Missouri St

Creighton could have a lot to say about that

Alabama

Colorado

Missouri St

Saint Mary's

Virginia Tech

With three NCAA Tournament tickets assured of being punched (that number becomes four if Princeton wins at Harvard in a crucial Ivy League tilt), it makes sense to touch on each of those games as opposed to the usual daily preview. The title game in the Atlantic Sun provides a matchup of the prohibitive favorite taking on the underdog, a storyline that usually doesn't come into play for another two weeks.

You know it's March where there's midday college basketball to be discussed. Friday afternoon delivered just six games (one in progress) but there hasn't been a lack of drama. The Colonial, Missouri Valley and Southern conferences all had afternoon doubleheaders in their tournaments, with the MVC in the quarterfinals while the other two leagues are playing first round games today. 

Colonial

(8) Georgia State 58, (9) UNC Wilmington 52

 

Saturday brings about the biggest game in the history of the San Diego State (27-1, 12-1) program, which before the recent run of Steve Fisher has been an afterthought in southern California. BYU (26-2, 12-1) visits Viejas Arena with the winner taking a significant step towards not only the Mountain West's regular season crown but possible a one seed in the NCAA Tournament. Both have resumes that could merit such mention should the winner go on to win out, including the conference tournament (BYU is 8-1 vs. RPI Top 50, SDSU 4-1), but that's of little concern.

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.

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!

Notre Dame knew that they had to make Kemba Walker work for his points if they were going to beat Connecticut on Tuesday. And thanks in large part to Ben Hansbrough, who also scored 21 points they were able to do just that in beating the Huskies 73-70 to move to 2-1 in Big East play. Walker scored 19 points but had to attempt 23 field goals to do that, making just eight while outside of Shabazz Napier (4-6 FG, 18 points) and Roscoe Smith (11 points) his teammates struggled offensively.

Notre Dame (12-2) arrives at the final game of a three-game stretch of Top 10 (in last week's rankings) teams to open Big East play, and the fact that Mike Brey's team has the opportunity to win two say a little about the quality of his club. Tuesday night brings Connecticut (11-1) to Purcell Pavilion, and the Huskies are looking to put forth a better performance than they did in a loss at Pittsburgh as well as an overtime home win over USF.