Dick Jerardi: Basketball officials need to put a stop to the flop

* Dayton is living right. The Flyers have won 21 of their last 22 games decided by five points or less.

* It can't get much better for a conference than to have half the Elite Eight and half the Final Four. That was the Big East last season. Hard to say how it will end, but it has started very strongly. Consider the results of the early-season tournaments.

Villanova won the Puerto Rico Tipoff. Syracuse won the 2K Sports Classic, beating ranked California and defending champion (admittedly without four key players from last season) North Carolina at Madison Square Garden. West Virginia, which is a serious national championship threat, won the 76 Classic in Anaheim.

Marquette lost the championship game in the Old Spice after beating a good Xavier team and upsetting Michigan along the way. Cincinnati got a few upsets in Maui and finished second. Connecticut was second in the preseason NIT.

Even the usual bottom of the league has been winning. DePaul finished third in the Paradise Jam and South Florida finished third in the Charleston Classic. St. John's essentially won the Philly Hoop Group Classic, which wasn't a tournament in the classic sense, as winners did not meet along the way.

* Can UCLA really be this bad? Apparently. The Bruins finished last in the 76 Classic and looked bad doing it, getting crushed by Portland, a threat to Gonzaga in the West Coast. Portland was really good until West Virginia overwhelmed it in the title game.