ESPN Men's Basketball

MILWAUKEE -- Curse? What curse?

If Ohio State's Evan Turner looms over this pod -- he is the best player, his is the best team -- he looms even larger on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week. Turner is one of the four athletes on SI's regional NCAA tournament covers. Naturally, at open practices Saturday, talk of the fabled "SI jinx" wasn't far behind.

For what it's worth, Turner isn't concerned.

"I never heard of jinx until a couple of days ago," Turner, who leads Ohio State in points, rebounds, assists and steals, said. "I'm the type of kid -- you make your own destiny, will yourself into the situation. I'm not worrying about the jinx, but worrying about what my teammates and I have been doing, which is playing Ohio State basketball. Everything happens for a reason."

Fair enough. But what of his opponents, the famed Gauchos of UC Santa Barbara? They're not feeling the whole jinx thing, either. Senior guard James Powell injected a little obvious -- but welcome -- common sense into the discussion.

"Who knows," Powell said. "I mean, the only curse I know of is the Madden curse."

"When it's March, anything is possible," Powell continued. "I'm not looking at the Sports Illustrated or anything like that. There's a hundred other players on that cover. If everybody was cursed then there would be no winner."

Well said, James! In the spirit of Mr. Powell's brand of existentialism, then, let's preview the games on hand in Milwaukee Friday.

West Region

No. 11 Minnesota vs. No. 6 Xavier

Key to the game: Who controls the pace? Tubby Smith and the Gophers prefer to play a very Big Ten-esque style -- slow, plodding, obsessed with defense and rebounding. The Musketeers prefer to get up and down, allowing guard Jordan Crawford and mates to take easy shots in transition. Which style wins out? Can Minnesota control the pace? Or will the Gophers get left in Xavier's considerable dust?

Player to watch: The aforementioned Crawford leads the Musketeeers in points; few scorers in the country are quite so confident in their talents. This can lead to the occasional bad shot, though, and in the tournament, too many of those can cost you dearly.

Who has the edge: Push. Cop-out, I know, but I don't want to go so far as to say that Minnesota has the edge here -- just that the Gophers are still a bit underrated (the teams are barely distinguishable in Pomeroy's adjusted efficiency rankings) and could push -- sorry -- Xavier to the very end. Expect a close one.

No. 14 Oakland vs. No. 3 Pittsburgh

Key to the game: Can the Golden Grizzlies defend? Oakland got to the tournament with an offense that ranked among the 100 most efficient in the country; its defense, on the other hand, couldn't crack the top 200. If Oakland can't find a way to limit Pittsburgh's Ashton Gibbs and Brad Wanamaker, this could be over in a hurry.

Player to watch: Ashton Gibbs. Gibbs could play poorly and Pitt can still survive ... but don't think Pittsburgh won't want to get their leading scorer off on the right foot to start the tournament.

Who has the edge: Pittsburgh. Barring a really poor shooting performance by the Panthers, Oakland simply won't have the horses to keep up with a good-but-not-great Big East team.

Midwest Region

No. 10 Georgia Tech vs. No. 7 Oklahoma State

Key to the game: Georgia Tech's bigs. Oklahoma State is a team that thrives on its perimeter talent -- specifically All-American candidate James Anderson, not to mention guards Obi Muonelo and Keiton Page -- but all the talk here Thursday revolved around just how Oklahoma State's undermatched big men planned to stop future NBAers Gani Lawal and Derrick Favors down low. Can Anderson and company do enough to offset Tech's advantage on the block?

Player to watch: Favors. The big man has contributed throughout the Jackets' season, but the hype surrounding his future NBA career has consistently exceeded his performance. What better stage to prove the haters wrong (and to lure in a few more NBA scouts)? (Honorable mention: James Anderson -- enjoy him while he lasts.)

Who has the edge: Georgia Tech has the superior talent. But it's hard to trust them to put it together. Anderson provides the edge Oklahoma State needs as the Cowboys shoot over Tech's big men on the way to a victory.

No. 15 UC Santa Barbara vs. No. 2 Ohio State

Key to the game: How do you stop Evan Turner? Answer: you don't. But you can, if you're very careful, stop his teammates. Let Turner get his buckets, refuse to help on defense, and stop the barrage of 3-pointers that Ohio State usually launches when Turner overwhelms the game. If UC Santa Barbara can throw some of what they call their "confusing" defense at Turner and the Buckeyes, they might be able to slow OSU down just enough to hang around.

Player to watch: Turner is the obvious selection here, not only because he's OSU's most important player, but because he's the sort of rare college talent that you have to cherish before he rushes off and gets paid the millions of dollars he deserves for the talent he displays. Like Anderson above, enjoy every minute of this Evan Turner postseason. Time's running out.

Who has the edge: Um, Ohio State. But if this tournament has proven anything, it's that crazy things happen in the NCAA tournament. Don't bust out your bracket Sharpie just yet.

Winners from Saturday

Notre Dame: The Irish gave the selection committee another reason to put them in the dance with yet another road win, this time with Luke Harangody and at Marquette -- a team in the tournament field. The Irish are earning their way into the field.

Duke: The Blue Devils likely earned the fourth No. 1 seed with a hammering of North Carolina on Saturday night. Duke also clinched a share of the ACC regular-season title. The Blue Devils passed the eye test of a team that could get to Indy.

Saint Louis: The Billikens won at Dayton, completing a season sweep of the Flyers and finishing in fourth place in the Atlantic 10. Rick Majerus has done an outstanding job with a club that is void of upperclassmen. The Billikens could be a sleeper to win the A-10 in Atlantic City next week.

Baylor: If you’re looking for a sleeper in the Big 12 tournament, it could be Baylor. The Bears ran away from Texas and looked like a team ready to get busy in the postseason.

Kansas: The Jayhawks may have locked up the No. 1 overall seed after winning at Missouri on Saturday. Kansas got inspired play from its key contributors and once again heads into the conference tournament on a high.

Louisville: The Cardinals had to win two of there games this week and did. Louisville beat Connecticut, then lost at Marquette before beating Syracuse on Saturday. That gave the Cardinals a sweep of Syracuse and a likely bid to the Dance in the final game at Freedom Hall.

Tennessee: The Vols did something Lane Kiffin couldn’t do, taking a 17-0 lead on the road in the SEC. Tennessee lit up Mississippi State and had the look of a team that could be a major factor in an SEC tournament that they'll play in their home state just a few hours away in Nashville.

Virginia Tech: The Hokies didn’t have their second-leading scorer in Dorenzo Hudson, survived a nasty moving screen by Gani Lawal on Malcolm Delaney and gutted out a win over Georgia Tech in Atlanta. The Hokies dismissed any doubt about their candidacy with a win.

Washington: The Huskies kept alive their chances of an at-large berth by winning at Oregon State. That win doesn’t get them in the dance, but a loss would have been crushing.

Arizona State: The Sun Devils are in Joe Lunardi’s bracket and they had to beat UCLA to stay in the field. They did, sweeping the L.A. schools this week. But here’s the deal: ASU and Washington are heading for a showdown in the semifinals of the Pac-10 tourney. Loser is out, winner has a pulse.

Memphis: The Tigers had a great week, winning at UAB and crushing Tulsa at home. The Tigers get the sweep of the Blazers. If you’re looking for a second C-USA team to go along with league champ UTEP, it could be the Tigers. They may get a third shot at UAB in the semifinals.

Maryland: The Terps won at Virginia. Yes, UVA was playing without Sylven Landesberg, who has been suspended for the season due to academics, but the Terps still won a road game. That means Maryland gets a share of the ACC title. That’s an outstanding accomplishment for this squad.

Pitt: The Panthers lost to Indiana early in the year without Jermaine Dixon and Gilbert Brown. Pitt could have lost to Providence at home, but when it mattered most the Panthers have come up huge. They beat Rutgers as expected Saturday but that meant Pitt got the No. 2 seed after beating West Virginia and Villanova at home in February. Jamie Dixon has done a phenomenal job with the Panthers. There is no reason Pitt should be No. 2 in the Big East with what it lost.

Losers from Saturday

Rhode Island: Had a shot to convince the selection committee that it was worthy, but lost at UMass a week after losing at St. Bonaventure. The Rams didn’t beat the top three teams in the A-10 (Xavier, Temple or Richmond). URI must win the conference tournament.

Mississippi State: The Bulldogs started a must-win game down 17-0. Mississippi State has blown two chances to win a key home game – to Kentucky and now Tennessee. The Bulldogs didn’t do anything Saturday to convince the selection committee.

Georgia Tech: The Yellow Jackets may still get into the field. But they gave the selection committee a reason to pause after losing at home to Virginia Tech, sans Dorenzo Hudson, who was hurt. The Yellow Jackets finished seventh in the ACC and had only one conference road win.

Connecticut: The Huskies had an awful week, losing at Notre Dame and then losing at South Florida on Saturday. The Huskies now probably have to get to the Big East semifinals to crawl back into the conversation.

Dayton: The Flyers were teetering on the bubble before the Billikens bulldozed the Flyers late and stole a win. Dayton now probably has to win the A-10 tournament to get a bid.

Villanova: The ‘Cats may have played themselves out of a No. 2 seed by losing at home to West Virginia. Villanova also fell to the No. 4 seed in the Big East tournament. ‘Nova can still make a magnificent run, but it made the journey more difficult.

Kansas State: The Wildcats lost their third home game in the Big 12 by falling to lower-level Iowa State (also lost to Kansas and Oklahoma State). The Wildcats blew a No. 2 seed with the home loss Saturday.

LaSalle: The Explorers were supposed to be a sleeper in the A-10. They won’t even make the tournament in Atlantic City. The Explorers will join winless Fordham in sitting out the conference tourney.

Oklahoma: The disaster season came to a conclusion with a sad effort against Texas A&M. The atmosphere was awful and the Sooners sunk.

North Carolina: The Tar Heels were handed the second-worst loss under Roy Williams. The Tar Heels were embarrassed by Duke and limp into the ACC tournament. It was just awful.

UAB: The Blazers had a huge week with games against UTEP and Memphis. They lost them both and pushed themselves onto the wrong side of the bubble.

Tulsa: The Golden Hurricane got hammered by Memphis and limp into hosting the conference tournament next week. Tulsa was the preseason favorite to win Conference USA.

A few nuggets:

• Georgetown coach John Thompson III said late Saturday night that Austin Freeman felt fine after the game, his first since being diagnosed with diabetes. Freeman scored 24 points in the win over Cincinnati. Freeman missed the West Virginia game last Monday. Thompson told me that the Hoyas will continue to monitor Freeman’s blood-sugar level and don’t anticipate any problems going forward this season.

• Notre Dame got Luke Harangody back for the win at Marquette. Harangody played 11 minutes off the bench. Irish coach Mike Brey told me late Saturday night that Harangody will continue to come off the bench this season. He said ‘Gody told him to use him however he wants to ensure the team wins. Brey said the Irish have become mentally tougher in the past few weeks. The Irish were 4-2 without Harangody, beating Pitt and Connecticut at home and winning at Georgetown.

• KVAL-TV reported that Oregon coach Ernie Kent has been fired and that he was told on Feb. 22 by Oregon athletic director Mike Bellotti. No one will be surprised if this does occur, but Kent told me in a text late Saturday night that this is the same story he has heard the past four years. Meanwhile, Bellottti sent this statement out late Saturday night after Oregon’s win over Washington State: "Ernie and I have talked, and we will continue to talk through the Pac-10 Tournament."

The Morning After is our semi-daily recap of last night's hoops. Try not to make it awkward.

No. 3 Purdue 59, Minnesota 58: We'll get to the implications of Robbie Hummel's injury -- the extent of which is still unknown -- and the effect it will have on the Boilermakers' tournament hopes, later. For now, there is one main consequence of last night's one-point Purdue win in Minneapolis: the Gophers, as an at-large team, are effectively done. This is unfortunate for Minnesota fans, of course. It's also kind of a bummer for anyone convinced that Minnesota has played better than their record in 2009-10 -- they have. Roster issues have crippled Tubby Smith's lineup for much of the year and turned what could have been a Big Ten contender into what is now a near-lock for the NIT. Robbie Hummel will be the thing we remember from last night's thriller; the death of Minnesota's season, however, is its most immediate consequence.

Notre Dame 68, No. 16 Pittsburgh 53; No. 8 Villanova 74, South Florida 49: Last night was a night for fringe bubble teams to make their respective cases in simultaneous fashion, and perhaps no two teams were more similar than Notre Dame and South Florida. How'd that end up? Notre Dame blew out Pittsburgh on in South Bend without Luke Harangody. With Dominique Jones, the Bulls went to Philadelphia and were handed a 25-point beatdown. Perhaps most ignominious is South Florida's offensive output against Villanova's usually soft defense -- the Bulls scored .74 points per possession and committed a turnover on 35 percent of their trips; this is not a tournament-worthy output. Meanwhile, Notre Dame still has work to do to get back on the bubble, but a convincing win over Pittsburgh is an awfully good place to start.

No. 18 Temple 49, Dayton 41: Speaking of not scoring any points and thus dooming your ever-dwindling tournament hopes -- ladies and gentlemen, Dayton! The Flyers didn't just fail to score last night. They must have put some sort of plastic top over the rim, like the ones at big sporting goods stores that take all the fun out of shooting the basketball in aisle 42. Dayton scored 13 points in the first half -- 13! -- which might not seem so bad except that Temple was likewise afflicted with shooting woes and scored only 19 points in the first half. Dayton merely needed to play mediocre offense to take what would likely have been a blowout victory over conference a conference rival and a top 25 team. Instead, the Flyers' 28-point second half explosion wasn't enough, and Dayton is looking more and more like one of the few teams in the top half of the A-10 that's not going to be making the NCAA tournament. I mean, really. 13 points?

Everywhere else: A 20-point loss at Boston College is not the best thing in the world for a Virginia Tech team still trying to overcome that horrific nonconference schedule ... North Carolina's silver jerseys didn't add much, as the Tar Heels fell to Florida State in Chapel Hill last night ... Maryland came back from an early deficit to Clemson, exploding for 88 points in the win ... At least for a night, Texas figured things out, topping Oklahoma State by 10 in Austin ... Jimmer Fredette led with 26 as BYU beat up on tourney hopeful San Diego State ... LaceDarius Dunn keyed Baylor to a tough win over Texas A&M ... and a typically brilliant Evan Turner (25 points, seven rebounds, seven assists, three steals, two blocks; try to control your saliva, fantasy basketball players) helped Ohio State avoid an ugly collapse in Happy Valley.

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

Don't let anyone tell you the college basketball regular season doesn't matter. It does. Wednesday night doesn't boast a single match up between top 25 teams, but it does have at least four games featuring bubble (or barely bubble) teams with a chance to immediately boost their at-large chances. A quick gander:

No. 3 Purdue at Minnesota, 7:30 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network: Don't look now, but Minnesota has a chance to make the NCAA tournament. I know, I know -- it's a distant chance. But it's a chance. After a 16-point win over Wisconsin on Feb. 18 and a subsequent blowout at Indiana, Tubby Smith's team is at 16-10 and 7-7 in the Big Ten with four games to play. A win tonight would be the Gophers' third in a row, and would give them a much-needed quality win for the résumé. Then, with a win over the No. 3 team in the country in their pocket, the Gophers would have three winnable games -- at Illinois, at Michigan, and at Iowa -- to play. Win out, and that gets Minnesota to 20 wins, an 11-7 conference mark, and serious at-large consideration. Easy, right?

OK, not so much: Purdue is playing its best basketball of the season right now, and the Boilermakers are in the thick of a Big Ten title race with Ohio State and Michigan State. There will be no letdowns. If Minnesota wants to sneak into the tournament, it will be earned.

South Florida at Villanova, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN360: South Florida, much like Minnesota, is nowhere to be found in Joe Lunardi's latest bracket. At 16-10, the Bulls share much the same burden as the Gophers, which is not how the animal kingdom works at all, but that's OK, because we're actually talking about college basketball. Anyway, stay focused: South Florida very much needs a win at Villanova -- not an impossible feat, given Nova's prodigious fouling habit and overall defensive vulnerability -- to stay in the bubble picture. At the very least, fire up your laptop to watch Dominique Jones take on the porous Wildcats. Bubble talk or no, that ought to be a treat.

San Diego State at BYU, 9 p.m. ET, CBS College Sports: San Diego State has had two prior chances to prove itself worthy of an at-large bid. The first was Jan. 23's 71-69 loss to BYU at home. The second was an 88-86 loss at New Mexico. Swap either one of those incredibly close and no doubt disappointing results, and SDSU isn't sitting there wallowing among the first four out. So here you go, Aztecs. Last chance. You get BYU and Jimmer Fredette in Provo with a tournament at-large on the line. You've proven you can play with the best teams in your league. Now you must, thanks to the selection committee's totally unfair and not cool at all focus on "wins," win.

No. 21 Pittsburgh at Notre Dame, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN2: You already know the story here: Right now, Notre Dame shares two things with the aforementioned South Florida Bulls: a 6-8 Big East record and a fringe chance of making the NCAA tournament. How to remedy that? The Bulls have the better of the opportunities tonight, but Notre Dame has the more winnable. The only problem? Luke Harangody is expected to sit out again for the Irish, a knee injury that's come at the worst possible time for the perennially bubble-bound team.

Everywhere else: Both of these teams are already in the tournament, so they get shoved all the way down here to the flotsam, but tonight's best game is no doubt Oklahoma State at Texas, where Texas will experience life without Dogus Balbay for the first time ... There's also Texas A&M at Baylor, a match up of two very capable and tourney-ready Big 12 teams ... Dayton didn't fit up top, but it too needs a bubble win over Temple to make a late case for tournament inclusion ... UTEP will try to continue its conference dominance at Southern Miss ... Virginia Tech can't afford to lose to Boston College ... Florida State at North Carolina will be on your television whether you like it or not ... Xavier will go to St. Louis in tonight's other big A-10 match up ... And Clemson will play at Maryland as the Terps try to keep edging toward that elusive bracketology respect.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• The glory days of the Purdue-Indiana rivalry have long since passed, or are at least temporarily on hold. Both schools have had overlapping rebuilding eras in the past decade or so; when Mike Davis and Kelvin Sampson's teams were nationally competitive, Purdue was rebuilding, and now that Purdue is a contender again, IU is still digging out of its post-Sampson crater. But that doesn't diminish what the rivalry means to people in Indiana. In Indiana, you're either a Boilermaker or a Hoosier, and there's no room -- whether in the workplace, or at school, or on the troll-heavy comment threads of the state's major metropolitan newspaper -- for crossover. The best preview of the rivalry you'll read today comes by way of Purdue fan blog Hammer And Rails, which does a brief tongue-in-cheek history of the rivalry before closing with this totally reasonable thought: "This is still a rivalry though. I try not to view it with silly jokes (except for the above section), but with educated respect. We have won the battles in terms of the overall series, but they have won the war on the national scale. Until we win a title or two ourselves, it will be that way." It would be easy for Purdue fans to take this opportunity to stomp all over the struggling Hoosiers, a fan base that likes to remind Purdue loyalists of its five NCAA titles as frequently as possible. Instead, there's respect. Each fan base knows the history and the stakes. That's the mark of a true rivalry. Despite the product on the court in Bloomington tonight, it will still be worth your time.
• When Evan Turner plays Penn State at home, at least one thing should happen: an eye-popping line. The Villian delivered: 27 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, and three steals. Did your eyes pop? Because mine did. This line caused me to ask my Twitter followers for a good reason why Evan Turner shouldn't be player of the year, and the only good reasonable response I got was "He was playing Penn State." Fair point. But Turner has been doing this all season -- except during his back-injury absence, of course -- and with John Wall's recent struggles and the way Ohio State relies on Turner so heavily, doesn't Turner deserve more love? Turns out he's getting it: AnnArbor.com's staff polled its player of the year voters for an updated result, and Turner now trails John Wall by just seven first-place votes (25-18). There's still plenty of time to sort this all out, and John Wall will have plenty to say about it in the meantime, but it's hard to argue the fact that Turner is the most complete and valuable player of any in college basketball. If you can argue it, please do. But like I said: It's hard.
• West Virginia fans debate the behavior of those who threw junk onto the court, including a coin that hit a Pitt assistant coach, during last night's win over Pittsburgh. The consensus? Kick these idiots out. Though there is one dissenter: "I’m an advocate of throwing eggs, oranges or other produce, in addition to metal trashcans. Whatever was thrown didn’t come from the student section. Not sure there is any way to reverse course and become reputed as model fans now. Might as well embrace the dark side and make the Coliseum a house of horrors where ANYTHING goes." Ha. Metal trash cans. Funny stuff. Wait ... he's -- he's joking, right? You guys? Tell me he's joking.
• I did my best to summarize Dominique Jones' dominance in this morning's M.A.; now let John Gasaway discuss just how good the versatile, attacking guard really is. (One half-baked thought I just had about Jones: He sort of plays the way I assumed highly recruited Cincinnati forward Lance Stephenson would play -- physical, face-up, I'm-going-to-the-hole-now-try-to-stop-me sort of stuff. Stephenson has that potential, but Jones is already there.)
• Andy Katz is out in California, and reminds us that, believe it or not, UCLA is still somehow in the hunt.
• For the sake of mentioning it, Kalin Lucas' ankle is indeed merely sprained. He is listed as day-to-day.
• In other Big Ten-State of Michigan axis news, the current rumor is that Manny Harris might stay in Ann Arbor for another season. This strikes me as a particularly good decision, given how bad Harris and the Wolverines have been this year.
• The talk of a potential NCAA tournament expansion to 96 teams is still just that -- talk. But for the sake of fun, and as a handy way of putting into practice just who could hypothetically benefit from such an expansion, Rush The Court maps this year's 96-team NCAA tourney. The results are ... well, you'll see.
• Can anyone go unbeaten in league play? Who? Why or why not? Mike DeCourcy shows his work.

As always, follow me on Twitter to send me links and tips. They'll get used. Trust me.

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

No. 6 West Virginia 70, No. 21 Pittsburgh 51: Who wants to go play in Morgantown? Not me. Granted, I am not a college basketball team, so I don't have to worry about that. If I was an opposing team, though, I would officially see the angry fans -- the people who threw spare change onto the court (make it rain!) as Pitt rebounded and closed the deficit last night, prompting Bob Huggins to grab the microphone and tell fans "that's stupid" -- and I would get a little nervous. But the real cause for concern is the Mountaineers themselves. West Virginia is officially finding its stride. Huggins' group has won five straight over Big East foes in consistent and overpowering ways, especially on the offensive glass -- WVU grabbed 57.6 percent of its misses on offense last night, leading to a variety of second-chance buckets and putbacks, and that's the key right there. That's how West Virginia wins. They don't have to shoot the ball all that well. They just have to rebound. If you can stop them, you can win, but good luck: No one's figured it out yet.

Pittsburgh shouldn't be too discouraged by this result, which started OK and then got ugly after the half. (Speaking of ugly and true to its name, the Backyard Brawl included some mild brawl-like occurrences late in the game.) Why? Because the Panthers never really found their shot, and despite a high number of free throws and plenty of offensive rebounds of their own, the lack of shooting wasn't enough. It should correct itself in time. That might not make Jamie Dixon, whose team has now lost four of its last five, feel any better. But it's true.

No. 1 Kansas 72, Colorado 66: I barely previewed this game in Saddle Up, and that tiny mention was merely this: "New No. 1 Kansas will try to avoid the fate of last week's No. 1 when it hits the road for a meeting with a marginal conference opponent." Lesson learned: Don't sleep on marginal conference opponents at home. Of course I knew this already, but sometimes it takes a little reminder, and last night's thrilling back-and-forth in Boulder (my third favorite college town of all-time, and I've only been there for like three hours) was all that and more.

Part of me wants to say I knew Colorado had this in them -- the Buffs were pesky against Gonzaga and Arizona in Maui in November, after all. But I didn't. Rather, I expected Kansas to take control of the No. 1 seed and avoid the road pitfalls that have so frequently plagued other No. 1s this year. Oh well. The Jayhawks weren't at their finest, and Colorado deserves credit for finding a way to hang in despite not really beating Kansas in any particular phase of the game, but after Colorado missed its last-second opportunity in regulation, you had to figure Kansas would overpower the Buffaloes in overtime. So it did, and so it stays. But at least it was interesting on the way down.

South Florida 72, No. 8 Georgetown 64: "Y'all come watch Dominique Jones play!" That was the sentence screamed from Georgetown's court by -- who else? --Dominique Jones Wednesday night, just after Jones scored 22 of his 29 points in the second half to give South Florida its biggest win in program history. Um, you guys? Maybe we should listen to him. If you caught any glimpse of the game last night, or if you've seen Jones in the past, you know: Jones is an occasionally dominating college basketball player, a guy with skills to isolate the ball at the top of the key but the size outrebound and physically dominate smaller defenders. Check out the move he makes at the -0:15 mark in these highlights. Strength, size, speed and skill, all melded into one. Watch him play. He wasn't joking.

Everywhere else: Running out of words in a hurry, so let's go to the lightning round: UAB will have to wait to take full control of Conference USA, as Memphis topped the Blazers by 10 and pulled itself into a tie for the conference lead. ... Vanderbilt got a major late challenge from Mississippi State; Jarvis Varnado had another ho-hum nine-block effort. ... Northern Iowa hung on at home over Wichita State, avenging its earlier loss in Wichita and moving to 11-1 in the Missouri Valley. ... Evan Turner line watch: 27 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, and three steals (!!). ... Baylor cruised over Iowa State at home. ... Georgia State handed George Mason its second conference loss, moving Jim Larranaga's squad to 10-2 in the CAA and making a conference tournament win a must.

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

No. 21 Pittsburgh at No. 6 West Virginia, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN360: Aw, you guys. Stats LCC has a case of the bummers: "Two weeks ago, the matchup between West Virginia and Pittsburgh was shaping up to be one of the most highly anticipated meetings in this storied rivalry. A sudden string of losses by the Panthers dashed that prospect, but it likely won't diminish the atmosphere in Morgantown." Never fear, nameless Stats LLC writer. Sure, the Backyard Brawl won't be quite as brawl-y as it might have been for the Pittsburgh team that jumped to a 5-0 record in the Big East. (The difference in brawl escalation probably lies somewhere between brass knuckles and a trident.) Sure, Pittsburgh's 1-3 record in its last four games ruined the prospect of having two top-10 teams in a hated rivalry facing each other in ever-hostile Morgantown.

But Stats LCC, don't you see? This is still an awesome college basketball game. Pittsburgh is reeling, so what better time to get hot and steal a huge Big East road win than now? And West Virginia? The Mountaineers are coming off a controversial last-second win over Louisville, have lost two Big East games by a combined three -- yes, three -- points, and are developing the sort of edgy home atmosphere that should simultaneously outrage fans and scare opponents. (When your own student newspaper thinks you've gone too far, you've probably gone too far.) And, lest we forget, a win for Pitt means the Panthers leapfrog the Mountaineers and get right behind Syracuse and Villanova in the Big East race. (A panther leapfrogging a human? I am thoroughly enjoying this mental image.)

So don't fret, Stats LLC. This game might not be as cool as it would have been two weeks ago, but it's still an awesome Big East rivalry with plenty on the line. There's no reason to frown.

(OK, maybe one reason: The game's not actually on TV, but rather on ESPN360. Get your laptops ready. It's 2010, people. The power of the Internet compels you.)

UAB at Memphis, 8 p.m. ET, CBS College Sports: This might be the first game we've featured that's been on CBS College Sports, but that's because few CBS CS games have had this sort of import. Sure, Memphis is in the midst of what appears to be a very short rebuilding, but the Tigers are still a solid Conference USA team and tonight they face the biggest threat to their longstanding C-USA crown: UAB. Mike Davis has the Blazers playing better than at any time in his tenure. Elijah Millsap & Co. are 18-3 and 6-1 in the conference so far, but if they want to seize the title, even for one year, they'll have to go through the house that competitively priced shipping costs built. (Um, the FedEx Forum. No one?)

Mississippi State at No. 20 Vanderbilt, 8 p.m. ET, ESPN360: If Kentucky continues to play how it did Tuesday night, the Cats are going to roll to an easy SEC title. But they're not without challengers. Kevin Stallings' ever-improving Vanderbilt team is one such challenger. The Commodores are a mere half-game back of Kentucky and, if they manage to survive their upcoming slate, could welcome UK to Nashville on Feb. 20 with the division title on the line. Meanwhile, Mississippi State still doesn't have Renardo Sidney, and it's not looking good. But the Bulldogs are worth watching merely for the defensive brilliance of Jarvis Varnado, a once-in-a-generation shot-blocking machine.

Everywhere else: New No. 1 Kansas will try to avoid the fate of last week's No. 1 when it hits the road for a meeting with a marginal conference opponent ... Georgetown gets a courtesy date with South Florida ahead of Saturday's big matchup with Villanova ... The surprising Temple Owls host Duquesne, a similarly surprising team but for different reasons ... and Penn State goes to Columbus, so make sure to have your Evan Turner scoresheet watch in full effect. It could get awesome.

• A postmortem of Indiana's last-second loss at Illinois Saturday.
• Ken Pomeroy has had his suspicions about Gonzaga for a few weeks now, but being the polite, deferential man that he is, kept them in his "back pocket" until they became relevant. On Saturday, thanks to a four-point upset loss at San Fransisco, they did, and Pomeroy is here to explain why.
• Meanwhile, Slipper Still Fits thinks Gonzaga fans should have known a loss was coming eventually and prepared themselves accordingly.
• Is the ACC worse than anyone thought? In the wake of Georgetown's rather convincing offensive flurry against Duke, Ballin Is A Habit questions the Devils', and the ACC's, legitimacy.
• After easily handling Harvard Friday night, Cornell isn't just your Ivy League favorite. They're also a batch of wild and crazy guys. Senior John Jacques, writing at the Quad, tells stories of how Cornell stays loose and fancy free in their down time. Sadly, there's no mention of famous Cornell grad Andy Bernard's a capella group, "Here Comes Treble."
• Yet Another Basketball Blog's Dan Hanner continued his coach-heavy coverage this weekend with a rankings-free look at the "pulse" of college basketball's teams as we head into February.
• I wrote last week that Georgia Tech was confusing; I can no more wrap my head around the Yellow Jackets now than before this week's blowout wins. It's good to see Mike DeCourcy shares my confusion.

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

No. 12 Purdue 60, No. 15 Wisconsin 57: Michigan State is still in charge of the Big Ten, but Purdue and Wisconsin aren't far behind. That's the conclusion from Thursday night's thrilling 58-possession game (not an oxymoron!) in West Lafayette, where Purdue and Wisconsin battled for 40 minutes, neither team able to totally solve the other, until Trevon Hughes' last-second floater rimmed out and the Boilermakers finished the game with a three-point margin. Purdue made just two threes all game but made up for it by shooting 73.3 percent on its twos, while Wisconsin made up for a lackluster two-point percentage by making 47.4 percent of its threes. This made for an even matchup. The difference, however slight, could possibly be found in offensive rebounding; Purdue rebounded 37.9 percent of its misses while Wisconsin only grabbed 21.2. In any case, the margin is almost too slim to call, and this is your second tier in the Big Ten. Michigan State still reigns, but both Purdue and Wisconsin are right there, and both deserve your respect. That was Thursday night's lesson.

No. 22 Georgia Tech 79, Wake Forest 58: Anatomy of a thorough beatdown: Make a lot of shots (59.3 percent eFG). Stop the other team from doing the same (35.2 percent eFG). All else equal, um, yeah: You're going to win that game. Such was the case in Atlanta last night, as Georgia Tech laid the aforementioned thorough beatdown on Wake Forest, 79-58. Paul Hewitt said it best: "I'm not sure we can play much better than that." I'm not sure any team can. At least not any team in the ACC. Now it's up to Georgia Tech to replicate that performance. If they can, even sporadically, the Yellow Jackets ought to treat their fans to an awfully interesting couple of months.

Everywhere else: Ole Miss shot well on the way to a 10-point road win over Auburn ... Pitt rebounded from a slow start -- the Panthers trailed by four at the half -- to take a 63-53 win over St. John's in Pittsburgh; this was not a game Pittsburgh was allowed to lose ... Seton Hall and South Florida played into overtime, and that's when Dominique Jones took over, giving South Florida the two-point win ... Santa Clara pushed Gonzaga to the limit, causing even Ken Pomeroy to worry, but the Bulldogs rallied from a 14-point deficit to take the win ... Virginia Tech got an impressive win at Virginia in overtime; Tony Bennett has had the Cavaliers playing solid basketball, so a loss at home is something of a surprise ... Siena fought off another test from upstart St. Peter's ... and Cal took another step toward Pac-10 supremacy with a win over Arizona State in Tempe.

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

No. 16 Wisconsin at No. 12 Purdue, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN: Who wants to watch some very slow, very methodical, very high-quality Big Ten basketball? I do. I occasionally complain about the Big Ten's slow pace -- and who better to pinpoint for that sloth than Bo Ryan's Wisconsin teams, who thrive on grinding games to a halt -- but the bottom line is that pace doesn't equal quality. Sure, it's fun to watch the North Carolinas and Villanovas and Missouris of the world, teams that fly up and down the court with minimal abandon, but it can be equally fun to watch two really good, really strong teams battle for every inch in a 60-possession game. That's what you can expect when Wisconsin goes to Purdue tonight: a battle. Not a blitzkrieg, but a bunker war. It might take a little more to appreciate, but when it's good, it's awfully good.

There are some stakes here, too: Michigan State is in the driver's seat in the Big Ten, of course, but both Wisconsin and Purdue have a shot. UW is two games behind the Spartans in the Big Ten, and a win at Purdue would do away with one very pesky hurdle in competing for that top spot. Meanwhile, the Boilers seemed to have recovered from their three-game slide, which began with a loss in Madison on Jan. 9. If Purdue wants to make a run and get back into national consideration -- let's not forget how many people had the Boilermakers getting to the Final Four -- it will need to prove that games like a Jan. 12 home loss to Ohio State are exceptions, not rules.

Settle in: Every possession matters, and in a game this likely to be slow, it'll feel like it.

Wake Forest at No. 22 Georgia Tech, 7 p.m. ET, RSN: Well, if it isn't the two most confusing teams in the ACC. What's up, guys? Both have 14-win records and respectable starts in conference, and both have future pro talent likely to go high in the first round of next year's NBA draft. Both are also missing that certain je ne sais quoi that makes you think either are complete teams capable of making a deep tournament run. But maybe they are. Maybe that's just me. Tonight is an opportunity for one to separate itself from the other, both in the ACC and in people's minds, and it's also a chance to see Al-Farouq Aminu match up with Gani Lawal and Derrick Favors. I'm not complaining.

Siena at St. Peter's, 7 p.m. ET: Guess who is 10-0 in conference and 17-4 overall, and who looks for all the world like another NCAA tournament bid (and potential darling-status run) is back in the works? That would be Siena. (No, sorry, it wasn't St. Peter's. Good guess though!) The Saints are rolling through conference play right now, and next up is tonight's matchup at St. Peter's, a team riding a five-game winning streak and one that played Siena close until a second-half run finished the game in the Saints favor (64-53) on New Year's Eve. But the opponent doesn't matter so much as the opportunity to check in on Siena. Are the Saints this year's bracket buster? Can they turn frequent NCAA love into "next Gonzaga" status? Is the leap within reach? I don't know, but now's as good a time as any to find out. (Also, they have a dude named Just-in'love Smith. This remains the greatest name in the history of not only college basketball but names.)

Everywhere else: Gonzaga will try to keep its conference win streak intact as the Zags visit Santa Clara on ESPN (11 ET) ... Ole Miss is still quietly ranked, and still quietly impressive, and the Rebels have a chance to improve their conference record with a road win over Arkansas ... A struggling St. John's team will head to Pittsburgh (ESPNU, 7 ET), which has maybe hit a bit of a cold-front after their early Big East-leading heatwave ... and, along with a host of other Pac-10 games tonight, Cal will visit Arizona State to see which team can lay early claim to the title of West's best. A win would likely mean more for Cal; the Bears played poorly in their nonconference but their schedule was unforgiving and a solid road win over an OK team like Arizona State would be a nice little boost to the Bears' resume.

Marquette's record doesn't look pretty. The Golden Eagles are 11-8 and 2-5 in the Big East, which puts them just above conference punching bags Rutgers and St. John's in the conference standings. If you merely glanced at Marquette's profile, you'd assume the Eagles were having the sort of down year you'd expect after the losses of seniors Dominic James, Jerel McNeal, and Wesley Matthews.

But it isn't true. Marquette isn't having a great year, to be sure, but they're not nearly as bad as their record would allow. In terms of efficiency margin, Marquette is actually outplaying opponents by a half a point per game, which puts them even with Connecticut and a tenth of a point behind Pittsburgh, one of the surprise teams of the season. The Eagles are ranked No. 20 in Ken Pomeroy's ratings, ahead of a host of probably NCAA tourney teams. So why is Marquette's record so bleh? John Gasaway helpfully explains:

The numbers here suggest that the Golden Eagles are a solid NCAA team, but at just 2-5 in the Big East Buzz Williams' group is tied with the likes of South Florida and St. John's in the eyes of the committee. Marquette lost by one at West Virginia, by two to Villanova, by two at Villanova, by one at (brace yourself) DePaul, and by five at Syracuse.

None of these are particularly bad losses, but viewed in sequence, you get a team with a mediocre record and a bad at-a-glance NCAA resumé. It also doesn't help that Marquette's nonconference schedule was filled with RPI downers like Centenary, North Florida and Presbyterian. To be fair, Buzz Williams' team didn't get any help from Michigan's collapse (the Wolverines were No. 15 in the country when Marquette handily beat them) and Xavier's rebuilding year, but still, that's not a tough schedule, and Marquette didn't do itself any tournament favors before Big East play began.

Had Marquette won a few of their close games, the story would be much different, and the nonconference foes wouldn't really matter much. But the slimmest of margins has Marquette looking like a tournament long-shot already, even though they're playing some pretty darn good basketball.

And people say the college hoops regular season doesn't matter. Right. Tell that to Marquette fans.

Have something you want linked? Got a new hoops blog you think we should see? Follow me on Twitter and hit me up with your stuff. Now, as always, the links:

• Education secretary Arne Duncan, whose first name always looks weird to me when I type it -- not that I type "Arne Duncan" all that often, but still -- is hitting college basketball where it hurts: Graduation rates. This might be worthy of a longer discussion later, but Duncan's idea is to tie graduation rates to NCAA tournament admission; if you're not graduating players, you can't play in the postseason: "You had four teams that didn't graduate any African-American players. Zero. If that was my son, I don't know if I would want him playing there," Duncan said. "And why did we allow them to play in this tournament, make all this money, be on national TV, and they're not graduating any kids?" Oooh, I know! (Furiously raises hand.) Because no one actually thinks college basketball is an academic enterprise? That only the most naive college basketball viewers argue that college basketball is great because they're watching student-athletes? That, for better or worse (definitely worse), no one really cares? Is that why?
• I have no idea who to believe in this mess, because no one -- neither Mike Garrett nor Tim Floyd -- seems particularly trustworthy.
• Speaking of USC, women's coach Michael Cooper (yes, the Showtime Lakers Michael Cooper) issued an apology for opening a news conference with, "My opening statement is [expletive] UCLA." Hilarious! Also kind of mean, and definitely the sort of thing you have to apologize for if you plan on being a head coach at any program for very long. But still, Michael Cooper, well done. Big round of applause. You, sir, are 90 percent onions.
• Saturday's Cornell-Columbia game at Columbia's Levien Gymnasium is sold out. Yes, a sold out Ivy League basketball game at CUNY. What? It's not like there's anything better to do in New York.
• UCLA still believes it can improve. This is where a smart aleck like me says that at 7-10, there's no way UCLA can get worse, and so promising improvement is a little like me promising that I'll get better at blogging today: When you're this bad, there's nowhere to go but up.
• Royce White returns! After retiring from basketball, the Minnesota forward has returned to Tubby Smith's squad at long last. White's legal issues still need to be resolved -- White plead guilty to disorderly conduct and theft for his role in a mall altercation last year, and he's still a focus of an investigation involving a stolen laptop -- but if Smith allows him, White could return to the floor soon.
• New Orleans quit the Sun Belt, which brings the school one step closer to settling in at the Division III level. When asked for comment, one New Orleans fan screamed "Uh, OK? GO SAINNNNNTSSSSSAHHH!"
• I like college basketball. I like ridiculous haircuts. You can find me wherever the 'twain shall meet.
• Casual Hoya breaks down and aggregates Georgetown's huge win over Pitt last night.
• From the ESPN file, check out Dana O'Neil's excellent look at the surprising Binghamton Bearcats, who suffered one of the worst offseasons of all-time and are somehow not only not winless, but downright competitive. Keep in mind this is a team that had to have open tryouts on campus to fill the 2009-10 squad. It's shocking, really. And speaking of Dana, IU blog Inside The Hall sat her down for a Q & A on her gig, the Hoosiers, and her current All-American picks.
• A Sea Of Blue takes a look at Kentucky's average margin of victory in 2009-10 and compares it to years' past. Despite the occasional Wildcat letdown and Kentucky's willingness to allow inferior teams to stick around -- think Georgia at Rupp Arena, for example -- the Cats' average margin of victory compares well with the more successful of former coach Rick Pitino's teams.
• Finally, one quick note on this nonsense: Saying regular-season games don't matter is like saying any given week of the NFL doesn't matter. By itself, no. It's just one-sixteenth, or in college basketball's case, one-thirty-second of a season. The marginal value is low. But the games matter in the aggregate. Which team wins the NCAA title has as much to do with seeding and chance as talent, and every game on the way to the tournament has tiny little reverberations and consequences for March's massive payoff. You know, just like any other sport. Decrying college basketball's regular season as nothing but entertaining TV filler seems more than a little off-base.

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

All together now (all together now!): That was one wild Wednesday night. For the short version of last night's unlikely events, check Brett's late-night roundup. For the long, rambling, wordy version, simply keep reading.

UTEP 72, Memphis 67: Well, I guess a share of the all-time conference wins record will have to do. Yes, after much sturm und drang leading up to Wednesday night's match up with the Miners, Memphis fell flat, dropping a game to a good-but-not-great UTEP squad in Memphis. This is no doubt disappointing; Memphis players and coach Josh Pastner couldn't stop talking about owning that all-time, 65-game streak. As a Tigers fan, you have two choices: You can lament the loss and tie it into John Calipari's untimely departure this offseason, and you can worry for the program's future under a younger, less experienced coach. Or you can take a minute, collect yourself, and realize that there are seniors on this current Memphis team that just lost their first conference game ever. Vacated wins or not, that is remarkable.

No. 3 Kansas 81, Baylor 75: I'll keep this one brief, since it was the one game that actually made sense last night, but it almost wasn't. Despite a raucous crowd fired up from Baylor's decision to leave the court during Kansas' pregame video session and Sherron Collins' intent from the tip-off to get his teammates as many open dunks as possible, Baylor hung around all game and made a late comeback to tie Kansas at 65 with 3:34 left in the second half. LaceDarius Dunn turned in a monster performance on the road: 27 points, nine rebounds, and four steals, while Collins led the way for the Jayhawks with 28 points and Xavier Henry came up with seven steals of his own. And late in the second half, Kansas escaped with the win, providing some small measure of sanity in an otherwise insane college basketball world.

NC State 88, No. 6 Duke 74: You've already read that this was the first time Duke and UNC have lost on the same night in seven years. That's a pretty incredible stat. But I'd wager it's less incredible than Duke losing to a hapless North Carolina State team, and less incredible than that Duke team surrendering 88 points on 70 possessions (or 1.25 points per possession) to an NC State team averaging just over a point per trip. What happened to Duke's defense? Last year the Blue Devils were quietly one of the best defensive teams in the country, and they carried that pattern through to the beginning of the 2009-10 season. But after last night's matador act (and to be fair, the Wolfpack shot an insane percentage) the Blue Devils have fallen all the way to No. 18 in the country in defensive efficiency. Oh, and more importantly, Duke has yet to win a true road game; last night's loss dropped them to 0-3 in that department. I'm guessing this is something Coach K will want to spend some time on.

No. 14 Georgetown 74, No. 11 Pittsburgh 66: Pitt is an awfully good team, but a Big East-leading one? Questionable. So after a 5-0 league start, the Panthers were probably due for some sort of natural, universal correction, some force bringing them back down to Earth, lest they go all Icarus on us and burn up Jamie Dixon's well-tailored suits. That force's name: Georgetown. The Hoyas waltzed into what the AP described as a home-court where students were "stomping their floor-level seats so passionately it caused the grandstands to ripple like a wave." If that's true, Pitt should probably get that fixed. But you get the idea. Georgetown didn't seem to mind: Chris Wright scored 27 points as Georgetown turned in a solid all-around performance. The Hoyas went to the line on 37 percent of their possessions; they rebounded 31.2 percent of their misses; they rarely committed turnovers; and they posted a 52.7 effective field goal percentage in a slow, 63-possession game. That is the statistical profile of a winner, folks, and no number of rippling bleachers and pounded seats could deny it.

Oh, and to continue with the streak-busting theme, this was Pitt's first home loss in two years. Seriously, weird stuff happened last night.

Wake Forest 82, No. 23* North Carolina 69: Speaking of weird, is it weirder that Roy Williams just lost his third game in a row ... or that Roy Williams has never lost three games in a row at North Carolina before? That, like Memphis' streak, is pretty remarkable, a sign of just how much Roy and the Tar Heels have dominated since his arrival from Kansas in 2003. But they are not dominating in 2009-10, and rather than getting better with experience the Heels, if anything, seem to be regressing. Anyway, this week will test the durability of the media's love for UNC; if they're still in the AP poll on Monday, I will drink an entire jug of milk on video and post that video on this blog. I'm not even kidding. It will almost be like a protest. A delicious, milky protest.

Everywhere else: So much to get to. DePaul busted its own ignominious streak Wednesday night, topping Marquette by one at the Allstate Arena and winning its first Big East game in 24 tries, a streak that spanned almost two years ... Iowa deserves credit for playing Michigan State tough in East Lansing, but the Hawks eventually ceded to a far superior Spartans team ... Villanova had no problems with Rutgers in New Jersey, which, man, poor Rutgers fans. That thing is bad ... West Virginia didn't get an easy one at its rare January nonconference date with Marshall, either, needing free throws to build a late margin against the Thundering Herd ... Temple edged Xavier in Philly; read Dana's recap from the scene last night ... and UConn found a forgiving home date with St. John's was just the thing to snap a three-game losing streak (and get a win without head coach Jim Calhoun on the bench).

• Way back when the men's basketball hoops program at Tennessee was merely an afterthought, back before Lane Kiffin looked around and convinced himself he hit a triple (great line), women's coach Pat Summit was running one of the greatest and most successful programs in college athletics. Now that Tennessee's basketball program has suffered the indignity of drug arrests and its football coach has left for USC under auspicious circumstances, Summit has to answer the questions like a concerned friend trying to explain away her troubled buddies' behavior. Not cool, guys. Not cool.
• Ballin' Is A Habit joins the chorus of those who think Purdue's lack of point guard depth is a major problem for the potential Final Four team.
• Luke Winn profiles Trevon Hughes, whose big performance led Wisconsin over Northwestern last night. Hughes is from New York City, and his adjustment to life in Madison has, at the very least, included a barber shop where he can get his hair properly cut. If Hughes was afraid of the small-town life, he chose his college appropriately: As big Midwestern college towns go, Madison is one of the more cosmopolitan and urban. Which isn't saying much, but still.
• You'd think that was the only SI story about a New York native moving inland. Alas, it is not, as Paul Daugherty evaluates Lance Stephenson's transition from NYC and concludes that Stephenson merely needed a change of scenery to block out the many distractions that plagued his high school years and weighed down his recruitment.
• Deposed Tennessee player Tyler Smith has hired an agent. Insert joke about whether that agent doubles as a criminal attorney ... here.
• Former Rutgers center Greg Echenique has decided where he wants to transfer: Creighton. The Bluejays were one of Echenique's final options in high school, and they'll benefit greatly from his arrival. (They'll need to; Creighton is not rebounding from last year's near NCAA tourney miss very well.)
• John Wall gets some advice from former SI cover athlete Don Buckley. I can just see it now: "Um ... thanks?"
• Kentucky fan Truzenzuzex (go figure: I can spell this name correctly, but consistently screw up Coach K's) takes a long view of Kentucky's rise from the ashes of Billy Gillispie's tenure. My favorite sentence: "Suddenly, even surprisingly, the dark gray funk was lifted. It didn't go gently. It went with difficulty, like childbirth, and not without pain." Does that make former Kentucky player A.J. Stewart the afterbirth? (Sorry. Couldn't resist.)
• Dana O'Neil returned from Storrs with some strong impressions of the Big East-undefeated Pittsburgh Panthers; O'Neil sees much of their home city in the way this year's iteration plays.
• Polls are unreliable; objective consensus is fickle. But it's still fun to get a bunch of sports bloggers together and see what their poll looks like, which is exactly what SB Nation does with its myriad college hoops bloggers every week. Be forewarned: These guys know their stuff.