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The Kansas Jayhawks seem to have righted the ship after a disastrous run of play a couple weeks ago. Kansas lost virtual home games as a double-digit favorite to both Washington and Arizona State and nearly lost to Nebraska two weeks ago. However, they recovered with nice wins over Omaha and Stanford to close out their non-conference schedule. Kansas will start Big 12 play when it travels to take on the Texas Longhorns.... 

One of the best rivalries in college basketball will see its 51^st meeting when the Kentucky Wildcats take on the Louisville Cardinals this Friday. This rivalry has been historically dominated by Kentucky, but Louisville’s resurgence over the last decade has made this competitive again. A little something might be missing without Rick Pitino on the sidelines coaching Louisville, but this is sure to be an excellent game.... 

The Gonzaga Bulldogs are looking forward to the start of West Coast Conference play. Gonzaga has dominated this conference since Mark Few became the head coach, winning the regular season title 16 times and the conference tournament 14 times in the past two decades. The Bulldogs are the overwhelming favorites to win the title yet again this season. Their first test will come in the form of the Pacific Tigers.... 

The Auburn Tigers have not let an internal investigation slow them down this season. Following the Department of Justice’s arrest of assistant coach Chuck Person, there were a lot of people believing that Bruce Pearl should be fired or step down. Pearl further fanned the flames by refusing to cooperate with the school’s internal investigation, but a lot of those bad feeling seemed to have past after a 10-1 start. Auburn is looking to chalk up another win here when it welcomes the Connecticut Huskies to town.... 

The Wake Forest Demon Deacons have rebounded nicely after a very poor start. Wake Forest lost its first three games, and four of its first five, but has now won six straight. Now, the Demon Deacons will try to pick up a nice non-conference win when the Tennessee Volunteers come into town. Tennessee is getting a lot of love from the national media after its performance against North Carolina last weekend, with some even calling them a dark horse to win the SEC.... 

This week, the North Carolina Tar Heels will play their last non-conference game before the rigors of ACC play start. North Carolina has faired pretty well despite playing some decent opponents in its non-conference slate and will play Wofford on Wednesday night before this one tips off. The Tar Heels will be facing the Ohio State Buckeyes in the first game of the CBS Sports Classic in the Big Easy. Ohio State hired Chris Holtmann away from Butler in the offseason and is looking to return to the Big Dance after a two-year absence.... 

To bring publicity to the city of Birmingham, the Steel City of the South will host a bowl game and a basketball game this weekend. The Vulcan Classic will pit the Texas Longhorns against the Alabama Crimson Tide on Friday night. Alabama is the nominal home team and will have a lot of the support since Tuscaloosa is just 45 minutes away. Texas has not fared well in neutral court games this season, with a record of 1-2.... 

The Northwestern Wildcats made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history last season and entered this season ranked. Big things were expected after it nearly knocked off Gonzaga in the second round last year, but this year has not gone as planned. Northwestern is off to an 8-4 start and has lost to every decent team it has played. The Wildcats will get one more chance to make some noise before conference play starts when they take on the Oklahoma Sooners on Friday night.... 

Two of the most storied programs in college basketball will square off when the Kentucky Wildcats play the UCLA Bruins this Saturday. UCLA has not looked good in recent weeks, struggling to have the same success it did with Lonzo Ball last season. Meanwhile, the Wildcats picked up a nice win against Virginia Tech this Saturday and would like to pick up one more non-conference win before the holidays.... 

The Stanford Cardinal have only made the NCAA Tournament once in the last decade. Based on their performance thus far this season, it seems more likely that this team will finish below .500 than make it back to the Big Dance. Stanford is sitting at 6-6 and has some awful losses on its resume. The Cardinal have already lost to Eastern Washington, Portland State, and Long Beach State, and they have yet to beat anyone of note. They will try to score a big win over the Kansas Jayhawks on Thursday night, but that will be a very tough task.... 

Both of Carolina’s blue bloods will be in action on Tuesday night and in the second part of a doubleheader we will see the North Carolina Tar Heels host the Wofford Terriers. North Carolina is looking to defend its national title and has looked solid to this point in the season. The Tar Heels got crushed by Michigan State, but have looked good against every other team on their schedule. Wofford is usually one of the better mid-majors in the country, but the Terriers have struggled this year. They are sitting at 7-4 yet did get a big win over Georgia Tech recently.... 

The Kansas State Wildcats are looking to get a nice non-conference win before they start Big 12 play. Kansas State did knock off Vanderbilt earlier in the year, but fell by two to Arizona State and lost to Tulsa as well. It’s been four years since the Wildcats had a winning record in conference so they know that every win outside of the Big 12 is important. In the last part of a tripleheader on Wednesday night, they will be taking on the Washington State Cougars and trying to get that 10^th win.... 

The Duke Blue Devils have been anxious to get back on the hardwood. We have not seen Duke play in a week and a half as the players have been dealing with finals. That has given this team plenty of time to stew and wonder what went wrong in its loss to Boston College. The Blue Devils are well-rested and looking to show that a letdown like that will not happen again. This puts the Evansville Aces right in the crosshairs on Tuesday night.... 

The Connecticut Huskies have just not been that competitive this season under Kevin Ollie. UConn is 7-3 and its only quality win this season came against Oregon. The Huskies got pummeled by Michigan State and Arkansas when they traveled to Portland on Thanksgiving, and they barely squeaked by Columbia and Monmouth before losing to Syracuse two weeks ago. UConn is desperate for a signature win. The Huskies will try to get one against the Arizona Wildcats.... 

The Utah Utes and the BYU Cougars will meet in another Holy War on Saturday night. Utah is looking to go back to the NCAA Tournament after missing out last season, while BYU is looking to return after a two-year hiatus.... 

For the first time ever, the Tennessee State Tigers and the Texas Longhorns will square off this Monday. Tennessee State has a decent chance to win the Ohio Valley this season and has done well in non-conference play. The Tigers are sitting at 5-3 and have been competitive in two of their three losses, a blowout by Kansas being the lone exception.Texas heads into this one looking to pick up another win before traveling to Tuscaloosa at the end of the week to take on Alabama. The Longhorns dropped a tough one to Michigan earlier this week and need to start racking up wins if they want to get to the NCAA Tournament.... 

The Omaha Mavericks are still looking to find their footing during their transition to Division I. Omaha only gained full admittance to Division I three years ago and Darrin Hansen is slowly starting to make something out of this team. Hansen led the Mavericks to their second straight winning season and second straight winning record in Summit League play. This team is slowly getting better, but is still probably going to be no match for the Kansas Jayhawks.... 

Rick Barnes needs to start winning big games with the Tennessee Volunteers and fast. Tennessee has failed to have a winning record in each of the two seasons he has spent in Knoxville and there’s a chance he could be let go of at the end of this year if the team doesn’t show some significant improvement. Last year, they were almost able to knock off the North Carolina Tar Heels, and that would have given Barnes just the win he needed. This year, he will try to pick up that win against the defending national champions.... 

Although the Kansas Jayhawks and the Nebraska Cornhuskers are no longer conference rivals, the rivalry between these two schools can still get plenty fierce. Unfortunately for Nebraska, this has always been a rather one-sided rivalry. Kansas has won the vast majority of contests between the two schools, especially in the last two decades. The Jayhawks have lost two in a row heading into this one though and that has to give the Cornhuskers some hope heading into this contest.... 

The Wichita State Shockers have been knocking on the door for a while now and might finally break it down and become one of the elite teams in the country. Expectations were sky high for the Shockers coming into this season. No longer were they simply expected to make the NCAA Tournament, they were expected to make a deep run in it with a loaded team. Moving from the Missouri Valley to the American was supposed to make this team more prepared for March Madness as well as a tough non-conference slate.... 

The UCLA Bruins must be breathing a sigh of relief right now. The Ball family circus has finally left and now the team can get back to winning games. While there’s no doubt that the three Ball siblings are talented, the family’s antics has taken the focus off of an exciting young team. UCLA is hungry to get back on the floor again after blowing a 15-point lead to Michigan last week and will be more than happy to welcome the Cincinnati Bearcats to Los Angeles.... 

It’s rinse and repeat for the Kentucky Wildcats. John Calipari has a brand new group of talented freshmen to coach and he has shown that he can get the best out of them. Although the Wildcats stumbled against Kansas early on in non-conference play, now that the team has had more time to come together they are about to play three quality opponents before starting SEC play. The first of those will be the Virginia Tech Hokies, who have taken their program to the next level under Buzz Williams.... 

Maybe The Hoya Destroya was the right person to turn around the program. After consecutive losing seasons, the Georgetown Hoyas needed to make a change and parted ways with long-time head coach John Thompson III. In his place, the team hired Patrick Ewing, a former player and long-time assistant who had been biding his time and waiting for a chance to get a head coaching job. It was considered a roll of the dice, but so far that gamble has paid off and Georgetown is one of a handful of remaining undefeated teams left in the country. Now, they will try to move to 9-0 when they take on the Syracuse Orange in a clash of former Big East rivals.... 

Things have not gone well for Tubby Smith in his second season as the head coach of the Memphis Tigers. Six of Memphis’ top eight scorers from 2016-17 transferred out of the program after just one season under Smith and the program has had to rebuild everything from the ground up as a result. To the team’s credit, they have beaten everyone they were favored to beat so far this season and are sitting at 7-2. However now they face perhaps their toughest test yet in the Louisville Cardinals.... 

The Crossroads Classic has been one of the hottest tickets in the Hoosier State since its inception and this year is no different. The Butler Bulldogs and the Purdue Boilermakers are two of the top teams in the country and their meeting on the basketball court has been highly anticipated for over a month. With both teams entering conference play in just a couple weeks, this is one final chance to pick up a nice non-conference victory....