Villanova defeated the Cardinals at Freedom Hall, 92-84, in what was an intensely competitive game, but no one will wish to see it in full again. Forty-four turnovers, 67 fouls (plus a technical on Jay Wright), 94 free-throw attempts — this game had all the flow of a Los Angeles freeway interchange. Highlights only, please.

It’s impossible to get a full grasp of how the game was played from the final score — or even the Four Factors above — but the one thing that is easy to see is that this game was foul-marred. Ten players on each team played at least five minutes, and all but one — Louisville’s Reginald Delk — committed at least two fouls. Nine players committed at least four fouls.

Was the game that physical? I suppose. Louisville plays a style that promotes reaching in and aggressive on-ball defense, and this was not a night when the officials — John Cahill, Karl Hess and Michael Stephens — elected to permit such aggression. Villanova was the perfect counterpart to Louisville to create a foul-filled game. The Wildcats are the only Big East team that sends its opponents to the line more often than Louisville does.

The fouls resulted in those 94 free throws, and the two teams combined to make 74 of them, an impressive 78.7-percent success rate. Villanova (first) and Louisville (fifth) are among the best Big East teams at shooting free-throws, and that was evident on Monday night. The Cardinals’ Samardo Samuels made all 13 of his free-throw attempts to help Louisville convert 39-of-45.

What is not evident from the final score or the Four Factors is how thoroughly Louisville controlled the game in the first half. With 5:30 to play in the first half, the Cardinals led, 38-21, and Villanova found itself unable to even advance the ball into the frontcourt. The Wildcats committed 17 first-half turnovers, as it didn’t appear they had any clue how to approach Louisville’s defense. With the short turnaround after Saturday’s win over Marquette, it’s understandable that Villanova was unable to fully internalize the gameplan, but a veteran team should not have been so flustered by a defense it had seen several times before.

The last five minutes of the first half, though, was perhaps the game’s most important stretch. Villanova went on a 15-5 run thanks to a series of empty possessions from the Cardinals as well as big shots by Maalik Wayns, Corey Fisher and Scottie Reynolds. The Cats then started the second half on an 18-10 run, and, when Taylor King completed an and-1 at the 14:06 mark of the second half to give Villanova a 57-55 lead, the Cats would never trail again.

Too many threes: Louisville’s dependence on the 3-pointer at the expense of interior touches for Samuels ensures that its offense will be inconsistent. The Cardinals have the 15th best (or second worst) 3-point percentage in the Big East (31.5), yet take more 3-pointers than any other Big East team (39.6 percent of all field-goal attempts), an inefficient distribution of shots to be sure.

Edgar Sosa (39.8) and Reginald Delk (45.7) are the only Cardinals shooting it well this season. Every other Cardinal who has attempted a 3-pointer has made less than a third of those attempts. Jerry Smith and Preston Knowles have the track record of good shooters, and Mike Marra has shown flashes, but as long as those players are shooting in the 20s, Louisville will have nights like Monday, in which it made just 7-of-33 3-pointers (21.2 percent) and essentially shot itself out of the game.

All the while, Samuels had to wonder what he needed to do to get the ball. He led the Cardinals with 21 points and did not miss a single shot from the field (4-for-4) or foul line, but Samuels could only stand and watch as Jared Swopshire, Smith, Sosa and Knowles made just 8-of-38 field-goal attempts. The inability to get Samuels more touches is more egregious when one considers that Louisville is fourth in the Big East in 2-point percentage (52.7), but all non-Samuels shooters were just 8-for-23 (34.8 percent) on 2-pointers on Monday night. There were times when it was evident that Louisville wanted to get the ball inside to Samuels — he was often fouled on these occasions or forced to pass back out thanks to a double-team — but mostly it seemed like the Cardinals were impatient, far too willing to chuck up 22-footers.

Toughness: Villanova showed great mental toughness to battle back from down 17 and overcome its 17 first-half turnovers. Under Wright, the Wildcats are rarely the biggest or strongest, but they always play physically and with toughness, and they never give in. The Wildcats limited themselves to five second-half turnovers, turned around a lopsided battle on the boards — Louisville had out-rebounded Villanova, 27-9, in the first half — and let Reynolds take them home. The senior didn’t miss a field-goal attempt until the closing minutes, finishing 9-for-10 and a perfect 5-for-5 on 3-pointers. He scored 36 points against a team that had witnessed some of his poorer games at Villanova.

Depth: Both teams have the kind of depth that will benefit them during the grueling, 18-game Big East season. Villanova and Louisville both play 11 players, and several bench players can be significant contributors. Villanova got 74 minutes and 31 points out of its reserves, while Louisville got 71 minutes and 29 points out of its bench. Louisville gets the most minutes out of its bench of any Big East team (38.8 percent of all minutes); Villanova is seventh (32.6). With two teams that like to push the tempo — Villanova and Louisville are fourth and fifth in the Big East in adjusted tempo — and that often attack on defense to the point of fouling, depth is more important to these two teams than most.

Up next: After being knocked from the Big East unbeaten, Louisville will try to blemish Pittsburgh’s undefeated conference mark (if UConn doesn’t do the deed first on Wednesday). The Cards travel to Peterson Events Center on Saturday. The Wildcats return home to host Georgetown, which will enter Sunday’s contest either 4-1 or 3-2 in conference depending on how the Hoyas fare against Seton Hall on Thursday.

Dance card: Every conference game is crucial for Louisville, which likely needs to finish at least 10-8 in conference to make the NCAA Tournament. Villanova is in position for a very good seed should it finish near the top of the Big East. The Cats should be favored in each of its next five games, which means a 9-0 start isn’t out of the realm of possibilities. Ken Pomeroy’s projections put the Cats chances of going through the first half of the Big East season undefeated at about 25 percent.

Two freshmen, Maalik Wayns and Isaiah Armwood, hit 3-pointers in the last two possessions to bring Villanova back from a late five-point deficit with 1:42 to play. The basket was Armwood’s first of his career, and it came after he was forced into action thanks to severe foul trouble for Villanova’s frontcourt.

The fouls were the main thing that made this game a strange one.

Those free-throw rates are borderline absurd. The two teams combined for 54 fouls committed. Nine players accumulated at least four fouls, including the four Villanova Wildcats who fouled out. Among those four were Antonio Pena, Taylor King and Maurice Sutton or, in other words, all the height in Villanova’s rotation since freshman Mouphtaou Yarou was sent back to Philly with a viral infection.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of this foul fest is that George Mason was just the 262nd most proficient team at getting to the line in the nation last season. Of Patriots returners, Ryan Pearson and Mike Morrison were the best at getting to the line, and yet they combined for just four of the 37 free-throw attempts for Mason. The Patriots made 27 or 73 percent of those. Villanova had 39 attempts, making just 23, 59 percent.

Because of the way the game was officiated, foul shooting played a major role down the stretch. At one point, Villanova missed four of five free throws in the game’s final minutes, but it was George Mason that saw its free-throw shooting betray it in the last possessions of the game. The Patriots went 4-for-8 from the line in the game’s final two minutes to keep Nova alive.

The second thing that sticks out in that box above is the rebounding. Villanova had 19 offensive rebounds, 11 more than George Mason, but it was 6-foot-1 Corey Fisher who led the Cats with five. Since Jay Wright likes to play small, the guards must crash the glass, and Fisher’s production is a positive step in the right direction. His aggressiveness on the floor also translated into 18 free-throw attempts, of which the junior made 14.

King, the transfer from Duke, had four offensive rebounds of his own, and the 11-offensive rebound difference allowed Villanova to make up for the 17 turnovers it committed to GMU’s 14. The first half was especially troubling to Wright as he saw his team full of veteran guards commit 11 in the opening 20 minutes. Reynolds had a nightmare first half. He ended the game with eight turnovers but was able to score 18 points after the poor start.

While the win was the key for Villanova on Thursday, my takeaway from this game is that Villanova really misses what Dante Cunningham and Dwayne Anderson brought last season. Those two players — and departed Shane Clark as well — were the Cats who were most adept offensively on the interior.

Cunningham hit 52.7 percent of his 463 2-point attempts in Villanova’s Final Four season, a total more than twice as many as anyone else on the team. Anderson hit 55.7 percent of his 132 attempts, and Clark made 52.7 percent of his 112 attempts. Of the rest of last year’s team, only Reggie Redding made at least half of his 2-pointers last season, and he won’t be back until the end of first semester. Therefore, it wasn’t a great surprise that Villanova made just 39.3 percent of its 2-pointers against George Mason.

On the defensive end, the problem is just as acute. Cunningham was the team’s best interior defender last season, and without him, the Wildcats did nothing but hack George Mason around the basket. Pena is notoriously foul-prone, and Sutton is very inexperienced, but foul-outs should be a rarity for King. Wright would prefer not to have to use King against opposing interior players, which means Pena needs to stay on the floor, and the 6-foot-9, 240-pound Yarou best get better quickly.

Villanova’s next opponent is Dayton on Friday. The Flyers are not a team that forces their way to the line, but its star, 6-8 Chris Wright, does draw fouls. Dayton is terrific at defending the rim, finishing third in the Atlantic 10 in 2-point defense last season. To win on Friday and consistently throughout the season, Villanova has to stay disciplined to keep its frontcourt on the floor, or the poor 2-point shooting and the excessive fouling is likely to be a problem that crops up periodically.

No. 3 Villanova vs. No. 1 North Carolina (8:47 p.m. ET)

Where Villanova can hurt North Carolina: On the offensive glass. Villanova is a balanced team, one that doesn’t excel at any one thing — except perhaps free-throw shooting — and isn’t awful at anything, though the Cats do send their opponents to the line a bit too much. Therefore, pinpointing a distinct Nova stylistic edge isn’t simple, but it may surprise you that it’s on the offensive glass where the Cats should be able to do some damage to North Carolina.

Before picking Villanova to defeat Pittsburgh in the Elite Eight matchup, I mentioned that the Wildcats while small are very stout. They rebound on both glasses, make twos and prevent their opponents from making twos. These are traits that you’d expect from a much taller team than Jay Wright’s club, which doesn’t have a single player taller than 6-foot-8.

In that game against Pitt, there was great shock and awe at how Villanova was able to win the battle on the glass, namely in grabbing 43 percent of its misses, but the Cats have gotten on the offensive board all season. Only twice in Villanova’s last 13 games have the Cats not gotten at least 30 percent of their misses. Villanova has four players adept at hitting the offensive glass, with Dante Cunningham, Shane Clark, Dwayne Anderson and Antonio Pena all approximately equally able. Reggie Redding is also a good rebounding guard, but he does more of his work on the defensive glass.

North Carolina is the weakest defensive rebounding team at the Final Four, grabbing less than 32 percent of its misses. Hansbrough’s lack of length hurts him more on the defensive glass than on offense, though he is still the best defensive rebounder — a smidge better than Deon Thompson — among UNC’s starters. Because of Villanova’s aptitude in this area, we may see a little more Ed Davis on Saturday, as he is the team’s best rebounder, at least in terms of rate.

Where North Carolina can hurt Villanova: At the 3-point line. Most think that North Carolina will exploit Villanova inside, but it’s really on the perimeter where UNC’s offense has the greatest advantage. Among NCAA Tournament teams, only No. 16 seeds East Tennessee State and Chattanooga give up more 3-point attempts than Villanova, and that’s good news for North Carolina, who — at 38 percent — is the best 3-point shooting team in Detroit. The Cats allow a mediocre 33.2 percent opponents 3-point rate for the season.

Of course, North Carolina is loath to attempt 3-pointers, attempting more 3-pointers than just 10 of the other 64 NCAA Tournament teams — fellow Final Four teams Michigan State and UConn being two of those 10. With such terrific post play and a great penetrator in Tywon Lawson, it’s no surprise why UNC likes to keep things inside, but with their three most likely 3-point shooters — Lawson, Danny Green and Wayne Ellington — at 39.7 percent or better, the Tar Heels may want to test the waters from deep. As Duke found out in the Sweet 16, though, even with open looks, you better make them. The Blue Devils hit just 5-of-27 3-pointers in their 23-point defeat to Nova.

Irresistble force against immovable object: Villanova at the free-throw line. North Carolina isn’t really into fouling. The Tar Heels would rather make opponents earn its baskets, even if the rest of its defense isn’t so strong, knowing that their offense is very efficient — in that sense, UNC is sort of a very rich man’s Notre Dame. There’s no reason to slow the game down, risk foul trouble and give the opponent free shots, when the offense thrives on pushing the tempo and keeping the game moving.

Villanova, though, is 11th among the 65 NCAA teams in getting to the line and is 19th in the nation in free-throw percentage at 75.3 (North Carolina is 10th at 76.5). Nova’s two points guards, Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher get to the line often and hit at 81.7 and 78.8 percent once there. Cunningham is also a guy who draws fouls and hits at a comparatively mediocre but still solid 69.3 percent. I’m interested to see whether UNC will continue to prevent opponents from getting to the line and whether that will mean that Villanova is getting easy buckets or missing contested layuops.

Resistible force versus movable object: North Carolina at the free-throw line. It could and should be a surprise that the team with the player that has made more free throws than any player in college basketball history would be mediocre at getting to the foul line. In fact, North Carolina was just fifth in the ACC at getting to the line this season and has gotten to the line at a better-than-national-average rate just once in the NCAA Tournament — against Gonzaga (and barely).

UNC makes up for not getting to the line often by making almost every free throw once there (with two excellent free-throw shooting teams — Villanova, of course, made 22-of-23 free throws against Pitt last Saturday — the team with the lead late should be in a good position). Hansbrough hits at 85.8 percent, Green at 85.2, Lawson at 81.5 and Ellington at 77.8, but only Hansbrough and Lawson get to the line with any frequency.

For all of its positive traits, Villanova is not good at keeping opponents off the foul line, fouling more often than a team with a modest 21.5-percent forced-turnover rate should. Fisher and Clark are particularly likely to foul. More importantly, Cunningham is prone to foul as well, and Nova will need him on the floor most of the game. Expect him to stay off Hansbrough and on Thompson. Antonio Pena, less used late in the season, is the most foul prone Cat should he see much time off the bench.

Conclusion: North Carolina could have faced a tougher matchup in the Final Four — perhaps a longer team that could present more problems for Hansbrough — but Villanova doesn’t play small, and the Cats have the firepower and balance to compete with North Carolina. It won’t take a phenomenal shooting performance or an unlikely incident — severe foul trouble or an ejection for the Tar Heels — for Villanova to win, as some pundits have suggested. The Cats won 15 games against Big East opponents, including two wins over Pitt. They’ve also recently defeated UCLA and Duke in blowouts. They will not be intimidated by any opponent, and they’ll probably be just a few good plays and a couple fortunate bounces from playing on Monday night. A few Corey Stokes threes wouldn’t hurt either.

There isn’t a team more talented or coached better defensively than Louisville, and the Cards proved it again in a 69-55 win over Villanova in Friday’s first Big East Tournament semifinal at Madison Square Garden.

Their defense is a constant, a part of Cardinals basketball DNA, and it was there even in a dreadful offensive first half. Louisville shot poorly (41 percent FG) and committed 11 turnovers in a 26-point first half played across 35 possessions. Passes were aimed at teammates’ feet or fumbled out of bounds, and Villanova closed off the defensive glass, grabbing 75 percent of Louisville’s many misses.

But, even as the offense was feeble, the defense kept the Cards in the game. Louisville forced 11 turnovers of its own in the first half to hold Villanova to less than a point per possession. The key for Villanova was that it was able to prevent the live-ball run-outs that Louisville’s offense thrives on. Despite both teams committing 11 turnovers, Villanova outscored the Cards, 13-0, on points off turnovers in the first half. With all of the ways in which Villanova dominated Louisville, the 34-26 halftime deficit felt generous to Rick Pitino’s team.

“At halftime, I told the guys I was speechless for the first time this year,” said Pitino. “I said, ‘I don’t recognize any of you — I don’t know who you are. That’s not Earl Clark, that’s not Terrence Williams, that’s not Jerry Smith. Everything that we’ve gone through to become a good basketball team you totally changed in a 20-minute half.”

Louisville went in the locker room at halftime happy that basketball was a sport of two halves rather than one, and — identities restored — the Cards immediately showed their appreciation at the start of the second half.

Louisville forced Villanova’s Reggie Redding into a tough runner on the first possession of the second half. The Cardinals grabbed the rebound, and Clark hit a left-wing 3-pointer. Then, Terrence Jennings blocked Dante Cunningham’s attempt, which led, seconds later, to an Andre McGee 3-pointer that cut the deficit to two.

“I thought at halftime that we were playing well enough defensively to hold them down and be able to grind one out there, but we started the second half not aggressively,” said Villanova head coach Jay Wright, who apparently saw the writing on the wall before his team even trailed. “Shot blocked, they come down, we don’t guard Clark, he hits a three. They get another three, and bang, there’s the ballgame right away. We never seemed to recover from that.”

Lousville then got two steals on its next three defensive possessions. The second steal from Jennings led — finally — to the Cards’ first points off a turnover in the game, a Smith three on the end of a crosscourt pass from Williams.

“We just pressured and we dug in, got back to what we do — forcing turnovers — and our guards did a great job,” said Clark about how his team came out of the locker room. “Andre, Preston [Knowles] and Jerry — they just forced turnovers and they put the heat on [Villanova's] guards, and we hit open threes.”

On the next possession, Jennings forced another Villanova miss by Cunningham, and Clark scored inside to give Louisville a 37-36 lead, its first since 6-5. Williams then got yet another steal — one of 12 for UofL in the game — that led to yet another Smith 3-pointer off of it, and Louisville was rolling, up 40-36 and on a 14-2 run to start the half.

The defense was fueling the offense rather than just limiting Villanova’s scoring. And, once the shots started falling, the defense became even more suffocating. Louisville is most dangerous when its play on each end of the floor feeds the other.

For the game, Louisville forced 23 turnovers on Villanova’s 70 offensive possessions, which is just less than one-third — the national average is 20.5 percent. And this came just a day after Louisville forced 26 turnovers in a 75-possession game against Providence (34.7 percent). The Friars tend to be a bit more willing to cough up possessions than Villanova, but the Wildcats hardly did better protecting the ball or their Big East Tournament championship hopes in this game.

For those of you unfamiliar with the style of defense that Pitino’s team plays, let me describe it, because it’s unique.

Louisville will run a trapping press off of every made basket. There are a few keys to this press. First, Louisville uses two players to deny the ball to the opposition’s preferred ball-handler. That was Scottie Reynolds on Friday. Then, the Louisville guards play very aggressively. Knowles and McGee, in particular, are pests on the ball, constantly reaching for and stripping the ball. Smith has improved this facet of his game as well to give Pitino three players who can sustain pressure.

Pitino said of Smith, “He knows how much his teammates need him, how well he’s playing, and I think Earl would speak to how good our backcourt is, because they do that dirty work for 90 feet and don’t give in.”

“What I think makes them the best defensive team — they’re the best defensive team we’ve played, and we’ve played a lot of really good ones especially in this league,” said Wright. “I think those four guards, the pressure they’re able to put on the ball for 40 minutes, fullcourt, 40 minutes — it never stops. They get a 10-, 12-point lead, and that pressure is still there, and it’s still as intense as it was at the beginning of the game.”

In theory, Villanova should be well equipped to handle the pressure, even if Reynolds couldn’t get the ball, since it also has Corey Fisher, a terrific ball-handling option and the Big East’s Sixth Man of the Year. But Louisville forced Fisher to play at a faster pace than he could handle. He committed seven of his team’s 23 turnovers.

Behind the guards is a long frontcourt that dares teams to pass over the pressure. With 6-foot-9 Earl Clark, 6-9 Jennings and 6-6 uber-athlete Williams backing the press, lob passes meet a certain death in the hands of a Cardinal. With Louisville up by four and 7:50, Fisher tried to break the press with a loopy crosscourt pass. Williams would have none of it, stole the ball and streaked from halfcourt for an emphatic slam to make the score 56-50. Villanova would never be so close again.

On those occasions when teams are able to get into an offensive set after breaking the press, Louisville plays a distinctive 2-3 zone. This is not like Syracuse’s zone, which tries to keep everything on the outside and worries primarily about getting hands in passing lanes. In Louisville’s 2-3, the guards continue to apply pressure on the ball, harassing the opposition to the point of fatigue, offensive fouls, ill-conceived passes or wayward dribbles. And with that long, athletic frontline hedging and helping, there’s often nowhere for the guards to go.

When Reynolds or Fisher did find players like Cunningham or Anderson or Shane Clark around the paint, they were forced to shoot over and around long, athletic players. Meanwhile, Reynolds — Villanova’s most important player — scored just two points and committed six turnovers.

“They really did a great job on him,” said Wright about Louisville’s defense of Reynolds, who entered the game averaging 15.9 points per game on the season. “They doubled him every time he had the ball in the backcourt. Anytime we ball screened, they iced him, forced him down to the baseline and doubled him [again].”

“When we play man or zone, we really put great emphasis on pressuring the basketball,” said Pitino about his halfcourt defense. “We did it with West Virginia [in the regular-season finale last Saturday], we did it the other night with Providence. If we get beat, we rotate well.”

It’s no wonder that Louisville’s defense wore down the Villanova offense, holding it to just 12-of-35 shooting inside, a woeful, 34.2 percentage on 2-pointers. The Cats were even more helpless in the second half, hitting on just 5-of-18 2-point attempts (27.8 percent).

Louisville’s defense can wear down even a Villanova team built around superior backcourt play and one that has faced the defense often. Woe to the team that has just a day to prepare for it in the NCAA Tournament. For it’s clear that the Cardinals’ defense is championship caliber, and if that defense can continue to feed the offense with layups and open looks at three, they may indeed cut down the nets, both at Madison Square Garden on Saturday and at Ford Field in 24 days.

Bracketing challenges: The most difficult team to place in this bracket was Purdue. On Tuesday, the Boilermakers lost at Ohio State in overtime without their best player — Robbie Hummel. It’s the second time Purdue has lost a close game on the road without the sophomore star. Usually those losses would be discounted slightly with the expectation that Purdue will have a full-strength Hummel by the time March comes around. The problem with that assumption is that Hummel is suffering from a stress fracture in his back, an injury that won’t fully heal until the offseason. Hummel is expected to be day-to-day from here until Purdue’s final game of the season. Because of the chronic nature of the injury, I’m treating those losses as if they were full-strength losses — with a slight discount for the Penn State loss, because Purdue was without Chris Kramer for that game. Losing close road games to Penn State and Ohio State is not particularly egregious — certainly better than Michigan State’s home losses to Penn State and Northwestern — but Purdue would probably be listed as a No. 4 seed if doctors expected Hummel to be fully healthy by March. Instead, the Boilermakers are the top No. 5 seed on my board.

Note: San Diego State is in the field as an automatic bid from the Mountain West after winning at UNLV on Tuesday. The Aztecs would be right between Baylor and Southern Cal in the “Last In” list if they were considered an at-large.

The Bubble: The bubble was a little awkward this week because of several results in conference play. Even with San Diego State’s inclusion as an automatic, the standard for inclusion in the field on Friday feels less stringent than it did on Monday thanks to many losses by teams around the bubble. In the end, I’m very comfortable with the top 32 at-large teams. It’s the last two — Baylor and Michigan — that I could take or leave.

Michigan’s impressive win over Penn State put both teams right around the cut mark. Because of the Wolverines’ win Thursday and their more impressive play out of conference — wins over Duke and UCLA — they’re in and the Nittany Lions are out, not that it was necessarily and either/or proposition. Baylor is running out of reprieves. Scott Drew’s team has now lost four straight games, all against teams seeded No. 7 or better in this projection. Baylor now enters a stretch of five games — at Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, at Oklahoma State, at Iowa State — where the Bears will need to win at least three to stay in the field.

On the other side of the bubble, Texas A&M was this close to knocking off Oklahoma on the road but came up just short. A win would have done for A&M what it did for Miami (see below). The Aggies now host Kansas State on Saturday in a massive game for two teams struggling to get in the field. The Wildcats won again — at home against Iowa State — but that simply hurt K-State’s RPI more. At 80, the Wildcats’ RPI is too high to justify inclusion in the field. Get in the top 70 and then we’ll talk. A win at A&M may do just that. We’ll discuss Kentucky and UNLV in the “Moving Out” section, but I’ll close with a note on Arizona, which has now won four straight games after squeaking by Oregon State by three at Corvallis. Another win at conference-winless Oregon on Saturday will set up a huge weekend next weekend when USC and UCLA come to Tucson. Split those games, and the Wildcats might be in.

Moving in: We’ve already hit on Michigan, which now faces Connecticut and Michigan State. The Wolverines are so close to the cut line that, even if they didn’t play a game between now and the next projection, they could be bumped out. So, Michigan fans shouldn’t consider it a punishment for losing at the No. 1 team in the nation should UM fall out of the field on Monday. Miami (Fla.) is the other new at-large team, as the Hurricanes jumped all the way up to a No. 8 seed with a 27-point home win over Wake Forest. The win halts a three-game slide for the Canes, who had lost two of those games in overtime. Miami’s entrance gives the ACC eight teams, which would surely cause a stir if it actually happened. Chances are, one or two of the eight plays their way out, but for now, only Virginia Tech, Florida State — and perhaps Boston College and Miami — are close to the cut line, and all have more compelling cases than the teams omitted from the field.

Moving in as Automatics: San Diego State (Mountain West — see note above), Cal State-Northridge (Big West), Boston University (America East), Western Kentucky (Sun Belt), Sam Houston State (Southland)

Moving out: Along with Penn State, UNLV and Kentucky miss out on the field after making Monday’s projection. The Rebels are just out after a home overtime loss to San Diego State. The Mountain West is probably fighting for three spots with four teams in contention. Right now, UNLV finishes fourth of the four — Brigham Young, San Diego State and Utah being the others. The Rebels certainly have a strong case to be included — built around wins at Louisville and BYU — and so I wouldn’t protest much if UNLV were included in the field at this point. Kentucky’s second straight home loss — this one to Mississippi State — puts the Cats out of the field. UK’s profile rates out much better than its RPI (75), but the home losses damage Kentucky’s strongest selling point — its conference play — and the RPI makes its admission untenable.

Moving out as Automatics: UNLV (Mountain West), Long Beach State (Big West), Vermont (America East), Arkansas-Little Rock (Sun Belt), Stephen F. Austin (Southland)

The top four lines: The biggest shakeup was on the top line where Duke drops out after its 27-point shellacking at the hands of Clemson. Pitt takes the Blue Devils spot up top. Elsewhere, Clemson moves to the No. 2 line, taking Wake Forest’s spot after the two teams were on opposite ends of 27-point results on Wednesday night. Butler drops from a No. 3 to a No. 5 after a road loss at Wisconsin-Green Bay. The Bulldogs’ hold on a top-four seed was always optimistic, considering the selection committee’s history, and this loss is a good enough reason for them to be moved down. Kansas takes Butler’s spot. UCLA and Missouri moved from No. 5’s to No. 4’s after a pair of impressive wins on Wednesday. At the same time Purdue — see note above — drops from a No. 4 to a No. 5.

ACC: The biggest questions for me in the ACC rest near the bubble line where four teams — Miami, Boston College, Florida State and Virginia Tech — have solid at-large profiles right now, but the committee would surely seek out reasons to exclude one of them and therefore avoid the potential backlash of including eight ACC teams in the field. For that reason, none of the four has much margin for error. Three of those four teams face road tests this weekend. Miami heads to Duke to try to pull off another upset on Saturday. Florida State takes on Clemson at Littlejohn that same day. On Sunday, Boston College heads to Winston-Salem to play Wake Forest. The Hokies are the only team with a matchup they’re favored to win — at home against North Carolina State on Sunday.

At the top of the league, while Clemson, Duke and Wake Forest have been exchanging body blows over the last 10 days, North Carolina as been eerily quiet, winning six straight with only Tywon Lawson’s buzzer-beater at FSU being a close call. UNC hosts hapless Virginia on Saturday before traveling to Duke on Wednesday. As the top teams in the ACC fall, it becomes more and more likely that the Big East — and not the ACC — will get two No. 1 seeds, but that’s something that could come all the way down the conference tournaments before it’s decided.

Bid Breakdown:

North Carolina (No. 1)
Clemson (No. 2)
Duke (No. 2)
Wake Forest (No. 3)
Miami (No. 8 )
Boston College (No. 9)
Florida State (No. 10, moved to No. 9 for bracket balancing; ninth-to-last in)
Virginia Tech (No. 11, fifth-to-last in)

Big East: Cincinnati’s win over Notre Dame on Wednesday pretty much puts an end to ND’s hopes for an NCAA Tournament berth, at least for a while. The Irish will have to find a way to defeat either UCLA in Westwood or Louisville at home before they are seriously considered again. Syracuse looked healthier and happier in a home win over West Virginia on Wednesday, while Villanova’s win at Providence that same night makes the Cats the bridge from the top four to the second tier in the Big East. Continued success could bring Jay Wright’s team a top-four seed. Georgetown’s home win over Rutgers rights the ship, at least temporarily. On Saturday, Cincinnati heads to Georgetown and Providence heads to West Virginia in matchup where the home teams and road teams are in similar positions. UC and PC could really use a statement road win on their NCAA profiles, while Georgetown and West Virginia are trying badly to stay as far away from the at-large cut line as possible. An upset in either game would muddle the picture.

At the top of the league, the decision to place Louisville ahead of Michigan State was an agonizing one for me. I decided that MSU’s recent home losses to inferior teams trumps the fact that the Spartans have far more quality wins than Louisville.

Bid Breakdown:

Connecticut (No. 1)
Pittsburgh (No. 1)
Marquette (No. 2)
Louisville (No. 2)
Villanova (No. 5)
Syracuse (No. 6)
West Virginia (No. 9)
Georgetown (No. 10, seventh-to-last in)
Cincinnati (ninth-to-last out)
Providence (11th-to-last out)

Big Ten: How many bids will the Big Ten get? It’s looking more like six than seven right now, although Wisconsin’s home win against Illinois puts four teams in close range of a sixth and seventh bids. Either Wisconsin took advantage of one of those offensive remnants from Illinois’ last two seasons, or the Badgers’ defense was that good in a 63-50 win. With a trip to Penn State followed by home dates with Iowa and Ohio before a trip to last-place Indiana, 3-1 is both doable and necessary for Bo Ryan’s team. With Penn State positioned so close to the bubble, that game on Sunday in State College obviously sets up as a huge one for the Lions as well. Northwestern remains a somewhat forgotten team, but the Cats can get to .500 in conference with a win at Iowa on Saturday. They will return home for three games — Illinois, Michigan, Ohio State — after the trip to Iowa City. Like Wisconsin, three wins in that four game stretch are possible, if less likely than for the Badgers, and three wins would probably put the Cats in the Feb. 20 projection.

Michigan State is the hard-luck No. 3 seed, but the Spartans have no one but themselves to blame. They come out and dominate Minnesota at home but have too many ugly performances to go with the many sparkling ones. If every team is playing its best, I think MSU is the third best team in the country — behind only UNC and UConn — but we’ve seen too much of the worst of Tom Izzo’s team to put it up at a No. 2 right now. Ohio State’s home win over Purdue puts the Buckeyes in a much safer position, while Minnesota and Illinois come in at the No. 6 seed line. Minnesota travels to Columbus on Saturday in a game featuring two of the five teams jumbled at either 6-3 or 6-4 in conference.

Bid Breakdown:

Michigan State (No. 3)
Purdue (No. 5)
Minnesota (No. 6)
Illinois (No. 6)
Ohio State (No. 8 )
Michigan (No. 12, last in)
Penn State (fourth-to-last out)
Northwestern (seventh-to-last out)
Wisconsin (eighth-to-last out)

Big 12: Like the Big Ten, the Big 12 has a large chunk of its conference right around the at-large cut line. Oklahoma State and Baylor came in just ahead this week, while Texas A&M and Kansas State came in just behind — and Nebraska looms further back. All five teams sit between 3-5 and 4-4 in conference, and they are probably fighting for just one or two spots, which makes each successive game crucial. The most important this weekend is in College Station where A&M hosts K-State. The winner of that game will have a strong case to be included in Monday’s projection. Oklahoma State barely pulled off a home win against Texas Tech on Wednesday, and it’s a good thing, because the Cowboys now travel to Kansas and Texas. Baylor heads to Texas Tech, looking for a sweep of the Red Raiders.

While Texas continues to struggle, Missouri and Kansas are filling the void. Both are high seeds in the latest projection, and both play the kinder, gentler Big 12 North schedule, so each should have a slightly inflated conference record. Oklahoma remains the No. 1 overall seed — drawing much consternation from UConn fans, surely — but the Sooners’ 9-0 record against the RPI top 50 is its biggest selling point. As for Texas, the Longhorns head to Nebraska on Saturday in need of a win after two straight home defeats. A Huskers win over the Longhorns would put NU in the at-large discussion.

Bid Breakdown:

Oklahoma (No. 1)
Kansas (No. 3)
Missouri (No. 4)
Texas (No. 7)
Oklahoma State (No. 11, fourth-to-last in)
Baylor (No. 12, second-to-last in)
Texas A&M (last out)
Kansas State (fifth-to-last out)
Nebraska (20th-to-last out)

Pac-10: Starting with the top of the league, UCLA’s dominant performance against USC in combination with Washington’s woeful second half in a loss at Cal makes the Bruins the obvious top choice from the Pac-10, but that’s still only worth a No. 4 seed right now. The Bruins have been awesome in their last three games with an offensive that is top-10 good. The defense isn’t quite as good, though, and UCLA still depends too much on its perimeter game — not so much outside shooting but perimeter players — with no dependable post option. Nonetheless, Ben Howland’s team will likely be good enough to win the Pac-10. Washington’s loss was bigger for Cal than it was for the Huskies, because Mike Montgomery’s Bears had been in a slide, and they needed Jerome Randle’s dynamic second half. When the shots fall in Berkeley, Cal is very hard to beat.

The other big result of the mid-week was Arizona’s win at Oregon State. In search of their fourth straight conference win, the Beavers crept back into the game late, but the resurgent Chase Budinger’s 17 points and eight rebounds were enough for Zona to sneak out with its fourth straight victory, 56-53. ASU bounced back from a home sweep at the hands of the Washington schools last weekend with a 66-57 win at winless Oregon on Thursday. James Harden had 36, but Sun Devils point guard Derek Glasser had to be helped from the floor in the closing minutes after it looked like he suffered another concussion — his second in two weekends — after taking a jarring screen.

Bid Breakdown:

UCLA (No. 4)
Washington (No. 5)
California (No. 7)
Arizona State (No. 7)
Southern California (No. 11, third-to-last in)
Arizona (fourth-to-last out)

SEC: We’ve talked about Kentucky’s swoon, but let’s hit on South Carolina, who dropped from a No. 7 to a No. 10 after a narrow defeat at Florida. That sounds harsh, and it probably is, but it more likely reflects that the Gamecocks were a bit too high in the previous projection and have settled into a more fitting level. The road win at Baylor is still a good one, but it’s looking less and less impressive with each Bears defeat.

The top three in the SEC remain in solid position, and Tennessee even jumped into the last spot on the No. 5 seed line after a win at Arkansas. The record — 14-7 — is an eyesore, but if the NCAA is going to harp on playing good teams out of league, it can’t penalize Bruce Pearl for doing just that, and losing a few along the way. The Vols have five wins against RPI top-50 teams, and they probably benefit by a seed line in this projection because each of the most likely teams to get that last No. 5 — Washington, Minnesota, Illinois — suffered blowout defeats this week. LSU continues to hover between a No. 7 and a No. 8 with very few chances to improve its stock in SEC play. One of those chances comes on Tuesday when the Florida Gators travel to Baton Rouge.

Bid Breakdown:

Tennessee (No. 5)
Florida (No. 6)
LSU (No. 7)
South Carolina (No. 10)
Kentucky (sixth-to-last in)
Mississippi (16th-to-last out)
Mississippi State (19th-to-last out)

Mid-Majors: The two games I previewed in this section of the last projection didn’t disappoint, as Butler did indeed lose at Wisconsin-Green Bay, and San Diego State pulled off the overtime upset at UNLV. There wasn’t a whole lot else of interest going on in mid-major country. Memphis, Xavier, Davidson, Siena, Utah State, Utah and Gonzaga each won without too much fuss. Dayton had the biggest scare, escaping Philly with a two-point win over a much-improved La Salle squad.

The biggest news of the last week was the announcement of the Bracket Buster matchups. The most intriguing matchups are Butler’s trip to North Carolina to play Davidson and Utah State’s journey to California to play Saint Mary’s, who will probably be without Patty Mills when that game is played on Feb. 21. There aren’t as many matchups that are likely to affect the at-large picture as in past years, but if you’re looking for a down-ballot choice, check out Northern Iowa and Siena. Both teams will be in the mix for at-large bids should either fall in its conference tournament. All 51 games will be played from Feb. 20-22. Here’s the schedule. I still don’t understand why the Atlantic-10 doesn’t get in on this. It would really help teams like Dayton, Rhode Island, Saint Joseph’s and Temple if they could get a big non-conference matchup late in February.

Bid Breakdown:

Xavier (No. 3)
Memphis (No. 4)
Gonzaga (No. 4)
Butler (No. 5)
Utah State (No. 8 )
Davidson (No. 9)
Dayton (No. 9, moved to No. 10 for bracket balancing)
Utah (No. 10, 10th-to-last in)
Brigham Young (No. 11, sixth-to-last in)
Siena (No. 12)
San Diego State (No. 12)
UNLV (second-to-last out)
Creighton (10th-to-last out)
Tulsa (12th-to-last out)
Saint Mary’s (13th-to-last out)
Rhode Island (14th-to-last out)
UAB (15th-to-last out)
Illinois State (19th-to-last out)