Baylor 74, Georgetown 72 -- Requiem for a Lost Season

Honestly, you couldn't have scripted a more fitting end to this season. Blow a 10-point halftime lead, on the road, against a team full of seniors who stayed more focused and motivated throughout the game than you did. Fall asleep on defense over and over again and let that kid keep getting free on the baseline for those alley-oop dunks.

I hate watching my team in the NIT, because you never feel good about rooting for it. ("We're Number 66!!") But now at least that's all resolved. From what I saw, it certainly looks as if Greg Monroe could use more seasoning, so hopefully he stays away from that NBA draft and comes back to try and make up for what happened this year.

We could go over it and over it, but we already have, for the past few months. And besides, this is the best day of the year -- whether the Hoyas decided to join it or not.

The NCAA Tournament begins in earnest this afternoon. I'm in Florida, doing some spring training coverage, but the heavy early odds favor me blowing off this Phillies-Marlins game and finding a sports bar with about 110 TVs and parking there for the afternoon. Or going back down to Delray Beach and crashing on my in-laws' couch to watch one game on the TV and others on the laptop.

Briefly, my Final Four is Michigan State, Duke, Connecticut and Oklahoma, with Michigan State beating Duke for the title. I never win these things, and my performance (as detailed below) in this year's Conference Tournament Pool speaks to the success I expect to have in the big bracket as well. So while I have no reason to think you'd be using my picks as any kind of advice anyway, I can confidently advise you to stay away, and use them only to poke fun at me after the fact.

My winners today:

LSU over Butler
Memphis over Cal State-Northridge
BYU over Texas A&M
Purdue over Northern Iowa
North Carolina over Radford, easily, even with Ty Lawson tied behind their backs.
Cal over Maryland
UConn over Chattanooga
Washington over Mississippi State
Minnesota over Texas (Sure, drinking the Big Ten Kool-Aid. Why fight it?)
Clemson over Michigan (Too much Kool-Aid is bad for you)
Villanova over American
Akron over Gonzaga (UPSET SPECIAL -- GO ZIPS!!!)
Duke over Binghamton
Oklahoma over Morgan State
UCLA over VCU (though I see the President picked the upset here...)
Illinois over Western Kentucky

Let's tip off!!!!

Pitt 90, Marquette 75 (Regularly Scheduled Programming)

Wow. I mean, it was 67-65 at one point. But when you get EVERY SINGLE REBOUND FOR 10 MINUTES, you tend to pull away.

This result, combined with Louisville's thrashing of Seton Hall, means a lot of things:

-If Louisville wins at West Virginia on Saturday AND UConn loses at Pitt on Saturday, Louisville is the regular-season conference champion and No. 1 seed in the Big East tournament.

(-In that scenario, UConn (currently the No. 1 team in the country), would finish THIRD in the Big East, since they'd have lost two games and therefore the tiebreaker to Pitt.)

-If Louisville loses at West Virginia on Saturday and UConn loses at Pitt, I think Pitt is the No. 1 seed, but they'd all three be tied, and truly, I'm not sure what that means. More research is needed.

-If UConn wins at Pitt, they are the No. 1 seed and regular-season champ, no questions asked.

-Pitt is guaranteed a two-round bye, and along with UConn and Louisville won't have to play until the Thursday quarterfinals at the Garden.

-Marquette and Villanova are tied for fourth, and Nova holds the tiebreaker edge on Marquette. Which means, if Villanova beats Providence at home Thursday night OR Marquette loses at home to Syracuse on Saturday, then Nova gets the No. 4 seed and the two-round bye, and Marquette would finish fifth and have to play on Wednesday.

-Also tonight, DePaul lost to fall to 0-17. One game left to avoid the historic bagel. Guess where it is? That's right. At Georgetown.

Of COURSE I'm worried! How could you not be?

St. John's 59, Georgetown 56 (OT)

Not much more to say on this one. Another second-half collapse against another team that should have been easily beaten.

Everywhere, I see that Georgetown's strength of schedule is #1 in the country -- toughest schedule of any team in Division I.

But I ask you.

What does that matter -- what do good-to-great wins over UConn, Syracuse, Memphis and Villanova mean -- if you lose at so many of that schedule's soft spots? If you lose to Seton Hall, St. John's and twice to Cincinnati?

It means NIT. That's what it means.

A Seven-Bid League?

Remember when nine bids looked certain and people wondered if the league might be able to get 10? Well, ESPN's latest Bracketology has the Big East with seven bids -- Cincinnati and Providence both on the "First Four Out" list and Notre Dame and Georgetown justifiably not mentioned at all.

I'm thinking Cincinnati can get in with a win at Syracuse tomorrow and Providence can get in with a win at Villanova on Thursday, but the latter is going to be tough, because Nova is still motivated to grab one of those top four seeds in the conference tournament.

That's why my hopes for a Hoya upset this afternoon are minimal. I foresee something like the Louisville game from earlier this week -- a game in which Georgetown was totally outclassed by a far superior opponent and never had a chance. But I guess you never know. Right? RIGHT?????

Elsewhere on today's schedule, UConn must take care of business at home against Notre Dame. (If they do, they secure one of those top four seeds and a two-day bye at the Garden.) Pitt must take care of business at Seton Hall (so as not to fall too far from its short-lived No. 1 ranking). And St. John's must take care of its business at DePaul. The Blue Demons put a scare into Villanova the other night, may be playing well (for them) right now, and NOBODY wants to be the first Big East team to lose to DePaul this year. Not so close to the end...

Catching Up

As mentioned in earlier posts, it's been a tough week to keep up with the blog because I've spent it in Florida, covering spring training baseball. (Hearkening back to the days when I had a real job.)

But I have been watching what's been going on in the conference, and I'm here with some of the conclusions I've drawn from this week:

1. Marquette is toast without Dominic James. NO way they can absorb this loss the way UConn can (and sort of has) absorbed Jerome Dyson's. UConn is considerably deeper than Marquette is, with massive talent at every position and coming off the bench. All of Marquette's success this year depended on the brilliance of the "big four" -- James, McNeal, Matthews and Heyward. They don't have enough to cover what they lose with James out. Their perimeter game is their life, and it's irretrievably weakened. Which is too bad. I liked that team a lot.

2. Jim Calhoun is a jerk and a bully, but so are a lot of college coaches (football and basketball), and that doesn't mean he should have to give back any of his money if he doesn't want to. Would we all like wealthy people to show a little sensitivity in these times -- to at least act as if they care that people other than themselves and their neighbors are suffering? Sure. Would we like professionals to treat other professionals as professionals in professional settings -- i.e., not telling a fellow adult to "shut up" when asked a question in a news conference? Of course. But Calhoun, as great a coach as he is, has never been known as an especially effervescent human being. You wish the greats would all be good guys, but when you cover sports, you learn quickly that it's just not that way.

3. Villanova is in a really good spot to be the sleeper pick to win the Big East tournament and score a very nice seed in the Big Dance. Sure, they got scared by DePaul the other night, but they did win the game, and they're still moving in on Marquette and Pitt as they try to crack that top four and get the double-by at the Garden. With James and Dyson out, and Pitt having looked bad in a loss to Providence, red-hot Nova has every reason to think it can be conference champ with a good week in NYC.

4. I believe that DePaul will be 0-17 on the morning of March 7 but will fend off historic ignominy by defeating Georgetown in the final game of its regular season. I believe this with all of my heart, and it's a belief based on nothing but the way I feel this Hoya season is going. Call me a pessimist if you like, but what have we seen from the Hoyas to make me anything else?

Providence 81, Pitt 73 (Tuesday night)

Yeah, getting to this real late, for reasons outlined in my baseball blog (if you're into that sort of thing). But what kind of year is RCR having with predictions? Just when we say we're through with Providence, they go out and knock off the No. 1 team in the country.

Now you have to think the Friars have a shot at the Dance, right? Assuming they beat Rutgers and lose at Villanova, they're 18-12 overall and 10-8 in the conference going into the Big East tournament (where they're now quite likely to have a bye into the second round). Win one game in the Big East tournament, and you're 19-13, and the committee has to take a look at wins over Pitt and Syracuse.

Will it be enough? I say probably not. The committee has a history of screwing Providence, and the out-of-conference schedule was weak. But they'll be in the discussion. And if they get hot and win TWO Big East tournament games and make the semifinals? Jeez.

I say, if the Friars can upset Villanova next week in Philly, they get in. I just don't think they can do that.

Pitt now becomes the team that has to worry about getting passed by Villanova for that critical No. 4 seed in the conference tournament. If they lose one of their remaining three games (at Seton Hall/Marquette/UConn) and Villanova wins out, Villanova catches them. And Villanova has the tiebreaker, as a result of their 67-57 win on Jan. 28.

See? This Big East season did turn out to be exciting. It's just that Georgetown wasn't a part of it.

Watching UConn-Marquette now. Will be back, as you know.

Georgetown 65, South Florida 40

Not entirely sure what to make of it, but the Hoyas certainly needed it. A laugher. A rout. Whatever you want to call it, it's something Georgetown hasn't had in far too long. They knew they were bigger and stronger up front than the outmanned Bulls were, and they exploited that fact, working the ball inside and making sure Greg Monroe was the game's dominant factor.

South Florida's coach believed his team had an off night, and that may be so. But when Georgetown is playing well, running its disciplined offense and unrelenting defense, teams generally do have off nights.

So what's it to be here, fellas? Is it possible that, with eight minutes left in regulation at Syracuse, a light went on and this team started playing with passion and fire and intensity again? Is it possible that they'll actually be a difficult team for Marquette to play on Saturday, for Louisville to play on Monday, and for Villanova to play a week from Saturday?

That would make things fun -- even interesting. Regular readers of this site know we're not about to get our hopes up, but that doesn't mean we won't watch. Marquette is a team that the Hoya team of early January would have beaten. They are loaded on the perimeter, soft inside, and if you can keep them on the perimeter, they've shown that they won't hit all of their jump shots.

Pomeroy has the Hoyas beating Marquette 73-69, a 67 percent certainty of a Georgetown victory. Of course, Pomeroy had the Hoyas 7-1 over their last eight games, and instead they are 2-6. (Just missed on that one, Kenny....)

One more thing. Nikita Mescheriakov is 0-for his last seven three-point attempts since taking over Jessie Sapp's spot in the starting lineup. Now, I understand that Sapp is in the doghouse, and that it apparently has something to do with something he said and shouldn't have said to our beloved coach in the locker room recently. Given that, and the fact that Sapp went about eight weeks without hitting a field goal earlier this year, I can completely see not starting him. But John -- if Mescheriakov can't hit threes...isn't that kind of like playing with four guys?

Just a thought.

Oh. Elsewhere. Right.

We're so over Providence. Yeah, you're reading that right. Up by one at the half, lost by 18. See ya, Friars.

And West Virginia takes care of business against Notre Dame, which puts the Hoyas in a three-way tie for 10th place (hey, we take what we can get), which is intriguing until you remember what the schedule looks like over the next 10 days.

But you never know, Wright? I mean, right? No wait. Maybe I do mean Wright.

Come on, Hoyas. Prove me wrong again. The good way this time.

Wednesday Night Preview -- Hoyas need a win in Tampa

I see Georgetown a 6.5-point favorite on the road and I wince. We're talking about a team that's one exactly one game (against Rutgers!) in the past five weeks. How can they be favored to beat anybody, anywhere?

But the fact is that they must. At 13-10 overall, 4-8 in the conference, an NCAA Tournament appearance is a pipe dream. But a loss tonight would put any kind of postseason tournament appearance in jeopardy.

How? Well, the next three games after this are Marquette/Louisville/at Villanova. Not one of those looks like a game Georgetown can win, which means a loss tonight has them staring at 13-14 overall, 4-12 in conference at the end of the month. They'd have to finish the regular-season schedule by beating St. John's and DePaul and win a first-round Big East tournament game just to get to 16-15.

Yes, it is possible that they could miss the NIT.

So yeah. Tonight matters. It matters that they play the way they did in the final eight minutes of regulation at Syracuse on Saturday. It matters that they do whatever they can do to make sure Greg Monroe exploits South Florida's weakness on the inside. It matters that they defend Dominique Jones for all 40 minutes, in transition, on the perimeter and between him and the basket, because he's the guy who could take over the game and go all Stephen Curry on them if they get lazy.

There are places where people are writing that Georgetown, given its overall strength of schedule and wins against Memphis and UConn, can still make the Big Dance if it finishes hot. I do not believe this, personally, but if it were true it would require at least two wins in that Marquette/Louisville/at Nova gauntlet. But even that won't matter much if they can't, tonight in Tampa, win a game that they and everybody else who thinks they should be in any postseason tournament should win.

Elsewhere, Notre Dame-West Virginia looks bigger for Notre Dame, but it's not a nothing game for the Mountaineers either. They're still trying to get into that top eight and get a first-day bye in the Big East tournament. Right now they're ninth.

And what an opportunity for Providence. Syracuse remains the Friars' biggest win, but if they can pull the upset tonight in Louisville they'll likely solidify their spot in that aforementioned top eight and go a long way toward locking down an NCAA tournament berth of their own. Not saying it'll happen, but Louisville's slipped a little bit lately, is dealing with some roster/lineup issues and could be vulnerable if -- IF -- they play a poor game and Providence plays a great one.

Saturday Preview -- The Syracuse Game

Did I ever tell you how I feel about Syracuse?

The Syracuse game, every year, reminds me why it's a bad idea to root for teams. I've given up all of my childhood sports-fan allegiances (largely because I became a professional sportswriter and sort of had to), but I remain a depressingly devoted fan of my alma mater's men's basketball team, and once or twice (or sometimes three times) a year the Syracuse game reminds me why I enjoy sports so much more when I can just watch games and not care who wins.

The past two years, Georgetown was the clearly superior team -- a No. 2 seed in the NCAAs each year, a Final Four team in one of them -- and went up to Syracuse and got smoked. It was depressing. It was demoralizing. It was a given.

Never has it felt more like a given than it does today. Since Georgetown beat the tangerine-colored pests in D.C. on Feb. 14, the Hoyas are 1-6, the only win coming against Rutgers. Since that day, Syracuse is 2-5, but their wins (Notre Dame and West Virginia) are more impressive. The Orange have had injuries (Rautins, Onauaku) to blame for many of their struggles, thought Jonny Flynn's crappy shooting of late hasn't helped much either.

The reasons I'm not very hopeful of an upset here are (1) Georgetown's youth, and the good chance they struggle with the insane Carrier Dome atmosphere, (2) the fact that the Hoyas haven't run their offense smoothly or effectively for more than four minutes at a time since Jan. 14 and (3) Syracuse's need to win the game.

The last point may be the most important. At 18-7 overall, 6-6 in conference, Syracuse is in good shape to make the NCAAs -- as long as they don't fall apart completely in the final month. Of the six games left on their schedule, two are pushovers (at St. John's and home against Rutgers), three are tough (at Marquette and home against Villanova and Cincinnati) and one is this rivalry game today (noon, ESPN). If they win this game today, they're pretty much guaranteed at least 21 overall wins and no worse than a 9-9 Big East record. That, in this season, is a guaranteed ticket to the Dance.

Syracuse also right now holds a shaky grip on eighth place in the conference. (They're tied with West Virginia, but beat the Mountaineers head-to-head.) This is significant, remember, because the top eight get a bye to the second round of the Big East tournament next month while teams 9-through-16 have to show up and play Tuesday. Syracuse, West Virginia, Cincinnati, Providence and Seton Hall are all basically battling for the final three spots in that top eight right now.

The Hoyas are obviously in much worse shape. At 13-9 overall, 4-7 Big East, they need a 5-2 finish just to get to .500 entering the conference tournament. With Marquette, Louisville and a trip to Villanova still on the schedule after today, that would be a tough trick even if they were playing well. And they're really, really not.

But see, here's the problem. If the Hoyas win today, then you can start to hope. You can look and say, "Well, Marquette's not playing well now, and Louisville just got smoked by Notre Dame...maybe we can pick off one of those and..."

Trouble. This is how you set yourself up for disappointment.

So yeah, I'll watch today. And I'll hope. And I'll care. And I'll desperately want them to win, and if they do I'll consider it a Happy Valentine's Day. But man, I wish I could find a way to just...not...care...about the freaking Syracuse game.

Villanova 102, Marquette 84

Halfway through the first half, each of these teams was on pace to challenge 120 points. It was a bomb-for-bomb shootout. Marquette came out raining threes (made seven of their first nine from behind the arc), and if you were Villanova and you'd been watching them all year, you had reason to think "Uh-oh -- this is going to be rough."

Instead, Nova matched them from the perimeter and beat them up inside. It's tough to imagine an offense anywhere in the country that's working better right now than the Wildcats' offense, and now here they are a game behind Marquette for that crucial No. 4 spot in the conference standings.

Nova's remaining schedule isn't a pushover (at West Virginia/Rutgers/at Syracuse/at DePaul/Georgetown/at Notre Dame/Providence), but given the way they're playing they'll have a chance to win all seven of those games and should reasonably expect to go no worse than 4-3.

Marquette's remaining schedule is a cheese grater, (St. John's/Seton Hall/at Georgetown/UConn/at Louisville/at Pitt/Syracuse), and the Eagles (now losers of two in a row) will have to work hard to go 4-3.

The team that claims that No. 4 spot won't have to play until Thursday, the third day of the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden. The team that finishes fifth will have to play on Wednesday, the second day. Big difference there. To win the conference title, the Wednesday teams will have to win four games in four days -- something that's only been done twice.

Right now, you have to like Dante Cunningham, Scotty Reynolds and the Villanova Wildcats as the team that will join Pitt, UConn and Louisville in double-bye heaven.

Elsewhere:

-Providence gets a win it had to have at South Florida. Do the Friars, currently in sixth place and 2.5 games behind Marquette, have any chance at all of sneaking into that top four? Probably not. Even if Marquette goes 3-4 the rest of the way, Providence would have to go 6-0 to pass them -- and they'll have to pass them in order to finish ahead of them, because they lost to them. And with trips to Louisville and Villanova and a home game against Pitt still on the schedule, it's hard to see how the Friars have enough gas to get into that group. But with two more games left against Rutgers, they look like a pretty good bet to finish in the top eight and watch the Tuesday games from the Garden sidelines.

-Seton Hall whipped DePaul, which ties them with West Virginia for ninth place, just one game behind the seventh-place tie between Syracuse and Cincinnati. The Hall is heating up, and making a play for one of those top-eight spots and a first-round bye. Can they do it? Going to to be tough. The Hall has seven games left: UConn/at Marquette/at St. John's/South Florida/Pitt/at Louisville/at Cincinnati. First glance, that looks like 2-5, which would be a 7-11 record -- likely not good enough for a first-division finish. But hey, the Pirates have won five in a row since their 0-6 conference start. They play that frenzied style that makes teams hate to play against them. IF they could swing a big, big upset -- say knocking off either Marquette, UConn or Pitt and then winning at Cincinnati to wrap it up, that would get them to 9-9 and give them not only a shot at the Tuesday bye but...dare we say it...a spot on the fringes of the NCAA tournament bubble?

-A note on DePaul, which is now 0-12 in the conference. You can probably bet your car, your house and what's left of your 401(k) on them being 0-15, since their next three games are at Louisville/at Pitt/Villanova. Their next shot at a conference win is a home game against St. John's on Feb. 28, then they finish at West Virginia/at Georgetown. It looks like their best chances to avoid the 0-18 finish will be that St. John's game and then the regular-season finale against the free-falling (sniff) Hoyas. However, not even an 0-18 finish will keep the Blue Demons away from the Garden. All 16 teams in the conference go to the conference tournament this year, and that means DePaul will hit the second week in March with a chance -- albeit a nearly invisible one -- to make it to the Dance.

-As of now, the Tuesday matchups at the Garden would be:
(9) West Virginia vs. (16) DePaul
(10) Seton Hall vs. (15) Rutgers (Jersey!!!!)
(11) Georgetown vs. (14) South Florida
(12) Notre Dame) vs. (13) St. John's
with Villanova, Providence, Syracuse and Cincinnati waiting to play the Tuesday winners on Wednesday. Interesting -- Providence, sitting there as a relatively weak No. 6 seed, would get the winner of that 11/14 game between Georgetown and South Florida. And while yes, I know the Friars just whipped South Florida last night and the Hoyas haven't beaten anybody but Rutgers in a month, that game would be no sure thing -- the 11/14 winner would have to think it had a decent shot to make the quarterfinals.

Of course, the chances of the standings being the same on March 10 as they are now are nil, so there's no point in breaking this down any further.

-Tonight, Syracuse travels to UConn for the Duke-North Carolina undercard game. Would be a huge win for Syracuse -- maybe even lock in their NCAA tournament spot. But Connecticut is the best team in the country right now, and they've been an 11-0 buzzsaw since losing their conference opener to the (sniff) once-mighty Hoyas.

-Also tonight, Cincinnati hosts St. John's. Bearcats need to win these easy ones if they want to give themselves a chance to sneak into the Dance with an upset of Pitt or Louisville.

ESPN's Bracketology -- Conference down to 7 bids

Remember those halcyon days of early January, when it looked like any one of nine teams could win the conference, everybody figured on nine NCAA tournament bids and wondered if somebody like a Providence or a Cincinnati could sneak in and make it 10?

Yeah. Hasn't worked out that way.

Right now, it looks like there are four teams capable of winning the conference title -- maybe five, if Villanova stays hot. And in the latest Joe Lunardi Bracketology breakdown on ESPN.com, the Big East is a seven-bid league, one bid behind the ACC, which has eight teams in the projected NCAA tournament field:

*Connecticut and Pitt have #1 seeds.

*Louisville has a #2 seed.

*Marquette has a #3 seed.

*Villanova has a #4 seed.

*Syracuse has a #7 seed (even though their only decent wins are Memphis and West Virginia, they benefit from their relatively easy conference schedule and their embarrassingly easy out-of-conference schedule, but we're not bitter or anything...)

*West Virginia has a #8 seed.

And that's it, folks. Lunardi lists Cincinnati and (sniff) Georgetown on his "First Four Out" list, which means either or both could find their way into the field with strong finishes. And he lists Providence on his "Next Four Out" list, which means the Friars could get in with a monster finish (they probably have to go 2-1 in their games against Louisville, Pitt and Villanova while winning all the rest of their games, something like that).

Notre Dame is nowhere to be found.

Conclusions? Could be that the mid-pack conference teams (Georgetown, Notre Dame...) weren't as good as we thought they were. Could be that some perceived back-of-the-pack teams (Cincinnati, Providence, Seton Hall...) were a lot better than we thought they were. Regardless, there's a lot more definition in the Big East standings than we expected there to be on Feb. 10. We'll see if the next four weeks can do anything to flip it upside down.

South Florida 57, Marquette 56? Seriously??

Incredible play by Dominique Jones to win it. Horrendous loss for Marquette. No way can you hang in the Best-Team-In-The-Conference conversation with Connecticut if you're going to go down to Tampa and lose to South Florida. UConn, in case nobody else has noticed, is a rabid steamroller right now. You think Jeff Adrien would tolerate a loss to South Florida at this point in the season?

Look, Marquette's having a great year, and surely you're allowed one bad loss. But who could have seen this coming? With 11:48 left, Jerel McNeal hit a three to tie it at 40-40, and I thought (actually said to my wife, who could care less), "Okay, here they go. This is what they did to Providence. They'll rain threes the rest of the way and win by 15."

But they didn't! They missed all their threes! They attempted seven threes the rest of the way and missed every single one of them. And as a result, they lost. Cracked Sidewalks has a brief, angry breakdown that keeps it as simple as it is -- Marquette lost this one because they couldn't hit their shots, even from the free throw line.

Good for Jones and South Florida, because everybody should get to win a big game every now and then. But for Marquette...yucko.

Saturday slate, as indicated in an earlier post, features the first of two big Villanova-Syracuse games as its highlight. I enjoyed chewing my way through the preview on Villanova by the Numbers.

We'll check in sometime Saturday, our mood of course dependent on the Hoyas' ability to get revenge against Cincinnati.

The Big East "Bubble"

Seton Hall beat St. John's on Thursday night, and I can't think of a thing to say about that except that the guy, Hazell, is an animal and I'm very glad the Pirates have picked up a second and third conference win since breaking the seal against the Hoyas. I'd feel better if the second and third conference wins had come against, say, Pitt and Syracuse (especially Syracuse, come to think of it), but I'll take it.

Cruising around the webisphere, I come across ESPN's "Bubble Watch," which is a conference-by-conference look, more than a month before the Big Dance, at which teams are in, which teams are almost in and which teams have "work to do."

We scroll, as we always do, right to the Big East, where we find four teams listed as "Locks" -- no surprise, UConn, Pitt, Louisville, Marquette, the conference's well defined Top Four.

The site lists Villanova and Syracuse under "should be in," and then lists West Virginia, Georgetown, Cincinnati and Providence as teams with "work left to do."

So that's 10 total Big East teams that ESPN.com thinks have a shot at March Madness if, presumably, they all do the work they have left to do. What jumps out? Well, the fact that Notre Dame isn't one of them.

The Irish are paying the price for a six-game losing streak that stands an awfully good chance of reaching eight with their next two games against UCLA and Louisville. The streak includes no bad losses (the worst is at Cincinnati, which isn't as bad a loss as it looked like it would be a few weeks back), but the fact is that they need to win six of their final eight games to finish 9-9 in conference, and their schedule still includes Louisville, West Virginia, UConn and Villanova. This is why that loss at St. John's was so bad. The difference between a 9-9 conference record and an 8-10 conference record is huge to the selection committee, and if the Irish get hot, that loss could well be the difference.

Here's the rundown on some of the teams that DO show up on the Big East Bubble Watch:

*Villanova: "They are only 2-4 against RPI top-50 teams, and only seven of their 18 victories against Division I teams have come against RPI top-100 opponents." However, the site also points out the Wildcats' victory over Pitt as a big point in their favor and says their remaining schedule (which includes Marquette, West Virginia, Georgetown and two games against Syracuse) offers opportunities to beef up their credentials.

*Syracuse: "three very good nonconference victories (Florida and Kansas on neutral courts and at Memphis). The Orange probably could use one or two victories over the league's top five RPI teams to improve their seeding. They will have a chance to do that the next two weeks, when they play Villanova (twice), at Connecticut and home against Georgetown." Doesn't that last bit make you think that, if either Syracuse or Nova sweeps the other, one of those teams moves a lot closer to the wrong side of the bubble?

*West Virginia: "The Mountaineers bring a couple of decent nonconference wins (road victories at Ole Miss and Ohio State) and a win at Georgetown to the table, but they might need another signature victory to feel safe." They still have road games at Pitt and Cincinnati and home games against Villanova and Louisville, but they could lose all four of those and still finish .500 in the conference. If they win one of them, they're probably getting in.

*Mighty Hoyas: "it might take a complete collapse for the Hoyas not to receive an at-large bid. They have victories over Memphis, Connecticut and Syracuse, and are playing the country's third-toughest schedule." Fair enough, but does anybody else fear a "complete collapse" might be underway? Five straight losses and a shaky home win against Rutgers does not inspire confidence. I'd like to see them pick up one or two more "big" wins (say, home against Marquette or at Villanova, something like that) before I start feeling good. Mainly, though, I just want them to beat Cincinnati tomorrow and look awesome doing it. It's been a real long time since they looked awesome.

*Cincinnati: "Cincinnati has a couple of so-so nonconference victories (UAB and UNLV) and beat Georgetown at home. But the Bearcats probably need to finish better than .500 in Big East play to garner serious consideration." Can they do it? They're 5-5 right now with road games remaining at Georgetown, Pitt, Syracuse and South Florida and home games against St. John's, Louisville, West Virginia and Seton Hall. I say that's three they should win, three they should lose and two toss-ups (at Georgetown and home to West Virginia). So if they can complete the season sweep of the Hoyas tomorrow afternoon, they're set up with a good chance.

*Providence: "they might need a 10-6 finish to secure an at-large bid. They won't bring a single quality nonconference victory to the table...The Friars missed a big chance to make a statement by losing to Villanova 94-91 on Wednesday night." Anybody who's been following this blog (are you out there?) knows we love Providence. The Syracuse win was huge for them, but they've dumped a couple in a row now to UConn and Villanova and they've allowed exactly 94 points in each of their last three games (and 93 in the one before that!) The Friars will have to play over their heads the rest of the way to have a shot. They're 6-4, so they must finish 4-2 to hit that 10-6 mark. That means winning two of four very tough games -- at West Virginia, at Louisville, at Villanova and home against Pitt -- and not slipping up anywhere else.

Marquette travels to South Florida tonight for what should be a shutout, then we get a six-game Saturday slate whose highlight is the first of those Syracuse-Nova matchups. We'll watch that one as long as we can get the ESPN360 working and keep one eye on those Mighty Hoyas...

A week in review -- Did Jessie Sapp really hit two three-pointers in the same game?

Just back from a week in Florida visiting the in-laws. The blog has, sadly, suffered for the trip because the room in which we stayed at the Courtyard Boynton Beach did not have internet access.

It did, however, have cable. And between that and a review of the scores of the past six days, I have a few thoughts:

*The Hoyas won a game! Sure, they lost one too -- at Marquette on Saturday, to extend the losing streak to five games before a lackluster bounce-back against Rutgers on Tuesday night. But we here at RCR prefer to think positive, and it's good that they beat Rutgers. Very good. Still looking shaky -- with four tough games and four "easy" ones left they'll need to pull an upset or two in order to finish with a .500 conference record. But it had been so long since the last win that we're just going to focus on the fact that Georgetown scored more points than Rutgers, enjoy it and (for now) leave it at that.

*Notre Dame did NOT win a game. The Irish lost to Pitt and Cincinnati, have dumped six games in a row and now sit at 3-7 in the conference, in 12th place, and 12-9 overall. Their next game is Saturday at UCLA, a likely loss. Assuming they lose that game, their home game against Louisville and road games at West Virginia and UConn, they'd have to win all of the rest of their remaining games just to finish 17-13 overall and 8-10 in conference. That would mean beating Villanova at home and Providence on the road, neither a sure thing. I sort of called this a month ago, pegging Notre Dame as the "Top Nine" team most likely to slip into the conference's bottom tier, but I had no idea it would be this bad. (And sadly, I also had no idea the Hoyas would join them.) Luke Harangody remains one of the best players in the nation -- probably the best offensive player in the nation -- but the rest of the team is a mess, the shooting is unreliable and the defense just doesn't exist. We could be seeing a complete collapse.

*Marquette hosts Connecticut on Feb. 25. By that time, there's a real chance that Marquette will have a 14-0 conference record and UConn's will be 14-1. Both teams have potential trouble spots between now and then, but the only game in which either might not be favored is Marquette's road game at Villanova. Right now, you get the sense that UConn is the conference's best team, if not the country's. They crushed Louisville, which had been crushing everybody for weeks. Their only loss in conference came in their first game, against Georgetown -- a game after which Jim Calhoun, by all accounts, tore them to shreds in the locker room because he felt they hadn't played as hard or as well as they could. What's happened since (a 10-0 record by the Huskies and a 3-7 record for the Hoyas) bears that out, though Marquette will get its chance to prove its guards are the class of the conference on Feb. 25.

*If the Big East tournament were held today, the first-round matchups would be as follows:
(9) West Virginia vs. (16) DePaul
(10) Georgetown vs. (15) Rutgers
(11) St. John's. vs. (14) South Florida
(12) Notre Dame vs. (13) Seton Hall
with Villanova, Providence, Syracuse and Cincinnati waiting to take on the winners on Day Two. In my opinion, not enough has been written about the format of this year's Big East tournament, and the possibility that one or two NCAA tournament teams could be playing on its first day, needing to win five games in five days to be conference champs. Teams like Georgetown, West Virginia and Notre Dame should be incredibly motivated over the next few weeks to find a way out of that bottom eight and into that middle tier, from which they'd "only" have to win four games in four days to win the tournament (something that's only been done twice). This tournament is always a knock-down, drag-out, but this year's could be the toughest and roughest of all time.

Wednesday Wonderings

Six games in the conference tonight, but not too many compelling matchups. Pitt at Villanova looks like the best one, though I am curious to see if Providence can finally pick up a quality win as they host Syracuse. (Regular readers know we here at RCR are always on the lookout for something bad happening to Syracuse.)

So, a couple of random notes on a snowy Wednesday morning here in NJ. (Kids are home from school -- yippee!!)

-Cracked Sidewalks points out two interesting things about Marquette's win at Notre Dame on Monday night. First, it was apparently the eighth anniversary of Al McGuire's death (which doesn't seem that long ago). Second, only four players scored points for Marquette in the game. That's right. They scored 71 points, and the only ones who scored were Jerel McNeal (27), Dominic James (15), Wes Mathews (16) and Lazar Heyward (13).

And they say Georgetown's not deep!

Seriously, though, you can get away with a lack of depth when your best four players are this good. I still think Marquette will lose a game here at some point. Once they stop playing DePaul every other game, maybe. Somebody will be able to out-physical them inside. Their guards will have a cold shooting night. Their schedule has been relatively soft so far, and their final five games at at Georgetown/UConn/at Louisville/at Pitt/Syracuse. So they will be tested. But they are good, and the ND win proves it. Even if it was a four-man effort.

-Our fighting Hoyas do need a win tonight at Cincinnati. Can't go to Marquette on Saturday with a four-game losing streak. Something needs to happen to stem the feel of a free-fall and avoid a situation like the one in which Notre Dame now finds itself. I'm among those who would like to see more of Henry Sims, if for no other reason than to help with the horrendous rebounding problems. (Though I do feel like this could be a case of the most popular player in town always being the backup quarterback.) GU will need some size and toughness inside to combat Mike Williams and Yancey Gates tonight, and if they get pushed around early (and they keep chunking those three-point bricks), I fear a disaster.

-The key for Villanova is always Scotty Reynolds, but I think the key tonight, if they're to have a chance against Pitt, is going to be Dante Cunningham. They'll have to do something to keep the Panthers honest inside, and Cunningham's energetic play last week in the first half was a huge reason the Wildcats were able to hang in the way they did against Connecticut.

That's just off the top of my head in the morning, with the kids screaming their heads off. Maybe I'll check back later.

Bloody Sunday

There's a special, sad kind of heartbreak whenever you come to realize that something you thought was true is not and never was. There is no Santa Claus. Fat-free ice cream is, in fact, fattening. And the 2008-09 Georgetown Hoyas are not that good a basketball team.

Oh, they had us fooled, kicking around the top 10 for a few weeks, going up to UConn and winning the conference opener, whipping Syracuse at home...it all looked good. We saw the best of Georgetown, and it looked good enough to beat anybody.

But over the past week, we have seen the worst of the Hoyas, and the problems are very real. You do not lose at home to West Virginia by 17 points if you're a conference title contender. And you most certainly do not lose, anywhere, by any number of points, to Seton Hall. No matter how much PJ Carlesimo nostalgia is going on in the building.

Until yesterday, the only loss by a Top Nine Big East team to a Bottom Seven one this year was Notre Dame's Jan. 3 loss at St. John's. Now, there is finally a second -- this inexplicable, lackluster loss by Georgetown at Seton Hall. They shot terribly, defended terribly, rebounded terribly (of course) and deserved to lose to one of the worst teams in the league.

It was freaking depressing, and the main reason is that it points up so many alarming problems. As I wrote a few days ago, people have said the problem with the Hoyas is depth, meaning lack of good bench play. But I think there's a depth problem in the starting five. Jessie Sapp is just not having any kind of useful season. Chris Wright has settled into mediocrity after a brilliant start. Greg Monroe is incredible, but teams can lock down on him now because they know the guards aren't good enough to beat them. And when Summers has a bad game and can't score (as has happened in each of the past two), the whole team looks lost. They get out of their tight, disciplined offense. They stop looking for the good shot and they start shooting the three, which right now they can't hit.

This doesn't look like a John Thompson III team right now, and it's a shame, because it sure did a few weeks ago. Right now it's tied for ninth place with Notre Dame and Cincinnati. Right now it's failing to take advantage of the easing out of the schedule. Right now, rather than ripping the bench, you want to see more of Clark and Vaughn and Henry Sims, because when they come in at least you feel a change in the energy level.

Again, it's not even February yet. Maybe they go off and win the rest of their games. Maybe they go into Marquette this weekend and do something incredible. Maybe Sapp gets hot, Summers wakes up and it all starts clicking again. At some point this season, that's likely to happen. The question is for how long, and whether the real Hoyas are closer to the team that won at UConn or the one that lost at Seton Hall.

Right now, it's tough not to think it's the latter.

Elsewhere, yada, yada, yada...Louisville wins at Syracuse, continuing to look like the best team in the league, and Pitt wins at West Virginia. Right now, rather than a "Power Nine," there appears to be a "Power Four" atop the Big East. Pitt, Louisville, UConn and Marquette look to be a notch above the rest. (And that could easily be a Power Three if Marquette doesn't handle the toughening of its own schedule in the coming weeks.) Syracuse is good but not as good as those four. Notre Dame, same thing. Villanova, Georgetown...please. West Virgina? Well, you think they can hang with that crew, but then they go out and lose at home to Pitt, so then you think maybe they can't.

Is it possible this conference isn't as deep as we all thought?

West Virginia 75, Georgetown 58

A couple of times a year, the Hoyas play a game that just pisses me off. Two years ago, sadly, that game was a Final Four game against Ohio State. Last year, it was the game at Syracuse. Games in which it felt as if the team didn't play the way it always plays -- coherent, disciplined and determined.

Last night's loss to West Virginia was such a game, and truly I don't have much to say about it.

People talk about a lack of depth on this team, and they mean that it doesn't get much from its bench. But (a) that's improving and (b) maybe there are depth problems within the first five.

WVU locked down on Greg Monroe, double-teaming him and basing their defense on denying him the ball. Dajuan Summers couldn't get anything going, scoring-wise, and...that was it. Nobody else knew what to do with those guys out of the offense. Austin Freeman made a couple of first-half plays, but for the most part they got out of sync and stayed out. By the time there were eight minutes left in the second half, all they were doing was jacking up bad threes that they couldn't hit, and that tight, disciplined offense for which the JTIII teams have become known was already on the bus (hopefully) for Sunday's game at Seton Hall.

It wasn't a "bad loss" in that it didn't come at the hands of one of the bottom seven teams in the conference. (To this point, the only top-nine loss to a bottom-seven remains Notre Dame's Jan. 3 loss at St. John's.) But it was a game the Hoyas should have won, at home against an unranked team, and when it comes time to seed this year's conference tournament, it could be a game that haunts them.

Flashback -- Dec. 5, 1990: Georgetown 79, Duke 74

My friend Sweeny texted me yesterday to tell me this game was on TV (ESPN Classic, I guess) and to ask if I'd attended it.

Oh yeah.

This was freshman year. Maybe the first game any of us went to. I remember it like it was yesterday (if yesterday had been a day I started drinking in the afternoon, discovered how good beer tastes when you drink it in the shower and been introduced to a drink called the "pisco sour" by a crazy Peruvian guy with a German name...)

My kid brother was visiting that day, and came to the game with us. This was especially cool because he was a Duke fan (who eventually, though we couldn't be certain of this yet, would attend and graduate from Duke).

The game was unreal. I mean, look at the names in the box score.

No. 5 Duke, with Bobby Hurley, Grant Hill and Christian Laettner -- a team that would lose only five more games all year and win the first of two straight national championships.

No. 6 Georgetown, with Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo and the swing-forward for whom this blog is named -- a team that would peak on this night and be eliminated by defending champion UNLV in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Yeah, I remember this game. I remember how incredible it was to win. I remember it as pretty much the last bad game of the college careers of Hurley and Lattner. (The stats back me up there -- the two of them were a combined 8-for-33!) And yeah, I remember that Mourning hurt his foot in this game and basically missed the whole rest of the season, which kind of put a damper on the national tile hopes.

This really may have been the last real highlight of the John Thompson II era before it plunged into a period of darkness. My sophomore year, the team lost in the second round to Florida State. And my junior year, they missed the NCAAs for the first time in 15 years.

But I guess we'd always have Dec. 5, 1990. That just had to hold us until Thompson's kid showed up a decade and a half later.

Saturday Preview -- Games Big and Small

While passing the jittery, excited time remaining before the Friday Night Lights premiere for non-DirecTV subscribers, I figured a primer on the six Saturday Big East games might be a cool distraction. I came to this after evaluating several other options:

1. Going for a run. (It's 11 degrees.)

2. Going to the gym. (Later, when it's 3:00 and nobody's there. I promise.)

3. Updating my new baseball blog, nybaseballhack.blogspot.com. (Shameless plug.)

4. Eating lunch. (Though, I could eat while typing, and you'd never know...)

5. Looking for a new job. (There aren't any, which is why this blog exists.)

So here are six thumbnails, each of which includes a brief RCR preview along with a Ken Pomeroy rankings comparison of the teams involved. The games are ranked in order of their importance/slash level of interest to this blog, which admits to a bias:

Georgetown at Duke, 1:30 pm, CBS

Pomeroy Prediction: Duke(1) 71, Georgetown(4) 64

RCR's Take: The Hoyas spent the first half Wednesday night shooting over Syracuse's zone. Saturday, they'll have a much harder time in the face of Duke's perimeter pressure. This will be more like the defense they faced last Saturday against Providence, only...you know...a lot better. For Georgetown to win, they'll need to be able to move the ball inside and out, to and from Greg Monroe, whose inside presence is one of the few advantages the Hoyas have and whose passing ability might be the only way to free up the guards for the outside shots. Also, it wouldn't hurt if a massive flu bug hit the Duke campus tonight and kept the crowd to a minimum...

PREDICTION: I fear a game somewhat like the Tennessee game, where the Hoyas played well, especially on defense, but Tennessee hit everything in sight. I don't foresee the Duke pressure rattling the GU guards, but I think the crowd and the Blue Devils' depth will wear down Georgetown in the second half. Duke 79, Georgetown 68.

Pittsburgh at Louisville, 6 pm, ESPN

Pomeroy Prediction: Louisville(14) 66, Pittsburgh(5) 65

RCR's Take: Those who've been reading know I like Pitt a lot and I'm not sold on Louisville, but the Cardinals showed depth, strength and toughness earlier this week against Notre Dame, and they are the home team. And Pomeroy picks an upset against his own rankings. Is it possible? Sure, if Louisville's zone disrupts Pitt's ability to feed the ball to DeJuan Blair inside. And if Samardo Samuels can rebound enough to limit Blair's second-chance points. And if the Pitt players are distracted, as I always am, by the shockingly recumbent Louisville mascot. (Seriously! He just sits there in that corner all game!!)

PREDICTION: It's Pitt's first real test since taking over No. 1. Louisville is feeling good about some recent escapes. It all points red. But I'm not buying it. For me, even if Samuels and contain Blair, somebody's got to contain Sam Young, and I don't think Earl Clark has it in him to do that for 40 minutes. Pitt 62, Louisville 57.

Notre Dame at Syracuse, Noon, ESPN

Pomeroy Prediction: Syracuse(32) 86, Notre Dame(42) 79

RCR's Take: First, wow. Look how low Pomeroy has these two teams. He was forecasting an easy victory for Georgetown over Syracuse on Wednesday, and why not? The Hoyas were the home team, ranked in his top 5, while the Orange were sitting there on his NCAA tournament bubble. Looking at his Syracuse page, it appears the Orange lose massive points because they turn the ball over too much and don't hit free throws. But that's not likely to matter against a Notre Dame team that plays no defense. Syracuse's best bet is to do what they can against Harangody inside but not get down once he starts hitting those zany fall-away hook shots from six feet. There's nothing you can do about that. Play your zone, drive their guards crazy, get back down the other end of the floor and score those easy buckets Notre Dame is going to be giving you all day.

Prediction: I'd love to pick against Syracuse, because I'd love it if Syracuse lost all of their games. But I can't do it here. Not at home. Not against the softest good team in the conference. Notre Dame doesn't play defense. Won't play defense. Looks for all the world as if it doesn't consider defense an important part of the game. If he's really, really on, Jonny Flynn could have a Jodie Meeks-level offensive performance against Notre Dame. Syracuse gets the taste of the GU game out of its mouth in a hurry. Syracuse 90, Notre Dame 75.

Marquette at Providence, 9 pm, ESPN2

Pomeroy Prediction: Marquette(22) 81, Providence(78) 76

RCR's Take: RCR is staying up to watch this game. I love the Marquette guards but haven't had the chance to watch them play a whole game yet. I love Providence's experience and toughness. There are going to be seniors all over the court in this game, and I think it's a good candidate to be Providence's first "surprise" win of the season. Remember, so far this year, the only Top 9 Big East team to lose to one of the league's bottom-tier teams is Notre Dame, which fell at St. John's a couple of weeks back. If Marquette can shoot the ball and contain Efejuku, they'll come away with a win about which they can feel really good. Because if there's a team in that bottom tier that's going to sneak up and challenge the Top 9, Providence is it.

Prediction: I've been thinking over the past week that Marquette might be my pick to win the conference. They have a chance to show something here, and if they win easily, I'll drive the bandwagon. But I just have this feeling. Late game, far from home, outmanned inside...I see somebody in black and white going off and having a big game. Providence 78, Marquette 77.

South Florida at West Virginia, Noon, ESPN Full Court

Pomeroy Prediction: West Virginia(7) 71, South Florida (105) 53

RCR's Take: Pomeroy has the Mountaineers seventh in the country, but they're 1-2 in conference following losses to UConn and at Marquette. They rebound the ball well, especially on offense. They force turnovers. They have a big man in DeSean Butler and a shooter in Alex Ruoff who are just going to be way too much for an undersized, undermanned Bulls team that's leaving sunny Tampa for a frigid trip north.

Prediction: West Virginia is dying for an easy conference win, and they'll get it against a South Florida team that won't be able to touch them on the boards. West Virginia 79, South Florida 60.

Cincinnati at DePaul, 2 pm, ESPNU

Pomeroy Prediction: Cincinnati(86) 71, DePaul(181) 67

RCR's Take: It's a testament to how good the Big East is that this game would be on ESPNU, a channel you can actually get nationally. Um, let's see...Cincy is a strong offensive rebounding team, thanks mainly to freshman Yancy Gates. He, Mike Williams and Rashad Bishop form a fairly impressive front line that might be able to win some games in a different conference. DePaul can't shoot from anywhere, doesn't rebound especially well, misses free throws...they're a bottom of the Big East barrel team that's facing a rare chance to pick up a conference win. In fact, a look at the remaining schedules indicates that these two teams are going to be sorry to see each other go.

Prediction: Pomeroy's projecting a total of two wins the rest of the way for these two teams combined. And it's not one each. Cincinnati 80, DePaul 65

Weekend Recap -- Still not buying Louisville

I mean, right? They tried to give that game to Villanova about 17 different times in the final minute, and Nova just wouldn't take it. Missed free throws, missed put-backs...So many chances to make the Cardinals pay for the loose, lackadaiscial way they play the game, and yet they come away losers, just as Kentucky did a week earlier after coming back when L'ville refused to close them out.

I guess you could say you should give Louisville credit for winning these games when they're obviously not playing as well as they should be playing. But I don't think a team deserves credit when it's not playing as well as it should be playing. I think Louisville should be expected to play better than they are. I think Pitino should have more control over his team and the on-court decisions he makes than he does.

I think Louisville is going to get beaten a few times this year when it shouldn't. I think they should be able to hold or build on leads in the second half, and I don't like the body language of their players when it does start to slip away -- as if they're annoyed and tired instead of angry and determined.

Villanova by the Numbers has a stat breakdown that shows how the Wildcats hung right with the Cardinals in "athletic" stats like steals and blocks, and how they were able to erase Louisville's shooting advantage in the second half.

Maybe I'm making too much of this. It was, after all, a road win in the conference. The conference's top teams are basically doing what they're supposed to do. Pitt, Marquette, Syracuse and UConn all rolled this weekend. Georgetown looked sluggish early but came back behind Greg Monroe to handle Providence.

The conference's "Power Nine" have a combined eight losses. Of those, only Notre Dame's loss at St. John's qualifies as a bad loss.

Villanova's losses are home to Louisville and at Marquette. Georgetown's are home to Pitt and at Notre Dame. West Virginia's are home to UConn and at Marquette. UConn lost at home to Georgetown.

So far, it's been about taking care of business, which in the end is what Louisville did, no matter how shaky they looked at the end.

Right now, the best team in the conference is Pitt, but I sure wish they played Marquette before March 4, because I'm starting to wonder if the best team in the conference might be Marquette, and I'd like to know.

(And yes, I know it could be Syracuse, but we here at RCR are choosing not to acknowledge that horrifying possibility until we absolutely have to -- like, February 15, earliest.)

Tonight is Notre Dame at Louisville. If I were a betting man I'd bet the over, because neither one of these teams likes playing defense very much. I say Harangody takes down the Cardinals on the road with some help from the perimeter, where the Irish should outwit, out-hustle and out-shoot the home team. Louisville should be able to out-athlete them, but to do that they'll have to maintain their focus for 40 full minutes. And from what I've seen this year, they don't.