Butler opened up the Maui Invitational with a 16 hour game against Marquette that had one of the best endings you will see this season. From Matt Norlander:

On a day where the talk of college athletics has been realignment, it's good to see amazing shots become the talk of the day, if even for a few fleeting minutes. College basketball is the best. 

1. 5* recruit Marcus Smart had struggled from the field in the first three games of his career. But in front of a national audience he had his best game. He made 5-6 2s (83%) and 3-9 3s (33%). In a 1:12 span in the first half Smart scored eight straight for the Cowboys, giving them a 13-9 lead which they would hold for the rest of the game. He also had 7 assists, 7 rebounds, 4 blocks and 4 steals.

2. Oklahoma State had excellent ball movement against the Wolfpack. Early on they penetrated and dished to jump shooters, and then later in the game they had a number of quick strikes down low on offense. In total they had 14 assists on 24 made baskets (58% assist rate), after a 38% assist rate in their previous two games.

Last year Leonard Hamilton had to make a tough decision. Late in December his team was playing defense at a remarkably high level. They'd already led the nation in defensive efficiency in two straight seasons, but last year's team was special. Not only were they on pace to lead the nation for a 3rd straight time, but they were on pace to be the best defense in all of college basketball in over a decade. But the same guys were struggling on offense. Coach Hamilton - known as a defense-first coach - evaluated his roster and decided that the offense just wasn't going to come around in time. So he scrapped the record setting defense and went to a 3-guard lineup for the rest of the season. The Seminoles fell to 15th nationally in defense, but along the way they won the ACC Title and advanced to their 4th consecutive NCAA tournament - both firsts for the program.

Once the season ended he began the final preparations for junior Ian Miller to take over at point guard. They'd been working on this for over two years. And then one game into the new season - a home loss to South Alabama - Coach Hamilton once again scrapped something he'd worked hard to build. The Miller-to-point experiment was over. Last year he scrapped the lineup in favor of three guards. This year he slid Miller off the ball, and inserted a 6-7 true freshman at point. This despite the fact that his defense was already struggling, and putting in a true freshman would only make it worse.

Three games later they're 3-1, they're the champions of the Coaches vs Cancer Classic, and they have two resume-quality wins.

It appears - once again - that the hard choice was the right choice.

Oklahoma State's Markel Brown is typically the player known for high flying, body control moves. But 5* freshman Marcus Smart can get up and finish as well. Here's Smart to Brown to Smart for two.

1. FSU made 6-13 threes (46.2%), and has now made 44.4% as a team for the season. You have to go back to 2007 to find a Seminole team which finished among the nations top-100 3-point shooting teams. That team finished 52nd and made 38% of their attempts. Michael Snaer has made 9-22 (41%), but that includes an 0-6 start in the first game. In the three games since he's made 56% of his threes.

2. FSU had 21 assists on 30 made baskets (70% assist %). The only time in the previous two years FSU matched that number was in last year's semifinal ACC Tournament win over UNC. But in that game, FSU had more made baskets (33). FSU also only turned the ball over 11 times vs St. Joe's, giving an A/T ratio of 1.91, which is their highest since January 10, 2010.

The Saint Joseph's Hawks entered the season hoping to repeat something which last happened in 1997: win an Atlantic 10 Title. They returned all five starters from a team which went 20-14 (9-7), and all five of those players are now upperclassmen. The lone senior - Carl Jones - is the leading returning scorer, and after sitting out the team's final exhibition and first two real games, he eligible to play tonight against Florida State.

Regardless of how they finish, they're certainly going to be entertaining. The athleticism on their front line is ridiculous. 6-9 CJ Aiken and 6-8 Ronald Roberts are joined by a less athletic, but highly skilled 6-8 Halil Kanacevic.

Here are some Aiken and Roberts dunks from their 79-70 overtime win against Notre Dame.

1. Senior Lamont "Momo" Jones scored 40 points against Quinnipiac, including a game tying three with 4.2 seconds left, but it wasn't enough as Iona lost in overtime 98-92. It wasn't his career high though. Last year he scored 43 in a win over Canisius. Junior Ike Azotam led the way for Quinnipiac with 21 points and 10 rebounds. And he nearly turned it into a triple-double (the bad way) with 9 turnovers.

2. St. Joes's trailed Notre Dame 66-58 with less than four minutes left in the game, but finished by scoring the final eight points of regulation. They then went on to outscore them 13-4 in the overtime, effectively ending the game on a 21-4 run.

Purdue and Villanova played an entertaining game last night in the 2K Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden. They did their part, at least for the first 39 minutes. And that's when the refs took over.

With the ball, and up four, Purdue inbounded to DJ Byrd. It was a bad inbounds plays because it allowed Nova to trap Byrd against the sideline. Here's the video:

On Tuesday UMass used a buzzer beater to knock off Harvard. Tonight the opponent was Providence. In the first half UMass built an early 11 point lead, but Providence - playing with just six scholarship players - used a late run to cut it to six at the half. In the 2nd they slowly took control of the game, eventually leading by five before the Minutemen were able to come back. It came down to the final possession, with the teams tied at 75. Here's what happened:

A great thing about basketball is that you can drop games early and have them be learning experiences. But that doesn't mean that these games don't matter. Because they do. And they will all season. The primary reason is due to the way the selection committee works when they're doling out invites. Games are broken up into several categories of various levels - good wins, bad losses, etc.... And all of it is based on strength of schedule. Of course, the selection committee relies on the RPI rather than much more relevant and meaningful metrics, but that's another story.

The strength of schedule component is driven by two things: your schedule, and how your conference mates fared against their schedule. When teams play more than half their games in-conference, then that's what drives strength of schedule. In other words, root for your conference.

So how are conferences doing? I'm not interested in how the top end of conferences are doing. I'm interested in the whole shebang. Because the conferences that do well in out-of-conference play will be the ones sitting in the pole position come Selection Sunday.

Here's a table of the top eight conferences according to Ken Pomeroy (and by extension, Vegas). The columns are how they've fared against different levels of teams: top 50, top 100, top 200, top 300 and the cupcakes. Division II teams have been removed.