How will NCAA Tournament selection committee deal with last group of at-large teams? | College basketball notes

The NCAA and CBS will combine to whet our March Madness appetite Saturday when they give us “the midseason reveal,” a look at the top 16 seeds and the bracket at this point in the season.

The half-hour telecast will give us an idea of what the NCAA Division I men’s basketball committee is thinking in terms of how it will select teams for the tournament, especially with the NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) as the new go-to metric that members of the panel will be utilizing.

However, probably a better indicator to the public of what the committee is thinking was something that ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi mentioned to us earlier this week: whether the panel will take middle-of-the-pack at-large teams from power conferences, some with losing records, or teams from mid-major leagues that didn’t win their conference tournaments.

Lunardi’s bracket Tuesday showed seven teams from power conferences with losing records in their leagues, a number he called “staggeringly high.” In the last five years, as he pointed out, there were eight.

“It’s just not been the committee’s kind of M.O. in recent years to go in that direction,” he said of choosing to take mid-major teams. “They’ve trended more toward the middle-of-the-pack teams from the power conferences. You can say that’s good or bad depending on what side of the fence you’re on.”

With five weeks left until Selection Sunday, and more than 1,000 games left to be played, teams will rise and fall as they try to become one of the 68 chosen ones. How the committee will judge middling .500 power-conference teams versus mid-major runners-up is anyone’s guess.

Coaches are still trying to figure out the NET, which is in its first season replacing the 37-year-old RPI. Bernard Muir, chair of the men’s basketball committee, called the RPI “yesterday’s news” while praising the NET.

“We’re quite pleased with how the new metric is working,” Muir said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters. “We’ve heard some coaches express some concern. In talking with the committee at large, there’s a thousand possessions that occur over the course of a year. Coming down to one possession is not going to adjust your NET that significantly.”

The matchup of the season in college basketball enters Round 2 Saturday night when No. 2 Duke and No. 3 Virginia clash again, this time in Charlottesville. The initial matchup featured 14 ties and 15 lead changes before the Blue Devils came away with a 72-70 win at home on Jan. 19.

One coach who knows both teams well is Notre Dame’s Mike Brey, who played both in the span of three days on his home court and lost twice by a combined margin of 49 points.

“Completely different stuff out of two 1-seeds and great teams: the grinding and slower pace of Virginia and then the come-at-your-throat stuff of Duke,” Brey told ESPN.com. “It was very difficult to prepare, quite frankly.

“Dealing with both of them in a short window, they really go about their success differently, but they’re both really, really good and can win it.”

While we look to the East, North and South to follow the premier teams of college basketball, Nevada continues to roll along in the Mountain West Conference. The sixth-ranked Wolf Pack are 22-1, one of four one-loss teams in Division I, and have won their last eight games by an average of 19.8 points.

The fans in Reno were looking for a year like this after the Martin brothers, Caleb and Cody, decided to return for their senior seasons after almost leaving for the NBA draft.

“It was hard to leave this,” Caleb Martin told ESPN.com. “We were coming back to a top-10 team. … Try to do something special one more time, leave my mark on this place. At the end of the day, I do want to leave my footprint here before I leave.”

Another senior, Jordan Caroline, made history Wednesday night by posting his 41st career double-double, breaking the MWC record shared by Kahwi Leonard and Andrew Bogut.

The Wolf Pack will host New Mexico, the only team to defeat them this season, on Saturday.

From Pat Forde, our friend at Yahoo! Sports, comes the story of John Konchar, a 6-foot-5 senior guard at Purdue Fort Wayne who has amassed some mad numbers in his career.

Check these out: 1,904 points, 1,081 rebounds, 504 assists, 252 steals. That makes Konchar the only Division I men’s player since 1992-93 to compile more than 1,800 points, 1,000 rebounds, 400 assists, and 200 steals in a career.

Konchar received only two offers in high school, from Chicago State and Purdue Fort Wayne, the latter offer not coming until late in his senior year. He redshirted his first season to bulk himself up with a combination of weightlifting and eating “a lot of Panda Express,” he told Forde.

Daeqwon Plowden, an All-Public League player and division MVP during his career at Mastery Charter North, has started the last 14 games for Bowling Green. A 6-6 sophomore forward, Plowden posted a career high last month with 19 points against Ball State. For the season, he averages 5.7 points and 4.6 rebounds and leads the team in blocks with 14.

Another recent starter for the Falcons is freshman guard Caleb Fields, who played his high school basketball at Wildwood Catholic. Fields, who also has 14 starts, averages 4.4 points and 1.7 rebounds with a season high of 24 points against Tennessee-Martin. Bowling Green, which defeated nationally ranked Buffalo last week, leads the Mid-American Conference East.

Wisconsin at Michigan, Saturday at noon, Fox 29: The Badgers, winners of six straight, have joined what looked like a two-team race in the Big Ten involving the Wolverines and Michigan State. Wisconsin’s winning streak began when it handed Michigan its first defeat of the season.

Duke at Virginia, Saturday at 6 p.m. ESPN: The Blue Devils won the teams’ first meeting, 72-70, on their home court and did it without guard Tre Jones. Jones will be back for this one, but the Cavaliers might be without starting guard Ty Jerome, who is having problems with his back.

Cincinnati at Houston, Sunday at 4 p.m., ESPN: A meeting of the top two teams in the AAC features two of the nation’s best defenses. The Bearcats allow an average of 61.5 points, and the Cougars yield one fewer point and hold opponents to 36.3 percent shooting.

Virginia at North Carolina, Monday at 7 p.m., ESPN: The Cavaliers began the weekend in a three-way tie for first place with the Tar Heels and Duke while leading the nation in points allowed at 52.9 per game. The Tar Heels average 88.3 points (second nationally) and will try to dictate tempo.

Louisiana State at Kentucky, Tuesday at 7 p.m., ESPN: The Tigers rebounded from their first SEC loss with an overtime victory over Mississippi State. They were tied for second place with the Wildcats entering Saturday’s action, one game behind top-ranked Tennessee.

Chris Clemons, Campbell, G, 5-9, 185, Sr., Raleigh, N.C.

Clemons is the nation’s leading scorer, averaging 29.0 points per game, and has knocked down 99 three-point baskets. He posted back-to-back 39-point games last week against Radford and Longwood. His 23-point performance Thursday night against High Point extended his streak of double-figure games to 105, and enabled him to pass Elvin Hayes into 12th place on the NCAA Division I career scoring list with 2,898 points.