One of the things that Tony Kornheiser has talked about during his transition from PTI to Monday Night Football is chemistry in the booth (or lack thereof). And for about 20 minutes yesterday, we got to thinking – does any announcing tandem have better chemistry than Jay Bilas and Bill Raftery? The two were calling games in Maui yesterday (with Sean McDonough as the play-by-play guy), and even a stinker like Texas and St. Joe’s was made joyous by the back-and-forth between the two.

Whether it was Bilas criticizing the game of Damion James (who definitely was forcing the action; even Texas fans admit as much), or Raftery offering up like a non-sequitor like “a turkey block!” or his signature “send it in!” the two kept up the witty banter throughout an awful first half of basketball.

(Strange but cool: Though we were on the treadmill while watching and listening to the game, there was a moment where AJ Abrams of Texas had made a few shots in a row, and the words “on fire” appeared in a graphic. There were flames, it seemed, above his statline. Is this new? Very video-gameish, very cool.)

Even though we’ve got a hoops playoff game of our own tonight, we’re so into this announcing pair that we’re going to TiVO the Texas-Notre Dame game and watch it Wednesday (while blogging, of course). Another reason to set the TiVO for tonight – a Charlie Brown Christmas at 8 tonight.

The remainder of the night in college hoops:

- Syracuse beat No. 18 Florida, 89-83, proving that preseason hoops polls are worthless. Florida has one player – Nick Calathes – and a bunch of role players, none of whom are very good. Luckily, the SEC is down this year. The Cuse have a ton of talent, mostly of the guard variety. They’re going to need a second big to step forward if they’ve got Final Four hopes (and the defense is indifferent, at best). And Paul Harris, despite his strange ability to rebound effectively at 6-foot-6, does not qualify.

- We’ll try to limit our Connecticut raving to a minimum, but the Huskies slaughtered Wisconsin, 76-57. They’ll be at full strength when SF Stanley Robinson returns in January.

- Steph Curry had 39 points in a win, and only took 21 shots to do it. He’s averaging 35 points per game.

- Kansas drilled Washington 73-59. The Huskies are painful to watch because Romar doesn’t seem to run an offense. They just have guys attack the hoop and throw up junk (29 percent shooting), and hope it falls or pray Brockman (18 rebounds) secures a board and put-back. Freshman Isiah Thomas (17 points) needs to act like a point guard and create, not just jack up shots. We were impressed by Kansas center Cole Aldrich, who had 16-9-6, and passed well out of the double teams. It is just way too early to tell how good or bad the Jayhawks will be because there are so many new kids out there who don’t know what they’re doing.

- Obama’s brother-in-law is struggling at Oregon State. The Beavers lost at home to Yale, 53-52. OSU’s best player missed two foul shots with four seconds left with his team down a point. OSU is 0-3.

- Jacksonville State 75, UMass 74. Unacceptable at home.

- So much for an Alabama resurgence. The Tide got run out of Maui by Oregon, 92-69.

* Photo from Rumors and Rants, which has a writer in Maui.