As we gaze into our crystal ball and work into the NCAA men’s basketball committee room in March, get ready for the ultimate test case.

Does Florida get into the tourney? How about Kentucky? If so, watch people howl.

Florida is the two-time defending national champion. The Gators are a big-time draw. CBS wants Billy D’s team in the field badly. The Gators are 17-3 heading into today’s game against Vanderbilt but to say the Gators played no one before Southeastern Conference play began is being kind.

Donovan purposely packed his schedule with softies in order to give an extremely young team some confidence and it worked. The Gators lost their only two legitimate non-league games to Florida State and Ohio State but won all the rest.

But when your schedule is rated 298th best in the country and your only two non-league wins over top 100 RPI teams came against Temple and Georgia Southern there is a problem.

“They didn’t beat anyone out of the SEC. Shouldn’t that count?” asked one Big East head coach this week.

The NCAA committee has always said the non-league portion of your schedule needs to count for something. We’ll see if that’s truly the case when they take a long look at the Gators, who just may finish in the top three or four teams in the SEC this season.

Kentucky is another case entirely. The Wildcat fans are so full of hot air that when first-year coach Billy Gillispie’s team finally won a game this week by beating Tennessee (the No. 1 RPI team), the we’ve-turned-the-corner refrain was being sung.

“These guys have figured out that it is a 40-minute game,” Gillispie said. “They are going to be tough as nails to play against no matter who they are playing.” Good for the Wildcats. They have a pulse. But you don’t win a few games in the SEC and then have everyone forget a nightmarish non-league schedule that featured losses to Gardner-Webb, Alabama-Birmingham and San Diego.

Philly hoop teams hurting

New York likes to bill itself as a great basketball Mecca, home of the City Game. We’ll take Philadelphia instead.

Philly has the NBA and high school greats like Wilt Chamberlain, Gene Banks and Kobe Bryant. It also has a rich, deep college basketball fabric that is much more legendary than anything NYC can boast about.

Well, college hoops in Philly is a bit shaky this season. For the first time since 1977 there is a strong chance that not a single Philly team makes the NCAA’s. Villanova’s chances took a big hit the other day with an inexcusable loss to Rutgers. Temple is hot and cold, Penn stinks. Best bet goes to Saint Joseph’s. Speaking of Penn, the Quakers have finally completed an ugly non-league season that ended with a 5-12 record and some horrific losses. Coach Glenn Miller is in his second season in Philly and the ex-Brown mentor has been killed by some key injuries and the loss of two outstanding seniors off last year’s squad. Penn didn’t win a game in the Big Five and lost to St. Joe by 40 (82-42).

“Now we get a rebirth,” Miller told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Plenty of prep talent

The prep junior class in New England is being talked about as one of the best in decades. Massachusetts, thanks to a ton of prep schools, is downright loaded. Leading the way are several highly rated kids who’ve already committed to colleges for the fall of 2009. That group includes South Kingstown’s Erik Murphy (St. Mark’s, headed to Florida), and the Tilton School’s Alex Oriakhi and Jamaal Coombs (both to Connecticut).

College scouts (including PC and URI) also like many others, including Smithfield’s Mike Marra (Northfield Mt. Hermon) and West Greenwich big man Ben Crenca (Worcester Academy), forwards Kyle Casey (Brimmer & May), Evan Smotrycz (Reading High), Austin Carroll (Worcester Academy), Dartaye Ruffin (Stoughton), Tucker Halpern (BB&N), Hanell Velez (Woburn) and Darryl Cato-Bishop (Lawrence Academy).

Connecticut has a few big-timers as well in big man Jin Soo Kim (verbal to Maryland), guards Tyrone Gardner (Hartford) and Maurice Creek (South Kent) and athletic forwards Tevin Baskin (Bridgeport) and Jordan Williams (Torrington).

kmcnamar@projo.com