FanHouse Jeremy Pargo

North Carolina has been established as the tournament favorite by the odds makers. But before we blaze a path for them into the Final Four (or even the Elite Eight), perhaps we should take a quick trip down memory lane.

The Tar Heels and the Bulldogs have a fairly interesting history together. One that people are drawing on when looking at Friday's game.

This week, FanHouse is taking an early look at the top teams heading into 2008 with a BlogPoll decided on by our college hoops bloggers. To help with the team capsules, we've brought in some of the top fan bloggers around the internets to give us insights on their teams.

Today, we have enlisted Zach Bell and Max Mandel of the The Kennel Report to break down the Gonzaga Bulldogs.

Gonzaga has become one of the most recognizable college basketball programs in the nation. During his tenure, Mark Few has elevated the small, Jesuit institution to the forefront of college basketball. He's had guys like Adam Morrison, Ronny Turiaf, and Dan Dickau but the talent he has for the 2008 season is the best he has ever had at Gonzaga.

In unsurprising news, Gonzaga's Jeremy Pargo and Alabama's Ronald Steele have taken their names out of the NBA draft and will return to school.

Today is the deadline for underclassmen who still have their eligibility to pull their names out of the draft. UAB's Robert Vaden already has, Joe Alexander, Mario Chalmers and Bill Walker are staying in the draft. Reports also have UNC's Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green returning to school.

Neither Pargo or Steele were looked at as first round locks ... but were entering into their final collegiate seasons and had nothing to lose by testing the waters. Pargo was projected to be a second round pick had he stayed and got a long of feedback on his game during this process.

Gonzaga should be a top 10-15 team next season.

Steele is a bit more interesting. He is a redshirt senior who missed all of last season with a knee injury and really wanted to just get his name out there. He even worked out for the Charlotte Bobcats this morning before filing the paperwork that took his name out of the draft.

Now Alabama is waiting on work from Richard Hendrix, a junior forward, and his intentions. He, like Steele, has not signed with an agent and has until 5 p.m. ET today to pull his name out of the draft.

Trying to figure out what a 20, 21 year old is going to do with his life is tough. Especially when these guys are agentless and are told different things by different people with different interests.

Still, with the 5 p.m. ET deadline for NBA Draft prospects who still have college eligibility and not signed with an agent looming, let's take a look at who has to make the big decisions today.

Chase Budinger (Arizona): He says he could come back to school, but even his coach says he'd be nuts to. He'll be a midround pick and the kind of guy who a team late in the first round won't be able to pass up.

Ty Lawson (North Carolina): I think Lawson is in. He seemed as if he was trying to find a reason to leave Carolina and he seems to have a lock on getting picked in the first round (Nuggets, Spurs). This isn't an elite point guard draft and Lawson would fit certain teams.

Bill Walker (Kansas State): This is a tough one. Even before his injury, no one really knew where Walker's value was. He was the perfect example of a guy who someone could take a chance in the 20s ... or he could fall out of the first round altogether. Initial reports say he tore his meniscus which means his pre-draft workouts are over. I think Walker comes back to school if he doesn't get any better news on his knee.

Gonzaga was widely regarded as one of the two remaining speed bumps as Memphis continues its march toward an undefeated season, and today the Tigers dispatched of the Bulldogs, making yet another clear statement that they're the best team in college basketball.

The 81-73 win didn't come easy for Memphis, as Gonzaga played a very strong first half and kept things interesting most of the way through. Memphis coach John Calipari said after the game, "On a neutral court, they'd probably beat us." But Memphis, led by 21 points from Chris Douglas-Roberts and 19 from Derrick Rose, was clearly the better team.

The one player who kept it close for Gonzaga was guard Jeremy Pargo, who scored a game-high 25 points on 9-of-16 shooting. Matt Bouldin, however, was a huge disappointment. He made a couple of late baskets but did basically nothing all day and finished with six points on 2-of-9 shooting.

Memphis will stay No. 1, and now the question is this: Will anyone beat them? You can never rule out an upset, but there just isn't a team in Conference USA that seems likely to even threaten Memphis, let alone pull off a shocker. That means the Tigers' Feb. 23 date with Tennessee might be the last opportunity for anyone to stop Memphis before March.