Oakland

Our game prediction guru Greg Mengelt has been on fire this year. He'll be picking every conference tournament game over the next 2 weeks.

Seton Hall's struggles with Connecticut in their series have been well-doucmented, as the Pirates went into Tuesday's meeting having lost eleve straight dating back to March 3, 2001. That matchup between eventual NIT teams went down to the wire as the Pirates won 65-63. There would be no such suspense in Seton Hall's first win over the Huskies since 2001, as they stormed back from an early 11-2 deficit to win 75-63 in a game that wasn't as close as the margin would lead one to believe.

Arguably the quickest way for a team to eliminate itself from a conference title race is to drop games at home. So while the term "must-win" shouldn't be used for #19 Wisconsin (12-3, 1-1) there's no doubt that Tuesday's game against #11 Michigan State (13.2, 2-0) is critical following their loss to Iowa on Saturday. The biggest reason for the Badgers' loss was their three-point shooting, as they made just three of twenty-eight attempts on the afternoon.

For a while on Tuesday night it looked as if a Southern Conference team would hand another undefeated team its first defeat of the season. But an important suggestion by Louisville assistant coach Richard Pitino set things in motion for the fourth-ranked Cardinals, sparking a rally that resulted in a 69-62 victory. The idea: instead of relying on the frontcourt tandem of Gorgui Dieng and Chane Behanan to occupy the foul line area against the Charleston zone, use the versatile Kyle Kuric at the four.

A review of the week that was in college basketball focusing on the best (and worst) performances. Check in every Monday morning for our weekly awards.

 

PLAYER OF THE WEEK

 

Tuesday night's action features a few critical match ups when considering at-large possibilities in March, with one such game being Butler (5-6) taking on Gonzaga (7-2) in Spokane. Brad Stevens' Bulldogs looked to be in serious trouble on Saturday but a furious rally to beat Purdue may have been the win that sparks a turnaround. But they didn't do themselves many favors in that regard from a scheduling standpoint, with Gonzaga boasting a 93-7 record in the McCarthey Athletic Center.

Greg Mengelt previews and predicts four of Saturday's intriguing Mid-Major battles:

 

BRADLEY (5-4) AT DREXEL (4-4)

 

There is no doubt that the Xavier Musketeers have one of the best backcourt tandems in the country with Tu Holloway and Mark Lyons, and the duo combined on Monday night to provide more evidence in the affirmative. Despite shooting a combined 13-for-38 from the field Holloway and Lyons scored 43 points for the Musketeers, with Lyons knocking down the game-tying shot with 6.5 seconds remaining to send the game into overtime. From there it was the "Tu Holloway Show:, with the All-American scoring ten of his team-high 24 points in the extra session.

Prevailing wisdom had Florida State and Connecticut playing on Saturday in the title game of the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas. Well, they'll be playing on Saturday...but with third place on the line as both lost their semifinal games in disappointing fashion. The Huskies looked to be in good shape as they held a 50-33 lead on UCF early in the second half, despite a lackluster shooting performance from Jeremy Lamb. But it was almost as if UConn turned off their "power source", and the Knights took full advantage.

After going over the teams expected to win their regular season titles, we move on to talking about the top freshmen in each conference. Will all automatically take over and become the stars of their respective teams and leagues? It's tough to say at this point in the season, but that doesn't mean that we can't discuss it. Below are the picks for final 16 conferences, and Part One can be found here.

MAC: Kris Brewer (Kent State)