The Halfcourt Trap: The Trap 10, Cold As Ice Edition.

Winter has finally arrived in East Tennessee. Seasonal temperatures have people heading to their closets for their cold weather gear. In stark contrast, conference races are just starting to heat up across the country. Several leagues, most notably the Big East, are seeing puzzling results on almost a nightly basis. That's what makes the game great. Let's get down to business.

1. Tennessee heads into tomorrow's noon tipoff against John Calipari's uber talented Kentucky squad off two of their best performances of the season. In beating Florida at home and playing Mississippi State to the final possession on the road, Cuonzo Martin's club has shown it can hold its own against top tier SEC talent. Now, they get the very top of the conference food chain. The Wildcats are deeper than at any point in Calipari's tenure in Lexington. If the Vols are competitive against UK, there will be reason to believe this team can actually find enough wins in league play to find a way into the postseason.
2. The biggest game of the SEC weekend takes place in Starkville. Despite the league nominally doing away with division distinctions, the members of the former West have a scheduling advantage. Those schools only face Kentucky, Florida, and Vanderbilt once. It provides those teams with an opportunity to possibly steal at least a share of a regular season title. That's why the Alabama-Mississippi State tilt tomorrow is so important. The winner gets a jump on the other team from that half of the league that is expected to contend. The matchup between the two frontcourts is worth the price of admission.
3. It will be interesting to see how Indiana reacts to their first real adversity of the 2011-12 season. The home loss to Minnesota was a shock to the system for Tom Crean's charges. Now, they face an Ohio State team certain to be focused on both bouncing back from a loss to Illinois and gaining revenge for an earlier loss to the Hoosiers. IU is still a work in progress. The wins over Kentucky and the Buckeyes created a perception that Crean had the program back into a contending posture. We'll find out this weekend how accurate that was.
4. Wisconsin showed this week why they are one of the model programs in college basketball. The Badgers shook off a three game losing streak and held off Purdue late to win in Mackey Arena. That's the mark of a program with the kind of competitive confidence needed to maintain a spot in the upper echelon of a power conference. The job Bo Ryan has done in Madison is remarkable. He has taken what Dick Bennett began and built a consistent top 20 caliber team at a school formerly relegated to Big Ten irrelevance. That's no small feat.
5. The Trap has been highly critical of Scott Drew. While there's no change in this writer's opinion that Drew is a pious, smarmy phony of a guy, his team is showing a level of toughness previously unseen from his Baylor teams. The Bears slugged it out with Kansas State and survived a serious road test earlier this week. That's a far cry from the usual collapse the Green and Gold has been known for away from Waco in recent seasons. There's still a lot of season left, but Drew does appear to have the best overall team of his tenure.
6. One of the dangers for quality mid to low major programs is that a loss or two in conference play can make winning the conference tournament their only route to the NCAA Tournament. Belmont and Iona are in exactly that position now. The Bruins' loss to Lipscomb and the Gaels' stumble against Manhattan greatly narrows each club's margin for error. Each team would be well served to run the table from here on out. That's the only way either can be confident of having a solid position in the at large pool.
7. Virginia had a 12 game winning streak snapped at Cameron Indoor Stadium last night. That's the bad news. The good news is that Tony Bennett's squad showed that the early season success isn't a fluke and that they are built for the long haul. The Cavaliers are clearly the third best team in the ACC right now. Mike Scott is playing as well as any player in the conference. Bennett has patiently gone about building toward this season in Charlottesville. His efforts are about to pay off in a big way.
8. UCONN appears to be in the middle of their almost annual midseason malaise. The Huskies played listlessly in recent losses to Rutgers and Seton Hall. It's not the first time this has happened to Jim Calhoun's club. Even last year's national title team had a nondescript January and February. It remains to be seen how long this downturn lasts. With trips to Notre Dame and Tennessee the next two Saturdays, they would be wise to get back on track or suffer the possibility of more losses to plucky home underdogs.
9. Another Big East team struggling mightily right now is Lousiville. Rock bottom for the Cardinals came earlier this week in a blowout loss to shorthanded Providence. Rick Pitino's team had survived a season long struggle offensively with stifling defense. In the last three weeks, that defensive acumen has begun to wane. Giving up 90 to the Friars was the culmination of these struggles. Given the multitude of injuries Pitino has had to deal with, he has his hands full trying to get U of L back to their early season level of play.
10. The Trap readily admits a lack of objectivity regarding Kevin O'Neill. He's afforded most favored nation status here and there will be no apologies for that. Now, with that disclosure, we turn to the mini controversy O'Neill finds himself dealing with heading into Sunday's game with UCLA. KO essentially said Josh Smith needs to get in better shape if he wants to have an NBA career. Some in the media have spun that to be a shot at Ben Howland and the Bruin staff. That's an incorrect and disingenuous interpretation. O'Neill was simply giving useful public advice to a young man who could use it. There was no claim, direct or implicit, that the final responsibility for Smith's conditioning resides with anyone but the player himself. Yet another media created tempest in a teapot.

The Trap will be back in this space soon. Stay classy, 8th.