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?

Villanova 77, Notre Dame 60

Remember when Notre Dame couldn't lose at home?

Seriously, good back-on-track win for Villanova, which can now smell that No. 4 seed in the Big East tournament. Remember, if Marquette loses to Pitt on Wednesday, Villanova will hold the tiebreaker over Marquette. Which means (if Marquette loses to Pitt on Wednesday), all Villanova has to do now to secure a top-four seed and a two-day bye at the Garden is beat Providence in their regular-season finale Thursday. And if if they don't do that, they can still get the four-seed if Marquette loses to Pitt on Wednesday and also loses to Syracuse this weekend.

All of which has to make Villanova's loss to Georgetown on Saturday even more brutal, because if they'd just won that game, all they'd have to do is beat Providence to lock in that top-four spot.

But c'est la vie. Smart money still says they get it.

And remember, even if Marquette beats Pitt, Villanova can still get into the top four ahead of Pitt, since they beat the Panthers head-to-head and Pitt could easily lose its regular-season finale against UConn. So things are kind of coming up Villanova here at the end -- assuming this win tonight means they're back on track and will take care of Providence on Thursday.

Tonight's Big East schedule is more or less flotsam, with a Georgetown-St. John's game that looks like a preview of the 12-13 game in next Tuesday's first round at the very same venue. Cincinnati could use a win at South Florida if it still harbors any hope of escaping the Tuesday games. And Syracuse hosts Rutgers, which is 1-15 in the conference and horrible.

Sunday Look-Ahead

Four games of some import on the Big East sked today. Rankings-wise, the biggest appears to be No. 10 Marquette at No. 6 Louisville. And as far as quality basketball goes, this should be the best game. But Marquette has to still be reeling from the loss of Dominic James, while Louisville still has hopes of overtaking UConn for the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament.

By the way, I know Villanova's inexplicable loss yesterday clinched a top-four spot for UConn in the Big East tournament, but it did the same for Louisville too, right? The Cardinals have 13 wins, the most Nova can win is 13, and Louisville beat them head-to-head? Now, I guess if Louisville and Nova were to end up with the same record as Pitt and Marquette, the tiebreaker gets thrown into a byzantine formula that only these people seem to truly understand. But it suffices to say that, if they get a win today, the Cardinals get the first two days off at the Garden next week.

Elsewhere, West Virginia needs to be careful in Tampa and Providence CANNOT afford a slip-up on the road in Piscataway. I repeat: CANNOT. The NCAA tournament committee annually looks for reasons to keep Providence out. This week's victory over No. 1 Pitt will make that tougher, but a loss today to pitiful Rutgers would make it a lot easier. Friars MUST take care of business here to have a chance.

And then there's Cincinnati at Syracuse, which is a huge game for seeding. These teams are in a three-way tie with West Virginia for seventh place, which means at this point two of them would get next Tuesday off and one would have to play. West Virginia is in the worst position, having lost to each of the other two teams. But today's winner will earn the tiebreaker over the loser, putting them in the best position to earn a first-round bye.

Overall, it's a bigger game for Cincinnati, since Syracuse is probably getting into the NCAA tournament no matter what happens the rest of the way while the Bearcats have a case still to make. Enjoy it, folks, and Happy March. The Ohio Valley Conference tournament starts in just two days...

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?

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.

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.

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.

Saturday Night Recap -- Cards and Eagles Flying High

The only two undefeated teams left in Big East play are Louisville and Marquette, and man did they earn it.

The angle on this one seems to be that Louisville outlasted Pitt physically, wearing down the nation's No. 1 team with its relentless press and handing the Panthers their first loss of the season. It's a viable take that jives with what we saw Louisville do to Notre Dame, but there has to be a caveat. DeJuan Blair missed half the game due to foul trouble. During the brief times in the second half when he was on the floor, Pitt looked like a totally different team. And had he been able to play more, Pitt probably would have looked like the better team. Playing without Blair is like trying to drive a truck through three feet of snow without a plow. Louisville's pressure is the snow, and it's tough to fight through. And if you're trying it without your plow, you have no chance.

But those are the ifs, and these are the facts: Louisville keeps winning, and when they play a focused, intense game, they're as good as anybody in the conference. Their point guard play is shaky, and there are still too many mistakes. I mean, the whole final minute was a mess -- dumb fouls and turnovers that kept Pitt in the game when it could have been salted away. This happened against Kentucky and Villanova, too -- maddeningly sloppy play by a team that should be a better closer. But they won those games too. And if they can keep winning, gaining confidence and growing as they win, they'll be in pretty good shape come postseason time. What we know about them already is that it's real tough to run with them for 40 minutes.

So that's the Pitt-Louisville game, and then there's Marquette-Providence, a bizarre late night show up in Rhode Island in which the underdog home team blew 13-point second-half lead and lost by nine and the brother of an injured Providence player wandered onto the court during a free throw to talk to the officials about a call.

(Yeah, if you didn't see it, it looked as weird as it sounds. Jeff Xavier is the Providence player, and he takes an elbow in the eye. Starts bleeding like crazy. Leaves the court, very upset, and doesn't return to the game. Ugly. Worst part is, no foul was called on that play. A foul was called seconds later, and while they were lined up and getting ready to shoot it, Jonathan Xavier, Jeff's brother, wanders out onto the court in a big old winter coat and confronts one of the officials. All of a sudden people realize what's happening, and a couple of people start rushing the guy off the court. Scary, really.)

In terms of the game, Providence looked heartbroken at the end, and they should have. This was their game, totally, and they let it slip away. Of course it didn't help that Lazar Hayward started bombing threes, but just because that happened didn't mean Providence had to take itself out of its own game on the other end and start rushing perimeter shots too. It didn't mean they had to start turning the ball over as if they were giving out Toys for Tots. And it didn't mean they had to chunk every single free throw in the final five minutes.

Providence is an experienced, senior-heavy team with a size advantage over Marquette, so it was weird to see them fall apart like that. But Marquette is also an experienced, senior-heavy team, and they're much better than Providence, so I guess it should have been a big surprise to see them assert that.

I count this as a big win for Marquette. It was on the road against a team that's probably the best of that "bottom seven" group and had a 13-point lead on them with less than 15 minutes to go. Right now, everyone still wants to say Pitt and UConn are the best two teams in the conference, but Marquette's done nothing wrong. Sure, they haven't played as tough a schedule as some have. And yes, I imagine they will run into problems dealing with the interior size of teams like Pitt, UConn, Louisville and Syracuse. But if they can stretch out defenses with their outside shooting, they'll be able to (a) stay in those games and (b) run their offense around the trees.

Their schedule will get tough, eventually. I mean, they have DePaul twice in their next four games, which really shouldn't be allowed. And they still have South Florida, St. John's and Seton Hall to come. But their final five games are at Georgetown/UConn/at Louisville/at Pitt/Syracuse. So we'll get to find out for sure whether they really are this good. But after last night, I think we have less reason to doubt it.

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.