Myck Kabongo fought through some persistent lower back pain to play 15 minutes for Texas on Wednesday night in an 82-63 loss at North Carolina.

Afterwards, though, it was a different type of pain that Kabongo and fellow Longorn freshman guard Julien Lewis shared.

Both were victimized by poster-worthy transition dunks as the Tar Heels raced out to an early lead, then held Texas at arm's length the rest of the night.

Kabongo was thrown on by Dexter Strickland, while Lewis got put on the deck by P.J. Hairston. Both were equally impressive, molding into a combined nominee for the Dunk of the Year.

The reason for the shared nomination? Aside from the fact that they came in the same game — heck, the same half — it's simply too tough to decide whose throw-down was better.

Poor Kabongo was in a no-win situation when it came to Strickland's dunk, as he was stuck as the lone defender in a dangerous 2-on-1 situation. On the one side, the ball was being brought up by 6-foot-8 Harrison Barnes, who normally finishes in similar situations. On the left was Strickland, who has a history of slamming on opponents' heads without giving it a second thought. By the time Barnes released the ball, Strickland had a full head of steam.

BYU sophomore guard Matt Carlino (US Presswire)Though no one expected him to be another Jimmer Fredette, BYU freshman point guard Matt Carlino in the last week has filled a void left when last season's National Player of the Year graduated and moved on to the NBA ranks.

The UCLA transfer became eligible for the Cougars in time for last Saturday's highly-anticipated home date against Baylor, giving coach Dave Rose a scoring-minded point guard who can fill up the stat sheet in several ways. BYU has a healthy amount of talent around Carlino, but he could be the final piece that helps tie it all together.

In the narrow 86-83 loss to Baylor, Carlino scored 18 points and hit four 3-pointers, but also committed four turnovers, including a crucial giveaway in the game's final minute with BYU trailing by just a point. Then, in a 93-78 victory over Buffalo on Wednesday night, he scored 10 points, gave out 11 assists and almost rounded out a triple-double, finishing with seven rebounds in his first collegiate start.

Carlino's presence on the floor is coming at just the right time for BYU, who now has the look of a team that could dominate in its first year as a West Coast Conference member. League play starts on Dec. 29 with a marquee showdown on the road with perennial WCC power Saint Mary's.

On Thursday, The Dagger caught up with Carlino just as the real fun is beginning for him at BYU.

The Dagger: The three schools you looked at the closest after deciding to transfer were BYU, UNLV and Butler. What was it that ultimately led you to BYU? How much did seeing what Jimmer Fredette was doing and maybe picturing yourself in that role have to do with your final decision?

Matt Carlino: It had a lot to do with it, watching Jimmer and just the whole team last year. Coach Rose had a ton to do with it because of how he lets people plays and how good of a coach I think he is. Now that I've had a chance to play for him, I know even more how good of a coach he is. In the recruiting process, you just have to listen to what they have to say. Jimmer had a lot to do with it. Coach Rose had a ton to do with it. It's just been a good fit for me.

TD: You had a year to sit out and not play as a redshirt after not getting to play much at UCLA. Looking back on what you did over the last year, what was the key to making sure you were this ready to play and contribute right away starting last Saturday? How do you keep your game sharp?

MC: Just working hard and trying to take everything I could get from everyone — like Jimmer, when I had to play against him. At UCLA, I had to guard Malcolm Lee, who was also drafted this year. I was playing against two NBA draft picks last year every day in practice, so just learning from guys like that, learning from the coaches, and especially just learning from coach Rose and what he wants. It was big for me, because it gave me a year to just get prepared instead of just being from high school and going.

AP111111044546The last time Towson won a game, Osama Bin Laden was still alive, Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger were still happily married and Foster the People's "Pumped up Kicks" hadn't yet gotten regular radio airplay.

Towson's losing streak stretched to 30 games and 358 days on Tuesday night with a 81-62 home loss against Manhattan. The Tigers (0-11) will go a full calendar year without a win if they don't beat Vermont at home Friday night and they'll go all of 2011 without celebrating a victory if they also cannot upset Virginia in Charlottesville on Dec. 30.

It has been 15 years since Towson last had a winning season, but this losing streak has been particularly dismal.

Nineteen of Towson's 30 losses have come by 10 or more points, including 10 of 11 losses this season. The closest the Tigers have come to winning during that stretch was a 95-93 overtime loss to UNC Wilmington in which they somehow squandered a 22-point lead in the final 14 minutes of regulation.

Towson's struggles this season are no surprise considering new coach Pat Skerry had to essentially rebuild the roster this offseason.

Leading scorer Isaiah Philmore transferred to Xavier shortly after former coach Pat Kennedy was fired. Braxton Dupree left to play professionally in Israel. And the indefinite suspension of leading returning scorer RaShawn Polk before the season left Skerry with just one player who played for Towson last season: redshirt sophomore forward Erique Gumbs, who averaged a mere 3.6 points.

The best player on this year's team is senior Robert Nwankwo, but Skerry's recruiting prowess offers hope for the future.

Andre Drummond

When Michael Bradley surrendered his scholarship in September to make room for the late addition of future lottery pick Andre Drummond, it inspired a heated national debate over whether it was appropriate for UConn to ask the sophomore center to make that sacrifice.

Turns out Drummond was on the side of those who thought it wasn't.

Drummond told the New London Day on Tuesday that he relinquished his scholarship in early November when UConn's compliance department discovered that a recruited player can pay his own way as long as any financial aid he receives is non-institutional. Upon learning that, Drummond and his family insisted he become a walk-on so that Bradley could have his scholarship back.

"I'm thankful for what Mike was trying to do for me," Drummond told the Day. "I told Mike, 'Don't do that, man. I'll pay my way and take a scholarship next year. You don't have to give up a scholarship for me.'

"It was my decision. That's not fair to him. He worked hard to get that scholarship. I'm not going to take something from somebody that's not mine. It was my decision to come late."

What initially made Bradley the obvious choice to make the one-year sacrifice was that he qualified for other financial aid because he grew up in a poor section of Chattanooga and spent seven years living in children's home.

It took a full-court pass, a tap dance on the end line and an acrobatic shot for NC State to win a game coach Mark Gottfried said he was "crazy" to schedule.

With the visiting Wolfpack tied with St. Bonaventure and less than three seconds left in regulation on Tuesday night, C.J. Williams threw a length-of-the-court inbound pass that nearly hit the scoreboard above the court. NC State's C.J. Leslie somehow hauled in the pass, kept his balance and sank a one-handed shot over Andrew Nicholson from a terrible angle to give the Wolfpack a 67-65 victory.

The lone knock against Leslie's game winner was whether he'd stepped out of bounds prior to attempting it. The admittedly choppy, grainy video above appears to show his right foot stepped on the end line, but St. Bonaventure can't complain too vociferously since better defense would have prevented that play from being successful.

NC State (7-4) will take the win — disputed or not — because the Wolfpack could ill afford to lose a fifth game prior to the start of ACC play. Granted, previous losses against Vanderbilt, Indiana, Stanford and Syracuse aren't embarrassing, but NC State needs more quality wins to go with its come-from-behind victory over Texas last month.

Maybe the best sign for the Wolfpack was that Leslie was on the court at all in the game's final minutes. The talented sophomore has battled cramping and dehydration late in previous close games against Stanford and Vanderbilt, but he scored 12 points and played almost the entire second half on Tuesday.

Indiana scored so easily in its 107-50 thrashing of hapless Howard on Monday night that guard Jordan Hulls decided to make it more challenging for himself.

With Indiana comfortably ahead 47-15 late in the first half and the shot clock about to expire, Hulls dribbled left to create space and then hoisted up an unorthodox running three with his off hand. Improbably, the left-handed shot found all net, inspiring a muted half smirk from Hulls, a roar from the Assembly Hall crowd and peals of laughter on the Indiana bench.

Seeing Hulls shoot with his left hand was probably a surprise to most Indiana fans, but his teammates weren't shocked to see him make it.

"We'll be shooting around in practice and he'll do stuff like that," guard Verdell Jones told the Fort Wayne News Sentinel. "We're like, 'What are you doing?' What you didn't know was that he was practicing for games like this."

How did Indiana coach Tom Crean feel about Hulls' unusual three? Well, he echoed the thoughts of his point

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If all you read is Todd O'Brien's first-person account to SI.com of his attempt to transfer from St. Joseph's to Alabama-Birmingham this summer, it's easy to believe Hawks coach Phil Martelli must be a monster.

The way O'Brien tells it, Martelli is holding him hostage out of spite by refusing to sign a waiver to allow him to play his senior year at UAB.

O'Brien graduated from St. Joseph's in four years, still had a year of basketball eligibility left and took advantage of an NCAA rule allowing players in such situations to transfer without forfeiting a year of eligibility. Now St. Joseph's is receiving backlash from all corners of the internet because O'Brien is attending classes at UAB and practicing with the team but he's unable to appear in a game until Martelli signs off on it.

It's possible that's all there is to the story and that Martelli truly is abusing his power, but the more likely scenario is there's something we're missing.

It makes absolutely no sense for Martelli to be this irate over O'Brien's transfer since the reserve big man averaged a whopping 1.0 points in seven minutes per game last season. Furthermore, Martelli has no known track record of attempting to prevent transfers from leaving his program.

St. Joseph's has done little to help fill in the blanks in this story, declining to make Martelli available to Yahoo! Sports and other media outlets. Instead the school released a terse statement insisting it "followed all applicable NCAA procedures" in choosing not to release O'Brien.

If Yancy Gates' right hand that dropped Xavier's Kenny Frease was the most brutal sucker punch of the college basketball season, the one that Arizona State's Ruslan Pateev threw on Monday night may have been the most tame.

Southern Mississippi forward Torye Pelham and Pateev were jostling for rebound position beneath the basket when Pelham threw a forearm shiver into the Arizona State center's chin. An irate Pateev then retaliates with a punch to the back of an unsuspecting Pelham's head as both are running back upcourt, though the force of Pateev's cheap shot barely was enough for Pelham to break stride.

The incident thankfully didn't escalate the way the Cincinnati-Xavier brawl did, though most of the Southern Mississippi reserves did leave their bench before the Golden Eagles coaching staff herded them back to their seats. Pelham and Pateev were ejected, as was Southern Mississippi reserve Ahyaoro Phillips, who came off the bench.

With all the negative publicity Xavier guards Tu Holloway and Mark Lyons received for their initial lack of remorse over the brawl with Cincinnati, you would think players would now be wise enough to apologize after tempers flare. Instead Pateev apparently was still so heated after the game that he initially defended his actions on Twitter before later deleting the tweet by Tuesday morning.