BCS, SchmeeCS, College Basketball Kept Going on Football's National Championship Night

As college basketball took one final backseat to college football for this year (which turned out to be one of the better championship games, especially with ESPN's Megacast), some games raged on, including a very interesting matchup between Maryland, perennial underachievers, and Pittsburgh, who as typical put up a gaudy record and good numbers against a terrifically terrible schedule. We recap that and several games that you might not usually pay attention to from conferences at the bottom of the S-curve.

@Pittsburgh 79, Maryland 59: Maryland is one of those teams that, when it's on the bubble, you just know it's going to disappoint its fans. As the Terps lose games that they shouldn't (Oregon State, Boston U) and struggle against teams that they shouldn't (Boston College, Florida Atlantic, Providence), they also cannot win games that they need to improve their at-large profile. Such was the case tonight, where Maryland hung with Pitt for a while before letting Pitt run by easily. Make no mistake, Maryland was not supposed to win, Pitt is better, but Maryland needed something positive. The Terps are running out of chances and are now quite likely to miss the tourney.

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As long as teams are in the bracket, I like to keep you updated on their status just for a little flavor. I mean, how often do you pay attention to Big South and Atlantic Sun scores anyway? So without further ado, here are tonight's scores involving bracket and bubble teams.

@Charleston Southern 105, Columbia International 45
@Mercer 73, East Tennessee State 63
West Virginia 89, @Texas Tech 86 (OT) - WVU escapes, still trying to get into tourney
@Elon 75, Appalachian State 66
Southern 79, @Texas Southern 71 - prior SWAC favorite goes down at home, SU in driver's seat
@Saint Mary's 84, William Jessup 46

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Tuesday's list of college basketball games have some real gems among it. The one that jumps off the page is Ohio State at Michigan State, as we try to figure out whether the Spartans are better than the team that lost to North Carolina and nearly lost to Oakland during Gary Harris's absence or whether Michigan State can return to its legitimate title contender status (not that it fell that far).

But I'm more interested in Baylor heading to Ames. I am very interested to see whether Iowa State can prove its worth at the top of the college basketball world and back up its 13-0 record. Other major games include Tennessee trying to hold on to its at-large bid at LSU, which is the highlight of a number of bracket teams heading on the road to lesser, but good, competition.

#4 Baylor at #2 Iowa State
Georgia Tech at #8 Duke
Navy at #15 Boston U
#9 Saint Louis at Rhode Island
#12 Tennessee at LSU
Hampton at #15 North Carolina Central
(FFO) Kansas State at TCU
#14 Green Bay at Chicago State
#1 Syracuse at Virginia Tech
#1 Ohio State at #2 Michigan State
#5 Cincinnati at Houston
NC State at #11 Notre Dame
#9 Creighton at DePaul
Vanderbilt at Alabama