From Dennis Velasco,
Your Guide to Basketball.
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By Ryan Dunleavy

Never heard of Dick Davey or Jared Dudley? Never thought Duke would end up on a NOT hot list? Didn’t know there was more than one basketball conference along the West Coast? An already wacky season of college basketball took a turn for the weirder this past week, but do not fret. We are here to help you sort through the mess with, of course, an eye toward March.

HOT

• Mid-Majors

  BracketBuster Week starts Friday, and that means 13 ESPN games between 26 teams that you would have to sign your life away to some satellite provider just to see any other time of the year. Even more than the recently passed Rivalry Week, this is the closest the college basketball regular season comes to mirroring the NCAA Tournament feel. The games are almost always competitive, and previously unknown players become household names for the next month. Most fans tune in searching for the team capable of stealing them an unforeseen early-round victory or two in their office pool, but this year’s field has plenty of teams with tournament staying power. Southern Illinois against Butler on Saturday afternoon is the premier matchup, but it is a good week to be playing at almost any Northern Something State Tech A&M.

• Dick Davey, Santa Clara

  Sometimes it takes a negative situation to bring out the best in people. Davey spent almost 30 years instilling character in his players as a coach at Santa Clara, and he is seeing all that hard work pay off at once. Davey announced earlier this month that he would retire at the end of the season. There are plenty of people close to the program who believe Davey was given an ultimatum and that his “retirement” is more of a forced resignation. If that is true, what better way for Davey to make his detractors look foolish than to end his reign by snapping Gonzaga’s 50-game home winning streak as he did on Monday night. Gonzaga officials presented Davey with a fly fishing rod before the game, but it appears he might have to join that season in progress. His team is making other plans for March.

• Jared Dudley, Boston College

  Some feared that the dismissal of starting center Sean Williams four weeks ago would have a negative impact on Dudley, who was accustomed to being part of a two-man show. Instead, it has turned the senior forward into the leading candidate for ACC Player of the Year. Dudley lived in Craig Smith’s rather massive shadow during his first three years in Chestnut Hill, but with Smith graduated and Williams out of the picture, Dudley is enjoying life as the man. Although he was lightly recruited out of high school, Dudley started the first 110 games of his collegiate career. When he finally missed a game because of a foot injury earlier this season, Boston College lost to lowly Duquesne. He leads the conference in scoring and rebounding averages, and if that plus his recent crunch time heroics does not spell Player of the Year, it definitely spells MVP.

COLD

• DePaul University

  With two of the 11 Preseason All-Big East First Team honorees, DePaul should be demoted to Conference USA status for having a sub-.500 record in a very mediocre conference. Sophomore forward Wilson Chandler is 10th in the Big East in blocked shots. Why is that statistic significant? Because it is the only time that he or teammate Sammy Mejia appears in the league’s Top 10 in any major offensive category. While that is a big indictment on the two stars and the league’s coaches for grouping them with All-American candidates Aaron Gray (Pittsburgh) and Dominic James (Marquette), Chandler and Mejia have not gotten much help, either. Only one other player averages more than 7.5 points (Draelon Burns), four rebounds (Karron Clarke) and three assists (Jabari Currie) per game.

• Duke University

  The Duke program has been synonymous with big stars and short benches during the past decade. The funny thing is this year Duke has as talented a group of role players as any team in its recent past, but there is no J.J. Redick, Elton Brand or Christian Laettner to claim the lead part. The Blue Devils are losers of four straight games and unranked for the first time since 1996, the year after last missing the NCAA Tournament under interim coach Pete Gaudet. A Mike Krzyzewski-led team has not missed the Big Dance since 1983, and it is hard to believe the selection committee will ever allow that to happen again. Television ratings and attendance figures are a big part of this tournament, and Duke is college basketball’s ally in both departments. That said, Duke could be the eighth best team in the ACC, and there are plenty of deserving mid-majors threatening to limit the bids given to power conferences. It might be the biggest Cinderella story of all time if Creighton’s bid leaves Duke in the cold.

• Tommy Amaker, Michigan University

  This guy had it all at Seton Hall: Big recruiting classes molded in the New York City hot bed, job security coming off a trip to the 2000 Sweet 16 and a plan for future success. But more money and program prestige can be blinding things, and they convinced Amaker to sneak out the back door of his office and catch the late-night bus from South Orange, N.J. to Ann Arbor, Mich. in 2002. After two NIT bids, a NIT title in 2004 and resting on the NCAA Tournament bubble last season, this finally was supposed to be Michigan’s breakout year. A watered down Big Ten conference should have helped, but Michigan is right where it always is with Amaker: In the middle of the pack. That kind of consistent mediocrity has bought him five seasons with the hope of turning a corner, but a sixth mediocre season figures to buy him a seat next to assistant coach Steve Wojciechowski on his alma mater’s bench at Duke.