ESPN Men's Basketball

The Lafayette Journal & Courier has an interesting little scoop today. Upon review, JC writer Mike Carmin found that Purdue coach Matt Painter's contract contains a clause that would allow Painter to leave Purdue without paying a termination fee at the end of the 2010-11 season. That would allow Painter to break his new deal -- as of July 1, 2011 -- with six years remaining on the contract.

It's a mundane little contract detail until you consider the context. Painter has been remarkably successful in his first six years at Purdue, but much of that success has been tied to the particularly remarkable class of 2007. You know the bunch: Robbie Hummel, E'Twaun Moore, and JaJuan Johnson, Purdue's three returning senior stars for 2010-11. It's not difficult to see a coach -- not Painter, necessarily, but any average career-driven college hoops coach -- taking that talent to a (very possible) Final Four or national title and then deciding to leverage his newfound coaching stardom into money, fame, and a legacy program. It sure beats rebuilding.

For his part, Painter is saying all the right things -- chalking the clause up to a negotiating tactic -- even if he's not exactly committing to anything:

"You always do your best as an employee for an institution, but you have to take care of you and your family when it comes to negotiating the best contract for yourself," Painter said. "Once you get into negotiations, there's going to be a hard line drawn in the sand somewhere by both parties. When those things happen, sometimes their side can't move any more financially and then you're going to look at other areas to try to put yourself in the best possible situation to give yourself a little bit of freedom," Painter said. "Maybe if you don't have quite the guaranteed money as some of your peers in your league, there's going to have to be some other things that are advantageous to you and that was one example of that."

It's enough to make Purdue fans slightly nervous. There are a few reasons why it's easier to see Painter staying, though.

For one, Purdue's incoming talent, though far from mind-blowing, is solid. Painter's 2010 class features a couple of players in the top 40 at their positions. 2009 recruits Sandi Marcius (who redshirted after an injury last season) and D.J. Byrd (who played limited minutes in 2009-10) were highly regarded during their recruitment, and could yet blossom into Big Ten-caliber players.

There's also the matter of Painter's emotional ties to the Boilermakers. It's his alma mater. He was groomed for the position by Lafayette coaching legend Gene Keady. It's a big-time job in a major conference, the kind most coaches spend 20 years grinding to get, and leaving it for a flashier opportunity or more money -- which Purdue could potentially provide anyway -- seems antithetical to Painter's circumstances. He's a Purdue guy. Purdue is, in so many ways, a legacy program of its own. Would he really want to pull a LeBron? (Just trying to picture "Painter: The Decision" on Lafayette local news makes my brain hurt.)

At the very least, Matt Painter has that opportunity. And it couldn't have been timed any better.

The Minnesota Gophers' tournament hopes died on March 2. Or so we thought.

That's when Minnesota, after winning at Illinois, attempted to build on its late-season push with a win at Michigan. That, um, didn't happen. Instead, the Gophers were walloped by a bad Michigan team, 83-55, and if you ever needed a reason to exclude the Gophers from the tournament -- and, as of March 2, you didn't -- the Michigan loss was plenty.

But look now: Minnesota is still breathing in the Big Ten tournament after wins over Penn State and yesterday's upset of No. 3 seed Michigan State, giving Minnesota its 19th and 20th victories of the year. Unsurprisingly, those wins have boosted Minnesota's tournament stock considerably. What's more surprising is that Minnesota's tournament stock isn't just vaguely better -- all of a sudden, the Gophers have a legitimate chance to sneak in the NCAA tournament.

Joe Lunardi now has Minnesota listed in his "next three out," right below Dayton and Mississippi State. That has to be the first Minnesota bracketology mention since, when, October? Of that group, only the Bulldogs are still active. Minnesota still has work to do -- leapfrogging Arizona State, Memphis, Rhode Island and Seton Hall will be no easy feat -- but it remains genuinely remarkable the Gophers are even on the bubble radar. A win over Purdue today would surely boost Minnesota's chances again, putting them right on the cusp. Then there's the Big Ten final against the winner of Ohio State and Illinois, which, duh, could mean an automatic bid for the Gophers.

Will Minnesota get in? At this point, it's still unlikely. But you have to give the Gophers credit for not doing what some of their disappointing Big Ten counterparts -- cough, Michigan -- have done, which is fade down the stretch. The Gophers are still fighting. Good for them.

A lot at stake for Illinois at the Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis, which begins on Thursday.

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

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

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

Here's my latest attempt at video blogging, a hopefully shorter and less blabby version. Thanks to everyone who sent questions on Twitter, especially @MizzouHoops, @torymaynard, @WillBrinson and @RyanCorazza. And thanks to you for watching, for not making fun of my large cranium, and for leaving the feedback you are totally going to leave in the comments section right now. To have questions answered in future Twitter mailbags, hit me up here.

• We generalized non-Kansas fans still get about three more weeks -- barring upset, of course -- of enjoying Sherron Collins' tough Jayhawk leadership, but last night was Collins' last game at Allen Fieldhouse, so Kansas fans must begin to come to terms with losing the four-year stalwart. As balm for this grief, KUSports.com built a Collins retrospective with photos from throughout the guard's career. If I was a Kansas fan, this would have roughly the same effect on me as the first 10 minutes of "Up," which you should totally not watch unless you want to ball like a baby.
• Oh, and while we're on the heartfelt portion of today's links, don't miss Andy Katz's fantastic feature on the relationship between Coach K, a father who lost his 7-year-old son to a brain tumor, and the symbols each carry with them every day. (For more Katz, see today's Daily Word on Utah State's familiar position.)
• Mike Miller breaks down the final No. 1 seed. It will be interesting to see if, and how, conference tournaments affect what looks like a pretty large group of applicable teams.
• John Gasaway nominates his player of the year. Yes, it's Evan Turner. But Gasaway raises an excellent point, one that probably doesn't get enough attention: If you're looking for the best second-place candidate, John Wall might not be it. The answer instead lies on Wall's team in the form of rebounding freakshow DeMarcus Cousins. Read, learn, etc.
• FanHouse columnist Greg Couch caught up with Indiana and Purdue in West Lafayette, Ind., and found plenty of suffering on both sides of the blowout.
• Rocky Top Talk is doing the whole senior-retrospective thing too; today's player is Wayne Chism.
• ChicagoNow.com -- which totally needs an exclamation point at the end of its name, like Yahoo!; ChicagoNow! -- serves up a little coach carousel rumor-mill grist with some speculation on ESPN analyst Steve Lavin's chances of taking the vacant DePaul job. Lavin would be a nice pull for the Demons, but it's hard to imagine the analyst leaving a job he routinely praises for the likes of DePaul's flagging program. And really, what better job is there than TV college hoops analyst?
• Speaking of coach carousel rumor-mill grist, the Va. Tech fans at Gobbler Country are fretting over the possibility, however slight, that head coach Seth Greenberg could one day try to take on a rebuilding project at St. John's.
• Tonight is Louisville's last home game at historic Freedom Hall. Pat Forde covered the retirement of the Hall in this week's Minutes. Likewise, Cardinals fans -- most of whom have lived their whole lives with Freedom Hall as their sporting center -- are taking stock.
• The Mid-Majority is predictably amped about conference tournament season, when most of the teams below the Red Line play their most important and consistently surprising basketball.
• For a typically comprehensive recap of those conference tournaments, SB Nation's Chris Dobbertean has you covered.
• Sports Illustrated's George Schroeder is the latest writer to proclaim Ernie Kent's Oregon career over: "Matthew Knight Arena -- a $200 million palace named for Nike boss Phil Knight's deceased son -- rises a couple of blocks from Oregon's venerable McArthur Court. It's scheduled for completion in time for conference play next season. If it's the house Knight paid for, Kent's teams built it. But he's not going to coach in it. No one's saying so yet, but the signs are undeniable. Kent barely survived a year ago, after winning just eight games. The expectations were clear coming into this season: Win. Yet even after victories at USC and UCLA last week, Oregon is 14-14 overall and in last place in the Pac-10 at 6-10 (and keep in mind, the league is as down as it's been in many years)."
• CBS has a multimedia breakdown of "bracket science" -- in other words, the mathematical chances assigned to each seed's success based on the history of the tournament. It doesn't factor in teams, obviously, but it's an interesting look at the way a completely mathematical bracket plays out.
• Not just anyone can put on a plaid jacket and a pair of big-rim glasses and look like Jim Boeheim ... but this Syracuse fan, the winner of a photo contest at Syracuse.com, came awfully close.

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. The big nights are coming faster and more furious than at any point during the season -- I've barely recovered from Saturday -- and Wednesday night is no exception. Here's the rundown.

No. 5 Kansas State at No. 2 Kansas, 8 p.m. ET, ESPN360: This one doesn't need much by way of explanation. The in-state rivalry. The Big 12 title implications. The seeding possibilities. The two-point Kansas win at Bramlage on Jan. 30. A freaky Frank Martin. Sherron Collins' senior night. The packed Allen Fieldhouse crowd.

Yeah, It's safe to say this is going to be a big game. A very, very big game.

Martin's team can secure a shot -- an outside shot, but a shot -- at a share of the Big 12 title if it wins tonight, but that's probably less of a concern for K-State than A) Beating its hated, abusive basketball big brother on the brother's own floor in Collins' last home game and B) Making a case for a No. 1 NCAA tournament seed. A win would without question put Martin's team on the selection committee's top line. First, though, the Wildcats have to figure out a way to do what they do best -- get to the free throw line -- while preventing the Jayhawks from doing the same. Kansas State is one of the best teams in the country at getting to the line. This is the sort of offensive attribute (alongside great outside shooting from Jacob Pullen) that gives the Wildcats hope against anyone, including a Kansas defense designed to keep opponents out of the lane. In the first meeting, Kansas won the battle of the freebies. The Wildcats can't let that happen again.

Oh, and as you've probably noticed, no, tonight's game isn't being televised. It stinks, I know. But look at the bright side: You get to test out ESPN360. It's actually pretty awesome, so don't knock it until you try it. And no, I'm not just saying that because I work here. Promise. Though I would totally say that anyway. I'm completely shameless. Which brings me to my next point: If you can't watch the game, come here for our live chat from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. I'll be here, as will a bunch of your favorite college hoops heads, answering questions and live-blogging throughout the evening. Don't miss it.

No. 4 Duke at No. 23 Maryland, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN: Speaking of big games, well, ahem. This qualifies. It would mean as much in College Park even if the Terrapins didn't have so much riding on the game, for there is little hatred in the country -- in college basketball or elsewhere -- quite like the purely distilled brand Maryland fans brew for all things Duke. And anytime Greivis Vasquez gets this sort of spotlight, you can expect sparks to fly. It's going to be rowdy.

There are more than taunts on the line here, though. With a win, Gary Williams' team could pull even with Duke at 12-3 in the ACC with one game each left to play. It won't be easy. After occasional stumbles, most of them on the road, Duke has quietly morphed into the most efficient offense in the country, and the Devils are finally starting to play the sort of defense that anchored them in last year's campaign. After a 1-4 start on the road, Duke has won its last four away from Cameron. Maryland's is no easy task. But the Terps have been underrated all year, though, and tonight is the perfect opportunity to showcase -- to the tournament committee, especially -- just how far perception lags behind reality.

Everywhere else: While you're futzing around with your laptop -- and totally chatting with us, remember! -- Connecticut and Notre Dame will be slugging it out on ESPN for a spot in the NCAA tournament. Neither team is guaranteed a berth, but both teams can nary afford a loss, and both teams would surely benefit from the win. ... Kentucky will face a test at Georgia, where the pesky Bulldogs have taken down Vanderbilt, Florida, Georgia Tech and Illinois this season. ... Indiana travels to No. 6 Purdue, which should be a nice break from the post-Robbie Hummel meat-grinder Purdue is facing these days. ... Memphis and UAB will duel for bubble considerations. ... Oklahoma State at Texas A&M is an interesting battle between two tourney-worthy Big 12 squads. ... A-10 leader Temple will visit a St. Louis team that has streaked into the tourney-sphere in the last half of the season. ... The fading Demon Deacons have another battle on their hands at Florida State tonight. ... and lowly Fordham, the last team in Division I without a conference win to its name, will try to get that first win over Xavier tonight.

• Tuesday, Sports Illustrated published Stuart Mandel's reporting on NCAA tournament expansion, and it's one of the better expansion-related pieces you'll read anywhere. There's plenty of new information there, like the fact that NCAA tournament ratings have actually gone down since the NCAA signed its original contract with CBS, so the chips aren't all on the NCAA's side of the table. There is new stuff about a cable model -- cough, ESPN -- and the benefits of subscription fees therein. And there's also this bit of hilarity on regular-season dilution from Xavier athletic director Mike Bobinski (no relation, of course, to Soda Popinski): "I understand why people would make that argument, but I don't know how you could prove that one way or the other," he said. "You can look at the other side of that -- instead of lessening the importance of the regular season, maybe [expansion] would increase the importance? It makes it a very challenging topic." This is a little like Owen Wilson's Eli Cash in the Royal Tenenbaums, as he reads his ridiculous book on Charlie Rose: "Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is... maybe he didn't." Bobinski actually has a point here -- there's nothing to prove that expansion will dilute the regular season; it's reasonable to believe the regular season will retain its importance in deciding NCAA tournament seeds, not to mention settling rivalries -- but the counter-intuition of the quote is still very entertaining.
• Speaking of tournament expansion, Jeff Eisenberg runs down the list of soft bubble teams and posits that maybe we should be thinking about contracting this tournament rather than expanding it. If the 2009-10 season had a 96-team tournament, there would be a lot of chaff in that 65-96 group.
• Is Wesley Johnson coming back for another season? He certainly seems to think so: "Nah," said Johnson (when asked if he had just played his final game in the Carrier Dome Tuesday night). "It's a wonderful feeling playing for this crowd. I saw the 34,000 come out for (Villanova), and with all the fans giving me that support, who wants to leave?" Of course, NBA draft commitments are a little like announcing your run for president: You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. This is the only answer Johnson can give right now; he's not going to come out and say "Well, jeez, it looks like I'm a surefire top 10 pick, so I'd be pretty dumb to come back for another year and risk injury. Of course I'm leaving!" But that doesn't mean Johnson isn't being sincere, either. Just that Syracuse fans probably shouldn't get their hopes up, is all.
• Meanwhile, here's one argument for why Andy Rautins is more valuable to the Syracuse -- and a better Big East player of the year candidate -- than his aforementioned teammate. It's not that unreasonable.
• Villanova is fading a bit down the stretch -- in other words, their bad defense (caused by a prodigious number of fouls) is catching up to them in the won-loss column -- while Jay Wright says he and his team are still "evolving."
• South Carolina fans and media are taking stock of Devan Downey's remarkable career, which has seen the undersized guard turn in one of the country's most impressive (if not most efficient) offensive seasons in 2009-10.
• Yet Another Basketball Blog's rundown of this year's biggest surprises and disappointments.
• Ballin Is A Habit runs down what it calls the "real March Madness" -- the automatic bid conference tournaments, which began Tuesday night.
• Chris Dobbertean at Blogging The Bracket likewise runs through last night's conference tournament results.
• FanHouse's Matt Snyder says, thanks to Robbie Hummel's injury and a truly horrific couple of months by the Hoosiers, that tonight's Indiana-Purdue feels "lifeless."
• A Sea Of Blue reminds its denizens just how important tonight's game at Georgia is. Not only is the game important, but it's going to be difficult; few seemingly "bad" teams have been as tough an out as Mark Fox's Georgia team this season.
• And, finally, a trip around the ESPNTubes: Pat Forde's latest cribs-heavy edition of The Minutes is, per the usual, a must-read. Joe Lunardi explains his latest bracket update (Insider). Andy Katz delivers a primer on the mid-majors you should probably start paying attention to. And Rick Reilly dips his toe in the college basketball waters, weighing in on everyone's favorite topic: court-storming in college basketball.

Purdue's ugly loss to Michigan State Sunday afternoon in West Lafayette, Ind. didn't just seal the nation's consensus of a Robbie Hummel-less Boilermaker squad -- i.e. that they're not a No. 1 seed without him -- it also made the top of the Big Ten standings a confusing, jumbled-up mess. Especially when you look at them on Monday morning. Can someone grab me another cup of coffee?

Here's the skinny: Ohio State's win over Michigan Saturday gave the Buckeyes a half-game lead in the Big Ten at 13-4. Ohio State has one game to play, a matchup with Illinois at the Value City Arena on Tuesday night. Michigan State's win over Purdue put the Spartans and the Boilermakers at 12-4 -- Purdue's chance to win the conference outright largely came down to yesterday's game -- with two games to play each. Michigan State hosts Penn State and Michigan in East Lansing, two very winnable games. Purdue will host Indiana and go to Penn State.

Assuming all three teams win their last games, that gives a three-way tie at the top of the Big Ten with records 13-4. That would give us a three-way tie for the Big Ten regular season title. Exciting, right?

Ah, but what of the conference tournament? It comes down to the Big Ten's multi-team tiebreak rule, which is almost as confusing as the standings themselves. To wit:

MULTIPLE-TEAM TIE

1. Results of head-to-head competition during the regular season.

A. When comparing records against a single team or a group of teams, the higher winning percentage shall prevail, even if the number of games played against the team or group are unequal (i.e., 2-0 is better than 3-1); in the case of tied percentages vs. the team or group of 1.000 or .000 the following shall apply: 2-0 is better than 1-0; 0-1 is better than 0-2.
B. After the top team among the tied teams is determined, the second team is ranked by its record among the original tied teams, not the head-to-head record vs. the remaining team(s).

2. If the remaining teams are still tied, then each tied team's record shall be compared to the team occupying the highest position in the final regular-season standings, continuing down through the standings until one team gains an advantage.

A. When arriving at another pair of tied teams while comparing records, use each team's record against the collective tied teams as a group (prior to their own tie-breaking procedures), rather than the performance against the individual tied teams.
B. When comparing records against a single team or a group of teams, the higher winning percentage shall prevail, even if the number of games played against the team or group are unequal (i.e., 2-0 is better than 3-1); in the case of tied percentages vs. the team or group of 1.000 or .000 the following shall apply: 2-0 is better than 1-0; 0-1 is better than 0-2.

3. Won-loss percentage of all Division I opponents.

4. Coin toss conducted by the Commissioner or designee.

Anyone get that? Yeah, me neither. Except for the coin toss part. That makes sense.

Let's give it a shot, though: Michigan State and Purdue split their season series at 1-1. Ohio State and Purdue likewise split at 1-1. And Michigan State and Ohio State only played once, a seven-point win for the Buckeyes in East Lansing. If I'm doing this right, that gives Ohio State a 2-1 record against the tied teams, while Purdue is 1-1 and Michigan State is 1-2.

So, assuming I'm interpreting this correctly -- I have a call in to the Big Ten's office, and I'll add their confirmation when they call me back -- that would put Ohio State on the No. 1 line in the Big Ten tournament, with Purdue on the No. 2 and Michigan State at the No. 3. All three teams would get a first round bye and play the winners of the No. 8 vs. No. 9, No. 7 vs. No. 10, and No. 6 vs. No. 11 games, respectively. Since the Big Ten still has a while to shake out, it's hard to say who has the advantage.

The bottom line is this: Purdue's chance to win the Big Ten outright is, barring collapses by both OSU and Sparty, likely over in 2010. The best the Boilers -- alongside Ohio State and Michigan State -- can do is kiss their sister. It's yet another effect of losing Robbie Hummel, one that pales in comparison to the apparently lost Final Four chances, but one that will sting Purdue fans all the same.

Andy Katz talks about the impact of Robbie Hummel's injury on Purdue and why he is really impressed by Syracuse.

A day after the Robbie Hummel injury, college basketball is still fixated on Purdue. A weak Thursday night slate probably didn't help much. So let's do a Hummel-heavy link dump and get it all out of our system before tomorrow blows our collective minds. (Not to mention tonight; for what it's worth I'll be at Valpo-Butler this evening, so stick around and hang out, if you're not doing anything. What, like you've got better things to do on a Friday night? Pshh.)

• The first and most common question about Hummel and Purdue: How will the injury affect Purdue's tournament seed? Andy Katz looked at that aspect yesterday, arguing that if "the Boilermakers keep winning without Hummel, then why wouldn't Purdue get judged on its overall body of work? What if Purdue coach Matt Painter does a fantastic job adjusting without Hummel, like he did in a road win at Minnesota after Hummel left the game in the first half?" This seems fair, and it's up to Purdue now. If they can prove they're still an elite team with Keaton Grant starting in place of Hummel, then the committee should treat them accordingly, yes?
• Meanwhile, Matt Painter addressed the media today, remaining upbeat (though, really, what is he going to say -- "We're screwed?") but called the Hummel injury "an unbelievable challenge": "From a coaching standpoint, this happens, whether it’s injuries or foul trouble,” Painter said. “Things happen and you have to be able to deal with adversity. It’s an unbelievable challenge for our team to deal with this adversity to make improvements and get stronger. The thing last year, for us, that was different with Rob’s injury … was the fact that we didn’t know if he was going to play or not going into games. Knowing how to prepare with him and how to prepare without him are two very different things."
• Oh, and yes, Keaton Grant is officially taking Hummel's starting role.
• Rush The Court has an interesting little ditty about what to watch for as a home viewer when a player injures his knee. It has a description of the quick tests the doctors perform, that sort of thing. Learn something new every day, right?
• Purdue's next game vs. Michigan State couldn't come at a worse time for the Boilers, obviously, but Tom Izzo is right about one thing: Even without Hummel, Purdue is still a very good team. Not to mention Michigan State now has to adjust its preparation, which had focused on stopping Hummel, for a different, Grant-heavy rotation.
• Yesterday, Pat Forde recounted similar big late-season injures, chief among them Kenyon Martin's in 2000. Mike DeCourcy remembers the Martin situation too, and analyzes the Boilermakers' chances of avoiding a similar fate.
• Andy Glockner recounts other, less well-known, late-injury seeding situations.
• And Jeff Eisenberg has this quick breakdown of the No. 1-seed ramifications, provided Purdue slips in its remaining regular season or Big Ten Tournament games: "Any slippage from Purdue would probably make Duke the odds-on favorite to grab the final No. 1 seed despite its utter lack of marquee victories. The Devils (23-4) have the strongest computer profile and the most trouble-free remaining schedule, though Villanova could overtake them by beating Syracuse on Saturday and Kansas State could make its case by toppling Kansas next week."

In non-Hummel-related linkage:

• There were a pair of ejections last night, one in the midwest and one in the panhandle. Indiana's Tom Crean was booted during his team's loss to Wisconsin amidst a torrential display of emotion, having to be escorted from the floor by assistant coaches to chants of "To-om Cre-an!" Once off the court, he shoved the locker room door really, really hard, and then disappeared. He was not happy.
• Nor was Isiah Thomas, who received two technicals while trying to change the "perception of his team": "I will fight for my team," Thomas said. "I think the perception of our team right now is hurting us. In the last six games, we've lost by four points or less. . . . The perception of our team going into tournament play I hope will be different than what it's been in the first half of the season, and I hope we can change that perception." OK then.
• Zeke's old buddy Magic Johnson was likewise in a college building last night, having been invited to Kentucky's win over South Carolina by governor Steve Beshear. Johnson was in Lexington, Ky., to promote a bill raising the high school dropout age in Kentucky from 16 to 18 and to donate $10,000 to a group of Lexington for an upcoming trip to Europe. Oh, AND he did the John Wall dance. Magic Johnson is awesome.

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?

That headline is a little self-evident; you don't need me to tell you that Robbie Hummel's torn ACL -- which will officially cost Hummel the rest of the season -- puts Purdue's tourney chances, No. 1 seed status and, frankly, its entire peerless season into jeopardy.

In many ways, though, the injury is even worse than that. For Purdue, the loss of Hummel also means the loss of three years of preparation, three years of growth and maturation and coaching and friendship, three years of congealing a top-notch recruiting class into a national power. These juniors -- Hummel, JaJuan Johnson, and E'Twaun Moore especially -- were going to take Purdue to the promised land. An added benefit? That promised land just so happened to be in Indianapolis; if everything went according to plan, the Boilermakers would play their triumphant Final Four in front of a home-state crowd a mere hour south of West Lafayette, Ind. As Pat Forde wrote after Purdue's win over Ohio State on Feb. 17, the three-year slow grind was finally coming together. It was happening. Now it's all gone.

That's not to say Purdue can't still make a run. It can. The Boilermakers are still a very talented team with enough depth in senior Keaton Grant to mask some of what they'll miss in Hummel. Purdue's next few games, including the Big Ten tournament, will be its opportunity to show that to the NCAA tournament selection committee. Purdue still deserves that No. 1 seed. All hope is not lost.

Unfortunately, that won't diminish the disappointment for Purdue or its fans, which runs deeper than any one injury in any one season would. And for anyone interested in seeing the best teams in the country take the floor this March, well, we're disappointed, too.

• Somehow, this escaped The Morning After's purview today, which, considering the season-long love for Jarvis Varnado, is a very weird oversight on my part. In any case, the Sporting News' Chris Littman reminds (tsk-tskingly, with good reason) that Mississippi State's Jarvis Varnado did indeed break the all-time record for shots blocked in a college basketball career last night, stuffing eight shots against Alabama to overtake Wojciech Mydra's record of 535 blocks. Mydra played at Lousiana Tech, and while 535 blocks is 535 blocks, it is all the more impressive that Varnado broke the tally playing for four years against high-level SEC competition. Hat's off, Jarvis. Now, if Mr. Varnado can get eight stops a game throughout the SEC tournament, Mississippi State might just get themselves another automatic bid.
• College Hoops Journal's Matt Norlander spends plenty of time and words deconstructing the latest NCAA tournament expansion talking point. It goes a little something like this: "Coaches (and writers) in college basketball consistently bash the snot out of college football. It’s practically a proud rite of passage for these guys (and, again, honks like me). Like most outside of it, and many in the game will acknowledge this as well, college football -- from a participation standpoint, at worst -- is a crock of a playoff system. For the past decade, once February rolls around, we’ve heard how great it is that college basketball’s championship is “decided on the court” and how silly it is to have more than half of its teams involved in the bowl system. [...] So why is it now a talking point of coaches to, basically, say, 'Well, since college football has half of its teams make the postseason why can’t our game involve more teams?'" Note to coaches: I'm no political strategist, but you don't have to be David Plouffe to know that of all the pro-expansion arguments to be made, "make it more like college football" is probably the worst. No thanks.
• Seth Davis takes a somewhat novel approach to evaluating teams: Promising coaches off-the-record status, thus giving them free reign to say how they really feel about their conference opponents. The result is an interesting look at the major conferences' teams without any of the regular "they're a tough team, we need to play hard" postgame coachspeak.
• Tar Heel Blue's Adam Lucas discusses how most UNC fans must be feeling right now. They're down, but they're not out, and even a bit defiant: "This is what he said: 'You have to sit through the bad ones to enjoy the good ones.'" The truth is, we don't sit through many bad ones as Carolina basketball fans. No one feels sorry for us. You know that, right?"
• Take a swing at Joe Lemire's picks for this season's most disappointing player, conference and team. None of them will surprise you. All of them have disappointed you.
• The more I hear Tennessee's Renaldo Woolridge, aka Swiperboy, talk, the more I like him: "Woolridge took time out of his schedule to visit with Gibbs' fifth graders and speak to them about topics ranging from his hip-hop career to the importance of chasing a dream. 'I told them about using writing as an expression of who you are and what you're feeling,' Woolridge said. 'I have reached a step in my life where I have achieved part of what I want to achieve. But every day I get up and work harder to reach my dreams. I told them they have to have that mindset, and the only person stopping you from trying is you. I wanted to tell them that so they could have someone to look up to. I had a few people like that when I was their age, and that direction really helped me a lot.'"
• No one knows the status of Purdue's Robbie Hummel -- at this point, it could be anything from a tweak to a torn ACL -- but if he is out, Keaton Grant, who hit last night's game-winning shot for the Boilermakers, will have very large shoes to fill.
• Storming The Floor catches us up on The Great West conference. I needed more than a refresher.
• Speaking of the west, The Mid-Majority's "My Team" features have been an excellent running series; here's Travis Mason-Bushman on Idaho.
• Joe Lunardi, master bracketologist, breaks down a Wednesday night that featured just about every bubble team you can think of. (Insider)
• John Gasaway goes deep on whether and why the selection committee should use efficiency margin in their evaluations: "So why doesn't the selection committee avail itself of this "better and more detailed information" when selecting and seeding the field? In theory the committee does indeed consider a very wide range of information, even up to and including an efficiency-margin-based rating system like Ken Pomeroy's. But in practice the standing objection to a proper acknowledgment of efficiency margin's value can be boiled down to one word. Sportsmanship. It is feared that if the selection committee starts explicitly giving teams credit for beating the heck out of their opponents, then really good teams will start running up the score intentionally and wantonly. I can't help feeling that this fear is overblown. First off, I'm not advocating a selection process that simply parrots Ken's rankings or Jeff Sagarin's Predictor or my listings of efficiency margins step by mindless step. No one would advocate that, just as no one would suggest that such ratings should banned from the committee room outright. But in between these two extremes there's a sweet spot where efficiency margin is along for the evaluative ride without driving the bus."

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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.