Way back in the preseason, while trying to be objective, we as a group of Pac-12 writers couldn’t help but be optimistic about the immediate future of the conference. Arizona and UCLA were welcoming in elite recruiting classes, Colorado had added a nice group of freshmen to solid returnees, etc., etc. All throughout the conference there were stories of promise and hope. And then the season began. While it has certainly been nowhere near the debacle that last year was, there have been hiccups along the way. You know, a loss to Cal Poly by a team picked by one of us (ahem, me) to be a top five national team, losses elsewhere to Albany, Pepperdine, and Sacramento State. So, to say the least, things have not been all about half-full glasses around these parts. In the interest of getting the negativity out of the way now, in advance of the holiday season, we’ll take a look at the downside of the Pac-12 this week.

“Which team, player, or other entity, has been the most disappointing thus far this year?”

Parker Baruh: The biggest disappointment thus far this year in the Pac-12 is the Washington Huskies. I thought the Pac-12 media went too high when they picked them to finish fifth in the conference especially with the losses of Tony Wroten and Terrence Ross. And thus far, Washington has shown nothing this year to prove my hunch wrong. The Huskies were upset at home by Albany, were embarrassed at home by Colorado State, upset again at home by Nevada, and barely pulled out a win against a bad Cal State Fullerton team, once again, right there at home. As you can see, there is a recurring theme here: Washington’s bad play at home. One of the greatest things about college basketball is home court advantage and typically Washington has had it in spades, but this year it ceases to exist at the Alaska Airlines Arena. Washington doesn’t have the talent to win the Pac-12 and I know they are dealing with injuries, but they certainly shouldn’t look this bad. It’s still early and I expect the Huskies to bounce back somewhat, but as of right now, they are my choice for biggest disappointment.

Abdul Gaddy and Washington Have Yet To Get It Together This Year

Adam Butler: To ask who or what has disappointed the most – particularly in early/mid-December – is baiting us into a crow consumption opportunity. It’s also fresh bait to just rip on UCLA; a task I’ve taken to three times already in this young season. Alas, I won’t take the bait – although by season’s end I will be full of crow – and I find myself most disappointed, to date, by USC. This was a group that had a chip on its shoulder, a squad that Kevin O’Neill called his hardest working team and a group of castoffs who had an opportunity to turn some heads. For the Trojans, I haven’t done much beyond turn the channel. KO teams rarely play a viewer-friendly brand of ball but I do always appreciate their effort. What’s disappointed me the most isn’t that they haven’t given effort, just that they set themselves up to fail. I suppose I could have looked at the schedule and forecast this, but I also felt they had enough dynamic pieces to overcome some of these preseason hurdles. But ultimately, these guys have played about how we unfortunately and unromantically should have figured they would. J.T. Terrell shooting 30%? Jio Fontan with a 24% turnover rate? And maybe I’ve made this selection selfishly. I figured bigger things for what, at least on paper, appeared to be a more competitive group. That said, one can say that this group has competed and maybe, just maybe, partaking in an arguably less competitive Pac-12 season will prove this group better than their non-conference effort.

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Christian D’Andrea is a columnist for the Vanderbilt site Anchor of Gold and a weekly columnist for the SEC microsite.

It’s been a rough season in Starksville. Of course, losing your team’s top four players and the head coach who ran the team for more than a decade will lower expectations a bit. That’s what Mississippi State is going through right now. Former coach Rick Stansbury was dismissed this spring after failing to reach the NCAA Tournament in his last three years. That might have been excusable if Stansbury hadn’t been in charge of one of the NCAA’s most talented – but dysfunctional – rosters. The Bulldogs had high-level recruits like Renardo Sidney, Dee Bost, Rodney Hood, and Arnett Moultrie on their teams, but the only thing State had to show for it was a pair of NIT appearances and some embarrassing footage of Sidney fighting teammate Elgin Bailey in the stands at a preseason tournament.

Rick Ray stepped into a tough situation in Starkville.

Now, Mississippi State is smack-dab in the middle of a rebuilding phase that might carry into 2013-14 and beyond. The Bulldogs have plenty of work to do if they want to emerge as an upper-tier program in the SEC once again. In order to figure out just where new coach Rick Ray and his staff need to start, we turned to the experts. Braden Bishop is a contributor at the Mississippi State blog For Whom the Cowbell Tolls. He took some time to focus away from the Bulldogs’ upcoming Gator Bowl match-up to answer some questions about MSU’s outlook for the season. His answers are below:

Rush the Court: Mississippi State is going through a top-to-bottom rebuilding process in 2012-13. Not only are the Bulldogs replacing their four top scorers from last year, but they’ll do it without longtime coach Rick Stansbury. What can SEC fans expect out of State and new head coach Rick Ray this season?

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1. Stanford’s Dwight Powell and his teammates embarked on a somber road trip earlier in the year. In September, Powell’s mother, Jacqueline Weir, passed away from cancer. However, Powell’s teammates wouldn’t let him mourn the loss of his mother by himself. The NCAA allowed Stanford to fly players in Powell’s recruiting class to Canada to be at the memorial for his mother. Powell has said that everything he does this season has been and will be a tribute to his mother. However Powell plays this season, he deserves enormous credit for handling this situation so well and playing through it.
2. The Arizona Wildcats have been the class of the Pac-12 this season and are currently 7-0, but if they want to find success against Florida on Saturday and later this year, their big men are going to have to be more consistent. After Brandon Ashley’s 20 point, 10 rebound performance against Long Beach State, he followed it up with a two-point game against Northern Arizona. Kaleb Tarczewski has been a factor in every game, but hasn’t surpassed 10 points this season and Grant Jerrett followed up his 11-point performance at Texas Tech with zero points against Southern Miss. As far as the backcourt goes, Mark Lyons will need to clean up his turnover issues as the season goes on. On the season, Lyons has 18 assists and 19 turnovers, and although Lyons isn’t what you would call a typical point guard, he is the leader of this Arizona team and will have to improve in that area.
3. Oregon’s Arsalan Kazemi has made the transition from Rice to his new team very well so far this season. Kazemi is impacting the Ducks by scoring 9.3 points per game, but he also has made an impact defensively as he leads Oregon with 9.3 rebounds and 3.4 steals per game as well. He has been the hustle guy so far this season for Dana Altman and he couldn’t be more pleased with Kazemi’s work all over the floor. Just like Kazemi, Oregon has been a surprise this year in the Pac-12 by going 8-1 and upsetting UNLV in Las Vegas, and if Kazemi and the Ducks can continue this play, they look destined to become a force in the Pac-12.
4. Arizona State’s lack of energy was a big factor in its loss Wednesday night against DePaul. Herb Sendek was not pleased with his team as they shot 42% from the free throw line and mentioned that they played with no intensity. Despite playing at home, the Sun Devils came out flat and weren’t able to get in a rhythm against the active Blue Demons defense. Although Arizona State lost that game, they are still 8-2 and should look much more energetic in their next game against Dartmouth this Saturday afternoon.
5. After an uncomfortable start to the season for UCLA’s Kyle Anderson, he is now starting to come into his own at the power forward position. Anderson had intentions of coming to UCLA to play the point guard, but with Larry Drew II clearly and successfully taking that role, Anderson has spent most of his time playing at the four position. He has admitted playing that position hasn’t been easy for a player used to having the ball in his hands, but against Texas, Anderson finally started to make some more aggressive moves in the post. The precocious freshman still needs to develop consistency at the position, but Ben Howland believes that playing him there is the right decision and isn’t likely to change his mind anytime soon.

Every week, the SEC microsite will post a composite power ranking list for the league’s performances coupled with a short commentary justifying each team’s specific ranking. Here are Week Four’s SEC Power Rankings (all statistics via TeamRankings).

The Gators Are the Class of the SEC (Photo via John Raoux / AP)

1. Florida– There’s not a lot missing from the Gators’ resume. They’ve beaten every opponent by double figures, while playing the nation’s 13th toughest schedule. As of the release of last week’s rankings, however, they hadn’t had the chance to prove their mettle in a true road game, a situation in which they struggled last season (losing their first four). After their trip to Tallahassee last week, consider that mettle proven. The Gators embarrassed rival Florida State in a 72-47 win, holding the Seminoles to only 15 first-half points. Florida’s ability to win away from the O-Dome will be crucial over the rest of the season. In addition to this Saturday’s trip to Arizona, the Gators will have road games at Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky, all among the more hostile environments in the SEC.
2. Missouri– Do I have to put a team here? There’s a massive gap between Florida and the rest of the conference, but the Tigers are the choice at #2. Missouri hasn’t been tested against quality competition since they left the Bahamas, but their performances against smaller conference foes have been far from convincing. A nasty little habit of starting slow has been their biggest problem. The Tigers trailed Southeast Missouri State by 10 at the half, and only held a three-point advantage over Tennessee State after 20 minutes. In fact, Mizzou ranks 101st nationally in first half scoring margin, at only +3.1 points. Big second half scoring outputs have saved Frank Haith’s team, but with Brandon Paul and the Fighting Illini looming next week, another slow start may be too much to overcome.
3. Kentucky– After consecutive losses to Notre Dame and Baylor, the Wildcats made history when they dropped out of the rankings from the #8 spot, receiving only 186 votes, the largest single-week drop in AP poll history. Kentucky proceeded to easily handle its next two opponents in Samford and Portland, but somehow fell even further in the next AP poll, garnering only 44 votes. I’m not claiming that the Wildcats deserve to be ranked, but why would they lose ground after two convincing victories? It appears that quite a few voters realized a week too late that they were allowed to leave Kentucky off their ballots. Read the rest of this entry »

1. It’s a novelty in college basketball these days: A neutral site series between in-state foes from both power and non-power conferences. Come again? Yup, it’s time for the Big Four Series in Des Moines this weekend, which features a game between Iowa and Northern Iowa followed by a showdown between Drake and Iowa State. It strips the programs of a home game, but it’s been unbelievable to watch these teams play each other over the last several years. And to set up an actual tournament? That’s unheard of with the modern we-have-nothing-to-gain philosophy employed by almost every single BCS league team in college basketball.
2. Mark your calendars for next season. It looks as though Kansas State will likely host Gonzaga in Wichita as a salute of sorts to the fans in that city. The Wildcats will face the Zags in Seattle this weekend, but in the return game, Weber may opt for Wichita instead of the Sprint Center in Kansas City as a neutral destination. Apparently, those are the two choices he has, and he told a reporter with the Wichita Eagle he is leaning toward playing at Intrust Arena instead of the Sprint Center. Either way, you know it will probably be a sellout in either city.
3.  The Kansas City SB Nation blog has begun previewing Big 12 Conference play, since it is amazingly almost here. In the first edition of the preview, we get yet another reminder that Kansas rules all and probably will be hardly challenged in Big 12 play this year. Oklahoma State could do it, sure. Baylor could improve. So could Kansas State. But right now, amidst all of the chaos in the Big 12 and the league’s poor performances in non-conference play, the Jayhawks are the one thing you know you can count on. The Big 12 might be lost without Kansas this season.
4. When I saw this headline — “Jayhawks’ Ellis plans to work over break” — I thought Ellis had decided to get a part-time job outside of basketball. For a moment, I tried to figure out how in the world a guy playing Division I basketball would have enough time in the day to have a job, too, and then I read the story. It’s about how Ellis and the freshmen will work on their game during winter break without school in session, and then things started to make a little more sense. Ellis will need to use the time off to clear his head and relax a little bit. He’s playing only about 16 minutes a game right now, but Self said his minutes will continue to increase as long as he keeps working. Not at a job, of course. At basketball.
5. This news is a few days old, but it’s so priceless we just had to include it. West Virginia’s mascot is no longer allowed to hunt with his musket after he killed a black bear and got caught on tape. That seems like a pretty reasonable request. It would also make Fake Dwight Schrute from The Office pretty happy.

1. Michigan coach John Beilein isn’t scared to use his five highly-touted freshmen this year, and he solidified that this week when he said he would stick with a nine-man rotation, including all five of those rookies. Freshmen Nick Stauskas and Glenn Robinson III will continue to start alongside Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jordan Morgan, but Caris LeVert, Mitch McGary, Spike Albrecht and Jon Horford will all see significant minutes, as well. The Wolverines have one of the deepest teams in the league, and with the freshmen living up to the hype so far, they have the potential to put a dangerous lineup on the court for the entire game.
2. With so many new faces, Northwestern has been fairly inconsistent en route to a 7-3 start. The Wildcats won at Baylor, but have home losses to Maryland, Illinois-Chicago and Butler, with Texas State and Stanford coming to Evanston next week. Northwestern has spent the last four years on the NCAA Tournament bubble and fans are becoming restless about the team’s chances this year. CBS Chicago’s Dave Wischnowsky wonders how much more “close but no cigar” NU will accept, and whether coach Bill Carmody will be shown the door if things don’t turn around this season.
3. Michigan State’s Tom Izzo has been hitting the recruiting circuit hard recently, looking at top recruits Jabari Parker, Jahlil Okafor, Cliff Alexander and Tyus Jones, among others, but the Spartans’ head coach isn’t a fan of such road trips. Izzo would like the NCAA to shorten the length of time in which coaches are able to evaluate recruits in order to allow coaches more time with their families. Coaches have very little time off from September to March, and a change in the rules would also allow them more time to spend with their teams during the season. Izzo admits that his words go “on deaf ears,” but he thinks teams could get the same players even if the rules were changed.
4. Iowa has three freshmen in its starting lineup this year, which means that some veterans have had to embrace bench roles. Zach McCabe and Melsahn Basabe, in particular, have given up playing time for the newcomers, but they’re OK with it if it helps the team. Coach Fran McCaffery is impressed with how his upperclassmen have bought into the program and accepted their new roles this season, even if it means they won’t be in the starting lineup. It’s not all bad for McCabe and Basabe, though, as both see minutes comparable to what the starters see. As long as they’re winning, the Hawkeye players don’t really care how it happens, even if that means sitting on the bench to start the game.
5. It’s mid-December, which means it’s cupcake season in college basketball. Ohio State picked up a routine 85-45 cupcake victory over Savannah State this week, which will put another tally in the win column for the Buckeyes, but Rob Oller wonders if the game was really that beneficial. It’s a way for players — especially role players — to gain confidence, but there isn’t much good that it does for the starters. Since it’s difficult for players to get up for this kind of game, coach Thad Matta was forced to exaggerate what Savannah State brings to the table, all adding up to a yawner. But if this kind of game can inspire confidence in the players, that, says Oller, is really all that’s important.

1. Billy “the Kid” is far from a youngster, as Donovan is the elder statesman of the SEC after 17 seasons with the Florida Gators. While he is an accomplished coach at the college level, he hasn’t shut the door on coaching in the NBA. “The one thing that I think is always intriguing the older I get is the fact that (the NBA) is just all about basketball. I love the practices, I love the games, I love doing individual instruction and breaking down tape and game planning and doing those things.” Donovan infamously left for the Orlando Magic in 2007 before ultimately returning to the Gators. Could a third National Championship complete this chapter of the book for Billy Donovan? It certainly isn’t out of the question though Donovan is under contract through 2015-16.
2. Will Florida go with a three-guard lineup? Or will it go big with a stronger frontline? Will the Gators play man-to-man defense? Or will they use their effective 2-3 zone? Florida’s versatility is one of its strengths as it prepares to travel to a top 10 team in Arizona. “There are some games where we’ve played small and moved (Erik) Murphy to the five (center) and (Casey) Prather to the four (power forward),” Donovan said. “I think a lot of it depends on fatigue, foul trouble, match-ups with the other team. So I think in certain situations a smaller lineup can look good, and in certain situations a bigger lineup can look good. I think it depends on what’s really going on during the game.” Arizona’s rather large frontcourt may dictate how the Gators play on Saturday. Patric Young, Florida’s starting center, stands at just 6’9″, but will be matched up with 7’0″ Wildcat freshman Kaleb Tarczewski. Donovan has to hope his team’s experience will win out over size.
3. Many have compared the 2012-13 Kentucky Wildcats to the 2010-11 version — after a slow start and multiple losses on the road, the Brandon Knight-led Kentucky team went to the Final Four in Houston only to lose to the eventual champs, Connecticut. But who can remember two years ago? Do the Cats compare to any teams from last year? Our friends at A Sea of Blue think the 2011-12 Florida Gators are the best comparison. By the end of December, the Gators had three losses including understandable road defeats to Ohio State and Syracuse, but also a puzzling loss to Rutgers, a team outside the top 100 (KenPom’s rankings). Florida eventually marched all the way to the Elite Eight before a loss to Final Four-bound Louisville. Kentucky fans might be pretty satisfied with that fate come March, with the exception of the whole losing to Louisville thing.
4. The hits keep on coming for the Alabama Crimson Tide, as the team has suffered another injury. This time, senior guard Andrew Steele is out four to six weeks with hernia surgery. This isn’t the first time Steele has had to deal with injuries. “He’s had his share of different injuries and different things that have come up over his career,” head coach Anthony Grant said. “He is looking forward to getting himself back to where he is able to play again and able to impact the game and help his teammates. I’m sure that he’ll do everything he can to recover as quickly as he can.” Steele is averaging just 4.2 points per game, but provides depth for Grant on what is becoming a very thin bench.
5. Coach Sean Miller has built Arizona into a national powerhouse once again. And the SEC’s Missouri Tigers are right there with the Wildcats. Luckily for college basketball fans who prefer quality basketball games in November and December rather than media stunts driven to draw TV attention, Arizona and Missouri have agreed to play a home-and-home series beginning in 2015-16. “This is a great series and will generate the type of national exposure fans and programs want early in the college basketball season,” Missouri coach Frank Haith said. “I have so much respect for Sean Miller and the Arizona program, and when you get two national brands playing in on-campus settings it’s great for all of college basketball.” Want to generate interest in college basketball prior to New Year’s Day? Continue to play games like this.

1. Tallahassee Democrat: Yesterday, Michael Rogner suggested Okaro White becoming more aggressive would help the Seminoles. Another thing to consider is that Florida State did very well in transition against Maine. Part of its success was Maine’s strategy, but the Seminoles reportedly wanted “to establish ourselves in transition,” according to head coach Leonard Hamilton. This year’s team isn’t quite the beast defensively inside the arc as the past few Seminole teams, so it makes sense to try to get more turnovers (on paper the team should be lethal in transition). Definitely keep an eye on this as we get closer to conference play.
2. Winston-Salem Journal: Things are getting uglier and uglier at Wake Forest. Jeff Bzdelik will not be taking any more live calls on his radio show. Apparently the move isn’t to “deflect criticism,” but it definitely looks that way. The show’s producers are trying to cut down on long-winded callers wanting to vent instead of ask questions. Host Stan Cotten and some colleagues at IMG College made the call to move to a format of all pre-recorded questions.
3. Charlottesville Daily Progress: Whitey Reid took a look at ranking the “pleasant surprises” for Virginia, but may have forgotten to point out the forest through the trees. It’s true Teven Jones, Akil Mitchell and Darion Atkins have all surprised people, but what about the team as a whole? If you told me Virginia would be 8-2 with wins over Wisconsin and Tennessee at this point in the season and were missing Jontel Evans for most of it, I would have laughed at you. This team has really outperformed my expectations and Jones, Mitchell, Atkins and Tony Bennett all deserve credit.
4. Keeping It Heel: I think Rich Martin really underrates Ty Lawson (who I think everyone underrates because he played with Tyler Hansbrough) and Kendall Marshall in this article when he compares the two former Tar Heels with Marcus Paige. It’s true they had more cohesive pieces surrounding them when they showed up in Chapel Hill, but they were two of the best point guards in college basketball of the last decade. Paige shows flashes of brilliance — much like Quinn Cook last season for Duke — but he really feels a year or two away from being an ACC-caliber frontman. It will be really interesting to see over the next month how Roy Williams trims his rotation. Paige is probably the best offensive option and he (again, like Cook) has to be the guy for this team to be great, but he’s not starting from the same place as Marshall or Lawson.
5. The Examiner: Miami is a team we could learn a lot about over the next couple of weeks. The Hurricanes picked up an ugly loss early (without Durand Scott), but looked great in their ACC/Big Ten Challenge win over Michigan State. They have a good chance to find themselves ranked if they beat undefeated Charlotte, coming out of a 13-day hiatus for exams. Especially with North Carolina and NC State looking vulnerable early, Miami could find itself in a good position to challenge for the runner-up position in the league. Also Garrius Adams and Bishop Daniels should be rejoining the team sometime next semester, which will help with depth.

EXTRA: Luke Winn’s Power Rankings are always worth the time, though they’re a little light on ACC meat as of late. This week he looked at Mason Plumlee‘s progression from much-maligned contributor to Player of the Year contender. Essentially, Plumlee’s stats are identical to his sophomore season with a few exceptions: He’s drawing fouls like a mad man, he’s hitting his free throws and he’s not turning the ball over. He’s also involved in a lot more possessions. Regardless, it’s really interesting how something as trivial as free throw shooting can affect the overall perception of a player.

1. It’s become overwhelmingly clear that the seven Big East Catholic basketball schools will publicly articulate their plan to split off from the league, although it appears outright dissolution is off the table; “a more likely scenario will be that they simply break away and start anew.” As one of the departing ADs told Kevin McNamara at the Providence Journal, “the train has left the station. Get on board or get run over.” The basketball schools will likely shun the wandering eyes of UConn and Cincinnati in favor of raiding the A-10 of programs like Butler and Xavier, who will view a centralized Catholic basketball league as a destination rather than a stepping stone affiliation. There remain a tremendous number of loose ends to tie up before either of the splintering Big East factions can move forward developmentally. Branding rights (the “Big East” title––however toxic––carries AQ status); a tournament venue in Madison Square Garden; exit fees; NCAA Tournament units, which are much more lucrative than television revenue, and will provide a rolling annuity for another five or six years –– we’re entering uncharted territory, and these issues will be painstakingly hammered out in court for months or years to come. Pete Thamel’s piece (linked above) does the best job of depicting the tedium of what has quickly become the most convoluted episode in the realignment saga to date. As one AD told Thamel, “If anyone tells you they know what’s going to happen with the legal issues, the brand, the name, Madison Square Garden and all those issues, I don’t think they’re being honest.”
2. Michael Carter-Williams describes the exasperation he experienced in his freshman year, as the former McDonalds All-American resigned to riding the pine behind a veteran backcourt. Yahoo!’s Jeff Eisenberg presents a vignette from the Syracuse locker room after a win at Providence in January: The freshman sat by himself after his teammates left, dreading the disapproval of his local friends and family who had traveled to see him play only to watch the Scoop Jardine and Dion Waiters show for all but four minutes. The notion of a blue-chip recruit waiting his turn is an old-school ethic that’s becoming harder and harder for coaches to sell, and Carter-Williams demonstrated a patience that would have eluded many 18-year-olds accustomed to the superstar treatment. “Michael had to pay his dues like when I went through high school and college,” said MCW’s high school coach, Mike Hart. “He got very frustrated at times. But we all knew his time would come and I’m glad everyone was patient.” Syracuse fans probably share that sentiment.
3. Two weeks after undergoing surgery to install an orthopedic screw in his fractured left hand, Louisville’s Gorgui Dieng is out of his cast and could return to the court in about a week. Pitino was initially hoping his center could return by the Cards’ Big East opener against Providence on Junary 2, and my pessimistic outlook for Dieng-less Louisville had been predicated on that timetable (the joke is on me for credulously accepting one of Pitino’s infamously conservative injury prognoses). On his Wednesday night radio show, the UofL coach said he was eying the December 22 Western Kentucky game as a good opportunity to ease Dieng back into the lineup. The coach said he’d “love to get 15-18 minutes out of him” against WKU to prepare for the Battle for the Bluegrass five days later. Though Kentucky will presumably enter the Yum! Center with a “3” in its loss column rather than beside its initials, Pitino won’t trivialize any Calipari-coached UK team after losing four straight against the Cats. Barring a medical relapse, you can bank on Gorgui Dieng playing 20-plus minutes in that game.
4. Rutgers AD Tom Pernetti has suspended Mike Rice for three games without pay and fined him $50,000 for inappropriate behavior in practices. Rice has caught flak in the past for sideline misanthropy, and was cautioned by his AD after being ejected for the first time in his career in a loss at Louisville last season. So it wasn’t much of a shocker when Brendan Prunty at the Newark Star-Ledger reported that the suspension was triggered by an internal investigation that revealed “abusive, profane language” he used towards his team and an episode in his first two seasons “in which Rice threw basketballs at some players’ heads during practice.” The timing couldn’t be any worse for the RU coach, whose team will play decent UAB and Rider squads without him before tripping to Syracuse to play the role of sacrificial lamb in Cuse’s Big East opener. Rutgers is off to a 6-2 start –– its best since 2010-11. In that season, Rice’s inaugural campaign ended in a 6-15 nosedive. This is the kind of distraction that could trigger a similar collapse.
5. With the imminent addition of Vincent Council, Kris Dunn and Sidiki Johnson to Ed Cooley’s arsenal, Friarblog declares “the gang’s all here.” Not only will the Providence coach have a bevy of skilled bodies at his disposal after struggling to field the most spartan rotation all year, but that depth will grant Cooley wider latitude in exploiting mismatches on offense and not forcing players to play roles outside of their comfort zones. For example, he can slide LaDontae Henton primarily to the three-spot, and stop plugging an uncomfortable Josh Fortune in at point guard due to attrition at the position. It will be a relief to see Providence finally catch a break and watch what they can do with a promising roster at full strength.

1. As we have said before several times recently the Big East is on the verge of blowing up and now it looks like the only question is how it will be done. According to various unnamed sources, DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall, and Villanova have agreed to leave the Big East and conducted a teleconference with Big East commissioner Mike Aresco yesterday morning to discuss the issue. At this point all that appears to be standing in the way is discussion over exit fees and what will probably be some legal wrangling by the schools in the Big East being left behind. The seven schools will be eligible for an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament if they form a new conference together. What happens next is anybody’s guess (other departing Big East schools could be able to bypass exit fees and the waiting period) and this move will probably trigger more poaching and what can best be described as a free-for-all.
2. Louisville center Gorgui Dieng could return earlier than expected from his fractured scaphoid. According to Rick Pitino, Dieng will begin practicing on Sunday and could play as early as December 22 against Western Kentucky. We would not expect Dieng to be on the court much for that game, but should be back at full strength for their December 29 match-up against a disappointing Kentucky team that you know Pitino would love to blow out. While the Cardinals are still a top 10 team without Dieng, his presence on the interior should boost them to another level and into the discussion with Indiana and Duke as the top team in the country.
3. It isn’t just players who get suspended. Sometimes it is the coach as was the case with Rutgers coach Mike Rice as he was suspended for 3 games without pay and fined $50,000 by the school for a violation of the athletic department’s conduct policy. According to the school the punishment is related to the use of inappropriate language. We have no idea what he could have said outside of a game that would have warranted such a penalty (cursing barely even registers compared to what some coaches say to officials and something sexist or racist would most likely result in calls for a coach’s resignation).
4. If you had not already noticed from some of his recent quotes (and his team’s record), things are not going that well for Wake Forest coach Jeff Bzdelik. Things have apparently gotten bad enough for Bzdelik that he and the producers of his weekly radio show have decided to stop taking live callers on the show. While the show’s producers are doing this under the guise of trying to eliminate long-winded callers and preaching, it is pretty clear that this would not happen if the team was a little more successful. If you want to hear how bad things have been on Bzdelik’s show, check out the YouTube clip from last week’s show (the particularly confrontational segments are highlighted in the uploader’s comments if you don’t want to sit through all 30 minutes).
5. Andy Glockner had two interesting columns on a pair of coaches with very different public reputations. The first (by a minute) was on the evolution of Larry Eustachy, the Colorado State coach who is best known for his time at Iowa State (more specifically some pictures of him inebriated with coeds). For those of you who don’t remember the specific incident, Eustachy’s nadir was about as low as a coach can go without having criminal charges. After helping rebuild Southern Mississippi, Eustachy has walked into a Colorado State program that many feel is primed for a NCAA Tournament run, but has to deal with a change in coaching and personality. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Mike Krzyzewski, who is as close to an active coaching deity as there is in any American sport at this time. When he broke Bob Knight’s record for Division I wins last November, plenty of writers penned columns asking which coach was the most likely to match him. The answer: nobody. Now with Krzyzewski approaching 1,000 wins (he could be very close at the end of next season), Glockner asks the question of which coach has the best chance of getting near Krzyzewski and the answer is not one of the young guns you might expect.