Busted Already?

I mean, the President only got 11 out of 16 right on the first day, so I guess I don't feel too bad, getting only 10. But he didn't lose any second-round winners, whereas the day's biggest upset was of a team (Illinois) that I had picked into the Elite Eight.

Yikes.

Well, at least that's out of the way. Now I can enjoy the games without worrying about whether I need to get them right or not. I am cooked on day one.

Just two of the tournament's seven Big East teams played on day one. UConn looked terrifying and Villanova looked shaky. (Though anybody who watched that American team play should understand why those who call for the elimination of the mid-major auto-bids are dead wrong. That's what this tournament is all about -- a team like that playing good, solid, fun-to-watch basketball and putting themselves in position to really, truly, accurately believe that they have a chance to win an NCAA tournament game. The upsets and near-upsets in games like that are what this tournament is built on -- why it's the event it is every year. A tournament without the Americans and Cal State-Northridges wouldn't be as cool.)

My picks for today (or, "Teams You Should Run Right Out and Bet Against Now While You Still Have the Chance"):

Syracuse over Stephen F. Austin (though you know which way this blog is rooting)
Oklahoma State over Tennessee (coin flip)
Kansas over North Dakota State (but you have to think about it, right? It's Kansas.)
Utah State over Marquette (UPSET SPECIAL!!!)
Arizona State over Temple (Even though the Pac-10 didn't show much on day one)
Pitt over East Tennessee State (Has ETSU ever seen anyone like DaJuan Blair?)
West Virginia over Dayton (if the game were in Dayton, maybe. But it's in Minnesota)
Missouri over Cornell (to Andy Bernard's chagrin)
Utah over Arizona (too much Keith Van Horn? Oh wait...)
Louisville over Morehead State (MSU will always have this past Tuesday)
USC over Boston College (again with the Pac-10. Why???)
Xavier over Portland State (Xavier is another Elite Eight team -- can't lose two)
Siena over Ohio State (...)
Wake Forest over Cleveland State (though everybody likes the upset here...)
Michigan State over Robert Morris (MSU could get every rebound in the game)
Florida State over Wisconsin (ACC vs. Big Ten? Should be no contest. Should be.)

Syracuse game tips at 12:15. Bedtime looks like at least 12 hours later. Getcha popcorn ready, as a bizarre man once said.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

UConn 89, Villanova 83

So the other night, while watching the DePaul-South Florida game (yes, I was the only one watching -- call me with any questions about the game), I learned something about this year's Big East tournament. I'd already known that all 16 teams would be in it, but it hadn't occurred to me how, exactly, they were going to make that work.

Evidently, the top four seeds will all receive two byes, advancing straight to the quarterfinal round, which begins Thursday of that week. So, if you're one of the top four, you'll only have to win three games in three days to win the conference tournament.

The No. 5 through No. 8 seeds will each receive one bye and won't play until Wednesday. So those teams, if they want to win the conference tournament, will have to win four games in four days -- something that's only been done twice, last year by Pitt and a few years back when Gerry McNamara and Syracuse did it.

The No. 9 through 16 teams will begin play Tuesday and will have to win five games in five days to be conference champs. If that sounds freaking impossible, there's a good reason.

Now, why does this matter? Because that means somebody from the top nine will be in that Tuesday group. At least one of these nine teams:

Louisville
Marquette
UConn
Pitt
Syracuse
Georgetown
Notre Dame
West Virginia
Villanova

If you believe (as I do) that any of the nine teams in that list could conceivably win the conference tournament if all else were equal, this is jarring. It means that at least one of the Big East's "Power Nine" will be all but eliminated from contention for the title before the tournament begins.

If Villanova is that team, they will have some regrets.

They'll regret not making one of those tip-in chances in the final seconds of the Louisville game go in the net. And I believe they'll look back on last night's game at UConn and think they could have won that too.

Villanova is a nightmare to play against. They hassle everything. All through the second half, as it kept looking at if Connecticut was about to pull away, the Wildcats got a hand on every pass, a hand in the face of every shooter, a steal off every dribble that wasn't perfect. They created chance after chance after chance...

...and missed them all. I mean, this was hard to watch. They'd get the steal, block or some other kind of turnover, then they'd take it down the other end and miss a layup. Or miss a dunk. Or make the inconceivably bad decision to try and drive the lane and dunk on Hasheem Thabeet, whose large hand ended that quest emphatically.

(Quick note on Thabeet, by the way. This guy should be better, especially on offense. It looks as if all he wants to do is block shots. Now, he's excellent at blocking shots -- a total game-changer on defense. But he's an uninterested rebounder and a sometimes invisible offensive player. Jay Bilas kept saying that nobody else in the country has a comparable player, and he's right. The dude is 7-foot-3. But that doesn't help you score if you don't care about offense.)

Anyway, Villanova was way game. A.J. Price hitting 700 three-pointers in the first half didn't bother them. Jeff Adrien asserting his I'm-stronger-than-you-are-and-will-own-the-second-half act didn't bother them. The only thing that seemed to upset them was when they got the ball within a few feet of the rim. Why would that be so scary?

Nice escape win for UConn, which is rolling, but I call this a big-time missed chance for Villanova -- and one they might regret come March.

*Red-Hot Redbirds Roll Rutgers: Yes, of course I kept an eye on the Louisville-Rutgers game. Yes, I took note that it was tied at 7-7. Yes, I was impressed that Louisville then scored the next 21 points, enabling its mascot to take a 90-minute nap and its coaching staff to start drawing up plays for Sunday's game at Syracuse.

Look, I still think Louisville has shown some weaknesses this season, and that they could be vulnerable. But right now, they are ON FIRE, as good and as locked-in as any team in the conference and super-confident. If this keeps up, and builds on itself, they'll have a real good chance to take that No. 1 seed into Madison Square Garden in early March.

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.