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It's the day after the draft. For me, that means sitting at my desk, staring at my computer screen, and wondering if what I saw last night unfold last night is really how things went down. In other words, I'm still processing all this.

You know what else the Draft Day Plus 1 means? Listicles. Lots and lots of listicles.

You know what I always say: If you can't beat them -- if you can't think of a similarly efficient content delivery format that doesn't rely so heavily on lists, basically -- join them. Without further ado, here's one of a few college hoops-inclined looks at last night's action. Last but not least: The biggest feel-good picks of the 2011 NBA Draft.

1. Jimmy Butler comes full circle: By now, you've almost certainly heard the story of Jimmy Butler. Still, no matter how many times you read Chad Ford's excellent profile of the newest Chicago Bull -- it's like "The Blind Side" of basketball -- the story doesn't get any less affecting. Still, even before anyone knew his backstory, most college hoops fans respected Butler as an unselfish, versatile worker, a guy who agreed to sublimate his own scoring talent and play out of position in order to help his team win. If you felt some strange twinge of second-hand pride at seeing Butler land a guaranteed contract, well, you weren't the only one.

2. Kenneth Faried's contagious spirit: Watch five minutes of Kenneth Faried playing basketball, and you'll immediately develop an appreciation; Faried competes with the kind of drive few players ever possess, let alone harness. When our own Dana O'Neil spent time with Faried and his family in February, she learned the source of that drive. Faried had a challenging upbringing in rundown Newark and Jersey City. His mother, Waudda, fights an off-and-on battle with lupus that has hospitalized her for months at a time. His transition to college was marked by his effect on others, including a professor who cried when O'Neil asked her about Faried, and who easily recalled an essay he wrote as a freshman on his dream of playing in the NBA. On Thursday night, Faried achieved that dream, doing so in his hometown, surrounded by his family, with his young daughter in his arms. It doesn't get much better than that.

3. Isaiah Thomas proves there's no such thing as Mr. Irrelevant: Year after year, the brash, undersized Washington point guard has listened to people tell him why he wouldn't succeed. Year after year, he's only proved them wrong. Chalk Thursday night up as another chapter in Thomas's saga: Derided by many as too small for the NBA, and criticized by some for leaving school after his junior year, Thomas was indeed drafted anyway. The twist? He had to sweat it out, waiting all the way until the very last pick of the draft to hear his name called. Thomas's next step? Proving he belongs. Would you bet against him?

4. The Morris family's big, bittersweet night: The Morii haven't always been the most sympathetic characters in college hoops, and they certainly weren't shy about their confidence in the weeks before Thursday night's draft. But perhaps only the staunchest Missouri fans could have viewed the twins' back-to-back selections with an acid eye. Surprisingly, Markieff Morris was the first of the two to be selected at No. 13 by the Phoenix Suns. Markieff and his brother hugged, did their patented handshake, and just as Markieff took the stage to shake hands with NBA commissioner David Stern, the camera panned to Marcus, sitting in his chair, crying his eyes out. It was a bittersweet moment. For the first time, the twins -- who have always played, lived, and gotten tattoos together -- will separate. As happy as he must have been, Marcus, who was public in his discomfort with the separation, seemed to be processing that fact for the first time.

Then, with the very next pick, the Houston Rockets selected the other Morris. In that way, the NBA draft was just like the rest of the Morii's lives: They did it together.

5. The Purdue duo reunites: Both Purdue players in the draft, E'Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson, were selected by the Boston Celtics Thursday night. Why is this so cool? It's not just because the two close friends get to keep being teammates. It's also because now, Moore and Johnson -- both of whom are high-character, mild-mannered workers -- will have the chance to chase a title together in the NBA, something Robbie Hummel's cruel ACL tears robbed them of in two straight collegiate seasons at Purdue. Thus far, the Celtics seem intent on keeping both players around, at least for the immediate future. If so, the two could be key role players in Boston's last-ditch attempt at an NBA title run in 2012. How cool is that?

It's the day after the draft. For me, that means sitting at my desk, staring at my computer screen, and wondering if what I saw last night unfold last night is really how things went down. In other words, I'm still processing all this.

You know what else the Draft Day Plus 1 means? Listicles. Lots and lots of listicles.

You know what I always say: If you can't beat them -- if you can't think of a similarly efficient content delivery format that doesn't rely so heavily on lists, basically -- join them. Without further ado, here's one of a few college hoops-inclined looks at last night's action. Next up: The biggest college winners drafted in the second round.

NBA general managers frequently pay homage to the idea of intangibles. They praise players for character, for motor, for having accomplished things during their amateur careers. Then, when the draft clock winds down, those same GMs just as frequently ignore that lip service in favor of drafting the best athlete, or the high-risk, high-reward talent, or the latest 7-foot European sensation.

That's part of the reason why, if you compare the two rounds of last night's NBA draft, you might find just as many -- if not more -- college hoops wins in the second round as the first. There were a lot of awfully successful college hoopsters drafted in the latter round last night. Here's a few of them.

1. Kyle Singler, forward, Duke, No. 33: If it wasn't for Nolan Smith being drafted in the first round (Smith went surprisingly early to the Trail Blazers at No. 21), the Duke duo may have tipped the college wins scale fully in the favor of the second round. As it is, Singler stands alone atop this list for his unparalleled college success. Singler was a key contributor in all four of his years at Duke, and in that span the Blue Devils never won fewer than 28 games during his tenure, and they never lost more than seven games in any season. His career record? 125-23. Oh, and there was that 2010 national title, too. Detroit Pistons GM Joe Dumars values character and experience, and he may have been elated that Singler's shooting woes and tweener issues kept him available until the second round.

2. Shelvin Mack, guard, Butler, No. 34: The Washington Wizards drew praise from all corners for their draft selections Thursday night. That praise was cemented when the Wizards landed Mack just one pick after Singler's selection in the second round. Mack's accomplishments in his three years at Butler speak for themselves: An 87-21 record, three straight Horizon League titles, a variety of individual regular season and postseason awards, and, most importantly, a penchant for turning his game on in March. Mack helped engineer two of the most unlikely postseason runs in NCAA tournament history as a sophomore and junior, and with his combination of outside shooting, distribution and lockdown defense, the Bulldogs finished as NCAA runners-up two years in a row.

3. E'Twaun Moore, guard, Purdue, No. 55: The NBA draft coincidence of the night -- assuming the Celtics didn't plan this out -- was seeing Purdue forward JaJuan Johnson and former teammate E'Twaun Moore both land on the same team in Boston. Johnson was selected in the first round, and Moore was taken in the second, but it's not unfair to say Moore might make an easier and more immediate transition to the pros. At the very least, the Celtics know Moore was a quietly effective, consistent collegiate winner. He helped lead Purdue to four straight plus-25-win seasons, became the fourth player in Big Ten history to notch at least 2,000 points, 500 rebounds and 350 assists, and was one of the reasons the Boilermakers were on the precipice of national title runs in 2010 and 2011 before Robbie Hummel's untimely injuries. Moore, Johnson and Hummel led something of a hoops renaissance under Matt Painter at Purdue, and if I'm an NBA GM, that sort of pedigree is worth a pick any day.

4. Jon Leuer, forward, Wisconsin, No. 40: As go Bo Ryan's teams, so go Bo Ryan's players. Or maybe that's the other way around. However you choose to view it, the bottom line is that Wisconsin wins -- incredibly, Ryan has still never finished worse than fourth in the Big Ten -- as consistently as any program in the country. In the past four years, that winning has had much to do with the play of Jon Leuer, who, in typical Wisconsin fashion, morphed from a so-so prospect into one of the most efficient players in college basketball in his final two seasons. Quiet effectiveness in a versatile 7-foot frame? Yes please.

5. Jon Diebler, guard, Ohio State, No. 51: With apologies to Isaiah Thomas, who snuck into the draft with the final pick in the second round last night (and who might have snuck onto this list if we didn't think Washington limped through so much of their 2010-11 season), Diebler gets the nod at the fifth spot here. The Buckeyes guard had the benefit of playing with some very talented players in his days at Ohio State, but it's worth noting that Diebler wasn't always the hypereffective outside shooter we now know. As a freshman, he shot 29 percent from 3. As a sophomore, he had improved that mark to 42 percent. By the time he was a senior, Diebler was the most dangerous perimeter shooter in the country, making 50 percent (!) of his threes and posting -- check out these stats -- an offensive rating of 140.6 (No. 1 in the country), an effective field goal percentage of 70.6 (No. 2 in the country) and a true shooting percentage of 72.3 (No. 1 in the country). Having Evan Turner and Jared Sullinger finding you for open shots in back to back years is a blessing. But it's a blessing Diebler exploited like few other players in the country. There's no reason to expect anything less in the NBA.

Rapper Wiz Khalifa performed at Purdue in a concert that doubled as a farewell to departing star seniors E'Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson on Thursday.

According to the Purdue Exponent, the players helped make the concert attended by about 3,000 students happen by working their connections.

Khalifa, who met Johnson and Moore three years ago at Indiana University's Little 500 race, watched them during the NCAA tournament.

"He definitely knows who they are," said DaJaun Watkins, concert manager. "He was rooting for the guys all the way."

Johnson told Watkins that after four years of hard work, he and Moore wanted to have fun but still be connected to Purdue after graduation.

"They wanted to go out senior year with a bang, so Wiz it was," Watkins said.

Khalifa, known for his ubiquitous hit "Black and Yellow," also apparently inspired Moore and Johnson this season. According to The Exponent, their motto has been "Boiler Gang Over Everythang," a nod to Khalifa's Taylor Gang fan club.

Senior basketball forward Robbie Hummel knew about senior forward/center JaJuan Johnson and senior guard E'Twaun Moore's motto, "Boiler Gang Over Everythang," long before it became the show's official slogan.

"They always wrote (the slogan) in the locker room before games and stuff," Hummel said. "I was like, 'I don't know who that is.'"

Seeing the slogan they coined plastered on concert T-shirts and tickets left Moore and Johnson in all smiles.

The only problem with all this? Khalifa also inspired a theme song remix for VCU, the team with similar colors that ended the careers of those Purdue seniors in the NCAA tournament.

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.

Yes, the 2011 John R. Wooden Award finalists are here. The award is organized by the Los Angeles Athletic Club and voted on by "nearly 1,000 members of the media that cover college basketball," and if you're surprised at the idea that there are 1,000 college hoops writers in the world, well, you're not the only one. (Lots of those ballots go to columnists and generalists who don't specifically cover the sport year-round ... but that's a topic for another blog post on another day.)

Who made the cut? The list is below, and it includes pretty much everyone you'd expect from a list of college hoops' best and brighest individual stars. The rundown:

• Marshon Brooks, guard, Providence
• Alec Burks, guard, Colorado
• Norris Cole, guard, Cleveland State
• Kenneth Faried, forward, Morehead State
• Jimmer Fredette* guard, Brigham Young
• Jordan Hamilton, forward, Texas
• Ben Hansbrough, guard, Notre Dame
• Dwight Hardy, guard, St. John’s
• JaJuan Johnson, guard Purdue Big Ten
• Kawhi Leonard, forward, San Diego State
• Jon Leuer, forward, Wisconsin
• E’Twaun Moore, guard, Purdue
• Marcus Morris, forward, Kansas
• Jacob Pullen, guard, Kansas State
• Kyle Singler, forward, Duke
• Nolan Smith, guard, Duke
• Jared Sullinger, forward, Ohio State
• Jordan Taylor, guard, Wisconsin
• Kemba Walker, guard, Connecticut
• Derrick Williams, forward, Arizona

Well, done, Los Angeles Athletic Club. That is a borderline peerless list.

But it isn't perfect. The most notable omission (perhaps the only notable omission) is Kentucky forward Terrence Jones, who has been one of the best players in the country throughout the season. Ken Pomeroy's latest player of the year award list ranks Jones as the eighth-most productive player in the country this season, and while Pomeroy's POY metric doesn't account entirely for the defensive side of the ball, player of the year awards are never all that concerned with the defensive end -- Brooks and Burks probably wouldn't be on the list above if they were -- so Pomeroy's list is as good a statistical look as we have. And, well, yeah: Jones should be among the Wooden candidates. There's really no getting around it.

That said, his omission isn't criminal. Jones deserves some POY consideration, but let's be real: He's not winning the award. Nor are 19 of the players listed above. Unless something radical changes, Fredette is going to win the Wooden and Naismith player of the year awards. If the voting does change anytime soon, the award is likely to go to Walker, Smith, or Sullinger.

In other words, this list has all the usual suspects. We'll see if any of the candidates has time to unseat the Jimmer in the weeks to come. It's unlikely ... but, hey, you never know.

Five observations from the week that was:

1. Let’s call the whole No. 1 debate off. Thanks to Purdue’s collective toughness and E'Twaun Moore’s singular brilliance, Ohio State lost for the second time in eight days Sunday. But the Buckeyes weren’t the only likely No. 1 seed to lose this week, or even this weekend. On Saturday, Texas fell at Nebraska and Pittsburgh fell at St. John’s ... all of which was preceded by Kansas’ loss at Kansas State on Big Monday. In other words, the best four teams in the nation -- or what we thought were the best four teams in the nation -- all lost this week.

Naturally, this is likely to spark some discussion both before and after the polls are released Monday afternoon. Last week, yours truly spent too much time debating the various merits of the AP and coaches’ polls, but that’s because those polls deserved to be debated. (I didn’t think Kansas was a clear No. 1 over Ohio State and Texas, and I hate the fact that pollsters just automatically move a team up or down based on who lost most recently. Ugh.) This week? Try as you might, it’s pretty tough to argue that any of the top six teams in the nation -- OSU, Kansas, Texas, Duke, Pittsburgh, San Diego State -- are obviously better or more deserving of the current No. 1 ranking than any of the others.

Pick your cliche: “parity,” “no great teams,” whatever you prefer. Whatever overriding theme you think produces this top-tier equality, let’s just all agree that we’re not going to know which team is best -- or whether a “great team” does in fact exist this season -- until the Final Four is done and decided. In the meantime, we can probably find other stuff to argue about, yes?

2. Derrick Williams deserves more player of the year love. This is not a new thing. Williams has been touted here and elsewhere for his incredible efficiency since, oh, December. But it remains true, especially after the sophomore’s primetime coming-out party in Arizona’s huge win over Washington on Saturday. Williams scored 26 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, but it was his monstrous, out-of-nowhere block in the closing seconds that effectively sealed the win for the Wildcats. He wasn’t perfect -- he had seven turnovers, after all -- but all in all, Williams proved why efficiency-minded folks have been so high on him for months, and why NBA GMs are going to be drooling if they have the chance to select him this summer.

3. The Missouri Valley Conference is a one-bid league. We learned this Friday and Saturday, when the MVC went 3-7 in some crucial (and some not-so-crucial) BracketBusters matchups. Losers included the MVC’s top six teams – one-time at-large hopefuls such as Wichita State, Missouri State, Northern Iowa were all among the losers. Those losses at the top -- especially for the Shockers and Bears -- will almost certainly doom the Missouri Valley to one-bid status when the committee sits down to select and seed the field in March.

4. Michigan State could make a run. OK, OK, I know: We do this every year. But no season in recent Tom Izzo vintage has been quite the roller coaster this season has been, and given where the Spartans were two weeks ago -- getting blown out at Iowa and never competing at Wisconsin -- it’s hard to argue this team hasn’t turned some sort of corner. Michigan State has won two of its past three, including nice home wins over Illinois and Penn State, and the loss in that stretch was a close, hard-fought defeat to Ohio State in Columbus. After that game, Izzo told the media the Spartans “ain’t dead yet.” A few weeks ago, we wouldn’t have believed him. Now? We’ve learned to temper our expectations -- this team will never justify its No. 2 preseason ranking, and it probably isn’t going to the Final Four -- but it’s hard to disagree about there still being some life left.

5. Illinois still hasn’t figured it all out. The Fighting Illini were again underwhelming in the aforementioned loss to Michigan State on Saturday, scoring .93 points per possession thanks to some substandard shooting, lack of interior rebounding and an inability to get to the free throw line against MSU’s usually physical defense. In other words, Illinois lacked toughness, which has been one of Bruce Weber’s criticisms of this team throughout its struggles in January and February. The Illini have lost seven of their past 11, and if it wasn’t for a 54-52 squeaker over Michigan at home Wednesday night, that tally would look even worse. (And Illinois would be on the bubble.) As it is, the Illini are almost certainly going to get in the tournament, but if they want to go far, they’ll need to get more from their frontcourt. The good news is Demetri McCamey -- who faced his own criticism from Weber this week for letting “outside influences” distract him -- seems to have found his shot again. If Illinois wants to turn all that talent into something resembling what most of us expected, it will have to hope McCamey can put it all together sometime soon. If not, this team (like so many of the Big Ten’s middle-pack) may be doomed to disappoint. In many ways, it already has.

E'Twaun Moore scores 38 points, lifting the Boilermakers to a huge home victory.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The intent was to pose the question delicately, to gently ask Aaron Craft whether or not he wondered if people thought Ohio State assumed the No. 1 ranking rather than ascended to it.

Instead, Craft cut away the pretense and the politeness. “Yeah, like we’re there by default,’’ he said.

Well yeah, like that.

“There are always going to be people who doubts whoever is at the top,’’ the OSU freshman said. “We don’t really worry about that. We can’t change what people think.’’

Actually, maybe Ohio State can.

And did.

The Buckeyes’ 87-64 thumping/throttling/thrashing -- pick your painful verb of choice -- of Purdue should at least cause the critics to pause. This was a demolition derby destruction of what many people considered the second-best team in the Big Ten, a team that came to Columbus with just one conference loss and a No. 12 ranking.

And the Bucks treated the Boilermakers like an exhibition game opponent.

While the rest of the country sputtered and spurted its way through the past few days -- down goes Kansas, Syracuse swoons to its third loss in a row, Pitt loses at home -- Ohio State counter-punched with its best effort of the season.

Maybe its best game in years.

After feasting on the weaker half of the Big Ten, the Buckeyes now are starting to chomp away at the upper echelon and the wins have become more, not less, impressive. The comeback against Illinois on the road showed this team’s tenacity and the overpowering win here showed its might.

And whether they were trying to send a message or not, consecutive win No. 21 was a resounding statement to the critics who didn’t believe the Buckeyes really had the stuff of a No. 1.

“We gave a loaded answer to those questions,’’ said OSU freshman Jared Sullinger, who had 17 points and seven rebounds in 27 minutes.

The players and Thad Matta waxed eloquent about the double effort the Buckeyes gave, a smothering effort on the defensive end and an equally overwhelming job on the offensive side.

No question, they were right.

The Boilermakers looked almost tentative in the face of Ohio State’s swarm, wheezing themselves into a 22-9 hole early. The Bucks all but conceded that JaJuan Johnson and E'Twaun Moore would get theirs -- and they did, Johnson with 22 and Moore with 16 -- but after that?

Nothing.

The rest of the Boilers shot 11-of-33.

And using that defense to spur the offense, the Buckeyes blistered a Purdue team that routinely hangs its hat on defense.

The Boilermakers came in ranked 12th in the nation in scoring defense, allowing only 59.4 points a game. Ohio State hung 87 on them, the most points a Purdue team has given up in nearly two years, dating back to an 87-78 loss to Michigan on Feb. 26, 2009.

“We were all about defense in this game,’’ Sullinger said. “As long as we defend, we can be a very special team.’’

But perhaps the most telling number was this one: six. That’s how many Ohio State players finished in double-figures. Fairly or unfairly, these Buckeyes have been regarded as Jared Sullinger and his Backup Singers. The fabulous freshman has earned every bit of the attention he’s been granted, but the big boy’s big numbers have cast a shadow over his teammates.

In theory, you stop Sullinger and you can stop the Buckeyes.

And you can now put that theory right next to that flat Earth notion.

To start the game, Purdue doubled Sullinger every time he touched the ball, with Travis Carroll taking Sullinger on in the post and Johnson sliding down to help.

Except along with being a load under the basket, Sullinger is also a deft passer -- “He’s wise behind his years the way he can pass,’’ David Lighty said -- and he’s perfectly content to be unselfish.

So every time, Sullinger merely kicked the ball out and almost every time, his wide-open shooters sunk their wide-open 3-point shots. Ohio State hit 5 of 6 from behind the arc out of the gate and finished 11-of-19 for the game. (It got so silly that even Sullinger got in the action. He hit a trey himself.)

“There’s no absolute on how to defend him,’’ Purdue coach Matt Painter said of Sullinger. “If you’re able to get into him and pressure him, you might be able to disrupt him. But if you don’t, that’s how they start picking you apart and they get into that flow.’’

William Buford was the recipient of much of Sullinger’s benevolence. The junior finished with a team-high 19 points, draining 5 of 6 from 3, as well as a lesson on the use of the ellipses from his coach.

Buford twisted his ankle in the Buckeyes’ win at Illinois on Saturday. X-rays revealed no problems and Matta dismissed it as ‘nothing major’ on the Big Ten conference call on Monday. Still, the coach wanted to make sure Buford was all right before the team’s shootaround on Tuesday.

“I sent him a text and asked how he was feeling,’’ Matta said. “And he wrote back, ‘A little sore, dot, dot dot.’’ I said, ‘You don’t dot dot dot me. So we had a long conversation about what dot dot dot means.’’

A delighted Matta admitted he’d never seen quite a box score like the one laid before him after the game -- “It’s rare because I’ve never seen 21-0 before,’’ he said -- and was quick to caution people to not judge Purdue on this loss.

He was, however, less eager to put this win into context for Ohio State.

But Matta is no dummy. He knows he has something special here.

This is a team that is supposed to be wilting under the pressure of a No. 1 ranking and an undefeated record and instead in the postgame, the Buckeyes were promising (threatening?) that more scoreboard music videos were coming.

They are either blissfully ignorant of what they are doing or completely unaffected.

“I think where they have us right now, we are being judged,’’ Matta said.

True, but perhaps a little less harshly now.

Saddle Up is our semi-daily preview of the night's best basketball action. It thinks you should check out Quickish, because Quickish is pretty great.

No. 8 Purdue at No. 25 Minnesota, 7 p.m. EST, ESPN: Minnesota forward Trevor Mbakwe spent time in jail this week. For a while there, it appeared Mbakwe -- who missed all of last season while facing felony battery charges stemming from a incident during his time at Miami-Dade Community College -- was not only jeopardizing Minnesota's once-promising season with yet another legal foul-up, but nearing the brink of personal and professional destruction. And all because of Facebook.

A few days later, and Minnesota's season outlook doesn't look nearly as bleak. As it turns out, Mbakwe's message to his ex-girlfriend was inadvisable and nothing more. No, Mbakwe shouldn't have attempted to contact someone who went to very obvious legal means to prevent such contact. But the message in question -- an apology, followed by some boilerplate "hope you're doing OK, everything's good here" ex-boyfriend-style stuff -- was hardly the worst thing in the world.

In the end, Mbakwe -- Minnesota's best player -- won't miss any games. He's been relegated to the bench for tonight's home game against Purdue, but will suffer little else in the way of discipline. That's good news for him, and good news for the Gophers. Why? Tubby Smith's team has officially reached "go-time."

The Gophers haven't begun the Big Ten season well, but that's arguably more a product of a front-loaded schedule than any indictment of the team's performance to date. Minnesota has played at Wisconsin, at Michigan State, and at Ohio State, with only a brief home respite vs. Indiana sandwiched in between. That's probably the toughest four-game slate of Minnesota's schedule, and its record has suffered accordingly. But it's not time to panic yet.

Nor will it be time to panic if Minnesota loses tonight's home game with Purdue. While Smith's team has been struggling, Purdue has been playing some of the best major-conference basketball in the country. The Boilermakers have added a third scorer -- standstill sharpshooter Ryne Smith -- to the potent inside-out attack of dueling Big Ten player of the year candidates E'Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson, and that combination has been lethal so far. Home or not, this is a tough draw for Minnesota, a team that hasn't performed nearly as well as Purdue on a per-possession basis inside its league or out.

In other words, this isn't a must-win. Minnesota has plenty of easier opponents left. But it feels like an important game for these Gophers, not only because of Mbakwe's legal scare this week. A win against Purdue would boost Minnesota's reputation in ways we haven't seen since the team's strong run through the Puerto Rico Invitational in November. It would announce the Gophers yet again as a team to be reckoned with in the Big Ten, as a vastly improved bunch capable of hanging with the Big Ten's elite. And, perhaps most importantly, it would be a nice springboard for the rest of January, when Minnesota will play vs. Iowa, at Michigan, and vs. Northwestern in its next three games.

Everyone's been getting in on the conference road-loss game. This week has seen a multitude of top teams lose to strong opponents on the road. The same thing can happen tonight, and even if the Gophers still have plenty of time to sort through this jumbled mess of a season, well, what better time to start than now?

Everywhere else: Quality ACC game alert (I feel the need to write "alert," because it doesn't happen often this season): Virginia Tech and North Carolina will duel over second-tier league supremacy in Chapel Hill on Thursday night. ... No. 18 Washington continues its impressive run through the Pac-10 thus far with a game at 9-5 Stanford tonight. ... Providence travels to West Virginia for a nationally televised (ESPN2) Big East contest. ... Kevin Anderson and company will look to stay perfect in the A-10 when Rhode Island visits Richmond. ... Old Dominion and Drexel square off in the best mid-major game of the night, and one that could eventually decide the Colonial's regular-season title. ... UCLA will try to avoid the problems that befall other teams against Oregon State when the Bruins travel to Corvallis, Ore. ... USC will hope it enters the Matthew Knight Arena history books as the first team to beat the Ducks in their shiny new arena. ... Washington State is one of the few non-Washington teams in the title chase; the Cougars play at Cal. ... And if you thought Mississippi State, and not Mississippi, would be the team with a better record by the time these two met, you weren't the only one. Instead, thanks in large part to the messy Renardo Sidney situation, the Bulldogs are the unlikely underdogs.

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• Purdue seniors E'Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson have been great all year. That's no secret. Also no secret is that Purdue's offense has stalled in games when only Moore and Johnson were able to produce. Without Robbie Hummel, the Boilermakers have to get consistent scoring elsewhere, whether as a group effort or from a designated third option. They may just have found it in guard Ryne Smith. So sayeth the Big Ten Geeks, who broke down Purdue's convincing win at Penn State Wednesday and Smith's contributions therein today: "Penn State's 2-3 zone was fairly effective for stretches, especially in the first half when JaJuan Johnson got only two shot attempts that weren't following an offensive rebound--and one of those shots was a three. It looked like a good defensive strategy at times, but Purdue has a zone-buster that is absolutely unconscious right now in Ryne Smith. The junior guard played his role--knocking down standstill threes--to the tune of 20 points on just 5 shots. Smith is now 12 for 18 from three (67 percent) in Big Ten play. That won't continue, but it's clear that Smith's former accuracy issues (29.6 percent coming into the season) are now behind him."
• Basketball Prospectus's Kevin Pelton writes that Washington should be able to replace the injured Abdul Gaddy's productivity by moving Isaiah Thomas to the point and filling in scoring needs with a variety of bench contributors: "While Gaddy starts, he’s part of a relatively even timeshare with Venoy Overton, who played the stretch run during last week’s overtime win at USC. Lorenzo Romar may want to keep Overton in a reserve role, where his energy can change games, but the senior is capable of ramping up his playing time to help cover the loss of Gaddy. The bigger change for the Huskies will be Isaiah Thomas playing regular minutes at point guard. Though Thomas is a candidate for the Cousy Award, he has almost exclusively played the two. But Thomas has improved his playmaking this season–his assist rate has improved from 19.5 to 23.3, not far behind Gaddy (24.8) and Overton (25.1)–and Washington is often more difficult to guard with Thomas at the point because that means putting another shooter on the floor. In Scott Suggs, Terrence Ross and C.J. Wilcox, the Huskies have three reserve wings worthy of being part of the rotation. Suggs and Wilcox boast True Shooting Percentages above 60 percent, while Ross has been prolific at average efficiency."
• Luke Winn profiles Ohio State's offense, which is freaky good because OSU does something most teams can't. They simultaneously force turnovers (typically the provenance of aggressive, foul-prone teams) but commit fouls at the lowest rate in the nation.
• Believe it or not, Karen Cunagin Sypher simply refuses -- literally and figuratively -- to go away.
• Gary Parrish thinks Tennessee is one of those teams that plays up, and down, to its competition. Maybe so, but the Vols have plenty of underlying problems -- poor shooting, for one -- that have hurt them in games against good and bad teams alike.
• Rob Dauster pokes a bevy of holes in Rick Stansbury's lame, excuse-filled news conference yesterday.
• Bylaw Blogger John Infante discusses soul-crushing compliance days, the NCAA's general regulation strategy, and why reform calls for immediate, not delayed, action: "It’s that developing a whole new strategy is going to take time, and time is not on the NCAA’s side. Every year that passes without a consistent direction in men’s basketball recruiting reform is a year that the NCAA loses ground to the people they are combating. As the NCAA reviews the landscape, nefarious third-parties think up new ways to control the college decisions of prospects and profit from that control. Without spending enough time, perhaps years getting the membership on board, the legislation that comes out of this review as early as next August will suffer the same fate as the legislation proposed by the Board of Directors last year. A cohesive plan is picked apart by the membership who adopts the proposals it likes and discards the rest."
• You may have missed this in the midst of the Jimmer festivities last night, but Kyle Singler became college basketball's latest 2,000-point career scorer in Duke's easy win over UAB Wednesday night.
• Ken Pomeroy updates his kPOY list. Jared Sullinger is still tops, but as Pomeroy writes: "Let’s own up to it -- this year’s player of the year race is still open to be claimed and to me, that feels somewhat unusual for January. Most of the players in the chase for the inaugural kPOY had rather sluggish efforts coming out of the holiday break. This opened the door for something like E’Twaun Moore’s 31-point effort against Northwestern, which vaulted him from obscurity to a legitimate kPOY candidate. However, based on what we saw against Iowa last night, I’d still be shocked if Jared Sullinger doesn’t stay at the top of the list from here on out."
• And, of course, some ESPN stuff: Here's my Big 12 Primer just in time for the start of conference opens play this week, as well as Diamond on the Mountain West, Andy on Conference USA, and Dana on the Atlantic-10; Be sure to check out Dana's fantastic profile of UAB guard Aaron Johnson, who currently leads the nation in assists; and here's Fran Fraschilla's interesting breakdown of the Big East.

It's not quite on par with "Robbie Hummel is out for the season," but Purdue's latest injury news isn't exactly thrilling, either.

Guard John Hart, who had emerged as the Boilermakers' leading scorer among players not named E'Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson, will miss at least a month with a stress fracture in his right foot, according to the AP. Hart will have surgery this week and attempt to get healthy in time to return for the spring semester and the Big Ten season and tournament pushes that come along with it.

Is this injury a big deal? Not compared to Hummel's, of course. But for the time being, it is wholly discouraging. Purdue has struggled any time it's played against a remotely capable defense, and those offensive issues are not likely to be resolved with an emerging third scorer losing a month with a stress fracture. Toss in guard D.J. Byrd's shoulder injury, which limited him to two minutes in Purdue's win against Alabama on Saturday, and you've got a recipe for more stagnant play.

Looking at the schedule, though, it's not hard to see why Hart and his school chose to operate now. The Boilermakers' last four nonconference games in December are at Valparaiso, vs. North Florida, vs. Indiana State, and vs. IPFW. Purdue's first Big Ten game comes Dec. 28 at Michigan. That's not the most daunting stretch of all-time, and you'd imagine these Boilermakers handling it just fine with or without Hart in the lineup.

When he returns? Then we'll see. In the meantime, Purdue is going to have to find some supplementary offense somewhere. Hart's injury is undoubtedly a setback, even if it's a well-timed one.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. -- Weeks after star forward Robbie Hummel tears his ACL, Purdue limps to a brutal first-half performance and a disappointing loss against a sneakily good team.

Sound familiar?

It should. After all, the Boilermakers have been here before.

Purdue's 14-point first half against Richmond in the Chicago Invitational Challenge on Saturday was eerily reminiscent of last season's March 13 loss to Minnesota in the Big Ten tournament, when the Boilers famously scored a mere 11 points in a blowout.

This time around, Purdue scored a mere 14 points in the first half. The Boilers shot 4-of-25 from the field in that span -- good for a blistering 16 percent -- missed all seven of their 3-point attempts, and generally looked disjointed, stagnant, and far too reliant on one-on-one play to get decent looks at the bucket.

It was not a pretty performance, and the result -- an ugly 65-54 loss -- served as dual notice: Richmond is a team to be reckoned with, and Purdue still has plenty of figuring out to do.

"If you throw out strategy in this game, and you just simply asked who played harder, who was quicker to the ball, who rebounded, who wanted it more, all those answers are Richmond," Purdue coach Matt Painter said.

"I told our guys: [Richmond] didn't play well," Painter said. "They played hard ... but they didn't shoot the ball as well as they were capable of. I told our guys this could have been a lot worse than it was."

The main question for last season's Boilermakers team was how to generate offense without Hummel's ability to score, rebound, and facilitate. In 2010-11, the question -- one the Boilers have spent much of the time since Hummel's injury discussing -- is already rearing its ugly head.

Saturday night wasn't the first time Painter's players have struggled to score, but it was the first time they did so against a team capable of maintaining its own lead throughout the second half. It would be foolish to lay all the blame for the loss at Purdue's feet; that would discredit Richmond's impressive defensive performance, anchored by a matchup zone that kept E'Twaun Moore and company out of the lane.

It would also ignore Richmond guard Kevin Anderson, the reigning A-10 player of the year and one of the more underrated players in college basketball. (For example: How many people could tell you who the best player on Richmond is? Or who won A-10 Player of the Year last season? Exactly.) Anderson is instant offense, the kind of pure scorer who can beat any defender off the dribble, get in the lane, and drain mid-range floaters with intuitive ease.

He did that -- and plenty more -- on Saturday. Anderson finished the game with 28 points, five rebounds and tournament MVP honors. His offensive brilliance helped Richmond build its steady lead, and his quickness with the ball in the open court made it impossible for Purdue to trap the ball and produce turnovers with the full-court press late in the game.

"Everyone should know how good Kevin Anderson is," Richmond coach Chris Mooney said. "He's done that against everyone, in every situation, every kind of environment, even when they know how good he is. He's really a special player."

Neither Anderson nor the Spiders looked like the scrappy underdog here in the Chicago suburbs. They were the more composed, veteran bunch, and their athletic ability and defensive prowess bode well for another successful A-10 campaign and NCAA tournament appearance. If the Spiders keep beating ranked teams -- they've won six out of nine games against ranked teams in three years under Mooney -- the hoops world will be forced to take even greater notice.

"This was a marquee win for us," Anderson said. "We've had a lot big wins in the past, and this win solidified that this year."

In other words, Purdue fans might not want to freak out just yet. The Boilermakers lost to a good team led by a great point guard in front of a tiny crowd on a neutral floor in late November; the loss doesn't exactly doom the team's season to failure. But there are disconcerting signs at work in West Lafayette, Ind. -- shooting and offensive rebounding chief among them -- and in their first real test of the season, this team decidedly failed.

"Sure, it concerns you," Painter said. "Any time you have bad starts three games in a row ... just trying to execute to get better shots is important.

"The thing that kind of frustrates you a little bit is when you have good shooters taking shots and just not making them," Painter continued. "In those two other games with Oakland and Southern Illinois [both Purdue wins], we eventually started making those shots. Tonight we didn't."

Nor did Purdue get second chances once those shots clanged off the rim. The Boilermakers grabbed only three offensive rebounds in the first half; they grabbed a mere 13 percent of available offensive boards in that span.

Things didn't improve much in the early goings of the second half, either. Painter's team started the half with a contested, hesitating 3 from guard Terone Johnson on offense, and then allowed Anderson to grab an offensive rebound and putback in the lane. Painter immediately called a timeout and it was already clear a sudden second-half turnaround wasn't in the cards.

Purdue did eventually show signs of life. A couple of 3-pointers fell -- the first came with 12 minutes left in the second half, and several followed it -- and Moore and Johnson began to assert more influence on the game with penetration and offensive rebounding, respectively. But Anderson's offensive brilliance, coupled with the athletic interior play of forward Justin Harper, was enough to keep the Boilers from ever seriously threatening to overtake the lead.

In the meantime, Purdue's two stars never did get it going. Moore finished 4-for-17 from the field. Johnson finished 4-for-11.

Last March, Purdue did eventually figure things out. Without Hummel, Painter eschewed the offensive glass in favor of a conservative defensive style, and while Purdue took a dip on the offensive end, they finished No. 3 in the nation in defensive efficiency and made a somewhat surprising run to the Sweet 16.

This season, the story is the same, even if conditions have changed. In addition to Hummel, the Boilermakers lost Chris Kramer to graduation. Kramer's ability to lock down opposing stars was sorely missed Saturday night. And while they face a similar Hummel-less challenge as last season, the timing of the forward's second injury gives them much more time to congeal as a team without him. All is not lost.

The good news for Painter and company? It's still early. Very early. Purdue still has plenty of time to figure how to get buckets without Hummel, and the Johnson/Moore combo isn't going to go 8-for-28 all too often.

But the moral of the story is the same: Without Hummel in the lineup, Purdue's offense struggles.

The Boilermakers have been here before. And as Saturday night showed us, losing Robbie Hummel isn't any easier a second time around.

Robbie Hummel isn't giving up on college basketball. Instead, according to his father, Glenn Hummel, Robbie is likely to rehab his knee, enroll in graduate school at Purdue, and return for the 2011-12 season. The plan for now, according to Glenn, is to wait until the swelling goes down and have surgery over Thanksgiving break, when Hummel won't have to miss classes.

The silver lining, if you can really call it that, is that the timing of the injury and surgery will give the Purdue forward a much more forgiving rehab timeline. Instead of attempting to get floor-ready in seven months, Hummel will have almost 12.

And, in other good news, Hummel appears to be doing OK with the injury.

"I just got off the phone with Rob, and he is doing surprisingly well," Glenn Hummel said. "In fact, he was headed to a group project meeting for one of his classes.

"He is getting around OK and going to practice [as a spectator]. It's a shame, because he was on target . . . moving better and shooting well. Don't write him off just yet. The tough thing is that he won't finish his Purdue career with JaJuan [Johnson] and E'Twaun [Moore]."

Given the ultra-depressing way he's suffered his back-to-back ACL tears -- the first a few weeks before a promising NCAA tournament run, the second a few weeks before a promising NCAA title-potential senior season -- that's pretty admirable. It's also good news for Purdue, because having Robbie Hummel back for another year can only be a boost for your team.

Still, there's no getting around the last part of Glenn Hummel's quote. Robbie won't be finishing his career with Johnson and Moore. He won't be a part of this year's team, and Johnson and Moore won't be a part of the 2011-12 Boilermakers, a team that will look much different from the trio-led groups we've seen in West Lafayette, Ind. over the past three years.

This year's Purdue team might not take as much of a dip as some people think; the Boilermakers have much more time to adjust to Hummel's absence this year, and the replacement-level play they get from their band of reserves and incoming freshmen should keep them hovering around the top 15 for much of the season. It'd be a mistake to write off Purdue in 2010-11, and it'd be a mistake to write off Hummel in 2011-12.

It's good to hear we haven't seen the last of Hummel yet. But, still: Depressing stuff.

What was the first thing you thought when you heard the news? If you're like me, your immediate, gut-level reaction to news of Robbie Hummel's re-torn ACL Saturday morning was: "That's that."

Before the injury, Purdue was a legitimate Final Four contender and one of the few teams in the country with enough talent and pedigree to unseat Duke, the consensus national title favorite. After the injury, those dreams are over. Purdue will be good, but not great. The season will be nice, but not remarkable. That, as they say, was that.

That reaction is probably right. If you're a Purdue fan, it's also untenable. Perhaps the most depressing thing about Hummel's injury -- beyond the fact that a kid like Hummel has to go through this brutal Sisyphean rehab process again -- is that it rips the heart out of the Boilermakers' entire winter before the winter even had a chance to get started. It's only Oct. 16. We just had Midnight Madness. And Purdue fans are supposed to come to grips with the fact that their team's season is essentially over. How tough is that?

It's kind of encouraging, then, to see that not all Purdue fans are just going to tuck their tails between their legs and give up. (That's probably what I would do.) That's the message at Hammer and Rails, where BoilerTMill describes hearing the news at the Purdue-Minnesota game Saturday. Mr. Mills was tearing up before he went and sat with a friend in the student section, where he found himself taking a more optimistic tack.

Why the optimism? There are some silver linings in the way Hummel's injury happened. For one, its early timing gives coach Matt Painter an extended preseason opportunity. He can slot players in, find things that work, change the balance between JaJuan Johnson and E'Twaun Moore on offense. The Boilers don't have to rush to figure out their post-Hummel identity, the way they did during last year's ugly late-season and Big Ten tournament appearances.

Purdue also has some depth to work with. Young players like Sandi Marcius and Travis Carroll can be rebounding threats. Patrick Bade, a solid recruit from last year's class, has reportedly been making vast improvements this offseason, and Kelsey Barlow is athletic enough to replicate Hummel's face-up stretch forward style.

Plus, you know, it's not like the Boilermakers just lost their only star. Seniors Johnson and Moore are two of the Big Ten's -- and nation's -- best players, and if you'd never heard the name "Robbie Hummel," you'd probably still like this team to contend for the conference title.

All is not lost. Yes, Purdue could have had That Year in 2010-11, a historic culmination of so much recent effort and long-term program-building. The chances of That Year happening now are pretty slim. Hummel is that good. But that doesn't mean Purdue can't have an awfully good year anyway.

Pity them if you want, but ignore them at your own peril. A great team just lost its best player. A very good team just got something to prove. If Purdue's season is now over, I'm betting Painter and company won't get that memo.

This intrepid blogger did his Big Ten previewing bit yesterday (here's the Big Ten Shootaround, and the Big Ten best case/worst case) and while I spent a decent number of words singing the praises of Purdue guard E'Twaun Moore, I totally missed this statistic, and now I'm sort of angry about it. From Gary Parrish:

[...] the 6-foot-4 guard is on pace to become just the second Big Ten student-athlete to ever score 2,000 points, grab 500 rebounds and record 400 assists in a career. The first was Michigan State legend Steve Smith.

That is a remarkable stat. Like his more heralded teammates Robbie Hummel and JaJuan Johnson, Moore has always been a productive player. But Moore, for his part, has gotten quietly and progressively more effective. In his freshman season, he averaged 12.9 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game. As a sophomore, he posted marks of 13.8 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.0 assists. And in 2009-10, Moore scored raised his scoring to 16.4 points per game, while maintaining his rebounds and assists averages at 3.8 and 2.7, respectively.

There are a couple of reasons why Moore's college career has gone relatively unnoticed, at least by those who don't follow the Big Ten closely (and even by some who do). The first, obviously, is the two stars around him. Hummel has long been Purdue's most popular player, the guy nominated for player of the year awards and the first person you probably think of when you think of the past four years of Purdue basketball. Johnson is the team's most promising pro prospect -- who, for what it's worth, has always been a little underrated, too. But Moore is the off-guard in the shadow of his small forward, and it's easy to gloss over just how consistently good he's been.

None of Moore's career numbers are particularly staggering. But when you put them together they paint the portrait of a balanced, versatile, and effective talent -- a potential record-setter disguised in glue-guy clothing. Hardcore hoops heads know about Moore already. But it's time E'Twaun become a household name.