Comments on: Post-Deadline 2010-11 Top 25

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 26 May 2010 20:49:55 +0000

Marquette stacked Hoop Scoop #5 Recruiting Class on #1 in back to back years. Marquette is Smart Tough and Talented and will be in Top 25.

By: Title

Title — Wed, 26 May 2010 13:22:27 +0000

Butler will be significantly better offensively next season. (weaker defensively)

8 is probably too high, 15 is probably more reasonable.

They will win the Horizon League by 4 or 5 games once again. This is a Sweet 16 team

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 12 May 2010 02:11:03 +0000

AMEN brotha! If there’s something we can definitely agree on its that the College Basketball offseason is way too long, however thats what makes the season so precious.

By: J Hunt

J Hunt — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:26:57 +0000

Good points, Patrick, especially concerning Morningstar. Let’s be candid: he’s not athletic. Replacing him with Xavier Henry is what made Kansas the most dominant team in the nation last year (at least before the NCAA Tournament). Morningstar should be a reserve player. He’s just not the starting type, if you catch my drift. A great glue guy, valuable distributor, occasionally adept at shooting behind the arc, but not a starter, at least for a program like Kansas.

‘Nuff said about that.

As far as your points about Robinson, Johnson and Little not proving themselves yet – well, that’s also true, but one needs to take into account their position last year. They were members of arguably the deepest team in the nation, one loaded with talent and experience, so naturally even two extremely talented prospects like Robinson and Johnson didn’t get much playing time. As for Mario Little, he redshirted last season, and he never played at 100% health during the 08-09 season. What this all means is that all of these players have been given time to improve during practices and workouts, but their progress hasn’t yet been seen on the court. Consider Aldich’s advancement between his freshman and sophomore seasons. That’s what one offseason with Danny Manning will do for even a moderately athletic player like him. Robinson is an incredible athlete with a giant work ethic. I expect Manning to do for him what he did for Aldrich, Marcus Morris and the Kansas bigs from the ’08 championship team. History backs up that prediction. Also, Selby seems to be a much more effective playmaker than Xavier Henry. Henry developed a dependence on shooting solely from outside. He grew timid and refused to drive the lane. From all accounts, Selby’s bread is buttered in the lane, and he’s more athletic than Henry. I don’t see many problems there, at least.

But, as you’ve said, it’s all speculation at this point, and indeed none of those three players have truly proven themselves on the court yet. If we’re to work with likelihoods (as Luke Winn appeared to do in his SI article), then we’d place Kansas in the Top 5 or 10 preseason. But if we’re dealing plainly with experience and what’s already been proven on the court last year, then your poll makes more sense. Either way, I’m excited for next season. Six months is far too long to be absent from college basketball.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:22:46 +0000

Nova almost missed the tournament one year, with basically the same team and then the next year they make the Final Four. A team’s collapse one season doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again next year. Neither coach, Wright or Thompson, has a history of letting teams lose focus in March, if anything it has been the opposite.

By: Iceman

Iceman — Tue, 11 May 2010 17:45:58 +0000

“I’m not worried about Nova or G’Town’s collapses last March. Brand new season.”

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

By: zhayes9

zhayes9 — Tue, 11 May 2010 17:25:05 +0000

Butler returns 3 of their best 4 players from a national title runner-up team. I’d say they deserve to be ranked. Shelvin Mack is my pick for HL POY. Nored can lock up any elite guard scorer and Howard can dominate that league if he stays on the floor. Plus you have to consider Butler will shoot up the polls when they lose MAYBE once or twice from January to mid-March.

Detroit should finish 2nd based on talent alone, sure. But as highly touted as McCallum was, he’s still unproven, as is basically that entire Detroit team at least in terms of playing together as a unit. Butler does that better than anyone.

I’m a Milwaukee season ticket holder and follow the Horizon closely, so I know how much Hayward meant to them. I also think that their returning pieces is enough to garner a top spot in the polls, at least in the preseason.

By: zhayes9

zhayes9 — Tue, 11 May 2010 15:12:11 +0000

I’m not worried about Nova or G’Town’s collapses last March. Brand new season.

“Good” at best? Seriously? http://kentucky.scout.com/a.z?s=48&p=9&c=4&cfg=bb&yr=2010

Just because Knight isn’t quite Wall and Kanter isn’t quite Cousins, that doesn’t mean #13 is a joke. I’d argue that’s the perfect spot for them.

By: Coogles

Coogles — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:41:58 +0000

“…people are acting like Butler will fall off drastically in his absence. I’m not convinced.”

You should be. This team is going to be forced to start two freshman and it probably won’t be pretty early on. I’m about the biggest Butler homer out there, but this team is going to have some serious problems in its early games with Louisville, Duke, and in the Hawaii tournament. They may start in the Top 25, but they won’t stay there.

Did you happen to catch the game against Valparaiso when Butler had to play without Hayward? Valpo looked every bit of Butler’s equal in that game and even had a nice lead going for most of the first half. Hayward was the team’s best scorer, best rebounder, best post defender, best passer in transition and in breaking the press, and received the most attention from opposing defenses.

I could see maybe keeping Butler in the 24-25 spot, but if this were my list, they’d be nowhere to be found.

Heck, I’m not even convinced Butler will win the Horizon next year. Detroit is going to be very, very good with Ray McCallum at point, Jason Calliste becoming eligible, Chase Simon out on the wing and Eli Holman patrolling the paint…if McCallum Sr. has an ounce of coaching ability in him, they should win the conference. They easily have the most talented roster in the league on paper.

By: G. Floyd

G. Floyd — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:00:29 +0000

Kentucky at #13 is a joke. No senior leadership and a recruiting class that is “good” at best. Knight is no John Wall; Kanter is no Cousins; this team will struggle. Luckily for them they play in a very weak SEC.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 11 May 2010 05:20:14 +0000

I think Nova’s downslide was due to the fact that Scottie Reynolds and Jamie Wright had some kind of altercation that impacted the whole team’s mental game. I’m not saying Villanova is a better team on paper without Scottie, but they’re still incredibly talented and may have a better mental game than we saw against Robert Morris and Saint Mary’s in the NCAA Tournament. A huge key for Nova is whether or not Yarou can be a tough inside player. He only averaged 15 MPG last year, and if you expand his stats to say 30 MPG (which is a stretch) he would be averaging 9 PPG and 7.5 RPG. That’s not great by any means, but it’s not horrible. I expect Yarou to be the most improved player on that team though, because he was recruited to play for the Wildcats for his tremendous upside.

As for Kansas, I don’t know if you can really say that Morningstar knows how to handle pressure. I watch a lot of Big 12 basketball (actually I’m the RTC’s Big 12 Correspondent :) haha) and in key games I just thought Morningstar would disappear. Now that’s either a credit to how deep KU was last season, and they had many more viable options on offense than Morningstar, or its that Self/Morningstar aren’t comfortable with him taking the big shot. The problem with this guy is he’s a one dimensional player on offense, even if he does do all the intangibles. I remember reading a Rock Chalk Talk post in which they gave Brady Morningstar a D+ grade for his 2009-10 season.

I just don’t see Selby being so much of a factor that it makes Kansas the best team in the Big 12. Xavier Henry was supposed to propel them to the National Championship and he faded towards the end of the season. The only flaws in your argument for Kansas is that there are a lot of IFs. Tyshawn hasn’t come through, Mario Little hasn’t played to his potential yet, and neither have Johnson or Robinson. I mean there are three guys that last year had little to do with KU’s team, and now they’re being called on to be major contributors. I think Kansas has the potential to be more like they were when they lost to Bucknell and Bradley than a Final Four, or national championship contender.

By: J Hunt

J Hunt — Tue, 11 May 2010 04:24:31 +0000

Your Top 3 are incontrovertible. Duke, Michigan State and Purdue seem to be the teams to beat in college basketball next season. Kansas State is an understandable pick at #4, and we know they’ll be one of the toughest teams in the nation. But the rest of the Top 10 is pretty tough to determine. This year’s rankings have a great chance to be as incorrect as ever, because so much is mere speculation. Ohio State will have solid players returning, but will be depending largely on a great recruiting class; Butler will be a very good team, but let’s face it: there aren’t any other lottery picks on that team, and that does make a difference; and Villanova is also a tough prediction, considering their downslide at the end of last season. Even Georgetown is returning a nucleus of players who underachieved often last season and embarrassed themselves against a 14-seed in the first round last season. I think my point is made. It’s any man’s race to run.

I don’t know that I’d rank Missouri so high, although I do believe that they can do great things next season. Toni Mitchell will probably be a monster (I hear he’s a freak athlete), and Mike Anderson is an excellent coach, but I don’t see them making an immediate splash. They’ll probably make like the 08-09 team, which started out slow but gained enough momentum to roll to the Elite 8. No surprise: it’s a wide open window.

Syracuse has the capability to be a season-long Top-10 team again, and you were right to point out that they’re still a dangerous squad. Kentucky will likely take a longer time to meld this season, lacking the superior athleticism of last year’s recruiting class, meaning that they’ll probably drop those early scares like last season’s OT thriller against Stanford. But Calipari will always be adept at getting elite talent to gell.

I’ve made this point on this website before, and I’m glad that Kansas’s inscrutability at least was acknowledged. At this point, the Jayhawks are a lot like most of the other teams on this list. They have to be judged mostly on potential. If Elijah Johnson and Thomas Robinson play to their potential, if Tyshawn finally comes together, if Mario Little plays like the former #1 JUCO transfer that he is, if Josh Selby plays like the #1 prep player like he is, and if Marcus Morris plays like he did during conference play last year…well, you’ve got yourself a national championship contender. And don’t forget that Morningstar started for the 08-09 team, so he knows how to handle pressure. But I understand that those are a lot of ifs. Yet I’d disagree with Patrick that Kansas will probably be #3 or #4 in the Big 12. Like the article mentioned, the less experienced 08-09 team won the Big 12 and made it to the Sweet 16. This team will deal mostly with sophomores to seniors, with only one freshman (Selby) likely to earn much playing time. I’m making the prediction that Kansas wins the Big 12 for the seventh straight season. You can hold me to that, folks.

Great job on this blog. I really enjoy the posts.

By: zhayes9

zhayes9 — Mon, 10 May 2010 20:43:57 +0000

I agree with you Pat on Marquette. Buzz will have them dancing again. Cadougan and Blue is an exciting young PG tandem. Fulce is a hole though. He’s not a legit Big East starting center.

By: jstevrtc

jstevrtc — Mon, 10 May 2010 20:26:43 +0000

In reply to Sara. Oops...fixed. Thanks!

By: Sara

Sara — Mon, 10 May 2010 20:19:41 +0000

Quick note – MSU’s recruit is Keith Appling, not Chris.