Texas vs Oklahoma... Sound Familiar?

#5 Oklahoma 78, #11 Texas 63
Perhaps no college football rivalry got more attention this year than Texas/Oklahoma. I even dedicated a whole long post on this blog settling the issue of which team belonged in the Big 12 championship game. Their rivalry will be important this basketball season as well, as these two teams have really cleared the field in the Big 12. It is very likely that one, but only one, of these schools will earn a 1 seed in the Tournament. That said, I warn people against drawing too much from this big victory (Oklahoma never trailed, and had the lead up to 11 by halftime). For one thing, the crowd was great here, and Oklahoma came out really fired up. Also, Texas just played badly. Oklahoma's defense was good, but no defense is good enough to hold A.J. Abrams to 3-for-15 shooting from behind the arc regularly. Expect Texas to play much better when this rivalry travels back to Austin on February 21st. I don't expect the 1 seed to be settled until the Big 12 tournament.

#20 Louisville 87, #13 Notre Dame 73, OT
Don't judge this game as a 14 point victory for Louisville, as it did go to overtime. In fact, Notre Dame was able to hold for one shot at the end of regulation, and just couldn't get a good attempt out of it. I do think that Louisville is finally playing well, but if it wasn't for the home court advantage they probably would have lost this one. One thing I do have to bring up about Notre Dame is that I worry about the way that Mike Brey is killing his kids on the floor. I know that they are very thin on the bench, but you've got to get Luke Harangody and Kyle McAlarney some rest. McAlarney, for example, had played their previous three games in their entirety, and only sat one minute (out of 45) in this one because he twisted his ankle and was forced to the sideline. When you think about how much of a grind the Big East schedule is, not to mention the Big East tournament, it just seems way too likely that one Notre Dame's stars is going to go down to an injury. And there is probably no Top 25 teams in the nation that can afford an injury less than Notre Dame, because there is no team in the Top 25 that is so dependent on its starters and stars. The Irish now drop to 3-2 in the Big East with an insane schedule ahead (at Syracuse, UConn, Marquette, at Pitt, at Cincy, at UCLA, Louisville). They could play fairly well over this stretch and still drop to 5-6 in the Big East (and 14-8 overall). I'm not saying that Notre Dame is likely to slide all the way back to the bubble (I still think they're pretty safe for an at-large Tournament bid no matter what), but their chances of winning the Big East are nearly over already. Louisville, meanwhile, moves to 3-0, and their schedule is easier this season than Notre Dame's. I don't view them as a serious contender to the Big East title either, but they have a much better chance of a solid record like 12-6. I could much more easily see Notre Dame slip to 10-8 or 9-9. And again, that has much more to do with differentials in schedule difficulty (which are as big in the Big East as any conference in the nation, due to the absurd number of teams) than differentials in team ability.

Florida State 78, North Carolina State 65
A very impressive defensive performance by Florida State earned them an important road victory here. Their perimeter defense has been excellent every time I've seen them play. The only question with them is concentration, and whether they can stay focused when they fall behind in a game. They collected 12 steals here, and the layups and dunks off of those more than made up the margin of victory. The Seminoles move to 1-1 in the conference now, as their RPI inches up towards the Top 25. A 9-7 ACC record would almost certainly put them in the Tournament, but I'd like to see them collect a big scalp. I can see the potential for this team to do big things if they can play with maturity and poise. For North Carolina State, they slip further and further away from the bubble. They have zero bad losses, but they have zero good wins either. The Wolfpack are 0-5 against the RPI Top 100, and 9-0 against those teams with an RPI worse than 100. Their RPI is 132nd in the nation, although that's deceptively bad because of the weak strength of schedule, and I expect that to pick up as they play more ACC games. Sagarin puts them 86th and Pomeroy puts them 89th, and that seems closer to reality to me. Still, with the weak out-of-conference play, even a 9-7 ACC record wouldn't be enough for an at-large bid without a solid performance in the ACC tournament. So at 0-2 to start the ACC regular season, they're really in a bind. They're going to have to pull some upsets to get back into this thing.