I have been a Lexington resident for nearly eighteen years now. For the majority of that time entering the stretch run of the college basketball season meant only one thing. Listening to the pundits talk about where the Cats will be seeded. That was until Bruce Pearl picked up the Orange blazer.

Greetings from the West Coast. As I flew in to Los Angeles last night, it was the first time I’ve ever seen smog at night. Though it is a nice break in the winter to enjoy some Southern California 70 degree weather in February, there’s a part of me, wait, a large part of me that wants to be at home listening to, and reading, all the sure to be hoopla surrounding our basketball program

It hardly seems possible that it could be time for the Vols to play another basketball game already. I’ve not had enough time to finish gloating over the win over Memphis and the #1 ranking in both polls.

As you can imagine, there has been some great discussion and celebration posted in the message board today. Collectively, it may be the best mood I’ve seen around here in quite some time. I thought I would point out a few of the more interesting threads and links from the day.

The Trap hits Sin City for the crucial Mountain West tilt between UNLV and San Diego State, before returning to Knoxville for the renewal of hostilities between Tennessee and Kentucky. Here are this week’s topics of hoops interest:

Tennessee and Memphis highlights.

Straight from the front page of ESPN.com.

ESPN Gameday is on site in Memphis and just about every major media outlet is talking about tonight’s clash of #1 vs #2. Get ready for some Tennessee basketball.

This week the Trap is still coming to you from Knoxville, ahead of next week’s quick trip to the spiritual homeland of Las Vegas. The preliminaries are over. Each team has essentially wrapped up their conference crown. It’s time to let the ESPN hype machine wash over us all until 9 PM EST Saturday night. This game has about 1,220 storylines. Here are the six that intrigue me the most.

What do Bill Belichick, Roger Clemens and Phil Fulmer have in common? Right now all three have off the field problems that aren’t going away anytime soon. Between the tapes the drugs and the DUIs all three men find some of their lifetime achievements and their public perception being called into question. Oh, yeah, and one more thing. All three men have better approval ratings than the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.