NCAA Basketball

Yes, yes, in conference play anything can happen. No. There are some things that shouldn't occur. Colorado, which could only score 9 points in one half against Iowa State this week and has only one win in the Big 12, should not shoot better than 50% in regulation and put a tremendous scare into Texas. Even in Boulder. Texas has to feel lucky to come away with an overtime 85-76 overtime win.

Texas shot very well in the game. All season they have been an excellent defensive team, but struggled on offense. This time, though, they could not play patient defense. They took dumb gambles and they were late on rotations. Colorado patiently picked them apart, and drew the fouls. In the end, the superior talent prevailed.

One thing has always haunted the Wildcats -- their inability to finish games.

On Thursday night against Southern California and Saturday against UCLA, the Wildcats again let both teams back in the game before doing something that is very un-Tucson like ... they stepped on some throats.

The win over the Bruins was about streaks, and Arizona continued one while putting the other to rest. UCLA had taken down the Wildcats in eight straight games before Russ Pennell's crew kept it together, winning 84-72 to take their current winning streak to seven.

Penn State defeated Minnesota Saturday, 68-63, as Talor Battle returned to the "leading scorer" column with 21 points to lead the Nittany Lions. The bubble watch implications, however, were much more important than the actual game results.

It once looked like a foregone conclusion that Minnesota was on their way to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2005. Now, Tubby Smith's Golden Gophers have lost three of their last four games. In fact, they have gone 3-5 since running their record to 16-1 -- and two of those three wins were against conference doormat Indiana.

Up 16 with 8:12 remaining in the second half, it looked like Syracuse would coast to an easy victory in their Big East showdown with Georgetown. The Hoyas had other ideas though, as a flurry of points -- 15 in the last 2:12 of regulation -- sent it into overtime. But Johnny Flynn and Eric Devendorf combined for 14 of Syracuse's 15 points in the extra five minutes, and the Orange hung on for a 98-94 victory.

Flynn got off to a quiet start, and was actually held scoreless for the first 16:27 of the first half. But that was soon forgotten, as he started getting to the rim, and very frequently getting to the line; he made 15 of 16 free throws on the afternoon. Flynn scored six of his 25 points in OT, including two FTs that essentially sealed it for the Orange with four seconds left.

There was really little doubt that UConn would win this game. Even if Seton Hall was at home, and had been on a five-game winning streak. The wins had come entirely against the bottom five teams in the Big East -- St. John's, Rutgers (twice), DePaul and Georgetown.

The question about this game was: how would the Huskies look without the injured Jerome Dyson? The answer: decently, as UConn coasted to a 62-54 win.

West Virginia really needed a signature win. The Mountaineers had one quality win over Ohio State earlier in the year but, aside from that, the best they could claim was a win over Georgetown back when the Hoyas were still ranked. They finally got another marquee victory with a blowout of Villanova 93-72.

West Virginia had lost three of four, with all three losses coming on the road. It had been swept and embarrassed by Pitt earlier in the week. The Mountaineers were facing a team that had won six straight including wins over Pitt, Syracuse and Marquette -- they knew they really needed a win, and played like it.

The NCAA and Vitaminwater were not happy with the spate of news and blogs covering its corporate sponsorship agreement. Specifically, they were unhappy with reports on how the NCAA was restricting which flavors of Vitaminwater would be made available to the student-athletes at championship events because several contained impermissible or banned substances. In response, the NCAA issued a press release.

They claim the coverage was the problem with a press release titled, "FOR THE RECORD: NCAA Corrects Inaccurate Media Coverage of the NCAA/Vitaminwater Relationship."

Kansas State fans 1, Cole Aldrich 0.

A year after Wildcat fans obtained the number of Brandon Rush and flooded message boards with his digits, they've done it again. Aldrich had his number revealed as well, which didn't sit well with the sophomore.

State fans started ringing and texting Aldrich, who retaliated (if it is him) with the following very, VERY NSFW message.

Saturday is a busy day for college basketball. On any Saturday during the season, there can be well over 40 games on your TV. Unfortunately, many are completely unwatchable. Every Friday, FanHouse puts together a handy guide of the best choices on how to spend your Saturday on the couch watching college basketball.

This is when you find out how much your significant other cares about you. Just how much time will you get to watch college basketball when Valentine's Day falls on a Saturday?

Those without a partner or even a date, can take solace in the money not spent on gifts and dinner. In addition, you can to spend over 12 hours watching hoops.

Chavis Holmes and Travis Holmes are twins. They are awesomely named. They are also basketball players for the Virginia Military Institute's basketball teams. It's probably safe to say that, aside from the whole military aspect of the school, they have a lot of fun at college.

That's because twins get to pull all kinds of shenanigans and identity swaps. And the Holmes brothers even managed to pull one off on the court, according to a recent interview with the Quad.