Minnesota

The final day of 2010 gives college basketball fans the treat of watching one of the sport's most intense rivalries. Kentucky makes the trek up to the KFC Yum! Center to take on a Louisville squad that while ranked has been dealing with a number of injuries. The latest loss was that of forward Rakeem Buckles, who had surgery on a broken finger and will be out a few weeks while the digit heals.

If there was one area of concern for Wisconsin going into their game against Minnesota on Tuesday night it would have been rebounding given the Golden Gophers' size up front. And sure enough Minnesota won the battle convincingly, out-rebounding the Badgers 42-24 and scoring 16 second-chance points (34-12 edge in points in the paint) on the night. But the Gophers also shot just 39% from the field, and with Wisconsin turning the ball over just two times (and going 17-18 from the foul line) it proved to be too much for the visitors at the Kohl Center.

The Kohl Center should be rocking for the Big Ten opener between Wisconsin (10-2) and border rival Minnesota (11-1), a game that could hold even more importance come March for resume reasons. Tubby Smith's Golden Gophers have an in-season tournament title (Puerto Rico Tipoff) to their credit already, a run that includes likely valuable wins over North Carolina and West Virginia.

Overall Rank: #44

Minnesota Golden Gophers

Big Ten Conference (21-13, 9-9)

Seed: #11

Minnesota over Xavier

Old Dominion over Notre Dame

San Diego St over Tennessee

Washington over Marquette

RPI #'s updated as of 3/14/10, 12:30 am.

 

 

It's the worry of nearly every team on the bubble this time of the year: the bid thief. The team that had little or no chance of getting into the NCAA Tournament makes a run in its conference tournament, grabbing the automatic bid and possibly snatching a chair at the table from another team in college basketball's answer to "musical chairs". Houston (Conference USA) and New Mexico State (WAC) were the two teams to do that on Saturday, and the question now is which at-large candidates will be headed to the NIT as a result of these outcomes. 

Yes (21 wins, 5 Top 50 wins, Big Ten Finalist, .500 in Big Ten)

No (57 RPI, 12 losses, 6 losses to teams worse then 80th)