St. John's

Trailing by just one point (25-24) at the half but mostly stifled offensively (21.2% FG) the Washington Huskies needed someone to step up and change the flow of the game. Isaiah Thomas and Matthew Bryan-Amaning struggled to find clean looks, which is to be expected given how prominently they figure in the Husky attack. Enter freshman CJ Wilcox, overlooked by some who chose to focus on the loss of Terrence Jones and the anticipated impact of Terrence Ross.

AP Top 25: February 28th 

Saturday night's matchup between Illinois and Michigan State didn't set up to be the marquee meeting expected when the season began, but it definitely didn't lack for importance with both teams needing wins to ensure an NCAA Tournament appearance. And in a battle of seniors who needed to step up it was Kalin Lucas who came through, scoring 25 points in Michigan State's 71-67 win over the Illini.

One of the more important games of the day doesn't involve a ranked team, but because of the inconsistent nature of both teams they find themselves in need of a victory. Michigan State (14-11, 6-7) hosts Illinois (17-9, 7-6) in an important contest both teams need in regards to their NCAA Tournament hopes. Tom Izzo's had to deal with maddening inconsistency from some of the players expected to be leaders, not to mention the dismissal of backup point guard Korie Lucious that's sapped them of their depth at the point.

The Collegehoops.net Top 50 Power Ranking is your weekly window into the national college basketball scene.  Is the Top 50 Better than the AP or the Coaches Polls? At the very least, the Top 50 has no agenda like the coaches and we go deeper into the country than most power-conference biased media members. Plus the CHN Top 50 is brought to you before everybody else late Sunday night!

Outperformed, outworked and outclassed. That would sum up what happened to the Connecticut Huskies in the second half at Madison Square Garden, where the St. John's Red Storm built upon the momentum gained from a Malik Boothe buzzer-beater before halftime to win 89-72 in one of their best performances of the season. Just days after scoring 32 points in a losing effort at UCLA, Dwight Hardy once again lived up to his nickname ("Buckets") in scoring a new career-high 33 points and D.J.

Thursday's slate features a matchup in the Big Ten between two teams who have the ability to head in either direction: a win rights the ship while a loss could the latest event that potentially triggers a nosedive out of the field of 68. Illinois (15-8, 5-5) has lost five of their last seven while Minnesota's (16-7, 5-6) dropped three in a row, and with two games in the loss column separating 4th from 9th in the Big Ten standings their meeting at "The Barn" is critical to both.

The lesson learned this weekend: almost anyone can be had. And that should make for an exciting month of March if results like the ones we saw become the norm. Twelve ranked teams went down on Saturday, but it should be noted that four of the losses came to opponents who were also ranked and eight of the twelve lost on the road. How does one narrow these results down: ask the simple question of which losers may be in some trouble at this point in the season. One such victim has to be Syracuse, who has now dropped four straight and has to play at Connecticut on Wednesday night.

It's been quite some time since St. John's was able to enjoy a true home court advantage at Madison Square Garden, as more successful programs with hearty fan bases in the area (Connecticut and Syracuse come to mind) would take over the building when playing the Red Storm. But Monday night may have been as close to a beginning to the end of that as Steve Lavin's troops beat Georgetown 61-58 to move to 3-0 in Big East play. The win, their fifth straight, also ended a 14-game losing streak to ranked teams for the Red Storm who have to deal with ranked teams in their next seven games as well.

Given their soft non-conference schedule, Northwestern (9-2) entered Big Ten play on Friday with a decent amount of work to do resume-wise in order to have a chance at making their first NCAA Tournament appearance. And conference play didn't get off to the best of starts for Bill Carmody's team, who fell 82-69 at Purdue and have lost two of their last three. But the good thing about being in a conference like the Big Ten is that another opportunity for a quality win is usually right around the corner, and that's the case tonight as they host Michigan State (9-4).