Monday Look Back: Sosa boosts Cards in Bluegrass battle

North Carolina lost a home game to an inferior opponent, and I should've seen it coming.

Happens every season.

Kind of like how LaDainian Tomlinson stands on the sidelines during NFL playoff games.

Anyway, let's do the Monday Look Back.

Best game of the weekend: If I worked at the State Fair I think I'd like to be the guy in charge of the game where people shoot hoops for stuffed animals, and if I were that guy I'd love it if Edgar Sosa walked up with a stack of fives and his eyes on a big purple Barney. Why? Because the dude cannot shoot, and those would be my desired customers, dudes who cannot shoot. So you can imagine how Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie must've felt Sunday when his Wildcats battled back from seven down in the final minute to tie the game on a pair of Jodie Meeks free throws with 23 seconds remaining only to watch Sosa -- who shoots 32.9 percent from the field and 23.1 percent from the 3-point line -- drain a 25-footer near the buzzer to give Louisville a 74-71 victory. It was a punch to the stomach for UK, because the only thing it needed to get to overtime was for Sosa to miss from 25 feet, which is something he does roughly 80 percent of the time. But not this time. So now the Wildcats will enter SEC play with a good-but-far-from-great 11-4 record.

Worst game of the weekend: Poor Rutgers ended its brutal stretch -- games against North Carolina, Pittsburgh and Connecticut in a span of eight days -- with Saturday's 80-49 loss to the Huskies that was so lopsided UConn didn't even need its Hall of Fame coach to produce the blowout. Seriously, Jim Calhoun was dealing with shingles and a cold (which sounds painful as hell), so he didn't coach the second half. But Hasheem Thabeet played and finished with 15 points and eight rebounds, and if he would've done that last week against Georgetown then the Huskies would now be ranked No. 1 because ...

Win to brag about: The Boston College Eagles don't make much sense to me because they never look like much on paper but are always respectable (except for last season, of course), and sometimes they do things nobody sees coming, which brings me to Sunday evening. It was a slow night by most standards, and when I finished watching Louisville-Kentucky I was going to continue to master Wii Bowling. That's what I call family time, destroying my 5-year-old son at Wii Bowling. But then I turned on the North Carolina game, Boston College started pulling away, and before I knew it I was dropping the Tar Heels from the top spot in the Top 25 (and one), inserting Boston College at No. 16 and rethinking everything I thought I knew about college basketball, all because the Eagles went to the Dean Dome and dealt UNC an 85-78 loss, which still doesn't make much sense to me.

Loss to hide from: It's one thing to get demolished by North Carolina, another to lose on a neutral court to Ohio State. But what you can't do if you're supposed to be a legitimate Final Four contender is lose to a St. John's team that was picked 13th in the Big East, though that's exactly what Notre Dame did Saturday. The final score was 71-65, and now the Irish are about to learn how important it is to take wins over mediocre teams, because eight of their next 10 are against Georgetown, Louisville (twice), Syracuse, Connecticut, Marquette, Pittsburgh and UCLA, which is my way of saying the next month will feature few (if any) guaranteed victories.

Player who deserves improper benefits: John Pelphrey's Arkansas Razorbacks had the trap game of all trap games Saturday, specifically an off-campus tilt with North Texas tucked between home games with Oklahoma and Texas. It was precisely the type of game a young team loses. But Michael Washington took 15 shots, made 12 and finished with 34 points and 11 rebounds, and that was enough to push the Hogs to an 86-75 victory that propelled them into the Top 25 (and one) thanks to the 11-1 record they take into Tuesday night's showdown with Rick Barnes' Longhorns.

Player(s) who should lose (their) scholarship(s): I'm adjusting this category this week to include Georgetown's starting guards, namely Chris Wright, Austin Freeman and Jessie Sapp. After going 12-of-26 from the field and combining to finish with 34 points in that win at Connecticut, they stunk it up Saturday in a 70-54 home loss to Pittsburgh. Wright, Freeman and Sapp combined to go 4-of-22 from the field (including 2-of-12 from 3-point range), and when that happens against a quality opponent the Hoyas are typically going to lose, even when DaJuan Summers and Greg Monroe combine for 37 points.

Why I'm smarter than you think: A reader named Josh asked back before the season started for some possible "surprise" teams, and so I decided to supply a few names. The two teams I mentioned first were Wake Forest and Syracuse, both of which were ranked outside the top 20 (Wake Forest was 21st in the AP poll; Syracuse was fifth in Others Receiving Votes). Now those teams are owners of 14-1 and 13-0 records, and each should be ranked in the top 10 of the AP poll Monday afternoon, at which time the world will have further proof of my brilliance.

Why I'm dumber than I think: Despite how much I thought of Wake Forest, I still picked the Demon Deacons to lose Saturday at BYU. Naturally, they did not; they beat the Cougars 94-87, snapped BYU's 53-game home winning streak and reminded me of one of my basic rules of predictions, which was also one of the rules I used to identify Syracuse and Wake Forest as "surprise" teams. What's the rule, you ask? It's simple: Pick the teams with the most talent. Do that, and you'll be right more than you're wrong, as Wake Forest -- and it's highly rated recruiting class -- demonstrated at the Marriott Center.

Three things you should know before you go

1. Johnny Dawkins' perfect record as a head coach at Stanford came to a halt Friday night by way of a 90-60 home loss to Arizona State. Then Arizona State turned around and lost 81-71 to Mike Montgomery and California late Sunday, which means the former Stanford coach (Montgomery) fared better than the current Stanford coach (Dawkins) this weekend.

2. Another interesting score from Friday night for a first-year coach belonged to Darrin Horn. He took his South Carolina Gamecocks to Baylor and left with an 85-84 win that has his team just a victory over Wofford on Monday night away from entering SEC play with an 11-2 record.

3. Oregon State snapped its 23-game Pac-10 losing streak Sunday with a 62-58 overtime win against Southern California. The Beavers came from 15 down in the second half, and I think it's now fair to acknowledge that USC's post-O.J. Mayo era isn't going quite as planned.

On tap: On Monday, Georgetown will get another massive test when it visits Notre Dame. On Tuesday, Clemson's undefeated record will be on the line when the Tigers host Alabama. On Wednesday, Stephen Curry will be in Cameron Indoor Stadium when Davidson plays Duke. On Thursday, Oregon State will try to record a second Pac-10 victory when the Beavers travel to Arizona State.

Final thought: I've been updating the Top 25 (and one) every Sunday night during the season for three seasons now, and I'm not sure there has ever been a Sunday quite as challenging as the one I just spent. Fifteen of the 25 teams ranked in the AP poll lost at some point over the past week, which literally had me stuck once I slotted 14 teams. I had 21 schools that I felt were worthy on some level of one of the final 12 spots, meaning I was essentially trying to fit 35 schools into 26 slots.

Case you didn't know, that's just as difficult as it sounds.

But my point is that the difference between the team I have 15th (Wisconsin) and the team I might have 35th (Saint Mary's? Villanova? Arizona State?) is smaller than LaDainian Tomlinson's playoff résumé. So don't get angry, Baylor fans. And try to relax, UNLV fans. Your team is right there, really close, capable of being a top 20 team by this time next week because if this past week showed us anything it's that everything is up for grabs.