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The Villanova Wildcats are looking to stay undefeated and grab another Philadelphia Big 5 Title on Wednesday. Villanova has not dropped a game to its inner-city rivals in the past five years and will look to keep that streak alive against the Temple Owls. Temple has already notched some nice wins this season and won the Puerto Rico Tip-Off last month. This will be Villanova’s toughest test yet, but Jay Wright’s boys are always up for the challenge.... 

The Cincinnati Bearcats are looking to snap a losing skid that will certainly take them outside of the Top 25 the next time the rankings are released. Cincinnati won seven straight to start the season and routed the competition in the Cayman Islands Classic. However, the Bearcats failed to get a win when they played back-to-back games against ranked opponents when they fell to Xavier and Florida. Now, Cincy will try to get back to its winning ways when it welcomes the undefeated Mississippi State Bulldogs to town.... 

The Texas Longhorns are off to a solid start in Shaka Smart’s third season in Austin. Texas might be 6-2, but the two losses were against two of the best teams in the country and it has some quality wins on its resume already this year. The Longhorns have scored wins over Butler and VCU and those will definitely help them out in March. Texas gets a chance to add another notch to its resume on Tuesday night when it hosts the Michigan Wolverines.... 

No team looks better than the Duke Blue Devils through the first month of the college basketball season. Duke is the clear No. 1 team in the country and has yet to lose. The Blue Devils are 11-0 on the season and have knocked off other contenders like Michigan State, Florida, and Texas. Now, Duke is set to start ACC play right before finals week. The Blue Devils will head on the road for their first conference game of the season when they take on the Boston College Eagles... 

It’s still another five years before the Backyard Brawl will return to the gridiron, but there is still a lot of animosity between the fanbases of the Pittsburgh Panthers and the West Virginia Mountaineers. Since college basketball has a lot more flexibility with its scheduling, these rival universities will get to square off on the hardwood in the meantime and will face each other for the first time since 2012 on Saturday.... 

Is this the year that the Alabama Crimson Tide finally establish themselves as a basketball power? The Crimson Tide haven’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2012, but there is a lot of buzz in Tuscaloosa about Avery Johnson’s third season on the job. Alabama is looking for its breakthrough win at this point. It will try to knock off a name-brand opponent when the Crimson Tide face the Arizona Wildcats, a team that was in the preseason top five, on Saturday night.... 

The Kansas Jayhawks can’t wait to get back onto the hardwood. Kansas was expected to paste Washington in its last game, but instead got dismantled despite being a 21.5-point favorite. It was one of the biggest upsets so far this season as this was the same Washington team that got throttled by 24 by Virginia Tech two weeks prior to that game. Kansas will get a shot to play spoiler to another team’s undefeated season when the Arizona State Sun Devils come to town.... 

The Cincinnati Bearcats may have lost the Battle of Cincinnati, but are off to a good start this season nonetheless. Cincinnati coasted to the Cayman Islands Classic title and now gets a chance to pick up some nice non-conference wins before starting play in the AAC. This Saturday they will play a Florida Gators team that has lost a lot of its luster from a week ago. Florida has now lost three straight games and might not be in the Top 25 the next time rankings are released.... 

The Archie Miller era has not gotten off to a good start. The Indiana Hoosiers dropped their season opener against Indiana State and are just a game above .500 at this point in the season. A learning curve was somewhat expected with a new coach and a new system, but not many people were expecting 5-4. Now the Hoosiers must travel south to take on a Louisville Cardinals team that is also breaking in a new coach.... 

Two of college basketball’s blue bloods will square off in one of the early games in a Saturday filled with action. The UCLA Bruins have had a lot of distractions to deal with over the last week and a road game may help them clear their heads and get their minds off of everything that has been going on with the school and the program. As for the Michigan Wolverines, this is a chance for the school to get another nice win to its credit in hopes of bolstering a potential NCAA Tournament resume.... 

The Wichita State Shockers have brought some respectability to the American Athletic Conference in just their first year of basketball as part of the AAC. Wichita State is the highest ranked team in the conference and has picked up some nice wins, knocking off Marquette and Baylor on its way to a 7-1 start. The Shockers will look to keep up their hot start when they travel to Stillwater to take on the Oklahoma State Cowboys on Saturday afternoon.... 

Although this is billed as a neutral-site game, there will certainly be a very partisan crowd when the USC Trojans take on the Oklahoma Sooners in the Basketball Hall of Fame Classic on Friday. The game is being played in the City of Angels and that means there will be a lot of fans in cardinal and gold cheering on the Trojans. That will likely lead to USC being the favorite, but there are plenty of reasons to think Oklahoma can win this game.... 

One of the most underrated rivalries in college sports is that of the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Iowa State Cyclones. These schools don’t share a conference, but share an intense rivalry as the two main programs in the state of Iowa. It’s no different on the basketball court and these two teams will play another game in the Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series this Thursday. It’s a chance for both Iowa and Iowa State to pick up a decent non-conference win and both schools need it.... 

All eyes will be on one man this Tuesday when the Texas Longhorns travel to Richmond to take on the VCU Rams. It will be the return of coach Shaka Smart, who put VCU on the map by leading the Rams all the way to the Final Four back in 2011. VCU has continued to have success without Smart, so it shouldn’t be a contentious homecoming and he is likely to be given multiple standing ovations based on what he did for the program. It’s not often that you see an Atlantic 10 game as one of the highlights... 

We will have our first Valley of the Sun Shootout this week when the Arizona Wildcats host the Texas A&M Aggies. While this is officially a neutral site game, you can be sure that almost all the fans in attendance will be rooting on the Wildcats. Arizona will be looking to turn around its season with a win over a ranked opponent, while Texas A&M will try to keep its undefeated season going.... 

The second part of a doubleheader in the Jimmy V Classic will pit two former Big East rivals against each other. The Connecticut Huskies have a quality win, but have struggled as of late and will be looking to right the ship. Meanwhile, the Syracuse Orange are off to a good start, but dropped a game to Kansas on Saturday and will try to avoid their second loss in non-conference play.... 

The Kansas Jayhawks have been awesome this year. Bill Self might have the best team he has had in quite some time and that’s saying something considering the Jayhawks always seem to be at least a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. They are undefeated through seven games and already have two nice wins over name brand opponents and have not been tested in their other games. On Wednesday, they will get another chance to add a nice win to their resume when they face the Washington Huskies.... 

The Jimmy V Classic will give us a great matchup this Tuesday night. The Gonzaga Bulldogs had their best season ever last year, making a run all the way to the championship game before losing to North Carolina in the final. The year before that, the Villanova Wildcats knocked off the Tar Heels in the championship game in a buzzer beater that will forever be replayed over and over in March. Gonzaga and Villanova have great teams once again and both may be poised for yet another run during March.... 

The Penn State Nittany Lions are looking to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time under Pat Chambers. Chambers has been in Happy Valley for seven seasons now, but has never got Penn State to finish higher than 10^th in the conference and has only taken the school to one postseason tournament, the CBI back in 2013-14. To make the tournament, and possibly save his job, he needs to start picking up wins and fast. Beating a vulnerable Wisconsin Badgers team at home on Monday night wo... 

We will see ‘The Game’ extend to the hardwood on Monday night when the Michigan Wolverines travel to take on the Ohio State Buckeyes. These are both once proud programs that have fallen on hard times in recent years, but both are looking to get to the NCAA Tournament once again. Ohio State has a new coach in Chris Holtmann, who has this team playing well after a terribly disappointing end to the Thad Matta. Meanwhile, John Beilein has his work cut out for him this season after losing most of his... 

The Florida Gators will certainly be well rested by the time they host the Florida State Seminoles on Monday night. Florida will have had a full week of rest since the last time we saw them at the Phil Knight Invitational. There, the Gators nearly knocked off the No. 1 team in the country, the Duke Blue Devils, before falling 87-84. Now, Florida will get the chance to pick up the win against its biggest traditional rival, the Florida State Seminoles.... 

The Kansas Jayhawks are the No. 2 team in the country and looking to keep up their winning ways. Kansas has dominated the Big 12 under Bill Self winning the conference’s regular season title for the last 13 seasons. They are certainly a large favorite to do so again this year and are considered one of a handful teams with a great chance at cutting down the nets in early April. This Saturday they will face an early season test when they take on the Syracuse Orange at the Hoophall Miami Invitation... 

It will be Bracket Busters come early this Friday when the Gonzaga Bulldogs host the Creighton Blue Jays. These are traditionally two of the top smaller schools in the nation and this year is no exception as they are both ranked after some impressive wins. The winner of this meeting will get a nice boost to its NCAA Tournament resume.... 

It’s been a rough go of things lately for Tommy Amaker and the Harvard Crimson. Harvard won the Ivy League and made the NCAA Tournament for four straight years from 2012 to 2015, but the last two seasons have not gone well. The Crimson not only failed to make the tournament last year, but posted a losing record as well. Harvard is under .500 at this point this season too and now has to travel to take on one of the best teams in college basketball, the Kentucky Wildcats.... 

The Davidson Wildcats were a perennial sight in the NCAA Tournament when they were a member of the Southern Conference. They finished atop the conference 11 times from 2000-2014 and made a run into the Elite Eight thanks to superstar Steph Curry back in 2008.During conference realignment, Davidson made the move to a tougher conference, the Atlantic 10. Although the Wildcats won the conference in 2015, they finished 20-12 last season and didn’t make the NCAA Tournament. They aren’t off to a good ...