ESPN Men's Basketball

Saddle Up is our daily preview of the day's best basketball action. We're officially into that oh-so-awesome part of the season when a healthy portion of your daily hoops regimen will be happening, you know, during the day, necessitating Saddle Up's move to the morning. So let's do this.

Just like Wednesday and Thursday, let's open Friday with five themes to watch for as the conference tournaments heat up.

1. The Patriot League -- the L-ingest league in the world. Apparently, a precursor for success in the 2009-2010 Patriot League conference tournament involves a name that starts with the letter "L." Hey, I don't make the rules. I merely report them. But is there any other conclusion to draw from the Patriot League final, a matchup of No. 3 seed Lafayette and No. 1 seed Lehigh? With the exception of the various at-large bids being traded back and forth by sundry bubble teams, the Patriot League final is today's only surefire tournament bid producer, the lone automatic qualifier decided Friday. Thus far, this week's automatic qualifiers have almost uniformly survived down-to-the-wire games to get to the tournament. Let's hope the Patriot League finale is no different.

2. Don't know what I want, but I know how to get it. Anarchy in the Big East! Every top seed in the Big East tournament but West Virginia lost Thursday, which leaves us with the rather random pairings of Marquette-Georgetown and Notre Dame-West Virginia, and it's officially anyone's tournament. It's hard not to like West Virginia, which stumbled late against Cincinnati but hit a last-second Da'Sean Butler three to get past a suddenly pesky Cincinnati team. West Virginia is the most athletic team left in the bracket, and now has a clear opportunity to do what Butler said they were planning on doing when the Mountaineers finished their season-closing win at Villanova last Saturday -- win the Big East tournament and get a No. 1 seed in the NCAAs. Notre Dame is no simple matchup though; it will be interesting to see if West Virginia's length can disrupt a suddenly potent Irish offense.

3. Quick: Give me two words you hate to hear if you're either Ole Miss or a Wall Street banker. SEC and bubble. See what I did there? Really, though, the Ole Miss Fighting Admiral Ackbars had the best day of their season in a while yesterday. While other SEC teams (better ones, like Tennessee) duked it out in the first round of the tournament, geographically fortuitous Ole Miss sat back and watched the action unfold. By the end of the day, thanks to teams like Memphis and UAB helpfully losing, Mississippi was promoted into the NCAA tournament by one Mr. Joe Lunardi. Now comes the real work: Actually winning a game in the SEC tournament and holding on to that spot. The Rebels will face Tennessee today, and a win would bolster what to me looks like a pretty shaky tournament case. A loss? Say bye-bye.

4. Three cheers for chalk! Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy a good conference tournament upset as much as the next person who loves college basketball with a deep, burning, passionate, unquenchable love. But it's also nice to see the de facto best teams in a conference duke it out in that conference tournament's semifinals. That's what we've got in the Big 12 today, where No. 1 seed Kansas will take on No. 4 seed Texas A&M and No. 2 seed Kansas State gets No. 3 seed Baylor. Look out for the Bears here -- no team has inspired quite so many "I think this team is dangerous!" comments in our last two days of live-chatting, and the Bears' late-night win over Texas proved why. Baylor is deep, athletic, balanced and smart. They score. This tournament is still Kansas' to win, and unlike its Big East counterpart, there is no parity to discuss here. Just dominance at the top. Refreshing, huh?

5. You're watching the Mountain West tournament, right? Because you should be watching the Mountain West tournament. Unfortunately for those of us who don't live in America's most beautiful 1,000 square miles or so and thus don't get The Mtn., the Mountain West's take on the Big Ten Network, watching the early rounds of the Mountain West tournament has been a challenge. HOWEVA, if you have CBS College Sports -- which comes on a sports tier package with cable providers and DirecTV -- you can watch the rest of the tournament, as Mountain West games have switched over to the more available network. This is a good thing. Why? Because Jimmer Fredette is doing ridiculous things with the ball in his hand, for one. He scored 45 points in Thursday night's win over TCU. (That's almost half of his team's 95, by the way.) On the other side of the bracket, New Mexico and San Diego State will duke it out, the Aztecs with an NCAA tournament bid on the line. So, yeah, find a TV, and make sure that TV has plenty of channels.

Bonus thing, per the usual: In just a few minutes, I'll be chatting from 12 p.m. ET to 6 p.m., right here, same as Wednesday and Thursday. These chats are a great time. Be there.

NEW YORK -- Game 1 is in the books, and while St. John’s and Marquette take the floor for warm-ups for the second half of the afternoon doubleheader here at the Big East tournament, here are a few quick thoughts on South Florida and Georgetown.

• South Florida’s very thin bubble almost assuredly has burst now. The Bulls had a sort of up-and-down, even quirky season. They turned heads with a mid-season four-game win streak and then sort of disappeared. The late push to get into the tournament was exactly that -- too late. South Florida needed a fairly deep run and some help from other teams -- no upsets, a Seton Hall loss -- to even make a case. Now the case is closed. Still, South Florida had what could be a program-defining season, going from nine wins to 20. The Bulls almost assuredly will be in the running for an NIT bid, and the extra games will be good for the continued development of a fairly young team. "We know we're going to have more games to play,'' senior Chris Howard said. "Regardless of what happens, I'm proud of my teammates and my coaches. This year has been good to me.''
• To be competitive in the Big East, however, South Florida is going to have to develop an outside game. Or at least the threat of one. The Bulls went 1-for-10 from behind the arc against the Hoyas. Add that with the 0-for-8 against DePaul and it’s easy to see why the Bulls shot just 29 percent from 3-point range all year. "I saw several times I thought we had 15, 17-footers and even threes that we should have taken,'' Stan Heath said. "We passed those things up to try and get a little closer.''
• Georgetown’s reward for the victory -- a date with No. 1 seed Syracuse. The Hoyas nearly dug themselves out of a gigantic 23-point hole when the two teams squared off last month but couldn’t close the deal. With the way Syracuse has been playing lately, the Hoyas can ill afford another sluggish start this time around. "They can hurt you in many different ways,'' John Thompson III said of Syracuse. "They put a lot of pressure on you because they don't allow you to get good shots. And so you cannot be careless against them because they make you pay.''
• Against Syracuse in the regular season, Georgetown got itself back into the game by forcing the ball inside to Greg Monroe. He not only scored, he got the Orange’s big men, Rick Jackson and Arinze Onuaku in foul trouble. That will again be critical this time around.

NEW YORK -- For those who forgot their morning cup of java, this isn't the game to jump-start the adrenaline. Georgetown has eased to its halftime lead and in most circumstances, I'd say the Hoyas should roll to the quarterfinals. The caveat: On Feb. 3, Georgetown led by nine at the half and South Florida erupted for a 46-point second half to win the game. So tune in to see what the second half brings.

Here's a few quick observations:

• The Bulls don't have anyone who can keep up with Chris Wright's motor. The Georgetown guard has been lethal in the open floor and is really pushing the tempo for the Hoyas. He's got 10 at the break, plus three assists.
• The Hoyas this season have had a tendency to play one good half and one bad or so-so. Anxious to see if Georgetown can put together a complete 40 minutes here. It can't be fooled or lulled by South Florida's crummy shooting -- just 27 percent from the floor. Certainly Georgetown's defense has something to do with USF's problems, but the Bulls are getting decent looks. They just aren't going in.
• Someone other than Dominique Jones has to score for USF. The junior has 12 of the Bulls' paltry 19 points. Without him, South Florida's anemic shooting drops to a horrific 3-of-18 (16 percent).

In many ways, today is the real start of March Madness, though you could just as easily say that about last week, when the conference tournaments really began. But since we have, count 'em, eight conference championships on the line tonight, and since this week marks the beginning of all the power conference tournaments, today rather feels like the start of what will be four consecutive awesome weeks of win-or-go-home hoops. Let's go to the tape:

• Ken Pomeroy breaks down this week's most voluminous, and usually most exciting, conference tournament (who's up for another six-overtime thriller, because I am): the Big East. Can Syracuse rebound from its loss to the Cardinals? It might not matter, as Louisville is safely in the opposite side of the bracket. Meanwhile, West Virginia will look to upset the established order, and Villanova will try to overcome its defensive issues -- which actually didn't show up in its overtime loss to the Mountaineers Saturday -- and re-boost its once lofty projected tournament seed in the process.
• ESPN Insider's LaRue Cook breaks down the historic chances of mid-major at-large bids, finding that conference tournament wins can be both a blessing and a curse for mid-majors on the bubble: "A handful of mid-major teams will receive consideration for at-large bids after strong work during the regular season, particularly given the under-performance of some of their major-conference brethren down the stretch. For those mids -- Saint Mary's, Old Dominion, Wichita State and Siena among them -- a conference crown isn't a must. Instead, our data shows that a single conference tournament win may do the trick. One win doesn't seem substantial, but last season four mid-majors received at-large bids and all of them had one conference tournament win on their resume. In fact, 33 mid-majors have earned an at-large bid in the past five NCAA tournaments, and just seven have not had at least one win in their conference tournament."
• The New York Times' Thayer Evans has a quick rundown of what's at stake in all of the major conference tournaments. In short, a lot.
• As expected, The Mid Majority is all over the mid-major conference tourney beat.
• CAA Hoops tries to summarize the insanity in Saturday's quarterfinals round of the CAA tournament and finds words insufficient to do the tournament justice.
• Searching For Billy Edelin has a handy little Microsoft Paint-drawn visual bubble aid. Who doesn't love Microsoft Paint? Back before the Internet was awesome, Microsoft Paint, Candystand mini-golf and Solitaire were the best ways to waste time in your high school's computer classes.
• With the regular season finished, John Gasaway drops his final Tuesday Truths of the season. Maryland is still under-seeded according to their efficiency margin despite last week's big win over Duke, Notre Dame has added defense to its conference-leading offensive efficiency, Wisconsin is first -- yes, first -- in the Big Ten, and the order of the top four teams in the Mountain West might surprise you.
• Casual Hoya hands out a few post-Oscar awards for its win over Lance Stephenson and Cincinnati on Sunday, which was, according to Hoya, "just the kind of medicine" Georgetown needed before the start of postseason play.
• The Michigan State fans at The Only Colors relish a season-ending win over Michigan. Taking one look at the Spartans' offensive rebounding against the Wolverines is all you need to know; if Michigan State keeps that sort of obsessive second-chancing (not at all a verb, but let's go with it) going in the Big Ten tournament, it could separate itself from Wisconsin, Ohio State and Purdue just in time for the NCAAs.
• IU coach Tom Crean fired assistant Roshown McLeod, who will not coach in the Big Ten tournament. IU is 1-0 this season without McLeod on the bench; the Hoosiers won their first game post-firing, a nearly blown home win over Northwestern Saturday. So maybe that bodes well for the Big Ten tournament? OK, probably not.
• Kentucky fans might not like this column from CBS' Gregg Doyel, which parrots John Calipari's own consistent criticisms of the Cats: "Calipari looks tired. He sounds drained. And he looks and sounds this way on a Sunday afternoon when his team has just beaten Florida 74-66 to win the SEC regular-season title by two full games. He looks and sounds this way because he knows the heavy lifting is still to come, and because he has a team that is talented enough to lift as much weight as any team in college basketball -- but a team that is young enough, and dumb enough, to drop the weight on its own foot."
• Basketball fans of the semi-nerdy persuasion were no doubt aware of MIT's Sloan sports conference, a collection of some of the best basketball-related statistical and business minds in the world. The conference is of primary interest to NBA fans, sure, but there is plenty of interesting stuff that spans into college hoops, too. Kevin Pelton has a recap, and our blog brothers at True Hoop were all over the gathering from start to finish.

As always, follow me on Twitter to send me links and tips.

Georgetown guard Austin Freeman missed Saturday's home loss to Notre Dame with what was originally thought to be a stomach virus. The "virus" continued its hold over Freeman Monday night at West Virginia, where he also didn't play. Still, it happens. Players get sick, they get better, and everybody moves on with their season.

Unfortunately, Freeman's illness is no mere stomach virus. Doctors have instead diagnosed him with diabetes:

Freeman disclosed the diagnosis in an interview Wednesday evening, joined by his physician, Stephen Clement, head of the Diabetes Center at Georgetown University Hospital; his father, Austin Freeman III; and Hoyas coach John Thompson III.

"It's just something I'm going to have to deal with," said Freeman, 20, who received the diagnosis soon after he was taken to the hospital's emergency room Monday. "It's going to be a certain change in my diet and my life. But I know I can deal with it. I'll be fine."

The illness isn't expected to affect Freeman's career; plenty of athletes, perhaps most notably Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, lead successful college and pro careers while dealing with the added physical considerations diabetes presents. Doctors don't yet know what type of diabetes Freeman has. (Type 1 diabetes, in which the pancreas fails to produce insulin, is the more rare and serious kind. It requires daily insulin injections. Type 2 diabetes is caused when the body is unable to utilize the insulin it produces. Oftentimes, people with Type 2 diabetes don't experience symptoms.)

In any case, Freeman was back on the practice court Wednesday night. A return date isn't set, but the Hoyas will be happy to have their top scorer and perimeter back as soon as possible.

The Morning After is our semi-daily recap of the night's best basketball action. Try not to make it awkward.

No. 8 West Virginia 81, No. 20 Georgetown 68: A few things either learned or observed while watching last night's relatively easy West Virginia win over Georgetown:

1. Da'Sean Butler is a Mountaineer through and through. It's not like this is a revelation. But in a sport that requires us to nibble at the edges of teams' personalities so often, that requires us to keep half an eye on everyone and never a full eye on anyone, hearing Da'Sean Butler's fully emotional, front-and-center response to his final home game in Morgantown was borderline revelatory:

"I definitely wanted to win on my Senior Night against a good team like them," Butler said, his voice cracking. "When I was taken out at the end of the game, it just kind of hit me, like I'm not playing here anymore and it just took off from there. I thought about everything and I had every emotion possible. Happy, sad, scared -- just getting ready to grow up. You never know what's out there."

Any graduate who hasn't been overwhelmed with that feeling -- that sinking "What am I going to do now?" thing that ruthlessly invades your gut during your final months at school -- didn't like college all that much in the first place. Heck, we've all felt that before. We can capital-I Identify. Not to get all syrupy here, but that's a little taste of what makes sports so very awesome sometimes. It was cool. (Oh, and it didn't hurt that Butler finished his storied Morgantown career -- he ended up third in scoring all-time behind Jerry West and Hot Rod Hundley and holds the school record with 100-plus double-figure scoring games -- with a tidy 22 points, six rebounds and six assists.)

2. Austin Freeman is very important to Georgetown's ability to handle the ball on the perimeter, score on the perimeter, penetrate from the perimeter -- Austin Freeman is pretty much the best thing about Georgetown's perimeter, and when he's out of the game, his team suffers. Duh, right?

3. West Virginia doesn't always have to outrebound you to win. The nation's top offensive rebounding team by efficiency didn't outwork its opponents on the offensive glass Monday night. What the Mountaineers did do was rarely turn the ball over and get to the free throw line at a high rate. Georgetown played even with WVU ... except in those two categories. It was more than enough.

4. There was one somewhat important bit of postseason seeding on the line here (besides Georgetown's potentially plummeting NCAA tournament seed, of course): Big East tourney seeding. With the win, the Mountaineers sealed a direct double-bye into the quarterfinals of the Big East tournament. Skipping those early conference tournament games means fewer opportunities to lapse and have a bad upset. This is, obviously, a good thing.

No. 25 Texas 87, Oklahoma 76: Oklahoma led by three with just under 10 minutes remaining. This is all you need to know about the relative ugliness of Texas' first half -- and the relative ugliness of the past month and a half of Texas' season. The Longhorns have suffered some bad losses in that time. A home loss to a sub-.500 Sooners team -- one with its own dire share of personnel and chemistry issues -- would have been the worst.

Instead, Texas fans can breathe a sigh of relief. Damion James got 24 points a win on Senior Night, and freshman J'Covan Brown, who suffered a neck injury and was carted off the floor at Texas A&M Saturday, returned to score 15 points and notch five assists in relief duty.

Everywhere else: Pretty quiet night last night. Get the full download here.

Saddle Up is our daily preview of the hoops your TV wants you to watch. Here's Monday night's briefer-than-usual rundown.

No. 20 Georgetown at No. 8 West Virginia, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN: There's no mystery as to why Georgetown fell off a cliff in this week's coaches' poll; the Hoyas have lost three of their last four, including a loss at Rutgers and Saturday's blowout at home to a desperate, bubble-riding Notre Dame team. This is the mark of the Hoya in 2010: inconsistency. Georgetown has the talent to play with anyone, and can blow out very good teams on its best nights -- see the Jan. 30 Duke rout, easily Georgetown's best win of the season -- but the Hoyas are prone to frequent letdowns against lesser squads. A win at West Virginia would right the ship, so to speak. Georgetown has no hope of a Big East title now. But ending the season with a win over a top 10 team at a place like Morgantown is the sort of boost any psychologically inclined Georgetown fan would love to see. It couldn't hurt the Hoyas' tournament seeding, either.

The Mountaineers have the chance to close their season on a similarly uplifting note. Tonight's game is big enough; Saturday's at Villanova is even bigger. Win both of them and Bob Huggins' team could put itself in position to snag a No. 2 seed on Selection Sunday. The Mountaineers are miles ahead of Georgetown on tempo-free paper, and are still doing what they've been doing all season long: rebounding an insane number of their misses on the offensive end and creating second possessions at a higher rate than anyone in the country. Against Georgetown's mediocre defense -- the Hoyas are just No. 132 in opposing offensive rebound percentage -- it's safe to expect more of the same.

Oklahoma at No. 25 Texas, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN: This is another in a long list of combined Oklahoma and Texas games that looked pretty awesome before the season started. Then Willie Warren and the Sooners had an inexplicably disastrous year, rendering them a non-entity in the Big 12. Warren has been sidelined with mono and will miss tonight's game thanks to an ankle injury as the Sooners look to avoid their first seven-game losing streak in -- get this -- 41 years. Meanwhile, Texas is Texas, and you already know this story. Rick Barnes can't decide on a rotation, the Longhorns on the floor can't seem to figure out their roles, and a team that began the year by winning its first 17 games and rising to No. 1 overall is now a fringe top 25 team entirely gone from the Final Four picture. If North Carolina and UCLA showed up in Austin, Tex., tonight, we could hold a star-studded convention of the year's most disappointing teams.

Everywhere else: Morgan State and Utah State will both try to avoid upsets tonight; other than that, Monday's offerings won't do much for you. (Unless you're trying to do some deep scouting for minor conference tournament predictions, in which case, can I look at your notes?)

March is an awesome month. The weather in my adopted town has a lot to do with this; in many ways, March 1 is a huge mental marker for the imminent return of days when you don't have to encase your body in 30 pounds of Gore-Tex just to step outside the house. But forget the weather: March is really awesome for the basketball it promises -- the final week of conference play, the 31 conference tourneys, and the rapturous glory that is the NCAA tournament. Welcome, one and all. The next 30 days are going to rule.

To celebrate, how about some links? OK then:

• Hoyas fans are none too pleased with the effort Georgetown gave in Saturday's not-really-all-that-competitive loss to Notre Dame, a loss that will likely hurt Georgetown's seed and has put Notre Dame right back in the bubble conversation.
• Georgetown's shame had a lot to do with the suddenly off-the-charts play of Ben Hansbrough, who, yes, is Tyler Hansbrough's brother and who, yes, heard plenty about being Tyler Hansbrough's brother throughout his first season for the Irish. Hansbrough doesn't have the sheer talent or raw strength of his older sibling, but on Saturday he displayed several of those vaunted Hansbrough-y qualities: basketball intelligence, will, and boundless energy. Oh, and it helps that he can stroke the outside shot; that's at least one thing Tyler never quite mastered.
• If you were a Kansas fan, would you be upset about Saturday's loss at Oklahoma State? The Jayhawks are 27-2, after all, and the loss doesn't demonstrably effect Kansas' accomplishments this season -- they'll still be the Big 12 regular season champs and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. Still, though, something more was lost on Saturday, as the Kansas City Star's Martin Manley wrote this weekend: "If you stop and think about it, this is one of the most disappointing regular season losses in KU’s 500 years of basketball. How can I make such a radical statement? Well, first of all I don’t care about a loss. For crying out loud, they are 27-2. But, here is what got flushed down the toilet Saturday. 1) They probably will not beat North Carolina to 2,000 wins. 2) They will not make 2,000 wins on March 6th, the last regular season game and on the road against their primary rival – Missouri. 3) They will not hit 30 wins on March 6th. 4) They will not be 16-0 in the conference. 5) They are no longer chasing the best beginning in KU history of 34-1. 6) They no longer have a chance at 39 wins – which would be an NCAA record. 7) They likely will not be #1 in the polls. 8) It was only the second game in the last 103 that a KU opponent has hit over 50% from the field and they were at 60.4%!..." OK, so none of these are reasons to freak out -- but for fans interested in historical markers and statistical quirks, the loss will still be disappointing.
• For now, though, Rock Chalk Jayhawk is more concerned with honoring Sherron Collins, who will play his final game at Allen Fieldhouse when Kansas State comes to town on Wednesday.
• Ballin' Is A Habit praises Tennessee's win over Kentucky Saturday, and asks the question: Just how good are the Volunteers? Here's my short answer: Good, not great, but with Bruce Pearl at the helm, the Vols will always be a dangerous tourney team. Fair?
• Meanwhile, John Calipari claims that two of his players "sleepwalked" against Tennessee, though he wouldn't name names. The Lexington Herald-Leader's Jerry Tipton does a quick elimination process and comes up with Darnell Dodson and DeAndre Liggins -- and perhaps forward Patrick Patterson -- as the prime suspects of Cal's postgame scorn.
• The Only Colors takes a long look at Durrell Summers' inconsistency, finding that Summers is actually pretty peerless on offense so long as he stays inside the three-point line. Defensively? That's a slightly less complimentary story.
• As is the case every March, there's been plenty of discussion lately about the methods the selection committee uses to pick its field of 65; I could link all of these posts separately, but since Mike Miller went ahead and rounded them all up, head over and peruse accordingly.
• Adam Zagoria asked former Pitt players whether they were surprised at the success of the star-less 2009-10 team. The answer is unlikely to surprise.
• The New York Times' Pete Thamel remains on top of the Binghamton beat, where there is concern the school hasn't entirely shifted its focus from the win-at-all-costs attitude that got Kevin Broadus suspended and upended the team in the offseason. The key graph: "Even though the university president, Lois B. DeFleur, has announced she will retire in July; the athletic director, Joel Thirer, has resigned; and the men’s basketball coach, Kevin Broadus, has been placed on paid administrative leave, faculty members and administrators are concerned that those who carried out the orders in building a big-time basketball program remain. They worry that when the SUNY chancellor, Nancy L. Zimpher, makes recommendations to the board March 23, she will focus on Binghamton’s athletic problems, not its academic troubles."
• Are officials overworked? They would tell you no. The reality seems otherwise.
• The Big 5 title -- the yearly championship awarding the Philadelphia area's best team -- will go to Temple for the 26th time in 2009-10.
• Finally, everyone's probably familiar with the basketball odyssey taken by Wes Johnson before he ended up at Syracuse, but this story from the Post-Standard lays out the recruiting pitch given to Johnson and his brother by assistant coach Rob Murphy: “I said ‘OK, if you guys want to waste time, go ahead, but I’m telling you in the next couple days, you’ll call me back and say I’m going to Syracuse,’” Murphy said, recalling the final conversation of the trip. “‘You’re not going to find any place like this. We’ve got everything you want. You want to be a professional. You’ll work hard and play against Paul Harris and all these guys next year in practice and then next year, you’ll probably start for us, we’ll have a good year and you’ll go pro. It’s just that simple.’" Not bad, right?

If you watched last night's UNC-Florida State game, you would have seen the Jordan Brand silver anniversary uniforms sported by the Tar Heels. For at least one night, Roy Williams' team wasn't covered in their classic Carolina Blue argyle digs, instead going for a flashier and hopefully just temporary switch to the silver-and-white.

Of course, North Carolina is a special place for Jordan Brand because of the whole, you know, Michael Jordan-going-there thing. But His Airness is a business, man. Which is why fellow Jordan Brand-sponsored clubs California and Georgetown are getting their own silver-and-white treatment, and why Jordan Brand has a special version of the Air Jordan 2010 all done up in silver, too. The hope, naturally, is that you Bears and Hoyas fans will plunk down good money on a jersey you might not wear for again another 10 years, at which point it will become cool again, maybe.

In the meantime, those of us who like to pretend to have an eye for fashion -- I'm talking about myself here -- can judge these jerseys like Tim Gunn on "Project Runway." You tell me: Does the silver make it work?

(Bro hug: Trey Kerby)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Pregame thoughts from Freedom Hall:

There are 14 NBA scouts credentialed for tonight’s Georgetown-Louisville game, most of them here to see the strongman contest between two very good big men: Greg Monroe of the Hoyas and Samardo Samuels of the Cardinals. Monroe is averaging 15.7 points, 9. 4 rebounds and also leads the team in assists and blocked shots. Samuels is averaging 16.1 points, 7.1 rebounds and has been wearing out a trail to the foul line in recent games. Whichever star sophomore plays best tonight could well lead his team to victory.

Louisville (9-5) is ahead of Georgetown (8-6) in the Big East standings but behind the Hoyas in every NCAA tournament seeding projection. Reason: the Hoyas have a significantly better body of non-conference work, with victories over Duke, Temple and Old Dominion. Louisville did precious little in non-conference games, but got a signature victory at Syracuse and has followed that up with victories over Notre Dame and DePaul. With the Cardinals still on the bubble and facing a difficult closing stretch (at UConn, at Marquette, Syracuse), this game is bigger for them.

Georgetown comes in on a two-game losing streak, a stunning loss at Rutgers followed by a comeback that fell short against Syracuse. In those two games the Hoyas made just 9 of 33 3-point shots while opponents hit 15 of 33. Georgetown needs to tighten up the perimeter defense against a Louisville team that can put four 3-point shooters on the floor and get hot on a moment’s notice.

Saddle Up is our nightly preview of the hoops your TV wants you to watch. Here's Tuesday night's rundown, where we find ourselves officially in that "What does this mean for the NCAA tournament?" time of year.

No. 11 Georgetown at Louisville, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN2: If you had to guess which of these two teams had the better Big East record, would you guess Georgetown? Probably not, actually, since by merely asking the question I've given away the answer. It is, in fact, Louisville. The Cardinals, 9-5 in the country's best league, aren't just playing for a spot in the NCAA tournament (after looking like an NIT team two weeks ago). They're also playing to hold off the Hoyas, who at 8-6 are trying to avoid their third straight loss, the first of which came in an ugly effort at Big East doormat Rutgers.

The Hoyas' task won't be easy: Louisville's offense is one of the best in the country, and its defense, though still porous, has gotten noticeably better down the stretch. (For anecdotal evidence, see: holding Syracuse to 60 points in the Carrier Dome last Sunday.) How will Austin Freeman and Greg Monroe match up with Edgar Sosa and Samardo Samuels? Can Georgetown prevent a late-season swoon and a slide onto the bracket's fourth line? Can Louisville keep proving itself? If the Big East regular season race isn't your thing, the answer to those questions should be.

No. 17 Tennessee at Florida, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN: If the above game features tonight's two best teams, then Tennessee's trip to Gainesville is certainly the most tourney-dire. Florida needs a win. Is there a route for the Gators into the NCAA tournament without one? Sure. It's possible. Much like being on a boat, anything is possible. (This boat is real!)

Beating Tennessee tonight -- the Gators are 1-8 against UT since Bruce Pearl arrived -- would instantly change Florida's season trajectory from "mediocre and disappointing, so nah" to "mediocre but possibly peaking at the right time, so hey, let's keep an eye on them." The Gators have one of the more difficult closing stretches in college hoops: Tonight's matchup, a game at pesky Georgia, a home contest with Vanderbilt, and a trip to Lexington to face the mighty Wildcats. Win a couple of those -- preferably tonight and Vanderbilt, though some combination of the two with a win at Georgia wouldn't be the worst thing in the world -- and Billy Donovan won't have to pine for tournament expansion quite so enthusiastically.

Everywhere else: Syracuse rebounded nicely from its loss to Louisville by beating Georgetown at the Verizon Center last week; the Cuse will look to continue its road-warrior-ness (totally not a word, until now) with a visit to Providence ... Texas Tech's 4-8 conference record has all but doomed its tournament hopes, but a win over Kansas State might keep Pat Knight's tourney candle flickering for a few more days ... Illinois will try to rebound from its two losses to Ohio State and Purdue at the ever-disappointing Michigan's Crisler Arena ... and after tonight's game at 7-20 Evansville, Northern Iowa will either improve to 25-3 or have doubts as to whether it's an NCAA tourney lock or not.

WASHINGTON D.C. - Still wondering what hit me after watching Syracuse nearly blew what I figured was a walkover here at the Verizon Center. Georgetown fought and clawed as close as a team down by three touchdowns can and still make it interesting, but couldn't push the Orange to extinction.

More to come later, but here are a few things I do know for sure after this game:

• The 'character' issues that plagued Georgetown are definitely a thing of the past. Teams without character don't crawl out of a subterranean basement against a top-5 team.

• As good as Syracuse is, the chink in the armor right now is that the Orange don't seem to know how to put teams away. They struggled with it against Marquette, Connecticut, Louisville and desperately in this game. Come tournament time, Syracuse could find itself in hot water if it doesn't solve that problem.

• Wes Johnson needs to start taking over more games. With Arinze Onuaku on the bench, followed in short order by Rick Jackson, I kept waiting for Johnson to demand the ball and determine the outcome. It never happened. He had just two points in the second half.

• And last, the Big East Tournament will be must-watch TV for any and all hoop heads. But I'm guessing you already knew that.

WASHINGTON D.C. -- Getting ready for what ought to be a very good game between Georgetown and Syracuse here at the Verizon Center. The theme for both teams is the same -- bounceback. Syracuse was stung and stunned at home by Louisville on Sunday. An hour later, the Hoyas upped the surprise quotient in the Big East when they lost to Rutgers.

In the grand scheme of things it won't kill either team but the dogfight is on to try and score one of the double byes in the Big East Tournament and capture regular-season honors. Plus no one wants to head towards March riding a win-loss rollercoaster.

Here's what I'm curious to see:

• Can the Hoyas get Greg Monroe involved this time? In the first game this season between the two, the combination of Syracuse's zone and the Orange's big men held Monroe to just eight ineffective points.
• Will the Orange need last-minute heroics again? In Syracuse's last three games, the Orange has had to bail itself out of a jam: down six late to Cincinnati, blowing a 16-point lead to Connecticut and then squandering an early 12-point advantage against Louisville. Jim Boeheim said he wasn't pleased with his offense the last few games and with good reason. Will an angry Cuse team come out on fire?
• Does Wes Johnson start looking like a Player of the Year candidate again? Considered in the top group along with John Wall and Evan Turner, Johnson's numbers have slipped late. In the last four games he's averaging just 10 points per game and shooting just 30 percent from the floor.

Saddle Up is our nightly look at the hoops your TV wants you to watch. Here's Thursday night's rundown.

No. 5 Syracuse at No. 10 Georgetown, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN2: Sunday, Syracuse lost to Louisville. Sunday, Georgetown lost to Rutgers. Do those losses in any way diminish what we're likely to see at the Verizon Center tonight? Not even in the slightest.

If we've learned anything this season, it's that even the best Big East teams are prone to the occasional disappointment. Syracuse can lose at home to a bubble team. Georgetown can go to Rutgers and lose to one of the worst major conference teams in the country. (Villanova can give up 103 points on the road. You get the point.) And then these teams can come right back and play thrilling, high-level, Final Four-quality basketball. It's only fair for us to expect that much tonight.

Syracuse and Georgetown might be the two teams most familiar to basketball watchers -- it feels like both have been on national TV twice a week for months now -- but for the sake of the February newbies, let's do some previewin'. Jim Boeheim's team thoroughly dominated Georgetown at the Carrier Dome on Jan. 25 for two reasons: Georgetown shot poorly and readily gave the ball away. The former is maybe a bit unlucky, as Georgetown typically posts a 56-plus effective field goal percentage. The latter is all Cuse. Georgetown tried desperately to break into Syracuse's zone, and this led to 19 turnovers and a 28 percent turnover rate. Georgetown couldn't stop Syracuse on its own end, so those blown possessions were especially disastrous, and Syracuse rolled to an easy win.

The answer is rather simple: If Georgetown wants to win, it needs to make perimeter shots -- sharpshooting guard Austin Freeman especially -- and use that to stretch Syracuse away from the hoop, where Greg Monroe can operate. Fortunately, the Hoyas have a tendency to turn up their offense at home. (See: "scorching-hot blowouts over Villanova and Duke" in your reference manual.) It's that simple: Make shots. Northwestern had it right all along.

No. 21 Pittsburgh at Marquette, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN2: Fortunately for Marquette, in statistics, there are these things called "corrections." (I have no idea what any of this means, but I like to pretend I do.) The Golden Eagles have been putting up impressive tempo-free numbers all year, but suffered eight losses in their first 19 games thanks to a grand total of 25 points. When you throw out the nine-point loss at Wisconsin on Dec. 12, Marquette lost seven games by a grand total of 16 points. That is capital-U Unlucky.

Marquette is starting to show results, though: The Eagles have won their last five, and they have a chance to make a statement at home tonight against a Pittsburgh team that refuses to fade as the regular season winds down. At 18 points and 8 rebounds per game, Lazar Hayward is one of the best players in the Big East, and he's a lot like his team: You may not realize it, but there's a lot to like up in Milwaukee these days. Don't let that deceptively ugly record fool you.

Everywhere else: Wisconsin will travel to Minnesota, where the Badgers will find a 14-10 team so disappointing, they will get distracted and completely forget why they came. (OK, probably not. That would be weird.) ... Ole Miss will battle Vanderbilt for a tournament spot in Oxford ... and it's Thursday night, which means there's a bevy of Pac-10 games you can completely ignore. That might be foolish, though, because you never know. Maybe a second Pac-10 team sneaks in the tournament, and you have to figure out your bracket. Why be unprepared? That just seems reckless.

• CBS' Gary Parrish makes a valid argument this morning, and Kentucky's rowdy fans aren't going to like it: John Calipari hasn't exactly denied the burgeoning rumors about the New Jersey Nets job, and if the Nets came calling, Cal would have to take the call, right? Calipari's response to the rumors left plenty of wiggle room: "I'm happy," Calipari said. "This school is committed. As long as they're committed to me and this basketball program, where would I want to go?" Factor in the possibility that the Nets could get the No. 1 overall pick -- and Calipari could keep coaching John Wall -- along with the possibility of signing sudden Kentucky booster LeBron James AND redeeming himself for his previous failure at the pro level, well, yeah. The Nets job isn't out of the question, is it?
• Meet Shirtless Bill, Utah State's portly and suddenly legendary free throw distraction extraordinaire.
• Rutgers stunned a top 10 Georgetown team on Sunday, which probably means more for Rutgers than it does for Georgetown. Georgetown's still a good team prone to the occasional letdown; we knew these things already. Rutgers, on the other hand, might have saved coach Fred Hill's job.
• In other Big East news, Dominique Jones made a bold prediction on his Facebook page late last week: "To all the USF fans who continue to ask and comment about the [Notre Dame] game – we played in 1 of the hardest places to win – I didn't play well but I'm good for a bad game every 10 – but now we are in full effect – and I guarantee 4 more Big East wins in a row – copyright this quote." We'll see, 'Nique.
• Jeff Eisenberg thinks the Tennessee Volunteers found the way to beat Kentucky -- using a 3-2 zone to crowd John Wall, dribbling the air out of the ball, and slowing the game down to a methodical half-court pace. If an injured, shorthanded UT team can hang with Kentucky with 40 minutes with this strategy, it should work for others, too.
• Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun made his return to the Huskies this weekend; meanwhile, a UConn recruit is getting nervous about his commitment to Connecticut, given the uncertainty of Calhoun's future.
• John Gasaway on why the Syracuse Orangemen, despite being a very good team, aren't a great one. One major reason? Turnovers.
• Billy Donovan is relatively furious after his team's loss to Xavier at home on Saturday, saying the NCAA tournament is basically out of the question for the Gators these days. At least he's honest: "If you're not winning, you're not going to get [to the tournament]," UF coach Billy Donovan said. "So the fact we didn't win creates a situation where we shouldn't even be talking about it. If we win enough games, then maybe we can talk about it."
• Willie Warren is not feeling particularly well.
• Probably the best recruit left in the 2010 class, Josh Selby hasn't narrowed his list much, but he apparently disqualified Indiana from the running.
• Michigan State will likely debut some new uniforms today; The Only Colors has a cell phone photo.
• An argument -- a convincing argument -- for why Lazar Hayward is the Big East's most valuable player.