Monday's Pregame Beat: The Backyard Brawl gets added meaning

9:00 pm: No. 4 Missouri @ Texas: Missouri bounced back from a bad loss at Oklahoma State by knocking off Texas Tech over the weekend, but that doesn't mean that the result didn't resonate. Look, road losses are going to happen in the power conference, the issue is the way that teams responded to them. Texas is not a bad basketball team. They have a star in J'Covan Brown and enough perimeter talent that they will be able to matchup with the Tiger's four guard sets. Missouri is currently sitting in second place in the Big 12, tied with Baylor one game behind Kansas.

7:00 pm: Pitt @ West Virginia: This has all of a sudden turned into a massively important game. The Panthers are coming off of two straight wins, but they are going to need to win a lot more games if they truly want a shot at the NCAA Tournament. WVU, on the other hand, was smoked by St. John's last week and lost a tough game against Syracuse when a goaltend wasn't called. Throw in the fact that the Backyard Brawl is one of the most heated rivalries in the country.

7:00 pm: Princeton @ Penn: The Ivy League is a mess right now. Harvard is currently sitting at 4-0 in the league, but both Penn and Princeton have their sites set on a league title. A win for Penn would allow them to keep pace with the Crimson, but that loss would put the Tigers two games out of first place, a number that may be too much to overcome.