By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

Those pesky Cincinnati Bearcats won their second game in two nights late Wednesday and their reward is a quarterfinal game against old friend Bob Huggins and the Big East Tournament's third-seeded West Virginia Mountaineers (9 p.m., ESPN).

One night after trying to give away an eventual win over Rutgers, UC was again at times brutal to watch in a 69-66 defeat of Louisville, whose second late-season defeat of conference champ Syracuse last week seemed to cement the Cardinals' NCAA Tournament invitation.

The Bearcats are a bad offensive team, worse from the foul line and still make mental mistakes at critical junctures the way they did even in the fat 1990s when Huggins was racking up 25 wins a year in Cincinnati.

Led by Brooklyn native Lance Stephenson, however, they held on against Rick Pitino's Cardinals under the bright lights of Midtown Manhattan's Madison Square Garden. Fellow New Yorker Edgar Sosa scored a career-high 28 points in a losing effort for Louisville.

It was only four years ago when Gerry McNamara led Syracuse to four wins in four days in this very tournament. And now with the expanded bracket, Cincinnati has the opportunity -- or tall task, depending how you look at it -- to rattle off an unprecedented five in five. Two down and three to go; here's how they can finish the feat:

+ Continue to attack the offensive glass against West Virginia. Huggins' Mounties are strong, active and physical, just as the Bearcats were under his watch. They've got many New York connections and will treat the tradition-steeped MSG floor as if it's their own. But Cincinnati's best wins this year (Maryland, Vanderbilt) were away from home, so it just needs to focus on what it's good at -- crashing the glass and collecting their many misses.

+ Shoot the ball well in the semifinal round against Notre Dame, which I think will upset Pittsburgh Thursday night. Asking Cincinnati to shoot well is like coaxing Charlize Theron to meet me for drinks, but with their interior beef, the Bearcats are more than capable of slowing down gimpy Irish banger Luke Harangody. The star forward lit up UC for 37 in one meeting, but was held to 14 on 5-of-20 shooting in the other. I think Cincinnati keeps him in check and Stephenson controls the pace the way he did in the second half against Louisville.

+ Blow up whichever hotel Syracuse is bunking in. Otherwise, I don't think the Bearcats would have much of a chance in Saturday's title game. The Orange are an NCAA No. 1 seed and play outstanding zone defense, precisely the recipe to keep a poor-shooting team like Cincinnati on the dim side of the scoreboard.

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By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

This time of year when ESPN spends much of its "SportsCenter" air showing tournament resumes of NCAA bubble teams, at least one thing is misleading.

Not that I'm complaining, because March is definitely the best month of the year and if ESPN or anyone else wants to devote entire shows to college basketball, I will watch.

But the category called "Key Wins" can many times portray a picture much different from reality.

Take, for example, the Cincinnati resume. Three weeks ago the Bearcats were a bubble team. Expert Joe Lunardi's "First Four Out" notwithstanding, I thought UC had no chance once mid-February rolled around because its two signature triumphs were three months earlier. Wins over Vanderbilt and Maryland would seem hot now, but I'm pretty sure the Bearcats, even at familiar Fifth Third Cemetery, would have no chance against either of those teams.

North Carolina is another example of how early season results aren't a great gauge of a team's current capabilities. Way back when, the defending champion Tar Heels beat Ohio State (currently ranked No. 6) and Michigan State (No. 11) and lost at Kentucky (No. 3) by just two points.

I don't have the perfect solution; quality wins are obviously key in determining at least a small part of a team's candidacy for the NCAA Tournament. But maybe less weight should be placed on what a team did around Thanksgiving, and greater consideration should be given to a team's last 10 games before its conference tournament.

WHY NOT HARANGODY? With apologies to Syracuse's Wesley Johnson and Villanova's Scottie Reynolds, and maybe even Marquette's Lazar Hayward, but I'm curious why Luke Harangody isn't really getting any mentions at all for Big East Player of the Year.

His 24.1 points per game are nearly three full points ahead of the league's No. 2 scorer, and his 10 rebounds per game are second only to Seton Hall's Herb Pope. He's scored 29 points or more in seven games this year for Notre Dame.

In their last two games without the injured senior, the Irish have earned two nice wins over Pittsburgh and Georgetown, but if Harangody was out the entire season, Notre Dame would barely make the second round of the Indiana high school tournament. Outside of the score sheet, he's that team's entire heart and soul.

PRETTY NICE LITTLE SATURDAY: Get your Bed, Bath & Beyond run out of the way early Saturday, because for the second straight week, there's a great reason to be on your couch for at least six straight hours.

Noon
+ West Virginia at Villanova, CBS

2 p.m.
+ Syracuse at Louisville, ESPN
+ Kansas at Missouri, CBS

4 p.m.
+ Texas at Baylor, ESPN

And even though the annual season-ender between Duke and North Carolina won't have an ACC title on the line, the Blue Devils are playing for a No. 1 tournament seed. And the visiting Heels, with no pressure on them whatsoever, would love nothing more than to ruin Senior Night in Durham. These hated rivals meet at 9 p.m. Saturday (ESPN).

FINAL FOUR PICKS: Everyone seems to agree on three of the four top seeds, but that last slot is up for grabs. No one's talking about Duke; do the Devils deserve it? How about Kansas State? Can Purdue slide in without Robbie Hummel? Here are my projected top seeds, with predicted region champions in parentheses.

MIDWEST: Kansas (Kansas)
SOUTH: Syracuse (Syracuse)
EAST: Kentucky (Kentucky)
WEST: Kansas State (Duke)

WILD CARD: Ohio State has no bench, but if it can stay healthy and out of foul trouble, Evan Turner, the nation's finest player, will carry the Buckeyes to Indianapolis.

SLEEPER: The West will be the weakest of the four regions, so this could finally be the year for Gonzaga to break through and get to a Final Four.

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

If you weren't fortunate enough to be in the fine city of Starkville, Miss., Tuesday night, I hope you were at least able to watch on television the Mississippi State Bulldogs take No. 2 Kentucky to overtime before letting the Wildcats escape with the win.

And as if the pain of losing a nailbiter wasn't difficult enough, MSU suffered some national-television embarrassment after fans, already jacked about having UK star DeMarcus Cousins' cell-phone number, threw drinks on to the floor late in the game.

The bebubbled home team enjoyed a seven-point lead with less than three minutes left, but Kentucky scored the final seven points of regulation to tie the game, 67-67.

After a Mississippi State timeout during which coach Rick Stansbury drew up a play that clearly didn't get run, Barry Stewart launched what Scott Van Pelt described on the "SportsCenter" that followed the game as "a contested double-pump that misses everything but the floor." It really was ugly.

Kentucky would call back-to-back-to-back 30-second timeouts, but they weren't enough to produce a game-winning play.

It was an easy call at that point to think the visitors would survive. First of all, they're better, and secondly, MSU was playing without its top interior player, Jarvis Varnado, who fouled out late in regulation.

It wasn't just the obnoxious student section that thought ill of a few late calls or no-calls by the officials, but the Bulldogs themselves deserve the blame for this loss. Poor shot selection on at least a pair of possessions in the last five minutes didn't help the home team's effort to protect that seven-point cushion. MSU lost this game, as well as a huge chance for a resume win.

Outside of their season finale at home against No. 18 Tennessee, the Bulldogs (18-8, 6-5 SEC) play an easy remaining schedule against four SEC foes with a combined league record of 12-30. They might want to win those games. Losing one of them will do far more harm than the good that would come with winning all four of them.

TREND WATCH: Cousins, who's earned a reputation in his freshman season as a great player with a bad attitude, had his number plastered all over the MSU student community the last couple of days. Trash-talking phone calls and text messages didn't seem to bother him, though, as he finished with 19 points and 14 rebounds in 30 minutes.

After a first-half dunk, Cousins turned toward the seats as he began to run back down the court, lifted his hand to his head and made a kind of "call me" gesture that I think just might become a new trend among the drama-craving athletes.

BIG TEN BRAWL: Purdue visits Ohio State Wednesday night and while you all know I'm an Ohio guy, an informed opinion and not home-state bias is what leads me to believe the Buckeyes will win this one. I'm not as confident about OSU's chances at Michigan State Sunday, but I think the Bucks keep pace with those Spartans with a win over the Boilermakers.

Ohio State is unbeaten in Columbus this year and hasn't lost at home to Purdue in 12 years. I don't know if there's a team -- particularly a starting five -- that's playing better than OSU is right now, and it would be irresponsible not to mention that Evan Turner might be the best player in the country.

Purdue is solid and it still might eventually earn a No. 2 seed next month, but as long as the Buckeyes are playing this way, a Michigan State team in East Lansing seems the only threat to derail OSU's current hot trend.

CINCINNATI UPDATE: ESPN's Andy Katz Tweeted Tuesday night that UC's loss at South Florida won't cause too much harm to the Bearcats' NCAA chances.

Perhaps he's of the logic that Cincinnati's closing schedule of West Virginia, Villanova and Georgetown offers ample opportunities for resume wins. True as it may be, but if Cincinnati can't beat South Florida -- or Seton Hall or St. John's -- I can't imagine it can win two of those other three, let alone all of them, against Big East powers currently ranked among the top 10 in the country.

The Bearcats are headed to the NIT. Still.

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

With exactly two months left until Selection Sunday, it's about time I start posting on college basketball.

Let's do it in notebook fashion, shall we?

+ Defending champion North Carolina is in trouble this year. The Heels only lost four times last season, but already have five losses this year, three of them by double figures, including last night's 83-64 dismantling at the hands of Clemson.

+ Speaking of Clemson, don't be fooled by the Tigers' 14-3 record. It's not uncommon for them to rush out of the gate, win a bunch of games and even earn a nice national ranking. But once the February doldrums set in, for some reason, Clemson teams are rarely up to the grind and they often flame out.

+ And speaking of flaming out, has anyone seen Cincinnati the last few games? I used to criticize Bob Huggins' teams for not being mentally strong enough to finish tight games against good teams. Late mental mistakes cost the Bearcats many close ones back then, and that seems to remain the trend under Mick Cronin, now in his fourth year there. But unlike Huggins' teams, Cronin's don't finish seasons well, missing out on the NCAA tournament with weak late-season showings the last two years.

+ Just down the road in Lexington, it's great to see John Calipari restore the tradition at Kentucky, but given his track record, you can't help but wonder what kind of trouble looms there. Nonetheless, John Wall isn't just the best freshman in the country; he's the best player. And he and DeMarcus Cousins are the best young tandem in the nation, and with Patrick Patterson manning the post, look for the Wildcats to play deep into March.

+ Back to Huggins ... As much as I wanted him out at Cincinnati long before he was fired, he's like that ex-girlfriend that I just can't get over. If West Virginia is on television, I will almost always watch. I even became a one-and-done Kansas State fan when he had a cup of coffee there. But he's got his Mountaineers playing solid basketball, and I reckon they'll get a nice tournament seed and advance to at least the second weekend.

+ The best game left on the regular-season schedule is a no-brainer. Former No. 1 Kansas visits current No. 1 Texas on Monday, Feb. 8. Each side boasts a core of veterans, a good mix of perimeter and interior players and a star freshman. Kansas' Xavier Henry is a nice scorer with three-point range and a great body for such a young guard. Texas' Avery Bradley is improving on offense, but he's a lockdown perimeter defender and a fierce competitor.

+ Don't sleep on Ohio State. Sure I'm a homer, but the earlier-than-expected return of all-everything star Evan Turner already has paid huge dividends. ET scored 23 of his career-high 32 points in the second half of a huge comeback win at No. 6 Purdue Tuesday. OSU doesn't have a great record (12-5, 2-3), but a road win like that, coupled with a healthy conference player of the  year candidate, can only boost the Buckeyes' confidence.

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

PHILADELPHIA -- I've been sitting in the same spot at the same coffee shop for going on seven hours now, and I'm pretty sure this will be my last Brian Kelly post.

Until the next one.

But take a look at the short video clip at the bottom of this post. Lots of things to consider here.

I shot a bunch of postgame celebration video on the field in the minutes after the Bearcats just pulled off a thrilling win at Pittsburgh, 45-44, on Saturday, to claim their second straight Big East championship and automatic BCS bowl bid.

In the video, you see Kelly walking off the field as U2's "Pride (In The Name Of Love)" reverberates over the sound system at Heinz Field. Draw your own parallels with that one.

As Kelly paces toward the UC locker room, flanked by state troopers, you see in the back corner, 100 yards behind him, a hearty collection of red-sweatered Cincinnati fans who made the trip. So why is he waving in the other direction? Certainly Kelly was walking in the right direction, toward the locker room where he'd greet his 12-0 Bearcats, but why the big, grand, sweeping wave toward an empty section full of Steeler-yellow seats?

Did Brian Kelly know he'd just coached his last game as Cincinnati's coach? Did the towel-to-the-face move in this clip hold beneath it a meaning far deeper than just the emotional release that follows a high-stakes victory on a cold field in a rival's packed stadium?

You decide.