Let’s check the ballot first:

1. Kansas
2. Kentucky
3. Syracuse
4. Purdue
5. Duke
6. Kansas State
7. Villanova
8. West Virginia
9. BYU
10. New Mexico
11. Wisconsin
12. Ohio State
13. Michigan State
14. Georgetown
15. Butler
16. Tennessee
17. Temple
18. Pittsburgh
19. Texas
20. Gonzaga
21. Vanderbilt
22. Richmond
23. Texas A&M
24. Northern Iowa
25. Virginia Tech

Some quick hits:
—I had Virginia Tech No. 25 last week and I wasn’t going to penalize Tech for losing at Cameron Indoor Stadium. It’s not like a lot of teams are walking into Duke and winning. The game was competitive throughout. Tech’s win over Wake Forest Tuesday was enough to keep the Hokies in the Top 25.
—I really don’t know what to do with half the teams ranked Nos. 10-20. They all have pretty similar resumes. I still have Wisconsin higher than anyone else in the country. But who should be ahead of the Badgers? A Georgetown team that lost to South Florida and Rutgers? Ohio State? Temple? Butler? I can see the arguments for all of those teams. Thankfully, there’s a tournament at the end of the season to hash this all out.
—UTEP just missed making my ballot this week. I put Northern Iowa back in after the nice win over Old Dominion in the BracketBuster. The Miners are a sneaky team to watch when you’re filling out your brackets next month.
—Gonzaga rightfully plummeted this week. The Bulldogs play in a weak league and need to be penalized for road losses in the WCC. No way does Duke or Kentucky or Syracuse lose at Loyola Marymount, like the Zags did last week. I know, I know. Winning on the road in any league is tough. But Gonzaga cannot afford to lose to teams like LMU, which is well outside of the top 100.

Some Big South talk now:

EDIT—It seems that no one could access the blog Tuesday because of a site malfunction, so I’ll go ahead and update the scenarios after Tuesday’s results. I’ll leave my picks up for posterity. I whiffed on the GWU-Presby pick (The Bulldogs won on a Grayson Flittner 3-pointer with two seconds left in OT) and hit on the Winthrop pick.

—Nailed one pick last Saturday, but not Liberty. Then again, I didn’t expect Kyle Ohman to score 39 points or for Nick Barbour to only take seven shots. That’s the beauty of basketball though. It’s not played on paper.

So that leaves us with a week in the season, and the tournament picture continues to clear.

Tonight’s games—UNC Asheville at Winthrop (my pick—the Eagles); Gardner-Webb at Presbyterian (my pick—the Blue Hose).

A team-by-team look:
1. COASTAL CAROLINA (13-3)
Games: vs. Liberty, vs. VMI
Analysis: Coastal has already wrapped up a home game and is still the odds-on favorite to host the tournament. If the Chanticleers win once this week, the only way they would lose a tiebreaker at 14-4 with Winthrop would be if Liberty then wins out and UNC Asheville loses out and Liberty finishes in fourth place. So basically, the race is over if Coastal beats the Flames Thursday, because then UNCA could not finish below LU in the standings.

If Coastal wins Thursday and loses Saturday to VMI, it would finish 14-4. If Winthrop then finished 14-4, the Chants would still win a tiebreaker due to the descending-order-of-standings rule. CCU and Winthrop split; both teams will have split with Radford; and Coastal owns a sweep of fourth-place UNCA while Winthrop will have split with the Bulldogs.

2. WINTHROP (12-4)
Games: at High Point, at Radford
Analysis: WU is still the league’s hottest team, despite the loss at Eastern Kentucky Saturday. Let’s face it, Eagles coach Randy Peele wasn’t exactly putting a lot of prep time into that non-conference game, so it’s no surprise the Eagles struggled defensively. Winthrop can win the Big South outright with two wins and two Coastal losses. The only way the Eagles win a 14-4 tiebreaker with Coastal is if the Chanticleers’ loss is to Liberty. And even then, the Eagles will need Liberty to finish ahead of UNC Asheville to win the tiebreaker, as Winthrop owns a sweep of Liberty and Coastal will have split with the Flames.

3. RADFORD (11-5)
Games: vs. Presbyterian, vs. Winthrop
Analysis: Radford will take second with two wins this week and can win the No. 1 seed with two wins and two Coastal losses. If Radford, CCU and Winthrop all finish 13-5, Radford would be No.1 because it would be 3-1 against the other two. Coastal would be 2-2 and take the No. 2 spot and Winthrop would be 1-3 and finish third. If there’s just a two-way tie at 13-5, Radford would win it based on the sweep of Winthrop, provided Winthrop finishes ahead of UNCA. If UNCA finishes ahead of Winthrop, then Coastal would win the tiebreaker because of a sweep.

(This is all so complicated.)

4. UNC ASHEVILLE (10-7)
Games: at Winthrop, vs. Gardner-Webb
Analysis: UNCA will likely finish fourth. The Bulldogs can’t catch Radford and Winthrop (they lose a tiebreaker with Radford because the Bulldogs were swept by Coastal Carolina) and it would take an odd turn of events for Liberty or High Point to unseat UNCA in fourth. A win over Gardner-Webb Saturday clinches the four seed.

5. LIBERTY (9-7)
Games: at Coastal Carolina, at Charleston Southern
Analysis: The Flames must win twice and have UNCA lose to secure a home game. A Liberty-High Point tiebreaker for fifth place gets interesting and it’s entirely too difficult to break down at this point. High Point has beaten Coastal Carolina, which will help the Panthers greatly if there’s a tie at the end. If Liberty beats Coastal, then that win is nullified, of course. Both teams split with Radford, and High Point still has a game left with Winthrop, which swept the Flames. We’ll revisit this on Saturday.

6. HIGH POINT (8-8)
Games: vs. Winthrop, vs. Presbyterian
Analysis: High Point needs two wins and a UNCA losses to host a game. More likely, the Panthers will be fighting Liberty for the No. 5 seed. See above.

7. CHARLESTON SOUTHERN (6-10)
Games: vs. VMI, vs. Liberty
Analysis: The Bucs are probably locked in to the No. 7 or 8 spot, and they’re not even guaranteed a tournament spot yet, though. There’s a potential that they could end up in a three-way tie at 6-12 with VMI and Gardner-Webb, and if that happens, it’s lights out for the Bucs, who would have been swept by both teams. ANYWAY, my head just exploded thinking about that one. There’s the potential for a CSU-High Point tie at 8-10, and the only way CSU can win that tiebreaker is if Winthrop then is the No. 1 seed.

8. VMI (5-11)
Games: at Charleston Southern, at Coastal Carolina
Analysis: The Keydets can finish no higher than seventh. VMI’s sweep of High Point will help with any tiebreaker with Gardner-Webb, unless the Bulldogs find a way to win in Asheville.

9. GARDNER-WEBB (5-12)
Games: at Presbyterian, at UNC Asheville
Analysis: Gardner-Webb has to win out, simply put. The Bulldogs can’t win a tiebreaker with VMI if they lose to UNC Asheville. Even if GWU wins out, it’ll still need help in the form of VMI or Charleston Southern losses.