Harvard Clinging to Ivy Lead

College Hoops Player of the Day for Friday, February 25, 2011

Oliver McNally led the Crimson to their sixth straight victory, a come-from-behind, 74-68, win at Brown to remain 1/2 game ahead of Princeton in the Ivy League race. The winner of the conference gets an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament and with the regular season closing fast, chances for the title have been whittled down to just the two top teams.

McNally hit 7 of 13 shots from the field with three 3-pointers. He also had five steals, helping trim an 11-point half time lead by Brown. His 20 point effort matched his season high.

Harvard is 10-1 with three games remaining, while the 9-1 Tigers have four contests still to go, the final three all on the road, though the most important of them is surely next Saturday's (March 5) tilt at Harvard. The winner of that game will most likely be the Ivy League champion, though, with the field opening up to 68 teams this season, there's a chance both could punch a ticket to the Big Dance.

Harvard is 21-4 overall, while Princeton sports a 21-5 record and both teams have a number of quality wins on their respective resumes.

NOTABLE: 17 of the top 25 teams in the nation will see action on Saturday, including a number of match-ups featuring ranked rivals. The action gets underway at noon ET when #17 Syracuse invades #11 Georgetown. At 2:00 pm, the Mountain West regular season title is on the line when Jimmer Fredette brings #7 BYU to #6 San Diego State. Both squads are 12-1 in conference play.

Also at 2:00, there's more Big East action, with #23 St. John's at #17 Villanova. At 4:00, #13 Florida can wrap up the SEC East with a win at #22 Kentucky. At 9:00 pm, #1 Duke plays at unranked, but dangerous, Virginia Tech. The Hokies find themselves in their usual spot within the ACC bubble, so a home win over the top team in the conference would go a long way toward securing an NCAA bid.

Trojans Stop Wildcat Win Streak at 8 Behind Vucevic's 25

College Hoops Player of the Day for Thursday, February 24, 2011

Perhaps it's a bit late in the season, but the PAC-10 is beginning to evolve. What looked like a three-horse race became a quartet on Thursday as USC upset #10 Arizona, 65-57, snapping the Wildcats' 8-game win streak, in a must-win situation for the Trojans.

USC was in danger of falling below .500 in the conference, a move that might have put a permanent mark on their resume for inclusion in the post-season proceedings, but junior forward Nikola Vucevic made certain the Trojans would live to fight another day with his fifth straight double-double, pouring in 25 points and ripping down 12 rebounds. It was his 16th double-double of the season and above his average of 17.4 points and 10.3 rebounds.

The win brought USC to 8-7 in the conference, and, combined with earlier out-of-conference wins over Texas and Tennessee, the Trojans - winners of three straight - now appear poised to receive an NCAA invitation, despite their perplexing 16-12 record.

With Arizona falling to 12-3 in the conference, their path to the regular season title becomes a bit more complex, especially with UCLA - 71-53 winners over Arizona State - now just one game back at 11-4. Arizona plays at UCLA on Saturday.

NOTABLE: Another team needing a signature win on Thursday night was Marquette, and the Golden Eagles made their most of their trip to Connecticut, dropping the Huskies, 74-67, in overtime. The result put both teams at 8-7 in the crowded Big East, where the top 11 teams are 8-7 or better and all have a chance of making the NCAA tournament.

Atop the Big East standings, Pitt retained their two-game lead over Notre Dame, with a 71-58 win over West Virginia, another 8-7 team.

The #13 Florida Gators virtually ensured that they would win the SEC East with a 71-62 home win over Georgia. The Gators are 11-2 in the conference, three games ahead of Vanderbilt (8-5), though the Gators still have to play three of the best teams in the SEC - Kentucky, Alabama and Vandy - to close out the regular season.

Marshon Brooks Scores 52, But Providence Falls to Notre Dame, 94-93

College Hoops Player of the Day for Wednesday, February 23, 2011

When the NCAA tournament begins in about three weeks, the Providence Friars won't be there, nor will their superstar forward, Marshon Brooks, but Brooks will have left an indelible mark on this season already, as the most talented player in the country, but without much of the accolade.

In their 94=93 home loss to Notre Dame, Brooks set a season-high NCAA scoring mark that isn't likely to be broken, scoring 52 points on 20-for-28 shooting, including 6 of 10 from beyond the arc and 6 of 10 from the foul line.

Not only did Brooks single-handedly keep the Friars in the game, but he shattered the Big East single game all time record of 48, set by another Friar from 1991, Eric Murdock and tied the school record with the most points ever scored against the Fighting Irish.

For Brooks and the Friars, however, the game will go into the books as another narrow defeat, their sixth loss by four points or fewer. Notre Dame's Ben Hansbrough scored a season=high 32 points and Tim Abromaitis pumped in 28, but neither of them were sure they'd be leaving Providence's Dunkin' Donuts Center with a win until the final second of the game. Brooks had kept the Friars close with a dazzling array of shots - scoring 15 points in the final 2:39 - and Abromaitis, after missing the first of two free throws, intentionally missed the second with one second left, leaving Brooks with nothing but a desperation heave from three-quarter court that sailed over the far-off backboard.

When the awards come out for college player of the year, Brooks won't be mentioned, because his team has a poor record (14-14, 3-12 Big East), but his numbers speak for themselves: 25.4 points per game (49.6%), good for second in the nation behind BYU's Jimmer Fredette. Maybe, on a better team, with more scoring options, he'd score less. But then again, he might score even more.

Notre Dame's win made them 22-5 on the season and 11-4 in the Big East, a game and a half behind front-running Pitt, over whom the Irish already have a win. This team is ready for tourney time.

NOTABLE: #1 Duke didn't falter in their first game as the new top dog, dropping #23 Temple, 78-61, at Cameron Indoor. There were, however, two Tp 25 upsets. #11 Georgetown lost at home to Cincinnati, 58-46, and #22 Kentucky lost in overtime at Arkansas, 77-76. Both Georgetown and Kentucky look like shoo-ins for the tournament, but the win by Cincinnati (22-6, 9-6) probably punched their ticket to March Madness.