Arizona State 72, #7 Stanford 68 (OT) – It was a seesaw game out west last night, with both Stanford and Arizona State overcoming double-digit deficits in the second half. James Harden led the way for the Sun Devils down the stretch, tying the game with six seconds left in regulation and carrying his team to an overtime victory in front of the home crowd. A huge rebound from little-used Duke transfer Eric Boateng helped ASU milk the clock at the end of OT, and he sealed things up at the line with two seconds to go. The loss drops the Trees a half-game behind UCLA heading into this weekend’s action.

#10 Butler 89, Youngstown State 73 – The Bulldogs just keep marching on, this time cruising to a victory against the over-matched Penguins. A.J. Graves scored 15 points in the contest — all coming from the field— and grabbed five boards in the winning effort. This now marks the second-straight year that Butler has started the season 23-2, and with only five games left in Horizon League play, the Bulldogs could sew up the conference title by next weekend.

#20 Washington State 70, Oregon State 57 – There’s bad, there’s abysmal, and then there’s Oregon State. Wazzu ran all over the homestanding Beavers, who have lost 14 straight games, including all 12 of their Pac-10 contests. The Beavers’ quest for conference imperfection continues on Saturday against Washington before asskicking appointments with USC and UCLA next weekend. It’s safe to say at this point that the fans are ready for college baseball season in Corvallis.

On Valentine’s Day, we are supposed to spend the day with the people we love and spend way too much money on cards, chocolates, and oversized stuffed bears. I prefer to spend the day with things I love, such as this video I shot of the post-Kansas celebration. Enjoy.

A lot of losses for the top teams in the country last week, giving blogpollers the unenviable task of deciding which defeats were most damaging. What is the value of a road loss when compared to a home loss against another ranked opponent? Do you favor the overall profile when you vote, or do you give more weight to recent results? The balloting process was certainly much more interesting at the top this time around, with the different voting philosophies evident in the individual rankings. Here’s this week’s poll with my comments, and as always you can review everyone’s ballot here.

As a reminder, all ballots were cast following Monday night’s action, meaning that Purdue’s win over Michigan State did not factor into the rankings.

This week’s blogpoll consisted of votes from March to Madness, March Madness All Season, Rush the Court, A Sea of Blue, Tar Heel Mania, Storming the Floor, Vegas Watch, Super, Scintillating, and Sarcastic, George Mason Basketball, College Hoops Journal, Gopher Nation, Bryce’s Brackets and Observations, Making the Dance, Bizzaro Joe Lunardi, and yours truly. Six bloggers absented from this week’s vote.

There weren’t many outliers on my ballot this week, with the biggest variance between my rankings and the consensus coming with Washington State, K-State, and Purdue. In retrospect, I have the Cougs too high as a result of trying not to penalize them for “good” losses. But in reality, their résumé is rather lacking in the quality win department, so they’ve really got to prove things down the stretch against Zona and the Cardinal.

And while K-State has solid wins over A&M and Kansas on their home floor, the overall body of work is a bit sketchy. The main problem, though, is that this description could fit a ton of teams between 15 and 35. Of course, the Wildcats are in the middle of laying a huge egg in Lubbock as I write this, so it looks like their up-and-down year may continue.

Purdue also has some really questionable losses early in the year, but their win over Sparty last night will certainly propel them up the ranks in next week’s vote. While the talk has been about MSU, ‘Scon, and Indiana all year, the Big 10 could very easily be won by the Boilermakers. It ought to be quite the interesting stretch run.

Not a whole lot of time for the preview today, but suffice it to say that Texas has its work cut out for it tonight against Kansas. The Jayhawks run ten deep, and practically every one of those players could start for any D-1 school in the country. The biggest changes between this year’s team and last year’s squad are the improved play of Sasha Kaun and Darnell Jackson. The added threat provided by these two down low means that defenses can no longer key on Mario Chalmers, Darrell Arthur, Brandon Rush, and Sherron Collins. The Texas defense is going to have a tough time guarding all of the scoring threats on the Kansas roster.

If you are looking for a way to beat Kansas, there isn’t much data to draw on. With only one loss — on the road to Kansas State — the Jayhawks have often seemed flawless. But Kansas also struggled with Colorado and against Arizona, so with the help of Ken Pomeroy we can look for the common thread. According to Pomeroy’s metrics, their opponents effective FG% was above 50% in all three of those games. The eFG% measure gives added weight to three-point shots, and that seems to be a good strategy against the high-pressure, turnover-forcing D of the Jayhawks. In the games against K-State, Colorado, and Arizona, the Jayhawks gave up 31 three-pointers. Even against Baylor on Saturday, Kansas allowed 12-of-29 shooting from behind the arc. While Texas will certainly need big games from its role players in this one, the Horns will have their best shot if they are knocking down the trifectas.

Andrew from Burnt Orange Nation pointed out in his Iowa State wrap that Texas bench play is going to be huge today. Kansas is a much deeper squad, and this is only their second game since last Monday’s win over Missouri. The Longhorns had to make two tough road trips and played an extra five minutes against ISU on Saturday. The guards are definitely going to get tired in this one, so they need to slow down the tempo and not play into the Jayhawks’ game plan.

That’s about all I’ve got time for now, as the power source outside the Erwin Center is turned off today and the battery on the laptop is running low. For a great pre-game, check out another post from Andrew previewing the match-ups. Tip is at roughly 8 PM on ESPN, which will be airing the game in beautiful hi-def. See you back here tomorrow morning for the post-mortem.

Back in Austin, alive and generally in one piece. Going to press right on with the remaining Kansas tape, as work is only a few hours away. I’m hoping to get the Monday Fast Break and KU preview written before I start my shift, but if not I will finish it up in the afternoon while waiting in line at the Erwin Center.

As is usually the case with road games, the wrap will have to get pushed back. Hopefully on Tuesday I’ll get a chance to quickly hit the highs and lows from the OU and ISU road wins, and then use the rest of the long week to get things organized around here.

For now, check out the folks at Phog Blog for some Jayhawk flavor.