I think we can safely blame Wisconsin’s Brian Butch for starting this week on a grotesque note. As bad as that was, if you haven’t seen the footage of the Clippers’ Shaun Livingston dislocating his kneecap on Monday night…well, maybe you shouldn’t. I guess it depends on your disposition, and/or how long it’s been since your last meal.

(Granted, neither of those injuries comes close to the Allan Ray Interactive Retina Experience from last year’s Big East tournament, but still…)

It’s February 27th, and we’re now in full-blown lead-up mode to Championship Week, which starts on Thursday and extends until the 11th of March. It’s a beautiful time of year…the brackets are popping up like dandelions, the pundits are confused, and the games take on an intensity that often is missing in the torpor of early February. The goal here at NetWire is to raise our game to the same level as the games during Championship Week, so hopefully we’ll have time to have at least a small post every night about college hoops.

Let’s take a look first at some noticeable trends in college basketball…yes, that’s right, it’s time for a little game of Swish & Clank!

SWISH: Kansas’s seeding potential. The Jayhawks, left for dead by the I-hate-Bill-Self contingent of college basketball (which is about as large as the Democratic Party these days) have been systematically annihilating the rest of the Big 12, with the exception of Texas A&M (and, interestingly enough, Texas Tech). Kansas is in line to pick up at least a share of the Big 12 title, provided they can take care of business against a Texas team in desperate need of a quality win. If Kansas can keep winning, I think the sky’s the limit for them in terms of NCAA seeding. They’re not out of the question for a 1 seed, especially when you consider the somnambulant performances turned in lately by Florida and North Carolina.

SWISH: Gonzaga’s at-large chances. It’s still a long shot, but the Zags helped themselves considerably by winning the WCC title outright on Monday night. Gonzaga’s win at San Diego, coupled with a surprising loss by Santa Clara at Pepperdine, assured them of the #1 seed in the WCC tournament. Gonzaga’s RPI has suffered considerably with their mid-season swoon, but their argument for an at-large berth was improved dramatically with that regular season title. At the very least, it’ll allow Gonzaga to have an easier path to the automatic berth, since now the WCC tournament will be in Spokane instead of the Bay Area.

CLANK: Kentucky. Four straight losses to Vanderbilt is bad enough (as one UK fan uneloquently states in a remarkably rambling and incoherent video blog entry), but this sudden run of losses for UK is really messing up their seeding potential. The Cats are going to the tournament, no question about that. But instead of getting a 4 or 5 seed, UK is sliding down into the ever-dangerous 6-8 range. There’s just not much that distinguishes the teams in the 5-12 seed range, so squads like Kentucky can ill afford to lose games against teams in a similar situation.

SWISH: Syracuse’s tournament hopes. I’m so sick of the annual Syracuse Resurrection plan. It kicks in every year in late February and manages to erase almost a full season’s worth of pathetic scheduling and overall underperformance by the Orange. Last year, it took a miracle run through the Big East tournament to carry Syracuse into the Big Dance (where they were ridiculously overcompensated by the committee, who gave them a 5 seed). This year, they finally pick up a big win a full three days before the end of February. I guess that’s progress.

SWISH: Stacey Dales. College GameNight. Thank you, ESPN…for once.

CLANK: Big Ten hate. Sure, you can laugh at me and say that I’m biased towards the Big Ten because I live in the heart of conference territory. But I’ve been as big of a critic of the Big Ten as anyone, particularly when it comes to the way that the officials call the games. Regardless, all this Big Ten hate on ESPN, CBS, and elsewhere is just silly. Every year we hear the same thing — the Big Ten is slow, the Big Ten is ugly, the Big Ten schedule doesn’t prepare its teams for the NCAA Tournament, the Big Ten will get pwn3d by the ACC. Blah blah blah. There’s a great article on ESPN Insider (which I can’t link because it’s a subscription service, sadly) which all of these pundits should read. Basically, if you examine each of the major conferences’ performance in the last 10 NCAA tournaments, taking into account the teams’ seeds and expected performances, the Big Ten has outperformed EVERYBODY — including the beloved ACC. In fact, the Big Ten has 87 wins in the NCAA tournament since 1997, which is second-most of all conferences and only three behind the ACC. Plus, the Big Ten has managed to accomplish this despite being given an average seeding of 5.40…almost a full seed and a half below the ACC’s average. Yes the Big Ten had a down year last year. But those who say the conference’s tournament chances are nil this season need to take a look at recent history before they start hating on the conference. (All credit for the above stats go to Bracketscience).

That’s it for tonight. Big games coming up on Tuesday night…West Virginia/Pittsburgh, Kansas State/Oklahoma State, BYU/Air Force, Florida/Tennessee, PLUS the start of the Big South, Horizon, and Ohio Valley tournaments. Can Winthrop clinch their conference’s automatic bid? Will Butler fall in their conference tourney, potentially knocking a big-conference team off the bubble? Can the OVC send a team to the tournament with a worse resume than the regular season champ? Ah, exciting times.