Watching Marquette defend Notre Dame was a thing of beauty. You'll have a hard time finding a team that helps and recovers as quickly as UM. McAlarney and Jackson were virtual nonfactors this game. On offense, the Golden Eagle backcourt when Dominic James doesn't channel AJ Abrams is severely underrated. Jerel McNeal is the real deal and one of the best scorers in the country and Wesley Matthews is a third guard who can handle, shoot, and board. If they get any kind of play from Burke and Hayward they will be a really tough out in the tourney. Buzz Williams' guys are tailor made for a deep tournament run which mitigates depth problems with multiple TV timeouts. Again, guard play is off the charts when James can play within himself.

It's halftime of the Bedlam game and it's been a real physical contest so far. You can tell OSU is trying to force pace in order to try to exploit ou's lack of depth, but the unintended consequence is some really poor shot selection. Someone should tell Obi won Muenello he can get a fadeaway 3 at any point in the shot clock. Austin Johnson's faux hawk is undoubtedly drawing Scipio's ire. I'm rooting for Blake Griffin to succumb to his deca-durabol inside voice and try to chew on Byron Eaton's larynx.

Watched Clemson again last night. They run a variety of full court pressures, some quick 1-2-2 trap, some slow trapping 1-3-1, and even a little UNC run and jump that tries to take advantage of guards taking their eyes off the trap when they reverse pivot. There's no reason Texas with its athletes can't implement a similar style for stretches in a given ballgame. It was aptly pointed out the other night that Texas had some success extending its defense against the aggies.