College Basketball Update

Now that basketball owns the sports world's center stage, it's time to talk a little college basketball.

First of all, check out this week's edition of Sports Illustrated, where you'll find several excellent articles. After you get through the outstanding Super Bowl coverage, check out this story on Kansas' Darnell Jackson and try to do so without a Kleenex handy. I read it on the train back from New Jersey Saturday morning, and had a lump in my throat the whole time.

Speaking of Kansas, I just watched the No. 4 Jayhawks lose a tough one at Big 12 rival and No. 11 Texas. That was a pretty good game. A.J. Abrams and D.J. Augustin get all the hype for the Longhorns, but look out for Damion James. He could turn things on late in the season the way Jeff Green did for Georgetown in helping the Hoyas to the Final Four last year.

ON TV: Rutgers' highly ranked women's team sported pink uniforms in honor of February being Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Very cool. Not cool was the way the Scarlet Knights lost. They held a one-point lead at No. 2 Tennessee when a Lady Vol grabbed an offensive rebound with .2 seconds left. The gal was fouled going up for the shot, but the clock had stopped and showed that .2 still remaining. Had the home team's clock operator not effed up, the clock would have run out before the foul and Rutgers, which defeated No. 1 UConn last week, would have picked up another huge win.

Shortly before that, Georgetown benefited from some of its own home-cooking in a men's basketball game. Visiting Villanova had an upset on its mind, and after star Scottie Reynolds missed a go-ahead layup in the final seconds, the scramble for the loose ball ended when Georgetown's Jonathan Wallace picked it up and hustled to the outside to try to run the other way with it. Keep in mind that Reynolds got banged a little bit on the way to the hoop, but a bump far less criminal by Villanova's Corey Stokes with .1 seconds left led to a whistle 70 feet away from Wallace's basket, giving him two tries to break a 53-53 tie. He made them both and the Hoyas escaped with the win.

WEEKEND RECAP: Georgetown got exposed a little bit on Saturday night, when Louisville handed them a pretty solid defeat. The Hoyas played an impressive first half, but Louisville had an even better second half and appears to now be playing the way many thought it would all season. If the now-healthy Cardinals can stay away from further injuries, they could make a nice run much like they did in the second half of the 2005 season, when they advanced all the way to the Final Four.

And North Carolina barely recovered from its loss to archrival Duke last week to beat Clemson in two overtimes Sunday night. Clemson seems to play basketball like it does football -- often close to being in the mix, but the Tigers never really have that dominant, breakout season. Sunday's game, in which they led by double figures with less than 10 minutes left, would have been Clemson's first win in Chapel Hill in nearly 80 years. EIGHTY YEARS, MAN!

Fox Sports Net had a great doubleheader Sunday evening. Before that Clemson-UNC thriller, Washington knocked off Pac-10 heavyweight and national title contender UCLA. The Huskies had the Bruins on the ropes in Seattle last year before UCLA won, and on Sunday, it looked like Washington might repeat the feat. But Justin Dentmon, Quincy Pondexter and Jon Brockman kept it together and led the Huskies to the upset for one of my favorite college coaches, Lorenzo Romar.

Jimmy V Classic

New friend Hale had an extra ticket to the Jimmy V Classic last night, and despite how much I complain about my early in time at work, it's hard for a hoops junkie to turn down a free ticket to any kind of basketball at Madison Square Garden, perhaps the sport's most historic venue.

(I took a few short video clips with my compact still camera, but am having trouble uploading them this morning, so I grabbed two still shots of slam dunks from last night's USC-Memphis game.)

And even though I've not fully gotten over this annoying cold, the chance to see three of the nation's top freshmen -- all projected first-round picks next June -- was something I could not pass up. My boy Jeff Gluck would have been proud.

Kansas State stud Michael Beasley -- I'll call him Michael Beastley -- is going to be a nice player. Great poise for a young player, but also very strong inside. Might not have great NBA size, but is one of those players who still finds a way to get to the ball. He was impressive in a televised overtime loss to Oregon last week, and was solid in a loss to Notre Dame last night.

But the game we really came to see was the second one, Memphis vs. Southern California. Hale is a Memphis grad and warned me that he could get irrational, but he was well behaved, which was a surprise taking into account his pregame disclaimer, as well as the Memphis fans I've heard over the years in covering/watching that nice rivalry with Cincinnati back in the day. Hale acknowledged as much when I told him I thought Memphis fans were among the most obnoxious I'd ever seen. "That's funny, a lot of Memphis people say the same thing about Cincinnati fans. But I'll admit, there are some from Memphis who would pee on you if you were wearing the wrong colors."

Anyway, I think we both expected a more up-and-down game than it turned out to be. Memphis' prized freshman, Derrick Rose, was a little out of control at times but still seemed like more of a complete player than I'd imagined. He had 10 points, but also led the team in rebounds, assists and steals.

And the other freshman, OJ Mayo, like Beastley, played with impressive ease for such a young kid. Like Greg Oden and LeBron James, he just looks five years older. He seems pretty strong, and brings a well-rounded game to the PAC-10. I already have the two USC-UCLA games marked on my calendar. Those will be exciting to watch in January and February.