Last week’s ballot was admittedly a tough one, with teams around the country refusing to play consistent basketball. As a result, we submitted rankings which we weren’t exactly proud of, but ones which best reflected the muddied state of college hoops this year.

It’s painfully clear now that there is a very thin upper crust in the NCAA this season, and a lot of other mediocre teams filling up the middle. But even amidst that thin upper crust, there’s not much differentiation, as it’s a season in which no one is the clear frontrunner for the national title.

This week’s vote was a little easier, as only ten teams which we ranked were victims of a loss over the last seven days. Below is our ballot from this week, followed by superfluous explanation. If you’re enjoying the new “change” data in the third column, you might also be interested in our previous ballot, from February 23rd.

Rank	Team	Change
1	Connecticut	1
2	Memphis	2
3	Pittsburgh	2
4	Oklahoma	1
5	North Carolina	—
6	Louisville	—
7	Duke	—
8	Wake Forest	1
9	Michigan St.	1
10	Kansas	5
11	Missouri	3
12	Villanova	1
13	Marquette	1
14	Gonzaga	2
15	Clemson	2
16	Washington	4
17	Arizona St.	3
18	UCLA	1
19	Louisiana St.	2
20	Illinois	2
21	Purdue	4
22	Xavier	1
23	Florida St.	1
24	Brigham Young	2
25	Syracuse	1

At first glance, some readers may be confused by the very minor slides from Pitt and Oklahoma. At this point, we feel that a team should be valued more on their overall body of work than simply the results from the last seven days. The recent games certainly must be taken into account, but even Pitt’s road loss to unranked Providence isn’t enough to overshadow the fact that the Panthers have many more quality wins than the Tar Heels. As for the Sooners, they get some leniency when you consider that they lost to a Kansas team which we’ve moved into the Top Ten, and that they did so without superstar Blake Griffin.

Those Jayhawks are our biggest movers of the week, shooting up from No. 15 to tenth in this week’s ballot. Kansas finished the week with an absolute mudholing of Missouri in Allen Fieldhouse yesterday, and they were also aided by the fact that Marquette, Clemson, and Arizona State all lost a pair of games during the last week.

The other portion of our ballot that is worthy of discussion this week is, as always, the troubling bottom five spots. As we mentioned in the introduction, there’s really not any consistency or exceptional quality once you get past the initial contenders, and losses this week by West Virginia and Texas muddied things up at the bottom once again. You may notice that even though Florida State lost on the road against Boston College, they actually climbed a rung in our rankings this week. That’s an anomaly explained by both the Seminoles’ huge win against Clemson on Saturday, and the fact that once again there was a dearth of teams wanting to crack the rankings.

Some bloggers have been ranking Butler, which actually resulted in the Bulldogs checking in at 24th in our consensus poll last week. Considering that they won their pair of games this week, they likely will even climb when the consensus poll is released this afternoon. But the simple fact of the matter is that Butler lost at home to Loyola-Chicago and on the road to Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Wisconsin-Green Bay. Do you honestly think the Bulldogs would be sitting at 25-4 if they played in a conference that was worth a damn?

As we’ve mentioned, the consensus blogpoll will be up later this afternoon. Fast Break will be here for your late afternoon enjoyment, including new bracket projections, bubble watches, and the real polls from the AP and coaches. The Baylor game preview will follow in the late afternoon.

If you told most Longhorn fans that their team would hold the high-scoring Oklahoma State Cowboys to only 30 points in the first half, they would gladly take it. And if you told them that OSU would have just 60 points with only a minute and a half left, those fans would probably snap up the offer twice as fast as the first one. But on Saturday in Stillwater, those relatively low point totals were all that the Cowboys would need for a win, as their defense was the most stifling it’s been all season.

It’s true that Texas missed its share of easy shots in the lane, but the credit goes to Coach Travis Ford and the OSU players, who focused their attention on big men Dexter Pittman and Damion James in an effort to mitigate the huge height advantage Texas enjoyed. With Justin Mason and Dogus Balbay only negligible scoring threats, the Cowboys were able to sag off those two guards and give extra help down low.

That defensive strategy certainly underscored just how important Gary Johnson is to the Texas offense, as the sophomore forward sat on the bench for a second straight game thanks to an injury suffered against Oklahoma. All of the pressure to produce in the paint was then left on the shoulders of Pittman and James, who combined to go only 3-of-12 in the first half, including an inexcusable number of missed two-footers.

The bright spots for Texas were few and far between, which is to be expected when a team shoots just 31.5% from the field and has twice as many turnovers as assists. But the best news of the day was the play of Harrison Smith, who provided 17 minutes off the bench for Coach Rick Barnes. For once, Smith was not just eating up minutes on the floor in order to teach the starting guards a lesson; rather, he chipped in a career-high 12 points and helped ignite a furious Texas comeback.

That Longhorn rally is the other positive that their fans can take solace in, as the team refused to fold in a hostile road environment despite a 17-point deficit with only 17 minutes left on the clock. And even more impressive than the comeback itself is the fact that the team did it without the assistance of longballs from sharpshooter A.J. Abrams, who was absolutely shut down by the Pokes defenders. Abrams had just a trio of three-pointers on the day, which were sandwiched around his scoreless stretches of 18 and 16 minutes.

The loss muddies things up in the conference standings, as the Cowboy win and a Kansas State victory in Manhattan have forced a three-way tie for fourth place. Fortunately for those who dislike Big 12 tiebreaking procedures, the Wildcats and Cowboys meet on Tuesday night in a game that could decide who claims that final first-round bye in Oklahoma City. The Longhorns, meanwhile, must handle Baylor at home before traveling to Lawrence for a tough season finale against the Jayhawks.

Tonight the Longhorns head into the lion’s den known as Gallagher-Iba Arena, looking for that magical 20th win of the season, and perhaps a convincing hold on 4th place in the Big 12 Conference. Should the Longhorns win today and the Cornhuskers steal a road victory from K-State, Texas would claim a two-game advantage over the Wildcats and Cowboys with only two games left on the schedule. In baseball terms, that would leave the magic number at one, meaning only a Texas win or a loss by both trailing teams would seal the deal.

But the first half of that equation could be the most difficult part. The Longhorns must first win in Gallagher-Iba Arena, one of the toughest places to play in the country. It has been a particularly tough venue for Rick Barnes and Texas, as the Horns have won only two times in their last six trips to Stillwater. And although this season Texas has already blown out the Pokes, they are starting to hit their stride and are looking to play their way into the NCAAs.

The previous meeting

Texas came into the first match-up with Oklahoma State absolutely reeling. They had lost their three previous games by a grand total of 11 points, and the fans and media were bailing from the bandwagon faster than Takeru Kobayashi demolishing a hot dog. Their backs were against the wall, and unless the Longhorns started claiming some more victories, the NCAA tournament would be nothing but a pipe dream.

Fortunately, Texas came out of the gates firing on all cylinders and cruised to a comfortable 99-74 win. It seemed that the Longhorns could do absolutely nothing wrong, as they shot almost 56% from the field, drained 46% of their threes, and easily outrebounded the smaller Cowboys. The only weakness in the Texas game was a porous defense that allowed the Pokes to hit over 52% of their shots. Even that seemed reasonable, as the Oklahoma State offense was ranked in the top ten nationally in nearly every metric.

The barrage of points came from all over the Texas lineup, as five players logged double digits in scoring, including Connor Atchley, who briefly broke out of his slump to hit two threes and score fourteen. A.J. Abrams was a scorching 4-of-5 from long range, while Damion James abused the undersized Pokes for 19 points.

Since then…

The lopsided win apparently served as a wake-up call, as OSU has won its four games since the Austin lambasting. The argument could be made that this hot streak is simply a result of an easier stretch of the schedule for the Cowboys, and it would be a compelling case. The Pokes earned their four victories against the bottom four teams in the league, defeating Iowa State, Texas Tech, Baylor, and Colorado.

The statistic would back up that theory, as well. OSU has been a high-powered offensive machine all season long, yet still dropped a ton of conference games. So when a high-scoring team can’t seal the deal, the blame must fall on an incredibly weak defense. By extension, if the Pokes had actually turned a corner and were ready to make a stretch run, one would expect to see their defensive numbers improve in those four wins, especially against the dregs of the conference. That didn’t happen. The Cowboys still allowed their weaker opponents to post eFG numbers of over fifty percent.

The biggest change for Oklahoma State has been the demotion of Obi Muonelo from starter to sixth man, switching places with diminutive guard Keiton Page. This is a puzzling move for Coach Ford, because Muonelo has led the team in rebounding all season long, and putting Page in the lineup costs the already-short Cowboys another six inches in height. Against Texas, giving Page more minutes could definitely pay off, however. He’s an absolute dead-eye from behind the arc (41.7%) and the Longhorns are famous for allowing long-range gunners to get hot.

For a review of all of the Oklahoma State players and the team’s tendencies, check out the game preview from the first time these teams met.

Keys to the game

Own the glass – Against the guard-oriented lineup of Oklahoma State, Texas will have to exploit its height advantage. While that certainly includes piling up the points down low, the main way that the Longhorns must take advantage is by dominating the rebounding battle. OSU boasts one of the top offenses in the country, so when Texas gets a defensive stop, they must end the possession with solid defensive rebounding. On the offensive end, Texas will also find success if they can get a lot of junk points off of putbacks.

Toe the line – Oklahoma State is 11th in the country at shooting the longball, and we all know that Texas has major issues locking down the perimeter. There’s no easier way to let the game get out of hand and rile up the rabid Gallagher-Iba crowd than to give up a ton of easy threes to the likes of Page, James Anderson, Terrel Harris, and Muonelo.

Execute in crunch time – The main reason that Texas had its three-game slide in January and early February was an inability to make the right plays down the stretch. On the road this evening, in one of the most hostile gyms in the nation, Texas will find it even more difficult to do so. If the Pokes and Longhorns are in a tight one as the seconds tick away, the Longhorns cannot waste possessions or make dumb mistakes on the defensive end. Of course, putting the game away early could make this a moot point and save me from a few ulcers. But what’s the likelihood of that?

Tonight the Longhorns host their second straight home game, just four days after the huge win over then-No. 2 Oklahoma on Saturday night. Texas is now in a tie for fourth in the conference with Kansas State, a team who owns the tiebreaker by virtue of their win in Austin on January 31st. If the Longhorns hope to earn a bye in the Big 12 tournament, they will have to finish at least a full game ahead of the Wildcats, who will likely finish their remaining schedule with a 3-1 or 2-2 mark.

Luckily for Texas, their home slate consists of two very winnable games, starting with tonight’s contest against the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Coach Pat Knight will not be on the sidelines for the game due to a suspension the league levied for his comments following his team’s loss to Texas A&M on Saturday. For a preview of the key players on the Tech squad, check out the game preview from the first game between the two teams, a contest which the Longhorns won by a lopsided 71-49 count behind 18 points from Damion James.

The Erwin Center has been unkind to Tech, as the Red Raiders have lost in their last 12 trips to Austin. It will likely be even tougher tonight, as the jersey retirement ceremony of superstar Kevin Durant will ensure a much larger crowd than typically expected for an 8:30 tip on a Wednesday.

This should be a game that Texas coasts to victory in, but stranger things have certainly happened. Hopefully, the momentum from Saturday night will carry over, and the Longhorns will make this the blowout it should be. But for a Texas team that has seemingly played to the level of its competition all season long, things could certainly be much closer than necessary.

#15 Kansas Jayhawks 87, #3 Oklahoma Sooners 78 – With Blake Griffin out of the game as a precaution following his Saturday-night concussion, Kansas was hoping to exploit their advantage inside by pounding it to Cole Aldrich. While the big man certainly made a difference for the Jayhawks with his 15-point, 20-rebound performance, it was the three point shooters who stole the show late in the game. The two teams combined to shoot 20-of-43 from behind the arc (46.5%), with Sherron Collins and Willie Warren trading bombs from long range. Collins finished the night with 26 points, while Warren had 23 in the losing effort.

With the win, Kansas grabbed sole possession of first place heading into their Sunday showdown with Border War rival Missouri. The Tigers are one and a half games behind the Jayhawks in the standings, but won the first meeting between the two teams back on February 2nd.

#6 Louisville Cardinals, Georgetown Hoyas 76 58 – The Cardinals converted their first seven three-point attempts against Georgetown on Monday night and never looked back, cruising to an 18-point win at the Verizon Center. Terrence Williams had a ridiculous stat line for Coach Pitino, nearly earning a triple-double with his ten points, twelve rebounds, and seven assists. On the other side of the court, DeJuan Summers was nearly non-existent for the Hoyas in the defeat, scoring only four points in his thirty minutes of play. The loss was the ninth in the last eleven games for Georgetown.