Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Weekend Preview: Storylines to follow

Josh pastner

Memphis head coach Josh Pastner is shown against the Minnesota in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game at the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament Friday, Nov. 23, 2012 in Paradise Island, Bahamas. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

AP

The drama surrounding the continuation of the Memphis-Tennessee series: If you’ve missed the latest, here’s a quick catchup: Josh Pastner has never wanted to play Tennessee. He doesn’t want to help the Vols recruit in the city of Memphis by allowing them to play there once every other year. The old Memphis athletic director overruled him and understood the importance of the rivalry, and Pastner played ball. The new athletic director, however, allowed Pastner to go out in front of the media and talk all week about how the series was coming to an end and how Memphis needed a new opponent.

And then the AD went and negotiated with Tennessee about keeping them on the schedule behind his head coach’s back.

If you can’t see why this is a problem, go ahead and read this eviscerating column from Geoff Calkins. Then, go and read through his twitter feed. This story has become about so much more than simply the game -- which, it just so happens, is a game that both Tennessee and Memphis desperately need to win. How long will Pastner want to work for a man that has no problem publicly humiliating his most high-profile, highly-paid and prominent employee?

Gauge games: The most frustrating thing about allowing teams to put together their non-conference schedules on their own is that so many teams end up playing nothing but rolls of Division II charmin for he first two months of the season. Thus, when we hit league play, it’s impossible to get a good read on those teams. Two of the biggest culprits this season: Seton Hall and Maryland.

The Terps host Virginia Tech on Saturday, and while the Hokies have come back to earth since their 7-0 start, they do have a guard in Erick Green that is capable of going for 30 on any given night. Maryland is 12-1 this season, but they haven’t played anyone other than Kentucky, who they lost to. Seton Hall, on the other hand, is 12-2 on the season and travels to play at Notre Dame. The Pirates won their Big East opener by ... beating DePaul by one on the road.

Also keep an eye on Purdue’s trip to Michigan State. The Boilermakers struggled through the first two months, but they are healthy now and just knocked off Illinois at home.

Does anyone want to be the best team in Texas?: Texas A&M can’t seem to put together a convincing win, regardless of opponent. Texas Tech sticks. North Texas has been a massive disappointment. TCU? Rice? Houston? SMU? C’mon. The two best teams in the state are Baylor and Texas, who have been almost as disappointing as UNT this year. The Bears have as much raw talent as anyone in the country, but they have lost to Charleston and Northwestern, which makes up for that win at Kentucky. Texas finally got Jaylen Bond back from injury, but he’s not the difference-maker Mykc Kabongo will be.

Conference play kicks off for real: This will be the first “real” weekend of conference play. Who gets upset? Who stands out? Who did we undervalue in the non-conference? Who did we overvalue in the preseason? This is when it really starts to get fun.

Grab your popcorn.

You can find Rob on twitter @RobDauster.