Crunch time, ladies and gentlemen.  With a month left in the season, teams are establishing themselves for the stretch run, and the rankings as a whole have been in almost total upheaval since the middle of January.  Take Washington State, for instance: undefeated and ranked fourth heading into their January 12 game with UCLA, they have since lost five, including three in a row before their win Saturday over USC.  The Cougars started last week at seventeenth nationally.  How things have changed.

That particular example suffers only slightly as a result of Wazzu’s brutal conference, but the point remains: aside from Memphis and suddenly surging Duke, no one really knows what to expect out of anybody in the five weeks leading up to Selection Sunday.

Here’s my best guess at where we stand right now, anyway:

1) Memphis – Can’t stop them, can’t really hope to contain them, can’t touch them at home and they cast a long shadow on the road.  The February 23 game against UT is their only remaining challenge, but it’s at the FedEx Forum in Memphis.  Look out, Volunteers.  And make sure you bring your A game.

2) Duke – I have been dogging these guys all years, and they quite simply OWNED UNC in Chapel Hill last week.  Granted, that game may have been different had Ty Lawson suited up, but the fact remains Duke scored a gigantic road victory and for the time being appears to be the second-best team in America.  By quite a bit.

3) Kansas – Anyone notice that the Jayhawks scored fifty points in the last FOURTEEN MINUTES against Baylor Saturday?  Back and forth game and then all the sudden BOOM, and Baylor didn’t compete again.  That combustible element sets KU apart from everyone but Memphis, and they only have three tough games the rest of the way, starting Monday at Texas.

4) North Carolina – The Tar Heels never looked comfortable in the half-court offense against Duke, no doubt equal parts Lawson’s absence and Duke’s pressure defense.  Aside from the rematch at Duke to end the season, they shouldn’t have another tough game, and Lawson will have plenty of time to get back into the flow of things before the tournament.

5) Tennessee – Gritty win over an emotional LSU team coming off the absurd mid-season firing of John Brady.  I honestly didn’t think UT had a grinding win like that in them, and it showed toughness thus far absent in the Vols.  And that came after their dominating performance against Florida.  February 23, February 23, February 23.

6) Stanford – A seven-game winning streak in the toughest conference in the nation has catapulted Stanford up these rankings.  Now first in the Pac-10, the Cardinal are a Brook Lopez-led force out West.  What a difference a month can make.  Has anyone ever played half a season and still been a first-team All-American?  If anyone deserves the honor it’s Lopez.

7) UCLA – I had them at fourth before the loss to Washington Sunday afternoon.  Still only their second league loss, but that makes them no better than the team directly above them on this list, and things aren’t any easier the rest of the way.  Regardless of the nice win at Wazzu, they needed that one over Washington.

8) Georgetown – The Hoyas’ calling card this year has been their execution.  It is the one thing they do better than anyone else the nation.  So when they only score six points in the first twelve minutes of the second half at Louisville, allowing the Cardinals to come back from a ten-point halftime deficit, something has gone dreadfully wrong.  Just a momentary lapse, to be sure, but it is possible to rattle the Hoyas.  That spells trouble come March.

9) Wisconsin – Purdue is Wisconsin’s kryptonite, the only team to beat them (twice) in the last two months.  No more Boilermakers on their schedule look good to the Badgers, who have represented themselves forcefully throughout the rest of the season.  The loss slides them to third in the conference, though, tied with…

10) Michigan State – Unforgivable losses dot an otherwise stellar season so far in East Lansing.  They stopped Penn State’s six-game losing streak and allowed a ridiculous eighty-five in that nine-point road loss.  The Spartans next game is against Purdue, and MSU’s January 8 win stands as the Boilermakers only conference loss all year.  A win in West Lafayette gets them back on track.

11) Texas – Kansas comes to town February 11 and the games looks to be perhaps Texas’ last chance to gain traction in a conference suddenly long on dogfights.  Four Longhorns average double-digit points and D.J. Augustin is on a short list for player of the year, but it remains hard to take them seriously.  Beating the Jayhawks changes this.

12) Xavier – Six straight wins and they remain the mid-major teams are actually worried about.  The last few wins have been tight games that perhaps should have been less so, but the Musketeers top SIX players all average over ten points a game.  That makes it very easy to win most of your contests.

13) Butler – Guess I have to get on-board the Butler train finally (but I refuse to do so for Drake).  The Bulldogs’ Super Bowl comes February 23 when they play Drake, and the rest of their schedule shows nothing to fear but complacency and spotlight fatigue.  A balanced attack and no traditional center have endeared these guys to national pollsters.

14) Indiana – Back-to-back losses ended January on a down note, but three in a row, including an overtime victory at Illinois in the Eric Gordon Revenge Game have the Hoosiers’ season back on track.  They needed those three in a row, too, because they now have three in a row against Wisconsin, MSU, and Purdue, i.e. three of the top four in the Big Ten.

15) UConn – Eight consecutive wins has wiped out any ill feeling people had for the Huskies earlier in the season, and the play of sophomore Hasheem Thabeet is a main reason why.  Against Georgia Tech last weekend, he went off for twenty-four points, fifteen rebounds, and six blocks.  But let’s not forget junior Jeff Adrien’s averages of fifteen and nine.  Those help too.  Watch out for UConn in March.

16) Texas A&M – The five-OT loss to Baylor was a low point, but the Aggies have five wins in a row since and appear to have righted the ship somewhat.  The rough stretch puts them at fourth in the Big 12, though, and it’s going to take some monumental slippage by someone above them (Texas, perhaps?) for them to move much higher heading into March.

17) Notre Dame – Out of nowhere, the Fighting Irish are looking like an elite Big East team.  My boys at Marquette destroyed them by 26 a month ago, and since then the Irish are 6-1.  They won Saturday over those same Golden Eagles, going ten of ten from the line down the stretch and extending their home winning streak to 34 games.

18) Kansas State – Kevin Durant set the precedent, and if the Wildcats win the Big 12 this year Michael Beasley has as much claim to National Player of the Year as anybody else.  Still holding averages of twenty-five and twelve, Beasley has scored less than twenty only once since the turn of the year, in K-State’s only loss so far in 2008.

19) Marquette – The ND loss hurt, no denying that.  Had they not sleepwalked through the first thirty minutes of that game, perhaps it would have gone differently.  Lazar Hayward is all of the sudden the best player on the team, stepping up in crunch time and doing enough dirty work to dependably get his fourteen and six every night.  Dominic James, on the other hand, could not possibly be more inconsistent.

20) Washington State – Losing five of nine is not the way to validate an undefeated first two months.  The Pac-10 is a different animal, and as such one figures no team will make it through the year with a pretty record.  But the defense on which the Cougars made their name has been absent in each of those losses, including the brutal OT loss at home to Stanford that may have sent the year off the rails.

Pretenders, inconsistent wannabes, and various other teams of note:

Vanderbilt – Now here is a team that needs to get its shit together, and fast.  Kentucky, Florida, Georgia and UT all come to Nashville for Vandy’s next four games, so if the season is to be turned it has got to happen now.

Florida – That Tennessee loss evaporated most of the collective good will concerning the Gators, and one gets the feeling they are still a year away from really making some noise.

Purdue – Raise your hand if you would have guessed that Purdue would be leading the Big Ten in mid-February?  Didn’t think so.  They’ve beat Sconnie twice, so there’s obviously something here.  We just need to find out what that is.

Pittsburgh – They have alternated wins and losses since beating Georgetown, and the Panthers last win came by one over bitter rival West Virginia.  It’s going to be tough to make up any ground at that rate, especially in the Big East.

And with that, until next time, may you always make it rain.