Here’s a handful of tidbits to kick start your Saturday college hoops analysis, including the contrarian viewpoint to the “Mountain West is gloriously underrated” stampede.

1. In Thursday’s Starting 5 it was pointed out that Oregon State, though getting a ton of “Obama’s brother-in-law is the coach!!!” publicity, and being truly improved, was not covering pointspreads.  It happened again in rather bitter style for OSU backers that very night. Easterners who went to bed with the Beavers down only 36-35 at halftime with Oregon State +16.5  tickets in their pockets (actually those tickets would be resting offshore in their internet wagering accounts wouldn’t they?) must have been horrified to awaken to a 79-60 Washington victory.

2. That Oregon State/UW game was a good example of when a first-half wager may make sense.  We’re at a time of the year when big dogs who aren’t taken seriously by superior opponents can get off to a quick start against the sleepy foes.  But then the favorite awakens after a halftime tongue-lashing from their disgusted coaches. Eventually, the superior talent and depth wears down the outclassed opponent.   Don’t be surprised if your big dogs in good spots perform better in the first half than they do in the full game from here on out.

3. There’s a ton of media love for the Mountain West Conference, both regionally and nationally, as well as nationally (ESPN subscription required) and regionally.   While Utah, San Diego State, BYU, New Mexico, and UNLV are all nice teams, and all have a quality non-conference wins, there are a couple of things that the media isn’t really noticing in their rush to annoint these clubs as NCAA quality.  The bottom four teams in the league are lousy, as TCU, Wyoming, Colorado State, and Air Force are a combined 2-22 against the aforementioned top 5 teams.   And those top 5 aren’t getting quality road wins, as the road team is 1-10 when these teams face one another.   So the top teams are beating all the bad teams, but not registering quality road wins?  Is that really all that noteworthy?

4. The jury was out on Kansas State coach Bill Martin this season.  The Wildcats had a lot of success in his rookie year after Bob Huggins left, but with the departures of Michael Beasley and the underrated Bill Walker, how would a young KSU team perform this season? The answer early was “not all that good”, as the Wildcats started 0-4 in the Big 12.  But there’s a new set of facts to deal with, as KSU has since peeled off 6 wins in a row, covering the spread in their last 5.   As is usually the case, this turnaround took place with defense.  4 of their first 5 opponents shot 50% or better, but in their last 5 games KSU has held their opponents to 43% or less.    During their resurgence, KSU has held A&M, Iowa State and Missouri below 40% from the field.  We’ll see how improved they really are on Saturday when Kansas comes calling for an in-state hatefest.

5. No NBA due to the break, but not counting the added games, there are 80 games on the board for Saturday.  So we better all get cracking.

Good luck today.  And be careful.   We’ll be back on Monday with your next “Starting 5″.