ESPN Men's Basketball

Of all the conference realignment possibilities, debates and related goings-on, Missouri’s move to the SEC may have gotten the least attention -- in large part because of the ongoing Penn State scandal.

No doubt that’s fine for Missouri officials now -- and recent SEC addition Texas A&M -- but not being in the national dialogue won’t stand once the teams begin SEC play. Where some fans see both moves as lateral for the teams, university leaders see otherwise: moving to the SEC with play starting in 2012-13 is a chance to grow their brands nationally.

“The top decision factor for A&M going to the SEC was about increasing national visibility and exposure,” said Jason Cook, A&M’s vice president of marketing and communications. It’s no coincidence, he said, that six of the top 10 and nine of the top 25 top-selling brands for IMG College are SEC members.

Cook said looking no further than your TV screen underscores the opportunity: the recent Aggies game against Iowa State was the game selected by Big 12 first-tier rights holder ESPN, which showed the game on ABC regionally. Cook said it wasn’t even shown across the entire Big 12 footprint, much less nationwide. But that week’s game on CBS, the SEC’s first-tier rights holder, appeared in homes from coast to coast.

Referring to the Big 12’s new, second-tier television deal with FOX set to begin next season, Cook said: “While some look at the Big 12’s contract and see it as good from a financial standpoint, from an exposure standpoint, it doesn’t get coast-to-coast coverage.” This would put A&M in the same situation it was in for the Iowa State game, when broadcasts are via regional network and not nationwide.

Increased exposure nationally through athletics can help educate prospective students learn about the university, too, he said. A&M is still thought of by many to be an all-male military institution. One other important advantage: “We can set the marketplace in the state of Texas for the SEC,” Cook said, as the school will be the conference’s lone Texas brand.

From a licensing standpoint, Cook said consultants have projected revenue to increase by up to 60 percent as a result of the move.

Missouri officials have mentioned similar benefits, but Chris Koukola, assistant to the chancellor for university affairs, focused mostly on academic benefits in a recent interview.

Officials from the admissions office will look at extending their out-of-state reach, particularly in Florida, where they have a large number of alumni. Koukola also mentioned the expanded research opportunities available for faculty.

What Koukola said she most looks forward to is the opportunity to participate in a group the SEC has formed of administrators in a similar communications position. She said the Big 8 had such a group, but it was never active once the Big 12 was formed. This cooperative element adds value to their move that often goes without mention, she said.

• As of yet, Jim Calhoun has given little public reason for anyone to think he's retiring at the end of this season. (Whether he should retire is a different story; now seems like as good a time as ever. But that's going to be Calhoun's decision to make.) In the meantime, a pair of self-proclaimed "Loudmouths" are reporting that Calhoun is set to retire at year's end. In response, Calhoun's son Jeff told Adam Zagoria that "unequivocally on my children he has not made a decision to retire and I fully expect him to be back." Which seems like a much more reliable source. In any case, that's not the point; the point is that when Calhoun decides to retire, we'll all know, because he'll tell us. Publicly. At a press conference. Which he will announce. Until then, it's a little silly to spend too much time debating the ins and outs of whether or not Calhoun -- or any coach -- will retire at the end of this season. So let's stop, huh? We have basketball to watch. That's more fun.
• Michigan State coach Tom Izzo has suspended sharpshooting guard Chris Allen from Friday's opening Big Ten tournament game for what the Lansing State Journal calls "the cumulative effect of academic problems." Izzo might allow Allen to meet the team on Saturday, provided Michigan State wins.
• Believe it or not, Butler is only 1-4 in Horizon League tournament title games since 2003. Given the sheer dominance the Bulldogs have wrought on the Horizon League in that timeframe, this is a surprising statistic. And one Butler can improve in the team's title appointment with Wright State tonight.
• Kim English -- who is not, as you might assume, a character in an Ian Fleming novel, but is rather a very good basketball player at Missouri -- recounts a difficult childhood in the Kansas City Star: "'Kids can be cruel,' English said as he allowed a glimpse into his fight to control a condition that afflicts more than 60 million in the world, according to the International Stuttering Association. 'I got teased in school. A lot of fights in elementary school. I’d go not talking for days at a time in school. I stuck to myself. Me, having a girl name, and me stuttering. Can you imagine a boy in the second grade stuttering and his name’s Kim?'" The lesson here, as always: Children are evil. Never forget this.
• The Dagger previews the Big East tournament, in which UConn has to make a "miracle run" with wins over St. John's, Marquette and Villanova to get to the title game. Impossible it is not. Improbable? Quite.
• Speaking of the Big East tournament, here are some log5 projections from Ken Pomeroy. Remember that whole "improbable but not impossible thing"? That applies to pretty much everyone except the league's top four teams. Getting double-byes into the quarterfinals of the tournament will do that.
• Lorenzo Romar is displeased that Washington's Quincy Pondexter wasn't named co-MVP of the Pac-10 this year; the award was given to Cal's Jerome Randle, who fit nicely in the Derek Jeter Memorial "Best Player on the Best Team" category of year-end awards. The award wasn't given that way last year, when Arizona State's James Harden beat league-winning Washington's Jonathan Brockman for the award. Which is a fair argument, I guess. It would also have been pretty difficult to ignore Harden's brilliance last season; Pondexter, while good, didn't reach those heights in 2009-10.
• Sporting News releases its list of All-Americans, which has five guards on the team: John Wall, Greivis Vasquez, Evan Turner, Scottie Reynolds, and James Anderson. Somewhere, DeMarcus Cousins and Cole Aldrich are having a very cramped, very valid pity party.
• Oh, and in regards to yesterday's discussion of Cousins vs. Wall for freshman of the year, John Gasaway follows up. For previous Gasaway-penned Cousins over Wall knowledge, well, here you go.
• Mike Miller and Vegas Watch discuss the vagaries of picking your bracket the smart way. Or you could follow the Eamonn Brennan method, which is to throw up your hands, admit you know nothing, and pick teams based on where you wish you'd gone to college. (Just kidding. I don't actually do this. There is plenty of exasperation and hand-throwing, though.)
• FanHouse wonders if North Carolina can win four games in four days. Seeing as the last time North Carolina won four games in a row was from Nov. 9 to Nov. 19, this premise sounds remarkably similar to the UNC fan denial heard immediately after the Tar Heels' blowout loss to Duke last week. But hey, remember: improbable! Not impossible! Mantra, UNC fans. Mantra.
• Former Notre Dame forward Zach Hillesland continues his New York Times Quad blogging with this view of why the Irish played so well with star Luke Harangody out of the lineup.
• Big 12 Hoops gets the conference tournament party started a day early with this preview of the league tournament. Meanwhile, in the hopes of placating the northernmost denizens of the conference, the Big 12 tournament could move in coming years.
• Daily Gopher orders the Big 10's most disappointing teams. The only qualm here is the rather high inclusion of Northwestern; after losing Kevin Coble to injury for the entire year, the fact that the Wildcats were able to stay in NCAA tournament territory for so long was something of a positive surprise.
• Vanderbilt blog Anchor of Gold makes a case for Kevin Stallings as SEC coach of the year.

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

Saddle Up is our daily preview of the hoops your TV wants you to watch. Here's Tuesday night's rundown.

Illinois at No. 7 Ohio State, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN: Of any team facing bubble implications to play tonight, Illinois' situation is perhaps the most fluid. A win at Ohio State puts the Illini in the absolutely-in pile; a loss leaves them right about where they are now, if not worse off. Losing would make the Illini would 18-12 overall, the sort of record the committee will not be perfectly thrilled with, and Illinois would still have to fend off loss No. 13 when Wisconsin comes to Champaign, Ill. on Sunday.

The good news is Illinois has proven capable of beating top Big Ten teams on the road before. The bad news is that Illinois' style plays right into the Buckeyes' hands: Few teams prevent free throws quite like the Buckeyes, and few teams refuse to pocket their jump shots and attack the rim quite like the Illini. If Illinois can reverse this trend for a night -- if they can get Demetri McCamey to attack the basket and get forwards Mike Tisdale and Mike Davis some good looks against Ohio State's somewhat undersized, shallow front line -- Bruce Weber's charges have a chance. If not, well, Ohio State is better and more efficient than Illinois in just about every aspect of the game. Things don't bode well.

No. 19 Vanderbilt at Florida, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN: Speaking of bubble teams in need of help ... Florida, come on down. Joe Lunardi has Florida as a No. 10 seed in the tournament right now, but thanks to a close loss at Georgia (which is actually not that horrible loss, given how well Georgia has played at home this season), Florida could use a big win tonight before a daunting trip to Rupp Arena on Sunday.

Make no mistake: That's what a win over Vanderbilt would be. Big. The Commodores have been a steady force in the SEC all season. Their only league losses have been to Kentucky and a blowout at Georgia -- there's that pesky Georgia team again -- and while not a great defensive team, Kevin Stallings' bunch is very difficult to stop on the offensive end. Vanderbilt's attack is nicely balanced between forwards A.J. Ogilvy and Jeffrey Taylor, and guard Jermaine Beal, all who shoot a plus-50 effective field goal percentage. Florida's lack of a true post presence could hurt them against the 6-foot-11 Ogilvy. Then again, Florida's strength isn't its size; it's speed. Make Ogilvy work away from the hoop on defense -- the sudden offensive brilliance of forward Chandler Parsons applies here -- and the Gators can make Vanderbilt exceedingly uncomfortable. And then we can stop talking about the Florida's bubble issues forever. I'm cool with that.

Everywhere else: Cincinnati doesn't share Illinois' and Florida's bubble anxiety -- it's entirely out of the picture, now -- but a win over Villanova couldn't hurt matters, I guess ... Gonzaga would put the cap on another WCC title season by topping Cal-State Bakersfield tonight ... With a win at Marshall, UTEP would seal the outright Conference-USA crown ... Baylor will put its third-place standing in the Big 12 on the line at Texas Tech ... Likewise for Missouri at Iowa State ... Minnesota plays at Michigan in yet another battle of the upper midwest's most disappointing teams ... and deadlocked Big East teams Louisville and Marquette will play a game both teams want, but don't necessarily need, in regards to NCAA tournament hopes. Marquette is involved, so it's a safe bet the game will come down to the wire. That should be fun.

Anytime you hear the acronym "ACL" with the word "torn" in front of it, you automatically assume the worst. That's because a torn ACL usually is the worst. As if we needed a reminder of that, look at Purdue's Robbie Hummel, whose torn ACL will keep him on the sidelines for the rest of Purdue's run at the Final Four and, presumably, for many months after that.

Apparently, though, ACLs aren't always rehab-worthy. Take Missouri's Justin Safford, who likewise tore his ACL this week. Safford's injury not only isn't as serious as Hummel's, there's a chance he could play again this very year:

Missouri starting forward Justin Safford has a torn ACL in his left knee and will definitely miss the Tigers' Saturday night game at No. 6 Kansas State. However, the injury is not necessarily one of a season-ending nature.

"We'll reevaluate it in the next week and then we'll make a determination of what's going to take place," Missouri coach Mike Anderson said during a Thursday morning interview on WHB radio. "We know eventually he's going to have to have surgery."

I suppose this makes sense; you'll occasionally hear stories of people tearing their ACLs and not knowing it for a few weeks, playing through what feels like a minor pain until they go to the doctor and realize they have something seriously wrong with their knee. (Or maybe that's just my buddy. Normal people probably don't do stuff like that, huh.) But hey, if Safford can pull it off, giving his team postseason minutes without risking further damage to his knee -- and that's the important part, obviously -- then why not?

The Morning After is our semi-daily look at last night's best hoops action. Try not to make it awkward. Oh, and sorry about that headline. I couldn't help myself.

No. 4 Purdue 60, No. 12 Ohio State 57: Any time you face a player as good as Evan Turner, the conventional strategy is simple: Make someone else beat you. It might not have been conscious, but Purdue's execution in last night's impressive road win at OSU was the exact opposite. It let Turner get his points (and his assists, and his rebounds, and pretty much anything else he wanted, because what are you going to do, triple-team him?) and the rest of the Buckeyes couldn't step up in time. By the time OSU started hitting the shots it usually makes to complement Turner's brilliance, it was too late: Purdue is simply too smart, too hard-nosed and too complete on defense to spot it 15 first-half points. OSU and Turner made a valiant comeback, but it was too late.

Purdue's defense didn't stop Turner -- he went for 29 points, seven rebounds, and five assists -- but what it did do was isolate Turner from the rest of his teammates. Purdue swarmed OSU with that patented man-to-man defense, and Ohio State's offense turned simple. There was no motion, no movement, none of the things that the Boilermakers kept wowing with on their own offensive end. Instead, Turner would bring the ball up the floor, receive a screen or an iso call, go to the hoop and oftentimes score. But even a player as good as Turner can't rebound all of his misses. Even Turner can't find himself on back cuts. Even Turner can't make every shot. Ohio State had six assists all game; Turner had five of them.

In the end, it's games like these that set Purdue apart from the Big Ten pack. The Boilermakers have elite talent -- JaJuan Johnson is perpetually slept on; sooner or later we'll learn -- but they also have the depth and style, that hard-nosed, lockdown defense thing that you can feel when you watch them, to outlast mercurial teams like Ohio State. Matt Painter's boys are not perfect, and they're not Kansas, but they're the closest thing the Big Ten has to a Final Four favorite. That much is no longer in dispute.

Louisville 91, Notre Dame 89, 2OT: Which team needed this one more? Louisville, coming off an upset of Syracuse and trying to fight its way back into safe bubble territory? Or Notre Dame, whose bubble hopes are almost entirely waned, but who could maybe take a win at Louisville to the committee as a résumé-builder? Hard to say. What I do know that is that a Louisville win -- in which Samardo Samuels scored a career-high 36 points, including 16-of-19 from the free throw line, marking the only real difference between these teams in Four Factors land -- moves Louisville into legitimate tourney consideration, and just might move Notre Dame off the bubble for good. Such is life in the middle of the Big East.

Missouri 82, No. 17 Texas 77: Is Texas going to drop out of the Top 25? This is the Longhorns' sixth loss in nine games, and while there's nothing wrong with losing at Missouri -- Missouri is a tough out, to be sure -- a team as talented as Texas losing so many games in the stretch run of its season, just as the country's elite are hitting their stride and doing their best work, ought to be hugely discouraging to voters. Take a gander at those Big 12 standings: Texas is 6-5 in the conference, behind Kansas, Kansas State, Texas A&M, Baylor and, yes, Missouri, which moved to 7-4 with Wednesday night's win. Texas is one of the most-talented teams in the country. How does that happen? Anyone with a really good answer -- something besides "Rick Barnes plays too many players" -- wins a cookie. Not kidding. I will mail you a cookie of your choosing. Just please help me understand this, because I am so very confused.

Everywhere else: Duke was over the ledge in the first half at Miami, trailing by 12 at halftime and apparently doing another of its incomprehensible road loss routines, but credit the Devils for the turnaround: Duke won 81-74 in an impressive comeback victory. Sure, it's just Miami, but a road ACC win is a road ACC win. Especially for Duke. ... It was a night of survival for highly ranked teams, and Kansas State's near-loss at home to Nebraska was no exception. ... West Virginia withstood Providence's second-half rally. ... St. Louis got a huge win for itself and for the prospect of six A-10 teams in the NCAA tournament with its win over Rhode Island. ... Tennessee got a challenge from Georgia, but pulled away for the nine-point win. ... Florida State rolled at Virginia, a doomer for the Cavaliers' faint NCAA hopes. ... South Carolina did itself no favors by losing at Arkansas; as fun as it would be to have Devan Downey in the NCAA tournament, it's not looking good.

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

No. 4 Purdue at No. 12 Ohio State, 6:30 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network: If you're one of the college basketball fans who doesn't live in a market that carries the Big Ten Network, or that doesn't have DirecTV, well, man. I'm sorry. That's no good. Because tonight is one of the biggest games the Big Ten has had in years, and you're going to have to follow along on the Internet. You're also going to have to rush home from work; a 6:30 p.m. ET start time is mighty unfriendly to those Big Ten fans who live in the central time zone, which is most of them.

Sneak out early. Duck your boss on your way out. Put up an out-of-office notification email. ("I'm not in the office, because I'm watching an awesome basketball game. Please direct all urgent issues to Person X, and don't bother me for the next few hours, nerds.") Do what you need to do, because the battle between the fighting Evan Turners and Matt Painter's steadfast and solid Boilermakers team is full of implications. If Purdue wins, they make a very strong case to displace Villanova as the fourth No. 1 seed and might cruise to the Big Ten title. If Ohio State wins, it boosts its own tourney resume and gets the added bonus of a foot forward in the Big Ten title race. The Big Ten is loaded at the top; tonight's result should provide some measure of separation.

The most notable match up on hand is, obviously, Evan Turner versus, well, anyone Matt Painter decides to send Turner's way. The Boilermakers are great at harassing opposing guards, and the one chink in Turner's armor is his tendency to turn the ball over. Expect Painter to try and smother Turner with multiple defenders as soon as he crosses the half-court line, and maybe before. E'Twaun Moore and Chris Kramer will play a prominent role, and it wouldn't be shocking to see Robbie Hummel try to keep Turner from dominating inside.

That's a solid strategy, but it leaves Purdue open to Ohio State's biggest non-Turner strength: shooting. The Buckeyes hit their outside shots. That efficiency means Turner doesn't need to dominate the scoreline for OSU to stay productive on offense; he merely needs to be enough of a distraction to dominate the other team's gameplan. If Purdue can find a balance between keeping Turner away from the areas he usually owns, as well as keeping OSU's shooters from getting too many kickouts and easy, Turner-delivered looks, Purdue has a great chance to win. But that, as with anything Villian-related, is easier said than done.

Whatever both teams decide to do, the numbers would point toward a close game: Ohio State is the country's eighth-best offense; Purdue is its seventh-best defense. Ohio State has the No. 24 defense in the country; Purdue has the No. 24 offense. Both teams have their eyes on deep tournament runs, and both teams are hitting their late-season strides. Like I said, rush home from work. Screw your personal file. This one is worth it.

But that's not all! Bonus previews, notes, and errata: Be sure to check out Hammer And Rails' lengthy preview of tonight's game; same goes for Boiled Sports, who says the anticipation "almost feels like a football game," which, were I a Purdue basketball player, would offend me. For the OSU-interested, you can find excellent fan-centric previews at Eleven Warriors and Buckeye Battle Cry. The Big Ten Network seems rather excited about tonight's game, too. And don't forget the implications. So many implications! (I like writing the word "implications." Implications. OK, sheesh, I'll stop.)

Everywhere else: Duke gets a chance to prove itself on the road against a decidedly mediocre Miami (FL) team, which should be no problem, except this is Duke on the road, and, well, you know ... West Virginia goes to Providence, where Bob Huggins' men will attempt to sidestep the recent plague of Big East upsets ... Nebraska plays Kansas State in Manhattan; have fun, Huskers ... Your sneaky-good game of the night? Texas at Missouri ... Georgia has played well on the road in the SEC; their next challenge is at Tennessee ... Notre Dame, barely hanging on to a bubble spot, will face fellow bubblers Louisville at Freedom Hall ... In a stacked A-10 with six possible NCAA tournament teams, Rhode Island at St. Louis means a lot ... and two fringe ACC bubble teams will try to sort themselves out when Florida State goes to Virginia.

The Morning After is our semi-daily recap post. Try not to make it awkward.

No. 2 Kansas 84, Missouri 65: Sometimes it's easy to forget just how loaded Kansas is. Exhibit A: Cole Aldrich has been woefully neglected at times this season as Kansas' guards -- Sherron Collins and Xavier Henry, primarily -- have worked inside-out and broken down defenses with their supreme offensive talent. Sometimes, Aldrich goes entire stretches without touching the ball on the offensive end, and so you can forget just how good he was last year and just how important he is to Kansas' national championship chances in 2009-10. And then he reminds you: 12 points, 16 rebounds, seven blocks, about six or seven Kevin Love-esque 60-foot outlet passes and only five field goal attempts. Aldrich is good enough to own games even when Kansas refuses to give him the ball.

That's what happened Monday night. And after an 8-3 Missouri run to start the game, Aldrich and company showed why Kansas is Kansas, and why it's foolish to get even slightly bearish on the Jayhawks. This team has so many resources it can afford to be wasteful and still blow out a 15-4 team at home. What goes for Aldrich goes for these Jayhawks: Forget about them at your own peril. The dominance is startling.

No. 4 Syracuse 73, No. 11 Georgetown 56: Missouri had a chance to have a national coming-out party with an upset win at Kansas; Georgetown's situation was similar but less drastic. A win meant Georgetown, barring a late collapse, needed to be seriously considered as a Final Four contender. A loss meant ... well, not all that much. It's just really hard to win at Kansas, and it's really hard to win at Syracuse. These are not innovative facts, but that doesn't make them any less true. Still, Georgetown fans might be slightly discouraged by Monday night's blowout loss. The Hoyas jumped out to a 14-point lead in the first three minutes and looked entirely unfazed by the Carrier Dome's angry masses. The next 37 minutes saw Syracuse outscore John Thompson's team 73-42. It wasn't pretty, either. Syracuse was more physical, took better shots, closed any remaining holes in its 2-3 zone and looked vastly superior to a Georgetown team that beat Pittsburgh at Pitt. (By the way, that's a Pitt team that beat Syracuse at Syracuse. The transitive property is not applying here.)

The stats aren't complimentary of Georgetown's performance, either. The Hoyas allowed Syracuse a free throw rate of 62.2 percent, and they turned the ball over on nearly 30 percent of their possessions. Nor did the Hoyas get to the line themselves. Once Syracuse locked things in on defense, it was over. Georgetown didn't get inside, it didn't get good looks and the Orangemen made the Hoyas pay in transition.

In closing, then: Kansas and Syracuse are really, really good at playing five-on-five basketball in the year 2010. Were you not aware of this fact, you are now. Those were unequivocally dominant back-to-back performances by two teams that belong in this year's Final Four, and even if the games didn't live up to their advanced billing, those favorites sure did.

Everywhere else.

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

Other than the tournament (obviously), I'd argue this is the best part of the college basketball season. Why? Because in late January, you have some idea of which teams are elite, which teams matter and which don't, which teams need to improve their station before March and which teams who are just plain fun to watch. Teams start to really congeal and figure themselves out, but there's enough time left in the season that the dreaded end of the ride is nowhere near. If the weather wasn't awful, I'd want it to be late January all year long. And I'd want it to be Big Monday every day of the week.

No. 11 Georgetown at No. 4 Syracuse, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN: Syracuse is the most-talented team in its conference with a record and a national reputation -- a surprising one at that -- to match. Georgetown is a balanced Big East banger that showed its capable of beating tough foes on the road with a win at Pitt last week. That's the Georgetown we know now -- the team that came from 19 down to beat Connecticut, the team that handed Pitt its first conference loss. Tonight is the Hoyas' chance to prove that that's really them, that they're not the inconsistent squad that lost to Old Dominion on Dec. 19 and let a close road win slip through their fingers at Marquette earlier this month. Wins at Pitt and at Syracuse in the span of five days would be all we need to crown the Hoyas atop the Big East at this point in the season. A road win over Syracuse would mean that much. So which team is Georgetown? Just a few hours until we find out.

Missouri at No. 2 Kansas, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN: If you think Georgetown has a tough job tonight -- and a chance to reap huge benefits if things go well -- go ahead and amplify the values on that continuum and apply it to Missouri's game at the Phog. Mizzou is one of the surprises of the season, but we should have seen it coming: Mike Anderson is a system coach, and his system, when properly installed, allows him to compete with superior opponents with nothing more than sheer speed and effort. Mizzou's 40 Minutes Of Hell style closes the gap between really good teams and just OK ones, which, after losing star DeMarre Carroll and most of last year's Elite Eight squad, this year's Tigers appeared to be. Not so. Mizzou is 15-4 and off to a 3-1 start in the Big 12. If the Tigers beat Kansas in Lawrence Monday night, they can officially write their way in to the NCAA tournament. Meanwhile, KU has a home winning streak -- now at 53 games -- that the Jayhawks will be interested in preserving. Toss in the hatred between these two teams and their respective fan bases, and you've got plenty of reason to stick around for tonight's late game after G-Town and the Cuse finish up.

Everywhere else: Big Monday holds a monopoly on big-time games for the evening, but if you're into the Sun Belt and MVC, you can still find something interesting in Western Kentucky at Southern Illinois, a matchup of occasional NCAA tourney darlings both fighting through mediocre seasons. ... Meanwhile, Charleston, which started its season 6-6, is 8-0 in the SoCon and visits Western Carolina tonight. Check out the rest of Monday's action here.

The Morning After is our semi-daily recap post. Try not to make it awkward.

Clemson 83, North Carolina 64: Two conclusions. 1). North Carolina is, as of Jan. 14, not very good. 2). Clemson's basketball fan support is at an all-time high, and the Tigers are better for it.

On the first: This isn't exactly a shocker. After all, North Carolina came into Thursday night's game ranked No. 41 in Ken Pomeroy's adjusted efficiency ratings. They're merely OK defensively, and in past years this was fine, because the offense was otherworldy. That's not the case this year; UNC is 40th in points per possession, scoring about 1.1 points per trip. That's just ... meh. (And it doesn't help when you turn the ball over on 30 percent of your possessions, either.) It's certainly not what we've come to expect from Roy Williams' North Carolina teams, who have overwhelmed their opponents on the offensive end since the day Roy found a house in Chapel Hill. This team is young and new and not vintage UNC, and it shows. On nights like Wednesday, it shows badly.

Make no mistake, though, North Carolina wasn't merely bad on Wednesday. Saying so would be a disservice to Clemson and its fans. This is the second conclusion: Don't look now, but Clemson is starting to look like a pretty darn good ACC program. They've got the ability, sure. That's not entirely new; Oliver Purnell's teams have been playing at about this level for a few years now. But more than anything, Wednesday night showed just how far Clemson's fan base has come. It was this time last year that Clemson writers were aghast wondering why so many people were showing up to noon tip-offs at Littlejohn Coliseum. That was unlike Clemson fans, who typically prefer their football. (They're in South Carolina, after all. Don't fish prefer the water?) Newsflash: Clemson basketball has plenty of fans, too, and those fans are relishing the Tigers' stellar on-court product.* Chicken, meet egg.

*Speaking of on-court relish, this of course doesn't excuse the court-storming that went down on Wednesday night, which I'll get to in a later post. Here's a preview: Tsk-tsk, Clemson students. Tsk. Tsk.

Texas 90, Iowa State 83; Kansas 84, Nebraska 72; Missouri 94, Texas Tech 89: Well, it was fun while it lasted. Most of Wednesday's talk revolved around how well Big 12 teams had done at home in 2009-10; the conference was 112-1 going into Wednesday night's games. I said yesterday that that stat would be tested, and if it held up after Wednesday night's games, something seriously freaky was going on. Never mind. All three Big 12 road teams won on Wednesday night, even Missouri -- ostensibly rebuilding after an Elite Eight last year, but quietly 14-3 and 3-0 in conference -- at Texas Tech. I think we can rule out the supernatural.

Michigan State 60, Minnesota 53: Minnesota is almost good enough to be ranked. Almost. The Gophers have lost five of their last six games to ranked teams (that stat courtesy of the wonderful folks in the ESPN research department), including on Wednesday night, when they played Michigan State almost even for 40 minutes in East Lansing and only barely came up short. The Spartans, meanwhile, are starting to find their groove after some struggles in the early nonconference season. Sound familiar? (I meant that rhetorically. Of course it sounds familiar. The Spartans do this every year.)

Pittsburgh 67, Connecticut 57: Dana said it best last night: Pitt is legit. Simple, syntactically rhythmic and also, you know, true. Pittsburgh was supposed to rebuild in 2009-10. They were supposed to feel every pound of DEJuan Blair's body mass lifted from underneath the opponent's basket. (Which, by the way, note to every NBA GM that didn't take Blair in the late first or early second round: You are idiots. I'm not the first to tell you, but I'll gladly join the chorus. Letting Blair go to the Spurs in the late second round. Unbelievable.) Anyway, the point is, Pittsburgh isn't missing its big three nearly as much as we all thought. They're doing just fine, actually, perched quite neatly atop the Big East with wins at Syracuse , at Cincy and now at UConn. Jamie Dixon: coach of the year?

Everywhere else: Duke destroyed Boston College at Cameron, which: duh ... Syracuse dismantled Rutgers in New Jersey, which again: duh ... BYU had no problems with Air Force on its way to a 12th win in a row, and speaking of coach of the year candidates, Dave Rose, come on down ... Northwestern had a chance to notch a huge Big Ten win over Wisconsin but lost hold of the game in the closing minutes, losing 60-50 and taking another step toward a perpetual NCAA tourney-less existence ... Georgia plays hard, that's for sure; unfortunately the Bulldogs' best effort is often not quite good enough, and such was the case in yet another close loss to a ranked team Wednesday night ... Hey, wait a second. Is that Virginia? Beating Georgia Tech? Why yes, yes it is! More on this later in the day ... Utah State outlasted Nevada in a close overtime WAC win ... Vanderbilt barely escaped Alabama in Tuscaloosa ... and Xavier battled toward the top of the A-10 with a win over Charlotte.

Saddle Up is a quick preview of the basketball your TV wants you to watch tonight. Here's Wednesday night's rundown.

No. 13 North Carolina at No. 19 Clemson, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN: Oh, road wins. How fleeting you are. If there's been a theme on the blog today, that's been it. Some schools can get them (Ohio State's win at Purdue Tuesday night, for example) and some schools can't (that would be everyone in the Big 12, naturally). North Carolina gets a chance to bring this debate into the ACC, where the young Tar Heels will visit Littlejohn Coliseum in Clemson, S.C., Wednesday night. At stake for the Heels is a chance to prove their brutal nonconference stretch was a growing experience, that road wins in the ACC will not only be achievable but expected, even for a young team. At stake for Clemson? The Tigers have an opportunity to not only beat a talented team and get an ACC win (duh), but to make their name nationally as a program worth watching. This has been the case for two years now, but Oliver Purnell has yet to receive the requisite recognition. Maybe that starts tonight. Maybe the Tigers can be the random car in the Tar Heels' bus side. Weirder things have happened. (Like, for example, a car hitting the North Carolina bus today. That was definitely weirder.)

No. 20 Pittsburgh at No. 15 Connecticut, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN2: Now here's a confusing conference. The Pac-10 is wide-open because it's bad. The Big 12 is closed -- either Texas or Kansas is taking that thing, obviously -- but its middle portion, the teams that are neither good nor bad, is chock full. The Big Ten is the Big Ten; four teams can win, and the others have no shot. But the Big East? The Big East is wide open because it's good. There are at least seven teams that have been playing quality basketball and can challenge for supremacy before the year is out. Pittsburgh and Connecticut are two of those teams. From a pure efficiency margin standpoint, Pitt has recovered from its slow start and been the better team for a few weeks now, while UConn has had trouble figuring out how to make the most out of its possessions in an uptempo setting. Let's see if either team can win a measure of separation from the pack on Wednesday night.

Boston College at No. 7 Duke, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN: This note is to merely let you know that this game is on. Boston College is barely hanging on to its place in the Pomeroy top 70; Duke is an efficient, balanced team coming off a conference-opening loss to Georgia Tech in Atlanta Saturday. Duke is playing at Cameron Indoor Stadium. You get the idea: It could be a long night for Al Skinner's squad.

No. 1 Texas at Iowa State, 8 p.m. ET, ESPN360: In a way, this is timed perfectly. Duke and BC will be in the second half just as the newly-crowned Longhorns will be taking on Iowa State in Ames, Iowa -- you can fire up your laptop and check out ESPN360 right at 8 p.m. (I'm getting really good at this whole corporate synergy thing, aren't I?) In a rational world, Iowa State wouldn't have the horses to dream of competing against the Longhorns; Craig Brackins is a beast, but he's no match for Damion James and Dexter Pittman and Avery Bradley and Justin Mason and insert other awesome Texas player here, because there are like 10 of them. But we do not live in a rational world. We live in a world in which only one Big 12 team has lost at home all season long. 112 other games have gone the other way -- to the home team. Factor in tonight's Kansas-at-Nebraska matchup, and we'll get a true test of just how much home court really means in the Big 12. I have a feeling that crazy 112-1 home win stat is like the entire O'Doyle family: It's going down. If not, something seriously weird is going on here.

Everywhere else: Syracuse will face a struggling (which is a nice way of saying they're bad and getting worse) Rutgers team in northern New Jersey tonight ... Michigan State will host Minnesota, yet another previously ranked Big Ten team looking to stay in the conference hunt ... West Virginia gets a relative breather with South Florida tonight after WVU's upset loss to Notre Dame Saturday ... If you like incessant motion offense, be sure to tune into Wisconsin at Northwestern ... After an upset of Georgia Tech and a close loss at Kentucky, Mark Fox will try to keep Georgia rolling as Ole Miss comes to town ... In a game that will almost certainly be high-scoring (much to Bob Knight's chagrin), Texas Tech will take on tempo-nuts Missouri in Lubbock ... and, last but not least, your ostensible mid-major game of the night: Charlotte at Xavier.

Get your couch's butt-grove ready. It's going to be an awesome night.

Were this just one game, Northwestern could be forgiven for having an off night. After all, Oregon State just lost to Seattle by 50 points; weird things happen to marginal basketball teams, and one weird night shouldn't necessarily doom a season.

That said, whatever good vibes Northwestern had going into the Big Ten season might now, officially, be all the way gone. Thursday night NU hosted Texas Pan-American at Welsh-Ryan Arena. Pan-Am (every time I hear "Pan-Am" I think of Alec Baldwin's character in the still-sort-of-underrated movie "Aviator," and I get kind of mad that "Million Dollar Baby" won Best Picture in 2004, but OH WELL) is not a good basketball team; they entered Thursday night's game 1-16, including losses to Missouri and Texas by a combined scored of -- get this -- 118 points.

Pan-Am could have fooled the Wildcats. Northwestern leading scorer Michael Thompson played 17 scoreless minutes in the first half, and NU trailed by seven at halftime. Northwestern picked things up in the second half and eventually took home a 53-44 win. But the win is almost less important than the circumstances surrounding it: 53-44? A halftime deficit? At home? To Texas Pan-American?

This is classic Northwestern basketball, and by "classic," I mean "bad." Along with last week's losses to Illinois and Michigan State -- the MSU loss was a blowout at home -- the Wildcats are getting dangerously careless with their hot start. NCAA tournament teams don't play this poorly against 1-16 teams at home. Are the Wildcats still a tournament team?