Balance may hurt the Atlantic 10 at NCAA Tournament time

It's cool that the Atlantic Ten is such a well-balanced league this season (and that La Salle enters the weekend alone in first place), but the fact that its teams are beating up on each other might not bode well when NCAA invitations are handed out. Dayton's loss the other night to Duquesne won't help the Flyers' bubble status once we get to March. Ditto with Massachusetts' following its loss at Rhode Island. Temple looks to be in no matter what happens in the tournament, but mock brackets have Dayton, Xavier and St. Louis all with double-digit seeds, leaving little margin for error.

We here at Top 10 Topics must make a confession: We hold a poll bias against Murray State. We're not being critical; the Racers are the nation's only major-college unbeaten because they're good, but the Ohio Valley Conference isn't exactly loaded with good teams. According to collegerpi.com, the top RPI after Murray State is 171 by Tennessee Tech. The Racers own three Top 100 wins - Southern Mississippi, Memphis and Dayton - but that's all. For that reason, they are as high as they're going to get - No. 12 - on our weekly AP poll ballot, at least until their Bracketbuster matchup Feb. 18 against St. Mary's.

The Racers were on the ropes Thursday night, trailing by 11 against Southeast Missouri State with 17 minutes to go. But that's when 6-foot junior guard Isaiah Canaan took over. He scored 24 of his 32 points the rest of the way to rally Murray State to an 81-73 victory. Canaan is averaging a team-high 19.3 points and 3.7 assists while shooting 48 percent overall and from the three-point line, and 83 percent on free throws. He also has knocked down 68 treys.

The news doesn't get any better for Connecticut, the defending national champion, which enters Saturday's game against Seton Hall with a four-game losing streak and without head coach Jim Calhoun. Officials said Friday that Calhoun, who turns 70 in May, will take an indefinite leave of absence to address his spinal stenosis, a lower-back condition that causes him severe pain and hampers his mobility. The Huskies, who will be led by associate head coach George Blaney in Calhoun's absence, have been held to less than 50 points in back-to-back games while shooting 34.7 percent from the field.

Now that Pittsburgh is whole again with the return of point guard Travon Woodall, the Panthers have set their sights on the impossible - an 11th consecutive appearance in the NCAA tournament. They have won three straight in the Big East after an 0-7 start, and going 6-2 the rest of the way would get Pitt to 9-9 and probably raise its RPI to a level from which teams are drawn for a postseason invitation. "I definitely think we're a capable team that can make it interesting," junior center Dante Taylor told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The Panthers host Villanova on Sunday.

The latest top 10 of the RPI holds many of the usual suspects except for that team at No. 9: the Golden Eagles of Southern Mississippi. The unranked Golden Eagles won their 20th game Wednesday night, 75-72 over Memphis. They have some big non-conference wins this season, over Colorado State, Mississippi and South Florida, and are 8-3 overall against RPI Top 100 opponents. USM is coached by Larry Eustachy, the former Iowa State coach who was fired in 2003 after embarrassing pictures of him were revealed. Eustachy later admitted he was an alcoholic, received treatment, and has been sober ever since.

Penn State coach Patrick Chambers decided to honor the late Joe Paterno on Tuesday night against Wisconsin by wearing a blue jacket, rolled-up khakis, and black sneakers on the sideline. "It was a tribute to Coach Paterno and what he's done and what he's meant to this university," said Chambers, the Episcopal Academy and Philadelphia University graduate. Badgers coach Bo Ryan, of Chester, visited the Paterno statue that afternoon with his team and left a signed Wisconsin hat that said, "To the greatest teacher ever."

Senior Sammy Zeglinski, a graduate of Penn Charter, is a stabilizing force in the backcourt for 16th-ranked Virginia. Zeglinski, who has started 16 of the Cavaliers' 21 games, averages 8.9 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 2.7 assists while leading the team in minutes played (30.8) and three-point baskets (40). The Cavaliers (18-3, 7-2), who play Saturday at No. 21 Florida State, have been living life on the edge; seven of their nine ACC games have been decided by a total of 16 points, and they are 5-2 in those contests.

Other coaches in Virginia took heed this week when Virginia Commonwealth coach Shaka Smart, participating on the Colonial Athletic Association media conference call, said, "The best programs in the state are in the CAA, and it's not even close." Maybe he has a point; VCU and George Mason (Fairfax, Va.) have been to the Final Four over the last decade, while Virginia Tech and Virginia have combined for two NCAA appearances over that same stretch. But Smart told ESPN.com he still felt compelled to call Virginia coach Tony Bennett and tell him that "nobody [was] taking shots." He said the two laughed about it.

You had to figure that Texas would be a little down this season after having lost three players in the first round of the 2011 NBA draft. But a season without an NCAA tournament invitation, which the Longhorns have received in all of Rick Barnes' 13 previous years as head coach, is looking more and more likely. Texas' narrow one-point loss to Missouri dropped its overall record to 13-9. Five of its six Big 12 losses have been by six, four, three, five, and one point, and the Longhorns have dropped to 67 in the RPI, according to collegerpi.com. Their highest quality win came Dec. 17 over Temple.

1. Kentucky 22-1

2. Syracuse 22-1

3. Ohio State 19-3

4. North Carolina 19-3

5. Missouri 20-2

6. Baylor 20-2

7. Duke 19-3

8. Kansas 18-4

9. UNLV 21-3

10. Florida 18-4

- Joe JulianoEndText