Over the next four weeks we’ll be taking a step back and looking at each team in the ACC to assess where each program — and the conference as a whole — stands before we totally turn our attention to the 2013-14 season later this fall. Today’s target: Maryland.

Where They Stand Now

Mark Turgeon’s Second Year Doesn’t Look Any Easier Than His First.

Unfortunately it appears to be “two steps forward, two steps back” for Mark Turgeon’s Terrapins. Last season Maryland became a darkhorse contender on the backs of a solid coach, Terrell Stoglin, Alex Len‘s improvement, and a very good recruiting class. Then Stoglin was suspended for violating team rules, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the sophomore guard who had many public confrontations with Turgeon last season went pro rather than sit out next year. Maryland also suspended Mychal Parker, who took his talents to Loyola though he probably won’t be academically eligible there. With a disappointing 17-15 season in the rearview mirror, Turgeon’s Terrapins need immediate improvement to keep the suits in College Park from getting nervous. Speaking of suits in College Park, keep an eye on athletic director Kevin Anderson, who was reportedly headed to Stanford before everyone denied the claim and leading to this tepid retraction.

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While most relish the onset of Summer, college basketball junkies do not. Most of the news surrounding the sport is recruiting rumors and commitments or injuries and transfer news. In order to help keep folks up-to-date on what their teams are doing during the summer, we put together these summer capsules for each team in the conference. First up is Providence.

1. Setbacks to the much ballyhooed 2012 recruiting class.

Questions About The Eligibility Of Ricardo Ledo Continue To Swirl

First it was five-star guard Kris Dunn announcing he would miss at least five months after surgery to repair a torn labrum. Then it was fellow point guard recruit Ian Baker tearing his ACL, which will likely keep him out for all of next season. Throw in the continued eligibility concerns about top shooting guard Ricardo Ledo and Providence fans have reason to be concerned about their once highly-anticipated recruiting class.  Ed Cooley continues to remain positive that Ledo will become eligible, and the Friars still have enough backcourt depth to survive the absences of Dunn and Baker, but it is still a major disappointment considering the hype surrounding this recruiting class and the hope it gave to the program’s future.

2. The Big East didn’t do them any favors when it came to scheduling.

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The Cardinal return five players from last season’s main rotation. Below, we’ll take a look at each of these returnees in order of their scoring averages in the last season played.

• Chasson Randle, Sophomore, Guard (13.8 PPG, 2.1 APG, 3.3 RPG, 1.1 SPG) – Looking for the reason why Stanford won 26 games in 2011-12? Look no further than Randle, the freshman sensation who took over this team from the day he arrived on campus. Even when he would have a rough day putting the ball in the hoop (those days came few and far between), his body language and leadership displayed by the freshman would have neutral observers thinking he was a uppperclassman. Randle led the team with 13.8 PPG but could easily explode for many more on any given night. In Stanford’s first round game of the Pac-12 Tournament against Arizona State, Randle dazzled the Staples Center crowd, going for 30 points and picking up three steals on the defensive end. Randle is a “score first” type of point guard, but expect that role to change slightly in 2012-13. Johnny Dawkins needs to keep the ball in Randle’s hands, but if there was one ongoing problem last year, it was that the offense could become stale and bogged down at times because they didn’t have a true passing guard at the one. Randle will still have all the freedom he can handle in the Cardinal offense, because quite frankly they can’t afford for him not to, but he needs to distribute better. Once he proves to opponents that he can do that, there will be even more of an opportunity to score off the dribble or on a jump shot.
  

  Randle Can Be Even More Dangerous In His Sophomore Season If He Can Distribute The Ball Better In 2012-13 (credit: Jae Hong)

• Aaron Bright, Junior, Guard (11.7 PPG, 1.6 RPG, 3.6 APG) – Bright was the Cardinal’s best passer last season, but he also fit in perfectly within Dawkins’ system of “everyone on the floor has to be able to score” basketball. He saw the floor for an average of 28.4 MPG yet wasn’t always a full-time starter. That will change next season with the departure of Jarrett Mann. The balance of distributing and scoring in the offense that Bright has shown needs to be copied by the younger guards, mainly Randle. If Bright and Randle are both triple threats in 2012-13, Stanford could easily find itself dancing come March.
• Anthony Brown, Junior, Guard/Forward (8.1 PPG, 1.0 APG) – Brown has played identical minutes in his two seasons on the Farm. While a freshman in 2010-11, Brown seemed to focus a bit more on his play as a guard, but that changed last year. Brown played much more as a spread-out small forward who was willing to do anything to get the rebound. With Josh Owens, Andrew Zimmerman, and Jack Trotter all graduating, Brown will continue to play in that role for the most part. He’s got tremendous upside and looks prime for a breakout junior season.

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1. Breaking news from the absolutely-no-surprise department, but a couple of days after the Big East announced that it had reached a $7.5 million buyout deal with Syracuse to allow the Orange program to alight for the ACC in July 2013, Pittsburgh followed suit. Even better, the Panthers got the exact same buyout deal of $7.5 million to transfer its conference allegiance to Greensboro instead of Providence. The ACC and the Big East will certainly look very different as basketball leagues starting in 2013-14, but with a total of five schools consisting of two of its best football (Miami and Virginia Tech) and basketball programs (Syracuse and Pittsburgh) now having left, is it safe to say that the battle for east coast college sports dominance has finally been won?
2. With the geographic and metaphysical heart of the Big East slowly moving south and west with its own expansion efforts, one of its new basketball-centric schools is in the midst of a local scheduling controversy. According to CBSSports.com’s Gary Parrish, Ole Miss recently announced a combined football and basketball agreement to play regional rival Memphis, but Tigers head coach Josh Pastner apparently has not received that memo. According to the Memphis side of things, the agreement in place refers to a football series only, with the squishy caveat that the two schools will “talk” about resuming a basketball series. In terms of value-add, a home Memphis football game versus Ole Miss is worth considerably more (both financially as well as in perceived status) than a home Ole Miss basketball game versus Memphis, which is why despite Pastner’s protestations, we’d expect to see what should be an interesting series take place on the hardwood sometime soon.
3. Back to the actual players rather than the legal and political wrangling of their schools, Duke’s Mason Plumlee certainly didn’t expect to be spending the summer after his junior year prepping for another season in Durham. Certainly not last offseason, when he told everyone around him that his 2011-12 year would be his last in Durham. And certainly not three years ago when he figured he was a surefire one-and-done candidate along with his peers John Wall, Derrick Favors, Xavier Henry, and the rest. As Jeff Goodman writes, the middle Plumlee who never thought he’d become a four-year Blue Devil is prepared for his senior season as the captain and leader of the team — we’re guessing in 30 years when he reflects back on this time at Duke he’ll have no regrets for sticking around campus four years.
4. For those of us who follow the game closely, Northwestern‘s decades of futility in reaching the NCAA Tournament has become the standard by which all other failures is measured. If you need a reminder, the Wildcats are currently oh-for-74 in reaching the Big Dance, which is particularly astonishing when you consider that the Wildcats play in an elite basketball conference where more than half the teams in the league have a reasonable shot at the NCAAs in any given year. Dime Magazine has put together a nice piece discussing not only the ‘streak,’ but the chances for the 2012-13 team to finally break it in its 75th opportunity. It says here that next season is the year… and if you believe that, it’s also looking like a World Series on the North Shore in 2012.
5. Luke Winn checks in this week with an analysis of something on which everyone in the industry seems to have an opinion — transfers. Winn is known for his columns heavily based on quantitative analysis, but in this article he shows his chops for a bit of qualitative work. He clearly shows that the phenomenon of what he calls “up-transfers” — players looking for opportunities at better schools — has risen significantly in the past few years. As an example, from 2007-11 there were 27 up-transfers in college basketball; in just 2012-13, there will be 25 more, and there are already 16 more pending in 2013-14. As Winn notes, the prospect of players bettering their situations isn’t necessarily a bad trend, but it also provides an increased likelihood of bigger programs tampering with and ultimately poaching disaffected players at lower-level schools. Something to keep an eye on.

Over the next four weeks we’ll be taking a step back and looking at each team in the ACC to assess where each program — and the conference as a whole — stands before we totally turn our attention to the 2013-14 season later this fall. Today’s target: Wake Forest.

Where They Stand Now

Bzdelik Enters Year Three of a Rebuild at Wake

It’s a rare thing when you can be tied for last place in the conference and still be hailed for taking a big step forward. Wake Forest went 4-12 in in league play, part of the four-way tie at the bottom, yet last season can’t be rated all that poorly. When you go from 1-15 to 4-12, it’s certainly a nice step forward, but it’s also a clear sign that you are being graded on a curve. Wake Forest hoops got a lot better last season, but make no mistake: This team is still far from good.

What’s the best way to describe the state of this program? The highlight of the Demon Deacons’ last season is debatable: It’s either a three-point home win over Virginia Tech (a team that finished below WFU in the conference standings) or a one-point home win over Yale (who had a great year… for Yale). There wasn’t a lot to cheer about this season, but the step away from the soul-crushing precipice of the 2011-12 season is enough to chalk up last year as an incredibly mild success.

Outside of team highlights, the past season was also a remarkable showcase for C.J. Harris, who had a terrific year shooting the ball from distance. Harris combined with Travis McKie formed one of the deadliest scoring tandems in the conference.  Of course, it ended up not mattering too much, but it was one sign of genuine hope for a program that has fallen on lean times.

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There may not be a program in the Big Ten with more optimism this summer surrounding one key component than Minnesota, which has another season with star forward Trevor Mbakwe to look forward to. The 6’8″ bruiser is spending his summer working back from ACL surgery after he went down just seven games into his senior year, leaving the Golden Gophers to pick up the pieces in a season that had more ups and downs than a Cedar Point rollercoaster ride. These warm months are about taking the momentum from a late-season NIT run, mixing the team’s star player back into things, and getting things rolling for the 2012-13 campaign.

Having this guy back in 2012-13 could mean a world of difference for Minnesota.

• Evaluating Last Year: Not a whole lot stands out about Minnesota’s season if you look at it as a whole, but when broken down into phases, there’s plenty to pull out. The Gophers were undefeated until the Dayton game, which is when Mbakwe suffered his injury. They managed to plough through the early non-conference schedule still with a 12-1 mark. But things cooled off  considerably in Big Ten play, when the club went 0-4 to start and had another six-game losing streak mixed in there. Tubby Smith salvaged the season by running to the NIT championship game in New York, putting youngster Andre Hollins on display. Ralph Sampson III is gone after yet another underwhelming season, but there’s some young talent on this club that Minnesota fans have to look forward to.
• State of the Program: That young talent, mixed in with the return of Mbakwe, could leave Minnesota with an interesting inside-out game that could really give people fits in the conference this season. But one thing that would really provide the program with some stability and allow Smith to sink his teeth in would be the contract extension the university has been promising him for some time. There was some turnover in the athletic department as Norwood Teague was hired, but he said a month ago when he was formally introduced that negotiations with Smith were in the “11th hour.” What’s happened since then? No doubt Smith wants to get the deal done, and when you’re trying to recruit and lay the groundwork for the future, it’s most important to know what the school has invested in for the long run. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hot out there, and to many of us, college basketball is the last thing on our minds. But here at the SEC Microsite, we’re going to be rolling out mid-summer resets of each of the (now) 14 basketball programs in our league. We’re calling it Transition Basketball, and you can expect we’ll cover three or four teams a week until we’re done. By that time, we’ll actually start to be turning the slight corner into the fall, and from there it’s a smooth slope down to Midnight Madness in mid-October. Today’s update: Auburn.

State of the Program

Auburn was host to a losing record, the worst adjusted offensive efficiency rating in the SEC (and one of the worst in all of the six power conferences), and a point shaving scandal in 2011-12. Not exactly the signs of a team on the rise to success. Eight players are gone from a team that went 15-16 overall and 5-11 in conference play, yet coach Tony Barbee has reason for optimism. “In these first couple years, because of the strength of the other teams in the league, it was going to be tough to crack the top half of this league,” Barbee said. “Now I think with the group of seniors we’ve got coming back, the influx of talent we’ve got coming in, we’re a team that’s going to transition from the bottom half of the league to the upper half of the league. That’s my perspective.”

Tony Barbee is confident with his team for next season

Barbee’s Tigers are slowly making progress, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Auburn notched four SEC wins in 2011. Barbee took another step forward with five conference wins in 2012. Though the Tigers last achieved a winning record in 2009, Auburn hasn’t made an NCAA Tournament appearance since 2003. Barbee’s goal of moving into the upper half of a deep SEC means competing with the likes of powers Kentucky and Florida. Auburn hasn’t beaten Florida since the SEC Tournament in 2009 and hasn’t beaten Kentucky since 2000. With the amount of change the team has undergone in such a short time period, it is hard to fully buy into Barbee’s lofty goals.

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1. With his team taking a trip to Brazil in August, Kansas State head coach Bruce Weber isn’t wasting any time using the 10 additional practices the NCAA allows his program as a special exhibition exemption. As he attempts to replace the intensity of former coach Frank Martin, Weber’s players are getting after one another and learning how to deal with Weber and his staff. Dozens of teams in college basketball take international trips during the summer and gain extra practice time, but for a program with not a single member of the coaching staff returning from a year ago, it’s an essential way for Weber to indoctrinate himself as a Wildcat. And it can’t hurt that freshmen Darrell Johnson and Michael Orris get to learn the ropes of Division I basketball before ever stepping foot in a classroom for the fall semester, either.
2. You’ve heard the jokes and the criticism. TCU? Playing Big 12 basketball? Surely, that won’t end well, right? That’s why new coach Trent Johnson is making it his personal mission to rebuild the Horned Frogs and take advantage of the program’s step-up in competition. Johnson has a long road ahead of him at a school with little basketball tradition and almost no recent success, but previous head coach Jim Christian did actually make strides by leading his team to the postseason in 2011-12 and acting as a pesky spoiler in the Mountain West Conference.
3. The other newcomer to the Big 12 has a little less of an uphill climb. Hailing from the mighty Big East, West Virginia is no stranger to big-time college basketball (that’s not to say TCU isn’t after leaving the Mountain West– it’s just that the Big East is, well, the Big East). But while coach Bob Huggins is mostly excited about his program’s transition, he’s also a little wary about a few things. The travel, of course, could take a toll on his team, since it’ll need to make long flights to the Midwest for every road game. And Huggins is also disappointed to lose the New York City connection he had with the Big East. All in all, though, given a few years we’re sure Huggins will get over it.
4. A grand jury indicted Samuel Villeareal III last week (among others), which is important because he is accused of supplying some unnamed members of the 2010-11 Kansas basketball squad with marijuana. In all, 35 people were indicted in a major scandal that spanned seven years and involved more than 1,000 kilograms of pot. The state is using text messages from his iPhone to try to prove Villeareal’s connection to KU basketball. This mess might take a long time to sort out, but it’ll subtly loom over the Jayhawks until it concludes.
5. Jeff Withey is such an important part of this Kansas team next year that he’s even considering skipping a prestigious Adidas camp to instead compete with his teammates in a European exhibition tour. The Jayhawks will visit Switzerland and France this summer. Considering Withey has already played at both LeBron James’ and Amare’ Stoudamire’s camps this summer, we figure it’ll probably turn out OK if he’d rather ball with his teammates in Europe.

In an effort to remind you that college basketball does in fact exist during the summer, Big 12 microsite writers Danny Spewak (@dspewak) and Jeremy Pfingsten (@jeremylp21) will roll out three summer updates per week during the next month. The goal is to compile every bit of news and information from the summer months for each team and package it into neat, easy-to-read capsules for your convenience. Next on the list — Danny’s update on Oklahoma. 

Oklahoma Sooners

2011-12 Record: 15-16 (5-13)

Lon Kruger isn’t used to losing. He reached a Final Four at Florida, an Elite Eight at Kansas State, and qualified for seven combined NCAA Tournaments at Illinois and UNLV. This man has been everywhere and won everywhere — well, except for that failed NBA experiment with the Atlanta Hawks — but his first season at Oklahoma did not fare so well. After making promising progress against a fairly weak non-conference slate, Kruger’s team fell flat in Big 12 play. His tactical ability and coaching expertise allowed a roster with a few decent parts to hang tough for the most part, but an eighth-place finish and a losing record will not sit well with Kruger this summer. This is not a program in turmoil anymore, though, no matter how bad the record looks from a year ago. Kruger will indoctrinate his first true recruiting class this summer to mix with the return of his entire starting lineup. His cast of newcomers include a few stud freshman and, most importantly, Wyoming transfer Amath M’Baye, who just might be the biggest story of the whole summer in Norman.

Lon Kruger Has An Impressive Track Record

Summer Orientation: The early reviews on M’Baye are already flattering. The Wyoming transfer, who started every game as a sophomore in 2010-11, is an impact newcomer in every sense of the phrase. He brings worldly experience to the Sooners, having lived in France, Senegal, California and, of course, Wyoming. But his skills are as intriguing as his background. Kruger said M’Baye polished his game considerably as he sat out in 2011-12, improving as both a ball-handler and perimeter player. He’s no longer just a 6’9” forward with a mid-range game and post skills. Now, Kruger said he’s combining that tall, lanky frame with an ability to attack off the dribble and use his elite athleticism to his advantage. His teammates have had nothing but praise for M’Baye, who averaged 12.0 points per game as a sophomore, since he arrived on campus last year. Andrew Fitzgerald called him “very athletic and really competitive” while practicing against him last year, and says he “could be one of the best players in the Big 12.” It is easy to overrate Division I transfers, but M’Baye appears to add a new element to Oklahoma because of his unique versatility as an inside-outside type swingman.

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1. Who doesn’t love a good list? We all do. The Big Lead takes a crack at the putting together a compilation of the 50 best players in college basketball heading into the 2012-13 campaign. It’s an early prognosis, sure, but which Big Ten players would you have on that list? Indiana’s Cody Zeller and Michigan’s Trey Burke are likely choices, right? Who, if anyone, from the other defending Big Ten co-champions Ohio State or Michigan State should be on the list? How about Christian Watford? Trevor Mbakwe? Deshaun Thomas? See for yourself and debate amongst yourselves.
2. Michigan coach John Beilein says he’s not out to recruit one-and-done players and it seems one of his best players is backing him up. Tim Hardaway, Jr. told the Detroit Free Press he’d like to model his game after former Michigan State star and rival Draymond Green. The former Spartan was, of course, one of the most versatile players in recent Big Ten memory, but he was also a four-year player who had a steady progression over his time in East Lansing and put together a remarkable career that has also led to the NBA.
3. Speaking of Green, replacing him will be one of the toughest tasks for the defending conference champion Spartans. They certainly won’t have one player who can step in and do it, so it will fall on the shoulders of an ensemble cast that includes centers Adreian Payne and Derrick Nix. The two have tremendous skill sets, but on entirely different ends of the spectrum. Payne is a taller, leaner and much more athletic big man, while Nix is a more big-bodied traditional frontcourt player. Their different styles gave teams fit last season, and Payne especially says he’s looking to step up to fill Michigan State’s frontcourt void.
4. After a 2011-12 season that saw him foul out of seven games and rack up four or more fouls in 19 contests, Iowa’s Zach McCabe is hoping to put those bruising days behind him this year. The rising junior played out of position last year, banging down low with players in the conference who were bigger than him and he paid the price. He started 30 contests for the Hawkeyes and is hoping to combine that experience with some offseason work that will allow him to succeed in that same position next year while incorporating some of his own game and making opponents come to him.
5. This time comes but just once every four years — the Olympics. One of the biggest draws of the summer games is basketball, and of course Team USA. We’ve heard plenty over the last few years about the Dream Team, the Redeem Team and so on and so forth, but which Big Ten players would fill out an Olympic basketball roster from the Big Ten Network era (2007-12)? Brent Yarina at BTN.com takes a crack at it. You might be surprised.