The Orange of Syracuse had the only remaining undefeated road record, an impressive 11-0, heading into their final regular season game of the 2009-2010 basketball season. More importantly, this was the final game in Freedom Hall which is the home court of the struggling Louisville Cardinals.

The Syracuse Orange and thousands of Louisville fans left Freedom Hall for the last time in the arena’s standing. The only difference, Louisville gave the arena its final win and Syracuse left with its first road loss of the year.

Rick Pitino and his squad were on the verge of missing the NCAA tournament in which they were among the last four remaining only a season ago. With a win over Syracuse on Saturday, the Cardinals won’t have to worry about their tournament hopes any longer. Improving to 20-11 on the season and improving to a much needed 11-7 in the Big East Conference, the Cardinals can finally breathe again heading into their conference finale. Syracuse on the other hand, being ranked number one for the first time since 1990, went home upset.

In the final game in Freedom Hall, an unlikely superstar rose to the occasion to make sure this game will be remembered for an eternity. Kyle Kuric, a sophomore shooting guard who averages 3.6 points per game, was living proof of why Freedom Hall is a memorable place. Scoring zero points in the first half, Kuric played in replace of an injured Jerry Smith.

Let’s just say he picked it up a tad in the second half.

All 22 points came during the final 20 minutes of the Freedom Hall finale which included an outstanding 67% from beyond the arc. He even showed some versatility by energizing the crowd with several ally-oops to preserve a 10-point lead coming down the stretch.  Mix in three rebounds and two assists and I’d say this kid had himself a game.

So what does someone with a larger-than-life game say during a post game interview? Well, I’m sure he would love to say a lot of things, but this humbled player kept his personal accolades to himself as he discussed the importance of such a big game for his team this late in the season.

I think the words we are all looking for are ‘true’, ‘team’ and ‘player’.

Edgar Sosa, Samardo Samuels and Rick Pitino all would agree with that last statement now that their team has momentum heading into the nation’s best conference’s tournament next week. The Cardinals already locked up a sixth seed giving them a direct flight to the second round awaiting the winner of Rutgers and Cincinnati.

Although Monday won’t bring the best news for the former number one Orangemen, the Big East still feels they are the best granting Jim Boeheim’s team a number one seed in the conference. Good for them because this is a sure-fire way for this team to get back on the bus and ride it all the way to Indianopolis.

When everything is said and done, Freedom Hall was closed out with a bang. Kyle Kuric could argue that it was the greatest basketball game ever played in the arena, but he’ll have some competition on that one. If nothing else was learned from this match-up Saturday afternoon, I’ll let you know what I learned:

Come March, no team is safe.

The first few weeks of the college basketball season have come and gone and a lot has been learned from watching these games. Check it out:

1.) The University of North Carolina (12-7) isn’t worthy of even being mentioned for the national championship. You would imagine that a team would want to defend their national championship, right? Not in UNC’s case. Losing their last three games, and four of their last five, The Tar heels have done one thing well all season: turn the ball over (a lot).

2.) Games have been much closer than they should be. St. Johns (12-7) last night had a lead going into half-time against Villanova (18-1). Nova rightfully thwarted St. John’s in the second half, but why was it even this close to begin with? Number-five Syracuse (19-1) squeezed out a tight one with a Marquette (11-8) team who has looked less than stellar all year. This next one is probably my favorite. Michigan State (17-3) beats Minnesota (12-7) by a free-throw. Yes, giving credit where credit is due, State was losing by eight at half-time and managed to rally back. Although these close games make for great television, it makes me wonder if true dominance has left the game.

3.) Being King-of-the-Hill is hard. Ten weeks into the season, we’ve had two different number-one ranked teams and it’ll be three on Monday morning. Kansas (18-1) road the momentum longest spending a solid eight weeks on top, but their loss to Tennessee (15-3) sent them down two spots and out the target on Texas’ (17-2) back. They didn’t fair as well as Kansas losing their number-one ranking after just two weeks. A few hours from now Kentucky (19-0), the sole undefeated team, will get their first shot at sitting on the throne.

4.) The ACC as a whole hasn’t been up to its normal excellence. Last week I wrote an article about each team from the ACC and within that week, the situation has become more interesting. If I told you that Maryland (13-5) was on top of the ACC and that UNC was second from the bottom, I wouldn’t believe me either. Maybe it’s more mind blowing that the Cavaliers of Virginia (12-5) have beaten a Georgia Tech (14-4) team that has steamrolled the likes of Duke (16-3) and Clemson (15-5) this season. What was thought to be a typical UNC-Duke year has become more atypical then years passed.

5.) The most important thing we’ve learned from this season: There’s a reason we play the game.

Despite everything that we have learned from this season, questions are still being raised. Will UNC get back to contending form? Will the top-25 ever look relatively similar again two weeks in a row? But what I’m still trying to figure out is the following:

Why hasn’t Kentucky been the number one seed yet?

I’ll start by defending the rankings. There was multiple undefeated teams like Texas, Kansas, Syracuse and Villanova. There was also many strong one loss teams like Michigan State, Tennessee and Duke. Also, maybe playing in the SEC isn’t the best conference to play for, but when a team has a “W19″ in their current streak column, it means something.

Now I’ll talk about why the Cats should have been placed on top since the season’s beginning. Kentucky has the best player in the nation in John Wall taking the ball up court. What makes this team special is that Wall also averages 6.7 assists per game. Forward DeMarcus Cousins averages a smooth 15.4 ppg and 9.5 rebounds. Eric Bledsoe and Patrick Patterson make it four Wildcats with an average of 10 points or more. The Wildcats make it almost impossible to stop them averaging 83.2 ppg. More impressive is the mere 65.6 points against per game. That has to be intimidating walking into Rupp Arena knowing that in 19 games, the Wildcats have won by a 17.6 points average. However, all the great game planning requires great coaching.

John Calipari is truly defining himself as the best active coach in college basketball. He has a 416-137 overall record and after all the doubt about not being able to coach outside Conference USA, he’s just led the Wildcats to the number one spot overall in 2010. Yes, his NBA stint with the New Jersey Nets was as bad as dropping a full carton of eggs, but this guy knows how to motivate young players. Derreck Rose, Tyreke Evans and now John Wall are three “one-and-done” players to have been coached by Calipari and unlikely than any other situation, they play with pride for the one season. The one thing that I love about Calipari is that his team never plays to the level of their opponent. When they’re supposed to win big, they beat Hartford (5-15) by 43. When faced with SEC rival Arkansas (8-1), Kentucky made it look like a close game winning by 31.

It’s those big games that define a team as the number-one overall. They won 64-61 over a hot UCONN (13-6) team and going into The Swamp to play the Florida Gators (14-5) and going home a 12 point winner is rather defining. This team can flat out play. If you’re still not convinced that the Kentucky Wildcats should be number one, you should probably re-evaluate the way you watch the game.

If I were asked, I’d say their best chance to lose the rest of the season is February 27th when they travel to Knoxville to take on Tennessee. Who knows, maybe a week earlier on February 20th, the Vanderbilt Commodores (15-3) can surprise the Cats in Nashville. But like I just said:

It’s only a chance.