Ha! Just kidding. Of course you've got Texas.

No, the interesting thing here is not which team will win -- Texas will, easily -- but the margin of victory therein. In past years, Iowa keeps this competitive. At the best times in the Steve Alford era, they might even have beaten some of Rick Barnes' Texas teams.

These are not the best times for Iowa. After three of Todd Lickliter's best players (the term best being used relatively here, because Iowa was bad in 2008-09, too), things are looking very down for Iowa. The Hawkeyes are 1-2 on the young season. The season debut was a loss to Texas-San Antonio by 12 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The next game was also at CHA, when Iowa lost 52-50 to Duquesne. The Hawkeyes managed to bounce back and handily beat Bowling Green on Friday night, but those two early losses don't bode well. And any observer can look at the 2009-10 Hawkeyes and see a team made up of sophomore Matt Gatens and absolutely nothing else.

Meanwhile, Texas is ranked No. 3 in the country. They're loaded with returning and transferred talent, and have one of the best recruiting classes in the country. In other words, they're Texas.

Which means there's an awfully good chance Iowa gets absolutely crushed. The current Vegas odds -- not that anyone would gamble on collegiate sports, of course -- have Iowa at +15.5, which seems drastically low. Texas could win by 40. The disparity in talent is just that great.

So, go ahead, math whizzes. Predict the final outcome in the comments, and get a respectful nod from yours truly after the fact if you manage to call the final score correctly. Either way, this could get ugly.

The Hunt for the Most Interesting Team in the World is the Dagger's 2009-10 countdown preview series. Check out the overriding principles here.

Last year's record: 23-13, 9-7 SEC

2009-10's toughest games: at UCLA, Kentucky, at LSU, Tennessee

Primary attraction: As Rick Stansbury deals with Renardo Sidney (or the lack thereof), can the Bulldogs fulfill their promise?

Three items of undeniable interest:

1. Re-nar-do! Re-nar-do! Re. Nar. Dooooooo! Uh, Renardo? Much of the 2009-10 season will hinge on whether Rick Stansbury's great gambit -- signing Renardo Sidney amidst eligibility suspicions after Sidney's attempts at landing at USC and UCLA failed -- works or not. Thus far, things aren't looking good. The Bulldogs are two games into the 2009-10 season, and Sidney is still ineligible. The NCAA wants more documents from the Sidney family in order to prove they weren't receiving money for their mortgage while they lived in California; meanwhile, Sidney's lawyer, Don Jackson, seems more intent on making a name for himself than doing right by his client, whose best interests involve playing basketball as soon as possible. Whether Sidney can't get eligible and Jackson knows it or Jackson is merely stalling in an attempt to raise his own profile is as yet unknown. What is known is that the Bulldogs need Sidney, and Sidney needs the Bulldogs. They need each other, and soon.

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Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl -- one of the better college hoops writers working, which you probably already know -- has a pretty interesting breakdown of John Calipari's entree into Kentucky basketball this season. You should totally read it. It covers all the usual bases (Calipari's popularity, his recruiting class, his troubled exit from Memphis). But it focuses most of its time on the relationship between Calipari and Louisville coach Rick Pitino.

You may have known these two supposedly hate each other, but did you know ...

• That Rick Pitino initially recommended John Calipari for the UMass job and paid $5,000 out of his own pocket to make sure the Minutemen athletic director at the time sealed the deal?
• That John Calipari first met Rick Pitino as a teenage camper at Five-Star camp in Pittsburgh?
• That before he took the Kentucky job, Calipari called Pitino and asked the coach what he thought? And that Pitino told him to take it?
• That Kentucky fans are sort of crazy?

OK, so you knew that last one all too well. But the other three speak to a more complex relationship between the two coaches than what you've heard. For his part, Calipari insists he's on friendly terms with Pitino, and clearly the two do share some sort of bond. But whatever similarities bring them together -- the Armani suits, the slicked-back hair, the stints in the NBA -- they also clearly brush up against one another the wrong way.

Fortunately, we millenials have devised a word for this: frenemy. That's totes (totally, natch [naturally, duh]) what Calipari and Pitino are. They like each other and they wear the same clothes, but they'd also like to punch each other in the face on occasion. Frenemies forever, y'all!

Because through a week or so of hoops, your team has the best resume in college basketball, and no one can take that away from you.

It was just a few weeks ago that Syracuse fans were lamenting a loss to Division II LeMoyne in an exhibition game. Friday night, they watched as the Orange not only beat but beat up North Carolina, the No. 4 team in the country. This win was just after Syracuse's demolition of the No. 12-ranked Cal Bears. Neither game was close, and if ESPN didn't have those little numbers next to each team's name during broadcasts, casual viewers could be forgiven for thinking the Orange were the best team in the country. For two nights, they looked the part.

Are Syracuse fans appropriately excited? Why, yes. Yes they are. Allow Sean at Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician to show you the ways:

We're really f***king good, you guys.

See? Told you they were jacked.

Honestly, right now there isn't a team with a better resume so far than the Orange.  Because of the stupid preseason polls and the way everyone is a moron about them, the Orange will end up ranked No. 12 or something like that on Monday.  But as far as I'm concerned, they're the No. 1 team in the nation.  Kansas, Duke, Michigan State...they haven't done jack sh*t compared to Wes Johnson and the Orange.

Speaking of Wes...wow.  The rumors?  True.  The potential?  There.  The excitement?  Palpable.

Yes, 'Cuse fans are mighty pleased, as they should be. Their favorite college basketball team is your Week 1 winner -- and a pretty good argument for waiting to rank college hoops teams until the fourth or fifth week of the season. Oh well. The basketball is good enough.

The Cram Session is a semi-daily melange of last night's most important hoops action. It's so close to turkey it can smell it (the turkey).

Villanova 79, Ole Miss 67: Villanova was the best team in Puerto Rico, and for most of the tournament, they played like the best team in Puerto Rico. Still, winning this preseason tournament is good result for a team that expects to win the Big East in 2009-10; nothing about Villanova's performance over the past week insinuates the team will perform otherwise. Anyway, Scottie Reynolds had 21 for the Wildcats Sunday night, while Corey Stokes had 18 and Antonio Pena had 17 points and 16 rebounds. The Wildcats had 79 points on 83 possessions and rebounded 41 percent of their misses on the offensive end, which was the deciding factor in the game. Given how high-octane the Wildcats will be in 2009-10, rebounding at that rate offensively will make them incredibly dangerous. Let's see if they can keep it up.

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The Cram Session is a semi-daily melange of last night's most important hoops action.

Syracuse 95, California 73: A couple of weeks ago, Syracuse lost a game to Division II LeMoyne Dolphins. Yes, it was just an exhibition game, but the loss was emphatic -- how disorganized would the Cuse have to be to lose to such an inferior outfit? And what, if anything, did the loss mean for the Orangemen going forward? Turns out not much: Syracuse crushed No. 13 California at Madison Square Garden last night, and it was never close. The Cuse's offense was especially impressive, scoring 95 points in 80 possessions and firing off an effective field goal percentage of 64.3 percent. Wesley Johnson's game (17 points, 11 rebounds, six blocks, had a lot to do with that, but really Syracuse was dominant everywhere and on both ends -- pressing and stretching Cal on defense and making efficient and gorgeous use of possession on offense. If it wasn't safe before, now it is. LeMoyne was a fluke.

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Dayton got their first real test of the season today. Guess what? They passed.

You probably didn't see the game. I know I didn't. For whatever reason, our friends at ESPN decided to go with Colin Cowherd on ESPNU, and none of the Full Court packages were carrying the game, either. Which means that No. 18 Dayton played No. 21 Georgia Tech in Puerto Rico, and nary a person saw it. Is this like the rule people make about cheating on their significant others when they're on vacation? If the game happens on an island, does it really count?

To the eventual NCAA selection committee, yes, and certainly to Flyers fans, whose team just topped a very talented Georgia Tech squad in rather impressive fashion. The Flyers lead for almost the entire game, and despite a second-half push from Tech mustered a 63-59 win. Sophomore guard Chris Johnson led the way with 19 points and seven rebounds.

Meanwhile, the Yellow Jackets' Derrick Favors was slightly disappointing, at least according to my handy box score; Favors had 10 points and seven rebounds, but only attempted six field goals and four free throws in 40 minutes of basketball. If Favors plans to be a star worthy of his hype -- and his top NBA draft status -- he'll need many more looks than that. And if Georgia Tech plans on saving Paul Hewitt's job this season, it'll need to do a better job getting Favors those looks. 

But the real hype-fulfillment scenario here is Dayton, who are ranked in the top 25 for the first time in ages. Today, the Flyers their first step toward justifying it.

The Hunt for the Most Interesting Team in the World is the Dagger's 2009-10 countdown preview series. Check out the overriding principles here.

Last year's record: 23-11, 10-8 Big East

2009-10's toughest games: Purdue, Ohio State, Louisville, at Villanova

Primary attraction: Future lottery pick Devan Ebanks leads Bob Huggins back to the top.

Three items of undeniable interest:

1. The Huggins days of yore. It wasn't all that long ago that Bob Huggins was at the top of the college coaching profession. His Cincinnati teams were almost always national contenders, as Huggins pieced together junior college transfers and high-profile recruits to create one of the best programs in the country. But Huggy Bear's style has its fair share of deficiencies. For one, Huggins's players were never known for their academics, and his program's infamous zero percent graduation rate was a frequent story. Which is fine when you're winning, as long as you're staying out of trouble. But Huggins wasn't, and didn't. A 2004 DUI -- in which Huggins gave cops the classic "Do you know who I am?" while vomit lined his Lexus door -- was the beginning of the end of his career at Cincinnati.

Now Huggins has a whole new lease on coaching life. He's commandeered his alma mater in the wake of John Beilein's defection to Michigan, and he's done so in classic Huggins style: with talent. 2008-09 was the year that talent revealed itself in a crowded Big East. This year, West Virginia wants more.

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My mom has a Jack Russell Terrier. Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing mighty about them. That dog lays and sleeps for at least 80 percent of its day. The remaining 20 is spent eating, licking a human's face, and running around in a circle in the house, also known as "orbiting." This is all the dog does! See? Not mighty.

The Wofford Terriers are making a different case. Tuesday night, Wofford -- a tiny liberal arts college in Spartanburg, S.C. -- upset Georgia in Athens, 60-57. That would be case enough for a little Wofford love, but all right, I get it. You're skeptical. "Georgia's rebuilding," you say. "Anyone could have upset them at home," you say. I disagree.

But, for the sake of argument, I also present to you last Friday's 63-60 loss to Pittsburgh. The Terriers held a 13-point lead in the second half over Pitt before things began to unravel, but still, the point stands. In their two games thus far this season, Wofford has beaten one power-conference school and barely lost to another. If this is the time of the year that only college hoops die-hards really care about -- that pre-Thanksgiving outpost when, while the rest of your friends ignore college hoops, you scout from a distance in preparation for March -- file Wofford away. The Terriers just might have more for us in a few months' time.

Extra Onions is a roundup of college hoops stuff from around the 'Webs. As always, email or follow me on Twitter to send along links I should see.

• Everybody loves Josh. Josh Pastner's introduction to the public could have gone a lot worse: Pastner's coaching performance was reserved, competent, and had Stone Phillips-level gravitas. It was easy to forget Pastner is merely 31 and in his first head coaching role (that is, until a roommate walks in the room and says, "What is this guy, 14?"). In any case, the world is signing Josh Pastner's praises today, from old-school guys like Alexander Wolff to our bloggy friends at Deadspin, who deem Pastner "last night's winner." Look at Josh. All grown up!

• Meet Scottie Reynolds. Again. Scottie Reynolds is awesome on the basketball court. His family story -- which is new to me -- is pretty awesome, too.

• "Possibly never -- Digger Phelps." Yet Another Basketball Blog's Dan Hanner has the must-read recap of yesterday's marathon.

• Evan Turner: Good at basketball. This is an obvious statement, but Seth Davis's breakdown of exactly what Turner is doing to the positional nature of college hoops is interesting stuff all the same. Before the season's over, Evan Turner could lead a revolution.

Briefly: Storming the Floor posts last night's chat; Searching For Billy Edelin takes note of what has thus far been a disappointing start for the SEC; Gary Parrish notes that tonight Rhode Island will be the 347th of 347 teams to play a 2009-10 basketball game this season; UM Hoops is happy to see Manny Harris get some love; and Casual Hoya hands out a set of very sardonic awards for the Hoyas after last night's near-disaster against Temple.