It’s Halloween night across college basketball nation and all the ghouls, goblins and ghosts are out trolling for sugary goodness. Whether Gary Williams shows up on your doorstep requesting a chicken wing or it’s an exasperated Jay Bilas wearing VCU garb from head to toe, Halloween is the only night of the year where everyone can act how they really want to act if there were no social mores, norms or YouTube. With the start of the season only one week away, RTC has put together a list of five tricks and treats for some of college basketball’s most notable people, places and things. Here’s our list of Halloween night goodies for all of college basketball’s kiddies, but don’t blame us if the bullies from over at Chapel Hill Street or Lexington Avenue jump out from behind a bush and steal all of your candy.

• Treats to Purdue’s Robbie Hummel & Arizona’s Kevin Parrom— in the form of  confident minds and an even more explosive sets of wheels. The good-guy Hummel returns for his senior season after rehabilitating his knee from a second ACL injury last October. He’s taking it slowly, wearing a massive knee brace and practicing only on second days, but the obvious fear is that he’s one of those hard-luck cases who simply can’t get healthy (he has also experienced back issues in the past).  Parrom, on the other hand, found himself a victim of a shooting in September as he was home visiting his mother with terminal cancer (who has since passed). The versatile wing is projected to be back in the Arizona lineup in about a month, but despite his positive attitude and diligent rehabilitation of a leg pierced by a bullet, both he and Hummel will have to overcome the mental hurdles necessary to compete at the highest level of college basketball.  Let’s hope both players find all kinds of treats as two of the biggest success stories of the season.
• Tricks to Connecticut Basketball – for using a wink-and-a-nod to find a scholarship at the last minute for superstar freshman Andre Drummond, while former orphan Michael Bradley volunteered to give his up for the good of the team.  No matter what the courageous Bradley says publicly, we still find the whole thing rather smelly. The NCAA may have stepped in and already provided a nasty little trick for the Huskies, though, in the form of an APR ban from participation in the 2013 NCAA Tournament — which, incidentally, is likely to impact Bradley rather than the one-and-done Drummond. Oy.

Treats to These Two For Finding Their Confidence in 11-12

• Treats to Kansas’ Thomas Robinson — this kid more than any other deserves a breakout 2011-12 campaign. After a nightmarish year in Robinson’s personal life where he lost both of his maternal grandparents and his 37-year old mother in a span of a mere month, the talented big man is on the credit side of karma in a huge way and hopefully ready to cash it in. We’d like nothing more than to see Robinson become an All-American this year by leading Bill Self’s team to its eighth consecutive Big 12 regular season title, before heading off to the NBA Lottery as a superstar in the making. 
  
• Tricks to the NCAA’s $2,000 Optional Stipend –– although we agree that football and basketball student-athletes are vastly underpaid relative to their value to the schools, making the stipend optional at the leisure of the conference only opens the door for even more of an inequitable distribution of talent than already exists. The power conferences can easily weather the extra couple million bucks such a measure will require, but as for the mid-majors… they’d best keep scouring those patches for the Great Pumpkin of Mid-Major hope to find their future stars.

Monday was a big day on the recruiting front in the Pac-12, with Arizona garnering the biggest headlines by getting a commitment from 7’0” center Kaleb Tarczewski – the sixth rated 2012 recruit according to ESPNU and eighth according to Scout. Tarczewski puts a nice bow on Sean Miller’s second-straight top-five recruiting class and likely seals up the top overall ranking for Arizona. Joining Tarczewski in Tucson next year will be 6’8” power forward Brandon Ashley (Scout’s #3 recruit, ESPNU’s #4), 6’10” center Grant Jerrett (Scout #23, ESPNU #9) and 6’2” shooting guard Gabe York (Scout #42, ESPNU #36). And, Miller’s still got a line in on the recruitment of the top recruit in the 2012 class, Shabazz Muhammad, although it appears UA trails a few others schools in that race. Most impressive, perhaps, about the job Miller has done is the fact that the Wildcats are once again recruiting on a national basis, pulling not only kids from California and the Southwest, but going back east and stealing Tarczewski away from Kansas, among others.

Miller Just Scored The Sixth-Ranked Recruit In The 2012 Class

Regardless, Miller has put together an impressive cast of characters in the desert. With his four-man 2011 recruiting class still just getting its feet wet, the Wildcats could have an impressive two-deep roster next year, allowing him to play a full ten-man (or more) rotation, as he seems to prefer. Check out this potential depth chart for 2011-12:

• PG          Josiah Turner/Jordin Mayes
• SG          Nick Johnson/Gabe York
• SF           Kevin Parrom/Solomon Hill
• PF           Brandon Ashley/Angelo Chol
• C             Kaleb Traczewski/ Sidiki Johnson

Matt Patton is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic Coast Conference and an ACC microsite staffer.

Question: Coach K will become the all-time winningest coach soon. Is he the greatest coach in NCAA basketball history? If not, where does he rank?

Yes, but with a disclaimer. Mike Krzyzewski is the greatest coach of the modern era. You can define that era in many ways: the expansion of the NCAA Tournament (either when in 1975 it expanded to 32 teams, or when in 1985 it expanded to the truly modern 64 teams); the adoption of the shot clock (1985-86); the addition of the three-point line (nationally in 1986-87); or the advent of ESPN (1979 NCAA Tournament).

Truthfully, the best interpretation is somewhere in between, for all four of these events led to the game we know and love today. The expansion of the Big Dance made the NCAA Tournament more difficult both because more games separated teams from the championship and because at-larges increased the overall talent of the field. The shot clock redefined offenses and frankly made the game more exciting. The three-point field goal introduced statistical “noise” that created large swings in performance and allowed for more upsets (basically, a 40-minute game is a small enough sample size that even a horrendous shooting team like Florida State to go 9-19 from three and a good shooting Notre Dame team to go 7-30 from downtown). Finally, ESPN’s consistent coverage of college basketball symbiotically raised the popularity of both ESPN and men’s hoops.

Krzyzewski Will Pass Bob Knight for the Most Wins in Men's Division I History Early this Season

But to suggest that Coach K is a better coach than John Wooden would be too presumptive. There are plenty of arguments, but no sound logic can definitively put Krzyzewski over the Wizard of Westwood: Wooden won ten national championships in 12 years including an 88-game winning streak that is without a doubt the most dominant stretch of college basketball ever. If you still want to try to argue Coach K over John Wooden, read that one more time. I am not saying that Wooden would see that success now, but it is not like we are dealing with similar resumes. Wooden has as many titles as Coach K, Jim Calhoun, Roy Williams, and Tom Izzo (or Bill Self) combined.

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The Make or Break series will tell us what we need to know about each SEC team by looking at the three most important non-conference games on each team’s schedule. Depending on the outcome, these three games could make OR break that team’s season because of the strengths it shows or weaknesses it could expose. The next team in the series is the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

Mississippi State is ready to forget about last season. The Bulldogs had their share of troubles. Point guard Dee Bost was suspended for the first nine games of the season. Renardo Sidney had missed all of the 2009-10 season and the first nine games last year due to eligibility reasons. Then Sidney marred the Bulldogs’ reputation by getting into a fight with a teammate in the Diamond Head Classic in Hawaii. The team never appeared to get its chemistry down pat and limped to a 17-14 record and failing to make the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season.

Will Stansbury's Ongoing Gamble on Sidney Finally Pay Off?

But there are reasons to be more optimistic this year. Everyone is eligible to start the season. Sidney has lost over 20 pounds and is allegedly making strides to be a better teammate. The Bulldogs welcome transfer Arnett Moultrie to help him out down low. 2011-12 could be the year Rick Stansbury’s team turns things around and gets back to the NCAAs for the seventh time in 11 seasons.

The three key non-conference games that will make or break the Bulldogs schedule this season:

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Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences; he is also a staffer on the Pac-12 microsite. You can find him on Twitter @AMurawa.

Reader’s Take I

Top Storylines

• Tectonic Shifts in the MW: As the landscape of college sports continues to shift, the Mountain West continues to change. This year, the conference is without BYU and Utah for the first time in its history. Aside from the fact that the state of Utah was sort of the center of the conference for many years, the impact on the basketball side of things cannot be overstated. In the 12 years that the two schools were a part of the conference, they won five outright regular season titles between them and twice shared the regular season title. TCU will join the two Utah schools as ex-MW members after this year when it joins the Big 12.
• Temporary Fixes? As old schools depart, new schools come in. Boise State joins the conference this season, although there are already rumors that its stay may be short-lived, as other conferences including the Big 12 and the Big East, woo the Broncos. Fresno State and Nevada are due to join the conference in 2012-13, but as the ground continues to move under the feet of college athletics, one never knows what changes will come next.
• Scheduling: With just eight conference teams this year, each team will play just 14 conference games. So while the Pac-12 and Big Ten and other major conferences are kicking off games against their conference rivals on or before New Year’s, MW schools will wait until the middle of January to get into conference play, filling the interim with games against schools like Johnson & Wales, Texas-Pan American, Nebraska-Omaha, Houston Baptist, San Diego Christian and Utah Valley. This is not a good thing for a conference, not a good thing for the fans, and not a good thing for college basketball.
• Changes On The Sidelines: Aside from having a new team in the conference, we’ve got a couple returning teams with new coaches. The most high profile coaching change comes at UNLV with Lon Kruger gone for Oklahoma, and Dave Rice, the former associate head coach under Dave Rose at BYU, returning to Vegas where he played and served as an assistant under Jerry Tarkanian. The other coaching change is at Wyoming, where Larry Shyatt returns to town after spending the last several years as the associate head coach at Florida.

Drew Gordon Looks to Lead New Mexico to a Mountain West Title

• New Favorites. Last year, it was more or less a two-horse race for the conference title between BYU and San Diego State. This year, there is no BYU and SDSU has graduated its four most important players. As a result, it looks to be two new horses who head the pack in search of a conference title with UNLV and New Mexico far and away the favorites. In the MW preseason basketball poll, the Lobos got 22 of the 26 first place votes from the media, with the Rebels snagging the other four. Those two schools also dominated the all-conference team selections, each putting two players on the list.

The Worldwide Leader unveiled its first team-specific college basketball blog (Notre Dame and Stanford both have team-centric football blogs) this morning with the North Carolina Basketball Blog. The woman behind the pages is former Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News & Observer reporter Robbi Pickeral (if you want to follow her on Twitter @bylinerp).

This comes as a bit of a surprise, as ESPN’s college basketball blog “network” doesn’t even currently include conference-specific blogs, although some of the conference football bloggers do spend some time covering basketball. I wouldn’t be surprised to see ESPN unveil a couple more team blogs if this one is successful. Duke and Kentucky would certainly be the leaders in the clubhouse, but there are plenty of other deserving teams around the country.

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The Pac-12 Basketball Media Day took place Friday in Los Angeles. Here is part one of our coverage, where we will take a look at the top three quotes from each of the six northern schools.  Tomorrow morning we’ll cover the southern schools.

Washington (full transcript available here)

• Coach Lorenzo Romar on the importance of playing schools like Duke and Marquette in nonconference play: “I think as we’ve seen over the last several years, our conference usually is evaluated based on our nonconference schedule in terms of a national perception. Sometimes an opinion is formed in the preseason, and then sometimes the nation doesn’t look back to see what teams are doing. So, again, we’re faced with it. There are a number of teams in our conference that have high profile, non-conference games. I think it’s important that we do well in those games.”
• Coach Romar on Seattle Pacific–Arizona: “My thoughts are that in an exhibition game, it’s a time to experiment. It’s a time to teach. It’s a time to learn. I am very fortunate. We’re fortunate that we didn’t have an exhibition game last night, trust me. The way I see it from a coach’s perspective is I’m sure they got a lot out of it. Seattle Pacific went in there and obviously gave them a great ballgame and challenged them. That they have some new players as well. Some young players. That gives them a perspective of what level you have to be at at this level. So a game like that can do a lot more good for a team than if they were to play someone and blow them out by 50 or 60 and give them a false sense of who they were.”

UW Fans Are Hyped About the Arrival of Local Hero Wroten

• Coach Romar on freshman point guard Tony Wroten, Jr.: “Tony Wroten, I can almost guarantee you, not a hundred percent, but I can — I’m willing to say that people will be surprised at Tony Wroten, and I’m not talking about the level of player he is, he’s an exceptional basketball player. But when they see how he will get on the floor and dive for a ball. How they can see that playing defense and things like that are really some of the intangible things that are important to him. When people see that, I think people have a different impression of what they thought he was going to be like. I think he’s been labeled somewhat of a show boat, show man, and that’s all he cares about. I think if you’re a Husky fan, people will be pleasantly surprised but that’s not totally him. He has fun. He enjoys the game. But at the same time, he’s a really tough competitor. So he’s done well.

Thoughts: Wroten, Jr., sounds even better than originally advertised, which is still pretty great. Definitely has the potential to be the next Isaiah Thomas or Brandon Roy for the Huskies.

Washington State (full transcript available here)

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Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist for Rush the Court. You can follow him on Twitter @zhayes9 and check out the previous editions of 68 Must-See Games: #68-52, #51-35, #34-18.

17. February 25: Missouri at Kansas (4:00, CBS)- A rivalry that dates back to the Civil War could soon be extinct due to Missouri’s anticipated move to the SEC, so enjoy one of the last few meetings between these bitter border foes. Both squads have tempered expectations heading into the season – Kansas due to the departures of six main contributors and the ineligibility of two freshmen, Missouri because of Laurence Bowers’ crushing ACL injury. Kansas’ Thomas Robinson and Missouri’s Marcus Denmon are reasons enough to watch, though. Robinson has the tools to make a leap to All-America status, while Denmon is criminally underrated and one of the nation’s true elite guards.

16. December 2: Vanderbilt at Louisville (9:30, ESPN)- I must admit: the powers-that-be who determine the matchups for the ACC/Big Ten and SEC/Big East challenges know exactly what they’re doing (well, except for sending St. John’s to Kentucky). The non-conference schedules for Vandy and Louisville were already daunting before this battle of potential top ten teams popped up on the slate. The absence of center Festus Ezeli, given he doesn’t return in time following a sprained PCL/MCL suffered last week, negates what could have been a major post advantage for Vanderbilt in light of Terrence Jennings’ early departure. The Cards will look for a resume-building win behind a clear point guard edge, a raucous home court advantage and their relentless full-court pressure.

Scoop Jardine and the Orange make quite a few appearances on this list

15. December 2: Florida at Syracuse (7:30, ESPN)- Electric guard play will be on full display at the Carrier Dome with Scoop Jardine, Brandon Triche and impact freshman Michael Carter-Williams leading the charge for Syracuse and the foursome of Erving Walker, Kenny Boynton, Brad Beal and Mike Rosario filling it up for Florida. The trump card for the Orange could be 6’7 wing Kris Joseph, a preseason Big East first teamer. Billy Donovan will employ plenty of three or four-guard lineups this season, which could create a mismatch opportunity for Joseph. Cancel all plans for December 2 with this game and Vandy-Louisville on the docket.

14. February 18: Arizona at Washington (4:00, FSN)- Two years ago, Arizona basketball was a program in serious transition with four head coaches in four years, Lute Olson’s awkward departure and an embarrassing coaching search. Heading into 2011-12, the Wildcats are now the favorites to claim their second straight Pac-12 title in what has been an epic turnaround under Sean Miller. One of the stumbling blocks towards that goal could be this mid-February tilt in Seattle. How a backcourt that will depend on significant contributions from two freshmen – point guard Josiah Turner and off-guard Nick Johnson – handles such a raucous atmosphere will go a long way in not only determining the outcome of this game, but how Arizona fares in their first season post-Derrick Williams.

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Over the next two weeks, we’ll be previewing each of the Pac-12 teams as we head into the season.

Oregon Ducks

Strengths.  The Ducks return six players from last season’s CBI Championship team, including starters E.J. Singler, Tyrone Nared, and Garrett Sim. Oregon’s depth in the backcourt will only be rivaled by a few other teams in the conference as they feel comfortable with four out of the six guards on the roster ready to contribute immediately. Leading that group is the aforementioned Sim and true freshman Jabari Brown, who spurned offers from Washington and Connecticut (among others) to come to Eugene. The second group features sophomore Johnathan Loyd and freshman Bruce Barron, who turned down Washington and Oklahoma State to join Brown with the Ducks. The foul out/garbage time guy will be Minnesota transfer Devoe Joseph, who will be eligible beginning on Dec. 10 when the Ducks host Fresno State. Joseph put up very solid numbers with the Golden Gophers before transferring midway through the year, but with the talent and depth already in place, he will have trouble finding meaningful minutes. In the frontcourt are two returning starters who still haven’t completely lived up to their potential, Singler and Nared. If both guys, Singler especially, can build on the strong finishes they had during the CBI last year, it could be the difference between an NCAA berth and the NIT.

E.J. Singler and Tyrone Nared both showed signs of greatness in last year's CBI tournament. If they can build on those performances then maybe they will be playing in the NCAAs instead next March.

Weaknesses.  Scoring and rebounding in the paint will be tough for the Ducks early on as they look for a replacement for do-everything forward Joevan Catron (15.9 PPG, 6.7 RPG). Senior Jeremy Jacob will be asked to step in for Catron, but a lingering knee injury could hold him from a breakout year. For any team, but especially a young one like the Ducks have, the nonconference schedule is incredibly tough. The Ducks will travel to Vanderbilt and Nebraska and also have a quasi-neutral site matchup against BYU in Salt Lake City.

Nonconference Tests.  Oregon plays 12 nonconference games, and a 10-2 record in those would be a great accomplishment. Oregon’s four tests will be against Vanderbilt (Nov. 11, Nashville), Nebraska (Nov. 23, Lincoln), BYU (Dec. 3, Salt Lake City), and Virginia (Dec. 18, Eugene). If Oregon gets out of that stretch with a 2-2 record, things will be looking up going into conference play. They should roll through the rest of their schedule, though, with a Nov. 29 meeting versus UTEP at Matthew Knight Arena being the toughest game remaining on the slate.
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1. Washington point guard Abdul Gaddy was one of the top recruits in the country when he came aboard in 2009, but after a disappointing freshman season and a torn ACL midway through his sophomore year, Gaddy has since fallen off the radar. But while the preseason focus is on guards Tony Wroten, Jr., and Terrence Ross, Gaddy will also be looked at to lead this team because of his experience. Percy Allen has a great feature on Gaddy, which includes some background and an interview with the point guard. The best part of the interview is when Gaddy talks about his summer shootarounds with former Husky Isaiah Thomas where the junior guard says he shot 18,000 jumpers in 22 days.
2. Hopes are high in Corvallis this season, as coach Craig Robinson says he finally has the talent to “compete in every game this season.” However, no one seems to be asking the question, “Craig, you do realize that you don’t have any new talent in this year’s starting lineup?”, but I guess that’s besides the point. This team does have talent, but the top two newcomers (Challe Barton and C.J. Mitchell) will be lucky if they see any meaningful minutes. The fact of the matter is, Robinson needs to do a better job coaching the players he has if the Beavers are to have a good year.
3. Fresh and new talent is the name of the game at Oregon this year, as the Ducks welcome in nine new players. Some of them are high school standouts, some of them are transfers, but all of them have Pac-12 talent. From freshman Jabari Brown to Devoe Joseph, the transfer from Minnesota, Oregon has the talent to pull an NCAA Tournament bid if things go well. There are also freshmen Brett Kingma and and Bruce Barron joining Brown and Jospeh as newcomers in the backcourt, both of which were highly-touted recruits in their own right. Barron did miss miss Oregon’s summer exhibition tour, but he is expected to be game-ready by Oregon’s Nov. 11 opener against Vanderbilt. “Bruce is probably just coming into his own” coach Dana Altman said about Barron after his arthroscopic knee surgery. Joseph D’Hippolito breaks down all of the new players here.
4. California head coach Mike Montgomery is cancer-free after his Oct. 19 surgery. Montgomery was diagnosed a month ago with “high-grade bladder cancer,” he told members of the Pac-12 media on Friday. He said that he will have no physical limitations while coaching, and senior guard Jorge Gutierrez added that the player-coach relationship between them has grown more personal since he learned of the situation. “We didn’t really have much of a connection outside of basketball, but he opened up a little bit more, so I think that helped us to relate with him more,” Gutierrez said.
5. USC guard Maurice Jones was thought of by many as the nation’s most underrated freshman in the nation last season. Jones averaged 9.9 PPG along with 3.2 APG and is being looked at to lead a USC team that is lacking in the talent department. Seth Rubinroit has a nice feature story on the sophomore standout, the only one in his class to represent a team at Pac-12 Media Day. Jones, the only returning starter from last year’s team, will be asked to carry the load at guard all year long after the season-injury to Jio Fontan. Coach Kevin O’Neill went as far as to tell fans, “Don’t come to the games, it’ll be ugly. Don’t show up. If we don’t have this guy, it’ll be very difficult for us to be competitive in major college games.”