Basketball Cliff Notes

1. New Rankings: In weekend that saw 11 ranked teams lose, surprisingly only one new team has entered the rankings (Arizona jumped in at #22 after wins against UCLA and USC). But on the flip side only one team retained their ranking from last week, unanimous #1 Ohio State…other than them everyone flip flopped with Notre Dame making the biggest jump from 14 to 8 and Syracuse dropping the lowest from 10 to 17. Complete ranking here.

2. Big East: The Big East is not only the best conference, it’s the craziest. The conference is in total chaos after this past week: bottom half teams like Marquette, Seton Hall, and Providence all beat top 10 teams, Syracuse lost its fourth straight…and all the craziness was capped off by St. John’s thrashing of Duke on Sunday. The Big East is so good that if a team finishes over .500 in conference play I fully expect them to get an at large bid.

3. Pac 10: Things just got interesting in the Pac 10. Washington who looked like they were running away with the Pac 10 title is now 7-2 after a 80-87 loss to Washington State last night, opening up the door for (7-2) Arizona and (6-3) UCLA to once again contend for title.

4. Coach of the Year: With just about half of the college basketball season over Steve Lavin of St John’s is our COY. With 12 wins already, Lavin is on pace to take the Red Storm to their first winning Big East conference record and tournament appearance since 2002…it’s hard to believe this is the same team that went 6-12 last year in conference play.

5. Game of the Day: I know the Lorghorn Nation is feeling a tad bit disrespected by this weeks rankings seeing that they are the only team in the nation to beat Kansas, yet are ranked 3rd while KU is ranked #2. It’s okay though because tonight UT has a chance to prove they deserve that 2 spot in a matchup with #16 Texas A&M in our game of the day. Catch it at 9:00 pm ET on ESPN.