FanHouse Ucla Basketball

Nikki Caldwell gets to go home for the holiday, so from that perspective, this trip is already a success.

The UCLA coach, in her second season in Westwood, is bringing her team to Knoxville to take on her mentor, Pat Summitt, and the sixth-ranked Tennessee Lady Vols on Saturday.

It's a chance for Caldwell, the Oak Ridge, Tenn., native, to come back as a local girl made good, and to eat Aunt Janice's dressing.

"There are some good soul food places in L.A., but I'm looking forward to the home cooking," Caldwell said.

Two weeks ago, Pat Summitt surveyed the national scene and said this:

"A lot of people don't have Mississippi State on their radar screen and they should."

Never argue with Pat.

Mississippi State is climbing the rankings -- moving from No. 25 to No. 19 in this week's poll -- and the ladder of national recognition, particularly after Sunday's 84-55 win over No. 20 Maryland.

Granted, Maryland is remodeling after the graduation of Kristi Tolliver and Marisa Coleman and the transfer of Marah Strickland, and Brenda Frese's program will likely struggle with change most of the year, but the Bulldogs took it to the Terrapins on their home floor.

The roll call of eye-popping scores began with the start of the college basketball season. And there's a chance they won't slow down soon, for an important reason: this time, the names on the front of the jerseys tell less of a story than the names on the back.

The opening week's finals look like someone's idea of a joke. The opening acts, in exhibition season, should have warned everybody: LeMoyne 82, Syracuse 79, and Georgia Tech 84, Indiana (Pa.) 76 in overtime. Then, when the games counted: Texas-San Antonio 62, Iowa 50. Cornell 71, Alabama 67. Wofford 60, Georgia 57. Rider 88, Mississippi State 74. Cal State-Fullerton 68, UCLA 65 in two overtimes.

None of that includes Kentucky 72, Miami of Ohio 70, in Game Two of the John Calipari Era in Lexington; if not for freshman John Wall's heroics in, literally, the final second, that era would have been a carbon-copy of the start of the now-infamous Billy Gillispie Era (loss at home to Gardner-Webb in his second game).

Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.

UCLA's basketball team is always among the best college teams in the nation, but this year's team will have many new faces. In this FanHouse exclusive we talk to some of the new recruits and also hear from the Wizard of Westwood, former Bruins head coach John Wooden.

Check out the video after the jump.

Drew Gordon, expected to play a major role for the UCLA basketball team this season, suffered a partially torn patellar tendon at the 2009 USA Basketball U19 World Championship Team Trials in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Gordon, a sophomore from San Jose, Calif., is expected to return to Los Angeles for further examination to determine the extent of the tear. Gordon could miss up to six months, meaning he likely wouldn't return to the Bruins until Pac-10 play begins. The 6-foot-8 forward averaged 3.6 points and 3.4 rebounds as a freshman.

The upheaval at USC and constant defections at UCLA may have sent conference supremacy north.

The NBA draft's early entries have one month to return to school (June 15), but it doesn't appear any of the Pac-10 entries are coming back. Six underclassmen -- USC's DeMar DeRozan and Taj Gibson, UCLA's Jrue Holiday, the Arizona duo of Jordan Hill and Chase Budinger and Arizona State's James Harden -- will participate in the draft combine beginning May 28 in Chicago, and none are likely to return to their schools. Even Holiday, a projected late first-rounder, is reportedly close to hiring an agent and remaining in the draft.

Monday, UCLA officials revealed their plans to refurbish the storied Pauley Pavilion. There will be 1,000 more seats, a new floor, a high-definition video scoreboard and upgrades to every facility in the building. As for the aesthetic beauty of the outside? It's gonna be something, if it ends up anything close to the art they've produced.

Aside from the hefty price tag, one thing many people in the area may find a bit troublesome, though, is the fallout when it comes to seating. Considering the massive fund-raising effort being done to foot the bill, long-time season tickets holders and students may be seated behind donors of the renovated arena.

Stanford has ruled the Pac-10 Women's basketball landscape for the past 20 years, and California and Arizona State have recently emerged to make the conference a three-team scramble for supremacy. But two recent hires by Oregon and USC have made it apparent that women's basketball is indeed becoming a higher priority on the West Coast.

On a night when the University of Arizona honored famed coach Lute Olson during halftime, something became very clear as the ceremonial speeches ended and the basketball began. If the Wildcats want to continue their NCAA streak of 25 consecutive tournament appearances, they would need more than an uplifting video (it got dusty in my apartment) and the memory of a coach that has been through a lot the last two years. The Wildcats need a W.

It wasn't happening, as Jerome Randle absolutely murdered the 'Cats in the second half, helping California (22-8, 11-6) improve to third in the Pac-10 with the 83-77 win and put the Wildcats in another uncomfortable position similar to last season -- leaving their March Madness dreams up to chance.

Each week, ESPN's Joe Lunardi predicts the NCAA tournament field if the season ended today. While he's good at this, Lunardi only focuses on past performance, and wins and losses. Bracketology Busters looks at which teams should be expected to perform significantly better or worse than their projected seeds.

This week we'll look at a team that's seen their perception drop after a great three-year stretch, but is primed to make yet another late season run.