John P Wise: I Love Bob Huggins, I Really Do

John P. Wise — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 11:55:41 -0700

I love Bob Huggins. I really do.

I covered his Bearcats as a sports writer for my college newspaper, the University of Cincinnati's The News Record. Thanks to him, I earned a free trip to exotic Minneapolis around this time of year in 1992, detailing UC's first Final Four appearance in 30 years.

Those were splendid days indeed. Back around then, Huggins' first-ever return call to my desk phone was intercepted by some other eager colleague at a nearby extension. She gave me the phone, and when I tried to transfer him to my desk, guess who accidentally hung up on whom?

And a few years later, after my undergraduate days left me still wanting some sort of connection to the hottest beat in otherwise sleepy-old Cincinnati, I was working on a Huggins feature for some weekly Bearcats' rag. Huggs interrupted my Friday morning with a 2 p.m. return call from Chicago -- as we had arranged -- that woke me from a nice couch slumber and sent me scrambling under a living room's floor worth of pizza boxes and empty 12-pack cartons in order to ask just a couple questions a few hours before his men took on Conference USA rival DePaul.

"What are you doing?" I asked him slowly to give myself time to find a working pen and some real paper, not the kind with a takeout receipt or a "Rene" scrawled in lipstick on it. Not surprisingly, his reply was all Huggins.

"I'm workin'," declared the surly coach around 1997. "What are you doin'?"

And many years later, after a hugely hyped Cincinnati-Louisville game around 2003 or 2004, a January matchup that pitted Top 6 teams with a combined 31-1 record, a game to which Louisville claimed ownership about three minutes in, a game the Cards eventually won by about 30, I wrote a harsh column for Cincinnati's NBC television station Web site. It described how Huggins' teams can't win the big games and how his players were more interested in their cornrows and headbands and their tattoos than they were with figuring out how to win high-stakes ballgames.

I caught a lot of heat for that piece, almost got fired in fact. Viewer mail after viewer mail suggested I was at least a hack if not a racist entirely. I was lumped in with all the other Huggins Haters, of whom there were very few around the Queen City. Huggins owned that town in the 1990s the way Pete Rose once did. But because of that piece, I'd earned a place in "The Drawer," according to my sources. Huggins kept a place in his desk where he stored columns and articles that reflected negatively on the coach and his program.

Savvy Cincinnati readers familiar with my work thought I had lost it. How dare you say that about our Huggy Bear? They got personal because they thought I got personal.

But I didn't get personal at all. I was merely making a point about the team's inability to win key games, not unlike what many, many college scribes have written many times in recent years about a nearby powerhouse called Ohio State football.

For that very same Cincinnati TV station Web site, I also wrote a column about how loved Huggins was, how much I knew he'd be missed after his heart attack in 2003. It wasn't just a collection of facts I published. I didn't interview anyone for it. I wrote that piece straight from the heart. Though I wrote a time or two critically of his basketball team, I always liked the kind of guy he was to those who mattered; he satisfied his superiors by winning many basketball games and he took in players of questionable character because he believed in second chances and knew he was good at being a father figure.

And speaking of the heart, that's a part of Huggins the viewing public doesn't often see. But just because he's not Dick Vermeil doesn't mean he's not a sensitive coach who cares dearly for his players. And in perhaps the most touching gesture I've ever seen on a basketball court, it was a compassionate Huggy Bear being, well, a teddy bear Saturday night while comforting injured star Da'Sean Butler. It may have been the first time you saw such tenderness from Huggins, but he doesn't care about you. He cares about Da'Sean Butler and the guys who go to battle for him. And in return, he teaches them, he coaches them and he treats them like he's their father.

Who knows if a slice of that sweet embrace will make its way into Monday's popular "One Shining Moment," but I certainly won't need a video montage to remember it forever. I loved every second of it, and I hope you did too.

John P. Wise is the editor of OneGreatSeason.com. Follow him on Facebook.

NCAA Tournament: What Day 1 Taught Us

John P. Wise — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:18:25 -0700

The first day of the first round of the NCAA Tournament brought great excitement into living rooms, sports bars and office cubicles everywhere.

We probably say it more than we remember, but I can't recall the opening day of America's greatest sporting event being as excellent as Thursday was. Here's what we'll take away from it:

+ Georgetown, a popular No. 3 seed in the Midwest, didn't deserve the pre-tournament hype it got. I had a funny feeling about the Hoyas all year, remember? Sure they put together a nice run in New York last week, but let's remember, they took 10 losses into the tournament. A 14th-seeded Ohio University team from the Mid-American Conference hangs nearly a hundy on a rough and rowdy Big East side? Ouch. Gary Trent and Chad Estis are high-fiving somewhere.

+ Mid-majors are back in style this spring. In addition to those OU Bobcats, Murray State (a 13 seed from the Ohio Valley Conference) beat No. 4 Vanderbilt (nice effort, SEC East) at the buzzer, and Old Dominion (11, Colonial) sent No. 6 Notre Dame packing. BYU (7, Mountain West) needed double overtime to oust Florida and Robert Morris (14, Northeast) should have beaten an abysmal Villanova team before falling in overtime.

+ Just last week, I got some heat for offering up a not-so-fast reaction to Sean McDonough's claim during the broadcast of the Big East Tournament that the league is "clearly the best in the country." My take was that there might be some Big 12 folks who'd be happy to share a contrarian view. Thursday gave us three wins in four tries for the Big 12 and only one win in four tries for the Big East. And those three Big 12 wins were by an average of 15 points.

+ That one guy from BYU is as good as those two writers said he was back in mid-season. Good to see one of the nation's finest scorers get some national attention.

+ Good for Washington giving the PAC 10 -- pretty much a mid-major this year -- some much-needed street cred by beating a solid Marquette squad. I can't remember if it was CBS analyst Seth Davis or ESPN's Doug Gottlieb, but somebody said yesterday the winner of this game would advance to the Elite Eight. I'm a big fan of Lorenzo Romar, and I hope he and his Huskies do make a nice run.

One Great Season on Sports Nation

+ One other thing we learned Thursday was that ESPN's "Sports Nation" program has heard of One Great Season. The popular show tipped its hat to OGS in its "Site We Like" segment yesterday. The darling Michelle Beadle described OGS by referencing a story I wrote this week, saying, "They give us a great rundown of the seven key ingredients every national champion needs to have." Her co-host, Colin Cowherd, followed up with nothing short of authentic sincerity by calling the site "a must read." Thanks, gang! I'm still waiting to find out of this quailfies me for drinks with Beadle. I'll keep you posted.

John P. Wise is the editor of OneGreatSeason.com.

National Champion Recipe: 7 Key Ingredients

John P. Wise — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:43:08 -0700

You've spent all winter in the kitchen, trying to find the perfect combination. A little bit of this, a whole bunch of that and a dash of something else.

There are many variations to the recipe. What works for your mom might not work for your dad. What works for you neighbor might not work for Bill Self.

You could line up 100 ingredients and still not have the right mix or the cohesiveness you need to win six straight games this month.

Or you could throw out most of them and consider keeping it simple. That's what I would do. And I'd need only these seven ingredients to win a national championship:

+ Coaching -- Tubby Smith led Kentucky to the 1998 national championship in no small part because he outcoached Mike Krzyzewski -- not an easy task -- and Duke in the South Region final. In a frantic, up-and-down second half during which UK staged a furious comeback and Duke had no timeouts, both teams were spent but Tubby knew his deeper squad was in better condition. So he let his boys play on without giving Duke a chance to catch its breath. Kentucky advanced with the 86-84 win.

+ Guards Who Control the Game -- It's such a cliche to talk about how important guards are to your NCAA Tournament chances. But just because something is frequently repeated doesn't make it wrong. In a single-elimination tournament, it's critical to control the tempo in games against teams with contrasting styles. If your guards control the pace, you have a great chance to advance.

+ Big-Money Shot Taker -- There's a reason why Bill Raftery's "Onions" call is as recognized as it is: It often follows huge shots that win games. Many players -- but definitely not all -- want the ball in their hands late in a tight game. And only a few can come through in the clutch the way that Stephen Curry did in 2008.

+ Big-Game Experience -- Listen to the experts talk this week and most agree this is a key reason why Kansas has the edge over Kentucky. Each team is immensely talented, but Sherron Collins and company have been tested, whereas UK, as dangerous as it is, is built around freshmen who are playing in their first NCAA Tournament. Even junior forward Patrick Patterson is a newbie.

+ Big Man w/ Presence -- Guards are great and all, and backcourt-heavy teams with little interior presence have advanced, but rarely do they win championships. The NCAA Tournament is all about matchups, and if Ohio State and Georgetown meet in the Sweet 16, you might see what happens to a team thin on the inside when it plays a physical team with great talent and better depth on the blocks.

+ Depth -- It's not as important as many think, but is still key nonetheless. Young kids are in their physical primes, so in many cases these guys can handle playing 40 minutes. But foul trouble and the possibility of injury are more difficult to control ... and overcome.

+ Defense -- Last season, North Carolina was a dominant offensive force that could have won the title by playing defense on their backs. But in most years, champions earn the crown because they play excellent team defense, usually led by one or two individual defensive stars. Even fans know it. Have you ever heard an "OFF - ENSE" cheer?

John P. Wise is the editor of OneGreatSeason.com. Follow him on twitter @onegreatseason.

3 Myths About Picking the NCAA Tournament

John P. Wise — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:49:22 -0700

It's dinnertime on Monday; by now you've surely filled out two brackets and plan to fill out three more. And you'll reason things the same way you did last year and the year before.

But did you win any money last year or the year before? I thought not.

If you abandon your familiar logic and consider a new approach, you just might look like you know what you're doing come Final Four weekend. Here are the issues you should think about:

+ Depth Is Key -- I've been back and forth about the depth issue for years, but I think I've finally got it figured out: It's overrated.

Syracuse and Ohio State will make nice runs in the tournament and they will do so without great contributions from their benches. Coaches adjust their approaches at least slightly during the tournament, and, especially in OSU's case, Thad Matta is keenly aware of his lack of depth. So he'll manage his games a little more.

Each half will be comprised of five four-minute bursts. Television timeouts are longer and more frequent in the tournament. Foul trouble certainly is a potential issue, but neither of these teams lost any of their games this year because of it. And injuries? Well, you might want to pray a little bit.

+ Freshmen Are Sophomores -- Every time you hear an analyst talk about how grown up some freshmen have become because they've now got 35 college games under their belts, you should send me a dollar. Make it ten dollars, actually.

But if the freshmen have grown up, so, too, have the sophomores, juniors, seniors and even fifth-year players against whom they'll be playing. But where the freshmen are still inexperienced -- perhaps immature (<cough>DeMarcus Cousins</cough>) -- is in the area of a high-pressure, single-elimination tournament. Don't buy the freshmen-are-sophomores line.

+ A 12 Always Beats A 5 -- It's always fashionable to pick one or two 12s over 5s because historically, this is just some inexplicable danger zone for higher-seeded teams. Since the field expanded to 64-ish teams, 12 seeds have won exactly 33 out of 100 first-round games, a markedly better winning percentage than 11 seeds. Two No. 12s won last year. North Carolina won the tournament last year as a 12 seed. Just kidding about that last fact, but you know what I mean.

The bottom line here is that 12 seeds often win. But trying to predict which of the four 12 seeds will win when the position only wins 33 percent of the time means you'll most likely pick an upset where an upset won't happen, and then you'll pick the seeds to play out where the upset actually does happen. And it's also a fact that this year's 12 seeds won't win one game.

So stay away from picking the 12-over-5 upset, but if you don't, if you absolutely must pick a No. 12 to win, please don't tell everyone you knew Cornell was going to beat Temple. At least give credit to Jay Bilas because he's the only reason you will have picked it.

John P. Wise is the editor of OneGreatSeason.com. Follow March Madness 140 characters at a time: @onegreatseason

5 Tips On How To Fill Out Your NCAA Bracket

John P. Wise — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:47:29 -0700

You may have a co-worker who comes in to the office on Mondays during the fall lamenting having started this guy or benching that one on his boring fantasy football team.

Or you might actually be that annoying colleague.

If you are that person, chances are good you're the same type of guy who likes to pick upsets galore in his office pool, knowing that for every 10 "this is the year a 16 beats a 1" picks, there's one Siena or George Mason that you might get right. And subsequently boast to those co-workers with logic you stole from Joe Lunardi's latest column.

So instead of trying too hard to look like the smart guy, why not just focus on winning the cash in your office pool?

If that's something you think you might be interested in, then just follow these five tips below:

1.) Don't pick many first-weekend upsets. Upsets are called upsets because they are surprises that are difficult to predict. Not many people picked Davidson in 2008 because they either hadn't heard of Davidson, hadn't heard of Stephen Curry or had no idea he was going to play lights out. When you pick some upsets, you'll get most of them wrong, and then the upsets you don't pick will actually hit, so it's a double-whammy, all for the sake of a few early round points that you don't necessarily need. The real value is earned in the later rounds.

2.) Don't pick the heavy favorite to win it all. This advice would have ruined you last year because everyone knew North Carolina was by far the best team, but this year might be a good year for you to try it. Everyone is understandably jocking Kansas right now, but are the Jayhawks as good this year as North Carolina was last year? No. If you're heading into Final Four weekend as a contender and everyone around you has Kansas, but you have Kentucky, guess who takes home the pile of cash and the loose women if the Wildcats win, which is hardly a ridiculous notion?

3.) Approach your bracket the way coaches prepare their teams for the tournament. Don't look at the empty white sheet and assume you have to have a bunch of bluebloods in the Elite Eight and Final Four. Break your forecasting down into two-game tournaments and think about the matchups within the matchups. Who wins the subregional? Who wins the regional? Who advances in the Final Four?

4.) Pick some upsets. I know this mostly runs contrary to the first point above, but you don't need to load up on one- and two-point wins on the first weekend. If you want to stay in the hunt for the loot, pick a couple of 3 and 4 seeds to beat 2 and 1 seeds on that second weekend.

5.) If you disagree with me so far, then I only have one tip left for you: Have the secretary who doesn't know anything about college basketball fill out your bracket. A gal I met recently told me one of her girlfriends won $10,000 -- yes, $10,000 -- in her office pool last year despite knowing nothing about the sport.

John P. Wise is the editor of OneGreatSeason.com. If you have some tips to share with the tens of thousands of One Great Season readers, please click here to share them.

Despite Loss, Syracuse Still Deserves Top Seed

John P. Wise — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:49:13 -0800

Unless you're watching a Tom Cruise movie and he's trying to get the girl, there are no sure things in life.

Before taking the floor in its Big East Tournament opener Thursday, Syracuse was a lock for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, which begins next week.

Kansas and Kentucky appear to be headed toward top seeds, and Duke leads Ohio State, Purdue and maybe West Virginia for that fourth No. 1 slot.

But Syracuse lost to longtime rival Georgetown on Thursday, which means the debate is on about whether the Orange still deserve a top seed.

When teams play 30 to 35 games a year, of course they're going to lose a few. It doesn't mean they're not among the top teams; it just means they didn't play their best, or their opponent played a great game. Often times it means both.

But when you're unsure whether a team deserves the top spot, then you compare it against the other candidates. None of the aforementioned teams did anything close to what Syracuse did in posting a 7-0 mark against ranked teams during the regular season. I'm surprised the feat hasn't gotten more attention.

Kansas is probably the best team and will be the top overall seed, but Syracuse is the most complete team in the country and still will be on that top line on when the tournament field is announced on Sunday.

Poll: Will Syracuse End Up Getting a #1 Seed?

John P. Wise is the editor of OneGreatSeason.com. Follow March Madness 140 characters at a time: @onegreatseason

How Cincinnati Can Win 5 Games in 5 Days

John P. Wise — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:33:08 -0800

Those pesky Cincinnati Bearcats won their second game in two nights late Wednesday and their reward is a quarterfinal game against old friend Bob Huggins and the Big East Tournament's third-seeded West Virginia Mountaineers (9 p.m., ESPN).

One night after trying to give away an eventual win over Rutgers, UC was again at times brutal to watch in a 69-66 defeat of Louisville, whose second late-season defeat of conference champ Syracuse last week seemed to cement the Cardinals' NCAA Tournament invitation.

The Bearcats are a bad offensive team, worse from the foul line and still make mental mistakes at critical junctures the way they did even in the fat 1990s when Huggins was racking up 25 wins a year in Cincinnati.

Led by Brooklyn native Lance Stephenson, however, they held on against Rick Pitino's Cardinals under the bright lights of Midtown Manhattan's Madison Square Garden. Fellow New Yorker Edgar Sosa scored a career-high 28 points in a losing effort for Louisville.

It was only four years ago when Gerry McNamara led Syracuse to four wins in four days in this very tournament. And now with the expanded bracket, Cincinnati has the opportunity -- or tall task, depending how you look at it -- to rattle off an unprecedented five in five. Two down and three to go; here's how they can finish the feat:

+ Continue to attack the offensive glass against West Virginia. Huggins' Mounties are strong, active and physical, just as the Bearcats were under his watch. They've got many New York connections and will treat the tradition-steeped MSG floor as if it's their own. But Cincinnati's best wins this year (Maryland, Vanderbilt) were away from home, so it just needs to focus on what it's good at -- crashing the glass and collecting their many misses.

+ Shoot the ball well in the semifinal round against Notre Dame, which I think will upset Pittsburgh Thursday night. Asking Cincinnati to shoot well is like coaxing Charlize Theron to meet me for drinks, but with their interior beef, the Bearcats are more than capable of slowing down gimpy Irish banger Luke Harangody. The star forward lit up UC for 37 in one meeting, but was held to 14 on 5-of-20 shooting in the other. I think Cincinnati keeps him in check and Stephenson controls the pace the way he did in the second half against Louisville.

+ Blow up whichever hotel Syracuse is bunking in. Otherwise, I don't think the Bearcats would have much of a chance in Saturday's title game. The Orange are an NCAA No. 1 seed and play outstanding zone defense, precisely the recipe to keep a poor-shooting team like Cincinnati on the dim side of the scoreboard.

John P. Wise is the editor of OneGreatSeason.com. Follow March Madness 140 characters at a time: @onegreatseason

National Player of the Year: Evan Turner Leads the Pack

John P. Wise — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:04:52 -0800

It's March and everyone's talking about college basketball. Is your team on the bubble?

While all the talk is about teams and brackets and seeds, let's not forget about some of the top individual players who hope to lead those squads deep into the NCAA Tournament.

So let's get started with my five leading candidates to win the coveted Naismith Award, which honors the best player in men's college basketball:

+ Evan Turner, Jr, G, Ohio State
No one has as well-rounded a game as Turner, and his effort has been so consistent this year that even a six-game absence in midseason shouldn't keep him from winning this honor. Once he returned from breaking his back, he picked up where he left off, chasing down double-doubles each night out and even recording many near triple-doubles.

Turner leads the Big Ten in scoring (19.5 points per game) and rebounding (9.4), and is second in assists (5.8) and steals (1.8), but did you know he's also fifth in field-goal percentage (.538) and even ninth in blocks (0.9)? Before only playing 39 minutes the last two games, Turner had played all 40 minutes in each of Ohio State's previous three games and has turned the trick nine times overall this year. He is carried the Buckeyes towards a first-place tie in the Big Ten and maybe even a No. 2 NCAA Tournament seed. No player in the country means more to his team than Turner.

The funny thing about Turner is that he seems more of a lock for national player of the year than Big Ten player of the year, as Michigan State's Kalin Lucas continues to get support for the league honor.

+ Sherron Collins, Sr, G, Kansas
Collins is KU's undisputed leader and obviously means a great deal to his team, but if you take him away, the Jayhawks are still dangerous, whereas the Buckeyes wouldn't even be an NIT squad without Turner.

But that shouldn't diminish Collins' candidacy for national honors. He leads the Jayhawks with 15.3 points per game and 4.3 assists, and also, despite playing for a deep team that plays eight guys at least 15 minutes, and another three players about seven minutes each, averages a team-best 32.8 minutes per game.

Late in a tight game, you want Collins on the line. He makes 84 percent of his free throws and is a proven winner. Kansas is 119-18 in Collins' four years at point guard.

+ John Wall, Fr, G, Kentucky
No one in the country is more electrifying than Wall, and many expect him to be the first player taken in the NBA draft in June. But he still has some work to do before leaving Lexington, like lead the Wildcats to their first national championship since 1998.

Wall leads the team in scoring (16.8), assists (6.2) and minutes (34.4), and is third in rebounding (4.0). With the exception of Derrick Rose, no college basketball player in recent memory has shown his kind of explosiveness. He's also a defensive witch, averaging nearly two steals per game. He saved the day with a late gem at Vanderbilt on Feb. 20, preserving a narrow win over the ranked Commodores.

But even John Wall might have hit the wall. A slightly less-then-stellar February, perhaps due to his youth, might have taken him out of the top spot as Evan Turner continues his relentless push.

+ John Scheyer, Sr, G, Duke
Before he even stepped foot on the Durham campus, Scheyer was a Youtube legend after having scored 21 points in 75 seconds in an Illinois high school playoff game.

And he's been Mr. Steady in his four outstanding years at Duke. No doubt he's the ACC Player of the Year and he'll get some consideration for national POY honors, but he doesn't have the all-around game that Turner has.

+ Scottie Reynolds, Sr, G, Villanova
Much like Scheyer, Reynolds has been a key contributor since the first days he stepped on campus, seemingly seven or eight years ago.

It didn't take long for Reynolds to assert himself as a team leader, and now that his career is winding down, he's got his Wildcats poised to make a deep tournament run.

Reynolds is among Big East leaders in scoring, steals, field-goal percentage, free-throw percentage and three-point percentage. He might be the league's top player and could take a few votes away from Turner on any national ballot.

Also receiving consideration:

+ DeMarcus Cousins, Fr, C, Kentucky
+ James Anderson, Jr, G, Oklahoma State
+ Wesley Johnson, Jr, F, Syracuse

John P. Wise is the editor of OneGreatSeason.com. He can be reached at jpwise3@hotmail.com.

Counter Opinion

John Wall The Leader of the Player of the Year Chase

Thursday Hoops Notebook: Girls Gone Wild

John P. Wise — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:46:39 -0800

Turns out female thuggery isn't reserved for college soccer. Check out this gem from Wednesday night, when Baylor's Brittney Griner, already a Youtube sensation for her dunking, clocks Texas Tech's Jordan Barncastle.

One thing I never get about cry-baby athletes is the rage-fueled quest to retaliate. Moments before the punch, Barncastle certainly fouled the hell out of Griner, but the refs made the call. Quit acting like a 2-year-old and go to the line and sink the free throws. Or, if you really have problems managing your hate, wait until you're at the other end of the court and return the favor with a hack across the mouth.

Remember the in-game conduct last fall of New Mexico soccer player Elizabeth Lambert?

SEEDING MADNESS: Ohio State has worked its way into the conversation about NCAA Tournament top seeds. The Buckeyes have won 10 of their last 11 games, and despite a complete absence of a bench, they're well coached and their starting five is among the best in the country. I'd like to know the last team to earn a top seed with seven losses.

And don't forget the Bucks have the best player in the country, do-everything Evan Turner, who's more than capable of carrying OSU to a championship a la Danny Manning in 1988.

IF IFS AND BUTS: Speaking of Ohio State's starting five, imagine this lineup if no Buckeye would have left school early in 2007 or 2008:

+ PG Mike Conley Sr
+ SG Daequan Cook Sr
+ SF Evan Turner Jr
+ PF Kosta Koufos Jr
+ C Greg Oden Sr
+ 6th man - Jon Diebler Jr

THAT FINAL TOP SEED: Duke is more likely to win the ACC Tournament than Kansas State is to win the Big 12 Tournament, so expect the Blue Devils to grab that top honor out West. But then the question becomes, "Who's more deserving of the first No. 2 seed? Ohio State or Kansas State?" That does make a difference because the team that doesn't get it will be squared up with Kansas, Syracuse or Kentucky. Good luck getting past that trio.

FINAL THOUGHT: I hope the brackets line up in a way that will give us Kansas, the best team in the country, and Syracuse, the most complete team in the country, in the championship game on April 5 in Indianapolis.

John P. Wise is the editor of OneGreatSeason.com. He can be reached at jpwise3@hotmail.com.

Weekend Preview: Awaiting Super Saturday

John P. Wise — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:10:20 -0800

If you think this week has offered up a weak menu of heavyweight tilts, don't worry. This weekend will be a completely different story.

Saturday is full of huge hardwood matchups, and just when you're done shaking off the hoops hangover the next day, a potential Big Ten title game stares you right in the face on Sunday afternoon.

Kentucky and Tennessee get things started at noon (CBS) Saturday. The Vols are looking to avenge a loss in Lexington two weeks ago, and they just might pull it off this time.

UK has shown it can blow out good teams but can also win the tight games, even on the road. The Wildcats eeked out a narrow victory Saturday at Vanderbilt, as John Wall saved the day with a defensive gem late in Nashville.

But what can often trip up a good team this time of year is scheduling, and Kentucky is due for a battle tonight at home against South Carolina. The 9 p.m. start is a tad late, and the Wildcats will be asked to squeeze in a light workout Friday before tipping off at noon on Saturday in Knoxville. If Tennessee is looking for another resume win to bolster its tournament seeding, there will be no better opportunity.

The Big 12 then takes center stage Saturday afternoon with three big games throughout the day. Texas visits Texas A&M at 2 p.m. (ESPN), Oklahoma State welcomes top-ranked Kansas at 4 p.m. (CBS) and Missouri travels to No. 6 Kansas State for an 8 p.m. tipoff (ESPNU).

Since the Big East turned into a super-conference a few years back, folks seem to assume it's the best league in basketball every year. But this season might be different. The Big 12 is stacked, and just as capable of sending seven teams to the NCAA Tournament -- and maybe two to the Final Four -- as the Big East.

That Texas-Texas A&M tilt is sure to be a good one. It will be interesting to see how the Longhorns, at one point ranked No. 1 this season, will respond without starting point guard Dogus Balbay. He was ruled out for the season after hurting it last week, and the Longhorns were able to beat Oklahoma State without him Wednesday night. A&M (19-8, 8-5), meanwhile, runs a guard-heavy attack, so we'll see if its backcourt can set the pace and lead the home team to what would be a huge resume win.

Bebubbled Oklahoma State could practically lock up an NCAA bid with an upset of the top-ranked Kansas Jayhawks. In late January, the Cowboys won three straight games, then lost three in a row, then won three more. After Wednesday's loss at Texas, OSU fans are hoping this is not the beginning of yet another trend. If today was Selection Sunday, the Pokes would probably get in, but beating the No. 1 team in the country certainly wouldn't hurt their case. Expect a loud one at Gallagher-Iba Arena Saturday.

The best Big 12 game of the day might take place at Kansas State, where the Wildcats entertain Missouri, a very surprising third-place team that's racked up 21 wins this year. KSU got some nice early season hype before losing two games in late January, and all of a sudden people stopped talking about the Wildcats. But they've rattled off six straight wins and are perhaps the quietest No. 6 team in recent memory. KSU's backcourt tandem of Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente averages a combined 35 points, eight assists and five rebounds per game.

But Missouri has its own loaded backcourt, and although the Tigers aren't great away from home, this could possibly turn into a track meet in Manhattan. At least it will be fun to watch.

The Big East regular season title could come down to Saturday's game at Syracuse, where the Orange (26-2, 13-2) welcome Villanova (23-4, 12-3) to the Carrier Dome (9 p.m., ESPN).

This is the only meeting between the teams this year, so the winner will own the league tiebreaker. A Syracuse victory gives the Orange the conference crown; a Villanova win puts both teams at 13-3, but the Wildcats would have a slightly tougher remaining schedule that includes a season finale against West Virginia.

Villanova is more perimeter-oriented, although darkhorse Player of the Year candidate Scottie Reynolds is among the best penetrating guards in the country. Syracuse enjoys better balance and its 2-3 zone defense can be troublesome for a cold-shooting team.

Whatever happens, it will happen in front of a record crowd. More than 34,000 tickets were sold out a month ago, setting up what will be the largest on-campus crowd to watch a college basketball game.

Make sure you get the laundry and grocery store out of the way early Sunday, because a huge Big Ten tilt tips off at 4 p.m. (CBS) in West Lafayette, In.

Michigan State limps into its game at Purdue having lost four of its last six. But Tom Izzo and his Spartans have played the role of the wounded dog before, and this could very well be a moment of truth for this year's squad. A team only gets a few opportunities each season to prove itself, and I could see MSU reversing its trend of losing to the Big Ten's top teams this year. Sparty is 2-4 against Purdue, Ohio State, Illinois and Wisconsin.

But Purdue is waiting to learn more about the knee injury that do-everything star Robbie Hummel suffered in Wednesday's win at Minnesota. His presence -- 100 percent or not -- obviously would be key for a Purdue win, but the Boilermakers can be balanced if they need to be. And in what promises to be a dogfight with the gritty Spartans, balance will be necessary. This will be a great game for sure.

John P. Wise is the editor of OneGreatSeason.com. He can be reached at jpwise3@hotmail.com.