Let’s begin with Duke’s pitiful showing in a 23-point drubbing at the hands of gritty, defensive-minded Villanova. Henderson: 1-for-14. Enough to give him second thoughts about the NBA? Jon Scheyer: 3-for-18. Shades of Redick against LSU three years ago. Bounced.

Duke could never get anything started offensively against a vastly superior athletic team and ended up with their worst shooting performance in 41 years. Henderson could create his own shot by knifing into the lane - but when the defense would collapse, the jump shots didn’t fall. Duke also got destroyed on the glass - good thing two bigs are on their way next season … just hope they’re more Singler/Laettner than Newtown/Zoubek.

Villanova vs. Pitt part deux, Saturday. Tough not to like long and athletic Villanova winning again. Especially if DeJuan Blair gets in foul trouble again.

We actually think Memphis shat the bed worse last night. How can the No. 1 defense (stats!) in the country give up 102 points? At some point, the pundits will realize that all schedules are not created equal and those defensive stats this season were a joke. Last year, Memphis had three NBA draftees (in the first 33 picks) in the starting lineup. This year it’s Tyreke Evans (who was tremendous with 33 points) and that’s it. Too many people were blinded by the stats, the gaudy record, and the win streak.

After Missouri determined it couldn’t stop Tyreke Evans, Mike Anderson went zone midway through the first half and Evans was bottled up in the lane. Memphis proceeded to shot 3-for-15 from three. The Tigers were a joke defensively - curls and cuts resulted in at least a dozen layups and 53 percent from the field. Calkins is a great writer, but this “luck” business is garbage.

Pittsburgh 60, Xavier: 55: This was too easy to call - this season, Pitt is the Mariano Rivera of closers. Levance Fields, who really needs to incorporate the big balls dance into his routine since he seems to make every clutch late shot that he takes, had five of his 14 points in the final 90 seconds. Of course, he may not have had the chance to perform his weekly heroics if Derrick Brown didn’t step out-of-bounds while chasing down a loose ball. Xavier could have been up two with the ball and pulled the upset. That’s unlucky.

Connecticut 72, Purdue 60: Not really sure what Matt Painter’s plan was. Purdue came out shooting jumpers and never took it at Thabeet. The result: 8-0 deficit. UConn never lost the lead. Jeff Adrien hit all of his foul-line jumpers last weekend; he made 3-of-13 in Glendale. AJ Price (5-for-15) forced the action, too. If either of those guys play at their normal level, this is close to a 20-point blowout. While Purdue returns its entire nucleus, we still think they’re a take-over player away from the Final Four. Purdue had numerous chances to tie the game and the offense always seemed to bog down. JuJuan Johnson could have been that guy … but it seemed like he was more of a decoy than anything (drawing Thabeet away from the basket), and he had to settle for 15-foot jumpers (he shot 5-of-13).