Georgetown

 

Well, someone has to go to the NCAA Tournament. But there are more than a few teams who either don't value the importance of making a statement at this point or are willing to roll the dice on Selection Sunday. Wednesday was one of those nights, with a number of teams squandering opportunities to either bolster their causes or avoid stubbing their toe in contests they should win. Boston College qualifies, as they fell behind Miami at home by as many as 21 points before rallying back, ultimately losing 73-64.

At the most the winner of tonight's game between Wisconsin (19-5, 9-3) and Purdue (20-5, 9-3) becomes the team with the best chance to catch Ohio State at the top of the Big Ten standings. But at the very least a win puts the victor in a good position to earn the two-seed in next month's Big Ten Tournament, a nice reward given the fact that the quarterfinal opponent will have played on the opening Thursday. Wisconsin looks to cap a season sweep of the series, and an important aspect of tonight's game will be their ability to put Saturday's win over Ohio State in the past and move forward.

The question going into Wednesday's matchup between rivals North Carolina and Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium was how the young Tar Heels would respond to the atmosphere. They responded quite well in the first half, scoring the first seven points of the game and leading by as many as 16 points before taking a 43-29 lead into the locker room. If anything the first half was a case of the more experienced Blue Devils being caught up in the moment, as getting away from the things they do best in addition to failing to truly compete inside landed them in the early hole.

Unlike last season's two regular season meetings there's more than pride on the line in tonight's matchup between North Carolina (17-5, 7-1) and bitter rival Duke (21-2, 8-1). The Tar Heels, who have played their best basketball of the season over the last three weeks, may have lost Larry Drew II last week but they didn't miss a beat in their beating of Florida State on Super Sunday.

Monday was an important day for a number of teams in non-BCS conferences as the eleven televised matchups for the ESPNU BracketBusters event were announced. The remainder of the teams in participating leagues will find out their assignments later this week but there are some very good matchups on the televised schedule, beginning on Friday, February 18th. The eleven matchups are as follows:

Fri., 2/18
7 p.m. VCU at Wichita State (ESPN2)
9 p.m. Kent State at Drexel (ESPNU)
Sat., 2/19
11 a.m. Hofstra at Wright State (ESPNU)

The big game on Monday night is a rematch between Texas (18-3, 6-0) and Texas A&M (17-3, 4-2), with the latter needing a win in order to remain a serious factor in the Big 12 race. Texas controlled the first meeting back on January 19th, winning by the final score of 81-60 behind 27 points and eight rebounds from Jordan Hamilton. The presence of Hamilton underlined the issue for Texas A&M but on the other side of the floor: who's their perimeter bell cow to put points on the board in key situations?

While there are a number of good games on the schedule for Saturday the best matchup may not come until the evening deep in the heart of Texas. Rick Barnes' Longhorns (17-3, 5-0) have been outstanding for much of the season, having won 11 of their last 12 games with the defeat being by one point. But they'll encounter a stiff test in regards to both talent and style as a Missouri (17-3, 3-2) squad that needs a win to remain in the Big 12 title conversation visits the Erwin Events Center. Both squads are solid defensively but they do things in different ways.

Derwin Kitchen played arguably his best game as a Seminole and as a result Florida State picked up a win that serves as a good counter to that horrific loss at Auburn. Kitchen scored 22 points and grabbed 10 rebounds while Chris Singleton added 18 points and played solid defense on Kyle Singler before getting into foul trouble in the second half in a 66-61 FSU victory. Kyle Singler led Duke with 20 points, 18 of those coming in the second half.

Another day, another matchup between ranked teams in the Big East as #17 Louisville (13-2, 2-0) heads northeast to take on #7 Villanova (14-1, 3-0). The question some have in regards to Rick Pitino's team is who have they beaten of consequence on the road, and with a 2-0 mark in such games a win in Philadelphia would go a long way in cementing them as a factor in the Big East race. The Cardinals want to play fast and they want to force you to play with discomfort, which more often than not results in turnovers and transition scoring opportunities for Louisville.