It’s not exactly a night that will keep you glued to the couch, which might seem obvious when Ohio State and Illinois play in the headliner…

Top 25 Action

Ohio State (13-3 overall, 3-2 Big 10) at #25 Illinois (15-3, 3-2) | 7 PM ET, ESPN
Bruce Weber and the Illini have bounced back from an awful 2007-08 season much faster than anyone might have expected, but a tough stretch to open conference play has left them in the middle of the standings. Ohio State finds itself in the middle of that same pack, but enters tonight’s game in Champaign as winners of five straight against Illinois. The Buckeyes will have their work cut out for them, however, as they are ranked 250th in the country in offensive rebounding and are facing the nation’s 10th-ranked defense.

North Carolina State (10-5 overall, 1-2 ACC) at #2 Duke (16-1, 3-0) | 8 ET, ESPN Full Court
Duke has been playing absolutely lights out as of late, most recently shutting down Georgetown on Saturday afternoon at Cameron Indoor. They are sporting an NCAA-best +0.345 efficiency differential, just ahead of their Tobacco Road rival, North Carolina. In simpler terms, the Blue Devils outscore their opponents by 0.345 points per possession, which means that even if the Wolfpack can slow things down to their tempo, they will only lose by……approximately 22 points. Uh oh.

Big 12 Games

Colorado (8-8 overall, 0-2 Big 12) at Texas Tech (10-7, 0-2) | 8 PM ET, ESPN Full Court
It’s a game matching two teams that have the potential to be the absolute worst squads in the Big 12! If that doesn’t scream “must watch,” I’m not sure what else does. Perhaps a marathon of the Ryan Seacrest-produced reality show, Momma’s Boys?

Around the country

Tennessee (11-5 overall, 2-1 SEC) at Vanderbilt (12-5, 1-2) | 9 PM ET, ESPN
Last year, these two teams put on one of the most exciting games of the season, as the Commodores eked out a three-point win over their cross-state rivals, who had just reached No. 1 for the first time in school history. This year, there’s not nearly as much on the line, but excitement is still on tap. Just ask stat guru Ken Pomeroy, who hopes his new FanMatch feature can pinpoint the most intriguing match-ups of the night. And according to Mr. Pomeroy’s brand-spanking-new ranking system, this particular Battle of Tennessee has a 71.7% chance of kicking major ass. Guaranteed.

The Big 12 Conference revealed the 2008-09 men’s basketball schedule yesterday, a slate which includes three Big Monday appearances for the Longhorns. The weekly spotlight on ESPN opens with this year’s contest between Texas and Oklahoma, with Rick Barnes’ crew also playing on Monday nights against Texas A&M (February 16th) and in a home game against Baylor (March 2nd).

The full conference schedule is available on the league website, while the Texas schedule is compiled here for your convenience.

Texas’ 2008-09 Big 12 Schedule
Saturday, January 10th – vs. Iowa State
Monday, January 12th – at Oklahoma (ESPN)
Saturday, January 17th – at Texas Tech
Saturday, January 24th – vs. Texas A&M (ESPNU)
Tuesday, January 27th – at Baylor
Saturday, January 31st – vs. Kansas State
Wednesday, February 4th – vs. Missouri (ESPN2)
Saturday, February 7th – at Nebraska (ESPN)
Tuesday, February 10th – vs. Oklahoma State
Saturday, February 14th – at Colorado (ESPN)
Monday, February 16th – at Texas A&M (ESPN)
Saturday, February 21st – vs. Oklahoma (ESPN)
Wednesday, February 25th – vs. Texas Tech (ESPN2)
Saturday, February 28th – at Oklahoma State (ESPN)
Monday, March 2nd – vs. Baylor (ESPN)
Saturday, March 7th – at Kansas (CBS)

An in-progress composite schedule will pop up here on the site later this afternoon, which will include the non-conference games that have been confirmed, along with any dates that have been announced. Check the top menu bar under “Schedules” to find the 2008-09 slate once it’s added.

Lots and lots of news for the Horns now that the regular season has come to a close. And that starts with the Big 12 conference awards, where Rick Barnes took home Coach of the Year in a season where his Longhorns set a school record for regular season victories. D.J. Augustin was a unanimous selection to the All-Big 12 First Team, while A.J. Abrams and Damion James were named to the second team. The king of hustle, Justin Mason, was named to the All-Defensive Team.

In the latest Bracketology from Joe Lunardi, the Horns are still a 2-seed playing in the Phoenix regional with UCLA as the 1-seed. God forbid this projection actually holds, as good ol’ Joe has a potential second-round match-up for Texas with Arkansas…in Little Rock. Hardcore amateur bracketologists will be happy to know that Joe is now going daily with his picks from until Selection Sunday.

Andy Glockner’s Bubble Watch — now also a daily feature — has the Big 12 with three “locks” in Texas, Kansas, and OU. He feels that Baylor and K-State are solidly in, and barring a Bear implosion against Colorado on Thursday, I would have to agree. That leaves A&M in the “work left to do” category, which could be something of a misnomer. As long as the bubble doesn’t contract further with cinderella auto-bids, the Aggies should be fine. But while they don’t actually need another win, they certainly can’t afford to somehow lose to Iowa State.

While everybody is focused on seeds and bubbles, there is still that weekly tradition of the polls, which saw Texas climb to 6th in the AP and 8th in the ESPN/USA Today.

Although there’s no Big Monday, there’s more tournament action from Championship Week tonight. Auto-bids will be handed out in the Southern Conference (8 PM CST, ESPN2), where bubble team fans will be pulling hard for Davidson. At the same time, those nervous folks will be hoping that Gonzaga can stave off San Diego in the WCC Championship (8 PM CST, ESPN). And just underway in Albany, Rider and Siena are battling for the MAAC title on ESPN2.

There’s somebody laughing at me over in the Big 12 offices, as having two road games in a week played in far-off locales is really doing a number on my hours of sleep and amount of writing on the website. Trying to cram 40 hours of work into a week that also includes trips to and from Manhattan, Kansas and Lubbock, Texas leaves me with little time to get caught up around here. So, apologies for the lack of content beyond Fast Breaks this week, and a promise to hit you guys with this week’s blogpoll and some notes from the K-State game tonight and/or tomorrow night. For now, on to the news from around the interwebs.

The losses by Memphis and then Tennessee left the power rankings in disarray this week, and Luke Winn took the opportunity to revisit his top seven teams. When all was said and done, he shot Texas all the way to the #1 slot. Hope there’s not an SI.com curse, too…

Texas climbed to fifth in ESPN’s Power 16 this week, grabbing first-place votes from Hubert Davis and Doug Gottlieb. Dick Vitale continued his irrational voting, slotting the Longhorns in 11th behind the likes of Stanford, who has the same number of losses as Texas. Of course, the Cardinal has faced the 97th-toughest schedule in the country, while Texas has played the 3rd-toughest. Sure, polls are meaningless. But the fact that this guy actually has a vote in the AP poll is re-god-damned-diculous.

Grant Wahl has an article today exposing some truly despicable fan behavior, including death threats towards Kevin Love and bottles of water thrown at the family of Eric Gordon. I’ve heard some bad things yelled in the O-Zone at the Frank Erwin Center, but nothing like this. I suppose I’m fortunate that I haven’t run into any truly dicey situations on the road, but I’m also not related to a big-time recruit who “betrayed” a fan base. I have no problem with the student sections yelling things at the players on the court, because that’s a part of the game — but assault and homophobia need to be left in the backwoods.

There’s not enough time to do a full TV listing post tonight, but you definitely want to fire up the Tivo for a lot of great match-ups. Notre Dame and Louisville kick things off (6 PM CST, ESPN) followed by a key battle between Michigan State and Wisconsin in the Big 10 (8 PM CST, ESPN2). Thursday night also means Pac-10, so fans can check out USC/Arizona (8 PM CST, ESPN) or Washington State/Cal (10 PM CST, FSN).

The website was inexplicably unavailable for about an hour and a half this afternoon. Apologies for the downtime, as the adventures of Michael Beasley and the recording iPod are certainly life-changing. Now, on to tonight’s TV listings, which could be useful for those folks not watching Clinton and Obama live from the UT Rec Sports Center…

Pittsburgh (19-6 overall, 7-5 Big East) at #21 Notre Dame (19-5, 9-3) – 6 PM CST, ESPN
Levance Fields had a quiet return to the Panther lineup on Friday night, but his presence is huge for a Pitt squad that lost four games in his absence. They are still without Mike Cook, but are hoping that Fields can provide a bigger boost in his second game back — a boost big enough to, say, snap Notre Dame’s 34-game home winning streak?

Massachusetts (16-9 overall, 5-6 A-10) at Rhode Island (20-6, 6-5) – 6 PM CST, ESPN2
It’s a rare chance to see some Atlantic 10+4 basketball for folks who don’t have the CSTV network, so you may want to tune in. The Rams have been fairly average in conference play and missed a chance to land a huge win when they fell short against Xavier on Monday night. This could be their last chance to secure a victory against the RPI Top 50 before the conference tourney, so this bubble-licious team really needs to grab the W tonight.

Michigan (8-17 overall, 4-9 Big 10) at Minnesota (15-9, 5-7) – 8 PM CST, ESPN
Tubby Smith and John Beilein are two high-profile coaches in their first year rebuilding programs in the upper Midwest. And though they say that coaches are the true superstars of college hoops, I don’t think these two have the drawing power to make watching this one worth your time.

Oregon (15-10 overall, 6-7 Pac-10) at USC (15-9, 6-6) – 10 PM CST, FSN
Andy Glockner still has both the Ducks and Trojans in the “Work Left to Do” category of his latest Bubble Watch. Neither can really afford to lose this game and dip below .500 in league play…or further below it in Oregon’s case.