1. Consider this a cautionary tale in terms of trusting online entities claiming to have primary source information, especially when it comes to recruiting.  Meet Jonathan Paige, the recruiting guru who wasn’t.   In just two short months, Paige, a pseudonym for someone claiming to follow “AAU basketball all summer every summer,” gathered over 500 Twitter followers, was cited on numerous reputable blogs and team message boards, and generally became an up-and-coming “name” within the sometimes-shady scouting and recruiting information industry.  In his words, all he did to develop his growing profile was to tweet and re-tweet confirmed information from other sources, mine the major message boards for rumors, tailor his posts to specific fanbases, and make up the rest.  There’s no telling how much further he could have taken this should he have chosen to do so, but we should all learn from “Troll’s” deception — not in the sense of thumbing our nose at the guy, but rather to remind ourselves that anything read or viewed online needs to served correspondingly with a healthy dose of skepticism.
2. It’s been a tough several days for San Diego State head coach Steve Fisher.  Last week, several establishments including RTC noted that Fisher’s 400th career victory, achieved on January 12 against UNLV last season, was not in fact a milestone win given the NCAA’s new “Calipari Doctrine.”  Over the weekend, former SDSU transfer commitment Kevin Young announced that he would instead attend Kansas for his final two seasons of eligibility.  As a result, Fisher vented to the San Diego Union-Tribune that he was angered that Kansas (and by proxy, Bill Self) had recruited someone  he says had “made an eight-month commitment” to the Aztec program but had been swayed in recent months to view Kansas as an alternative.  Self, to his credit, claims that Young had already “de-committed” from SDSU before KU got involved, but the fact remains that Fisher will enter 2011-12 not only a few years away from that elusive NCAA-verified 400th win, but also without a roster (including Young) prepared to re-build from the loss of his top four players.
3. When we read something like this article outlining the mammoth salaries that the six BCS conference commissioners make as CEOs of their leagues, we really start wondering just how much longer the NCAA as we know it will continue to exist.  From Jim Delany’s $1.6M Big Ten salary (2009) to John Marinotti’s $366K prorated pay (half of 2009), it’s easy to forget that these organizations supposedly looking out for the best interests of their student-athletes are 501(c) non-profits.  As anyone who knows anything about the world of non-profits, when they are run like profit-making entities, the clients that they purport to serve are usually the first ones left by the wayside.
4. The long Fayetteville nightmare is over, as Arkansas guard Rotnei Clarkewas finally given his release by the school to transfer wherever he likes.  As reported by several outlets over the weekend, Clarke had asked for his release several times but new head coach Mike Anderson appeared to be stonewalling his best returning player in an attempt to keep him around for his senior year.  The 6’0 all-SEC second team guard is originally from Verdigris, Oklahoma, a town just outside of Tulsa, which makes us wonder if Travis Ford, Lon Kruger and Doug Wojcik already have the prolific scorer on their speed dials.
5. We missed this over the weekend, but June 19 wasn’t just Father’s Day it was also the 25th anniversary of former Maryland forward Len Bias‘ tragic death in 1986.  Bias is on a short list of players whose mythology over the intervening years has probably outgrown his proven abilities, but make no mistake, the guy was a stud in college and could have become an NBA superstar in the right situation.  His shocking death, a mere two days after he had been drafted by the then-NBA Champion Boston Celtics, carried repercussions beyond sports that are still felt to this very day in America’s criminal justice system.  As Salon’s Jonathan Easley outlines in an interview with the House counsel that helped write the shameful 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, a law that Congress passed that summer that would ultimately result in an explosion of America’s prison population for drug-related crimes and utilizing an arbitrary and racially-tinged “logic” behind making the distribution of crack cocaine more “criminal” than that of powder cocaine.  The death of Len Bias, a seemingly innocent and well-spoken young man by all accounts, helped to drive this legislation in the Nancy Reagan-led Just Say No era.  It’s a very interesting read, and one you probably won’t hear when watching sentimental testimonials to Bias such as this one from ESPN’s John Saunders last week.

Over the course of the next month until the NBA Draft on June 23, RTC will be rolling out comprehensive profiles of the 35 collegians we feel have the best chance to hear their names called by David Stern in the first round that night. There won’t be any particular order to the list, but you can scroll back through all the finished profiles by clicking here.

Player Name: Alec Burks

School: Colorado

Height/Weight: 6’6/195 lbs.

NBA Position: Shooting Guard

Projected Draft Range: Mid-First Round

Overview:  Alec Burks is as prolific a scorer on the wing as you’ll find in the 2011 draft class.  In just two seasons at Colorado, he scored nearly 1,300 points, averaging 19.0 PPG and leading the Big 12 in scoring last year.  He hit for 20+ points in 24 games last season, coming up big when it mattered most, contributing 29, 24, and 23 in the Big 12 Tournament, and 27, 25, 25, and 20 in four games in the NIT.  He has a prototypical NBA shooting guard’s body, standing at a lean 6’6 with long arms and an adequate , if not explosive, jumping ability.  He can score in a variety of ways, but his most proficient skill is his pronounced ability to slash to the basket and convert difficult shots in traffic.  Scorers like him have a knack for finding seams where lesser talented players do not, and Burks is exceptional in this regard.  His jumper is still a work in progress (29% from three last season), although scouts have noted that his misses both from length and the mid-range are perhaps more because of inconsistency in his fundamentals (fading, leaning, failure to sufficiently square his body) rather than an inability to make those shots.  In other words, they believe that this problem is fixable through proper coaching and repetition.  If this is indeed the case, we expect Burks to make a significant impact on the NBA within three to five years as he works into his frame and builds a complete offensive arsenal to complement his already-prodigious slashing talents.

Alec Burks Has Tremendous NBA Upside

Will Translate to the NBA:  His ability to score is what will translate to the NBA immediately.  Scorers are born, not made, and Burks has an uncanny knack for finding ways to put the ball in the basket even when there’s no good shot available.  This skill will endear him to coaches at the next level always looking for quick, easy buckets from players coming off the bench.  Even if no other part of Burks’ game ever develops, he should be able to survive a number of years on this ability alone.    

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John Gorman is an RTC contributor. Every week throughout the long, hot summer, he will highlight one of the iconic uniforms from the great history of the game. We plan on rolling out 24 of these babies, so tweet your favorites at us @rushthecourt or email us directly at rushthecourt@yahoo.com. This week, we go modern with a superb uniform that is as interesting as any you’ll find throughout the annals. To see the entire list to date, click here.

Milwaukee might seem at first to be an odd city to be lumped in with London, Paris and New York City as a fashion mecca, but for the past half-century, it’s been just that. Marquette is the fifth avenue of college basketball, a place where color and design mingle with the backdoor cut and alley-oop.  I delved into the Golden Eagles’ uniform history enthralled, as many are, by their present-day powder blue alternate jerseys, a dynamic marriage of soft color and psychedelic accent. Anyone who watches college basketball can’t help but marvel at the joyous cocktail party of navy, gold and white flourishing at the fringe of the powder blue canvas. But to assume Marquette’s foray into uniform utopia is a recent development is to ignore the school’s trend-setting tradition.

Marquette Has Long Been a Uniform Trendsetter

Starting with the arrival of Al McGuire, a colorful coach with an eye for detail and an independent spirit, the basketball team continued to find new and inventive ways to separate itself from other hoops havens by virtue of their visual appeal. Twice in their history, Marquette’s jerseys were too bold for the NCAA, leading to bans on their outrageous fashion sense.

The bumble-bee jerseys of the early 70s, which disoriented opposing players to the point of delirium, and the un-tucked jerseys (designed by starting guard Bo Ellis) that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to baby bibs, were both outlawed in a span of less than a decade. McGuire’s fashion sense sought a competitive advantage on the court, both in recruiting and at the merchandise counter. The Golden Eagles were the hottest act in college basketball, a must-see TV spectacle due as much in part to their colorful uniforms as much as their multi-hued (and successful) brand of basketball.

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1. From the In Case You Missed It file, late last week we published a piece analyzing the weird NCAA/Kentucky/John Calipari love triangle that occurred as a result of the school honoring Cal’s 500th win last season.  If you were on vacation or otherwise pre-occupied last week, the synopsis goes like this: Everyone is aware that the NCAA has vacated  42  of Calipari’s wins at UMass and Memphis because of the use of ineligible players (Marcus Camby and Derrick Rose).  Recently,  though, the NCAA learned from a “rival fan” that Kentucky’s official media materials still included the 42 wins as a part of Calipari’s aggregate total, thereby resulting in a “500th win” celebration that occurred late last season after a game against Florida.  The NCAA requested that Kentucky make good on reconciling its win total with their own, and, after some lawyerly back-and-forth over the issue, Kentucky eventually acceded to the governing body’s request rather than face a hearing in front of the Committee of Infractions.  As we stated on Friday, this is all fine and well — the win total should be the one recognized by the NCAA — but we’re not sure that the NCAA recognized the bag of worms centipedes it was opening with this very issue.  In our analysis, we found three examples of active coaches who “boast” vacated wins themselves — Steve Fisher at San Diego State, Todd Bozeman at Morgan State, and Mike Jarvis at Florida Atlantic — as but three more situations where their schools’ media guides represent a picture different than one warranted by the NCAA.  Will the NCAA begin knocking on those schools’ virtual doors in coming weeks as well?  We can’t imagine that the NCAA really wanted to waste its scarce and valuable resources on something so fundamentally trivial, but if the organization doesn’t step up and take responsibility for the mess it’s created here, then what little credibility it might have had pertaining to accusations of selective enforcement will be completely lost amidst a pile of balloons and confetti.
2. They all come home eventually.  Former Indiana superstar Calbert Cheaney, still the Big Ten’s all-time leading scorer nearly two decades after his graduation, will return to Bloomington to become Tom Crean’s Director of Basketball Operations next season.  Arguably the last great player Bob Knight coached, Cheaney was a three-time All-American at IU, culminating in becoming the consensus NPOY during the 1992-93 season.  When the old-timers talk about “Indiana Basketball,” Cheaney’s Hoosier teams are the most recent version of what they have in mind — during his junior and senior seasons at IU, Indiana went 58-11 while making a Final Four (1992) and Elite Eight (1993) under his on-floor direction.  Cheaney spent 13 seasons playing in the NBA and the last couple of years working as a special assistant in player development to the Golden State Warriors, but with a strong sense that the Tom Crean era in Bloomington is reaching a now-or-never point, Cheaney may be well-positioned to move up the ladder there quickly if he shows any coaching acumen at all.
3. Bill Self picked up an impact player over the weekend who should be able to contribute to his Jayhawks immediately next season in the form of 6’7 Kevin Young, a former Loyola Marymount wing who spent last year getting his grades in order as a volunteer assistant coach at Barstow (KS) Community College.  The bouncy swingman is a great last-minute addition for Kansas, who even with its prolific depth of talent will still have some trouble absorbing the loss of seven players next season.  Young presumably could step right into a starting role next year, having performed at a high level (10/6 in two seasons) at LMU and possessing more experience than anyone else on the 2011-12 roster at his position.  KU fans are likely feeling considerably better today about their upcoming squad than they did just a few short days ago.
4. We mentioned a little over a week ago that USA Basketball’s World University Games training camp roster included 22 current collegians in the hopes that next year’s NPOY wouldn’t end up riding the pine as former Ohio State superstar Evan Turner did on 2009’s team.   We’re still waiting to hear how those selections turn out, but the USA Under-19 three-day training camp concluded this weekend, and a lucky 13 rising freshmen and sophomores will represent the United States in international competition beginning in June 30 in Latvia.  The roster includes:  Keith Appling (Michigan State), James Bell (Villanova), Anthony Brown (Stanford), Jahii Carson (Arizona State), Tim Hardaway, Jr. (Michigan), Joe Jackson (Memphis), Jeremy Lamb (UConn), Meyers Leonard (Illinois), Khyle Marshall (Butler), Javon McCrea (Buffalo), Doug McDermott (Creighton), Tony Mitchell (North Texas), and Patric Young (Florida).  The two biggest surprise omissions were the reigning Pac-10 ROY, Allen Crabbe (California) and all-ACC rookie Travis McKi (Wake Forest).
5. It now appears all but certain that the November 11 Veteran’s Day game between Michigan State and North Carolina will take place on the USS Carl Vinson, the same aircraft carrier that — how should we put this? — disposed of Osama bin Laden’s body a little over a month ago.  The game will take place on the flight deck, and since it’s usually 70 degrees and clear in San Diego regardless of the time of year, the odds are that this thing will go off without a weather hitch.  Still, it would be amusing if a few light breezes blew in during the second half to make the shooters adjust on the fly, a little like this.  We can always dream.

Over the course of the next month until the NBA Draft on June 23, RTC will be rolling out comprehensive profiles of the 35 collegians we feel have the best chance to hear their names called by David Stern in the first round that night. There won’t be any particular order to the list, but you can scroll back through all the finished profiles by clicking here.

Player Name: Derrick Williams

School: Arizona

Height/Weight:  6’8, 248 lbs.

NBA Position: Small/Power Forward

Projected Draft Range: High Lottery

Overview:  Two years ago, Derrick Williams signed on with Sean Miller and Arizona after having been released from his letter of intent with USC following the firing of Tim Floyd. Williams was, at that time, the #72-rated incoming recruit (according to ESPNU) and there were few expectations for immediate production. However, Williams made a splash early and often in Tucson, winning the Pac-10 Freshman of the Year award while averaging 15 points and seven rebounds in a highly efficient manner. He stepped up his game big time in his second season, averaging 19.5 points and 8.3 rebounds while adding an absurdly accurate three-point shot (he made 42 of his 74 attempts for a whopping 56.8% from deep) and turning into the Wildcats’ unquestioned go-to guy. His play in the NCAA Tournament may have even been a bit better, as he almost single-handedly kept Arizona in the game against Duke, scoring 25 of his 32 points in the first half and making sure his name was known far and wide on the national stage. Williams mostly played the four at Arizona, but his quick first-step, explosive leaping ability and deadly accuracy from deep qualify him as a potential NBA three. But his measurements at the NBA combine (a 7’1 wingspan and a 9’0 standing reach) paired with his powerful body confirm that he can also hang physically with power forwards at the next level. And, his ability to step away from the basket and provide offense away from the grind of the lane make him a highly desirable asset. While it remains expected that Kyrie Irving will be the top pick in the draft, Williams looks like a lock to be the second pick, although it remains to be seen whether Minnesota will hold onto that pick or if another team, possibly Cleveland dangling it’s #4 pick as trade bait, moves up to claim him.

Derrick Williams Showed Off His Inner Beast in March

Will Translate to the NBA:  Williams’ offensive game is pretty well polished. Aside from the magical appearance of a deadly three-point shot that wasn’t even hinted at in his first season, Williams has a killer first step, solid handles and major finishing ability at the rim. He’s displayed solid post moves, he’s terrific at drawing fouls and getting to the line, and he’s also shown a great nose for the ball and an ability to score off broken plays or putbacks. Throw in the fact that his basketball IQ is off the charts (he rarely forces a bad shot, but remains aggressive enough to make the most of his skills) and Williams can score in the NBA from his first minutes.

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Player Name: Marcus Morris

School: Kansas

Height/Weight: 6’9/230 lbs.

NBA Position: Power Forward

Projected Draft Range: Mid- to Late Lottery

Overview: On a roster full of potential first round draft picks, Marcus Morris established himself as the team’s top player. Although the team did not live up to expectations as it fell in the Elite 8 to a hot VCU team, anybody following Marcus had to consider this year a major step for him individually as he was named Big 12 Player of the Year and 2nd team All-American while averaging 17.2 PPG on 57% FG and 7.6 RPG. In doing so, he exhibited an ability to not only play inside, but also an ability shoot from outside. Although he will never be a major threat from the perimeter (and he is not as good of a shooter as his twin brother Markieff–34.2% versus 42.4%) his shooting has progressed to the point where a NBA team would have to at least respect his outside shot and bring a forward outside to put a hand in his face. The big question for Marcus will be whether he is big enough to battle inside with NBA power forwards or if he will fall into the dreaded “tweener” category. If he does fall into that group he may lack the perimeter skills necessary to compete against NBA small forwards, but he may be able to make up for it because of his “motor” and willingness to battle all over the court.

Marcus has the skills to play in the NBA, but can he battle inside?

Will Translate to the NBA: Marcus will probably end up being one of those versatile all-court power forwards in the NBA, which traditionally has been a warning sign for NBA executives, but in recent years has become in vogue with several solid NBA players adopting such styles. At times Marcus could play at either the 3 or 4 position, which could be a blessing or a curse in that he could fill either position depending on the situation, but it could also expose him to mismatches in certain situations. He probably will never be a superstar and might not even become a perennial All-Star, but he should be a solid rotation player even if his physical limitations (height and explosiveness) limit his ability to become a major impact player.

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1. Earlier this year Washington‘s Venoy Overton was involved in a salacious case where he was accused of statutory rape before local police decided not to pursue the case further. Now it appears that Overton has found himself in trouble again as he was arrested yesterday afternoon for promoting prostitution. According to police reports, an 18 year-old female was questioned for “prostitution activity” and told police that her boyfriend, Overton, brought her there and told her to engage in prostitution. According to the female, Overton gave her specific instructions on what acts to perform, what to charge, and what percentage he took. Lorenzo Romar, who took quite a bit of heat this season after letting Overton return to the Huskies after his prior run-in with law, issued the following statement: “I have been informed of the arrest of Venoy Overton and I am extremely disappointed.  My staff and I spent an extraordinary amount of time and energy attempting to mentor Venoy prior to his recent graduation, so this news is especially troubling.” Overton, who graduated on Saturday with a degree in American Ethnic studies, is expected to appear before a judge today.
2. The guys at Lost Letterman caught up with former prep star Lenny Cooke recently. For those of you who not aware Cooke was one of the premier high school players in the country in the Class of 2002 and considered by many to be at the same level as two more well-known players in his class–Amar’e Stoudamire and Carmelo Anthony. Through a series of bad decisions and unfortunate events Cooke never played a minute in college or the NBA. Today, Cooke’s legacy will probably come from the 2001 ABCD Camp where Cooke, a rising senior, was matched up against a hyped rising junior named LeBron James in what was supposed to be a match-up for the ages. Unfortunately for Cooke, LeBron, who was already demonstrating his knack for coming up big in big moments (wait, what?), destroyed Cooke on both ends of the floor to start the LeBron hype machine going full force while Cooke began his rapid fall.
3. It appears that Virginia coach Tony Bennett may almost be ready to turn the Cavalier program around with a solid group of recruits. Virginia, which had been one of the better programs in the ACC during the 1990s, has only made the NCAA Tournament once in the past decade. After a 7-9 record in an admittedly weak year for the ACC, Bennett could have the Cavaliers primed to be a sleeper in the conference and could challenge the second tier of teams (the ones not named Duke or UNC) in the very near future.
4. Earlier this week we linked to a column by Dana O’Neil talking about the difficult jobs of college basketball assistant coaches. Yesterday, Ohio State‘s Brandon Miller, considered by many to be one of the top assistant coaches in college basketball, stepped down citing a need to spend more time with his family. Although it isn’t an ideal time to try to find a new assistant coach with the summer recruiting season about to heat up, the Buckeyes recruiting should not suffer too much as Thad Matta already has two experienced assistants in Jeff Boals and Dave Dickerson and could potentially promote newly hired video coordinator Greg Paulus to take Miller’s place.
5. When Oliver Purnell took over at DePaul last year it was widely considered one of the tougher rebuilding projects in America, but had some potential with the ability to recruit local Chicago high school players. While Purnell did have some success in his first year (winning the school’s first Big East game after a 24-game losing streak and its first road conference win since 2008) it was a very difficult year again for the Blue Demons. Things may get even tougher for Purnell as he will have to replace both Devin Hill and Eric Wallace who have decided to leave the program with Hill leaving for Loyola and Wallace leaving for Ohio State.

On Thursday, the University of Kentucky issued a statement claiming that it was in error in celebrating John Calipari’s 500th win on February 26 after beating Florida, and that in future media guides and any published material it would depict Calipari’s career win total with the vacated wins from his time at Memphis and Massachusetts subtracted.

Behold, the Statistic In Dispute, From Kentucky's 2010-11 Factbook

Here’s what happened. At the beginning of the 2010-11 season, Kentucky considered Calipari to have logged 480 wins (vacated wins not removed), while the NCAA officially listed him with 438 (42 wins removed). The NCAA evidently considered it to be a slap in the face when Kentucky had its small post-game display to mark what UK considered Cal’s 500th win on February 26, as well as the fact that its media guides and website ignored the NCAA’s removal of the wins from Calipari’s record. It asked UK to change it and alert the media that the celebration of Calipari’s 500th was erroneous. Kentucky’s compliance office responded to the NCAA, but they were unmoved and sent another missive, again  pressing for the change. And the reason the NCAA knew about this and went down this road was…a tip from a fan of a rival program.

[Ed. Note: You can read the correspondence between the NCAA and Kentucky here. It’s pretty interesting. And we’re not sure how Lexington Herald-Leader sportswriter Jerry Tipton could ever comfortably show his face in Lexington again.]

This was the right move by Kentucky. It wouldn’t make any sense for the program to go out of its way to position itself on the NCAA’s bad side, and 42 wins is simply too small a prize to justify the continued poking of that bear. At some point John Calipari will move on and either coach somewhere else or retire. Kentucky won’t care how many wins John Calipari has then, but we guarantee the NCAA would remember it if Kentucky decided to openly defy them. As we all know, the NCAA is still judge, jury and executioner in this biz, and if anything should come up in the future, you’d rather they have a more favorable opinion of you. Kentucky noted the error, didn’t apologize — one really wasn’t warranted, though it sounds like that’s what the NCAA wanted — but promised to make the adjustment the NCAA asked for. And let’s be honest — if those are the rules everyone has to play by, then justice really was done here.

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Player Name: Trey Thompkins

School: Georgia

Height/Weight: 6’10, 240 lbs.

NBA Position: Power Forward

Projected Draft Range: Late First/Early Second Round

Overview: For the three seasons he was in Athens, Thompkins led the Bulldogs in scoring twice — 17.7 PPG in 2009-10 and 16.4 PPG in 2010-11 — and made his mark as one of the better rebounders in the SEC, finishing fourth in that category the last two years (8.3 and 7.6 RPG, respectively). From his first moment on the UGA campus he was one of the most skilled post scorers in the league. Nobody ever looked at Thompkins and came away wowed by his athleticism, but with nice touch around the basket and the mid-range, and with a surprisingly diverse selection of post moves, Thompkins showed himself to be quite comfortable in his 6’10, 240-pound skin, a quality that a great many kids of similar size at this age don’t acquire until some time later. For his three years, it seemed that Thompkins got a couple of touches on every half-court set; he led his team in touches during his tenure and was near the top in the SEC.

To Stay In the League, Thompkins Needs To Improve His Fitness

Will Translate to the NBA: There are three fundamental things Thompkins does with his back to the basket that we enjoyed watching during his time as a Bulldog. When he gets to the block, he establishes that wide base with his feet that makes it hard for defenders to get around him and it invites his guards to throw it to him (aka, he “presents himself” well in coachspeak). When he gets the ball, he keeps it high and can use both hands to handle the ball or shoot it. Finally, he only waits about a second before getting to the point and starting his move. These are basic building blocks coaches love to see. When not doing work down low, he has a completely reliable jumper to about foul-line range. We don’t expect he’ll be hoisting many threes at the pro level, but he wasn’t totally out of place behind the college arc, picking his spots well and shooting a minimum of 31% in his last two seasons.

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Throughout the summer RTC contributors Zach Hayes and Brian Otskey will discuss the hot topics — or whatever comes to mind — around each major conference in college basketball. Our second edition features the Big 12, a conference still fairly strong at the top but undergoing some major changes elsewhere.  For the entire summer series focusing on each of the six power conferences, click here. 

Brian: About this time last summer, the Big 12 appeared to be on the precipice of extinction. Colorado had accepted an invitation to join the Pac 10 (now Pac 12) and Nebraska departed immediately thereafter to join the Big Ten. With Texas strongly leaning towards jumping ship for the Pac 10, long time Big 12 basketball goliath Kansas, along with four other member schools, was going to be left out in the cold by the machine that is big time college football. Thanks to a last-ditch effort by conference commissioner Dan Beebe, the Big 12 was saved and will continue on with 10 members. While football drives the bus in collegiate athletics, Beebe enhanced Big 12 basketball by cutting some dead weight and keeping Texas in the fold. By dangling the carrot of a Longhorn television network in front of the Texas brass, the Big 12 as we know it was saved for the foreseeable future. This coming season marks the beginning of a new era in Big 12 basketball history. Gone are Colorado and Nebraska, the 16-game unbalanced schedule, a multitude of players from top teams and four coaches who have moved on, some for better and some for worse. In 2011-12, the Big 12 conference welcomes four new head coaches, each inheriting a unique situation and an 18-game round-robin schedule where all 10 league teams will play each other twice both at home and on the road. Frank Haith and Billy Kennedy will take over for Mike Anderson and Mark Turgeon at Missouri and Texas A&M respectively, inheriting rosters built for immediate success, while Lon Kruger and Billy Gillispie have major rebuilding jobs ahead of themselves at Oklahoma and Texas Tech after their predecessors were forced out.

Self Has Reached the Mountaintop Numerous Times in the Big 12

For the last seven seasons, the path to the conference title has gone through Lawrence, Kansas. The Jayhawks should be the favorites until proven otherwise but there is a strong case to be made for a different team to capture the Big 12 crown for the first time since 2004. Who that team could be, however, is up in the air. Texas seemed to be the one at first but the NBA draft and graduation have severely hurt the Longhorns. Rick Barnes welcomes stud recruit Myck Kabongo and five other newcomers but I’m not sure that will be enough to vault Texas to the top of the league standings. Baylor may be the most talented team in this league after Perry Jones’ surprising decision to return to school but persistent questions at the point guard position and off-court distractions for Jones could prevent the Bears from reaching new heights. Missouri returns a loaded roster but Frank Haith was not the most inspiring hire after Mike Anderson left for his dream job at Arkansas. The Tigers have tons of talent and one of the best home court edges in the country but a dismal end to last season coupled with the difficult adjustment from Anderson’s “40 minutes of hell” to Haith’s more disciplined system give me doubts about this team’s ability to win a conference title. Texas A&M returns budding star Khris Middleton along with David Loubeau but I’m not sure that’s enough to win a regular season championship. Jamal Branch will be a terrific addition but the Aggies aren’t deep enough in my estimation.

In short, this is a conference going through a major transition period. It will still be very good but I wouldn’t expect an elite Big 12 like we’ve seen in some years past. The race for the conference title will be fascinating with many teams in the mix but I’d still favor Kansas despite major personnel losses in Lawrence. Do you see any of these teams finally jumping the Jayhawks? Can someone from the bottom half of the league (maybe Oklahoma State) take advantage of the uncertainty and make a significant leap into the top half?

Zach: We really are entering a new era in the Big 12. There’s a different coach pacing the sidelines in Columbia, College Station, Lubbock and Norman. There’s a shiny new round-robin schedule that provides the fairest way to determine a league champion. Perennial bottom-feeders Nebraska and Colorado have moved on, rendering this league even more difficult to navigate top to bottom. Players that lined all-league teams from a season ago — Tristan Thompson, Marcus Morris, Jacob Pullen, Jordan Hamilton, Alec Burks, Lace Dunn — are long gone. Kansas and their seven consecutive Big 12 titles appear more vulnerable in 2011-12 than any other year during that commendable stretch. There are more questions than answers when you survey the conference landscape creating intriguing possibilities.

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