ESPN Men's Basketball

Needless to say, by the time the news was announced Tuesday afternoon, this was not exactly the shock of the century.

Early Tuesday morning, Mike Brey told our own Andy Katz that Notre Dame had agreed to extend its commitment to the Crossroads Classic -- a four-team event featuring Hoosier heavies Indiana, Purdue, Butler and ND -- for another two years, into 2013 and 2014. Even before that, despite the expiration of the current agreement this season, no one really expected the event to go away. It was assumed the four schools would agree to keep the thing going, one way or the other.

The reason for that is the same reason the official news, as announced by the four schools, is so very welcome: The Crossroads Classic is an event too good not to continue.

Last season's inaugural edition went about as well as anyone could have hoped. The games weren't classics (though Butler's comeback victory over Purdue was certainly exciting), but the event itself was a welcome throwback to the original, organized and hosted by Tony Hinkle at Butler from 1948-51 and from 1957-60. It took the schools 50 years to put a similar event together again, but when they did, they got it right. All four athletics programs teamed together to host the Classic themselves, as opposed to outsourcing it to the Gazelle Group or one of the other patrons, and because they did so they were able to put the games in Conseco Fieldhouse, an actual basketball arena, while splitting the profits evenly among the four.

The end result showcased the collective culture of Indiana basketball. The impulse to gather in Indianapolis and square off on the hardwood -- the same impulse that has made the sport an obsession in the state, even at the high school level, for almost as long as it's been played -- was on full display. Everyone booed IU fans, because that's what other basketball fans from Indiana do. It was just fun, you know?

So, no, it was no shock Tuesday to see the four schools extend their sensible agreement through the 2014 season. But it was excellent to see. In a sport where scheduling too happily tosses aside monumental rivalries for the sake of individual gain (or, if you prefer, "protection" of a "nontraditional program"), the no-nonsense extension of the Crossroads Classic was a small but refreshing change of pace. May it ever be so.

1. Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said the Irish have extended their commitment to the Crossroads Classic for another two seasons. Brey expects the event to continue and be a fixture on the Irish’s schedule. Notre Dame lost badly to Indiana last season while Butler beat Purdue in thrilling fashion in the first event. Next season, in what will be the second of the initial two-year deal, will pit Notre Dame against Purdue and Indiana against Butler. Brey said the rotation of Notre Dame and Butler alternating with the two in-state Big Ten schools would continue in 2013 and 2014. The coach doesn’t anticipate playing Butler in a separate game since it might be hard to justify playing another in-state school, even one as highly rated and respected as Butler.

2. College basketball is in an era of transfers and another example of this is the attention 5-foot-9 Illinois State freshman Nic Moore is commanding. Moore had a solid freshman season for Tim Jankovich and the Redbirds -- averaging 10 points, 3.9 assists and 2.3 turnovers a game. Jankovich went to SMU to be coach-in-waiting, Vanderbilt assistant Dan Muller was hired, and now Moore wants out. As is the case with every transfer, there are suitors lining up. Notre Dame is in line with Illinois and Purdue for Moore’s services.

3. Davidson got plenty of mileage by beating Kansas in a neutral-site game in Kansas City early last season. Now Wildcats coach Bob McKillop is looking for a similar matchup. He said he called Texas coach Rick Barnes and told him he would love to play the Longhorns in Houston or Dallas at a neutral-but-Texas-leaning game. Davidson is in the Old Spice Classic, is playing Duke in Charlotte on the Bobcats’ home court, and is trying to get a single game at Madison Square Garden. Meanwhile, Kansas is playing Oregon State in the same game in KC that Davidson played last season. The Jayhawks are still desperately seeking a major home game on its schedule.

What if Tim Abromaitis got a (probably deserved) sixth year, too? Imagine how excited Mike Brey would be then.

As it stands, the Notre Dame coach is already quite stoked. On Friday, he learned that senior Scott Martin would be granted an additional year of eligibility by the NCAA, his sixth overall, thanks to a lost 2008 year transferring from Purdue and an ACL tear that cost him his 2010 season. On Monday, Martin and Brey got around to discussing the decision with the media, and as Martin cracked jokes about the bad economy ("So I figured why not stay in school for one more year?"), Brey wrapped his arms fully 'round his own very high expectations for the 2012-13 Fighting Irish. From the Chicago Tribune:

"I want this group to dream extremely big dreams, because they are very realistic," Brey said. "And dream them from Day One. We got a lot of work to do it. But I am excited about chasing big goals.

"We've talked about the Big East tournament, trying to win that. We've talked about playing deep in the NCAA tournament. This is a group that should be able to digest all that and do that. That's exciting for me, going forward. I like to have that: Boy, we can do it and we're expecting to do it."

Those are indeed big goals for this team, particularly without Abromaitis, but there are reasons to expect so much. Notre Dame's mid-season Big East run in 2012 proved this group of Irish, when cohesive and self-contained, can play with just about anyone in college hoops on any given night. It's an experienced group, but it's also one that keeps improving. Forward Jack Cooley proved to be one of the best offensive rebounders in the country in 2012 (and an underrated post scorer to boot), and he could compete for Big East player of the year honors in 2012. Sophomore guard Jerian Grant is an equally underrated perimeter presence who pulled off the rare feat of a high assist rate (29.5 percent) and a relatively low turnover rate (15.6 percent) in his 2012 season.

That duo alone would have kept this Irish team near the top of the Big East next season. Martin's return -- alongside good and/or emerging guards Eric Atkins and Pat Connaughton-- gives the Irish a deep, experienced, well-rounded team.

It's tempting to look at this Irish lineup, compare it to the talented heavies in the Big East and wonder if Brey isn't merely wishcasting. But the more you dig in, the more you appreciate Grant and Cooley's performances in 2012 ... well, no wonder Brey is so excited. He has every reason to be.

1. The National Association of Basketball Coaches' board of directors is meeting in Indianapolis on Thursday, with the issue of transfers and how to handle the requests as a primary agenda item. The board has some notable names, including Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan, who was involved in a high-profile case in which the player was initially restricted from transferring to a number of schools; Michigan State’s Tom Izzo; Pitt’s Jamie Dixon; Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim; Notre Dame’s Mike Brey; and NC State’s Mark Gottfried, among others. The NABC doesn’t have legislative power but does serve as a lobbying group to the membership -- and can also influence other coaches on how to handle a transfer situation.

2. The men's NCAA tournament basketball selection committee will also meet Thursday in Indianapolis. The primary agenda item, according to incoming chair Mike Bobinski of Xavier, is to determine the 2013 East Regional site. The finalists are expected to be Syracuse and Brooklyn (Newark, N.J., is still technically in, but it would be a surprise since the regional was there in 2011). Bobinski said it is unusual for the site still to be unknown less than a year before the event. The dismissal of former NCAA vice president Greg Shaheen apparently contributed to the site selection delay; Shaheen’s replacement, Mark Lewis, will be at the meeting. The original plan was for the tourney’s 75th anniversary to have a presence at Madison Square Garden. But the NCAA couldn’t make a commitment before the Garden had to turn in its Knicks and Rangers schedules to the NBA and NHL, respectively. The 2013 Final Four is in Atlanta. The other regional sites are set in Los Angeles (Staples Center), Dallas-Fort Worth (Cowboys Stadium) and Indianapolis (Lucas Oil Stadium)

3. New Illinois coach John Groce has added two transfers in Rayvonte Rice from Drake and Sam McLaurin from Coastal Carolina. The Illini are also busy finalizing their last major non-conference game. Illinois will play Auburn on Dec. 29 at the United Center in Chicago to fill the final significant game on the schedule.

1. Louisville coach Rick Pitino said he wants to play Indiana next season. Hoosiers coach Tom Crean confirmed that the two sides are discussing the idea of a home-and-home series. “This is something we have to consider,’’ Crean said. IU is playing Butler in Indianapolis and could play UCLA or Georgetown in the Legends Classic in Brooklyn. IU could also draw North Carolina in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge in the most likely scenario. Louisville is in the Battle 4 Atlantis with a field that has all NCAA projected or bubble teams in Duke, Memphis, Stanford, Missouri, Minnesota, VCU and Northern Iowa. The Cards host Kentucky and will play a road SEC-Big East Challenge game. IU and Kentucky couldn’t agree on a series for next season, leaving the Hoosiers open to another high-profile game. “The polls have us 1 and 2,’’ Pitino said. “It would be good for us to have a game a 1-[hour], 45-[minute] bus ride away. It would be good for college basketball.’’

2. Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said he still hasn’t heard if Scott Martin will get his sixth year of eligibility back next season. Classmate Tim Abromaitis had his sixth year denied by the NCAA. Brey said Abromaitis’ name has now been listed on an addendum that the NBA has sent out indicating that Abromaitis is draft eligible. Abromaitis is in the process of picking an agent now that he has lost his amateur status.

3. Arizona will improve on the court if Mark Lyons plays to his potential. But the experiment of taking Lyons for one season will only work if he comes to Tucson knowing that he is serving a role. Lyons is in an odd situation where he is headed to play for the coach (Sean Miller) who initially recruited him at Xavier after the then-assistant coach (Chris Mack) who became his head coach at Xavier when Miller left, deemed he wasn’t listening well enough to constructive criticism. Xavier isn’t upset with his departure. This is an addition by subtraction. It can work well for Arizona if Lyons keeps quiet and simply just plays.

One of my first lessons of program building came at the hands of Mike Brey, who took over at the University of Delaware at the tail end of my collegiate career. When I say career, I’m referring to my melodious play-by-play calls of Blue Hen basketball. Anyway, Brey imparted on me the wisdom of the transfer.

Over the course of his time in Newark, I would chide the coach that he took so many transfers it seemed like he didn’t start recruiting until campus directories were printed and he knew how to get in touch with players on other teams. Steadily, Brey constructed a winning program at Delaware behind guys who were on their second and final chances.

Since graduating and watching Brey enjoy nearly two decades of success, I’ve never lost the importance of what a good transfer can do for a program, especially at the mid-major level. Would VCU have gone to the Final Four without Jamie Skeen two years ago? That’s just one example, but I’m a firm believer that makeup of a good mid-major program has room for multiple transfers.

For that reason, we shine the light on Rhode Island, where Dan Hurley quickly adopted a Brey-like philosophy. On Wednesday night, Hurley dipped into the transfer pool and sprung wing Jarelle Reischel from Rice. VCU was the other finalist for the kid who started 10 conference games as a freshman for the Owls. He played his high school ball in New Jersey, as did Hurley’s first impact transfer.

Gil Biruta averaged 9 points and 5 rebounds for the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. Like Reischel, he’ll sit out next season, but he'll have two years of eligibility remaining; Reischel has three.

When you’re transferring, it’s basically one’s last chance at making the best decision. There’s no room for error. Often times dropping down a level is the best choice, but the reality is Biruta could have played in any league. However, he played for Hurley at St. Benedict’s in high school. The familiarity led to him making a strong transfer choice based on prior information.

“I was tempted to go to a bigger school and league but it’s not really about it, it’s about how coach is going to use me and help me improve,” Biruta said. “I know he’s going to bring good guys and the team chemistry would be great.”

Rhode Island was 7-24 last season. Chances are it won’t be much better next year. But reloading is a process and Hurley, along with his brother Bobby and former Rutgers assistant Jim Carr and URI alum Preston Murphy, have their eyes on the long term.

The biggest challenge facing URI now is patience. There’s a waiting game that comes when you take transfer players. With two good ones in the bank, the task is putting pieces around them, constructing a solid foundation class in 2013 and implementing the culture change that’s bound to come with a Hurley at the helm.

Rhode Island isn’t relevant yet, but it’s on the recruiting trail for sure, as evidenced by these two newcomers. Relevancy is measured in wins and that’s going to take more time and most importantly another recruiting class. Regardless, the players are beginning to see what URI has a chance to become.

“I had many options, but Hurley getting the job at Rhode Island was perfect timing,” Biruta said. “I can trust Coach Hurley, I know how he treats players. Why would I risk it and go somewhere else when I know he can build a winning program?”

URI also owns commitments from former Wagner power forward Mike Aaman (Raritan, N.J./Raritan) and retained URI pledge Jordan Hare (Saginaw, Mich./Saginaw).

By the way, these Hurley boys are sticklers for tradition. So far the only transfers they've taken are New Jersey kids. Heck, Aaman is a Jersey guy and Hare was a retainee from the last staff.

Fact is, they're mining New Jersey right now. Evidence? This weekend, Derrick Gordon, St. Pat's Class of 2011, is visiting. He was the best freshman at Western Kentucky last year. Word is he's looking to return north. Maybe he'll find his way to Rhode Island, the Garden State's most fertile friendly suburb.

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Here’s a quick rundown of what to look for in Friday’s evening games in Greensboro.

No. 15 Lehigh (26-7) vs. No. 2 Duke (27-6), 7:15 p.m. ET

If there’s one constant in the NCAA tournament -- other than Duke and North Carolina playing really close to home -- it’s the Blue Devils winning their opening-round games.

Under coach Mike Krzyzewski, the Blue Devils have won 25 of their 27 opening-round games and they’ve taken most of them by lopsided scores. Duke won 14 of the past 15 by an average of 26.9 points, including an 87-45 rout of No. 16 seed Hampton in the 2011 NCAA tournament.

“At Duke, our coaches are great at preparing us for games,” Blue Devils forward Miles Plumlee said. “Regardless of the opponent, we respect each and every one, and we’re just ready to play the game.”

Krzyzewski and his assistant coaches are working a little harder to prepare the Blue Devils for Friday night’s South Region second-round game against No. 15 seed Lehigh at Greensboro Coliseum.

The Blue Devils will probably be without starting forward Ryan Kelly, the team’s third-leading scorer (11.8 points per game) and rebounder (5.4), for the third consecutive game. Kelly, a 6-foot-10 junior from Raleigh, N.C., still hasn’t fully recovered from a sprained right ankle he suffered in practice March 6.

Without Kelly in the ACC tournament, the Blue Devils defeated Virginia Tech 60-56 and lost to Florida State 62-59 in the semifinals at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome.

“He will not be able to play like any type of rotation minutes,” Krzyzewski said. “In other words, you’re not going to see a Plumlee go out and Kelly come in. He might be available for some spot duty and we’ll know more about that [Friday]. Like an end-of-game situation, end of half or some type of specialty thing, but no more than that for this game.”

Kelly has become especially valuable because he’s a big man who shoots 40.8 percent on 3-pointers.

“It’s not a shooter,” Krzyzewski said. “It’s the fact that he’s a big guy who can shoot. We can put another shooter out there, but then we’re real small. So it does have an impact because you might get a few more open looks or a little bit more time to shoot the ball. There’s more space. There are a variety of things that happen as a result of him being out there.”

Kelly’s injury has also left Duke’s bench even thinner. Against the Seminoles, only three Duke reserves combined to play 47 minutes and were outscored 18-9 by their FSU counterparts.

“They would all love Ryan to be able to play,” Krzyzewski said. “But we’re fine. You play with who you got and you play; there’s no excuses for anything. Our guys are ready to go. We love to have Ryan because when he comes into ballgames, he’s different than the other two [big men, brothers Miles and Mason Plumlee]. It makes the other team have to adjust more during the course of a game.”

Who to watch:

Lehigh’s C.J. McCollum: The junior was the country’s sixth-leading scorer with 21.9 points per game. He was named MVP of the Patriot League tournament, scoring 29 points with five assists and three steals in the Mountain Hawks’ 82-77 victory over Bucknell in the championship game.

Duke’s Miles Plumlee: With Kelly sidelined with a sprained ankle, Miles Plumlee -- the oldest of three Plumlee brothers from Warsaw, Ind. -- will have to shoulder an even bigger load. The 6-foot-10 forward scored nine points on 3-for-6 shooting in the FSU loss. He was Duke’s leading rebounder over the past nine games, averaging 10.8 boards.

Duke’s Austin Rivers: Rivers, a freshman from Winter Park, Fla., and son of Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers, was sensational in his first season, leading the Blue Devils with 15.4 points per game. He was named ACC Rookie of the Year and is adept at driving to the basket for points, or kicking the ball back out to his teammates for open shots on the perimeter.

What to watch: Duke’s shooting. The Blue Devils tend to live or die by the perimeter shooting and they struggled in their last three games, making only 16 of 67 3-point attempts (23.8 percent). Rivers made only 3 of 20 3-point attempts in his past four games. Top reserve Andre Dawkins, a career 40.4 percent shooter on 3-pointers, was 1-for-12 in the past five games, after a 6-for-9 performance in a 74-66 victory at FSU on Feb. 23. If the Blue Devils are going to advance beyond this weekend, Rivers, Dawkins and guard Seth Curry are going to have to heat up again.

No. 10 Xavier (21-12) vs. No. 7 Notre Dame (22-11), 9:45 p.m. ET

About the time Xavier was trading punches with Cincinnati in the most frightening moment of the college basketball season, Notre Dame was just beginning to fight through its own troubles.

In mid-January, neither team looked like an NCAA tournament contender. On Friday night, the Fighting Irish and Musketeers will play in a South Region second-round game at Greensboro Coliseum.

“I don’t know if some people seem to have memories of elephants, that they don’t want to ever forget that,” Xavier coach Chris Mack said. “But for our kids it is a chance to go out on the biggest stage of college basketball and advance. And I truly believe that the only games that people remember are the ones you play in March.”

For a while, it seemed like neither the Fighting Irish nor Musketeers would be playing in March.

The Musketeers, who were ranked No. 8 in the country when they routed the Bearcats 76-53 on Dec. 10, lost five of six games after four of their players were suspended for their roles in an ugly brawl in the closing minutes of the Crosstown Shootout. After an 85-72 loss at Temple on Feb. 11, Xavier was 16-9 overall, 7-4 in the A-10.

“If I was being very, very honest, it was extremely difficult,” Mack said. “I don’t think there’s a manual for a coach, for a program, for your players, in how you respond. But the one thing I never questioned about our kids is their desire to compete and want to get better. We stepped in a lot of venues where we heard about the incident, but Xavier basketball is much bigger than 10 bad minutes on a Saturday. This program has done so much good for so many years that we can define ourselves with who we truly are.”

Xavier senior center Kenny Frease, whose face was left bloodied from the fight, said the aftermath of the brawl seemed to bring the Musketeers closer together.

“It was difficult just because of the pressure that was put on us from the outside world,” Frease said. “I think that as a team we always knew that if we were able to come together that we would be where we are today. And in the locker room it really brought us closer together just having gone through that type of adversity. The adversity that you’re going to see in the NCAA tournament, we have been through all that. We have been through a lot more than that. So I think that as a team we’ll be ready for anything we see.”

The Fighting Irish had their share of adversity, too. Notre Dame started 4-2, but then lost senior forward Tim Abromaitis to a season-ending knee injury in practice Nov. 25. Without him, the Irish lost six of their next 13 games and were 11-8 after a 65-58 loss at Rutgers on Jan. 16.

“I feel like it was two different seasons almost before Tim got hurt, and the way we prepared, and the way we game planned and stuff,” Notre Dame guard Scott Martin said. “And then after Tim, we kind of had to figure things out again and regroup and go from there. So I think it was just a lot of hard work and dedication out of us that paid off.”

After the loss at Rutgers, Notre Dame won nine consecutive Big East games (the longest conference winning streak in school history), including a 67-58 upset of then-No. 1 Syracuse on Jan. 21.

“You have to have great, great leadership,” Irish coach Mike Brey said. “I don’t know if I have been more proud of a captain like Scott Martin. Because his partner in leading was supposed to be Tim Abromaitis and he kind of lost him. So for him to lead through a crisis early in the season, I think really helped us. And we had our young guys we committed to them and got them playing time. They needed to play, they needed to get reps. Even if we’re losing games, they needed to get in there and get reps and I think they grew from that.”

Both teams will find out how much they’ve matured Friday night.

Who to watch:

Xavier’s Tu Holloway: Holloway, a senior, led the Musketeers in scoring (17 points per game) and assists (5.1) and was the only Atlantic 10 player in the top five in both scoring and assists. He also leads Xavier in steals (1.5) and foul shooting (86.6 percent). Holloway averaged 19.7 points and 5 rebounds in three Atlantic 10 tournament games.

Notre Dame’s Jack Cooley: Cooley, a bruising 248-pound forward, averaged 12.4 points and 9 rebounds. Cooley, from Glenview, Ill., had a career-high 27 points with 17 rebounds in a 75-69 victory over Providence on March 2, one of his seven double-doubles in the past 10 games.

Xavier’s Mark Lyons: A junior guard from Schenectady, N.Y., Lyons averaged 15.5 points with 2.7 assists. A third-team All-Atlantic-10 selection, Lyons is a potent 3-point shooter, making 39.6 percent of his attempts.

What to watch: Defense. Notre Dame turned its season around with defense, limiting opponents to only 59.2 points per game, which was second-fewest in the Big East. Notre Dame held its opponents to 60 points or fewer in 15 games, including 11 against conference foes. Five opponents were held to fewer than 50 points by the Irish.

NEW YORK – Somewhere in Philadelphia, Bruiser Flint should be crafting his argument:

"The Top 100 Reasons Why My Team Deserves To Be in the NCAA Tournament."

South Florida provided 99 for the Drexel coach.

The Bulls, fighting to prove why they belonged in the bracket, instead gave the selection committee a litany of reasons for why they didn’t.

Forget the RPI and the 1-9 record against RPI top-50 teams. Forget the unbalanced schedule that worked against the Bulls in terms of SOS.

Just go to the eye test and watch the final few minutes of regulation and the extra period in their 57-53 overtime loss to Notre Dame. The federal government could put it on a loop to force bad guys to confess.

It was equal parts painful and foolish, a one-two self-inflicted punch that could prove to be a knockout.

Missed layups, missed front ends of one-and-ones, turnovers, dribbling aimlessly for 23 of the final 25 seconds with a four-point deficit and throwing the ball out of bounds on a last-ditch attempt to win it.

How did USF blow it? Let us count the ways.

And the Bulls blew it on a bubblicious night when Texas and Cal likely played their way in with wins and North Carolina State and Colorado State at least played their way into the discussion.

Instead, USF joined Washington, Northwestern and Mississippi State in the losers’ bracket of teams that will spend an uncomfortable Sunday evening.

Of course, beauty or ugliness, as Stan Heath said, is in the eye of the beholder -- and when the USF coach gazed upon the mess, he saw a masterpiece.

“Hopefully we erased any doubt of what kind of basketball team we are,’’ he said. “We belong. We definitely belong. Giving that kind of effort on the defensive end, you have to really appreciate when you have teams that sacrifice themselves on the defensive end. People on the outside, the casual observer, don’t know how difficult that is, don’t understand that. Teams like us not only get in, they win and advance.’’

Heath’s assessment of his defense is fair. The Bulls do play hard and they challenge shots, using their size inside to make everything difficult. In one ridiculous effort, Gus Gilchrist managed to block Jerian Grant despite falling backward and out of bounds.

But this wasn’t about the defense making things ugly. Good defense should be lauded.

This is about the offense making things uglier.

As active and disruptive as the Bulls’ defense is, their offense is that lackluster. It is like watching chess, with players just standing around like statues.

South Florida led by three with 2:45 to play in a game when three points might as well have been 300, and lost. Frankly, it lost multiple times.

First, when with 33 seconds to play and USF up 45-44, Jawanza Poland got out on the break with absolutely no one but a row of cheerleaders near him and the basket ... and missed a layup.

“He should have finished that layup,’’ Heath said. “He’s point-blank, all by himself. He makes it and the game is over. It’s done.’’

Second, when Poland, strangely fouled by Scott Martin after that miss, clanked the front end of a one-and-one.

Third, when Poland made the worst 33 seconds of his life even worse, fouled Pat Connaughton.

Because the Irish were every bit as culpable in this disaster, Connaughton naturally missed one of two free throws to tie it with 26 seconds left.

“That was unusual,’’ Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said with a chuckle. “We threw a bomb to Pat and he got fouled. I thought, this is getting wild.’’

Ah, but there were five more minutes of wild to come. Notre Dame edged out to a four-point lead when Eric Atkins, without a field goal in the entire game, drained a 3-pointer with 30 seconds to play.

USF got the ball back and point guard Anthony Collins showed all the urgency of a senior citizen on a freeway.

It would have been a comedy of errors if weren’t so hard to understand and if the potential ramifications weren’t so bad.

“I’ll be honest, I won’t sleep,’’ Heath said. “You want to hear your name called on Sunday at 6 o’clock. I think we’ve done a great job by putting ourselves in a great position. I think our team is worthy. But there’s some people that have a lot of information that make wise decisions and we’ll let our case rest with them.’’

There is no shame in losing to Notre Dame. The Irish are a very good team, owners of a 22-10 record now and a legit top Big East squad.

And Heath should be commended for what he’s done. He has retooled a team that won 10 games all of last season into one that won 12 in the Big East alone this season.

But at this time of year it is not enough to talk about what you’ve done. You have to compare your results and your game to others.

You have to look like an NCAA tournament team -- and in its last game before Selection Sunday, USF didn’t.

Editor’s Note: To see our expert picks for each of the nation’s 12 top conferences, click here. To cast your vote in these races, visit SportsNation.

A quick look at the player and coach of the year races in the Big East:

Player of the year

Syracuse is far and away the best team in the Big East Conference.

Which is great when it comes to winning games, but a real problem when you’re trying to sort out player of the year trophies.

Usually you can at least find one obvious candidate from the best team in the conference. With the Orange, that’s impossible. Together they are unbeatable, but individually they almost cancel one another out. Is Scoop Jardine more valuable than Kris Joseph? Does Joseph do more than Fab Melo? How about Dion Waiters, the guy who comes off the bench to rank second on the team in scoring?

All four will get and deserve votes but Syracuse is truly a sum-of-its-parts squad, one where every piece is critical but none more than the others. Someone on this team could win Big East POY -- and if we were voting, we’d lean Waiters -- but it’s not likely.

So who are the obvious candidates? There are two front-runners – Marquette’s Darius Johnson-Odom and West Virginia’s Kevin Jones.

Johnson-Odom has been terrific for a team that has been rock steady all year. Second in the Big East (behind Jones) in scoring, he averages 18.4 points per game. He’s scored in double figures in every game he’s played in save one -- suspended for the first half against West Virginia, he had nine.

Jones, in the meantime, had to be great for coach Bob Huggins’ young team to survive -- and the senior forward has been great. Along with leading the league in scoring and rebounding (20 points and 11 boards), he’s put up 18 double-doubles this season.

Some other long shots to consider: Marquette's Jae Crowder, Notre Dame’s Jack Cooley, Georgetown’s Jason Clark and Seton Hall’s Herb Pope. St. John’s freshmen D’Angelo Harrison and Moe Harkless have been terrific but there’s another newcomer award for them.

It’s a tough pick between the two favorites and I waffle daily but I’d probably lean Johnson-Odom because he has not only been sensational, his team has been, too.

Coach of the year

Interesting test case here -- do you reward the guy who has steered the loaded roster to near perfection or do you celebrate coaches who have had surprising success?

Jim Boeheim is one trip to South Bend away from perfection, achieving such rarefied air despite dealing with the fallout from the Bernie Fine scandal in December. Outsiders might argue that a kindergartener could coach a team with so much depth and talent. What looks easy, though, isn’t always. Managing a team -- especially in this day and age, when premier players come in with premier egos -- is not easy.

And Boeheim hasn’t steered a team to near perfection in any old league. He’s done it in the Big East.

Mike Brey and John Thompson III, meantime, took the opposite run to success. Neither is supposed to be here.

The Irish were picked ninth in the league, and that was before Tim Abromaitis blew out his knee. After that? No one figured Brey’s team to be of any consequence.

But Brey, who memorably retooled his team two years ago after Luke Harangody’s injury, has done it again. Notre Dame is 12-5 in the league, vying for a top-four finish. Brey, who won coach of the year honors last year, has imbued his team with confidence, handing over the keys to the sophomore backcourt of Eric Atkins and Jerian Grant, and letting them run the show.

Thompson’s year at Georgetown has been equally impressive and equally surprising. The Hoyas were picked 10th in the preseason coaches’ poll after losing Chris Wright and Austin Freeman to graduation.

Instead, Georgetown is knotted with Notre Dame at 12-5. Henry Sims has been an eye-opener, the ideal point-center for the Hoyas’ Princeton style, and Otto Porter is arguably among the top freshmen in the conference.

Outsider choices: Mike Dunlap and Stan Heath. Dunlap is supposed to be an assistant, helping Steve Lavin. Instead, while Lavin recuperates from prostate cancer surgery, Dunlap has been running the show at St. John's, and running it with a roster stuffed to the gills with freshmen. Heath, meantime, has pulled himself off the hot seat and the Bulls into the conversation, taking South Florida to its best finish since joining the Big East.

This is another can’t-go-wrong choice. And hey, could you argue with Marquette's Buzz Williams winning it too? Not me.

My pick: Boeheim. The name of the game is winning, and no one in the league has done that better this year than the Syracuse coach.

1. Kansas is on the verge of a possible eighth-straight Big 12 title. That’s remarkable. The Big 12 has been one of the toughest conferences in the country during that stretch. Bill Self has done a tremendous job with this group, has managed a star in Thomas Robinson perfectly, developed a good complimentary player in the post in Jeff Withey and dealt with an enigmatic but effective Tyshawn Taylor. And remember, the Jayhawks lost their top recruit, Ben McLemore to academics in the nonconference. Self is right there for coach of the year nationally with Mizzou’s Frank Haith, Notre Dame’s Mike Brey, Kentucky’s John Calipari, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim and Michigan State’s Tom Izzo.

2. The decision to bring Michigan State AD Mark Hollis (as well as Delaware AD and former Georgetown AD Bernard Muir) on the NCAA tournament selection committee was an intelligent decision. Hollis has been one of the best athletic directors in the country in understanding men’s basketball scheduling. Hollis has been a gambler and innovator (one of the creators of the Carrier Classic). He will know how to correctly judge nonconference scheduling. The committee improved in 2012-13 with the Hollis addition.

3. Interim Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas announced he will step down on July 1. The Big 12 should consider NCAA vice president Greg Shaheen for the position. Shaheen, who was responsible for coordinating the NCAA’s move from Overland Park, Kan., to Indianapolis, has been the glue for the NCAA tournament. Shaheen helped negotiate the latest television contract for the tournament with CBS and Turner and is as connected as anyone at the NCAA in college athletics. But he has to re-interview for his job after the Final Four and according to multiple sources the hierarchy at the NCAA wants him out for a change. Shaheen is too valuable in college athletics to be left idle. The Big 12 could use his vision going forward.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The big, burly Jack Cooley emerged in the paint to deflect the hopeless Jabarie Hinds' shot, Hinds' sixth miss on a Wednesday night that saw him whiff on eight of his nine attempts inside a hellacious Joyce Center. Eric Atkins ended up with the ball and threw ahead to backcourt mate Jerian Grant, who lifted off from outside the paint, going for what his coach would later term "the jugular."

Grant's monster slam attempt from the left side rimmed out toward the Notre Dame bench, just as his momentum was carrying him that way. Five seconds later, alone with the ball in his hands, Grant swished his fourth and final 3 of the night, pausing in front of his bench to take in the celebration of a lead that never stopped growing.

If ever a sequence summed up the Irish's night, the Irish's past month, amidst this historic stretch, it came in that 12-second sequence midway through the second half of a 71-44 rout of West Virginia. Notre Dame has now won nine straight games, a school record in Big East play, and there's no sign of things slowing down.

The Irish's next stop comes Saturday at Madison Square Garden, and a win there over St. John's will clinch a double-bye for the return trip nearly two weeks later for the Big East tournament.

"I think it's a bonus, just to be able to get in there and play a game and then be back," Grant said. "I think we can get a nice rhythm in there, and it will be good for us when the tournament comes."

Grant's 20 points off 8-for-11 shooting (including 4-of-5 from 3) led the attack for the Irish, who had four players in double-figures. They shot better than 61 percent from the floor, breaking open a two-point game at halftime and holding the Mountaineers to just 16 points in the second half.

"I don't know what the school record for misses is," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said, "but I think if I would have left Jabarie Hinds in tonight he would have had it."

Grant, meanwhile, was a catalyst on both ends of the court. He was active on the perimeter, forcing the Mountaineer guards into bad spots, and capitalized on the other end with a pair of fast-break dunks that jarred the leftover tension from a rugged first half.

"Jerian got some nice dunks tonight, they were pretty impressive," forward Scott Martin said. "But I think what's more important than those is his defensive energy, and the way he bothers people. Him and Eric up top, they frustrate people -- I would not want to bring the ball up against those two. They have a very nice chemistry, the way they hand people off, and they have that unspoken little connection there that's paying dividends for us."

Right now that backcourt and so much more has the Irish 12-3 in the Big East, tied for second place and undefeated in the past 32 days since a Jan. 21 upset over then-undefeated Syracuse. They've been rolling since, wrestling one away in Morgantown two weeks ago, completing a school-record 20-point comeback in an overtime win Saturday at Villanova and playing a nearly perfect second half Wednesday to continue this run.

The last Notre Dame team to win eight in a row in Big East play featured current assistants Harold Swanagan and Martin Ingelsby in 2001, Mike Brey's first season as the Irish's head coach.

"He kind of joked about it, about saying you guys can talk smack to those two," Atkins said of Brey.

For now, Brey will talk to his team about playing at the Garden, an obstacle the three-time conference coach of the year has yet to overcome, never reaching the title game and the accompanying Broadway lights that come with it.

A quick turnaround awaits Monday against Georgetown at the Verizon Center, where the Irish, stinging from the loss of leading scorer Tim Abromaitis, fell to 5-4 in a loss to Maryland nearly three months ago.

But that reminder will be put on hold for a few more days.

"We're a lot different than the team that was in D.C. in that building in December," Brey said, stating the obvious. "That's what I'm gonna talk about Sunday."

PHILADELPHIA – After his team beat Syracuse, handing the Orange their first loss of the season, Mike Brey challenged his players to believe in the unbelievable – that Notre Dame, a team without its best scorer and relying on a freshman and sophomore in the backcourt, wasn’t just a fluke; that the Irish were something special.

And those crazy kids bought it.

They looked around the room, at a ragtag group that counted just two guys with any significant experience; that in November lost by 20 to Gonzaga and in December by 7 to Maryland, and they gobbled the bait like greedy guppies.

Sometimes seeing is not believing.

Sometimes you believe and then you see.

The Irish have risen from their early wake to storm to a second-place spot in the Big East, using that Syracuse victory as a catapult to what is now an eight-game win streak after Notre Dame rallied to beat Villanova, 74-70 in overtime.

Notre Dame was picked to finish ninth in the league. And that was before Tim Abromaitis blew out his knee. Yet with the Big East tournament a little more than two weeks away, the Irish are sitting extremely pretty at 11-3, tied with Marquette but owning the tiebreaker after a 76-59 spanking of the Golden Eagles on Feb. 4.

“We do believe we’re special, we really do,’’ said Pat Connaughton, a freshman who throws 94-mph fastballs for the Irish baseball team and drained seven 3-pointers for the hoops squad against Villanova.

And in this particular Big East season, a little self-confidence can go a long way. On Saturday, the Irish needed to come from a 16-point halftime deficit and a first-half hole that once ballooned as large as 20 to beat a team that has won just four league games this season and was down two starters.

Earlier in the day, Louisville, which took Syracuse to the brink on Monday and is 7-1 in its past eight games, needed overtime to dispatch DePaul, a team that has won just twice in 2012.

Toss aside Syracuse at the top and the difference between 2 and 16 is as thin and flimsy as a Jay Wright pocket square.

Connecticut last season became the first team to win five games in five nights to capture the league tournament.

Who’d take the odds that lightning couldn’t strike again this year?

“Confidence is the difference-maker in this league,’’ Brey said. “It’s razor-thin stuff.’’

No one would call Notre Dame a great team. The Irish’s margin of victory is a flimsy 4.6 points. They don’t rebound particularly well. Their players are not more talented than Villanova’s. If anything, the Wildcats hold the advantage in beefy player resumes.

Yet there was Notre Dame, down 20, getting smoked on the boards, shooting terribly and looking like it was up 20. No hung heads, no grimaces or pouting.

Maybe, in part, at least, is because the Irish figure they’ve been playing with house money all season. Abromaitis was supposed to be the guy. The senior averaged 15.4 points a year ago and would, with Jack Cooley, give Notre Dame a formidable inside-outside presence.

When he was injured, there wasn’t so much dejection as there was rampant confusion.

“We practiced with him all summer and all fall,’’ Connaughton said. “And then when we had to play without him, we were like, ‘Oh, am I supposed to shoot this?’’

Brey had been through it before, forced to regroup after losing Luke Harangody two years ago, which helped him at least to keep his head on straight.

His players relied on him, but more they relied on each other. These guys genuinely like one another, Connaughton said, and that comfort helped fuel a trust on the court.

It was evident against the Wildcats. While the inexperienced Cats were blowing their lead, jacking up bad shots and making few of them – Villanova made all of just four field goals in the second half before Maurice Sutton somehow tipped in a fifth at the regulation buzzer to force overtime – the Irish were passing and searching, giving up one OK look for a better one. They used a late 13-4 run to send the game into overtime.

And then, with the Irish up 68-65 in the final minute of overtime, Scott Martin found Connaughton, who sunk his seventh from beyond the arc to cement the victory.

Notre Dame made 25 field goals in the game.

The Irish dished out assists on 17 of them.

“It’s not just the margin for error that’s so small; it’s the margin for success,’’ Wright said. “If you look at their numbers, they’re not that impressive, but what is impressive is how they execute. They know their roles extremely well and they know who they are and who makes the plays. They believe in what they’re doing.’’

And these days believing is carrying the day.

“Jeremy Lin and the Irish,’’ Brey laughed. “Believe it."

Notre Dame’s Tim Abromaitis didn’t have to look very far for support after he suffered a season-ending knee injury back in November.

Two years earlier, his roommate went through the same thing.

“He’s handled it amazing, better than I did,” guard Scott Martin said. “He’s upbeat, he’s positive, always looking forward. He’s that kind of person.”

And the Fighting Irish are that kind of team.

Notre Dame’s obituary was all but written following Abromaitis’ injury. Mike Brey’s squad lost three of its next six games. Heads drooped, shoulders slumped. Even the NIT seemed like a stretch.

But then Big East play started, and the the Fighting Irish beat Pittsburgh and won at Louisville. People began to wonder if Notre Dame was for real - and it answered those questions by topping then-No. 1 Syracuse on Jan. 21 in South Bend, Ind.

With five games remaining in the regular season, Notre Dame is 10-3 and tied with Marquette for second place in the Big East standings. For that, the Fighting Irish can thank seniors such as Martin, a Purdue transfer who averages 9 points and 5.7 rebounds.

Excited as he is about the the rest of the season, Martin is hoping the 2011-12 campaign is not his last in South Bend. He’s petitioned the NCAA for a sixth year of eligibility and is hoping for a decision soon.

On Thursday, Martin took part in a Q-and-A with ESPN.com.

What was the team’s initial reaction when Tim went down?

Scott Martin: It started as shock. It was just disbelief. We were all kind of hit hard. It happened right in front of all of us. He dribbled into the lane and just jump-stopped and his knee gave out on him. Having been through that myself, you just feel so bad for Tim. We were all just shocked. That’s the best way to describe it.

How long did it take to bounce back mentally?

SM: I think we tried to move on as soon as possible, but it wasn’t very successful right away. It definitely took us two weeks or so - or maybe longer - to fully get over the realization that he was hurt and that he wasn’t going to be there. It definitely took time, maybe more time than it should’ve. But Abro was such a big part of the team. It was just hard to fathom that he wasn’t going to be out there.

What eventually helped you get past it and sparked the success you’re having now?

SM: It has a lot to do with our confidence. The younger guys are a lot more confident than they were early. They believe in themselves. They step up and hit the big shot when they need to. It builds on itself. The more wins you get, the more confidence you get. It just keeps continuing to go that way. The mode we’re in right now, we just want to keep building on things. The other great thing about us is that no one is satisfied right now. We don’t think we’ve done enough and we have more we want to accomplish.

Why does this team have that drive? Is it coaching? Is it confidence?

SM: It’s a little of both, actually. I don’t think anyone wanted to quit. We were bound and determined to get this thing figured out and to get wins. That’s what we did. Our practices have improved tremendously since the beginning of the year. I think that just speaks to the guys becoming more mature and understanding the importance of practice every day. I think that’s a big key in our development.

As an older player, what have you done to help the younger guys?

SM: I just try to lead by example. When Abro went down I felt like I needed to be a bit more vocal. I’ve really tried to step up in that area as far as saying what I feel and how I feel and that sort of thing to help pump guys up or keep guys in line. I’ve tried to be more vocal as the season has progressed.

What’s been the highlight of the season so far for you? Beating Syracuse?

SM: That was definitely a great moment. The win on the road at UConn was a great one for us. The great thing about this season is that there are so many great memories for us right now. It’s not just limited to one. Hopefully we can keep working and have some better ones. We’re excited about where we can go. We want to save that best moment and that best memory for later on in the season.

What makes the Joyce Center such a tough place to play?

SM: The atmosphere is great. The fans come out and support us and the students really do a good job. It’s a wild and crazy place. It gets pretty loud in there when we get rolling. The setup of the arena, with the background and everything, helps, too. It’s a shooters' arena. That helps Notre Dame teams, because Notre Dame tends to have really great shooters. That’s one thing that’s helped us tremendously, our ability to shoot the ball.

How optimistic are you that the NCAA will grant you another year of eligibility?

SM: We’re optimistic. We think we have a very good case. We’re trying for it, but it’s hard to tell. It’s in their hands now. We just laid out the facts as we saw them and how everything occurred. We’re waiting to hear back. We’re hopeful, but we’re not sure of everything yet.

Back to Tim ... how is he handling not getting to play? As his roommate, how have you been able to help him?

SM: He’s going to work through it. He really works hard in his rehab. He’s going to come back just as strong or stronger from this. In terms of helping him, there’s not much you can do except try to be a good friend. That’s what I’ve been trying to do.

What are your thoughts on Jack Cooley and his progression?

SM: Jack has taken his game to a whole new level. It’s exciting to see him play so well and be so aggressive. He knows what he’s capable of now and he believes he’s going to do it every night. He knows he’s going to go out and perform. It’s just great to see that look in his eyes, where he knows he’s going to get the rebound or he knows he’s going to make a shot.

I’ve got to think it’s a lot of fun to go to practice or to walk around Notre Dame’s campus these days. What’s the vibe like on campus?

SM: It’s a great feel around here right now. Everyone’s spirits are up. We want to keep it that way. The great thing is that our practices have always been productive. Even though we’ve had success, our workouts are still very good and very intense, with people pushing and shoving. We keep after each other, even through the success.

1. This may be a first but at least you can respect some honesty from Air Force athletic director Hans Mueh and former coach Jeff Reynolds. Mueh said that the players weren’t having fun anymore — a reason for a dismissal that you don’t always hear. Reynolds said he was told the same thing and that it’s important at the academy for basketball to be enjoyable (a release, maybe), considering all the cadets' other responsibilities. Reynolds was upset at the timing of Wednesday's dismissal but admitted that he didn’t win enough. The Falcons looked like a team that would be a tough out in pushing UNLV to overtime on Jan. 28. But they couldn’t follow that up. Air Force is one of the tougher jobs in the West and clearly the academy wants to win — but also enjoy it at the same time.

2. There are still a few weeks left in the regular season, but if I had a vote, Mike Brey would be coach of the year in the Big East. Notre Dame won at West Virginia on Wednesday night to move to 8-3 in the conference. The Irish are the only team to beat first-place Syracuse; they are going to make the NCAA tournament after a brutal non-conference. This is one of the best in-season turnarounds in the history of the league.

3. Florida State had taken care of business by beating teams lower than it in the standings — until Wednesday. The defeat at Boston College didn’t lose the ACC for the Seminoles. But it raised considerable doubt that Florida State can win the conference for the first time ever. At one point Wednesday, the Seminoles had a shot to be tied with UNC (and technically ahead in the tiebreaker) and two games ahead of Duke. But then FSU lost and Duke stunned UNC at the buzzer on Austin Rivers’ 3-pointer. That means FSU is in a three-way tie with UNC and Duke at 7-2 and now suddenly looking like the shakiest of the three.

1. Memphis should immediately be the mix in the Big East when the Tigers arrive in 2013-14. The Tigers are in fertile recruiting ground, have a tremendous fan base and are entering a Big East that will lose Syracuse, Pitt and West Virginia – three of the most consistent programs in the league recently. There is no reason Memphis can’t be in the thick of a race with Louisville and UConn, as long as both are in the league, Marquette, Georgetown, Villanova, Cincinnati and Notre Dame. Memphis coach Josh Pastner said Tuesday that he anticipates the Tigers will be competitive with the league’s elite as soon as Memphis joins.

2. Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said he doesn’t want to leave the Big East for the ACC. He said he’s hoping going forward that Notre Dame football still has a spot in the BCS. He said the Irish have to have a plan, but that they have found their niche in the Big East. The problem for Notre Dame will be how the Irish hierarchy feels about its new neighborhood, of having all but football and its faculty aligned with new schools Central Florida, SMU, Houston and Memphis. Academically, the Irish are a better fit with the ACC elite. But this will be a football decision, of course.

3. Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said he’s not surprised but yet so proud of former Crimson guard Jeremy Lin’s progress with the New York Knicks in the past week. The Harvard brand has never seen so much positive vibe in the history of the program. The Crimson remain ranked, Lin is a sudden star in the nation’s top media market and if the Crimson make the NCAA tournament they will likely be a spotlight team during the first weekend due to the historic nature of the bid. These are good times to be in Harvard hoops.