Adam Glatczak writes the "Wednesday Onions" column for CollegeHoopsnet.  Bookmark the "Wednesday Onions" homepage and come back each week!

We are now midway through February, so this is a good time to bring up a very simple suggestion. If any team in any Division I conference is good enough to go through its league unbeaten, unless its non-conference profile is negligently hideous, that team should be practically guaranteed an NCAA at-large bid, whether it wins its conference tourney or not.

Only a diet of Division II teams or a purposely weak schedule should keep teams out of the tourney if they rip through a full conference schedule unbeaten. This is especially true in leagues where there is a double round-robin, or leagues where teams play at least 16 conference games. Right now, this would apply to St. Joseph’s, Duke, Gonzaga and Stanford, all teams that are NCAA shoo-ins, but also Dayton, Utah State, Southern Illinois, East Tennessee State, Vermont and Austin Peay.

Sounds edgy, eh? A process where teams from conferences outside the self-proclaimed “Big Six” being able to ensure an at-large bid almost in the same way as the fourth-place team in the Big 12 essentially can?

Well, that’s how it should be. In fact, conference regular season champions in general should be given the benefit of the doubt whenever the tough NCAA selection decisions are made. While no one will say winning the ACC is equal to winning the Big South, it takes a lot more excellence to win a conference title than it does to finish .500 in a league. And excellence is what the NCAA committee should be rewarding.

(And personally, I’d extend such ‘preferential treatment’ to teams that can win 25 or more games in a season, but that gets into some other issues. We’ll start here for now.)

Going unbeaten over the course of a full Division I conference schedule is tough. Real tough. Here’s a hint at how tough: I can guarantee you that, even in the Ohio Valley, where Austin Peay is currently 11-0, the top teams in the SEC would have a hard time going through the league schedule unblemished. That includes Florida and Kentucky, not just the teams in the middle or back of the pack.

Think it’s easy for Gonzaga to breeze through the West Coast Conference? Below .500 Pepperdine lost by two at Oklahoma State, Mississippi State needed overtime to win at Santa Clara, and just ask Arizona about St. Mary’s. And this is supposedly a down year for the WCC.

The same goes for the rest of the top 25-other than maybe 5-10 select teams, it’s very easy to imagine even highly ranked squads losing at Murray State or Austin Peay, for example. That’s how tough it is to win on the road in conference play. Unlike November and December, there’s nowhere to hide. Every team plays the same number of home and road games, and every team knows the other team. It’s a grind in any conference, and to be able to keep the intensity up-or simply be that talented-to win every game, home and road, that tells more about a team than any power rating can.

A standard like this would add more importance to the regular season, but it would also give a fairer chance to teams that have clearly proven they are the best in their leagues. Take Weber State last year. The Wildcats went 23-5 in the regular season and 14-0 in the Big Sky Conference, sweeping everyone in the eight-team league home and away. How much value does it give to the regular season, though, if Weber loses in the league tourney-to a team it had already beaten twice-and the NCAA committee doesn’t give them an at-large spot?

It’s saying the regular season means nothing, and that’s simply the wrong message to send. Then you throw in the fact that they also played three NCAA tourney teams, beating BYU and losing to Utah and Utah State, and you can’t say the Wildcats’ schedule was so bad that it trivializes the perfect league record. Forget RPI numbers; they certainly had a better season and deserved an at-large spot over a team like, say, Alabama, which stumbled into the tourney at 7-9 in its league and a sterling 2-8 in true road games. Fortunately, we didn’t have to find out how the NCAA would’ve reacted to this, as the Wildcats won the Big Sky tourney, but it’s very likely they would’ve been sent to the NIT if they hadn’t.

Sure, the conferences devalue the regular seasons themselves by holding the tourneys, but we know the real reason these leagues get hurt is the lack of “quality wins,” which is a direct result of conference RPIs. But I don’t care what the RPI says, I think it’s a safe assumption that any team perfect over a league schedule can make a credible showing in the NCAA Tournament. And the thing is, like so many other suggestions that might be balanced in favor of those non-BCS conferences, this one would affect maybe 2-3 bids in the tourney, tops. Last year, three teams went through their conference slates without a scratch, and you’ll seldom see any more than that. In fact, it will be a major shock if more than four of the 10 current unbeatens finish the league unbeaten.

You could never make it mandatory that any undefeated is guaranteed a berth, not with the conference tournament system in place. It would be way too tempting for those teams to take it easy in the league tourney, knowing they’re already in the field. Of course, some might say it wouldn’t be much different than what we see in the Big 10 and Pac-10 tourneys right now, either, where those that know they’re in all but use vacation days sometimes. The other danger is perhaps teams would schedule so ridiculously easy out of conference and take advantage of this.

What it should be, though, is a simple common sense issue. Common sense tells us that the third place team in the ACC is pretty much always good enough for the NCAAs, right? The same logic should be used with teams who go undefeated in conference. They deserve the benefit of the doubt over a team that can’t win on the road in its conference. And if schools in the “power” conferences don’t like it, they can join an Atlantic Sun or Southern Conference. Those leagues would gladly take them in a heartbeat.

-St. Joseph’s undefeated season is as good as gone. The Hawks’ Jameer Nelson is on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week.

-We saw more than enough replays of the shot, but good to see that it was Nick Robinson hitting that game-winner for Stanford against Arizona. Robinson is one of those selfless players who does anything and everything and seldom gets the credit he deserves.

-After Andrew Wisniewski of Centenary, who has been documented more than once in this column, is there a guy so good and so undiscovered as Bryant Matthews of Virginia Tech? Like Wisniewski, he’s so underrated he doesn’t even make the lists of most underrated players. Just as worthy of a question: how can this possibly happen with a guy who plays in the Big East?

-Not to disparage anyone from reading or writing about or discovering Utah State, but the Aggies really shouldn’t be that big of a story. The program has been among the best in the West for the past five years, and if it weren’t for coach Stew Morrill being so low-key and the school being located in Utah, by now we’d have heard as much about the Ags as we have Creighton, Butler, Gonzaga and the rest of the past “it” lesser-known schools. Every year, you can bank on Utah State being there with 20+ wins and at or near the top of the Big West standings. They should have already been “discovered” by now. It is good to see USU in the polls, though, and hopefully it will result in some lasting respect. Maybe even some of those made-for-TV games someday, though they shouldn’t count on it. Kent State, Creighton and Butler will tell them as much.

-Utah State shouldn’t get too far ahead of itself in the Big West, because Pacific is hot on their tails. The Tigers looked good in their season opener against Duke, and it turns out that wasn’t a fluke. Good team with some nice athletes, and they look worthy of an NIT bid.

-Although I am beyond sick of hearing about how great their rivalry is, I can admit to watching the end of Duke-North Carolina Thursday night and liking it. The overall significance of their series, though, is still much more ESPN creation than fact. Duke-UNC isn’t any better of a rivalry than Cincinnati-Xavier or some of the other best. And I won’t even mention how several years ago it’s likely Carolina fans would’ve called N.C. State their biggest rival.

-Don’t mean to knock their series because it is a good one, but will never be sold on the ESPN’s hype of Duke-UNC, and one reason was displayed two days before their game and two more reasons came two days after their overtime thriller. All came courtesy of-voila!-ESPN itself.

Tuesday, Cincinnati and Xavier played and the game was just as exciting and entertaining and good as “The Rivalry” was. Just like it is every year. UC-XU was wildly intense, and there’s every bit as much hatred between those two schools as there is Duke and Carolina. The only thing the game didn’t have was Dick Vitale and ESPN’s eternal hyping-it was relegated to ESPN2, as if it’s second rate or something. Wrong. I will say it again: right now, when you factor in intensity, the quality of games and national significance, there is no more intense rivalry in college basketball than this one. Some may come close or arguably equal it, but none is slam-bang better.

Also, ESPN2 must’ve run out of X Games reruns, because Saturday afternoon it decided to show Southern Illinois-Creighton and Virginia Commonwealth-UNC Wilmington. You want intensity? These games were every bit as intense as anything you’ll see in March. SIU went on the road and won, 61-60, in a game that Creighton badly needed, while VCU sold out the Siegel Center or Alltel Pavilion or whatever the hell they call it (settle on one name, please) and outlasted the Seahawks in a grinder played. Both games were played in rowdy atmospheres, showing again that fantastic games and rivalries take place everywhere, and I don’t care what TV executives think, if these games were shown in more prominent time slots people would watch them. The only thing the games were missing was endless hype; as far as quality of play and intensity they were every bit as good as Duke-UNC, and everyone would’ve been talking about them if these games had been shown on a Wednesday night.

-BYU is disappointing, but in retrospect maybe it shouldn’t have been as surprising as it has been. As Jimmy Dykes pointed out in the ESPN telecast against San Diego State Monday night, the Cougars just don’t have many guys who can create shots. The point guard position doesn’t seem to be much stronger than it was last year, either. Rafael Araujo can’t do everything, and it looks like they’ve missed Travis Hansen far more than most expected.

-St. Peter’s and Wright State continue to impress more and more with every game. I’m almost ready to finally put South Carolina in that group, too, though the Gamecocks OOC schedule still sucks.

-Louisiana-Lafayette is one of those teams that, if it makes the NCAAs, will probably have a low seed but will be exceptionally dangerous from its spot. I’ll admit to having been turned off by ULL after it was embarrassed by Georgia Tech on TV in their opener, but in fairness they played that game with six players. The Ragin’ Cajuns are coming around since getting players back from academic problems and since dumping problem child Michael Southall, a talent who just became more of a pain that it was worth. Louisiana-Lafayette is very athletic-Dwayne Mitchell is one of the highest risers in the country-and guard Brad Boyd can shoot threes with the best. They would’ve beaten Arizona if Boyd had shot close to his percentage instead of 3-for-17 on triples against the ‘Cats.

-One of those names that is just fun to say: Ben Rhoda. He’s a swingman for East Tennessee State, and by the way, the Bucs are now 12-0 in the Southern Conference and 20-4 overall…too bad the RPI bug’ll bite them if they don’t win the league tourney.

-Major pet peeve: teams that run the clock down too far at the end of a half before getting something going on offense. Seton Hall was very fortunate to escape from such terrible late-game execution against Pittsburgh Monday. With the game tied and the opportunity for the last shot in regulation, Andre Barrett stood 30 feet from the basket and dribbled…and dribbled…and dribbled, until there were three seconds on the clock. Finally, he started to make a move to the basket, and the Pitt defender didn’t even have to play terrific D, all he had to do was get in his way. Barrett was forced to pass the ball off, but already it was too late for another player to get a shot off and the game went into overtime. Horrendous execution, and it drives me nuts when this happens and it happens too often. Teams are terrible at taking advantage of having the last shot of a half, never doing anything resembling their normal offense and always running too much clock before making a move. A move to the basket should come no later than with seven seconds on the clock. If it’s stopped, you still have time to make a pass or two, and make or miss, the odds of the defense getting back down for its own score are minimal. Like free throw shooting, this is all about attention to detail.

-For being a pretty experienced and decent team, UC Santa Barbara sure has some offensive issues. The Gauchos had 14 points six minutes into the second half against Idaho on Thursday. Not surprisingly, the Vandals won, 57-45. Saturday, the Gauchos had Utah State squarely in their sights until going scoreless for more than eight minutes. Blame some of it on lack of continuity-UCSB has been shuffling players all season-as well as a simple lack of guys stepping up to score. In fact, not a single player is averaging double figures.

-Northeastern and Stony Brook both can sympathize with UCSB’s experience of being on the bad end of runs. In last Thursday’s game, Stony Brook went on a 24-2 roll in the first half and led 43-28 at halftime over the Huskies. In the second half, though, Northeastern raised the Seawolves with a 35-5 run on the way to a 73-61 win.

-I’m afraid I’m pulling my endorsement of Rice as an NCAA Tournament team. The Owls just aren’t winning enough on the road to deserve it-looks like the expectations were just a shade too high this year. On the other hand, how about Texas-El Paso? The Miners should certainly be in the thick of NCAA at-large consideration, and Billy Gillespie has done an almost unreal job at UTEP this year. Last year’s team consisted of basically seven players at times, but some strategic recruiting has done wonders.

-Interesting how it seems like more and more seven-footers are winding up at smaller schools. Among the not-so-big schools with big, big guys are Binghamton, Towson, UC Irvine, Rider and Chicago State. And, of course, there’s Wisconsin-Stout, a Division III school that has 7-0 twins John and Jacob Nonemacher. The curious thing is that, at most of these places, the guys are pretty good athletes who are developing into decent players-these aren’t plodders who just clog the lane. Just kind of surprising more larger programs aren’t taking fliers on these guys.

-Finally, we have a favorite in the Big Sky. Step up, Eastern Washington, now 8-1 in the league and with a 2 ½ game lead over its nearest competitor. Is this finally the year for the Eagles?

-Why do I poke fun of the “branding” concept that so many college athletic departments have sold out to in the effort to supposedly “build an identity”? Take Iona. Went to their athletic dept. site recently and saw the Gaels have a new logo, only a few years after they had just introduced a new logo, which is why it caught my attention. Actually, Iona doesn’t have a logo, it has logos. Many of them. The school has a main logo and then no fewer than five secondary logos, all of which can be used instead of the main logo if it is deemed too big or whatever else. But wait, there’s more. Iona also has 13 sport-specific word marks, as well as nine more for everything from “Iona Cheerleading” to “Iona Sports Medicine,” for a grand total of 24 different logo variations. This sounds goofy, but it’s actually no different than Providence, UMass and a number of other schools, who also have more logos than you can count.

Maybe I’m just an ignorant fool, but I have to ask this: how is having six logos and 18 more subdivisions of that logo creating a central identity? This is to say nothing about the design of the Iona logo (or logos), whose only distinguishing quality is how obviously it is, in format, a direct copy of every other logo churned out nowadays. Someone, somewhere decided that sports logos today cannot be created without computer animation and without having the team name and nickname displayed, essentially defeating the purpose of a logo itself. From here, it looks like marketing and graphics whizzes today can’t create a good insignia to save their lives, so they create a ‘fierce’ image of whatever the mascot is, slap the school or team name on it, create 73 different variations of it and talk about how it will create an ‘identity.’ And schools are dumb enough to believe that it will make them tons of money. Which it won’t-what would really draw create an identity or interest or raise merchandise sales would be WINNING. See Gonzaga, which has basically the same logo as Samford University, but is one of the hot sellers in the country. Instead, we see more instances like Massachusetts, a school that used to be where Gonzaga was until its basketball program went downhill. Several years ago UMass merchandise was hot, but now that the program is down, nobody buys their stuff. Someone convinced the school that the real problem is the logo, though, not the fact that the team has stunk. Sure enough, the school recently paid big bucks and got themselves a cookie-cutter logo of their own.

-Anyone can talk about the winning teams, but what about those teams that are having serious hard-luck this year? We know about St. John’s and Loyola (Md.), but how about poor Charleston Southern, which is 3-19 but has lost four of its last five by a combined total of 10 points? One of those was against High Point on Friday night, where the Panthers hit a miracle three at the OT buzzer to win the game and even make SportsCenter.

San Diego and Central Michigan seem to get charged quite the large tolls whenever they make rare NCAA Tournament appearances. Before making the dance last year, both had made their last appearances in 1987, back when Dan Majerle played for the Chippewas and NBA coach Eric Musselman was a reserve guard for USD. This year, coming off NCAA appearances, the teams are a combined 8-37. That happens when you lose about 80% of your scoring from last year between the two teams, but at least both ended long losing streaks this past weekend, CMU against disappointing Northern Illinois and the Toreros against up-and-down Santa Clara.

Finally, there’s Towson, which looked like it was starting to work its way up the CAA standings this year but, alas, has now dropped six in a row again and is in the cellar. Several of those have been close, and Saturday included a particularly tough loss. On the road, the Tigers hung right with Delaware the whole way and took control late, only to see the Blue Hens tie it on a three at the buzzer and then win in OT. Towson has some beef inside and a class of sophomores that could be pretty good in two years, and it deserved to win. They were the latest to be involved in a close game with the resilient cardiac Hens, though, who have now played in 11 games decided by seven points or less.

It may be time to name Centenary the official team of this column. Got another letter from a Gents’ fan…how cool is that? Doug was simply thanking me for the mention of them, and Centenary is truly becoming one of the great stories of this season. The school is the smallest in Division I, with 890 undergrads; to put that in perspective, in Wisconsin, Centenary’s enrollment would make it Division 2 in high school competition. The Gents also play in the funky-looking Gold Dome, which looks like a golf ball protruding from the ground. Rock on. On the court they’re half a game behind IUPUI for the Mid-Continent lead, and have a good shot at making their first NCAA tourney ever. Good things can happen when you’re freed from the independent ranks, and Centenary is doing itself proud in its first year in the Mid-Con. They’re no U.S. International, but they’re earning a special place in this column’s heart nonetheless.

Also forgot to mention last week that my letter about the CAA was from none other than Tom Peterson, a former student assistant and now the radio announcer for the UNC-Wilmington Seahawks. As I told him, it’s good to hear from people who have an insider’s view of the game, and too bad the Seahawks have hit some troubled waters this year. They will be back, though.

Dayton at St. Joseph’s. Yup, as everyone has said by now, “the best chance St. Joseph’s has of losing the rest of the regular season.” Don’t shortchange the Atlantic 10 that much, though, because conference play by nature is such that even a LaSalle could jump up and bite the Hawks.

Mississippi State at South Carolina. As critical as I am of the non-league scheduling practices of some teams-including the Gamecocks-I wish this one were on TV. Surprising that it isn’t.

Virginia Commonwealth at George Mason. Critical game especially for Mason, which is two games behind CAA leaders VCU and Drexel, one behind Old Dominion.

Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne at Indiana-Purdue-Indianapolis. IPFW (should it be IUPUFW) takes on IUPUI in the Mouthful of the Year Game.

Western Kentucky at Denver. These two may be the most capable of challenging Louisiana-Lafayette in the Sun Belt.

American at Lehigh. The two main challengers to Lafayette in the Patriot League, and like everyone in this league, the Leopards are a team that doesn’t seem to have a lot of margin for error, so watch the Eagles and Engineers/Mountain Hawks now and in March.

Stanford at California. The Golden Bears are the latest to assume third place in the Pac-10.

Austin Peay at Murray State. What Creighton-Southern Illinois was to the Missouri Valley, that’s what this one is to the Ohio Valley, mostly minus the at-large implications. It’s a shame these two rivals only play once this year.

Gonzaga at St. Mary’s. Would not surprise for a second if the Gaels win this one.

Utah State at Pacific. The two best in the Big West. The Tigers have rounded out nicely this year and are more than capable of winning this one.

Birmingham Southern at Liberty. The Big South is still open for the taking. Too bad the Panthers aren’t allowed in the league tourney yet, because they may well be the best.

Drexel at George Mason. Second straight biggie for the Patriots, who will get a good look this week where they stand in the CAA.

Pennsylvania at Cornell. As Quakers showed against Princeton Tuesday night, they aren’t dead yet in the Ivy League race.

Michigan at Iowa. Sorry, I just don’t see either of these teams being NCAA Tournament worthy yet. Michigan is closer than the Hawkeyes, but still has a lot of work to do.

Providence at Boston College. Like the two above, the Eagles still have a lot of convincing to do about their NCAA worthiness. The Friars not so much, but as it showed against Virginia Tech, PC still needs to learn to bring it every night.

Massachusetts at Xavier. Despite the comments about UMass and its logo, the Minutemen are coming around of late. Patience, UMass fans.

Memphis at Marquette. Memphis is good, but maybe the Tigers should stop grumbling about respect and just make their case in the NCAA Tournament or win a few more big games on the road. Like this. The school’s location in the shadows of Louisville, Kentucky, Cincinnati and the SEC means its always going to need to do more to get its due.

Oregon at Washington State. Is Dick Bennett a coaching genius or what? He is doing a remarkable job with the Cougars.

Northern Arizona at Eastern Washington. The Lumberjacks are one of the last teams with a shot at running down EWU. Wouldn’t be surprised to see these two in the Big Sky tourney final.

Boston University at Vermont. This is quickly becoming one of the best series in the East.

Troy State at Belmont. Bombs away! The over-under on three-pointers attempted in this game should be about 60. Combined, these teams average nearly 23 triples made per game.

Duke at N.C. State. No offense to the Wolfpack, but how are they 15-5? I still wonder about their chances of advancing in the NCAA Tournament, but nice job by Herb Sendek.

Oklahoma at Oklahoma State. Another of those rivalry games that could very well be on par with Duke-Carolina.

Air Force at Texas-Pan American. A real “stay awake” game for the Falcons. Dangerous, and a loss here would be a dagger to NCAA tourney hopes, or at least to seeding.

Northern Colorado at Rutgers. Think I’m going to rip the Scarlet Knights for this one? Nope. The Bears are a provisional Division I member and are required to play a certain number of D-I teams to stay on their own path to D-I. Teams who play these games-like Rutgers and Iowa State-don’t receive any kind of consideration from the NCAA Tournament committee for essentially helping out these programs, but they should. The game doesn’t count as a D-I win for Rutgers, but it shouldn’t hurt them, either.

Feel free to email Adam with questions he'll answer in the Audibles section: arfboy37@yahoo.com