ESPN Men's Basketball

A scan of the college basketball box scores each night guarantees all kinds of statistical oddities and standout performances. Here are some we found from Tuesday.

Massachusetts 93, Duquesne 83
B.J. Monteiro of Duquesne recorded six personal fouls in the Dukes’ loss to Massachusetts. Monteiro is the fourth player to pick up six fouls in a game this season, joining Darrius Garrett of Richmond, Andres Torres of Hartford and Torian Oglesby of Bowling Green.

Villanova 70, Rutgers 49
Rutgers went just 3-of-25 (12 percent) from the field in the second half in its loss to Villanova.

Hampton 69, Morgan State 65
Darrion Pellum of Morgan State scored 23 points in the win over Hampton. Pellum became the first player this season to score 20-plus points while making three or fewer shots from the field and attempting 20 or more free throws.

Trillion of the Night
Pennsylvania 62, Princeton 52
Marin Kukoc (son of Toni) of Penn played five minutes without accumulating a single stat in the Quakers’ 62-52 loss to Princeton.

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.

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."

• 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.

No. 9 Villanova outlasts Cincinnati 77-73 on Tuesday night.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The stars -- or at least the schedules -- had aligned. One look at today's hoops schedule and it was clear this was, at least on paper, the best Saturday of college hoops we've had all year. All we needed was for the games to live up to the hype.

They did. It was. And we're not done yet.

The insanity that will be Syracuse-Villanova is still minutes away from tipoff, but look how far we've come already: Notre Dame won at No. 13 Georgetown to reinvigorate its tournament hopes. No. 12 New Mexico beat No. 11 BYU in Provo to clinch a share of the Mountain West title (and make a pretty clear argument as to who the best, most tourney-ready MWC team really is).

No. 17 Tennessee knocked off No. 2 Kentucky in Knoxville, building a big lead in the first half before succumbing to Kentucky's inevitable onslaught ... only to score the last nine points of the game, seal a thrilling win over a hated rival, and hand UK its second loss of the season.

Then, of course, there was Kansas. Anyone who thought we'd end the day with not one but both of our top two teams in road losses deserves some sort of clairvoyance award and a lucrative late-night cable infomercial. Just a few hours after Kentucky fell, the Jayhawks lost their first conference game of the season at Oklahoma State.

If the loss itself wasn't shocking -- playing on the road in conference play is always hard, even for great teams like Kansas -- the way Oklahoma State thoroughly handled Kansas was. The Cowboys dominated Sherron Collins and company almost from the opening tip. By halftime, the lead had ballooned to 47-29. James Anderson was scoring at will against Kansas' typically impenetrable defense, and when the Cowboys didn't make shots -- which was rare; they posted a 69.8 percent effective field goal rate -- they were able to grab the offensive rebounds that Cole Aldrich and the Jayhawks almost never allow.

Much like their compatriots at the top of the polls, Kansas fought back late, eventually closing the lead to nine with over two minutes to play. Unlike Kentucky, though Kansas wasn't able to get any closer than that, thanks in large part to 5-foot-9 OSU sharpshooter Keiton Page's four late 3s. And that was that: Just like No. 2 before them, No. 1 had fallen, and any dreams of a perfect Big 12 season would be deferred.

All of which sounds very dramatic, of course. And it was. Still, let's not overplay KU's loss. The Jayhawks would never admit it, but they had nothing substantial on the line in Saturday's game. They'll still be the Big 12 regular season champs. They'll still be the No. 1 seed in the Big 12 tournament.

Most important of all, they'll still be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament -- probably the No. 1 overall seed, barring a Big East tournament title by Syracuse. We should take notes from last year's eventual champs, the North Carolina team that blitzed the NCAA tournament from start to finish. In the regular season, sometimes the best team doesn't win. Sometimes the best team seems downright disinterested. Kansas' loss felt a lot like that today, and while that's not exactly the best excuse for a loss -- eh, we didn't have anything to care about, right? -- it shouldn't affect the way we look at the Jayhawks going forward. Make no mistake: Bill Self's team is still the favorite.

Want to know the most awesome thing about today? All of that already happened ... and the day's best, most important game is still minutes away from tipoff. (Which is not to mention Mizzou-Kansas State, a very good Big 12 matchup currently in progress.) Syracuse-Villanova should be everything everybody (including the record crowd currently packed inside the Carrier Dome) hoped. But if it isn't? Oh well. Saturday was still the best day of college basketball we've had all season. It was the perfect way to welcome March, the very best month of the year.

Show of hands: Who's ready for the tournament? Yep. Thought so. Me too.

Everyone knows tomorrow's Syracuse-Villanova game is big -- the Syracuse athletics department is expecting its biggest crowd ever, and tickets are reaching Final Four-level resale ridiculousness. Makes sense, right? Tomorrow's featured Gameday match up will pit two potential No. 1 seeds, two programs who have placed themselves among college basketball's elite, two coaches vying for a Big East title, and two programs who could very well meet in the Final Four. It's going to be rowdy. This is not unexpected.

It was only a matter of time, then, before Syracuse students got a head start on their seating arrangements for the game. They started doing so Wednesday night; hundreds Orange undergrads packed the Carrier Dome's upper-east-end hallway 72 hours before tip-off. There's video of the campers on YouTube (hat tip: Twitter user W4LT). There's also this report from Syracuse.com. The lesson? These kids aren't exactly roughing it:

After their first night of sleeping in the Carrier Dome, Dave Cunningham and his team of SU students are living the good life. With an Xbox 360, orange flat-screen television and air mattresses, the Dome is beginning to feel like home. Students can form teams of up to four to wait in line; at least one member of the team must remain in the Dome for the team to keep their spot.

Students have made the hallways of the dome pretty comfortable, bringing in sleeping bags, air mattresses, chairs, laptops, fans and more. Many also brought along homework.

Except for the homework part, that actually sounds sort of fun. The best part? Syracuse is letting the kids camp out indoors. Tents have a certain rugged dedication quality to them, but no one wants to sleep outside in the tail end of the snowy upstate winter. (Though, to be fair, it's positively balmy in Syracuse today. Get outside, you wimps!)

In any case, add "student campout" to the list of things that are going to make tomorrow night's game a major affair. Top 10 battle? Check. Conference title on the line? Check. Record crowd? Check. Gameday? Check. The whole day is filled with awesome college hoops, but none will be more awesome than this.

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.

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.

• As you can imagine, the Purdue fans at Hammer And Rails are ecstatic over their win in Columbus last night: "Winning in Bloomington... Check! Winning in East Lansing... Check! Winning in Columbus... Check! Who knew that we would win at those places, but we would lose in Evanston this year? This was a statement win in a season full of statement wins. This team continues to go in and get wins in places that have been very hard for us to play in lately, all while playing together as a team that is greater than the sum of its parts. Now add to that the fact we won all three of those in a four game stretch. I think that means we have earned Saturday's home game against Illinois." (Their Ohio State counterparts, meanwhile, have at least temporarily gone back to discussing football.)
• A Chicago-based sports management agency briefly listed Ed Davis as one of its clients early Thursday morning. The founder insists no one has made a deal with Davis, despite the Internet error, and that his contact has been limited to sporadic contact with the family and a few UNC games here and there. OK then?
• Keepin' The Bench Warm has some advice for Big Ten basketball coaches looking to recruit well: Win your own states. It's really that easy.
• Could Texas play themselves out of the bracket? It's unlikely, but not impossible.
• The NCAA tournament expands ... to 4,096 teams! This is totally going to water down the regular season.
• You do it to yourselves, it's true, and that's why it really hurts: Here's Gasaway on Villanova's prodigious fouling woes.
• I'll have more on this in Saddle Up, to be sure, but tonight is a big night for the Big East. Prepare thyself.
• Mike DeCourcy frets over the exclusion of Malcolm Delaney and Matt Bouldin from the voting for the Oscar Roberston Award, but I'm with RTC -- it's hard to see who you would move off the list in order to make room for either.
• Here's an early model for an NCAA tournament bracket simulation; get your sheets ready.
• Oklahoma is a mess. Count the ways.

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

Those of you hoping Syracuse and Villanova's respective losses on Sunday and Monday would drive down the price of tickets to the teams' Feb. 27 meeting will be simultaneously pleased and disappointed. Why pleased? Thanks to those losses, the tickets are getting cheaper. Now the disappointment: By "cheaper," I mean instead of paying $700 for a ticket, you might be able to find a few for $600. Good luck!

It’s the high-grossing college basketball game of the season for StubHub.com. The ticket-trading site had sold 1,889 tickets as of Monday, with an average price of $157 per ticket. Nearly $300,000 in tickets have been purchased so far. A single ticket for Level A, Section 124 already sold for $750 on StubHub. That’s $350 more than the list price for a season ticket for 21 home games, including the Villanova contest.

There are still more than 600 tickets left on StubHub, ranging from about $100 all the way up to $2,500 for floor seats. So if you want to see Villanova play Syracuse at the Carrier Dome, you're going to have to prioritize. That's easy enough; your kids didn't really need those braces anyway. And hey, when you get to spend the game with 34,000 of your closest friends, what's a few grand, anyway?

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

No. 1 Kansas 59, No. 23 Texas A&M 54: There's a common belief that if teams want to win NCAA titles, they have to learn how to win ugly in the tournament. This is not always true: 2008-09's champs, the North Carolina Tar Heels, were never forced to win ugly in March or April; Tyler Hansbrough & Co. rolled through their six tourney games like they were playing in the Maui Invitational rather than the NCAA tourney. Wouldn't you rather dominate? It keeps things simple. Still, though, it can't hurt a dominant team to get punched in the mouth from time to time, to face a rowdy away crowd on a night when the shots aren't falling and to come away with a victory in a hard-fought, low-scoring slugfest. That's what the Jayhawks did last night.

On a night when Sherron Collins scored a mere seven points and committed five turnovers -- and a night when Kansas hit only one 3-pointer in 10 attempts -- Cole Aldrich was the key. Big surprise, right? Aldrich had 12 points, 10 rebounds, five blocks, and countless other altered shots in the interior. The Aggies, meanwhile, completely shut down in the last few minutes of the game -- Donald Sloan disappeared, as did the Aggies' offensive rebounds and free throws, while Kansas was able to get to the line at a high (56.5 percent FTR) rate.

After the game, Bill Self said his team won "muddy," and that's about as good an adjective as you can use for what we saw from both teams last night. It was muddy. Self wouldn't want them to wallow in it, but maybe it's good for the Jayhawks to get a little mud on their shoes from time to time.

Connecticut 84, No. 3 Villanova 75: Can someone please explain the Connecticut Huskies? (Wait, that's kind of my job? Oh, right.) Actually, Andy's explanation last night is as good as any: The Huskies pretty clearly have talent, they've just not always played up to it. This team has Kemba Walker, Stanley Robinson and Jerome Dyson in its backcourt, a hyperathletic threesome that should compete with anybody in the country. It also helps that UConn played much the same Monday night as they played in a close loss at Syracuse last week: Walker and Dyson used their strength to get in the lane, refusing to force outside jumpers. The Huskies flew around on their own defensive end, using their one main advantage -- a proficiency at blocking shots -- frequently. And UConn got to the line. They got to the line a lot. Jim Calhoun's team shot 44 free throws to Villanova's 20, a product mostly of athleticism and Villanova's inability to stop anyone on defense.

Oh, and make no mistake: Villanova can't stop anyone on defense. The Wildcats are one of the country's best offenses, but their defensive efficiency numbers aren't pretty: Nova doesn't turn opponents over and doesn't force them into particularly bad shots, which is why they have the No. 66-ranked defense in the country and aren't in Pomeroy's top 10 despite the high level of respect afforded to them nationally. Nova is a good team with flaws, and a suddenly organized and viable UConn team exposed nearly every one of them.

Saddle Up is our daily look at the hoops your TV wants you to watch tonight. It'll thank you later.

No. 1 Kansas at No. 23 Texas A&M, 9 p.m., ESPN: Last week, Kansas went to Texas in what for months preceding seemed as though it would the game of the year. It, um, wasn't. Kansas' deep and talented squad had little problem with a Texas team that's still trying to figure itself out. Texas A&M, meanwhile, is in the ascendancy -- the Aggies have won their last four games and six out of their last seven, and A&M is a perfect 13-0 at home in 2009-10. In many ways, this is Kansas' real Big 12 road test. If the Jayhawks are going to roll through the Big 12 without losing a single game, tonight is likely their biggest obstacle.

How do the two teams stack up? A&M's biggest strength is their ability to get to the free throw line. Much like Kansas State, the only team that shoots more free throws per possession than the Aggies, A&M thrives on getting into the lane, getting easy two-point buckets, and -- failing that -- drawing contact and getting fouled. That is a significantly more difficult task against the Jayhawks than against most teams, because Kansas doesn't allow penetration, and when teams do get past the Jayhawks, they have to contend with Cole Aldrich, arguably the game's most dominating interior defender. We know the Jayhawks' story by now. If you can keep the game close, slow the pace, force them to take outside shots and get them to ignore Aldrich on the offensive end, you can win.

It's very, very, very difficult to do those things to Kansas. But it's not impossible. A&M will get its shot tonight.

Connecticut at No. 3 Villanova, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN: This would seem like a pretty straightforward game for Villanova. When Connecticut isn't inconsistent, it's mediocre, and Jim Calhoun's return to the sideline this weekend didn't seem to have much effect on the Huskies. Villanova should win easily, right? Right.

Of course, things are never that simple: It was just yesterday that a mediocre Big East team on the wrong side of the bubble went to a dominant Big East competitor's house and won in front of its crowd of 30,000. That was Louisville, which beat Big East leader Syracuse, and if Villanova didn't think it was capable of losing a random Big East game to a desperate team, yesterday's upset should have warmed them to the possibility. It can happen, and it will be Jay Wright and Scottie Reynolds' job to make sure it doesn't.

Everywhere else: It's a quiet non Big-Monday night tonight; check out our scoreboard to get the full download.