ESPN Men's Basketball

In the weeks leading up to the June 27 NBA draft, we’ll be taking a look at the 20 schools that have produced the best pros in the modern draft era (since 1989, when the draft went from seven to two rounds). Click here to read Eamonn Brennan’s explanation of the series, which will be featured in the Nation blog each morning as we count down the programs from 20 to 1.

Top Five NBA Draftees Since 1989

1. Penny Hardaway (1993)
2. Derrick Rose (2008)
3. Tyreke Evans (2009)
4. Lorenzen Wright (1996)
5. Elliot Perry (1991)

Sixth man: Will Barton (2012)

The rest: Elliot Williams, Robert Dozier, Joey Dorsey, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Rodney Carney, Shawne Williams, Antonio Burks, Dajuan Wagner, Cedric Henderson, David Vaughn

Why they're ranked where they are: Star power. Guard power. Stard power? Whatever weird phrase you'd like to try to coin to describe it -- and hopefully you can do better than "stard power," yeesh -- Memphis has it, plain and simple. No other team ranked below them in this top 20 can say the same.

Rose was the MVP of the National Basketball Association at the ripe old age of 22, and you surely don't need me to tell you why his inclusion dramatically boosts Memphis' pro pedigree. Rose suffered a major setback with his anterior cruciate ligament tear in the 2012 playoffs, and his standing among Bulls fans was hurt by his inability (or unwillingness, or any of the other motives the city of Chicago ascribed to a dude taking the long view of his sure-to-be-brilliant career, as though this was a bad thing) to come back in time to face the Miami Heat in the 2013 stretch run. But Rose is one of the game's brightest young stars and, barring injury, will be an MVP-level player at the point guard spot for the next decade.

The key phrase, of course, is "barring injury." Just ask the top player on the list.

If you're my age, and grew up with Lil' Penny, you probably don't need me to outline why Anfernee Hardaway is on this list, or even why he's No. 1 above Rose. But in case you're too young to remember, Penny Hardaway was the capital-T Truth. A 6-foot-7 point guard who could score and dish and do pretty much anything else, Hardaway blitzed the NBA in his first four seasons, averaging 20.9 points, 7.2 assists, 4.4 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game in his second season, when the Orlando Magic won 57 games and knocked the Michael Jordan-less Bulls out in the second round of the NBA playoffs. As a young Bulls fan, I remember being horrified by this new world order. Balance was soon restored to the force but not before Nike could sell a gazillion pairs of Hardaway's Air Pennys, enough to make me the most consistently jealous 10-year-old basketball camp attendee of all time.

Despite the injuries -- chief among them a 1997 knee injury -- that eventually derailed what would have been a surefire Hall of Fame career, Hardaway went on to play 14 seasons in the league. Even if he hadn't, his early brilliance would have been enough. I know what I saw.

The rest of this list, as you might expect, is just sort of blah. Evans gets the nod at No. 3 because he has been a very productive player in his first four seasons, even if he's done so for one of the NBA's worst franchises (Sacramento) and earned a huge heaping of scorn for his seeming unwillingness to get teammates involved. Wright is a name you might best recall thanks to his mysterious 2010 disappearance and death, but, before that, the beloved Tiger had a nice 13-season NBA career. Perry did pile together 10 years in the league, but is listed fifth mostly because of that grotesque list of the rest, almost none of which has made any impact in the NBA. (To be fair, one-time uber-prospect Dejuan Wagner would've almost certainly cracked this top 5 had he not been beset by a series of scary medical ailments.)

Why they could be ranked higher: Because Hardaway was the aforementioned truth? Because Rose is currently the truth? Because you believe Evans is misunderstood or in a bad situation and could be a brilliant player in a system that knew how to use him (or in any system at all, which isn't possible when you fire coaches as frequently as the Kings)? Any of these arguments is permissible, but none is particularly convincing. On the other other hand …

Why they could be ranked lower: As much as it pains me to say this, we have no idea if Rose is ever going to be Rose again. With the possible exception of Russell Westbrook, no player in the NBA -- certainly no star -- relies as much on sheer athletic genius as Rose. He cuts, he bumps, he flies, he finishes, and when he's hitting jumpers, he's basically unguardable. What if all those cuts are a little less crisp? What if he can't do the same things he used to do physically? What does that mean for his career?

We could also argue that Hardaway, for as good as he was, was essentially a six-year player -- from 1993 to 1999 there were few guards in the game not named Michael Jordan as good as Penny. But after Hardaway's body betrayed him, he was a shell of his former self, doomed to wander the NBA wilderness until limping home with a 3.8-points-per-game season in his final year with the Heat. Don't get it twisted: I love me some Penny Hardaway. But he wasn't exactly a pillar of longevity.

Likewise, Evans is arguably trending downward. As a rookie, he averaged 20.1 points per game; he's declined in each subsequent season, from 17.8 to 16.5 to 15.2. These are not the best numbers by which to judge a young player's career, and Evans did shoot his highest field goal percentage (albeit on fewer attempts) in 2012-13. But after four seasons, Evans still lacks a consistent outside jumper, doesn't find teammates as often as he should and has too many character-related questions to project much added upside.

What’s ahead? Barton's career will be interesting to watch. A two-year player under Josh Pastner at Memphis, Barton was criminally underrated (much like the Tigers) in 2011-2012, his final season at the school, in which he finished with a 115.7 offensive rating on 25.6 percent usage. Despite putting up these All-America-level efficiency numbers, the 6-foot-6 guard was passed over until the Portland Trail Blazers selected him in the second round. Barton, who had an OK rookie season, has to improve his perimeter skills if he wants to stick as a conventional 3 in the league, but there's no reason he can't be a Kawhi Leonard type for the right team one day.

In the meantime, Pastner's program continues to recruit as well as any program in the country. Adonis Thomas killed his draft stock with an awful sophomore season, but he has the size and talent to stick in the league. D.J. Stephens is a freak of nature. Down the line, keep an eye on rising sophomore Shaq Goodwin and top freshman small forward Nick King.

Final thoughts: For a program that spent the entire aughts coached by John Calipari, Memphis suffers from a distinct lack of depth when it comes to its pro pedigree since 1989. (Where have you gone, Dajuan Wagner? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.) But at the top end, the players the Tigers have produced are undeniably stellar. Hardaway was a 6-foot-7 to whom God gifted the keys to Magic Johnson's tall-triple-double-machine legacy; only the whims of fate could slow him down. Rose, meanwhile, is still at the dawn of his career and already has one MVP -- in a LeBron James-owned league, and during a season in which Dwight Howard was insanely good -- under his belt. Even with the ACL tear, the long-term prognosis is pointing toward the Hall of Fame. Evans is divisive even within his own locker room, and his stock has taken a drastic hit, but there's no escaping the fact that he was the first player since James, Jordan and Oscar Robertson to average 20, 5 and 5 in his rookie season. That's still in there, somewhere.

Where Memphis' shot at the top 10 in this list falls apart is in the huge drop between that top three and the rest of its products since 1989. Look for Pastner to change that in the coming years. Until then, No. 15 feels right.

The SEC was not very good last season. Some of that was because of Kentucky's surprising struggles, and because of the eventual season-ending knee injury suffered by Nerlens Noel; when Kentucky isn't Kentucky, the SEC won't win any of those oh-so-fun "best league" arguments no matter what the rest of the league does.

But it wouldn't be fair to just blame the Wildcats. Only three teams -- Florida, Ole Miss, and Missouri -- made the tournament. Florida dominated the SEC and finished in the Elite Eight; Marshall Henderson and Ole Miss (and Wisconsin) got Andy Kennedy the first tournament win of his tenure; Missouri had a decent if defensively flaccid season end in a first-round tournament loss. Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas spent most of the spring flailing about on the wrong side of the bubble. Everyone else was either rebuilding or just plain bad.

This kind of overall systemic weakness gives coaches, athletic directors and league officials pause. Is there a systemic flaw in league? What is the problem, exactly? Does a solution exist?

Those are exactly the kinds of questions best raised at offseason meetings, and the SEC's basketball folks are doing exactly that this week in Destin, Fla. Lo and behold, the league has already decided on one step it thinks will help: better nonconference scheduling.

But it isn't just reminding coaches why scheduling is individually, or even collectively, important. It also invited former NCAA Vice President of Basketball Operations Greg Shaheen to speak to coaches about the vagaries of the RPI.

Even more impressive than a visit from Shaheen? SEC commissioner Mike Slive actually persuaded his league's athletic directors to submit their program's nonconference schedules for league review. From the Birmingham News' Jon Solomon:

The conference is still developing a process on how to analytically review nonconference schedules through Ratings Percentage Index numbers.

"Think about it like a stop light," SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said today. "Some (teams) will be in a green zone, some will be in a yellow zone, and some of them might be in a red zone." [...]

"Our nonconference strength of schedule last year was 336. That's unacceptable," Gamecocks coach Frank Martin said. "That impacts every team in our league in a negative way. For example, Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky got left out of the NCAA Tournament. They had decent RPIs. If my nonconference strength of schedule would have been 230 instead of 330, then their RPIs are in the 40s, and now I think maybe two of the three of them get in."

Martin might be being a little bit generous there -- an RPI in the 40s isn't a guarantee of much, if a team's own nonconference schedule is weak and/or that team doesn't have good wins on its resume -- but generally speaking, he's right. When you have a handful of teams playing schedules as bad as USC's (or Mississippi State's or Auburn's), it is bound to wreak at least some small measure of mathematical havoc on bubble teams, for whom every little distinction can mean the difference between a ticket to the dance and a trip to the NIT.

So does this mean SEC coaches are going to be turning over their schedules to the league office, or scheduling collectively? Not quite. Kentucky coach John Calipari, who praised the idea, told Solomon he thought the best use was to have the SEC as a sounding board -- "'If you know you're in good shape, run with it; if you have some issues, talk to us,'" he said. Likewise, Georgia coach Mark Fox asserted that it while it might be good for the league as a whole, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for young rebuilding teams (like his own) to get their "brains beat in" every November and December. Which is also true.

Probably the best quote from the whole thing comes from Calipari (no shock there), who outlined his own proposed strategy for getting more SEC teams in the NCAA tournament:

"Probably win more games," Calipari said.

It sounds like a joke, but it's really not. Whether you agree with his stance on true road games (pardon me, "experiences") or not, Calipari knows how to strategically schedule as well or better than any coach in the country -- a product of his time at Memphis, when he had to make sure his typically talented Tigers wouldn't be punished by the RPI for dominating Conference USA. There is a science to scheduling. Smart coaches can not only ensure they aren't punished by RPI weirdness but, if they really dig in, can consistently exploit the RPI's essential dumbness to their own advantage. This is stuff any coach worth his salt ought to be deeply aware of; that the SEC feels like it needs to exert oversight over schedules is almost kind of remarkable.

Still, despite all the ways the RPI can be gamed, at the end of the day the best way to get to the NCAA tournament is to, you know, win. The SEC and its coaches can start scheduling like geniuses, but if they don't rack up at least a few key nonconference wins, the entire point is moot.

If I were an 18-year-old college basketball star, I would want to play for Team USA. Maybe it's because I grew up playing soccer, and representing your state, region or country at various age Olympic Development Program levels was always the goal (one I fell far short of reaching; I settled on playing for my high school). Or maybe I'm partial to being flown around the world to play basketball for what amounts to an age-appropriate national All-Star team. Who wouldn't be?

Quite a few of the best players in the class of 2013, as it turns out. On Thursday, USA Basketball released its list of players who accepted invitations to try out for the U19s in advance of the FIBA World Championships in the Czech Republic this summer. While the list is full of talent, much of it with a year of college experience under its belt, it is not full of top incoming freshmen in the class of 2013. Arizona's Aaron Gordon is the only top 20 guy on ESPN's top 100 to accept an invitation.

Conspicuously absent alongside the Jabari Parkers of the world is pretty much all of Kentucky's best-ever incoming class. On Thursday, Kentucky coach John Calipari made it clear to the Sporting News that wasn't his idea:

"Most of it is, they didn’t want to play. I’m not forcing kids to do anything,” Calipari told Sporting News. “I think the reason they all turned it down is, they want to get started.”

[...] Calipari said center Willie Cauley-Stein was invited to try out for USA Basketball this summer; Cauley-Stein is eligible for the World University Games. But Cauley-Stein said he preferred not to go and asked if it that would be OK. He said Randle took the same approach.

“Willie said, ‘This is not the summer for me to do this stuff. I just can’t wait to get back. I want to get prepared,’ ” Calipari said. “I’m happy they’re thinking in those terms. They know the spotlight’s on them.”

I'm anticipating a wave of "these kids don't respect their country!" comments, but let's go ahead and just not, OK? USA Basketball is an excellent development program in its own right, and no doubt a great experience, but the summer climate is different now. Gone are the days when players were essentially on their own until the official start of practice, when local summer ball leagues, open runs and the odd FIBA event were their only way to stay crisp during the offseason. Two years ago, the NCAA passed a rule that allows players enrolled in summer courses to receive a couple hours per week of individual instruction from their coaching staff. Not only can this class of incoming freshmen spend time getting used to their new collegiate homes, and getting a head start on schoolwork, they can actually work on specific basketball skills with their coaches. The idea of staying on campus is much more persuasive.

I'd say that goes highly touted freshmen, from Parker to Randle and Co. at Kentucky. For many of these players, the plan is to stay one year in college. That might not the most fun idea; there must be some impulse to stick around as long as possible. But at the very least, all of these players -- Kentucky's in particular, certainly -- must know that one college season isn't nearly as long as it seems from the beginning. If you really want to be good enough to win a national title in just five months, you'd better get a running start.

(Correction: An original version of this post listed Andrew Wiggins as absent alongside other young American players; Wiggins is Canadian. Duh. My apologies for the error. -- EB)

Editor's Note: This month, ESPN Insider's college basketball and recruiting experts are teaming up to examine how 15 of the nation's best recruiting classes will fit in with their teams in the 2013-14 season. Today's featured program: Kentucky . Check out the Nation blog each morning for a corresponding post on the key returnee for each of the 15 teams.

Remember when Kentucky freaked everyone out?

It wasn't hard to figure out why. To the untrained eye, Kentucky's 2011-12 national title was the product of nothing more than John Calipari's immense recruiting advantage over everyone else in the sport. To many, the dominant triumph of Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist proved that all Calipari had to do every year was get the best players, coax them into playing his typically stifling defense and let the talent do the rest. He had cracked the code. The sport would never be the same.

A year later, as the Wildcats ended their season in Moon, Pa., in the first round of the NIT, losing to a Northeast Conference team (Robert Morris) that has lost more games in its history than it has won, the noise diverged. Suddenly, Kentucky couldn't recruit; it had missed on Alex Poythress and Archie Goodwin; only pre-ACL tear Nerlens Noel panned out as planned. Or: Maybe you can't win a national title relying on talented freshmen after all! Maybe 2012 was just luck! Ha!

All of this stuff misses the point.

Kentucky 2011-12 wasn't the best team in the country because it comprised only talented freshmen. The freshmen UK did have were special, but just as important were Terrence Jones, Doron Lamb and Darius Miller. None was a freshmen. Jones would have been a lottery pick had he left during the lockout uncertainty. Miller was a fourth-year senior who came off the bench.

The 2012-13 team didn't have any of these things. The freshmen, particularly Poythress and Goodwin, disappointed. But save the inconsistent Kyle Wiltjer, there were no veterans, let alone veteran leaders, to provide any semblance of core consistency, confidence or backbone. When Noel tore his ACL at Florida and UK lost 88-58 at Tennessee, you could just see it. There was nothing there, particularly on the defensive end, where a team's cohesion and heart shine brightest. And the Wildcats were hardly impenetrable with Noel in the lineup, either.

The lesson in all this exists on neither extreme of the rhetorical continuum. Calipari didn't lose his touch or totally whiff on recruits last season any more than his 2011-12 team changed college basketball forever.

The lesson here is something more fundamental about the game itself, and it's true whether you're playing in your pickup game or in the NBA: Talent isn't everything. Championships don't just happen. Personalities matter. Intelligence matters. Defense matters. Veterans matter.

That's why, even as Calipari prepares to bring the best recruiting class in college hoops history into the fold, Kentucky can't merely hope to glide by on glimmering talent. If UK is going to upend the reigning national champs at Louisville and avoid challenges from every corner, the Wildcats will need the scattered returners to step up, too.

None will be more important than Willie Cauley-Stein.

With Goodwin and Noel off to the NBA and Ryan Harrow having transferred to Georgia State, Cauley-Stein, Poythress and Wiltjer were the only three candidates for this prestigious position. I was actually torn about this Tuesday night, so I ran an informal poll among Kentucky fans on Twitter. Dozens of replies later, the consensus was overwhelmingly in favor of Cauley-Stein. Some made the case for Poythress, particularly in light of Andrew Wiggins' decision to play at Kansas (thus preserving Poythress plenty of minutes and possibly a starting spot). Few made the case for Wiltjer, even though I would contend his length and shooting -- he finished at 36.7 percent from 3 last season, which isn't bad for a 6-foot-10 guy -- could still be crucial in 2013-14.

But Cauley-Stein's case really is the most convincing. You won't find many 7-footers as athletic as Cauley-Stein at any level, full stop, and the big man already demonstrated solid rebounding on both ends of the floor and competent finishing ability around the rim. He ended the season having shot 62.1 percent from the field, which is great pretty much any way you slice it. Despite that output, though, Cauley-Stein couldn't be relied on to score over a competent defender. According to Synergy scouting data, Cauley-Stein scored 1.55 points per possession when he cut to the rim and 1.05 on offensive rebound putbacks but just .067 points per trip the 75 times he was put in a legitimate post-up opportunity.

This is rawness personified. A little more touch and one or two reliable moves, and there's no reason an athletic 7-footer can't score over even the best collegiate post defenders.

But that would be a bonus. After all, Kentucky shouldn't have much trouble scoring the basketball next season. The Harrison twins (Andrew and Aaron) will be deadly on the perimeter, and power forward Julius Randle -- the No. 3-ranked player in the class, behind only Wiggins and Duke's Jabari Parker -- will be the go-to post force. Also, Kentucky has the No. 2 center in the class, Dakari Johnson, whose chief strength is his offensive polish.

No, what Kentucky needs -- what has made Calipari such a consistently successful coach in the past decade -- is defense. Last season's Wildcats finished ranked No. 77 in KenPom.com's adjusted efficiency rankings. That was the first time since the 2004-05 Memphis Tigers that a Calipari-coached defense wasn't among the 15 stingiest in the country. In five of those years, it ranked in the top 10. This is Calipari's formula: His offenses are usually excellent, but sometimes they're merely good. What sets his teams apart is his ability to meld young players into a lockdown defensive group.

Cauley-Stein will be massive in this effort. He blocked a shot on 8.4 percent of his available possessions last season, which is a totally respectable rate on its own and especially impressive given that he was playing on the same team as human block-sponge Noel. Johnson is not known as an elite athlete or defender, beyond his ability to clog the lane. Cauley-Stein, on the other hand, has a chance to be a dominant defensive presence. He could be the prohibitive force that makes interior penetration against Kentucky impossible, the player who lets the rest of the team's talent press out on shooters, unafraid of either (A) inefficient midrange shots or (B) deep drives. Cauley-Stein can be on that wall. He should be on that wall.

The great luxury of Calipari's signing five of the best nine players in recent history's most loaded incoming class is that none of his three returners will be seen as the team's most important player. That title likely will go to either Aaron or Andrew Harrison, or Randle. Neither Poythress nor Cauley-Stein is guaranteed a starting spot; Wiltjer, veteran of a national title team, is practically guaranteed to come off the bench. And we haven't even talked about James Young (a 6-foot-6 lefty scorer ranked eighth overall in the class) or Marcus Lee (the best oh-yeah-they-have-that-guy in recruiting history).

Conceivably, UK could start five freshmen -- the Harrisons, Young, Randle and Johnson -- and still be a legitimate national title threat, if not the favorite. But it is hard to imagine Kentucky approaching its incredibly lofty ceiling if Cauley-Stein isn't contributing in big ways to that effort. The Wildcats need his size, his shot-blocking, his rebounding. They need the size and strength borne of a full offseason spent in an elite training and conditioning program.

They also need his anger. Few players were more vocal about the frustration of last season, how embarrassing getting walked off in Moon, Pa., really was.

"I feel like something’s empty, and I want to fill it," Cauley-Stein told the Courier-Journal's Kyle Tucker in April. Kentucky needs Cauley-Stein to be that guy -- the guy who has been through it before, who knows it isn't easy, that no matter how bad it gets in practice, he has seen worse. On every rotation and every box-out, Kentucky needs someone who feels an emptiness that can be filled only by winning.

In short, Kentucky needs a veteran. Poythress or Wiltjer might be that guy. Maybe all three are. Maybe there's an MKG in the freshman mix. Someone must embrace the role, tangible or otherwise. Kentucky will be very good the minute it begins the season. Whether it will be great is another matter entirely, one up to Cauley-Stein and, to a lesser extent, Poythress and Wiltjer.

Because that is the real lesson of the past two seasons of Kentucky basketball. Talent is great, but greatness is about so much more than talent. Sometimes we need a reminder, you know?

The Maui Invitational is pretty great. I think the gym has a lot to do with it. Instead of Random Sterile Corporate Arena X or a strangely converted hotel ballroom space, the Lahaina Civic Center looks and sounds like a high school basketball gym, at least on TV. The combination of good basketball and good trappings give it the best osmotic televised atmosphere of any early-season event, and the hoop usually follows suit. Plus ... it's in Maui. Who wouldn't want to go to that?

Wait, don't answer that. Because it turns out there is at least one man in America who doesn't find the charms of Maui worth the not inconsiderable travel logistics: Kentucky's John Calipari. This is via Missouri Frank Haith, who essentially confirmed his friend's distaste to the Lexington Herald-Leader this weekend:

"Cal did say, it's too long a trip," Haith recalled. "He just brought it up."

Calipari has made no secret of how he dislikes the arduous trip to and from Maui.

"That's legit," Haith said of Calipari's concerns about traversing across five time zones. "He hates it. It's just too far for him."

You can understand why someone might feel that way: It is an awfully long flight! And as Haith pointed out, there isn't a ton of reasons for Calipari specifically to be interested in the event, because it doesn't do anything for him or Kentucky's schedule (nonconference neutral court games, good competition, etc.) that he can't already do for himself. Other than getting his players excited for a vacation to Hawaii, what benefit is there?

But it's a great, fun early event and no doubt a lot of fun for the players, and probably totally worth a long flight. Just sleep on the plane, right?

The only concern is that, as with all things Calipari and Kentucky, this preference becomes a trend. For whatever reason, I'm guessing this one won't catch on. After all ... it's in Maui.

1. Kentucky cured any hangover from the Robert Morris loss by getting a commitment Wednesday from Julius Randle. The Wildcats will have as heralded an incoming class next season as they did in John Calipari's first and third seasons in Lexington. But there will have to be scholarship discussions in the coming weeks. This is nothing new -- and Kentucky is hardly alone in this type of scenario. Players who don't turn out as expected can see coaches recruit new talent for their roster spots, especially at elite programs -- thus creating scholarship issues. Of course, the Wildcats have a few players -- like Willie Cauley-Stein, Alex Poythress and Archie Goodwin -- who could be drafted based on potential. But the only player on Kentucky's roster who could contribute next season in the NBA is a healthy Nerlens Noel. No one else. Don't be surprised if there is some natural attrition on this roster. Any time a team underachieves and reaches the NIT instead of the NCAA, roster changes are possible.

2. Boise State lost to an unheralded La Salle team in the First Four on Wednesday night. But the Broncos were way ahead of schedule this season. Boise State coach Leon Rice said earlier in the week on ESPNU that he told the administration in the preseason he had no idea how good this team would be by season's end. The Broncos' appearance in the NCAA tournament could be akin to Colorado State's a year ago. The Rams popped up a year early and are back again this season. The Broncos now have to ensure that this season was hardly a fluke -- with the added expectations of repeat NCAA appearance. Rice has done wonders in making Boise State relevant in hoops. There's no reason to believe he won't continue to do so.

3. Two of the biggest winners in this alignment game will ultimately be the fan bases at Creighton and Butler. Just think about the change on the schedule for these two programs. The Bluejays are going from hosting Bradley or Evansville to having Georgetown, Marquette and Villanova come to Omaha, Neb. And within two years, Butler will have gone from hosting Youngstown State to welcoming Georgetown to Indianapolis. Bulldogs coach Brad Stevens said that this will be a challenge for the coaching staffs, which now have to learn new systems and styles on the fly. Butler had to try to figure out the Atlantic 10; now, within a year, the Bulldogs will be in another league, playing a true round-robin schedule.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A towel draped over his head and his eyes filled with tears, sophomore guard Ryan Harrow sat in a despondent Kentucky locker room Friday night and tried to make sense of a performance that likely sealed the Wildcats’ postseason fate.

Harrow shouldered the blame for Kentucky’s ugly 64-48 loss to Vanderbilt in the quarterfinals of the SEC tournament, a loss that may well keep the Wildcats out of the NCAA tournament for only the second time in the past 22 years.

“I didn’t start off well, and it just trickled down to everybody else. I apologize,” said Harrow, who suffered through a nightmarish 2-of-15 shooting night, many of his misses drives to the basket.

“Of course, we want to get to the [NCAA] tournament, because if we play well, we can beat anybody. I basically just messed it up for us.”

The truth is that he had plenty of help. Nobody played particularly well for Kentucky, while Vanderbilt played lights-out.

The Commodores (16-16) are playing their best basketball of the season, and after being left for dead three weeks ago, have won six of their past seven games.

They placed four players in double figures Friday and turned it over only five times, while holding Kentucky to a season-low 48 points.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been as proud of a team as I am this team,” said Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings, whose red-hot Commodores will face Ole Miss on Saturday in the semifinals.

Vanderbilt shot 59.1 percent from the field in the first half and built a 14-point halftime lead. That lead swelled to 21 points less than four minutes into the second half, and Kentucky never got closer than 11 points the rest of the way.

As the final seconds ticked down, the Vanderbilt students were taunting the Kentucky team with chants of “NIT, NIT.” Stallings quickly motioned for them to stop, but that’s precisely where the Wildcats may be headed.

Kentucky coach John Calipari almost seemed braced for the worst.

“When you play a game like this, it hurts you,” Calipari said. “But the good news is everyone else is losing, too. So at the end of the day, it will shake out and I trust the [selection] committee to put the right teams in. If we’re in, we’ll play better. And if we’re not in, we’re not. I mean, there’s nothing we can do about it.

“We had an opportunity. It was in our hands to take it out of everybody’s hands, and we didn’t take care of business.

“We laid an egg.”

A smelly one, at that. But Calipari was careful to praise Vanderbilt.

“They had more energy than us,” Calipari said. “I told my team for three days that the hardest thing in tournament play is to have a bye and have a team that’s playing well play a game and then come up against you.

“So it was a combination of everything. I don’t want to take anything away from Vandy. They played great. We laid an egg. We had one guy go 2-for-15 and miss 12 layups.”

Kentucky’s résumé, especially since Nerlens Noel went down with his season-ending injury back on Feb. 12, has been mediocre at best. The Wildcats (21-11) have lost five of their past nine games and haven’t won away from home since they beat Texas A&M on Feb. 2.

ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi dropped the Wildcats out of his latest projection for the NCAA tournament field and had them among the “first four out.”

The Kentucky players said they will do their best not to think about it until the selection show Sunday night.

“It’s going to be extremely difficult knowing how badly we played,” Kentucky sophomore forward Kyle Wiltjer said. “You have to give them credit, but it’s going to be difficult waiting to see if our name is called.”

1. Highlights from Tuesday's Katz Korner show on ESPNU: Kentucky coach John Calipari didn't hold back his feelings about the SEC tournament. Calipari said the tournament is for the fans and noted a number of UK fans at the SEC tournament don't normally get to Rupp. He said the conference tourney is just a prep for the next (NCAA) tournament. "I don't like this,'' he said. "Three games in three days does nothing to prepare you for anything. I wish none of us had these tournaments.'' ... Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said in reaction to this being the Irish's last Big East tournament that the Big East, "made me in my coaching career.'' He said it was odd to tell his team Tuesday morning at breakfast that this would be their last Big East tournament. ... Kansas State coach Bruce Weber said it's hard to explain his past year: from being fired at Illinois to Big 12 coach of the year. He said his daughter pointed out that "I lost my job on March 9 and then it was March 9 this year that we won an unexpected Big 12 championship and the first one here since 1977.'' ... VCU coach Shaka Smart offered this advice for bubble coaches heading to the First Four in Dayton next week after the Rams started their Final Four run their in 2011, "Be aggressive confident and loose. You want to be an attacking team, no matter what style of play.''...Michigan's Trey Burke said the Wolverines will be looking forward to playing teams in the NCAA tournament not from the Big Ten, "It's a well-scouted conference, once we get outside of the conference, conference tournament, we'll be able to play at a higher level because those teams won't be scouting us each other day.''

2. One of the best decisions the NCAA/NIT made was ensuring the regular-season champs had a postseason home. A number of teams that won their leagues in the regular season weren't able to win the conference tournament: Northeastern (CAA), Robert Morris (NEC), Mercer (Atlantic Sun), Charleston Southern (Big South), Niagara (MAAC) and Middle Tennessee State (Sun Belt). Middle Tennessee State is the only school that has a chance to make the NCAA tournament out of this group as an at-large. But the NIT has to guarantee bids to all of them. The regular-season title should have meaning and guarantee a postseason berth.

3. Montana coach Wayne Tinkle had quite a championship week -- in his family. His Grizzlies won the Big Sky for the second-straight season. His son, Tres, won the Montana AA high school title and was the most valuable player. His daughter, Joslyn, a senior at Stanford won the Pac-12 title and his youngest daughter, Elle, a freshman at the Gonzaga, won the WCC title. "How blessed are we?'' Tinkle said. But he said the real MVP of the family is his wife, Lisa, a member of the Montana Hall of Fame for "all the miles she logged.'' The Grizzlies will attempt to get back to the NCAA tournament but will likely have a challenge from nemesis Weber State. Montana hosts the Big Sky tournament in Missoula and gets a bye to the semifinals, while Weber State, the No. 2 seed, has to play two games to get to the finals since there are only seven teams in the field.

On ESPNU’s “Katz Korner,” Kentucky coach John Calipari talks to Andy Katz about his team's big win over Florida, their chances in the SEC tournament and their hopes of making the Big Dance.

John Calipari has tried numerous tactics in recent weeks to light a spark within his Kentucky basketball team. One afternoon, he even staged an impromptu dodgeball game to loosen the mood and improve chemistry.

Nothing has worked.

Thursday’s 72-62 loss at Georgia marked the fourth defeat in the past seven games for the Wildcats, who will probably need to beat Florida in Saturday’s regular-season finale to have any shot of making the NCAA tournament.

Center Willie Cauley-Stein shrugged his shoulders when he was asked what Kentucky could do to turn things around.

“Have faith?” he said. “Go to church? Maybe that’s what we need to -- go to church as a team and pray for each other.”

Even divine intervention might not be enough to help the Wildcats at this point. If Kentucky can’t beat Arkansas and Georgia, there is no reason to believe it can get past a Florida squad many pundits have tagged as a Final Four contender.

The Gators defeated Calipari’s team 69-52 in Gainesville on Feb. 12. Nerlens Noel, Kentucky’s best player, tore his anterior cruciate ligament in that contest and UK hasn’t been the same since. Granted, even before Noel’s injury, the Wildcats weren’t very good. Kentucky’s résumé includes very few quality wins -- and a bunch of bad losses.

“I’m mad,” guard Archie Goodwin told reporters after Thursday’s loss. “There’s no way we should lose to Georgia. There’s no way we should lose to Arkansas.

“When we play like we’re supposed to, there’s not anyone in the country we can’t beat. When we play like this, when we play soft as a team, anyone can beat us.”

Calipari, to his credit, said he is to blame for his squad’s collapse.

“I’m so disappointed in the job I’ve done with this team,” he said Thursday night. “I’ve never had a team not cohesive at this time of year. Every one of my teams ... cohesive. Every one of them had a will to win. Every one of them had a fight.

“If this team doesn’t have that, that’s on me.”

Here are a few other observations from Thursday’s games:

1. Does anyone want to win the Pac-12?

UCLA and Oregon entered the week tied for first in the conference standings with two games to play. Somehow, though, UCLA lost to last-place Washington State in Pullman on Wednesday, which meant Oregon could’ve clinched at least a share of the league's regular-season crown by beating Colorado on Thursday.

The Ducks responded by losing 76-53 in Boulder. And the Buffs didn’t even have Andre Roberson, who missed the game with a viral illness. Each team has one game remaining. UCLA plays at Washington on Saturday; Oregon takes on Utah in Salt Lake City the same day.

Whatever happens, no one can argue that the parity in the Pac-12 is greater than any conference in the country. Next week’s league tournament should be fun.

2. I loved the shot of Michigan State coach Tom Izzo jumping up and wrapping his arms around the neck of 6-foot-10 forward Adreian Payne during a timeout in the Spartans’ 58-43 victory over Wisconsin. Payne had just taken a hard fall under the basket after missing a dunk, but he eventually popped back up. Izzo loved seeing that toughness and resiliency -- not just from Payne, but from his entire team.

Michigan State entered the game toting three consecutive losses, all by single digits and all against ranked opponents. But by winning Thursday, Michigan State put itself in a position to clinch a share of the Big Ten title. Indiana sits atop the conference standings at 13-4. Three other teams (Michigan, Ohio State and Michigan State) are 12-5.

If Michigan defeats Indiana on Sunday in Ann Arbor, four teams will finish in a tie for first. That’s assuming, of course, that Michigan State and Ohio State take care of business in their regular-season finales against Northwestern and Illinois, respectively.

Whatever happens, Michigan State should feel good about itself entering the Big Ten tournament following Thursday’s dominating victory over an excellent Wisconsin squad.

3. I’ve got to think Northwestern’s loss to Penn State on Thursday marked Bill Carmody’s final home game as the Wildcats’ head coach. Northwestern has never made the NCAA tournament and it won’t get there this year under Carmody, who is in his 13th season. Losing to the Big Ten’s worst team on Senior Night is about as bad as it gets. Duke assistant Chris Collins has been mentioned as a possible replacement. Another coach who would be a good fit: Valparaiso’s Bryce Drew.

4. Michael Snaer’s ability to come through in the clutch continues to amaze me. The Florida State guard scored on a left-handed runner in traffic with 4 seconds remaining to propel the Seminoles past Virginia 53-51. Snaer was fouled on the play, and he made the ensuing free throw.

The game winner was the fourth for Snaer this season and his sixth over the past two.

Virginia, which had fought back from an 11-point deficit to take the lead, has now lost four of its past six games. The Cavaliers are on the NCAA tournament bubble.

In addition to plenty of just-plain-great games -- Louisville's win at Syracuse, Marquette's big home win over Notre Dame, that amazing Duke-Miami thriller at Cameron Indoor Stadium -- Saturday was also filled with bubble action, from the start of the day to its finish.

That's typical, of course; this is the time of year when NCAA tournament at-large selection very rapidly shifts from the theoretical to the concrete. What isn't so typical is the level of carnage wrought on this Saturday, the sheer number of teams with bubble hopes that suffered losses -- some of them devastating.

How do I know Saturday was a bubble massacre? Your Tennessee Volunteers -- a new bubble entity this week after their victory over Florida -- managed to lose at Georgia (RPI: 142), 78-68, and, according to our own Joe Lunardi, moved into the bracket. Yeah. That happened.

That is one of the things worth remembering about the bubble, of course: It's all relative. We need to get to 68 teams somehow. And if everyone falls apart, maybe, in the end, no one does.

Here is your Saturday Bubble Watch update:

WINNERS

Creighton: For months, Creighton had no place in the bubble conversation. It was assumed, and not unfairly so, that the Bluejays and star forward Doug McDermott would rather effortlessly coast through Missouri Valley Conference play, maybe suffer an upset or two, and not have to worry much or at all about locking up an at-large bid in case Arch Madness proves to be exactly that.

And then things came apart. Creighton dropped a game at Drake. McDermott's scoring dried up in a hard fall at Indiana State, which was followed by a close home loss to Illinois State and a 61-54 upset at Northern Iowa. The Bluejays barely got past Evansville -- a fourth straight loss would have started a major panic -- and last Saturday's trip to Moraga, Calif., for a BracketBusters matchup with Saint Mary's didn't go so well, either. All of a sudden, Creighton, a lock in our Bubble Watch since the month-old first edition, was at semi-serious risk of missing the NCAA tournament.

Its fans can breathe easier now. McDermott's 15-of-18 shooting, 41-point masterpiece led the Bluejays to a 91-79 win over Wichita State -- another surefire tournament team in its own right -- Saturday afternoon. If there was any doubt in the selection committee's mind, having your All-American reclaim his status with a Bill Walton-esque shooting performance over the best competition your league has to offer should just about shore everything up. Finally.

Boise State: Boise State will be just as thrilled about the aforementioned Bluejays' big win -- all season, Boise State's best bubble credential has been its surprising late-November win at Creighton. That win looks much better now.

But Boise State should mostly thank itself, and by "itself," I mean Derrick Marks. Marks had a McDermott-like day: 38 points on 13 of 18 from the field with 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals. Most important is he did it in a 78-65 win over Colorado State, a top-20 RPI team and a very good one to boot. (It's worth making a distinction, as teams ranked in the top 20 in the RPI aren't always actually good, but CSU definitely is.) Marks put his team on his back, to steal a phrase from that awesome Marshawn Lynch YouTube video, and the combination of a win over Colorado State and Creighton's big win will put Boise back into the serious at-large conversation -- the fifth team from the nine-team Mountain West to deserve such talk.

Oklahoma: The Sooners snuck up on us this season. It's OK to admit it: No one really expected much in Lon Kruger's second year in Norman, and if there was any expectation at all, it was to keep getting better and maybe surprise a few people in an otherwise-down Big 12. But Kruger's group of unheralded, workmanlike guys has done much more than that. By now, the Sooners have all but locked up an NCAA tournament bid. Sure, sure: There was that loss at Texas earlier in the week, but Oklahoma's convincing win over bubble-stuck Iowa State on Saturday was huge, and the Sooners' computer numbers -- a No. 29 RPI, a No. 9-ranked SOS, a No. 28 nonconference schedule figure -- and big wins over Kansas and Oklahoma State make them impossible to ignore. They have West Virginia and TCU left. If they handle business, they're in.

Massachusetts: It is worth noting, of course, that even after beating Memphis at home this week, Xavier's RPI is still just No. 87. It is also worth noting that the Minutemen's only top-50 win came at La Salle, which, while a decent team, is nobody's idea of a season-defining power. But even after noting all that, we should also note that UMass won at Xavier on Saturday, something the touted Memphis Tigers were unable to do just a few days prior. That definitely counts for something. With a home game against Butler next on the docket, Derek Kellogg's team still has time to make some noise — or at least reverse the damage of last week's loss at St. Bonaventure.

Arkansas: So, what's a home win over Kentucky worth these days, anyway? It's a good question: The Wildcats beat Missouri in their own building just seven days ago, but that's their only top-50 win of the season, and it's safe to say the selection committee won't hold John Calipari's team in vaunted regard with injured forward Nerlens Noel out. So it's hard to know how much this victory can aid Arkansas' late push toward the bubble finish line. But I do know this: It can't hurt. On a day when so much of the rest of the bubble, particularly the SEC versions, seemed intent on imploding, a win over a fellow bubble team counts as a totally positive development. (A win at Missouri on Tuesday would be even better.)

California: Hey, remember when Cal was kind of bad? It happened this season, I swear it did -- it was just Dec. 29 when a depleted Harvard toppled the Bears in Berkeley, after all. You can be forgiven if you don't quite remember, because it hasn't been the case for weeks. On Saturday, Cal rattled off its seventh consecutive win, a 62-46 destruction of visiting Colorado. This stretch began with a win at Arizona and included a home victory over UCLA and a win at Oregon. With no bad losses weighing them down, I'm not sure how the Bears could miss out on the tournament now.

UCLA: The Bruins completed their season sweep of Arizona Saturday night at Pauley Pavilion. UCLA wasn't really on the bubble -- not like some of these other poor, desperate souls -- but even so, it's safe to say sweeping the Wildcats makes you a lock. This file is officially closed.

LOSERS

Kentucky, Tennessee, and — gulp — Ole Miss: Does anyone from the SEC actually want to go to the NCAA tournament? Is everybody already thinking about spring football? What on Earth is going on?

We talked about Kentucky in the Arkansas blurb; the Wildcats remain one of the more intriguing at-large cases for the committee to handle, but I'm not sure their status as a just-above-the-bubble squad was totally damaged by a loss at Arkansas. And Tennessee, as we mentioned in the intro, managed to lose at Georgia and still move into the bracket. Wait, what? Huh? How does that happen?

The answer brings us to Ole Miss.

On Saturday, Ole Miss lost to Mississippi State. It's a little bit difficult to explain how bad this loss is without sounding a little bit mean to the Bulldogs, but I don't live in the South, so I don't have to couch my insults with the written equivalent of "Bless your heart": Mississippi State is horrible. Awful. The Bulldogs were riding a 13-game losing streak, to no real fault of theirs or their coach's, as -- thanks to injuries and being at the start of a rebuilding process -- Rick Ray has just seven scholarship players at his command this season. Mississippi State's RPI is No. 236. It began Saturday ranked No. 277 in the KenPom.com efficiency rankings, just one spot below mighty Samford. Many fans believe this to be not only the worst Mississippi State team, but the worst Southeastern Conference team of all time.

That team beat Ole Miss on March 2.

Not only is it a disaster for the Rebels, who have lost in recent weeks at Texas A&M and South Carolina and have turned a 17-2 start into a 21-8 mess, it's also a disaster for coach Andy Kennedy, who began the season on the proverbial hot seat and needed this Ole Miss team to be the redeemed group that got back to the NCAA tournament. It looks less likely than ever that is going to happen. And why? Mississippi State. It doesn't get much worse than that.

Arizona State: Speaking of stalled redemption songs, it's been hard to not root this season for the Sun Devils, who soaked up freshman point guard Jahii Carson's dynamic skill like a sponge en route to a very legitimate spot in the at-large conversation, a far cry from the depths of the let's-just-pretend-it-never-happened 2012 campaign. But Herb Sendek's team appears to be fading a bit late: It fell at home to Washington last Saturday, missed a close one at UCLA on Thursday, and suffered an absolutely brutal 57-56 loss at USC on Saturday. The Washington loss was easily the worst, but because USC began the season so poorly (before it fired coach Kevin O'Neill), a one-point loss looks worse for bubble purposes than it actually is (as USC has been playing really good basketball for about a month). Just tough breaks here.

St. John's: This week, the Red Storm suspended D'Angelo Harrison, one of its most gifted and frustrating players. Whether that departure can be blamed for Saturday's loss is questionable; what I do know is a loss at Providence for a team with an already very shaky bubble case is not a good thing. You probably know that, too. Failing two wins in its final two regular-season games -- at Notre Dame, versus Marquette, good luck -- Steve Lavin's team may well miss the tournament.

Iowa State: Poor Cyclones. Really. Sure, Saturday's 86-69 loss at Oklahoma was ugly on the score line, but a) Oklahoma's good, and b) can you really blame Iowa State? After what happened in Hilton Coliseum this week? Being on the receiving end of one of the worst calls of the season -- in a sport that feels ever more infected by awful officiating -- hurts. Not beating Kansas when you should following an emotionally intense performance. Seeing Fred Hoiberg's young child crying on the sideline hurts. Of course, no one in that locker room will be throwing a pity party, nor should they: Iowa State still has a very good chance of getting into the Dance. But the Wednesday home game against Oklahoma State looms large.

Indiana State: Ah, Sycamores. You thrilled us with your win over Miami at the Diamond Head Classic; you dazzled us with victories at Wichita State and against Creighton. Unfortunately, you've now lost five of your past six, including Saturday's loss at Evansville (RPI: 100) and defeats to Missouri State (RPI: 212), Bradley (RPI: 171) and Drake (RPI: 131). Failing a deep run in Arch Madness, the dream appears to be over.

Akron: Before Saturday's shocking loss at Buffalo, a 12-17 team with an RPI of 241, Akron's last loss came on Dec. 15. Hopefully the committee takes that into account, because this really is a good team. But the margin for error for mid-majors like Akron is always razor-thin. You can't lose random league games to bad opponents, and when you do, you should probably pick a team that isn't Buffalo. It'll be really interesting to see how this résumé will be viewed going forward.

SURVIVORS

Temple: Temple had just regained its footing. The Owls had a rough, wild February, wherein they played five consecutive one-point games in conference play, a stretch that included a home loss to Duquesne. But things were looking up: A win at UMass, a home non-one-point-win over La Salle, a double-digit win at Charlotte, and Thursday's solid home victory over Detroit all injected a little life into an at-large profile that included a big win over Syracuse, a nice win over Saint Louis, and not much else. And surely the Owls would take care of things at home against Rhode Island on Saturday, right? Wait … right?

Right. Phew. Temple held on for a 76-70 victory over a Rhode Island team that has played a lot of its Atlantic 10 foes really tight in the past two months; shaking the Rams off is no easy feat. (Just ask Saint Louis, which last lost when Rhody upset the Billikens in Saint Louis. True story.) That Temple was able to do so must have elicited a major sigh of relief from fans, and coach Fran Dunphy, and not necessarily in that order.

Cincinnati: It's hard to say Cincinnati would have been in bubble trouble with a home loss to Connecticut on Saturday, but our eyebrows would have been ever so slightly raised. It would have been Cincinnati's fourth straight loss, after all, albeit to three solid-to-great (UConn, Notre Dame, Georgetown) Big East teams. The Bearcats held on for a five-point win over Kevin Ollie's scrappy guys, and there's little reason to raise eyebrows now.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Alabama: When you're a bubble team in the SEC -- oh god, here we go again -- you don't get many opportunities for marquee wins. Missouri is decent but not great, whether in the RPI or otherwise. Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Ole Miss don't come anywhere close. (Obviously.) Really, your only opportunity to drastically change the perception of your team or the trajectory of your season -- or both -- is to beat Florida. Florida's really good. If you can knock the Gators off, you deserve to be viewed differently. If you can do it at Florida? You should probably get into the NCAA tournament on sheer principle, which is why Alabama's 12-point loss in Gainesville on Saturday, while expected, is still a missed opportunity: Shockingly enough, the Crimson Tide had Florida well within striking distance as late as the final two minutes of regulation. That final score is a mirage; this game was close, and Alabama just couldn't quite get there when it counted.

Baylor: It's been easy to poke fun at Baylor this season. The Bears play a wacky zone defense. They've probably underachieved. Those uniforms. Etc. But I refuse to make fun of Baylor after Saturday's absolutely brutal last-second loss. It would be easier than ever. The Bears did inbound the ball out of bounds over the the full length of the court without touching it with one second left, and then allowed Rodney McGruder to get free and fire a game-winning 3-pointer within that one second on the ensuing baseline out-of-bounds play. That's a borderline-comical way to lose. But it's also incredibly brutal.

That is, of course, in part because Baylor desperately needed a big win to buttress its bubble case; the Bears are directly atop the bubble right now, and the biggest flaw in their résumé is their lack of marquee wins. The visit from Kansas State was a plum opportunity to knock off a really good team with a really good résumé, and Baylor was just that close.

"Ouch" doesn't even begin to describe it.

John Calipari joins Andy Katz to discuss Nerlens Noel's injury and the remainder of the Wildcats' season.

Just last week, NCAA tournament selection committee chair Mike Bobinski hosted the first of a handful of teleconferences heading toward Selection Sunday. It was just a day after Nerlens Noel tore his anterior cruciate ligament, so naturally Bobinski was asked how the loss of Kentucky’s best player would affect the Wildcats’ chance at an NCAA tourney berth.

Here’s what he said:

“The reality is we have about 4 1/2 weeks of basketball left to be able to watch Kentucky play and see how they perform without him in the lineup now, and that will really tell the story I think of how we ultimately judge and view Kentucky."

Well, here’s what the committee saw:

Tennessee 88, Kentucky 58. Tied for the fourth-worst loss for UK in the past 80 years. John Calipari's worst loss since Feb. 18, 1989. That was a lifetime ago, in his first season at Massachusetts, when the Minutemen lost to Duquesne by 31. He didn’t have quite as many McDonald's All Americans on that roster.

If this were an audition for the tourney bracket, the director would be yelling, "Next!"

Just barely on the bubble to begin with -- Kentucky has zero top-50 RPI wins now that free-falling Ole Miss has dropped to 51 -- the Wildcats were quickly dumped to the First Four Out by Joe Lunardi on Saturday afternoon (remember, even before Noel got hurt, UK was getting essentially run out of the gym by Florida).

There is no question that losing Noel is a huge blow, but it is not just in terms of X's and O's. That Tennessee loss -- and give the Vols credit for playing a near-flawless game (especially point guard Trae Golden) -- exposed the real crux of the problem for Kentucky sans Noel.

For most of the season, he has been the only one playing with a combination of consistent ferocity and passion. The rest of the team tends to disappear frequently, lollygags on defense often and shows such dispassionate body language at times that you have to wonder whether the players are clock-watching.

In Noel’s absence, his freshman classmates Willie Cauley-Stein, Alex Poythress and Archie Goodwin combined for 13 points, 13 fouls and nine turnovers.

A year after coaching one of the best collections of hard-working, unselfish players, Calipari has a group he cannot cajole, bullwhip or beg into cohesion. It has gotten so bad that the coach spent the week before the Florida game talking about his team’s need to find love. Not the Valentine kind, but the bromance of basketball.

Thanks to the cottony soft bubble, Kentucky isn’t dead yet. But the Grim Reaper is standing by. The Wildcats have six regular-season games left -- four that can only hurt them (against Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Arkansas and Georgia) and two that will mean everything (visits from Missouri and Florida).

Noel, of course, won’t be there for any of them, but for Kentucky right now, it’s more about channeling the way he played.

Some other observations from Saturday afternoon:

1. Opportunity knocked ... And North Carolina answered. Oklahoma couldn’t unlock the door. Stanford didn’t hear the doorbell. In what might go down as an ACC bracket-buster game, the Tar Heels topped Virginia, 93-81. That doesn’t officially seal either team’s fate, but certainly it’s a feather for UNC and a glancing blow for the Cavaliers.

Meanwhile, in the Big 12, Oklahoma blew an 11-point lead and lost 84-79 in overtime at Oklahoma State, which has won seven consecutive league games for the first time in nearly a decade. It’s a body blow for the rival Sooners, who have a confusing NCAA résumé -- an RPI of 20 but a 3-5 record against the RPI top 50.

As for Stanford, Bill Walton quite naturally put it best. Somebody, the analyst said, needs to start watering the roots of the Tree. Just two weeks ago, the Cardinal looked like the team that promised to capitalize on its NIT run from last season, winning three games in a row, including one against hot Oregon. Now, Stanford has lost three of four, blowing show-me opportunities against both Arizona and now UCLA.

2. Pay attention to Marcus Smart: The Oklahoma State guard might be the most unheralded player in the country right now. Seriously. The reason might be that on their own, none of his numbers jumps off the stat line -- he averages 14.4 points, 5.8 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 3.0 steals per game -- but then go back and look at that list collectively.

He’s good at everything. Offense, defense, scoring and sharing, he is the consummate individual player and the consummate teammate. In the victory against the Sooners, he had 28 points, seven rebounds and four assists. Just another day at the office. He's also the reason the Cowboys are poised for their first NCAA tournament bid since 2010. Oklahoma State has won seven in a row. In that stretch, Smart is averaging 19.1 points, 6.1 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 3.4 steals.

3. What would happen if ... Arkansas and Missouri played on a neutral court? Would the game ever end? Or better yet, would it ever start? Would both teams be turned into pillars of salt, frozen in fear by the unfamiliar, away-from-home surroundings? Give the Hogs credit -- they're now 15-1 at home after squeaking past Mizzou, 73-71. But neither team can win on the road, which is something the selection committee kind of likes to see every once in a while.

4. Can a player win national player of the year and not make the NCAA tournament? It has never happened with a Wooden winner, but Doug McDermott might be on the verge of rewriting history in a decidedly twisted way. McDermott is continuing to put up huge numbers -- he is averaging 23 points per game and just eclipsed the 2,000-point plateau -- but his team isn’t doing much to prove it belongs in the field of 68.

The Bluejays rallied from a double-digit deficit to win 71-68 at Evansville and end their three-game skid. Feel free to celebrate the end of the losing streak, but then realize that Evansville is 14-13 overall and just 7-8 in the league, so skating to a three-point win doesn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence, does it?

In the latest player-of-the-year straw poll of actual voters, collected by Michael Rothstein, McDermott was second behind Michigan’s Trey Burke. He had 118 points and 21 first-place votes to Burke’s 136 and 30 (the poll is done every two weeks), and the next-closest vote getter, Mason Plumlee, wasn’t even in the neighborhood, with 35 points and only four first-place votes.

Numbers matter in player of the year ballots, but don’t think for a minute winning isn’t (and shouldn’t be) a factor. If Creighton doesn’t right the ship well enough soon, it will be interesting to see whether McDermott is part of the collateral damage.

5. Watch out for Providence: No, I’m not joking. Done in by injuries and down to five scholarship players early, the Friars appeared destined for their annual bottom-third-of-the-Big East finish. Not so fast. Coach Ed Cooley has talent -- Bryce Cotton, Kadeem Batts, Vincent Council and Kris Dunn -- and now he's getting something out of it. Providence has won four consecutive Big East games for the first time since 2004, including wins against Cincinnati and today's 71-54 victory over Notre Dame, which snapped a nine-game losing streak to the Irish.

I’m not sure whether the Friars are good enough to keep that streak going -- they go to Syracuse next -- but after too many lean years to count, Cooley has this team headed in the right direction. In a confusing Big East -- explain Villanova, please? -- Providence is good enough to make things even more confounding.

1. Kentucky's NCAA tournament fate is probably closely related to what happened to Purdue in 2010, when the Boilermakers were headed toward a No. 1 seed before Robbie Hummel tore his anterior cruciate ligament in a late-February game at Minnesota. The Boilermakers ended up dropping to a No. 4 seed. Kentucky isn't that high, but the seeding, more than an actual selection, is probably going to take the biggest hit following Nerlens Noel's season-ending knee injury. Selection committee chair Mike Bobinski said earlier in the week that there was still plenty of time to evaluate the Wildcats. He also said you can't eliminate what Kentucky has done, either, since the committee looks at the body of work. The Wildcats still have a victory at Ole Miss that isn't going to go away. They can make this all moot with a strong finish in their remaining seven regular-season games, including visits from Missouri and Florida. This has been John Calipari's most challenging season at Kentucky and now it will test him even more.

2. Connecticut's Kevin Ollie should be the Big East coach of the year. But the national honor is likely going to Miami's Jim Larranaga, barring a late-season collapse. The Hurricanes started unranked and are headed for a No. 1 seed-type season -- the hoops version of what Notre Dame did in college football in going from unranked to the national title game. Wisconsin's Bo Ryan would have to be in the conversation as well, as should Indiana's Tom Crean. The freshman-of-the-year chase has to be one of the most competitive, featuring Kansas' Ben McLemore, Oklahoma State's Marcus Smart, UNLV's Anthony Bennett and Arizona State's Jahii Carson, among others.

3. Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon made a great point Thursday about low scoring in college basketball. Dixon said that teams attempting more 3-pointers has led to more zone defenses and using up more of the shot clock. Of course, he added that teams are defending better and more fouls aren't being called. There are a lot of theories out there about low scoring, but perhaps the most important might be the lack of some fundamental shooting.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- A quick look at No. 7 Florida’s 69-52 victory over No. 25 Kentucky on Tuesday night at the O’Connell Center:

Overview: Florida got off to a slow start, but quickly recovered and rolled past Kentucky to snap a five-game losing streak to the Wildcats -- and secure first place in the Southeastern Conference at the same time.

UF missed its first five shots, fell behind 4-0, and Patric Young wen to the bench with an early foul in the game’s first three minutes. An 8-0 run -- started by an Erik Murphy 3-pointer -- erased that deficit and the Gators (20-3, 10-1 SEC) never trailed.

The 17-point margin is tied for the second-biggest margin of victory for Florida in the series. Five UF players scored in double figures.

Florida now has a two-game lead over Kentucky (17-7, 8-3) in the SEC standings.

Turning point: Kentucky was in position to cut Florida’s lead to less than 10 points with eight minutes remaining in the game, but an injury to Wildcats forward Nerlens Noel sapped UK’s momentum. Noel, who had posted double-doubles in his last previous games, smashed his knee on the basketball support after blocking Mike Rosario’s attempted layup. Florida was leading 57-45 at the time of Noel’s injury. Noel finished with eight points and six rebounds.

Key player: Florida G/F Casey Prather gave the Gators great minutes off the bench, especially in the first half. The 6-foot-6 Prather has been pressed into playing power forward because of the loss of Will Yeguete, and he responded with 8 points, 1 rebound, 1 block and 1 assist in the first 20 minutes. He also drew a pair of charges.

Key stat: As usual, the Gators feasted on turnovers. UF scored 20 points off 17 Kentucky turnovers.

Miscellaneous: UF coach Billy Donovan is now 2-7 against Kentucky under John Calipari. … The 25 points Kentucky scored in the first half was tied for the fewest the Wildcats have scored in a first half this season. … Florida improved to 12-0 at home this season.

Next game: Florida plays at Auburn on Saturday; Kentucky plays at Tennessee the same day.