matter how far the Rams go in this tournament, and that's one reason all this talk about bubble disrespect is a little overblown.

Still, if these "haters" remain, they don't have much ammunition in the chamber. VCU was peerless in victory Friday night.

The Rams pressured Georgetown from the opening tip, forcing the Hoyas guards to avoid traps and rush the ball up the floor, and as a result Georgetown never settled into any sort of rhythm. Shots began clanging off the rim -- Georgetown was 1-of-12 from beyond the arc in the first half -- and turnovers began piling up. Virginia Commonwealth capitalized on the other end, shooting 12-of-25 from 3-point range. By the time the first half was over, VCU had built an 11-point lead.

After the break, the Rams only extended that margin. With 17:12 left, Brandon Rozzell added one of his six 3-pointers -- Rozzell went 6-of-10 from beyond the arc and finished with 26 points -- and backcourt mate Bradford Burgess followed up with two 3s of his own. Georgetown fans expecting their team to solidify in the second half, to calm down and close the gap, instead found the Hoyas flailing. VCU's lead was now 18 points. Georgetown would never recover.

It was another bitter postseason end for Hoyas coach John Thompson III. For the second straight season, Thompson's team lost to a double-digit seed in the team's first game of the NCAA tournament. This time, the loss ended the careers of guards Freeman and Wright, two of the best Hoyas of recent vintage who were never able to demonstrate their ability on the sport's largest stage.

Wright and Freeman shot a combined 6-of-27 Friday night, including an 0-of-13 mark from the 3-point line.

Asked to discuss the Hoyas' recent struggles in tournament play, Thompson instead focused on Wright and Freeman. The coach struggled to contain his emotion.

"A lot will be discussed about this group and what they have and haven't done in the postseason," he said. "We'll evaluate that. Right now my thoughts are just with the four seniors that will be wearing a Georgetown University jersey for the last time. And that hurts. That hurts to see them go. That hurts them."

The shell-shocked Hoyas were clearly in agony, but on the other end of the arena, VCU's locker room was brimming with joy. It was clear these Rams weren't just playing with an edge. They're playing with supreme confidence, too.

"I'm very confident in my team," Rozzell said. "When we play our brand of basketball, I feel like we can compete with any team in the country. We can create any margin on the court."

Smart was asked if he was surprised by the Rams' dominance -- whether he really doubted that VCU could hang an 18-point win on a full-strength Georgetown team. His response, simply, was "no."

That swagger will be tested soon. On Sunday, the Rams will play 3-seed Purdue, a superior team to the Hoyas. Purdue coach Matt Painter sat on press row for much of VCU's win, and he no doubt returned to the team hotel with plenty of warnings for his players.

Even more challenging, perhaps, is the loss of obvious disrespect. The media can no longer function as the bad guy. The Rams have proven themselves, and few will doubt them now.

Can Smart find a way to keep his team confident and aggrieved? Can this ebullient batch keep its edge?

One thing's for sure: If there's a way, Smart will find it. Even if it means another video session.

"It's a very fragile thing, confidence," Smart said. "It comes and goes. ... The terrific thing for us is it's mid-March, and we're playing our best basketball, and our guys are believing in what we do.

"It really doesn't matter who we're playing against," he said. "They know if we follow the plan and they trust each other, good things will happen."

CHICAGO -- Whether VCU belonged in the tournament or not, they're here now. And they apparently plan to stay for a while.

That was the obvious verdict after the Rams' 74-56 win here Saturday night. Usually, upsets are supposed to look like, well, upsets: A scrappy underdog hangs around just long enough to hit a desperate game-winner, the crowd goes wild, Gus Johnson freaks out, all that.

Instead, VCU dominated Georgetown for 30-plus minutes. The Rams opened a double-digit lead late in the first half and never looked back, and a Hoyas comeback never materialized.

Turning point: VCU opened up an 11-point lead just before halftime, but the real "turning point" -- or at least the moment this ostensible upset became real -- came early in the second half, when a pair of back-to-back 3-pointers by guards Brandon Rozzell and Bradford Burgess expanded the Rams' lead to 46-28.

Key stat: Name a stat, look it up, and you'll get a figure that explains VCU's runaway excellence in this game. The Rams shot 48 percent from 3-point range; Georgetown shot 19.2. The Rams committed a mere six turnovers; the Hoyas coughed up the ball 17 times. The Rams scored 1.38 points per possession; Georgetown scored 1.18. (Which is still a high number. Just not as high as the Rams. Yikes.) What looked at first like an underdog knocking the favorite on its toes soon became a comprehensive clinic with VCU in the role of visiting professor.

Key player: It's hard to tease out one particular Rams performance -- pretty much everyone played great -- but Rozzell is a solid candidate. Simply put, Rozzell was on fire: He scored 26 points on 8-of-13 from the field, including 6-of-10 from beyond the arc.

Miscellany: It was hard not to feel for Georgetown guard Chris Wright, who was making his first appearance since a hand injury sidelined him on Feb. 26. The senior guard never got it going -- he went 3-of-13 from the field -- and his frustration with the referees (and maybe just his frustration in general) boiled over in the second half, earning him a technical and digging his team into an even deeper hole.

What's next: VCU's unlikely tournament run continues Sunday, when the Rams will take on No. 3 seed Purdue in what promises to be a fascinating clash of styles. Meanwhile, Georgetown's early end marks the second-straight season the Hoyas have lost to a double-digit seed in the first round of the NCAA tournament. John Thompson III's team finished 21-11 overall.

CHICAGO -- A look at the night games being held here at the United Center:

No. 14 seed St. Peter's (20-13) vs. No. 3 seed Purdue (25-7), 7:20 p.m. ET (TNT)

How they got here: Few teams have succeeded despite adversity quite as well as the 2011 Boilermakers. In October, Purdue lost star senior Robbie Hummel to his second torn ACL in eight months. Purdue coach Matt Painter was forced to recalibrate a team that had suddenly gone from a top-five national title contender to a team with two stars -- E'Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson -- and a lot of unheralded complementary pieces. Painter has succeeded in spades, and though Purdue fans may always wonder what could have been, it’s remarkable that this team still has a legitimate chance to reach the Final Four all the same. They’ll begin that quest against St. Peter’s, who finished fourth in the MAAC but toppled Loyola-Maryland, Fairfield and Iona on the way to a conference tournament title and an automatic NCAA berth.

Players to watch: Johnson and Moore are well-known to any casual college hoops fan, and it’s no secret Purdue’s stars have to excel on both ends of the floor for Purdue to succeed. But the Boilermakers also built success on the backs of role players this season. Lewis Jackson runs the show at the point, Ryne Smith -- who suffered a mild concussion this week but will play Friday -- is a deadly long-range shooter, and D.J. Byrd and Terone Johnson provide versatility and defense at the forward and guard spots.

One player missing from that list? Guard Kelsey Barlow, whom Painter suspended this week for disciplinary reasons. (Smith’s concussion and Barlow’s dismissal were not connected, as some speculated; on Thursday Painter confirmed Smith caught an inadvertent elbow from Moore in practice.) Whatever the reason for Barlow’s absence, the Boilermakers will have to spread their minutes and make up for Barlow’s unique ability to guard a variety of positions in Purdue’s pressing man-to-man.

What to look for: Can Purdue right the ship? The Boilermakers ended an otherwise peerless Big Ten season with back-to-back losses (at Iowa, to Michigan State in the Big Ten tournament). Will Purdue’s shots start falling again? How will Barlow’s absence affect Purdue’s defense, if at all? The first question could yield legitimate answers; surprisingly enough St. Peter’s boasts a top 20 defense per adjusted efficiency. The second question may be more difficult to gauge, as the Peacocks are among the nation’s worst offensive teams. But the shorthanded Boilermakers could go a long way toward proving itself to suddenly skeptical fans by handling a sneaky-tough No. 14 seed Friday.

Quotable: “It's kind of cool, I guess, in a way, that the President picks us to go to Elite Eight. But it's the reason that you play the games. I guess those people that they have us beating, I know they're not probably too happy about that.” -- Purdue forward Johnson on President Barack Obama’s prediction that Purdue will advance to the Elite Eight.

No. 11 seed VCU (24-11) vs. No. 6 seed Georgetown (21-10), 9:50 p.m. ET (TNT)

How they got here: Georgetown’s path to the tournament was never in doubt. But thanks to an untimely injury to starting point guard Chris Wright, the Hoyas lost their last four games down the stretch and, averaged 51.5 points per game in that span. Wright’s injury derailed a major mid-season surge; after starting 1-4 in Big East play, Georgetown won eight straight Big East games from Jan. 15 to Feb. 13, including a reputation-making win at Syracuse on Feb. 9. VCU, on the other hand, took the long road to the tournament. The Rams were one of the last four at-large teams included in this year’s field -- much to the chagrin of those who believed Colorado and Virginia Tech were more deserving -- but Shaka Smart’s team made the most of the opportunity with its win over USC in Dayton Wednesday night.

Players to watch: “Key player” is too understated a term for Wright. “Lifeblood” is more accurate. Wright isn’t Georgetown’s best or most efficient player; that honor goes to preseason Big East player of the year Austin Freeman. But the past three weeks have offered a clear picture of how Wright’s absence affects the Hoyas, and the picture isn’t pretty. The Georgetown guard responded well to four straight days of full practice this week, and the Hoyas will be glad to have him on the court. Defensively, Georgetown will be keen to stop VCU’s Jamie Skeen, a former Wake Forest transfer who has the size, athleticism and skill to play in the post or stretch defenses with the perimeter shot.

What to look for: It’s never a surprise when a team that loses its point guard struggles to maintain its prior level of play, but it is rare to see a team fall off so far without one player. But it’s really rather simple. With Wright, the Hoyas were one of the Big East’s best teams. Without him, they were barely mediocre. Wright’s presence could be the difference between an early exit and a deep tourney run, but is he really at full strength? And if not, can the Hoyas hold off a hot VCU team that rolled to the CAA tournament final and manhandled an athletic USC team?

Quotable: “Stairmaster. I think I was on a stairmaster, which is probably harder than anything I’ve ever had to do. That's very hard. I don't want to do it anymore.” -- Georgetown guard Chris Wright, on what he did to stay in shape during rehab.

Quick hitters on the bracket:

• The First Four will be a good watch. Well, at least the two games involving bubble teams. USC has proved it can beat just about anyone in the field. The matchup against VCU will be one of the better early-round games. Clemson is one of the toughest defensive teams in the field and UAB is one of the more controversial picks. Oh, and Kevin O'Neill has been reinstated to coach the Trojans, meaning there are plenty of storylines in Dayton on Tuesday and Wednesday.

• I liked Oakland as a possible Sweet 16 team when I watched the Golden Grizzlies early in the season, but once again it's all about matchups. I don't like Oakland beating Texas because of the Longhorns' ability to defend on the perimeter.

• Wisconsin couldn't have drawn a worse matchup than sneaky-good Belmont. The Bruins can win a first-round game. The Badgers struggled against Wofford and Cornell last season and now Mike Bruesewitz is hurt. This isn't a positive draw for Wisconsin.

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Don McPeak/US PRESSWIREIan Clark and No. 13-seeded Belmont could be a tough out for Wisconsin.
• The committee doesn't play the matchup game. But geez, how odd is it that Memphis coach Josh Pastner, who played and coached at Arizona, has his first game as a head coach in the NCAA tournament against Arizona? UCLA and Ben Howland against Michigan State and Tom Izzo on the first day? Wow. It would have been hard to predict that in the preseason.

• There will be blood during the Butler-Old Dominion 8-9 game in D.C. This is going to be a battle with two teams that like to grind defensively.

• Florida State's Chris Singleton told me after the loss to Virginia Tech that he could have played in the ACC tournament but it was coach Leonard Hamilton's decision. He said he is going to play in the NCAA tourney. If he does, the Seminoles should beat Texas A&M.

• Georgetown's Chris Wright said he's playing in the NCAAs. But the Hoyas didn't get an easy draw. The Hoyas have to prep for two different styles in USC and Virginia Commonwealth. The better matchup for Georgetown would be VCU. USC has the bigs in Nikola Vucevic and Alex Stepheson that could cause problems for the Hoyas in the second round.

• The two toughest teams to predict in the Southwest Regional are playing in the 8-9 game. UNLV and Illinois have shown flashes of playing at a high level or looking very pedestrian. Neither team can beat Kansas.

• Vanderbilt can't catch a break. The Commodores drew hot mid-majors Siena and Murray State in recent tournaments and lost to both in the first round. Richmond is on a roll right now with the A-10 title win. The Spiders will be a trendy 12-5 upset pick.

• A Purdue-Notre Dame Sweet 16 game in San Antonio would be an intense affair. JaJuan Johnson and Ben Hansbrough have the ability to put up monster numbers. But whoever wins that game will probably fall to Kansas. That's my pick.

• Utah State finally may win a first-round game. The Aggies have been playing do-or-die type affairs for weeks with little margin for error. Kansas State was a bad stock to buy since the Wildcats have been all over the map. The Aggies have the personnel to get to the Sweet 16 and if Belmont were to upset Wisconsin, or even if it didn't, a win over K-State could pave the way for Utah State to get to New Orleans.

• Pitt should breeze to the Elite Eight. I'll be surprised if it doesn't get to its first Final Four since 1941.

• Gonzaga got an 11-seed, but got St. John's sans D.J. Kennedy. The Red Storm started the season losing to a WCC team at Saint Mary's and I think they'll end it losing to a WCC team in the Zags.

• Jimmer Fredette could pull a Stephen Curry and lead BYU to the Elite Eight. The reason? The bracket is winnable for the Cougars. UCLA and Michigan State aren't getting out of the first weekend and Florida is beatable.

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Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesBYU's Jimmer Fredette is the kind of player who can carry a team on a deep tournament run.
• For much of the last two months, George Mason was a popular pick to go far in the NCAA tournament. But the matchups aren't favorable after Villanova. Ohio State has too much balance and strength inside for the Patriots.

• Princeton can cause Kentucky's younger players problems, but the Wildcats have figured out how to play together more consistently. A Kentucky-Ohio State Sweet 16 game in Newark would be a tough ticket.

• Marquette isn't playing well enough for me to buy into the Golden Eagles, but Tu Holloway can lead Xavier for a few rounds.

• If Syracuse plays up to its potential, this bracket could open up for the Orange to at least get to the Sweet 16.

• Isaiah Thomas proved he can be like Kemba Walker and Fredette, and make game-winning shots. Who takes that shot for Georgia?

• North Carolina didn't defend well against Duke on Sunday in the ACC tournament but the Tar Heels will not lose in Charlotte. No way. The Tar Heels will be playing at home for two games. Book them to Newark.

• If the Elite Eight game is Ohio State against North Carolina, the NBA scouts will drool with Jared Sullinger against the bigs of Tyler Zeller and John Henson in addition to Harrison Barnes going against the host of wings of OSU.

• I thought UNC could get to Houston, but I don't like the Tar Heels getting past the Buckeyes. It's all about matchups.

• Paging Tennessee? Part of me is convinced the Vols are in position to be the most dangerous No. 9 seed. If the Vols play up to their potential, they could beat Michigan and Duke to get to the Sweet 16. But Tennessee could also lose badly to Michigan and the Wolverines' 1-3-1 defense.

• Texas is a No. 4 after projecting as a No. 1 a few weeks ago. Which Texas team will show? If it's the one that is sharing the ball, defending and has Jordan Hamilton taking quality shots, then the Longhorns can knock off Duke and be on the doorstep of playing as host in Houston.

• The bottom part of the West bracket will be about Kemba Walker. The UConn star led the Huskies to an incredible five-game run in the Big East tournament. Can he do it again in the NCAA tournament? Playing either Cincinnati or Missouri, assuming the Huskies beat Bucknell, is a good draw.

• How about Temple playing Penn State, two schools from Pennsylvania playing in Tucson, and Louisville and Morehead State, two schools from the state of Kentucky, playing in Denver?

• I'm done doubting Louisville's Rick Pitino. This Cardinals team has shot down every question and continues to win. The Cards could be playing Kansas in the Sweet 16 in San Antonio. Talk about a fun game.

• San Diego State was treated well by the NCAA tournament committee. The Aztecs earned a No. 2 seed by losing to only one team -- even though it was twice -- in BYU. The Aztecs will play in Tucson and then possibly Anaheim. I like their experience, defense, fast tempo and half-court game. If D.J. Gay is on, especially defensively against elite guards in this bracket, then the Aztecs can advance. They're the one team not on the No. 1 line that I have getting to Houston.

• This bracket will be dominated by star players having headline games, just like we saw during Championship Week.

• We should see plenty of upsets, but when the Final Four is upon us in a few weeks, I don't see Ohio State or Kansas losing. I'm less confident in Pitt, but the Panthers have a favorable bracket. I'm going with OSU, KU, Pitt and SDSU.

Ten thoughts at the end of a debate-worthy night in college basketball:

1. Before we get to the bracket that is, let’s talk about the bracket that should be. In other words, let’s talk about Colorado. How can I put this nicely? The Buffaloes got jobbed. OK, so that isn’t putting it nicely at all. It’s kind of rude, actually. But it’s 100 percent true. CU’s exclusion from this 68-team field -- and UAB’s inclusion in it -- is baffling.

If you’re interested in this little thing called “wins,” the two résumés don’t really compare. Colorado has six top-50 RPI victories; UAB has none. Colorado beat No. 5 seed Kansas State three times and No. 4 seed Texas once. UAB beat ... um, whom exactly? VCU? Kent State? UTEP? Both teams had ugly nonconference schedules, so the only explanation for the committee’s decision is RPI. Colorado’s RPI is 66, while UAB’s is 31. If that’s the committee’s reason, that’s a pretty bad reason.

It’s nice to know that in two days all this selection fervor will die down and we’ll get to the business of enjoying the greatest competition in basketball live and in living color. We’ll forget all about this soft bubble. We’ll remember that not one of the teams on the cut line was all that good in the first place. But until then, there’s no denying it: Colorado got jobbed, and the selection committee can’t give us a good reason why.

2. Speaking of which, selection committee chair Gene Smith did not do a very good job of explaining his committee’s decisions on Sunday night. Meeting with the media mere minutes after the four-day selection haze is the most unenviable responsibility the committee chairman must handle, and I certainly wouldn’t want to do it. But in interviews on ESPN and CBS, as well as in his post-selection show teleconference, Smith practically refused to answer the media’s questions about the committee’s various seeding and selection decisions. Instead, he gave polite nonanswers. In the first question of his teleconference, Smith was asked why Virginia Tech -- the night’s only other surprising snub -- didn’t make the tournament. His response:

“Virginia Tech is a very good ballclub, a well-coached team,” Smith said. “When we looked at them, considering all the other criteria we look at, the committee looks at about 15 different quantifiable criteria, then we have advice from our regional coaches advisory committee, a lot of different things. At the end of the day when we stacked Virginia Tech's résumé up against all the other teams, we just didn't feel like they were a team that should be in the at-large field.”

When pressed a second and third time for specific reasons why the Hokes were left out, Smith responded:

“I would just tell you to look at their overall résumé, look at their schedule, look at how they did relative to their competition that they scheduled in the nonconference schedule.”

These aren’t reasons why Virginia Tech was kept out of the tournament. They’re skeletal explanations of the selection process itself.

They were par for the course for Smith, as chronicled by our own Andy Katz on Sunday night. Smith used the phrase “well-coached” to describe nearly every team he was asked specifically about. He also said there were “10 people in the room and everyone in the room has different emphasis on different criteria.” (Perhaps one criterion would be a good place to start?)

Look: No one expects the committee to get everything right -- it often does a marvelous job under difficult time constraints -- and no one expects the committee chairman to make the entire process an open book. But as the NCAA strives to increase transparency in the selection process and rid fans of the notion that the process is shrouded in secrecy, Smith’s nonanswers only made a frustrating night that much more so.

Anyway, with that whinge out of the way, let’s take a look at the bracket itself:

3. Which No. 1 seed has the toughest route to the tournament? Surprisingly, that team is No. 1 overall seed Ohio State. If seeds hold, the Buckeyes -- who went 32-2 this season -- have the privilege of playing George Mason in the second round, an underseeded Kentucky team in the Sweet 16, and either Syracuse or North Carolina in the Elite Eight. Throw in the rest of this region’s tough outs -- Xavier, Washington, West Virginia and Villanova are all lurking here -- and you can make a rather convincing case that this is the toughest region of them all.

4. Which No. 1 seed has the easiest path? That honor probably goes to Pittsburgh. The Panthers don’t have a friendly second-round matchup; Butler and Old Dominion are both well-coached (that one’s for you, Gene!), experienced tournament teams with unique styles and plenty of talent to boot. But after that, Pitt’s high-seeded competitors (Florida, BYU and Wisconsin) all have their share of potentially fatal flaws.

5. Don’t say the committee favors Duke. That was a common complaint last season, when the Blue Devils were gifted with a wide-open bracket whose toughest challengers -- Baylor and a Robbie Hummel-less Purdue team -- couldn’t stay on the floor with the dominant Dukies in the regional round. This year, however, is different. Duke got Michigan-Tennessee as its No. 8/No.9 matchup, and the Vols have proved capable of playing up or down to any team’s level this season. Duke got a bit of a break with San Diego State and Connecticut at the No. 2 and No. 3 spots, but either team could present problems for Duke on the interior. But the toughest seed came at the No. 4 spot, where an underseeded Texas team -- the Longhorns were very much in the No. 2-seed discussion this week -- could present massive matchup problems for the Blue Devils. If Duke gets past the Sweet 16, it should return to the Final Four. But the toughest matchup of the Devils’ tournament could come earlier than anticipated.

6. The No. 5-versus-No. 12 matchups are always prone to upsets -- if there’s a cardinal rule of bracket-picking, it’s that -- but this year’s matchups should prove to be especially intriguing. Kansas State will play Utah State, a 30-3 team that dominated its conference, beat Saint Mary’s in Moraga, and could be much more dangerous than anyone realizes. In the Southwest, Vanderbilt got the underseeded Spiders as its No. 12 matchup; Richmond has one of the best guards in the country in Kevin Anderson and an emerging (and hyper-efficient) star in Justin Harper. In the West, Arizona will play Memphis in the battle of Josh Pastner, who was a walk-on at Arizona and spent years there as an assistant. And in the East, West Virginia will play the First Four winner of UAB-Clemson. The Tigers are enticingly athletic. The Blazers are playing for respect after schlubs like me spent all night telling people why they don’t belong in the tournament. All of these games are interesting, and for reasons beyond the usual 5-12 intrigue.

7. Speaking of interesting middle-seed matchups, how about these two 6-versus-11 matchups. In the East, it’s Xavier versus Marquette. In the West, it’s Cincinnati versus Missouri. One could argue that Missouri is a bit underseeded given its entire body of work, but the Tigers did notably struggle on the road this season and fell flat in a blowout loss to Texas A&M in the Big 12 tournament. But the Tigers’ style -- up-tempo, frenetic and pressing -- is much harder to prepare for in a single-elimination format than in the familiar rigors of conference play. Meanwhile, Xavier-Marquette will showcase two of the nation’s best and perhaps most underrated players in Xavier’s Tu Holloway and Marquette’s Jimmy Butler.

8. If there’s anything the No. 9 seeds have in common, it’s talent, inconsistency and disappointment. The one team excepted from this theme is Old Dominion. The Monarchs have plenty of the first quality, but none of the second or third. But Illinois, Villanova and Tennessee are this season's poster children for teams that should be much, much better than they are. All three have elite-level talent. All three showed promise throughout the season. All three got their biggest wins in November and December. And all three have been frustratingly incoherent since.

9. Beware the injuries and suspensions. Unfortunately, some NCAA tournament teams don’t get the benefit of coming to the tournament at full strength. Georgetown’s Chris Wright is cleared to play, but will likely have a protective cast on his broken hand. Florida State’s Chris Singleton is questionable for the Seminoles. And in the Southeast, two teams missing key players -- BYU (suspended forward Brandon Davies) and St. John’s (lost guard D.J. Kennedy to a torn ACL this week) -- could meet in the second round Friday. All things to consider as you peruse the field and start filling in your bracket.

10. Need proof this was the softest tournament field ever? OK, probably not. You probably reached this conclusion months ago. But in case you’re holding out, check these numbers from ESPN Stats & Information: Since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985, five at-large teams made the tournament with 14 losses. There are five at-large teams this season alone with 14 losses. There are seven teams with 13 losses, and 13 teams with 11 losses. That’s a whole lot of losing for the NCAA tournament, but that’s what happens when (a) you expand the field by three bids and (b) you have to fill that expanded field from a pool of candidates that can be described only as the decidedly muddled, mediocre middle.

Rapid-fire reactions to the bracket:

Before we get into this, someone please check on Seth Greenberg. Make sure he is in a safe place. I’m mostly joking, but not completely.

Now, if I’m Ohio State coach Thad Matta, I tell the boss this when he returns to Columbus:

Thanks for nothing.

OSU athletic director Gene Smith was the head of the NCAA tournament selection committee, yet he stuck his own team with what I think is the toughest region in the whole tournament. Earlier Sunday, I wrote that seven teams had the most realistic shot at a national title -- and three of them are in the same region. That would be No. 1 seed Ohio State plus No. 2 seed North Carolina and No. 4 seed Kentucky, all in the East.

Two of the seven are in the Southwest Region: Kansas and Notre Dame. Two are in the West: Duke and San Diego State.

And then there is the Southeast, otherwise known as the Jamie Dixon Backrub Regional. I don’t see a single major national-title threat in that 16-team grouping, which means terminal underachiever Pittsburgh might finally reach its first Final Four since World War II.

So Matta needs to ask his AD one simple question: Why didn’t we get the Pitt treatment?

Instead, here’s what Ohio State got: a likely matchup against a coach with Final Four experience in the rounds of 32, 16 and 8.

After the Buckeyes dispatch a play-in-team-to-be-named-later on Friday in Cleveland, they’ll face either George Mason or Villanova. Jim Larranaga took the Patriots on one of the all-time Cinderella Final Four runs in 2006, and Jay Wright got the Wildcats there in ’09.

In the Sweet 16, Ohio State could face any of three coaches who have been to Final Fours in the past decade: Bob Huggins (West Virginia last year, plus Cincinnati in 1992); Mike Davis (Indiana 2002); or John Calipari (Massachusetts 1996 and Memphis 2008).

And a potential regional final showdown looms with either North Carolina and Roy Williams (six Final Fours, two national titles) or Syracuse and Jim Boeheim (three Final Fours, one national title).

That is not an easy road to Houston.

The committee apparently saved all its mollycoddling for Florida, which drew a mystifying No. 2 seed in the Southeast. Apparently, friends, losing to Jacksonville and Central Florida will actually help your seeding as opposed to hurting it. Oh, and a home loss to South Carolina (last in the SEC East) must not hurt the profile either.

The Gators are a good team. The Gators are fully capable of winning that region. But the Gators should be doing it as a No. 4 or 5 seed, in my estimation.

In fact, I think three of the No. 4 seeds (Louisville, Kentucky and Texas) all are more accomplished to date than Florida.

So I’d nominate the Southeast as the section of the bracket most likely to be busted. Pitt and No. 4 seed Wisconsin have a history of great regular seasons and not-so-great NCAA tournaments. Third-seeded BYU looks highly vulnerable after going 3-2 since losing leading rebounder and third-leading scorer Brandon Davies.

(Quick aside: All conjecture to the contrary, losing a player for the tournament apparently didn’t matter much after all. BYU still got a No. 3. Georgetown, winless in four games since the broken hand suffered by guard Chris Wright, still got a No. 6. Florida State, 3-3 since the loss of leading scorer/rebounder/stealer Chris Singleton to a broken foot, still got a No. 10. I believe all three could have been justifiably bumped down at least one more seed line.)

In the Southwest, a potential Kansas-Louisville matchup in San Antonio could be a great one. The Jayhawks are really good -- but check Rick Pitino’s record in Sweet 16 games. He’s 9-0. But both the Jayhawks and Cardinals have to win two games first to make that matchup happen.

On the other side of that region, I love Notre Dame’s chances of reaching a regional final for the first time since 1980 -- although Purdue looms as a potential Indiana battle removed to San Antonio in the Sweet 16.

And in the West, I could see chalk holding to a Duke-San Diego State regional final -- if the Aztecs can finally get around to winning the first NCAA tournament game in school history. There could be some very good regional semifinals there: Duke-Texas and San Diego State taking on a Big East school, be it Connecticut or Cincinnati.

At this moment, give me Ohio State, Duke, Notre Dame and Kansas State to reach the Final Four, with the Fighting Irish winning it all.

And I can’t believe I just typed that sentence.

But I’ll stick with it at least until tomorrow morning.

Some other random ruminations:

Seeded too high: Florida, BYU, Georgetown, UCLA.

Seeded too low: Oakland, Utah State, Xavier, Gonzaga.

Most intriguing first-round games: UCLA-Michigan State; Oakland-Texas; Butler-Old Dominion; BYU-Wofford.

Individual star-watch games: Texas shot-blocking freshman Tristan Thompson against Oakland shot-blocking senior Keith Benson; BYU scoring machine Jimmer Fredette against Wofford 20-point-a-game guy Noah Dahlman; UCLA forward Reeves Nelson against Michigan State forward Draymond Green; versatile Darius Morris of Michigan against versatile Scotty Hopson of Tennessee.

Next up: Hot anticipation for game times Thursday and Friday, so we can plan our hooky accordingly.

Five observations from the week that was:

1. Jimmer Fredette is the clear frontrunner for national player of the year. Duke's Nolan Smith and Ohio State's Jared Sullinger can certainly end the season with higher-profile performances, but Fredette made quite a statement over the weekend. He played as complete a game in a hostile environment as any of the aforementioned have personally played in this season. Fredette was targeted throughout the game by the passionate SDSU fans as well as the Aztec defense. Yet he played with four fouls, made 3s, scored 25 points and tied a season-high with nine assists in a convincing road win at San Diego State.

Fredette has handled himself at such a high level throughout the course of this season. He has been the focus for every opposing defense, yet has answered every opportunity and has put BYU in position to be a No. 1 seed. I'm not sure either or the aforementioned players or Connecticut's Kemba Walker have to deal with the personal shots and vitriol that Fredette has to deal with on the road. If he wins this honor, it would be a testament to a player who worked his tail off throughout his career to become a star.

2. Harvard blew a chance to win the Ivy League title outright this coming weekend when it lost at Yale on Saturday. But all is not lost. The Crimson can still make history, win the Ivy League for the first time and reach the NCAA tournament for only the second time. The other time was in 1946. If Harvard wins its next two games against Penn and Princeton, then at the very least there will be a one-game playoff on a neutral site during Champ Week. The two teams would have split the season series and have one other conference loss (Harvard to Yale and Princeton to Brown).

According to the Ivy League, contingency plans for a date and site for the playoff game are being made. The likely neutral site would be at Yale in New Haven, Conn., which would fall roughly in between the two schools. The Ivy League is toying with the idea of playing the game either Thursday, Friday or Saturday of Champ Week. Princeton plays Penn on Tuesday of that week, which may prevent the title game from being played earlier than Friday.

3. Xavier has quietly put together a remarkable story by rising to the top of the Atlantic 10 yet again. Chris Mack has done a phenomenal job with a limited roster due to injuries and eligibility. He has been saved to some degree by an outstanding point guard in Tu Holloway. Still, the Musketeers are a model of consistency in the league and continued to roll with a win in a hostile environment at Dayton on Sunday. Xavier is 13-1 in the A-10 with two games to play, 22-6 overall and a lock for the NCAAs. Closing out the season against Charlotte and at Saint Louis is a mere formality. The A-10 isn't as strong this season, especially from sixth place down to 14. But X wins the games it's supposed to and then some and continues to be the benchmark for this conference.

4. Assessing Florida State and Georgetown will be a tough chore for the selection committee. FSU doesn't have its best player in Chris Singleton (fractured right ankle) for the foreseeable future. The Seminoles beat Wake Forest and Miami, but lost at Maryland without Singleton. So how will the committee judge Florida State? The résumé likely will put the Noles in the field, but they should be seeded much lower based on the personnel that will play in the tournament. Meanwhile, Georgetown is without arguably its most important player in guard Chris Wright. He broke a bone in his non-shooting left hand and the Hoyas are convinced he will return by the NCAA tournament. But they lost at home against Syracuse without him and were horrendous against Cincinnati after he went down early in the game. Georgetown has one game remaining (at Cincinnati) and then it’s on to the Big East tournament. Going 0-2 before Selection Sunday would not be advisable.

5. The Big East tournament won't have bubble drama. Cincinnati's win over Georgetown and Marquette's win over Connecticut may have put both teams in the NCAA tournament. If that's the case, the conference tourney may not have any bubble drama when the quarterfinals start on Thursday. It will be a slugfest, but it may not even affect seeding that much for the Big Dance. What’s also interesting is that the Big East might not have an NIT team. The division from NCAA to no postseason is a clear line at 11. The bottom five teams haven't done much to command an invitation to a postseason tournament. So the Big East teams can go to New York to slug it out, but ultimately it won't matter much in the bracketing of the NCAA tournament.

The weather folks, the ones who call sunny with a chance of clouds an actual prediction, like to debate whether the month of March will come in like a lamb or a lion.

The theory being that the month that starts cold and nasty will right itself and finish nicely.

OK, so weather logic doesn’t work in basketball.

In 1993, Rider played Kentucky in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The Broncs were the 16-seed, Kentucky the No. 1 seed. Rider star Darrick Suber was writing a diary for the local paper I worked for at the time and wrote that as he walked onto the court at Vanderbilt University, a Cat fan in her Southern drawl called down, "Here come the lambs."

And that’s the thing about being a basketball lamb in the month of March. Rarely do you find your roar. Instead you usually head to the slaughter (Rider lost 96-52).

But with just three days left in February, there are more than a few teams that are limping their way into March. And more than a few who are finding their voice.

THE LAMBS

Villanova Wildcats: With the 81-68 home loss to St. John’s, the Wildcats are now 21-8 overall and 9-7 in the Big East. The same team that started the season 17-1 and climbed to No. 7 in the polls has now slunk down the rankings and is 5-7 in its past 12 games. Worse, with road games at Notre Dame and Pittsburgh, odds favor the Wildcats finishing with two more losses and a pedestrian 9-9 record in the conference.

That has more than a handful of folks in Philadelphia sensing some uncomfortable déjà vu. Last season, the Wildcats started with a 20-1 record and climbed all the way to No. 2 in the country. They ended up losing four of their last six in the regular season. They lost their first game of the Big East tournament, nearly lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Robert Morris and were then booted by Saint Mary’s in the second round.

Most concerning, somewhere along the way Corey Fisher has lost his shot and his confidence. He is 4-of-26 in his past two games, both losses.

Texas Longhorns: All things relative here following the free-for-all slide that characterized the Longhorns a season ago. Certainly two bad losses does not a disastrous season make, but Texas, once a solid No. 1 seed, certainly has knocked itself off of that line for now after sandwiching losses to Nebraska and Colorado around a pedestrian win against lowly Iowa State.

Worst of all is how the Longhorns -- a team praised for its defense -- lost to the Buffs by blowing a 22-point lead. Texas surrendered 58 second-half points to a team that had lost seven of its previous 10 games.

Arizona Wildcats: Like the Longhorns, the Wildcats aren’t bandaged and damaged heading into March, but this certainly was a lost weekend in SoCal.

The loss to USC was bad; the 71-49 mauling from UCLA was atrocious. Once in position to win the Pac-10 title outright, instead Arizona already has ceded at least a share to the Bruins.

On lamb alert: Connecticut Huskies: There were enough excuses to explain away their most recent loss -- NCAA punishments meted out, no head coach -- but the loss to Marquette on Thursday was merely the latest stumble for the once red-hot Huskies. Connecticut has dropped five of its past eight and on Sunday takes on the newest hot team in the Big East, Cincinnati.

With games at West Virginia and home against Notre Dame to finish, the once lionish Huskies could be baa-baaing into March.

THE LIONS

St. John's Red Storm: Steve Lavin might want to have his white sneakers bronzed. The coach insists he’s wearing the casual shoes for comfort not superstition, but the Red Storm, who beat Villanova on Saturday, are 8-1 since Lavin and his staff donned the sneakers as part of Coaches vs. Cancer awareness.

The well-coiffed Lavin doesn’t strike as the type to wear his Easy Spirits, so we’re going with superstition.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a team more impressive than the Red Storm in the past month. Of those eight wins, four have come against top-25 opponents and three were on the road.

In a season of ‘first since,’ the Red Storm racked up two more when they upended struggling Villanova. It was the Storm’s first win against a top-15 team on the road since they beat Duke in 2000. The six victories against ranked opponents is the school’s most since the 1999-2000 season.

With winnable games at Seton Hall and home against South Florida, the Red Storm could literally storm into Madison Square Garden on an eight-game tear when the Big East tournament begins.

Dwight Hardy: When Lavin told me last week that he thought Hardy ought to win Big East Player of the Year, I admit I thought he was insane.

So now either I’m equally insane or he was right.

As Connecticut and Kemba Walker fade down the stretch, Hardy keeps coming. On the heels of his buzzer-beating, circus-shot winner against Pittsburgh, Hardy dumped 34 points on Villanova. Since the signature win against Duke, as St. John's has mounted its charge and built its case for a high seed, Hardy is averaging 25 points per game.

Without him, St. John’s is the same old St. John’s. An OK team in the middle of the Big East pack. With him, the Red Storm are looking to lock up a double-bye and surge into the tourney where they will have a decided home-court advantage.

That’s what players of the year do.

Kansas State Wildcats and Syracuse Orange: Two teams some had written off as dead are beginning to find their footing at the right time (Michigan State, with a win against Purdue on Sunday, can be tossed into this group, too).

The Wildcats, with an impressive win against Missouri on Saturday, have now won four games in a row. The same dysfunctional team that looked awful in January -- 3-5 for the month -- has become a bunch of scrappers. With Jacob Pullen benched by foul trouble, K-State, which would have fallen apart a month ago, instead put together a decisive 10-point win.

Meanwhile, the same discombobulated Orange that lost four in a row in January now have strung together four consecutive victories after topping undermanned Georgetown on Saturday. That streak includes wins against two ranked teams and against a scrapping West Virginia team.

UCLA Bruins: Big boy Joshua Smith -- averaging 12.5 in the past 10 games -- is finding his footing as a college player and the Bruins are finding their footing again among the teams that matter.

Quietly, UCLA has won 12 of its past 14 and is in position to win the Pac-10 title.

Some other random observations from a busy Saturday afternoon on the sofa:

• For anyone who thinks BYU is Jimmer Fredette and a bag of donuts, I give you this box score: four players in double-figures, 18 assists on 27 made baskets. Jimmer is the main attraction, but the Cougars’ supporting cast is pretty good, too.
• Even in defeat, I was impressed with Georgetown. The Hoyas went toe-to-toe with Syracuse without point guard Chris Wright. That said, the box score tells you just how critical Wright is: Georgetown, a team that often has an assist on nearly every made basket, instead had 16 turnovers and just 10 assists.
• Wondering if we could get a neutral-court game between Kentucky and Missouri. Both could be paralyzed into inaction for a good 10 minutes. Undefeated at Rupp Arena after a discarding of SEC-leading Florida, the Wildcats are 1-6 in SEC road games. Not to be outdone, the Tigers lost at Kansas State to match Kentucky’s road woes at 1-6 in Big 12 road games. Each has a home and away game remaining on its schedule.

On Wednesday night, Georgetown had its Robbie Hummel moment.

Chris Wright, one of the Hoyas' three do-it-all guards and one of the nation's most crucial players relative to his team's needs, suffered a broken left hand in Wednesday's loss to Cincinnati.

Twitter was immediately abuzz with news of the injury and dire predictions therein, and it's no surprise why: With Wright, Georgetown is a Big East contender and potential Final Four team. Without him, those chances are hugely diminished. Georgetown, like Purdue last year, would still have very good players on the floor, but it would be missing the player who truly makes its guard-heavy Princeton offense work. With the possible exception of Austin Freeman, no Hoyas mean as much to Georgetown as Wright.

Which is why today's news, though still unfortunate, should bring Georgetown fans some measure of relief: According to the following release from John Thompson III, Wright could be back "before the end of the season:"

"Chris Wright, injured in last night's game with Cincinnati, underwent successful surgery this morning for a break in the third metacarpal of his left [non-shooting] hand," Thompson said in a release. "Our medical staff is optimistic, and although we do not have an exact timetable, we expect to have Chris back before the end of the season."

If there was a long, quotable definition of "relatively good news for Georgetown fans," that would be it. The injury itself is bad, but it could have been worse; it could have been Wright's strong (right) hand. Instead, if he heals quickly enough, Wright will probably be able to play with a large splint or cast on his left hand. For example, Indiana's Christian Watford broke his left hand Jan. 30 at Michigan State, but was able to return just three games later with a large, bulky, taped-over cast-type thing on his off hand.

No, the news isn't ideal; Georgetown would much rather have its starting point guard -- not to mention its entire team -- healthy at this point in the season. It is Feb. 24, after all. But given the dire possibilities after last night's game, this might not be so bad after all. In the immortal words of Sterling Archer: Thank God for small miracles, huh?

If you look up "impressive conference road win" in the imaginary multimedia dictionary I just made up in the confines of my own brain, you would be immediately greeted by an ESPN3.com replay of Georgetown's 64-56 win over Syracuse.

The Hoyas were never fully in control of the game. Syracuse had plenty of opportunities to take the upper hand, not to mention 27,000 orange-clad maniacs screaming their brains out at every turn. But the Hoyas poked and prodded, found ways into and behind Syracuse's 2-3 zone, stayed focused, got big buckets at key moments, avoided late turnovers when Syracuse had to turn up the pressure, and locked in defensively in the final moments when it mattered most.

No, Big East road wins don't get much more impressive than that. The fact that we just saw this Syracuse team go to Connecticut and get a win makes this win all the more noteworthy. And speaking of noteworthy, there's this: After a 1-4 start in the Big East, the Hoyas have now won seven in a row. That stretch includes a home win over Louisville, a win at Villanova, and now this big-time win in the Carrier Dome, a place they hadn’t won in nearly a decade. Pittsburgh is still the best team in this conference. But at this point, if any team can challenge the Panthers, that team appears to be the Georgetown Hoyas.

Some assorted bullet-point thoughts about the game:

• When you play a 2-3 zone like Syracuse, and your opponent is one of the most efficient teams in the country both beyond the arc and inside it, you have to have length. The Orange do. They had 11 blocks in this game, a product of some tremendous zone extension and interior presence by Jim Boeheim's team. Rick Jackson had three of those, but the majority of the rejections came from freshmen C.J. Fair, Baye Moussa Keita and Dion Waiters, who combined for eight blocks on the night. Keita, who had five, was especially impressive. This is why Syracuse's zone has been, and can be, so very tough this season. The Orange are just long.
• That said, there are still plenty of flaws in this zone. Georgetown's guards presented serious matchup problems for Syracuse, especially when Chris Wright worked his way into the middle of the zone and got inside-out looks for Austin Freeman and Jason Clark. Georgetown was also able to get big buckets on baseline action, especially on backcuts late in the game when Syracuse defenders lost their baseline assignments and no one in the middle of the zone was able to help in time. Georgetown's backcuts, which you frequently see in the Princeton offense against man-to-man defense, worked just as well against the zone. And with all those guards on the floor, the Hoyas were able to pass effectively through the zone, much more effectively than anyone might have expected. It takes a lot of guts to try and match up with the Orange with four guards, but it paid dividends for Georgetown on the offensive end.
• And yes, even with all that length, Georgetown still got plenty of good looks from 3. The Hoyas were shooting 38.5 percent from long range coming into tonight's game; they made 42.9 percent (9-of-21) Wednesday night.
• [+] Enlarge
  Mark L. Baer/US PRESSWIREJulian Vaughn scored 12 points and pulled down eight rebounds for the Hoyas.
  Still, despite Georgetown's effective ball movement and shooting, it's not like the Hoyas lit it up. No, the Orange’s loss came on the offensive end. Syracuse has struggled on the perimeter throughout the season, and those struggles (4-of-16 from 3) were evident again Wednesday night. In recent seasons, Syracuse has always had at least one (and often multiple) knockdown shooters. Gerry McNamara. Eric Devendorf. Andy Rautins. Wes Johnson. This team doesn't have one. It struggles at the guard position in a variety of ways -- perhaps no player frustrates Syracuse fans more than Scoop Jardine -- but the biggest problem area remains perimeter shooting. Until someone proves capable of knocking down shots, it would probably be wise to cut down on the 3s going forward.
• It might also be wise to get Fair a greater share of the offensive load. Fair scored 12 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field and grabbed five rebounds in the process. He was opportunistic and intuitive; he read rebounding angles correctly, found space against Georgetown's interior, and finished his chances when he got them. For as much as Boeheim's freshmen have struggled at times this season, this was a good game for all but Fab Melo.
• And, not to pile on, but Melo is still a massive disappointment. The highly touted center prospect started but played a mere three minutes. He was 0-for-1 in that span. Melo's simply not there athletically right now. Maybe next year?
• Speaking of four guards, one of those "guards" was frequently forward Hollis Thompson, who has the size to be a forward but the range to stretch defenses out to the 3-point line. John Thompson III got the perfect type of contribution from Thompson on Wednesday night. The forward had a very efficient 11 points -- 4-of-5 from the field, 3-of-3 from long distance -- and added five rebounds, two assists, two steals and zero turnovers. I'm not sure an off-the-bench role player could have a better, more important game than that. He was huge.
• Same goes for Julian Vaughn, who went 5-of-8 for 12 points and eight rebounds. Austin Freeman didn't have a great shooting night. Nor did Chris Wright or Jason Clark. That made it all the more crucial for Georgetown's role players to come up with efficient supporting efforts, and Vaughn and Thompson did so.
• If ever there was a time you thought Georgetown was going to take control of this game, it came when Jackson picked up his fourth foul with 14:40 left in the game. That didn't really happen. Instead, Boeheim got big contributions from the three aforementioned freshmen. Keita grabbed offensive rebounds in bunches, Fair got a pair of buckets and Waiters came up with two steals to keep Syracuse from falling too far behind while Jackson waited on the sidelines. Even in the loss, it was good to see those players step up at a crucial time in the game. But Georgetown did pull away eventually, and the Hoyas get credit for doing what so many teams struggle to do in the Big East: win big games on the road. Tremendous win for Georgetown.

When even the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks are eliminating the reigning Super Bowl Champs in the first round of the playoffs, you know it's been a crazy day.

Such was the case in college hoops Saturday, too. When you play 139 games in one day, there are always going to be wild finishes, unexpected results and upsets. But this was something else entirely. Seven ranked teams lost to unranked teams. To wit:

(There was also a genuine thriller, UConn's 82-81 overtime win at Texas. My postgame analysis on that classic can be found here.)

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Ron Chenoy/US PRESSWIREColorado's Alec Burks scored 36 points and had eight rebounds in an upset of Missouri.
• Colorado 89, No. 8 Missouri 76. It's never easy to win on the road, sure, and you can argue that Colorado is the perfect team (great guards, no big men) to match up with Missouri's guard-heavy style, but considering Mizzou's consistently impressive play to date -- and Colorado's blowout loss to Harvard, among other questionable results -- this still counts as a major upset. Alec Burks played like the future NBA lottery pick he's slated to be, scoring a career-high 36 points on 12-of-19 from the field, 3-for-3 from beyond the arc and 9-of-11 from the free-throw line.
• West Virginia 65, No. 13 Georgetown 59. According to the AP recap at that link, Bob Huggins has begun giving his players pop quizzes before games, making them come up to the chalkboard and diagram plays to test whether or not they've been paying attention. Apparently, they have. Either that or Georgetown's guards, who played phenomenally in the Hoyas' nonconference schedule, continued their shooting woes from outside. Georgetown's offense is pretty simple: Austin Freeman, Chris Wright and Jason Clark get open looks and make them. At least, that was the case when Georgetown was stacking up nonconference wins against tough opponents (ODU, Missouri, and so on) during November and December. The Big East has been less kind, and Georgetown is now 1-3 in the league with a questionable home loss on its résumé.
• Penn State 66, No. 19 Michigan State 62. I'm not sure this was a court-storm-worthy effort from Penn State (not that it stopped Nittany Lions fans from basking in the moment), but it certainly fits the day's upset-heavy theme. Penn State guard Talor Battle, who struggled from the field all day, sealed the win with a leaning jumper that put Penn State up by three with 18 seconds remaining. The loss does even greater damage to Michigan State, which was already looking shaky and is now a long shot to win the Big Ten and an even longer shot to get a favorable NCAA tournament seed in March.
• Oklahoma State 76, No. 17 Kansas State 62. I'm not sure this counts as an upset. After all, Kansas State is still missing forward Curtis Kelly due to suspension, and the Wildcats have struggled to score throughout ... well, now that I think about it, pretty much the entire year. But you get the point: The Wildcats are still in a major swoon, one of those will-they-figure-it-out-in-time rough patches that every program has to confront from time to time. The problem for K-State is that the time to figure this stuff out -- whether we're talking about the team's offense, Jacob Pullen's adjustment to the point guard spot or intangible stuff like leadership -- is starting to run out.
• Georgia 77, No. 11 Kentucky 70. No offense to the AP -- I'm a huge fan, guys! -- but the use of the word "stun" in the aforelinked headline is a little bit questionable. Georgia, in addition to being at home, is also a pretty good team. The Bulldogs' only two losses this season came in double overtime to Notre Dame and by seven points to Temple all the way back in November at the Old Spice Classic. Otherwise, this Bulldogs squad has been playing just fine, thanks. Trey Thompkins and Travis Leslie remain underrated; Thompkins scored 25 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, while Leslie put on his trademark dunk show on the way to his 15-and-eight afternoon. Good win for Georgia, but this one is probably about as much of an upset as Kansas State-Oklahoma State. Which is to say, not much of an upset at all.
• Houston 76, No. 18 UCF 71. It was only a matter of time until UCF -- which came into Saturday having won their last two games (over Princeton and Marshall) in sketchy fashion -- lost. Still, few would have predicted this game being the one that cost the Knights their undefeated record. Without the second-half run that put them within striking distance of the Cougars late, this could have been much worse; Houston led by as many as 17 in the first half. Marcus Jordan, who has become a star in UCF's undefeated run, went 3-for-9 from the field and ended up with 10 points.
• South Carolina 83, No. 24 Vanderbilt 75. Vandy has been one of the best 10 or 20 defensive teams in the nation thus far this season, but you wouldn't have known it today. South Carolina had four players reach double figures in scoring, including freshman point guard Bruce Ellington, who probably deserves to be considered among the 10 or so best newcomers in the nation. Ellington had 24 points, seven boards and four assists in the win. It's hard to say whether this is a genuine upset on the Michigan State-Penn State side of the spectrum, or just another case of a good team succumbing to a conference opponent on the road i.e. Kentucky and Kansas State, but either way, it's a big win for the Gamecocks.
• Arkansas 68, Tennessee 65. This is nothing new with the Volunteers, of course. Tennessee seems uniquely capable of beating ranked teams but uniquely unable of getting up for games so-so opponents. Tennessee's last game? A blowout of No. 22 Memphis. Arkansas' last game? A 33-point loss at Texas. Yes, Bruce Pearl was sitting out the first game of his SEC-mandated eight-game league suspension. Still, there's no reason why Tennessee should lose to Arkansas. UT is now 3-0 against ranked teams and 7-5 against unranked teams. Another baffling chapter in the already mind-blowing 2010-11 Vols' story.

NEW YORK -- Scottie Reynolds got Villanova back to a Final Four with an epic, game-ending layup to beat Pitt in the 2009 Elite Eight.

The shot will forever be etched in Nova lore.

But Reynolds' influence on the Wildcats is now gone and it shows.

A trio of Villanova guards -- Corey Fisher, Corey Stokes and Maalik Wayns -- don’t mean any disrespect by this, but they feel they leaned too much on Reynolds last season. They looked for him to constantly bail them out of a bad situation.

Now they’ve all moved on.

“Ever since Scotty’s freshman year, he had the ball in his hands,’’ Stokes said. “The team relied on Scotty. He was one of the greatest players in Villanova history. I don’t want to take anything away from him, but we can all score. It doesn’t matter who has the ball. Coach [Jay Wright] feels comfortable with either me, Maalik or Fish with the ball in his hands.’’

And so the baton has been passed from Reynolds to the trio of Stokes, Fisher and Wayns. The Villanova guards dominated the ball in an 82-70 NIT Season Tip-Off semifinal victory over UCLA Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden. The Wildcats will play Tennessee in Friday's championship. The three guards combined for 45 of the Wildcats’ 62 shots. They made 17. And didn’t hurt that they were a combined 22-of-24 at the free throw line. Fisher finished with 26 points, Wayns with 19 and Stokes with 16.

Nova has Mouphtaou Yarou inside (13 points and 16 boards vs. UCLA) and if a Villanova student code of conduct committee gives suspended freshman forward JayVaughn Pinkston a chance to play sometime this season (he’s facing simple assault charges for a punch on another Villanova student at a party earlier this month), then there will be even more balance. Wright said earlier Wednesday that the committee could hear Pinkston’s case next week. He is allowed to practice with the team but can’t represent the university and sit on the bench.

Seeing Pinkston in practice Wednesday, it was clear that he would have a major impact on this squad at both ends of the court. But instead of waiting on the legal case, the team will wait on the school's verdict since this was a student-on-student crime.

For now and the foreseeable future, Nova will be driven by its guards, much like it was on that 2006 Elite Eight team led by Randy Foye, Allan Ray and Kyle Lowry.

“That’s our offense,’’ Wayns said. “That’s the way coach Wright tells us to play. We’re not where those guys were [Foye, Ray and Lowry] since they’re all pros. But we’re aggressive and we’re giving our team the best chance to win. Last year, if things got bad we turned to Scottie. We leaned on Scottie. Now it doesn’t matter since any of us can make a play.’’

UCLA’s trio of Malcolm Lee, Lazeric Jones and Jerime Anderson had their moments, but weren’t in the same level on a consistent basis as Nova’s guards.

The Wildcats don't have the one star like Connecticut’s Kemba Walker. A more appropriate comparison might be the tandem of Brad Wanamaker and Ashton Gibbs of Pitt or Georgetown’s Austin Freeman, Chris Wright and Jason Clark.

“We’ve had more time together,’’ Fisher said of his senior classmate Stokes. “Maalik played with us last year too. We had time to watch Scottie and learn from him and we’ve had time to gel.’’

What Villanova has this season -- something that was lost at times last season in falling flat against Saint Mary’s in the second round of the NCAA tournament -- is a cohesion among the guards.

“We’ve got great chemistry,’’ Stokes said. “We’re always together off the court and it translates on the court. It should be like this the whole year.’’

You know the drill. Here are five things I can't wait to see in the Atlantic-10:

1. The Dayton dynamic

The questions about Dayton have nothing to do with talent. By returning NBA prospect and A-10 player of the year candidate Chris Wright, second-leading scorer Chris Johnson, and top defender Paul Williams, the 2010-11 Flyers return their three best players from last year's team. The questions about Dayton are essentially this: How do those players perform without five seniors surrounding them? Brian Gregory's accomplished group of four-year stalwarts all graduated after their NIT championship last season, and Gregory will have to incorporate a good recruiting class around his three talented starters without the benefit of that senior, role-player-type experience on the margins. Wright is one of the more talented forwards in the country, but he had an up-and-down junior season. Can he take the next step as a senior himself? Will Dayton find the right mix in time to make their case for an NCAA bid? And if the freshmen don't perform, is Dayton's core enough?

(Bonus minor Dayton subplot that pretty much everyone except Dayton's theoretical opponent would like to see: Because of the new tournament's First Four play-in structure, and the decent possibility the Flyers will be a bubble team and one of the last four at-large bids in the tournament, there's a decent chance Dayton could play in the play-in First Four tournament in -- where else -- Dayton. Dayton fans show up 11,000 strong for games on the 16-17 seed line; imagine the scene if the Flyers were in town for the tourney. Fun stuff.)

2. Temple in the NCAA tournament

If Temple fans are getting impatient for an NCAA win, they might also be being a little unfair. Owls coach Fran Dunphy immediately turned the Owls back into a winner after leaving his longtime position at Penn in 2006, making three straight NCAA tournaments in the past three years. The only problem? Temple has lost in the first-round of the NCAA tournament all three times. That might seem slightly disconcerting; no one wants to worry that their coach can't win in the NCAA tournament. But the Owls have been besieged by tough matchups in each of Dunphy's three tourney years (including two eventual Sweet 16 teams -- Michigan State and Cornell -- and a James Harden-led Arizona State team), and there's good reason to expect Temple to make the leap in 2010-11. Senior guard and leading scorer Ryan Brooks is gone, but Temple returns almost all of last year's team, which was the seventh-most efficient in the country by the end of the season. Those returns include forward Lavoy Allen, who played with the USA Men's Select Team in scrimmages against Kevin Durant and the rest of USA Basketball this offseason. Barring a massive disappointment, the Owls should be back in the NCAA tournament again in 2010-11. The real intrigue is what they do when they get there.

3. What happens when you doubt Xavier

If ever there was a year to doubt the Xavier Musketeers, this might be it. Gone is Jordan Crawford, a brilliant scorer who took and made a huge percentage of Xavier's shots in 2010-11. Gone is forward Jason Love, Xavier's all-time wins leader with 108. Taking their place are ... well, actually, that's the point: It's hard to see just who on the current Musketeers roster can replace Crawford and Love's production. Is this the year Xavier finally releases their four-year stranglehold on the A-10 title?

The thing is, we've asked that question before. We asked it when Xavier lost Stanley Burrell, Josh Duncan, and Drew Lavender in 2008. We asked it again when Xavier waved farewell to Derrick Brown, B.J. Raymond, and C.J. Anderson in 2009. Before Crawford revealed his talent, the 2009-10 Musketeers -- with a first-year coach, no less -- were supposed to fall off. But Xavier made a third straight Sweet 16, and the program kept chugging along as if the laws of attrition didn't apply. This year, maybe they will. Point guard Tu Holloway will have to take over much of the scoring and leadership load in Crawford's and Love's absence, senior forward Dante Jackson will have to take a leap, and a handful of talented freshmen and redshirt holdovers will have to be ready to play right away. It's a lot to ask, and if ever there was a year to doubt Xavier -- for good reason -- this is it. But one does so at her own peril.

4. Richmond's battle for respect

We probably didn't talk enough about Richmond last season. The Spiders won 26 games, made the NCAA tournament (where they ran into a hot St. Mary's team in the first round) and featured A-10 player of the year Kevin Anderson, a dynamic point guard who is supremely adept at beating defenders and scoring in the lane. Anderson returns in 2010-11 and is the de facto favorite to win conference player of the year honors again. But Richmond is far from a one-man show. The Spiders also return 6-foot-10 forward Justin Harper, whose inside-out versatility makes him extremely difficult to guard. Throw in a trio of interesting freshman and a total of 11 scholarship players returning from last year's team, and the result is a legitimate A-10 favorite that still isn't getting enough love.

5. An immediate turnaround at Charlotte?

Given the way Charlotte's season ended -- when the 49ers dropped seven of their last eight games, followed by the firing of longtime coach Bobby Lutz -- it's easy to forget how it began. Charlotte started the season by going 18-5 and looked like a potential A-10 contender and NCAA tournament team. The wheels fell off, and Charlotte hired former Ohio State assistant coach Alan Major to get things repaired. Major, like most new head coaches, is probably allowed the usual three- or four-year grace period, but he might not need it. Charlotte returns four starters from last year's team, including leading scorer Shamari Spears and fellow high-usage forward Chris Braswell. The 49ers aren't overwhelmingly talented, but they aren't bereft, either, and it's not hard to imagine the energy of a new coach and a less muddled leadership situation giving the 49ers a bit of a boost.

For the next month or so, our friends at The Mag are previewing one high-profile school per day for their Summer Buzz series. For the sake of all that is synergistic, yours truly will be attempting the same, complementing each comprehensive Insider preview with some adjusted efficiency fun. Today's subject? Georgetown. Up next? Villanova.

The Georgetown Hoyas will miss Greg Monroe. That much is easy.

After all, it's not every day you send a surefire lottery pick to the NBA draft. Monroe was a unique player, a center-sized lefty with small forward skills who created off the high block in John Thompson's offense with preternatural vision. With few viable candidates ready to take his place immediately -- Greg Monroes are tough to find -- Georgetown will suffer from his departure. Duh.

There is good news and bad news for Georgetown here. The good news: The Hoyas will still be a very good offensive team without their talented center. The bad news: What about defense?

Since John Thompson III took over at Georgetown, his teams have played with a specific identity. Thompson likes to slow the game down, wear opposing defenses down, and bank on the fact that his team will be able to create good looks from a half court set. Thompson's best teams have complemented that style with defensive rigor. The Jeff Green- and Roy Hibbert-led 2006-07 team played at a glacial pace -- 59.9 possessions per game -- but had the second-best adjusted offensive efficiency in the country and the 20th-best adjusted defensive efficiency. A year later, Georgetown's defense was its primary strength. A year after that, the same rule applied (though Georgetown lacked the hyper-efficient offense to go along with it.)

In 2009-10, Georgetown's defense slipped. The Hoyas were very good on the offensive end, scoring 1.17 adjusted points per possession, good for a No. 9 national ranking in the category. But their defense, which gave up .926 adjusted points per possession, was the worst it's been since 2004-05, Thompson's first year with the program.

Naturally, Monroe had plenty to do with Georgetown's offensive success. He played a ton of minutes and took a lot of shots, and his ability to score from inside gave the Hoyas an inside-out combo most teams spend years trying to put together.

But Monroe's absence stands to hurt Georgetown's offense far less than it hurts their defense. Consider the players staying in D.C. There's guard Austin Freeman, who had one of the Big East's highest offensive ratings (119.7) among players with at least 20 percent of his team's possessions used. Freeman was among the best shooters in the country last year.

There's guard Chris Wright, whose offensive rating was five points higher than Monroe's (111.7 to 106.2). And there's guard Jason Clark, the team's best shooter, who ranked No. 34 nationally in effective field goal percentage.

Is this a case of Monroe creating opportunities for players to get wide open looks? Or of Monroe's offensive capability being slightly overrated?

Meanwhile, back on the defensive end, the Hoyas were merely average for a couple of reasons. For one, they rarely forced opponents into turnovers. But perhaps more importantly, they allowed offensive rebounders to grab 32.1 percent of their misses, which put them just above average in all of Division I. Why does this matter? Because Monroe accounted for 25.2 percent of those available defensive rebounds, the 26th-best personal mark in the country. No one else on the Hoyas even came close.

Georgetown was always going to be a guard-heavy team in the wake of Monroe's departure; he was their featured big man, and with the possible exception of a few recruits, there isn't anyone capable of filling his large shoes.

But even without Monroe, Georgetown still returns huge chunks of its offensive skill in 2009-10. Where they'll miss Monroe is where they need him most: defense. If Georgetown can recalibrate its defensive style -- maybe utilize a four-guard lineup and press out to 35-feet, which would hopefully force more turnovers -- they could possibly escape last year's fate.

As it stands, the Hoyas seem primed for another season of offensive mastery complimented by just-OK defensive play. Which could be worse, considering last year's season. But without Monroe, "could be worse" could quickly devolve into "just OK," and few Georgetown fans would be quite so happy with that.

NEW YORK -- Terrific first half worthy of the Saturday night bright lights of New York City. I'll be surprised if this doesn't go down to the wire. The teams are both playing too hard and too well for anyone to break ahead by much.

Some quick thoughts about an entertaining 20 minutes:

• West Virginia's ability to own the boards is the slim difference between the two teams. The Mountaineers have 19 rebounds to Georgetown's 11, but more critically WVU has nine offensive rebounds. That's equated to 10 easy points.

• The Mountaineers are getting a well-played game from just about everyone in uniform. I doubt even hard-to-please Bob Huggins will have much to pick apart here. Wellington Smith leads the Mountaineers withe nine points, Joe Mazzulla is directing the offense with authority and Devin Ebanks is commanding the backboards. He has four rebounds already. And of course Da'Sean Butler is doing everything else. He has seven points, two offensive rebounds and an assist.

• The Hoyas aren't as deep, but if anyone thought they'd be tired playing their fourth game in as many days, guess again. With Greg Monroe and Chris Wright leading the push, Georgetown is doing a terrific job running the floor. Monroe's pretty one-handed bounce pass for a crowd-pleasing Wright jam epitomized the level that the two are playing at. Wright has 12 early, Monroe 5 points, 3 rebounds and two assists.

• Georgetown, a better shooting team, hasn't been able to take advantage of its edge at the arc. The Hoyas are 1-for-7 from the arc and Austin Freeman is still looking for his first made 3-pointer of the Big East tournament. He's 0-for-2 tonight. The Hoyas need him to be a threat to stretch the Mountaineer defense.