Was Dwight Hardy inbounds? Did one of those two heels touch down? Should the basket have counted at all? Why wasn't it reviewed?

Arguing it is a moot point. The fact is that St. John's played the role of David to perfection yet again, slaying its fifth Top 10 foe at Madison Square Garden this season.

Hardy, off of a nice stop-and-go move on the baseline in the closing seconds, dropped in a bucket from underneath the rim to give the Johnnies a 60-59 victory in front of a packed crowd over No. 4 Pitt on Saturday afternoon.

It was the first time this season that the Panthers have fallen on the road. Meanwhile, for Steve Lavin's club, it's quickly becoming no longer a question as to whether they'll be in the field of 68, but rather how high a seed they can secure.

Hardy lifted St. John's to 17-9 overall and 9-5 in the Big East, and in the process, the the Bronx-bred senior bolstered his case to creep into the conference's Player of the Year conversation.

St. John's took advantage of a

The first time Louisville's Peyton Siva threw down a tricky 360 dunk in a game this season, it came with the Cardinals up by 28 points in the closing minutes against overmatched Gardner-Webb.

The timing of his second such throw-down was a bit more risky, with the 16th-ranked Cards up 22-13 late in Friday night's first half on No. 13 UConn.

But the execution was as clean as it gets.

The night as complete as could be for Siva, who for the second time this season out-performed Huskies star junior Kemba Walker and came away with a 71-58 win, to boot. While Walker was just 3-of-10 from the floor and locked down for much of the night by Siva & Co., the Cards' sophomore dynamo had 15 points, four assists and six steals.

For whatever reason, Siva seems to save his best games for UConn. In this season's first meeting — a 79-78 double-overtime win — he provided multiple clutch buckets, scored 19 points and dished out seven assists.

Though this one wasn't nearly as close, a guy standing only

BracketBuster Saturday is here, but there's one made-for-TV showdown that will attract the eyes of the nation — and the NCAA tournament selection committee — more than any of the others.

Hopefully, you'll stay up late enough to watch it unfold.

Let's get to it …

No. 25 Utah State at Saint Mary's — 9 p.m. EST (ESPN2)

The loser here will officially need to win its league tournament to secure an NCAA tourney bid. The winner might still have to, as well. Saint Mary's looked like it was going to have a sliver of wiggle room coming in, but that went away with Thursday's shocking 74-66 loss at San Diego. How bad was it? It was only the Toreros' fourth victory this season over a Division-I opponent, and they became the lowest-ranked RPI team (311) to notch a win against an RPI Top 50 opponent. It's a safe bet that this will be the most intense game played all day, and it's definitely worthy of your attention.

No. 4 Pitt at St. John's — 12 p.m. EST (ESPN)

The Johnnies are playing with a bit

No college basketball program in America had a better day on Thursday than Arizona.

The Wildcats won their seventh consecutive game, downing Washington State, 79-70, to remain in first place in the Pac-10, one game ahead of UCLA and two ahead of Washington in the loss column.

But their already-bright future got even brighter.

Angelo Chol, who Rivals.com ranks as the No. 76 prospect in the 2011 class, gave his pledge to second-year coach Sean Miller. The 6-foot-8 Sudanese forward out of San Diego's Hoover High gives the Cats their fourth high-profile member in this year's recruiting class.

Chol chose Arizona over Kansas, North Carolina and Washington.

The star-studded class already includes …

• Josiah Turner, who Rivals lists as the No. 2 point guard in the 2011 crop.

• 6-foot-8 Oak Hill (Va.) Academy power forward Sidiki Johnson, who committed to Miller at the beginning of his junior season

• Shooting guard Nick Johnson — A sticky 6-foot-3 defender and high-flier out of Findlay (Nev.)

First, you've got to credit Purdue point guard Lewis Jackson for the pin-point, bullet pass between a trio of defenders in transition.

But there's no question that E'Twaun Moore's finish made the dish look that much better.

The 6-foot-4 senior threw down a vicious, one-handed slam over Wisconsin's Jon Leuer during the early second half run that gave the Boilermakers firm control of a game they went on to win Wednesday night, 70-62.

To say that Leuer got dunked on is accurate, but he avoided a good amount of embarrassment by not getting over to the other side of the paint in time to properly set up for a charge.

Instead, he watched the ball go through in a flash and then ricochet off of his person and back up the floor. During Moore's follow through, Leuer was actually thrown backwards some.

Moore scored 19 points in 34 minutes for 11th-ranked Purdue, who broke a tie with the 10th-ranked Badgers for second place in the Big Ten by improving to 21-5 overall and 10-3 in the league.

It

Saint Mary's headed into a ho-hum away meeting with WCC cellar-dweller San Diego on Wednesday night knowing that with a win, the Gaels would clinch at least a share of the league's regular season title.

A few hours later, they left the Jenny Craig Pavilion on the wrong side of the NCAA tournament bubble, losing 74-66 to the Toreros after being out-scored by 16 in the second half.

Randy Bennett's squad is still 22-5 overall, 10-2 in the WCC and still likely headed towards a regular season crown.

But will that be enough?

Though an RPI of 39 is decent, a schedule that ranks as the nation's 140th in terms of strength is not. The Gaels are just 1-3 vs. RPI Top 50 foes, and don't have a single marquee victory.

One thing they had going for them until Wednesday night was that none of their four previous losses (BYU, San Diego State, Vanderbilt and Portland) looked awful. But the Toreros, who after the upset are 6-21 on the year, have an RPI of 311.

Now, Saturday's made-for-TV BracketBuster

It could have easily been called a charge.

Instead, Scotty Hopson came out of Tennessee's 73-67 victory at home over South Carolina on Wednesday night with quite possibly the two most impressive points of his collegiate career.

The Vols' 6-foot-7 junior scored a game-high 23 points, including a wicked throwdown over Gamecocks freshman guard Brian Richardson, who took what looked like a knee to the face in the process.

Hopson's knee actually caught a piece of the 6-foot-4 Richardson's chin, but the play fueled Tennessee (16-10 overall, 6-5 SEC) in the first game back on the sidelines at Thompson-Boling Arena for coach Bruce Pearl. His first two games back from an eight-game SEC suspension were ugly road losses at Kentucky and Florida.

The win snapped a three-game skid for Tennessee, which with a nice run to close out the season could get off the NCAA tournament bubble, given its handful of impressive nonconference victories.

As for the debate over whether a foul should have been

Kemba Walker cannot erase some of the poor performances in Big East play that led to him fading almost completely from the National Player of the Year picture.

But at this point, the UConn star junior guard can do something about lifting up a team that's sputtered of late. That's far more important, anyway.

That Kemba Walker appears to be back. On Wednesday night, he guided the 13th-ranked Huskies to a much-needed 78-70 home victory over No. 9 Georgetown.

The 6-foot dynamo scored 31 points off of 13-of-23 shooting, had 10 assists across from only two turnovers and fit within the Huskies' framework instead of trying to overpower an opponent by himself.

When that version of Walker comes to play, UConn's lofty national ranking makes much more sense.

The Huskies overpowered the Hoyas in the second half after trailing at the break, 37-36.

Walker hit several tricky shots, with none more memorable than a close-range finish after tossing the ball to himself off of the backboard from the free