As part of our Oregon State week, we wanted to reach out to the guys at Building The Dam for their takes on the upcoming Beaver basketball season. Andy Wooldridge was kind enough to spend some time with us and give us his thoughts.

Rush The Court: Let’s get the most important topic out-of-the-way first. Jared Cunningham was the team’s top defender and threat on offense. How do you replace him, and is there any chance at improvement with him gone?

Building The Dam: There’s no one player who can replace Cunningham on this team. He was a rare player, the type who only comes along once every decade or so at programs like Oregon State. That doesn’t mean that the Beavers can’t collectively step up to the challenge, though. Ahmad Starks and Roberto Nelson must both find better consistency, and more consistent offense from the frontcourt wouldn’t hurt either. Defensively, Cunningham wasn’t a lockdown defender, and it wasn’t that unusual for some of the better guards in the conference to break him down with the dribble. Cunningham wasn’t that great at denying the perimeter shot either. These are two things Oregon State needs to improve on this season as a team, and that would have been the case even if Jared had returned for his senior season. But what he did have was both the anticipation and the acceleration to make opponents pay for a mistake, often explosively. It wouldn’t just be a four- to five-point swing, it would be a momentum changer. That’s going to be the toughest thing to replace. Challe Barton has a huge opportunity to step up and fill the void Cunningham left; we should know by Christmas whether he’s up to it.

Barton Will Have A Huge Opportunity To Step Up in 2012-13 (credit: Amanda Cowan)

RTC: Considering he’s churned out good recruiting class after good recruiting class and is already four years into his tenure, is there any pressure on Craig Robinson to make at least an NIT appearance in 2012-13?

BTD: Pressure? No. Expectations, yes. By that I mean there isn’t immediate pressure from the Athletic Director or the University President, who are the ones who matter. Remember, Robinson just delivered the best season in 22 years, and only the second winning record in that time frame. And they played an entertaining, high scoring style of ball in doing so. Both Bob De Carolis and President Ray remember the Jay John days very clearly. But fans are having expectations of even better things to come, at least the newer generation of them. Continued growth in attendance, which translates to continued growth of income, will only come with wins, and actual quality non-conference opponents, which only wins and fuller houses can deliver. If Robinson suffers another fallback as happened in the 2010-11 season, then the pressure will start to mount in the 2013-14 campaign in direct inverse to ticket sales and donations. Oregon State does not have a “quick hook” management style, so Robinson, like most coaches on campus, has more time to work with than would be the case at several other schools in the conference in any number of sports.

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1. Worrisome news was released on Friday from Saint Louis University when the school announced that its head coach, Rick Majerus, will be taking a medically-related leave of absence next season, leaving top assistant coach Jim Crews in charge. According to SLU, Majerus is currently hospitalized in California “undergoing evaluation and treatment for an ongoing heart condition.” As we wrote after the news was released, this is the sort of thing that could mark  a turning point in the longtime head coach’s professional career. Majerus is well-known as a guy whom you can only keep out of the gym by padlocking its doors, so it’s no joke that he’s choosing to give up the thing he loves most in order to take care of his health. We wish him nothing but the best on this latest twist in his journey, and certainly hope that even if he never coaches another minute of college basketball, he has a number of productive and fulfilling years still ahead of him. As for his Billiken program, with the core of a Round of 32 team returning to St. Louis, Andy Glockner writes that Crews will inherit a squad with both significant expectations and the added specter of Majerus’ health hanging over the team. Crews had some success at Evansville a decade or more ago, but there is reason to question whether he’s up to the task of running what is undoubtedly a team with Top 25 talent.
2. The other big news on Friday was the announcement from Marquette that assistant coach Scott Monarch had been dismissed and that head coach Buzz Williams will suffer a self-imposed one-game suspension for what are admittedly rather mild recruiting transgressions — Monarch gave team gear and transportation to an unnamed recruit. To be clear, there is no evidence that Williams himself knew about the illegal recruiting benefits — his suspension derives from the coach’s duty to monitor staff compliance. According to the Marquette athletic director, Larry Williams, Monarch’s mistakes became compounded when he allegedly lied about them during the school’s internal investigation — had he been truthful from the beginning, he’d probably still be employed at MU today. This shows once again that the old adage is almost always true — the cover-up is more damaging than the underlying crime. Maybe someday someone will actually find themselves in such a situation and take this sage advice — it might end up saving his job.
3. In recent days, the conviction of Oklahoma State forward Darrell Williams for allegedly sexually assaulting two female students at a party in December two years ago has come under fire by some in the non-sports national media. In the especially tense arena of national racial politics, a case like Williams’ where a black man was accused of heinous felonies by two white women and convicted by a nearly all-white jury is bound to raise some eyebrows. On Friday, an Oklahoma judge delayed Williams’ sentencing hearing on those convictions, citing a defense motion that new and possibly exculpatory evidence has been found that could force the judge to throw out the convictions and order a new trial. There’s no way of knowing whether the claim of new evidence has any merit, but with Jesse Jackson, Jr., in town and many commentators outside the sporting realm taking a curious interest in this case, it will be very interesting to watch how this unfolds.
4. The NCAA made its ruling on former Connecticut and current UNLV forward Roscoe Smith‘s transfer waiver request on Friday, and the decision to deny the waiver — meaning Smith will become eligible in 2013-14 — could be a blessing in disguise for both the Runnin’ Rebels and Smith himself. UNLV already boasts a loaded lineup next season and the 6’8″ big man, who has two years of eligibility remaining, would be well  situated to slide into a starting spot in the frontcourt most likely vacated after Mike Moser’s presumptive last season as a collegian. Smith, as you recall, was a frequent starter on the 2011 UConn championship team (averaging 6/5 in 25 MPG), but like many of his Husky teammates, backslid a bit in his sophomore season (5/3 in 18 MPG). Still, there’s no questioning his talent when bought in and completely focused, so Dave Rice’s team will look forward to Smith’s leadership and skill in what they hope are the immediate years following UNLV’s first Final Four run in two decades.
5. UNLV’s Smith may not see the court for another year, but another offseason transfer, Memphis’ Charles Carmouche, has enrolled at LSU and will join the Tigers for his senior year next season. This is actually Carmouche’s third transfer — the wiry guard from New Orleans began his career at hometown University of New Orleans, but decided to transfer upriver to Memphis when it appeared that UNO would downgrade from Division I athletics. After a solid junior season at UM in 2010-11, though, Carmouche’s senior season was derailed because of problems with his knees. Still, despite receiving medical clearance in January, he chose to not suit up again, and after graduating he was then free to use the grad-transfer loophole to go anywhere who would take him. Enter LSU, where new head coach Johnny Jones will welcome the scoring punch that Carmouche brings to Baton Rouge. It’s been a wild and woolly ride for Carmouche over the past four years, but we’re guessing that he’ll need to make the most of this final season, as his eligibility is unlikely to extend to yet another transfer destination.

Each week this summer, we’re trying to ask the single biggest question about the program we’re profiling. And, as has become routine, we’ve got Adam Butler of Pachoops.com along to help us answer those questions. Without further ado, here’s the burning question facing the Oregon State program this summer.

Oregon State head coach Craig Robinson appears to be one of those coaches that brings in a highly touted recruit every once in a while, pulls a few big upsets every year, has an up-tempo offense, and will take his team to the NCAA Tournament once every six seasons or so. The question is, should this be good enough for Oregon State? Once a program that went dancing eight times from 1980 to 1990, the Beavers haven’t made it back to the NCAA Tournament since that 1989-90 campaign. What are reasonable expectations throughout this decade for Robinson, the man charged with bringing the program as close as possible to the heights reached during the 80s?

It’s Time To Reevaluate Expectations For Craig Robinson, The Head Man In Corvallis For the Last Four Seasons. Robinson Has Led His Team No Higher Than The CBI In His Tenure. (credit: Don Ryan)

Adam Butler: Sounds about like you’re describing a mid-major and that’s about the peak of expectations in Corvallis. The problem is: They don’t play other mids night-in and night-out. They play Washington and UCLA and Arizona and while that hasn’t been the most frightening lineup (along with anyone else in the conference) for the past few years, it sure isn’t Pepperdine and San Diego. This is ultimately a blessing in disguise. Robinson doesn’t need to set lofty expectations. The general resume for a major conference team to make the Tournament is pretty straight forward: 18-23 wins, RPI in the 50s or better, a couple of quality Ws, and no glaringly awful losses. That’s realistic every few seasons. But one hurdle of late has been this down conference in which there are no save-all resume games, that immediate RPI booster that drops you onto the committee’s radar. A nothing to lose victory over a Top 10 squad can go a long way in helping a team and a program, and helps to set the barometer for the conference’s lesser teams like OSU. But when there are no Top 10, let alone Top 25, programs going, it’s tough to make the Dance when the cards are already stacked against you. Ultimately, I think the overall conference up-tick will help Robinson build what can be a solid, something-to-be-proud-of program.

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Oregon State’s schedule for next season has yet to be released, but through past contracts and other team’s schedule releases, we’ve been able to piece together most of it. There are still times and television schedules that need to get cleared up, but for the most part we now know its opponents. Below, we’ll highlight a handful of games and stretches of the season that could determine the eventual fate of the 2012-13 Beavers. For the purpose of this exercise, we won’t speculate and include games that haven’t been given a date yet.

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Early-Season Tournament: While we don’t know Oregon State’s exact opponents for the 2K Sports Classic Regional Round, they will face two of the following – Niagara, Bucknell, South Dakota State, and Hofstra. The Beavers should win both games no matter who they face, but all four opponents won’t be pushovers. Once they make the trek across the country to New York City, things become much more interesting. They’ll open the elimination portion of the tournament with a Alabama team that loses its top two scorers from a year ago before facing either Villanova or Purdue in the next game.

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Oregon State loses its top scorer and defender from 2011-12’s team, but the Beavers welcome in three incoming freshman and a transfer to try to fill the big hole left by Jared Cunningham. Along with those four small forwards/combo guards is a 6’10” forward who redshirted his freshman season due to a broken leg. Below, we’ll take a look at the five newcomers to Robinson’s program, in roughly the order in which they’ll impact the team next season.

Robbins’ Long Arms And Quickness Make Him The Top Newcomer To Replace Cunningham’s Defensive Prowess (credit: Cali High Sports)

Victor Robbins, Freshman, Small Forward, 6’6” 195 lbs, Compton High School, Compton, CA – While junior shooting guard Roberto Nelson will certainly get the first opportunity to replace Cunningham’s minutes, Robbins looks to be the newcomer most fit to acquire a backup role behind Nelson. We’ll start on the offensive side of the floor. His speed and natural athleticism will remind fans of Cunningham, especially when he’s running the lanes in transition. Robbins can go to either side and knock down a pull-up jumper, although he’s much more comfortable going to the right. On defense, his lateral quickness and length will deny opponents entry into the lane, not to mention passes and shots will be difficult to get off. With all of that said, the biggest thing Robbins will need to work on throughout the summer is being more engaged without the ball. Once the rock is in his hands, his speed and athleticism opens up many doors for him. But as he makes the jump from high school to Pac-12 ball, getting open and creating opportunities for himself will become much more difficult. If he improves on that, and also adds a three-point shot to his game, Robbins will undoubtedly be the Beavers top newcomer in 2012-13. Almost to demonstrate that, Robbins led all newcomers with five points in limited playing time against St. Charles Basketball Club in Oregon State’s first European Tour competition.

Daniel Gomis, Redshirt Freshman, Forward, 6’10” 225 lbs, Oak Hill Academy, Mouth of Wilson, VA – Gomis was set to earn solid minutes as a freshman before a broken leg while overseas ended any of those aspirations. While Gomis’ offensive skill set is limited to dunking and just about nothing else, he makes up for it on the defensive end of the floor. He has a lean frame with broad shoulders, making him athletic and a monster on the glass. He is also quick enough to guard multiple positions on the floor. While his limited offensive game will likely keep him off the floor in conference play, it will be interesting to see what he can do earlier in the season when the Beavers aren’t going to have to put up 80 points night in and night out to win ball games. Craig Robinson can certainly use all the help he can get on the defensive glass, and a few cheap buckets here and there via offensive rebounds picked up by Gomis would help as well. We haven’t even talked about his shot-blocking ability, which combined with Eric Moreland and Devon Collier down low could be absolutely lethal. Gomis is one of the rare cases where his playing time could rest on the shoulders of his teammates. With the departure of Cunningham, Oregon State will need all the help they can get from the newcomers and players that came off the bench last season. So if Nelson finds his jump shot and Moreland builds off a strong finish to last season, there could be times in big moments when the Beavers need to go big on defense and sacrifice some points for a big block or rebound. Gomis scored one point on a free throw in the Europe opener as he continues to play tentatively after the broken leg.

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Earlier tonight Marquette announced that it had fired assistant coach Scott Monarch and suspended head coach Buzz Williams for the Big East opener as a result of an investigation into claims that a recruit had been given apparel and provided transportation. An outside investigation found that Monarch had lied (or at least been forthcoming with the appropriate information) when he had been questioned about the incident on several occasions. When Monarch finally admitted his deceit in the middle of June he has been on suspension. Following the investigation Monarch was offered a choice to resign or be fired and he apparently chose the latter.

Buzz Should Have Been Watching The Man Behind Him

From the information that the school has released it appears that Williams’ involvement was limited to being the head coach and one of Monarch’s closest friends, a relationship that likely allowed Monarch to be in the position that he was in at the time although Monarch does have a decent amount of junior college coaching experience. In addition to suspending Williams for the Big East opener for failing to monitor the compliance of his staff the school will also reduce the number of official visits allowed for recruits in the upcoming year.

With a potential top 25 team next season thing were looking bright at Saint Louis, but those aspirations took a hit today when the school announced that head coach Rick Majerus would miss the upcoming season while dealing with health-related issues. Majerus, who has a 517-215 record, is probably best known for his time at Utah where he led the Utes to Elite Eight and National Championship Game in consecutive seasons. He has also battled health issues for years with the most notable and public events being related to his heart dating back to a coronary artery bypass graft (open-heart surgery) in 1989 and most recently missing some time early last season after undergoing another cardiac procedure. At the present time, Majerus is “in a California hospital undergoing evaluation and treatment for an ongoing heart condition” according to Director of Athletics Chris May.

We Hope This Is Not The Last Time We See Majerus On A Sideline

For the time being this leave of absence is being listed as temporary by the school with Jim Crews acting as the interim head coach for the 2012-13 season. Crews has compiled a 354-348 record as a head coach at Evansville and Army before joining the Billikens’ staff prior to the start of last season. We hope that this is not the last that we have seen of Majerus on the sideline, but given his mounting health concerns it is a very real possibility that we may not see one of the most iconic coaches in college basketball on a sideline again.

Christopher Johnson is an RTC columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

As Arizona State muddled down the stretch to its second straight NCAA Tournament-free season, there were small signs that maybe (just maybe) the Sun Devils, in a reversal of the program’s stark two-year downward spiral, were trending upward. Sophomore center Jordan Bachynski saw his scoring and rebounding totals jump over the latter portion of conference play and the Sun Devils notched consecutive wins for the first time all season, including at home over in-state rival Arizona to knock the Wildcats off the at-large bubble cutline . The positive momentum dissipated quickly when three key contributors – sophomore guard Chanse Creekmur, power forward Kyle Cain, and leading scorer Trent Lockett – left the program for various reasons. Despite the personnel departures, there was reason to believe ASU could build upon Bachynski’s semi-improvement, work in six incoming players, unleash highly-touted prospect Jahii Carson at the point, and make some noise in an arguably top-heavy Pac-12. For coach Herb Sendek, who over the past two seasons has posted a lowly 22-40 record, anything less than an NIT appearance in 2012-13 is probably a firable outcome. Turning the Sun Devils around and saving his job after a quasi-exodus of scoring output and rotation minutes is an onerous proposition in and of itself. Sendek learned Thursday afternoon he will undergo his saving grace season without two familiar faces. Just a day after losing assistant Scott Pera to a similar position at Penn, Lamont Smith packed his bags and left to join Lorenzo Romar’s staff at Washington.

After losing two top assistants, the pressure has ratcheted up on Sendek’s hold on the head coaching job (Photo credit: Gus Ruelas/AP Photo).

Doug Haller of The Arizona Republic spoke with Sendek after Smith made his announcement.

Honestly, the timing isn’t ideal, but I think it creates a great opportunity for us. […] It provides us with an opportunity to bring in two very talented members for our staff, so at the end of the day, I suspect it will be a win-win for everybody involved.

Putting a positive spin on these departures is a completely understandable approach: Sendek needs to show newly-promoted athletic director Steve Patterson he’s not going to simply buckle under the pressure of two poor seasons and a depleted coaching staff. The defections are tough to swallow, but Sendek clearly isn’t giving off any hints of displeasure or other negative reactions. Optimism aside, Sendek now finds himself in an extremely unfavorable position. On the eve of what is arguably a tenure-defining season, Sendek must produce respectable results out of a new-look roster with little in the way of sideline help to congeal the disparate parts. With two transfers, a pair of freshman and a now-eligible Carson expected to play significant minutes, Sendek has to find ways to work in the influx of new players and create a functional system around veteran mainstays like Bachynski and seniors Carrick Felix and Chris Colvin, all while providing signs of appreciable progression in an improved league.

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1. You know you’re doing something right in a lawsuit if the defendant’s attorneys start attacking the plaintiff’s ringleader long before the discovery phase ends. According to this report from The Birmingham News, the NCAA and its licensees maneuvered hard against marketing guru Sonny Vaccaro in an attempt to discredit him prior to a ruling by a federal court in California about whether the so-called Ed O’Bannon likeness case will become a class action suit. It’s no secret that Vaccaro has encouraged ex-players who feel wronged by the perpetual and ongoing usage of their faces and likenesses to join the suit, but the NCAA questioned whether his financial motives were too inextricably tied to the players to render him prejudicial. The NCAA had requested voluminous records of his communications for years, but ultimately, the two sides agreed that Vaccaro would turn over “custodial records from Vaccaro’s three organizations, communications with the plaintiffs, camp/tournament documents using players’ likeness, and payment records to or from players.” The court plans on making a decision on the class action later this fall, and without question that ruling could have a monumental impact on the future financial solvency of the NCAA.
2. Thursday was an assistant coach kind of weekday as a number of high-profile schools announced comings and goings among their coaching support staff. Kentucky, a school whose media relations department must work a ridiculous amount of overtime, announced that former Wildcat center Marquis Estill will join the team as an undergraduate student assistant while he finishes his degree. Estill left school early in 2003, after receiving all-SEC honors after his junior season. Meanwhile, across the continent in Seattle, Washington announced that it was adding former Arizona State assistant Lamont Smith to its staff as a top recruiter mere days after adding another new assistant, former D-II head coach Brad Jackson (Western Washington). The key word in the previous sentence is former, as Arizona State lost not only Smith but also Scott Pera, who is leaving the desert to coach closer to his home at Pennsylvania. As Herb Sendek said about the twin departures this week, “the timing isn’t ideal.” More on ASU in a post later today.
3. Much has been made recently about the Big East’s 60-day window to negotiate a new television deal with ESPN that begins on September 1, but it isn’t the only conference looking forward to making waves with a brand new broadcasting deal. Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby told media on Wednesday that the league expects to sign a 13-year deal with FOX and ABC/ESPN worth $2.6 billion and will provide “unprecedented” exposure in a much more “widely distributed” manner. Or, in other words, what everyone else says about these deals. From a financial perspective, if this deal turns out to be true, a distribution of over a quarter-bill to each of the 10 member institutions doesn’t sound very bad after all. As Bowlsby suggests, perhaps 10 schools is the right number after all — leagues have been pushing each other out of the way to expand, but maybe they should start thinking about strategic contraction instead?
4. One school not reaping the tens of millions of dollars that the schools located nearby it are is Creighton, but that isn’t stopping the hot mid-major basketball school from investing in its future while things are going well on the court. Plans were announced earlier this week that the school will build the Fighting McDermotts a brand spanking new 35,000 square-foot practice facility to match what some of its MVC peers have already done. Perhaps more importantly, the school seeks to match what a certain Big Ten school an hour to the southwest is doing — even though Creighton is clearly the more successful basketball program than Nebraska, the spectre of all those BTN dollars at NU certainly keeps the Joneses over in Omaha looking over at their neighbor’s lawn. With possibly two more years of Doug McDermott as a Bluejay, this practice facility could be the recruiting carrot that Creighton needs to bridge its current and pending success with a strong recruiting future.
5. Last summer the story of Lamont “Momo” Jones‘ transfer from Arizona back home to Iona was a hot topic. The question of how it would ultimately impact both schools was a common refrain, and as it turned out, it was his new school that played in March Madness (losing to BYU in the First Four), while his old school was shipped to the NIT (losing to Bucknell). Jones enjoyed his best season statistically in 2011-12, going for 16/3/3 APG while shooting a career-high 46% from the field. More importantly to the rising senior, though, he spent what he characterizes as the best of year of his life near his family — especially his ailing grandmother in the Bronx — and even became a first-time father of a boy, Jace’, in May. With all the negative stories surrounding college basketball these days, this piece by Dan Greene is one that will send you into the weekend with a smile on your face.

Six significant Beavers return for Craig Robinson this season, a group that will be called upon to quickly meld with four freshmen and a newly eligible transfer. Below we’ll break down those returnees in order of their per-game scoring averages last season.

Devon Collier, Junior, Forward (13.1 PPG, 5.9 RPG, 1.3 BPG) – Collier graduated from starting all but seven games as a freshman to all but just three as a sophomore. His scoring totals nearly doubled in 2011-12, going from 7.0 PPG to 13.1 PPG. He was by far the team’s best scoring option in the post, and at times when Jared Cunningham couldn’t find his jumper, the best option, period. The next step on the road to becoming an all-conference performer is to finish more of his opportunities off the glass. That should come as he makes the transition to an upperclassman, and he already showed some improvement in the Beavers first European Tour game, going six-for-six from the field against Saint Charles Basketball Club. If he can continue anywhere near that kind of production, he has a solid passer in Ahmad Starks to get him the ball on the block. Collier can also run the court and is a great dump-off option in transition. On the other end of the court, Collier’s defense will be just as important to Oregon State’s success this season. The combination of Eric Moreland and Collier’s long wingspans made it nearly impossible for opponents to have any success in the lane, with Devon himself having one four-block game and three three-block outings.

Once Starks Begins To Get Going, There Isn’t A Better Shooter In The League (credit: Andy Wooldridge)

Ahmad Starks, Junior, Point Guard (12.1 PPG, 2.3 RPG) – Along with Collier, Starks is the only other player from Robinson’s 2010 freshman class still with the team. Starks is a shoot-first point guard, the best of his kind in the Pac-12. Despite only standing a generous 5’9″, he is able to get up and make shots consistently with his unique fadeaway jumper. Starks was the main reason for Oregon State’s late success in 2011-12, as the Beavers went 6-2 in their final eight games. With Cunningham struggling to put down his three-point shot, Starks averaged 11.3 PPG in the seven games he played during that stretch. Not surprisingly, Oregon State’s two losses came in games where Starks scored only four points or sat out. The guard is at his best when he catches the ball on a wing or is able to create separation by stopping on a dime, pulling up, fading away, and shooting. More of this, and less of the jacking up random shots outside of the offensive flow, will result for more offensive production for both Starks and the Beavers.

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