Stock report (cont.)

GONZAGA (8-4, NR) HOLD

The Zags are in quite the freefall right now. They've dropped four out of their last five games to fall out of the rankings for the first time all season, and that could very easily be five out of six by the time they leave Knoxville on Wednesday night. I guess all that talk about this being Mark Few's best team ever can be put on the shelf for a while. Gonzaga is victim to a brutal nonconference schedule, even beyond the recognizable heavyweights. (A true road game at Utah? Insane.) Still, I must say it's been disheartening to see them get so deflated following that overtime loss to UConn. Didn't these guys realize it was only December? I rated Gonzaga as a Hold because with conference play coming up, it's hard to see things getting much worse, even if the Zags lose to Tennessee. But I can't rate them a Buy until I'm convinced they have the psychological mettle to battle their way through adversity.

ILLINOIS (13-2, NR) BUY

I had the Illini at No. 25 on my AP ballot this week, and though they remain unranked I have a feeling my fellow voters will be catching on soon. Before it lost at Michigan on Sunday, Illinois' only other defeat came at home by two points to a very tough Clemson squad, and last week the Illini pulled off an impressive road victory at Purdue. Point guard play was a question mark last year, but Chester Frazier, who leads the Big Ten in assists (6.5 per game) and is third in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.94-to-1), has matured into a first-rate floor leader. Moreover, this is an excellent passing team; Illinois is second in the nation in assists with 19.9 per game. Inside, sophomore forward Mike Davis is one of the surprise stories of the season. Once Kentucky transfer Alex Legion, a 6-5 guard who became eligible in December, gets into the groove the Illini will have as deep and talented a guard rotation as you'll find anywhere.

KANSAS (10-3, NR) BUY

The Jayhawks are one of the youngest teams in the country, they just scored their biggest win of the season at home over Tennessee, and they're still unranked? Sounds like a bargain to me. Sherron Collins demonstrated in the win over the Vols why he is the best player in the Big 12 not named Blake Griffin, and though the Jayhawks' newcomers are a long way from clicking, they have each shown flashes of potential (especially Tyshawn Taylor). Also keep in mind that juco transfer Mario Little, a 6-5 guard who was voted Big 12 preseason Newcomer of the Year, played for the first time on Saturday after missing the first 12 games with hand and leg injuries. There's a lot of room for improvement here.

KENTUCKY (11-4, NR) BUY

Maybe I should be giving up on a team that has just one win over a squad ranked in the top 65 of the RPI, but I see no reason why the Wildcats can't once again rally for an NCAA bid. Well, I can see a reason -- they're ranked 324th in all of Division I in turnovers per game (18.3). You can blame point guard Michael Porter all you want, but Jodie Meeks is committing even more turnovers than Porter is, and Porter's backup, 6-6 freshman DeAndre Liggins, is averaging a team-high 3.4 turnovers in just 19.9 minutes. My faith in Kentucky resides mainly in the overall weakness of the SEC and the fact that Billy Gillispie's teams have always scrapped and clawed to the bitter end. If this team can find a way to take better care of the ball, it should find itself right back in the NCAAs.

LOUISVILLE (9-3, No. 23) HOLD

I was leaning towards rating the Cardinals a Sell, but now that they've dropped to 23rd in the AP poll (after starting out No. 3 in the preseason), I think they're closer to where they deserve to be. Lost amidst the elation following their great escape over Kentucky is the fact that a) they blew a seven-point lead in the last six minutes, and b) they needed a 25-foot pullup jumper by Edgar Sosa to win. That shot looked like fools' gold to me. Sosa is probably unfairly criticized (including by me) for being something that he's not, which is a pass-first, playmaking point guard. Yet, that is what Louisville needs him to be, if only because the Cardinals don't have anyone else with the requisite skill set. Sosa may have played his best game of the season against Kentucky (a season-high 18 points), but I fear that his success at scoring, most notably on the game-winner, will encourage him to shoot even more. Also, have you noticed that when Samardo Samuels goes up against a player who is as big and strong as he is, he tends to disappear?

MARQUETTE (13-2, No. 18) BUY

I love watching this team play. They have some obvious deficiencies, most notably a lack of size, but there aren't too many teams who do a better job getting the most out of what they have. Dominic James, the Eagles' 5-11 (cough, cough) senior point guard, has really grown in his understanding of how to run a team. His longtime running mates, Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews, get after teams defensively and are constantly attacking the rim. Best of all, those three guys are shooting three-pointers better than they have the last two years. This Marquette team is a slightly less talented version of the Randy Foye-Kyle Lowry-led Villanova squad that reached the Elite Eight three years ago. They'll lose at some point in the NCAA tournament, but it won't be because they didn't compete hard or play smart.

MEMPHIS (10-3, NR) HOLD

Good news for the Tigers: They're about to enter the conference portion of their schedule. I don't expect Memphis to go undefeated again in Conference USA, but I still don't see any team capable of really challenging them for the league title. Meanwhile, if you run into John Calipari, don't give him your cell number, because he might call and try to convince you to play point guard. Calipari has tried everyone but Priscilla Presley at the spot -- first Willie Kemp, then Tyreke Evans, then Wesley Witherspoon, now Antonio Anderson. Nobody has worked. Moreover, the guy who Calipari said could be one of the top 10 players in the country, 6-9 senior forward Robert Dozier, has not even been one of the top 10 players in his own league. If they roll through C-USA again, the Tigers will probably climb back into the rankings and earn a decent seed in the NCAA tournament, but unless things change it's hard to envision them sticking around for long.

MICHIGAN STATE (11-2, No. 8) BUY

As my devoted readers know well, I have been bullish on the Spartans from Day 1. Yes, they were embarrassed in those losses to Maryland and North Carolina, but now they are again looking like the class of the Big Ten. Senior center Goran Suton is back in the lineup, and freshman forward Delvon Roe will continue his ascent once he recovers from his sprained ankle. As predicted, sophomore point guard Kalin Lucas, who scored a career-high 24 points in last week's road win at Minnesota, is starting to become a scoring threat. This team can score easier and in more ways with Lucas at the point than it could when Drew Neitzel was running the show. The Spartans will only get better as they get healthier and more experienced. And remember, the Final Four will be played in Detroit.

MINNESOTA (13-1, No. 22) SELL

You've got to be impressed with the job Tubby Smith is doing, but that sound you hear is the Gophers' rubber hitting the Big Ten road. Minnesota has played a very weak nonconference schedule while sailing to 13-0, with its best win coming on a neutral court against a struggling Louisville team that had played less than 48 hours earlier. When Minnesota had a chance to prove itself in a home game against a good team, it fell flat against Michigan State and lost by 12. Sophomore point guard Al Nolen has been a pleasant surprise; he's ranked third in the Big Ten in assists (6.1) and steals (2.21) and is fourth nationally in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.7-to-1). But it isn't hard to compile those kinds of numbers against inferior competition.

NORTH CAROLINA (13-1, No. 3) BUY

I know you're too smart to panic and sell the Heels just because they played one bad game. Newsflash: Teams lose. If North Carolina's players had forgotten that, then the loss to Boston College should be a helpful (if unwelcome) reminder. The bigger concern moving forward is North Carolina's defense (again). BC coach Al Skinner did a masterful job exploiting this weakness by forcing the Heels to guard his intricate flex offense for 30 seconds or more each possession. North Carolina should improve in this area as senior forward Marcus Ginyard, who has only played three games since returning from a broken foot, gets into shape. Make no mistake, North Carolina remains the team to beat, and the Heels will be even harder to beat now that they've embarrassed at home.

NOTRE DAME (11-3, No. 13) BUY

If the entire NCAA tournament were played in the Joyce Center, I'd pick the Irish to win the whole thing. When it beat Georgetown on Monday night, Notre Dame extended its nation's-best home-court win streak to 44 games. Yes, the Irish still have to figure out how to win when they're not making threes (witness their pratfall at St. John's last Saturday while shooting 4-for-17 from behind the arc). But as the saying goes, that's a high-class problem to have. Sure, they can be beaten when they don't shoot it well, but when they do shoot it well (which is most of the time) they're nearly impossible to beat. The Irish are smart enough to know they have to get better on defense, and they have a pretty good Big East schedule for once, with just one meeting with Georgetown, Pittsburgh and Syracuse.

OHIO STATE (10-2, NR) SELL

I was not as high on the Buckeyes as other folks even after they beat Miami and Notre Dame to enter the rankings. Now that they've dropped two of three (including that embarrassing 28-point loss to West Virginia in Columbus), have to play at Michigan State tonight and are another six weeks from getting their most experienced player, David Lighty, back from a foot injury, it's clearly time to put OSU on the block. The potential of 7-1 freshman B.J. Mullens is obvious, but it astounds me how people can talk about him as a first-round draft pick when he can't even start for his own team. As Mullens and fellow freshman William Buford improve, the Buckeyes will become harder to beat, so you may want to scoop them back up in late February. For now, however, I foresee a pretty tough few weeks in Columbus.

OKLAHOMA (14-1, No. 6) HOLD

With this record and ranking, you might think the Sooners are begging to be sold. I'm not so sure. They still have the best player in the country in Blake Griffin, and they have two guards (6-4 freshman Willie Warren and 6-6 junior Tony Crocker) who have lots of room for improvement. (Crocker's inconsistency from three-point range continues to be maddening, but when he's hot, he's really hot.) The main concern I have about Oklahoma is its lack of depth, but the Sooners have a pretty favorable Big 12 schedule. They only play Kansas once (in Norman), and they don't play road games at Baylor and Texas until mid-February. I've got to believe this stock is going to stay pretty valuable for at least another month.

PITTSBURGH (14-0, No. 1) BUY

I still have some nagging suspicions about the Panthers' ability to score quickly and easily enough to win a national championship, but their 16-point win over Georgetown left no doubt that when it comes to intelligence and toughness, they are as good as they come. Levance Fields has some physical limitations, but no point guard in America does a better job of distributing the ball to the right people in the right places. (Fields leads the Big East in assists and assist-to-turnover ratio.) I generally prefer teams that are more prolific from three-point range, but I also like that this team is not dependent on threes.

PURDUE (11-3, No. 14) SELL

I figured the Boilermakers might struggle with the elevated preseason expectations, but I've been a little surprised at how poorly they've performed in big games. Of the four important games they've played, they lost three (Oklahoma, Duke and Illinois) and won one (Davidson). All the other wins have come at home against patsies. Purdue still plays tenacious, grind-it-out D, but on offense tenacity is not enough. Sophomore guard E'Twaun Moore has been putting up 14.6 points a game, but his three-point shooting has plummeted from 43.4 percent last season to 32.3 percent this year. That's what happens when you get more attention from defenses. As a team, Purdue is ranked 10th in the Big Ten in field goal (44.1 percent) and three-point shooting (33.2 percent). If those numbers don't climb, Purdue will ever so slowly head south.

SYRACUSE (14-1, No. 11) BUY

The Orange's buzz-meter might be even higher if Cleveland State's Cedric Jackson hadn't sunk that three-quarter-court bomb to beat the Orange in the Carrier Dome on Dec. 15. That aside, Syracuse has won every other game and is looking like a Final Four team. We knew they would benefit from Eric Devendorf's return from last season's injury, but Andy Rautins has also had a great impact after missing a year with a torn ACL. And if Jonny Flynn isn't the best point guard in the country, I don't know who is. It will be interesting to see the Orange go through their epically brutal stretch later this month, when they play Georgetown, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Louisville all in a row. (Two of those games are on the road.) If they can go 2-2 over that stretch, they'll be in great shape.