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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It's just after 4 p.m. on the east coast on the 12th day of the college basketball season and, so far, members of the Big East conference have yet to lose a game. Cincinnati, Connecticut, DePaul, Georgetown, Louisville, Marquette, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Providence, Rutgers, Seton Hall, South Florida, St. John's, Syracuse and Villanova: They're all undefeated, a collective 36-0 so far in the young 2009-2010 season.

Yeah, a lot of those games have been played against the standard early season cupcakes like Marist and Prarie View A&M, but for an entire 16-team conference to play 36 games without a blemish is still an impressive feat. And it's not like every game was a guaranteed victory: Louisville beat Arkansas, Syracuse beat Cal, South Florida beat Virginia, Georgetown beat Temple, Villanova beat George Mason and, most impressively, DePaul (winless in the conference last year) stunned defending Missouri Valley champs Northern Iowa.

We wanted to post this now because given this evening's slate of games, there's a good chance the Big East won't make it to the weekend without a loss. Villanova just tipped off against No. 21 Dayton, while Syracuse plays tonight against the defending national champs, North Carolina.

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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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: 30-7 (11-5, ACC)

2009-2010's toughest games: Arizona State, NIT final/consolation vs. Connecticut or LSU, at Wisconsin, vs. Gonzaga, at Georgetown

Primary attraction: Because no matter how much you can't stand them, you know you can't turn away.

Three items of undeniable interest:

1. It's Duke -- Before you comment about any perceived anti-Duke bias, remember this: The Hunt set out to find "the most interesting team in the world" and this Duke team isn't very interesting. They're going to be good, yes. But there's little to separate this version of the Blue Devils from the other editions from the past quarter-century. They'll be fundamentally sound. They'll play smart basketball. They'll win 25 games. They'll get more calls than they don't. Coach K will scowl. The Cameron Crazies will be alternately obnoxious and clever. Kyle Singler is going to be an All-American. Dick Vitale will talk about how much he loves Steve Wojciechowski and will then comment that it's a crime J.J. Redick doesn't get more PT in the NBA. Somebody will slap the floor. We've seen this movie before.

2. Holes? -- Listening to some of the people hyping Duke this year, you'd almost forget that the Blue Devils lost its best player (Gerald Henderson), an up-and-coming guard (Elliot Williams) and a senior starter-turned off the bench threat (Greg Paulus). But the departures of the latter two create some serious thinness at guard for Coach K. Jon Scheyer isn't a true point and Nolan Smith has been streaky, at best, during his two years in Durham. Things are a better in the frontcourt, where Singler will line-up with 7-foot-1 Brian Zoubek and freshman Mason Plumlee (when he returns from injury), but the forward-heavy lineup may force Krzyzewski to do the unthinkable and play some zone defense at Cameron.

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

Tuesday and Thursday's college basketball schedules were like the two halves of a delicious, toasted everything bagel. Wednesday was like the nasty hazelnut cream cheese spread in the middle. (Sorry, I'm projecting. That happened to me this morning. I still haven't gotten over it. Who buys hazelnut cream cheese and tries to pass it off as regular?)

Anyway, today's sked features Georgia Tech-Dayton, North Carolina-Ohio State and Syracuse-California. Yesterday's had Butler-Northwestern. But, as always, The Dagger can always find the bright side of any dreary college basktball day:

Cornell 74, Massachusetts 61 -- Cornell. Ever heard of it? You better, because the Big Red are for real. Wins over Alabama and Massachusetts bode well for the team's bid to win a third straight Ivy League title and bring the conference its first NCAA tournament win since 1998. For UMass, Ricky Harris had a historic night, moving past both Julius Ervin and Marcus Camby on the Minutemen's alll-time scoring list (he's now 12th).

Cincinnati 92, Toledo 68-- Lance Stephenson was much better in his second game, dropping 16 points in an easy Bearcat win over Toledo.

Oral Roberts 83, Stanford 81 -- Since beginning his head coaching 10-0, former Duke star and Mike Krzyzewski disciple Johnny Dawkins has seen his Stanford squad go 11-16, including two early 2009 losses to San Diego and Oral Roberts. Dominique Morrison scored 31 for the Golden Eagles, while Landry Fields got 28 in defeat.