James Michael McAdoo has too often allowed his emotions to get the best of him during his freshman season at North Carolina.

 “I did allow it to get to me at times,” McAdoo said. “The past couple weeks have been real big, ups in practice and downs in the games. I felt like I was really going to be able to turn it up for ACC play. I wasn’t, but at least it never affected my work ethic.”

McAdoo is coming off his most effective Atlantic Coast Conference game of the season, a nine-point, six-rebound performance in Sunday night’s victory against Georgia Tech.

“I want to be out there and when I’m out there I want to be productive, the player I know I can be, and not let whatever happens affect my confidence," McAdoo said.

McAdoo’s wired nature has left him susceptible to picking up fouls while also accentuating some awkwardness and lack of polish down low.

Kansas coach Bill Self spoke with his players in a Monday afternoon film session about a trend that needs to stop.

“We haven’t been as energized the last two games. We’ve played flat,” Self said of Wednesday’s 64-54 home victory over Texas A&M and Saturday’s 72-64 loss at Iowa State.

“It’s not about playing hard. I’m talking about just being enthusiastic, energetic. When we do that, we’re pretty good. When we are not (energized), we don’t appear to be near as athletic and don’t seem to make plays that players make when games are tight. When you are energized, it covers up for a lot of mistakes. When you are not energized, then execution and discipline — all those things become more a factor. Against Iowa State the last five minutes, we didn’t get stops. The majority of those times it all came with under seven seconds on the shot clock. A guy reaches, a guy loses sight of his man, a guy doesn’t block out. All these things can be avoided if we are a little more in-tune.”

ESPN announced their lineup for the 2012 edition of BracketBusters, which features several of the top mid-major schools in the country.

Friday, Feb. 17 (all times ET) 
7 p.m. – Northern Iowa at VCU (ESPN2) 
9 p.m. – Valparaiso at Loyola Marymount (ESPNU) 

Saturday, Feb. 18 
11 a.m. – Drexel at Cleveland State (ESPNU) 
Noon – Wichita State at Davidson (ESPN or ESPN2) 
1 p.m. – Buffalo at South Dakota State (ESPNU) 
2 p.m. – Akron at Oral Roberts (ESPN or ESPN2) 
3 p.m. – Drake at New Mexico State (ESPNU) 
4 p.m. – Nevada at Iona (ESPN or ESPN2) 
5 p.m. – Old Dominion at Missouri State (ESPNU) 
6 p.m. – Saint Mary’s at Murray State (ESPN or ESPN2) 
7 p.m. – UNC Asheville at Ohio (ESPN3) 
8 p.m. – UT-Arlington at Weber State (ESPN3) 
10 p.m. – Long Beach State at Creighton (ESPN2) 

BracketBusters national TV appearances, by conference 
5 – Missouri Valley 
3 – CAA, MAC 
2 – Horizon, Summit, WAC, WCC 
1 – Big Sky, Big South, Big West, MAAC, Ohio Valley, Southern, Southland

Wildcats point guard Marquis Teague has shown steady improvement, cutting down on his turnovers and making strides at the defensive end.

"The biggest thing with Marquis Teague that he's doing better is defending and rebounding," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "You all want to look at his offense. He's defending and rebounding. So he's not stopping. He's going in and getting balls."

After a rough start, Teague’s more at ease of late in running the ship and serving as a distributor.

"On a team like this, that's what you have to do," Teague said. "You've got to pick and choose when to go. People would like to come down and shoot the ball, but if you play for a team like this, you've got to find guys. You've got Doron Lamb, Michael (Kidd-) Gilchrist, Terrence Jones. You've got to feed them guys. They all can score very easy and very well."

Fab Melo missed Syracuse’s last two games at Notre Dame and Cincinnati because of academic issues. Sources said that it could "be a while" before those academic issues are resolved.

Because of student privacy issues surrounding his academic status, SU officials have not publicly commented, beyond saying that there was no new information about Melo's playing status.

Tar Heels center Tyler Zeller is more aggressively battling for position, coach Roy Williams said.

“He’s going to the boards more; it’s pretty simple,’’ Williams said. “Early in the year, we’d have to yell at him to get to the boards, but I think he’s establishing a spot in there, he’s trying to get to the offensive boards. He got two offensive boards for baskets in the first half just by getting to the boards and finding an open spot. We need that.”

Indeed, Zeller has now pulled down 116 rebounds in his past 10 games, recording double-digit boards in nine of them.

In UNC’s first 10 games, he’d managed 10 or more rebounds only twice.

And entering this season, he had posted 10 or more rebounds only seven times.

Nebraska-Omaha will join the Summit League for the 2012-13 season and had a preview this week when they dropped an 81-70 decision to Western Illinois.

UNO lost by 11 points, but they also fouled the same player twice while shooting a three-pointer, which was made and also called for a technical.

"You foul two three-point shooters, and this is not the basketball game, but you foul two three-point shooters and a technical and…you play ‘em even, you're even," said Derrin Hansen.  "That's nine points right there so basically you're a possession [away]."

UNO has a 7-15 record this season, with their wins mostly coming against non-Division I schools.

"If you wanna talk measuring stick, maybe we're not perfect, maybe we're not there right now but I hope people would understand that we're not far," Hansen said.  "We have players on our team, one that's sitting next to me (Mitch Albers), that can play in this league,  amongst other guys on our team right now."

Le'Bryan Nash scored 27 points on 12-of-18 shooting to lead Oklahoma State to a 79-72 victory over Missouri on Wednesday.

“This win is going to do a lot for this team -- especially me,” said Nash, who is averaging just over 11 points while shooting 35 percent from the field. “My confidence has been up and down.

“I haven’t been consistent scoring the ball, and I’ve needed to be more consistent as far as playing hard. That was one of the hardest games I’ve ever played in my life, because I wanted to win. When I play hard, good things will happen for me and this team.”

The 6-7, 230 pound swingman has struggled under high expectations.

“Coming in as the highest-rated recruit in the history of the program, I knew all the hype was going to be about me,” Nash said. “It was just motivation for me. When I don’t play well and people say negative stuff, that just gives me motivation to play even harder, even better.”

Kentucky is on pace to finish the season with six players averaging double figures in scoring.

Doron Lamb averages 13.7 points, followed by forwards Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Anthony Davis at 13.2 each, forward Terrence Jones at 11.6, Darius Miller at 10.3 and point guard Marquis Teague at exactly 10 a game. No team in Kentucky’s rich history has finished a season with six players averaging in double digits.

“We have seven players who have taken 100 shots or more,” Wildcats coach John Calipari said. “Think about that. In most cases, you have teams that their three leading scorers take 250 to 300 shots and the other guys are taking 50 shots, 70 shots. We have seven guys that take 100 shots. That means we have an unselfish team that’ll pass the ball to each other.”

Ohio State coach Thad Matta is rewarding players who practice well with playing time.

“I’m gaining trust and faith in these guys, and they’ve deserved that,” Matta said. “Hopefully, we can continue to widen our scope of who we’re playing.”

No starter is averaging more than 32 minutes in Big Ten games; last season, all five starters averaged 31 or more.

Six reserves are averaging more than six minutes in Big Ten games; last season, two did.

“The rotation not only gives those guys early confidence that we’ll need as a team when we get to tournament time,” sophomore Lenzelle Smith Jr. said, “but it also provides rest for some of us who do play a lot of minutes, so next game we’re not burned out.”