1. A judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought forth by current Los Angeles Laker and former UCLA Bruin, Reeves Nelson, on Thursday. Nelson sued Sports Illustrated and writer George Dohrmann after the story, “Not The UCLA Way” ran last March. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mary Ann Murphy found that the lawsuit infringed on the right to free speech, not to mention Dohrmann had numerous sources to back up the claims made against Nelson. The story cited accounts from Bruins players and staff members who alleged Nelson urinated on players’ clothes and got into numerous fights with teammates, while also mistreating team managers and walk-ons. Nelson was kicked off the UCLA team last December, three months before the story ran.
2. With that out of the way, we’re going to designate this “Preview Friday” here at the Pac-12 wing of RTC. We start with a look at the league from CollegeBasketballTalk, who thinks the increased talent brought into the conference this season will lead to a better product and more respect nationally. To narrow down the important stuff, the story gives us 13 impact newcomers to watch, five breakout players, a player of the year, a coach under pressure, and an all-conference team. In the projected standings category, CBT throws us for a loop by slotting UCLA at third behind Arizona and Stanford. Colorado, California, and USC round out the upper half.
3. Each preseason there is usually a conference with more coaches on the hot seat than the rest of them, and it comes as no surprise after last year’s awful play that the Pac-12 trumps all of them in 2012-13. Johnny Dawkins. Craig Robinson. Herb Sendek. Even former California head man Ben Braun makes the list. What’s really interesting is that all three coaches have gotten on their hot seats through different circumstances. Not too long ago on The Farm, Stanford was a basketball powerhouse, and the fact that Dawkins hasn’t made an NCAA Tournament in his four seasons there doesn’t sit well with Cardinal fans. That NIT Championship last April? Just means you should take the next step this year. Craig Robinson’s Oregon State Beavers have been somewhat of a bust after winning the CBI in his first season. With four returning starters, Robinson needs to get the Beavs to the NIT this year. And in Tempe, Herb Sendek gave Arizona State fans a taste of victory by winning 20+ games in three consecutive seasons. But just 22 wins over the last two years has his seat scorching going into 2012-13.
4. CBSSports national preseason honors list features a pair of UCLA freshmen. Jeff Goodman and Gary Parrish named forward Shabazz Muhammad the National Freshman of the Year, a member of the All-First Team roster, and All-Freshman First Team roster. Bruin point guard Kyle Anderson comes in on the fourth team All-American roster and first team All-Freshmen list.
5. We end with a terrific Pac-12 Preview, straight from the Jon Rothstein files. Included are five burning questions facing the conference, preseason power rankings, a first team roster, and 10 breakout players, among other things. Be sure to check back throughout the day as we continue Preview Friday with an in-depth Oregon preview and our second burning question of the preseason.

1. WE GOT OURSELVES A COUPLA FEUDIN’ COACHES AT BIG EAST MEDIA DAY! Jim Boeheim and Rick Pitino coach teams that do not play in the Big 12, obviously. But a reporter at Big East Media Day asked Boeheim about Rick Pitino saying the additions of Memphis and Temple to the Big East will “more than make up for” the losses of Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Syracuse. Jimmy B responded by saying that Pitino was full of, uh…”Schmidt” if he said that and added that if he were in the Big 12 “like he wanted to be,” he’d call them the best league. OH SNAP! Pitino responded to Boeheim’s quote by saying Boeheim was also full of “Schmidt.” While understanding the loss of Syracuse isn’t ideal, Pitino remained optimistic about the new teams coming next season. I think it’s only a matter of time before Louisville will be a member of the Big 12 but man I wish I was at Big East Media Day! If you’re a reporter going to one of these things, you could only dream of hearing something other than PC statements and coachspeak. It makes them seem like regular people.
2. Calling fouls in the paint are probably the toughest thing to do if you’re a college basketball official. So Curtis Shaw, supervisor of officials for the conference, shone a little light on the issue and laid out how this league will rule on such fouls. I’m not a fan of coming out and saying how refs are going to rule on this because now teams are going to practice charges in a way to get the bang-bang plays to go in their favor every time. If I were Shaw, staying quiet and keeping everything ambiguous maintains a balance within everyone in the league.
3. Can you keep a secret: The freshmen in the Big 12 are pretty good. The Oklahoma State Cowboys, Texas Longhorns and Baylor Bears are all quite similar. Opposing coaches like them to finish in the top-third of the league and now they each have players on the Wayman Tisdale Freshman of the Year Watch List. Seems like everything that’s been said about how much Marcus Smart can make an impact has already been said, but not enough has been said about Texas’ Cameron Ridley and Baylor’s Isaiah Austin. Remember how epic DeJuan Blair vs Hasheem Thabeet was, before they played against each other and Thabeet was found to be nothing more than a tall stiff? Yep, it’ll be just like that. But better.
4. Speaking of the Baylor Bears, it received a recent commitment from 2013 forward Ishmail Wainwright.  The former Missouri commitment considered St. John’s, Texas, Ohio State, and Baylor in his final four. In this Rumble in the Garden link, the Johnnies seem to have been the favorites to land the wing but Wainwright becomes the second big-time talent to have seriously considered St. John’s to end up with Baylor (Ricardo Gathers is the other). If you think Baylor recruiting hasn’t truly gone national yet, then you are sadly mistaken.
5. The 2007-08 Kansas basketball team will be inducted into the Kansas Athletics Hall of Fame during K Club and Homecoming Weekend next week. This is hardly a shock. The Kansas-Memphis national championship game gave college basketball one of the better ends to the season in recent memory. It won’t be long before Bill Self has his own Hall of Fame induction ceremony, KU and the Basketball HOF included.

1. Conference realignment doesn’t always guarantee that traditional rivalries will continue in the future. But some schools have made a diligent effort to continue the rivalry games. Illinois and Missouri in particular have renewed their “Braggin’ Rights” game through 2017. Illinois has won 20 of the last 31 games in this series but has been dominated lately by the up-tempo Missouri teams. The rivalry game might not be at the same level of Duke – UNC but it certainly has a great history and matters to both the programs as the annual game is held in St. Louis. Missouri will be the favorite to win this season as the Tigers have been ranked in several Top 25s, while Illinois is just trying to recover from a disastrous season that ended up with a 17-15 record.
2. Minnesota coach Tubby Smith may lose one of his star players again for an extended period during the season. Forward Trevor Mbakwe is scheduled for a probation hearing on Friday and may potentially face additional jail time. Mbakwe is on probation in Florida for an assault charge from 2009. The redshirt senior was arrested earlier this summer for a DUI which forced Smith to question his status on the team for the upcoming season. Mbakwe was awarded a medical redshirt after missing most of last season with an injury but may not be allowed to play a full season (if any) if sentenced for jail time on Friday. Smith has not had a full season where one of his star players stayed out of trouble off the court or stayed healthy in a couple of seasons.
3. Ohio State’s Aaron Craft understands that you don’t always need to put up 15-20 points per game to have an impact on the game. Craft is considered to be one of the best defenders in the game and approaches basketball from a different angle than most other players. He talked to Sporting News about why basketball is a thinking man’s game. The junior guard only averaged 8.8 PPG last season but his value to Ohio State may not be measured using any statistics. He can dictate the tempo of the game and control the direction of the game by forcing key turnovers throughout. Craft has been working on his offensive game during the offseason and will be expected to look for his shot a little bit more than the past with the departures of Jared Sullinger and William Buford.
4. Last weekend, top 30 recruit Xavier Rathan-Mayes passed over Illinois to play for Leonard Hamilton at Florida State. A few days later, another top 50 recruit passed over another Big Ten school, this time Michigan State, to play at Missouri in 2013. Jonathan Williams III, a 6’8″ forward, will play at Missouri rather than for Tom Izzo. Williams’ commitment could have helped Izzo in convincing the top high school recruit, Jabari Parker, to come to East Lansing next season. Parker is scheduled to visit Michigan State this weekend, his first visit out of the five schools over the next month. He is supposed to announce his decision in mid-December.
5. Speaking of recruiting,  Tom Crean continues to be active on the recruiting trail despite having the best team in America per the preseason rankings. Five-star recruit Noah Vonleh has trimmed his final list of potential schools to six and Indiana is one of those institutions. Vonleh is a top 20 recruit in the Class of 2013 and will visit Bloomington in November. His other schools are Connecticut, Ohio State, Georgetown, North Carolina and Syracuse. All-American Cody Zeller will probably leave for the NBA after this season and a top recruit like Vonleh should keep Tom Crean’s foundation strong in Bloomington as he marches towards reviving Indiana as a perennial powerhouse program again in college hoops.

1. As Missouri slowly tries to find its identity in the SEC football realm, its basketball presence has already been met with much hype and high expectations heading into the season. The Tigers’ initial move from the Big 12 to the SEC was criticized regarding the status of some of their regional rivalries, most notably with its immediate neighbors, Kansas and Illinois. Yesterday the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the “Braggin’ Rights” rivalry between Missouri and Illinois will continue through the 2016-17 season. The annual Mississippi River border showdown at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis has featured an intense regional rivalry since its inception in 1980. Missouri has won the last three meetings in the series after Illinois had won nine straight from 2000-08. As for the rivalry with Kansas, no news has surfaced (and may never surface) since Missouri’s departure from the Big 12 and thus ending the century old Border War, for now.
2.  Could Michigan’s Fab Five beat last year’s Kentucky squad? Or vice versa? Coach John Calipari defended his Wildcats in an ESPN “Numbers Never Lie” clip on Thursday. Co-host and former Fab Five member Jalen Rose, in defense of his Wolverines, jokingly stated “Kentucky cheated by not starting all five freshmen last year.” Calipari praised Rose for his vocal leadership that helped make the Fab Five a very tight-knit group and said “my team wasn’t as vocal but came together in the same way. It would’ve been a heck of a game.”
3. With the release of the Top 25 Coaches Poll earlier this week, head coach Mike Anderson and the Arkansas Razorbacks saw the difficult road that lies ahead: Seven ranked opponents on their schedule this year, including four within three weeks of each other. The Las Vegas Classic will challenge the Hogs early with games against #15 Creighton and #21 Wisconsin on November 24. Less than a week later, Arkansas hosts #9 Syracuse on November 30. In conference play, Arkansas will play home-and-home with #10 Florida and  #17 Missouri with another home game versus #3 Kentucky on March 2. Anderson will be tested early and often this season, hoping these difficult games will improve on last year’s 18-14 record and get the Razorbacks back into the NCAA Tournament.
4. In recruiting news, Missouri picked up a commitment on Thursday from ESPN Top 100 forward Johnathan Williams, III. Dave Telep of ESPN reported that the 6’8″ Memphis native chose the Tigers over Tennessee, Michigan State, Georgetown, and George Mason. Williams is ranked as the 38th best overall recruit in the Class of 2013 and the second Top 100 recruit Missouri has obtained for next year. Williams’ pick has immediately vaulted the Tigers to #16 in next year’s class rankings.
5.  New LSU head coach Johnny Jones spoke out on Wednesday about the first four practices he held this year. Jones discussed the difficulty of playing with only 11 guys and the challenge of molding his squad to understand the tempo he expects to see this season. “We want to try and make sure that our level is as such the way that we play. We’re trying to implement our system in just a short time because we’ll obviously be playing here in less than a month,” Jones said. The new head coach also praised several of his players but was still grounded, knowing they must all improve individually as well as a team going forward.

1. ESPN: North Carolina coach Roy Williams has had a fairly quotable week, sounding off on changes in academic standards and his tendency to go “wacko” despite a medical injunction to avoid just that. But yesterday, he had some words on what seems to be a fairly silly situation. The NCAA has a rule about how teams aren’t supposed to travel to an away game more than 48 hours before the game in question. This, unlike some provisions, seems fairly reasonable and well-intentioned: Students shouldn’t miss too much class. However, the realities of flight scheduling are not always cooperative. Apparently, the number of infrequent flights from Raleigh-Durham to the west coast means that without a special waiver, UNC will have to wait until Thursday morning to travel across the country rather than simply flying out after class on Wednesday. In a case where the provision in question is doing nothing to achieve it’s purpose (preventing athletes from missing extra classes), it does seem a little silly to make sure UNC does no traveling before 11 PM on Wednesday.
2. Washington Post: Coach Mark Turgeon is opening the season with a great deal of optimism, despite losing the conference’s most torrid scorer in Terrell Stoglin. Stoglin was suspended from the Maryland Terrapins at the end of the season and subsequently left school to take his chances on the NBA Draft (a move that didn’t pan out so well for the undrafted Stoglin). The cause for Turgeon’s optimism? A wide variety of roster options. Maryland’s primary point guard rotation features guys who are just as comfortable playing shooting guard, opening up the possibility of some guard heavy line-ups with multiple ball-handlers and playmakers. Just as intriguing, Turgeon apparently plans to experiment with freshman swingman Jake Layman at power forward, an interesting option that will give Maryland even more flexibility in cooking up mismatches.
3. Yahoo! Sports: In  other exciting Maryland news, Under Armor has cooked up some cool new uniforms for the Terrapins to wear in their season debut against Kentucky in the newly opened Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Just kidding: I meant ugly and hard-to-explain. Maryland will be donning grey, faux-wool jerseys in order to honor the Brooklyn Dodgers. Who among us can forget the deep connection between the Dodgers and the Terrapins? Aside from the sheer oddity of the tribute, the uniforms serve as an untimely reminder of one of the worst uniform trends of last year: gray uniforms. If I never see a gray uniform again (with obvious exceptions for teams that use gray as one of their main colors), it will be too soon. Already, I’m pretty sure I have seen more than enough games played in these Maryland jerseys.
4. Sports Illustrated: Damarcus Harrison had a rough freshman year playing spot minutes at Brigham Young University. This year, he was supposed to begin serving his mission for the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS), but, due to some confusion, this didn’t happen and BYU had already allocated all of their scholarships. It’s an unusual situation that had an unusual outcome: Since Harrison couldn’t go on his mission or return to BYU, he transferred to Clemson. BYU has long scheduled and planned for its Mormon athletes to go on their mission in the middle of their collegiate careers, but when complications arise, as in the case of Harrison, things can get complicated very quickly. However, with the LDS changing the minimum age of their standard mission from 19 to 18, this means that many Mormon athletes may put off entering college until after their mission is complete. While this unsurprisingly has enormous implications for BYU, it also may end up being important to Duke University. Jabari Parker, possibly the top recruit in the country is a devout Mormon also considering Duke.
5. Winston-Salem Journal: While most teams typically are weeks away from playing any kind of public exhibition game, Wake Forest will be squaring off twice this weekend with a pair of Canadian foes. The Demon Deacons will face Brock University tonight and Ryerson University on Saturday. Different teams use the international travel provision differently, but Jeff Bzdelik‘s novel tactic of delaying the trip to mid-October means that his mostly young team will get a couple of extra early opportunities to get some live-game practice in as a part of the ramp up to the regular season. Canada isn’t as glamorous a destination as Spain, for example, but it might be just what Wake Forest needs.

1. Marquette blog Cracked Sidewalks cites a new article by Dan McGrath as symptomatic of the growing cognitive dissonance suffered by MU fans, boosters and administrators, as they try to reconcile integrity with the realities of building an elite basketball program. The sex scandal involving basketball players that rocked Marquette last summer is the kind of sensational event that forces introspection and re-evaluation. The schism between fans who strictly prioritize success and those who stress doing things “the right way” is a theme that resonates throughout college basketball, but is an acutely sensitive topic at the Catholic Big East schools. CBS’ Jeff Goodman had recently raised doubts that the ambitious Buzz Williams and hyper-vigilant athletic director Larry Williams could coexist without stepping on each other’s toes. It remains to be seen if their priorities are entirely compatible.
2. According to Jeff Borzello at CBS, Providence coach Ed Cooley floated the idea of redshirting Kris Dunn during Big East Media Day. “It’s a possibility. But I’m trying to get him for every Big East game. I need him,” Cooley admitted, before qualifying, “but I’m in it for the long haul.” Should Dunn return, the Friars’ coach plans to use him and fellow point guard Vincent Council simultaneously, leaning on a talented starting lineup to carry a pretty shallow depth chart. Cooley did suggest that Providence could have “the best backcourt in the country” next year, though it’s hard to imagine Ledo sticking around for a second year unless his draft stock arbitrarily plummets. (h/t Friar Blog)
3. John Thompson III ended the week empty handed on the recruiting trail. Roddy Peters committed to Maryland earlier in the week, and on Thursday Memphis forward Johnathan Williams III picked Missouri over the Hoyas, Michigan State and Tennessee. The Casual Hoya depicted the scene as a bizarre caricature of a commitment ceremony: “After an endless slideshow to the tune of R. Kelly’s “World’s Greatest,” a moving speech by his Aunt Lynn and a sermon by some guy in a blue shirt, ‘JW3’…put on a Missouri hat while leavings hats for Georgetown, Michigan State, Tennessee and George Mason on the table to high five themselves for dodging a bullet.” Ostentatious announcement notwithstanding, it’s hard to characterize missing out on a top-50 recruit with Williams’ length and skill as “dodging a bullet.”
4. Rick Pitino –– a constant fixture in this week’s M5 –– made some interesting comments to St. John’s blog Rumble in the Garden on Wednesday about a flawed recruiting philosophy in the post-Carnesecca era, which he believes had stunted the program for years. Pitino explained, “The mistake that St. John’s made after Louie was that they didn’t recruit outside the city… In Louie’s time, he could do that, when it wasn’t the world of AAU basketball.” New York City basketball has developed a kind of diaspora in the last couple decades, concentrated in prep schools across New England whose blue chip recruits seldom return home. Pitino points out that St. John’s is taking the correct recruiting approach under these circumstances: “Lavin can go to Chicago and to Indiana (to recruit), because now the kids from all over the nation want to come here.” Quinn Rochford astutely points out how unthinkable it would have been 20 years ago to envision a St. John’s team whose best players are from Houston, Los Angeles, Ohio, Nigeria, and the Dominican Republic.
5. On Wednesday, USA Today published a comprehensive look at the basketball-crazed triumvirate of Indiana, Kentucky and Louisville, and the intense rivalries that develop at the geographical nexus of this year’s top title contenders. One Pitino quote in particular insinuated that having three basketball-centric schools dominate the national consciousness headed into the season is good for college basketball in general. Perhaps having fervent fan bases in such frenzy will counteract the recent common tendency to subordinate basketball to football, and view college sports through the lens of football-driven realignment.

1. Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski went on the Colin Cowherd Show yesterday on ESPN Radio to riff about the state of college basketball as he heads into his 38th year as a head coach. During a conversation about one-and-done players (of which Coach K has had four: Corey Maggette, Luol Deng, Kyrie Irving, and Austin Rivers), Krzyzewski gave his opinion that it his belief that the NBA-imposed age limit of 19 has hurt the college game. “Overall I think it hurts our game, the college game, a little bit because it kind of ruins, or can hurt, the relationship we have. You know we are all members of academic institutions and it kind of throws the academic side of it down because you’re not there for a total education, you’re there for six or seven months.” Krzyzewski goes on to say that he prefers the preps-to-pros route with the caveat that if players choose to come to college, they must stay in school for at least two years. It’s not an uncommon position for head coaches weary of investing so much energy in recruiting the services of players for a single season on campus, but as we’ve written in this space before, coaches like him don’t seem to remember or realize how important it is for the greater good of the sport to have marketable players such as Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, and Kyrie Irving representing the NCAA side of the equation.
2. The Colonial Athletic Association has been actively in pursuit of replacements for the three schools it has already lost or is losing in conference realignment: VCU (Atlantic 10), Old Dominion (Conference USA), and Georgia State (Sun Belt). After somewhat surprisingly being spurned by Southern Conference member Davidson earlier this week, fellow league member College of Charleston is expected to take the CAA up on its own offer. The school’s Board of Directors is planning to meet on Saturday morning to put the move to a vote. According to George Mason athletic director Tom O’Connor, the addition of the Cougars would bring the league to 10 and “there is nobody (else) we’re targeting right now.” You have to wonder if Davidson, one of the more consistent basketball powers from the low-major conferences, may have made a long-term mistake in rejecting this offer to move to a better league.
3. Former Oklahoma State player Darrell Williams has filed a notice to appeal his recent conviction of rape by instrumentation and sexual battery. His case has drawn national attention outside the insular world of sports media for what he argues is a clear and convincing case of misidentification at a 2010 house party where two young women were groped. Last week, Williams was given a suspended sentence by an Oklahoma judge and ordered to register as a sex offender; he plans to move back to his home state of Illinois, where he will be held to a very restrictive set of daily living conditions such as avoidance of children, erotic materials, and yes, hitchhikers. There’s clearly been a lot of he-said/she-said in this case on both sides, but we’d hope that the appellate court will give the Williams case a fair and comprehensive review of the facts to make an independent determination that the allegations against him are legitimate.
4. While on the subject of criminal matters, Minnesota’s Trevor Mbakwe could face additional jail time for his recent DUI conviction. Mbakwe has collected reams of meaningless adverse letters in his permanent file by now, but his previous conviction for a felony assault charge in Miami in 2009 could come back to seriously bite him in this instance as he may have violated his probation as a result. Mbakwe has already violated his Florida probation once by sending a public Facebook message to his former girlfriend, but his July DUI in Minnetonka puts him in a do-or-die situation where his senior season as a Gopher is seriously in jeopardy. The talented (possible) first-team Big Ten forward could be facing significant jail time depending on how Florida chooses to handle his recidivism — at a certain point, you wonder whether all the trouble is worth the headaches. Good luck, Tubby.
5. Finally, this week, let’s take a look at Seth Davis’ examination of one of the most confounding teams of the 2012-13 preseason: The Ohio State Buckeyes. Last season, on paper at least, OSU was one of the very best teams in America. It took a couple of comebacks the last two seasons from blue-blooded programs such as Kentucky and Kansas to keep the scarlet and gray out of the national finals, but we have to believe that the combination of experience and talent that Bill Self and John Calipari had at their disposal were part of the issue each time around. Thad Matta will certainly have his work cut out this season without William Buford and Jared Sullinger in tow, but the question everyone is asking themselves is whether the remainder of his blue-chip recruits can continue to push OSU ahead as an elite team.

Throughout the preseason, the Pac-12 microsite will be rolling out these featured breakdowns of each of the 12 league schools. Today’s release is the Utah Utes.

Strengths. Although Utah had a terrible season last year with almost nothing going right, their coach, Larry Krystkowiak, took charge of the team and made sure that his players knew he didn’t need them if they didn’t play by his rules. He kicked leading scorer Josh Watkins off the team midway through the season. Although Krystkowiak hasn’t had consistent success yet, he’s a good leader for this young team. The Utes have few strengths on this unproven squad right now. However, Utah will have a lot of size, although it will be of the mostly inexperienced variety. They have some returning scoring and rebounding ability with Jason Washburn, but also welcome transfers Dallon Bachynski and Renan Lenz into the fray. Although Bachynski is raw, he still stands at 7’0″ and Lenz should be able to come in and rebound right away and provide a complement to Washburn. Also, the Utes bring in a promising young ESPN 100 recruit in Jordan Loveridge. He could easily become Utah’s best player as the season develops due to his ability to score in the lane, shoot from the outside, and rebound well for a forward.

Jason Washburn, the best player returning for the Utah Utes, will have to step it up this year for Utah to be competitive in the Pac-12 (AP)

Weaknesses. The Utes’ biggest weakness coming into this season is the fact that they don’t have a core of returning players to rely on. Krystowiak brought in 10 new players between recruits and transfers, but none of these players are coming from notable schools. Consequently, Utah doesn’t yet have the talent to really compete in the Pac-12. Last year, the conference was terrible and still they somehow managed to win only three games in the conference. This year, the conference is better, which doesn’t bode well for the Utes especially since they just lost 7’3” David Foster to the same foot injury that hindered him and kept him out for most of last year. It looks like it’s going to be another long season in Salt Lake.

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Throughout the preseason, the Big Ten microsite will be rolling out these featured breakdowns of each of the 12 league schools. Today’s release is the Northwestern Wildcats.

Where we left off: The NIT. Again. For yet another year, Northwestern inched closer to the NCAA Tournament — this year closer than ever — and the Wildcats fell short again. NU’s season was defined by close losses to Michigan (twice), Ohio State, Indiana and Illinois. Had the Cats won just one more of those games, they could have potentially made the Tournament. Heck, if they had just beaten Minnesota in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament — another close loss — maybe they could have gotten there. Now, with a number of new faces, they begin this season firmly on the bubble once again.

Positives: I did an interview with coach Bill Carmody earlier in the offseason and he remarked that, with its new lineup, NU will “have some scoring inside.” That will be a much-needed addition after last year’s centers — Luka Mirkovic and Davide Curletti — struggled mightily. This year, 7’0″ freshman Alex Olah is expected to start at center and the Wildcats will also have 7’2″ freshman center Chier Ajou, who provides depth, even if he doesn’t play much initially. Additionally, senior Drew Crawford returns and Louisville transfer Jared Swopshire is expected to make a big impact right away. It will be a very big frontcourt for NU, something that has seemingly happened overnight and hasn’t occurred in Evanston for a long time.

Louisville transfer Jared Swopshire (ball) will be a key player to watch for Northwestern fans this season (Chicago Tribune)

Negatives: Can this team play defense? The Wildcats have added a lot of potential inside scoring with Swopshire and Olah, but the jury is out on whether the team can defend and grab rebounds, unlike last year’s squad. The perimeter defense is questionable, as well, as the team’s best perimeter defender — JerShon Cobb — was suspended for the year. And can this team find someone to take the last shot? Last year it was Crawford, and even though that didn’t work very well, this year it seems likely to be either Crawford or Swopshire. The Big Ten will be very strong again this year, meaning NU will be involved in a lot of close games. It must find a way to make big shots and play good defense in crunch time.

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Friars coach Ed Cooley made waves in the national recruiting scene last summer when he snagged five-star point guard Kris Dunn out from under Jim Calhoun and other elite suitors. Providence looked like a Big East Contender days later, when Cooley convinced Ricardo Ledo to shun offers from the likes of UConn, Kentucky, Louisville and Syracuse in favor of the hometown program. But that blockbuster recruiting class may never materialize on the court, after Ledo was ruled ineligible to play next season by the NCAA and Dunn had shoulder surgery that could sideline him for most of the season. Despite these disappointing setbacks, Cooley fields a team that managed to beat vulnerable Louisville and UConn teams last year, and acquitted themselves well in several close loses. Bryce Cotton, Vincent Council, and highly touted Arizona transfer Sidiki Johnson will carry the load until Dunn arrives.

2011-12 Record: 15-17, 4-14
2011-12 Postseason: None

Bryce (aka Ice) Cotton: great name, great responsibility. (credit Friarblog.com)

Schedule

The Friars benefit from a manageable non-conference schedule, highlighted by UMass, Mississippi State, Boston College and Rhode Island. Cooley’s squad should enter a brutal Big East schedule with an attractive record, but early losses against Louisville and Syracuse in the first half of January will temper their confidence. Despite a scheduled home-and-home with Syracuse, Providence’s conference slate has limited exposure to this year’s heavy hitters. Winnable two-game series against Seton Hall, UConn and Villanova punctuate the 2012-2013 schedule.

Who’s In

Preseason First Team All-Big East point guard Vincent Council (39 mpg, 15.9 ppg, 7.5 apg) is complemented by productive upperclassmen LaDontae Henton (37 mpg, 14.3 ppg) and Bryce Cotton (39 mpg, 14.3 ppg). That nucleus should give the Friars the physical tools and experience necessary to anchor a serviceable Big East team. The returning starters are complemented by blue chip Connecticut point guard Kris Dunn, who could become conference Rookie of the Year despite being sidelined early in the season by rehab from shoulder surgery. 6’5” 3-star Hampton, Virginia sharpshooter Josh Fortune brings additional length to the Friars’ wings. But Cooley’s greatest recruiting coup to date also happens to be the roster’s biggest question mark; Providence’s prodigal son and major NBA prospect Ricky Ledo is academically ineligibility this fall. If his NCAA appeal goes well and he gains eligibility in the second semester, Providence could easily finish strong and break into the top half of the conference. PC also gains an injection of frontcourt talent in Arizona transfer Sidiki Johnson. A promising 4-star power forward recruit out of high school, Johnson only played seven cumulative minutes before getting in hot water for a violation of team rules and eventually transferring. Johnson remains an unproven commodity, which is a common thread when looking over Providence’s frontcourt.

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