Every year in college basketball, we wait week after week for that big day to come.

 

We wait for that day with a full slate of top 25 matchups to learn which teams are for real and which teams still have a lot of work to do before the madness really begins three months from now.

 

Last season, that day — and I remember it quite fondly — came on Jan. 19, when Maryland went into Chapel Hill and handed No. 1 North Carolina its first loss of the season, USC knocked off archrival UCLA in Pauley Pavilion and Texas A&M, ranked No. 10 at the time, fell to Kansas State in the Little Apple.

 

This year, though, college basketball got an early taste of March this past Saturday.

 

No. 2 UConn, for one, got a gutsy, game-tying three from A.J. Price to outlast No. 8 Gonzaga in overtime in the Battle in Seattle, No. 6 Duke demolished No. 7 Xavier in the swamps of New Jersey and No. 11 Syracuse got a rather rare road win in Graceland against No. 23 Memphis after losing a heartbreaker to Cleveland State on a 60-foot buzzer-beater earlier in the week.

 

But what Saturday's action really taught us is that the Big Ten is no slouch — not this year, at least.

 

It started with Michigan upsetting UCLA in the 2K Sports Classic in November and then following that win up with a stunning one in Ann Arbor over a previously undefeated Duke team.

 

And while the Wolverines were celebrating their big win over the Blue Devils that day, Ohio State was enjoying its own upset over a Notre Dame team that boasts one of the best bigs in the country in Luke Harangody and is expected to contend for a Big East championship with UConn, Pittsburgh and Louisville later this season.

 

Then over this past weekend, the conference continued to make its voice heard around the nation with Michigan State and Minnesota pulling off impressive upsets over two potential Final Four candidates and Purdue securing a convincing win over No. 22 Davidson in Indianapolis at the Wooden Tradition.

 

It was a day that the conference can certainly use as bargaining power for the NCAA tournament committee, which should grant a minimum of five Big Ten teams — and quite possibly six — with other multiple-bid conferences like the Pac-10, Atlantic 10 and SEC all down from a year ago.

 

Of course, the Big Ten isn't the Big East (heck, nobody is this year), but after watching the Spartans hang with Texas for 40 minutes in Houston and then win in the final seconds while Minnesota shocked No. 9 Louisville in Phoenix to remain undefeated at 10-0, the conference deserves its fair share of respect.

 

After all, coming off a pathetic showing in Detroit against top-ranked North Carolina, the Spartans badly needed to show that they were every bit as good as their preseason ranking (No. 6) indicated.

 

The same went for the Boilermakers, who after starting the season ranked No. 11, suffered two consecutive setbacks to Oklahoma and Duke in a matter of four days and had yet to beat a top 25 team this season.

 

That changed Saturday when Matt Painter's team did a magnificent job against the nation's leading scorer, Stephen Curry, holding the junior sharpshooter to just 13 points on a miserable 5-for-26 shooting (2-for-12 from three) performance.

 

Purdue, meanwhile, shot a remarkable 61.1 percent from long range and won the rebounding battle against a well-coached, disciplined team that stunned Gonzaga, Georgetown and Wisconsin to reach the Elite Eight last year and has already scored wins over BCS powers West Virginia and N.C. State this season.

 

"I thought this was a great team victory for us," Painter said afterward. "Our guys did a very good job defensively, not just the three guys that guarded Stephen Curry. I thought everybody was ready to play."

 

Better yet, Minnesota, which hadn't even faced a ranked team coming into its contest against Rick Pitino's Cardinals, needed a quality win more than either Michigan State or Purdue.

 

Yet the Golden Gophers, who don't boast the most talented roster in just Tubby Smith's second season at the helm, managed to hold Louisville to only 37.7 percent shooting from the field and a lowly 23.5 percent from three.

 

"This game really means a lot to us, but it's just one game," offered Al Nolen, who led Minnesota with 18 points in addition to five rebounds and five assists. "We've still got to move forward to the next game."

 

And if Michigan State, Purdue and the rest of the Big Ten follows Nolen's message over the next few months, there's no telling how much more noise this conference can make in a season's time.

To check out my latest power rankings, click here.

Maybe I underestimated these Blue Devils.

Or maybe I overestimated those Boilermakers.

Purdue, after all, was one of the biggest surprises last season, contending with Wisconsin and Michigan State for the Big Ten title the whole way before the Badgers claimed the crown.

But in a matter of five days, Matt Painter’s team has been exposed on both ends of the floor by what appears to be two better teams — at least at this point in time.

Oklahoma, for one, could very well win the Big 12 championship this season with Blake Griffin standing as a favorite to capture Player of the Year honors, though last year’s honoree Tyler Hansbrough won’t make it easy for him. Therefore, it should be no surprise that the Sooners were able to pull out an overtime victory against Purdue last Friday in the NIT Season Tip-Off final at Madison Square Garden.

And secondly, Duke, which went into Mackey Arena Tuesday night and dominated the Boilermakers from start to finish for a 76-60 victory, for that matter, may be no joke either.

Sure, things could change over the course of the season, but for now, Duke has done everything it has been asked to do in the first three weeks of the season, staring at an 8-0 record with another road test Saturday in Ann Arbor against an improving Michigan squad.

So if nothing else, Mike Krzyzewski certainly has to be proud of his kids for what they’ve accomplished to this point.

Because it’s well known that the Blue Devils don’t play too many true non-conference road games, and for that reason alone, Tuesday night’s game in West Lafayette, Ind., was a rare and rather unusual occurrence that just so happened to be set up by the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

With that in mind, Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer showed a national television audience that these Blue Devils may not be as soft as some might have expected after last year’s second-round loss in the NCAA tournament and 2007’s first-round exit against VCU.

"For us, we knew coming on the road, it's huge to get off to huge starts, and that's something we were really focused on," said Scheyer, who scored 20 points while connecting on 3-of-6 from three-point land.

The Blue Devils never trailed. And to be quite honest, it never was really close. Duke beat the Boilermakers in every facet of the game.

Maybe it just wasn’t Purdue’s night.

Or maybe Duke really is that good.

Of course, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Purdue is a good team, but thinking that Duke could actually win the ACC championship over North Carolina would be plain stupid, if not nearly insane.

Coach K’s team should finish second in the ACC, and with the Tar Heels built the way they are this year, that’s still a rather impressive accomplishment should the Blue Devils actually do so.

But if K really believes that Purdue will be a national title contender like he said in the post-game press conference ("We think at the end of the season, Purdue will be one of those teams that has a chance.”), then there’s no doubt that this win will be one of those that the NCAA tournament committee would eye closely.

You never know, though.

Krzyzewski just might be overestimating the Boilermakers like I did, and yet, maybe we’re also overestimating these Blue Devils.

Because it's seeming more and more like this college basketball season, unlike others, is one where anyone — except for maybe the Tar Heels — can lose on any given night against almost any team in America.

Yes, the parity is that strong this season, and it continues to get stronger and stronger year after year.

You don’t have to look much further than at a team like Duke, which hasn’t held the No. 1 ranking in almost three years and hasn’t been past the Sweet 16 in the past four seasons.

Yet if the Blue Devils keep this up and Coach K’s words about Purdue happen to come true, that streak just may end this March.

To check out my latest power rankings, click here.