Georgia head coach Mark Fox admits it has been a difficult week in Athens, given the firing of longtime football coach and good friend Mark Richtemotions will be elevated again Friday when the Bulldogs host Kansas State. Fox spent six seasons as an assistant coach at Kansas State and his wife worked for the school.

Three days after a second-half rally fell short against undefeated and 11th-ranked Purdue, Pittsburgh will try to pick up the pieces against city rival and upstart Duquesne on Friday in the annual City Game at CONSOL Energy Center. The City Game is technically a neutral-site game with the Dukes designated the home team this season.

Wake Forest has been winning the close ones this season and might need to capture another on Friday, when it hosts Arkansas in a nonconference game. All five of the Demon Deacons' victories in 2015-16 have been by single digits - the last three by four points or fewer, including a 69-68 triumph over Rutgers which was capped by a 12-point comeback over the final nine minutes.

Second-ranked Maryland looks to begin a new winning streak Friday when the Terrapins host St. Francis (Pa.), three days after suffering their first loss of the season in an 89-81 defeat to No. 9 North Carolina that left coach Mark Turgeon proud of his team’s effort. “You never feel good after a loss, but I love the way we battled,” Turgeon told reporters after Maryland battled back from an eight-point second half deficit in a matchup of teams with Final Four aspirations.

Undefeated at home, East Carolina hopes to get back power forward Michel Nzege as it looks for a third straight win when it hosts USC Upstate on Friday night. The Pirates have rebounded from a difficult West Coast trip that saw them drop the first three of four games in the Las Vegas Invitational.

Avery Johnson's Alabama squad looks to keep its roll going -- having topped then-nationally ranked Wichita State and Notre Dame in its last two games -- when it visits winless Southern MIss in a non-conference contest Friday night. The Crimson Tide won a pair of close games -- by four over the Shockers and by one over the Irish -- to take fifth place at the AdvoCare Invitational.

Missouri has been perfect at home while Northern Illinois has been just plain perfect, but something has to give when the Tigers host the Huskies on Friday night. The Huskies are off to their best start since 1994-95, when they opened the campaign with nine straight wins, but the Tigers have taken care of all three visitors to Mizzou Arena thus far. 

Texas will try to win consecutive games for the first time this season when it hosts Samford on Friday. The Bulldogs, playing their sixth game away from home in 12 days, could challenge the Longhorns on the boards.

Sixteenth-ranked Oregon, which has compiled a perfect 6-0 record without leaving the city limits of Eugene, Ore., finally hits the road for a game on Friday night when it plays UNLV in the MGM Grand Showcase at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas. The Ducks will then fly to Hawaii where they will face Navy on Monday at Bloch Arena at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, which withstood the 1941 Japanese bombing 74 years ago, before concluding the three-game trip at Boise State.