NCAA Notebook: Is this the best freshman class ever?

Enjoy it while it lasts: Big-name non-conference matchups like the ones we've seen the last few weekends are going to become pretty scarce after this weekend.

Minnesota/North Dakota? Denver/Boston College? Michigan State/Boston University? Western. Michigan/Michigan? So long! Good bye! Farewell! We're starting the bulk of conference play next week.

Why does that matter? Well, apart from the eye-catching matchups, it's most teams' last chance to put some big out-of-conference wins on the board for themselves and their conferences as a whole. With the new NPI ranking system replacing the Pairwise this year — more on that in a few weeks — things are going to be somewhat different come tournament time, but the objective remains the same: Win as often as possible, preferably against the best avai