1. It’s that time of year where various pundits and prognosticators are breaking out their predictions for what is going to happen this season. We’ll do it ourselves here at RTC in the coming weeks, but on Monday the guys at CBS unveiled a ton of predictions, including conference winners, Final Four teams (including the eventual champion), players, coaches, and freshmen of the year, and the top 100 players in America. Arizona fans are most in love with Doug Gottlieb’s picks at this point, as the newest member of the CBS college hoops crew not only picked the Wildcats to win the conference and advance to the Final Four, but to win the whole thing. Along the way, Gottlieb tabs Sean Miller as the coach of the year and Brandon Ashley as the freshman of the year. Of the five experts polled, three picked Arizona to win the conference, with the remaining two choosing UCLA, reaffirming what has been the consensus since April – it’s likely going to be a two-team race at the top of the conference.
2. Meanwhile, Rob Dauster of NBC Sports is definitely not in the UCLA camp this season. In unveiling his preseason top 25, the Bruins checked in at #25, possibly the lowest spot you’ll see them ranked prior to the season tip-off. His reasoning? Shabazz Muhammad hasn’t yet been cleared, Joshua Smith is still in poor condition and the situation at the point is still muddy – sound points all. Until we get word on Muhammad’s status and until we get a chance to see this team on the court a few times, the Bruins will remain one of the most controversial teams out there. The mere fact that there is such a wide range of potential extremes for the Bruins – this is a team that could be a Final Four team if things go well, or a underachieving mess if key questions fail to get answered sufficiently – will keep the spotlight squarely on the team from Westwood.
3. Athlon Sports, however, sort of splits the difference on Arizona and UCLA. In unveiling its top 20, the Wildcats and the Bruins are the lone Pac-12 entries, with the Bruins checking in at #12 and the Wildcats at #7. For Sean Miller’s team, Athlon sees Mark Lyons and Solomon Hill as more or less givens, with the development of the ‘Cats four frontcourt underclassmen – sophomore Angelo Chol and freshmen Kaleb Tarzewski, Brandon Ashley and Grant Jerrett – ultimately determining just how far the team can go. On the other side, Athlon sees the same questions marks for UCLA as Dauster does, they just have a slightly sunnier outlook for the Bruins. We’ll continue to check in with more predictions as they roll in.
4. Way back in June we had the opportunity to talk with Arizona State head coach Herb Sendek, and one of the interesting bits of information he dropped was that he expects his team to “play as fast as anyone” in the Pac-12. Given his track record (in the past decade he’s never been higher than 209^th in the country in adjusted tempo), we were a bit skeptical. But, with speedy and athletic point guard Jahii Carson ready to make his long-awaited Sun Devil debut, all signs point to ASU being committed to an uptick in tempo. Does that mean you’re going to see ASU rip off something like 70 possessions a game as Washington regularly does? Probably not. But expect to see the Sun Devils try to turn defensive rebounds into opportunities for Carson and guys like Carrick Felix and Evan Gordon to get out into the open floor. But, if ASU is unable to score in transition, they may settle back into the type of halfcourt offense we’ve come to expect from Sendek, resulting in perhaps a couple more possessions per game than last season.
5. Way back in April, right around the time that UCLA was making news by landing Muhammad, Washington slid under the radar a bit by signing junior college transfer Mark McLaughlin, a two-guard who led all JuCo players in scoring last season with an average of 28.4 points per game. Hailed as a potential offensive spark for a Husky team losing quite a bit of firepower, he seemed primed to fit in perfectly with Lorenzo Romar’s attack. But then, early in August, McLaughlin announced he was leaving the team. Last week he reappeared, this time showing up at Central Washington, a Division II program. As Percy Allen details, this is the seventh college that McLaughlin has been tied to. The long, strange trip began when he committed to Washington State as a senior in high school, before de-committing and signing with Nevada. However, prior to going to college, he stopped off at a prep school for a year before backing out of his Nevada commitment and signing with Baylor. Then, prior to the season, he bailed on Baylor, transferred to Seattle University and actually spent two years there: a redshirt year and then an unimpressive (and delayed) freshman campaign. From there he headed off to his one year at Tacoma Community College (last year’s stop) before committing to Washington. Long, long, long story short: the Huskies are probably better off without the drama that McLaughlin was sure to bring.

College basketball’s back, baby.

But how do we know when it’s actually back? The 24-Hour college hoops marathon? Please. Midnight Madness? Not a chance. You know the season’s here when the coaches do the pointless deed of releasing their preseason all-conference awards. Feel the excitement!

Are the coaches always spot-on with their picks? Lord no but they mean well… usually. There’s a lot of good here but it has its share of stuff to pick at. So I present to you a critique of the preseason all-Big 12 awards.

Pierre Jackson has rightfully earned the Big 12 preseason player of the year award. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Here, I find it easier to start off with the good stuff first. So let’s start at the top with Player of the Year, Baylor’s Pierre Jackson. Initial reaction is: nicely done, guys. A quick guard who took the league by storm blowing past defenders, shooting a cool 40% from three-point land, and squeezing in a highlight dunk or two. Scott Drew couldn’t be happier with his senior point guard’s emergence as a big-time player especially going into a season with three fewer NBA Draft picks than a year ago.

Much like the freshman of the year award, Newcomer of the Year is one of the hardest to choose. Last year the coaches masterfully selected Iowa State’s Royce White, who ended up being a first-round pick in June’s NBA Draft. This time around the coaches went with Oklahoma’s Amath M’Baye, a 6’9″ transfer from Wyoming. You may have never heard of the man before but after some help from YouTube, M’Baye could best be described as an athletic freak of nature. NBADraft.net has him going as a mid-second rounder in 2013. His numbers suggest that he’s not a natural scorer and has been horrid from three-point territory. Given his long frame, he seems to play like a guard stuck in a forward’s body.

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1. With Royce White out of the picture, Iowa State will need to adjust to its personnel and find different ways to facilitate offense. Instead of having White as a point-forward type of player, Fred Hoiberg will use Korie Lucious at the point and keep the ball in the hands of a traditional point guard. Losing White will change the entire dynamic of the team, but there’s one thing that might not change. The Cyclones can still fill it up from beyond the arc, even with the graduation of Scott Christopherson and Chris Allen. If you’re looking for one shooter to keep an eye on, it’s probably Tyrus McGee. The junior college transfer didn’t always play major minutes a year ago, but when he did, he always seemed to find a way to get his shots from beyond the arc. By the end of the year, he shot around a 40 percent clip from three as a reserve. His senior year could be even better, along with the rest of the Cyclones’ shooters.
2. Bill Self’s newest commitment made a bold statement after choosing Kansas as his college destination on Tuesday. How bold? Well, Frank Mason says he wants to be the next Sherron Collins. “He was a great player and I’d like to do the same type things,” he told the Lawrence Journal-World. That’s quite the statement, but Collins certainly isn’t a bad guy to model yourself after. The one difference is Mason, a 5’11” point guard who originally committed to Towson but did not qualify academically a year ago, is actually a little under-the-radar. He’s ranked in the top-150 by Rivals.com, but he did not receive a KU offer until after he blew up in AAU ball in July.
3. Andrew Fitzgerald played at four different high schools in four seasons. The forward then committed to play for Jeff Capel at Oklahoma — we all know how that worked out — and it turns out, he’s now entering his senior year of college without a single winning season to brag about. Talk about a chaotic decade for a basketball player. That’s why Fitzgerald has his sights set on a big finale season with the Sooners. Fitzgerald is a key part of Lon Kruger’s experienced nucleus, the kind of forward who can play a lot of different ways on the offensive end of the floor. Unfortunately, the big man disappeared at times in the scoring department during Big 12 play last season. Oklahoma’s poor conference finish wasn’t Fitzgerald’s fault, but it’s partly his job to develop his game and lead this team to an NCAA Tournament berth. After all, it’s his last chance.
4. Oklahoma State fans are a demanding bunch. They’re not always mentioned in the national spotlight, but Gallagher-Iba Arena can be a ferocious place to play basketball. There’s no doubt these people love their hoops, which is why a columnist needed to defend coach Travis Ford in the face of criticism from Cowboys fans. As we pointed out earlier in the week, Ford’s program has slipped after qualifying for the NCAA Tournament immediately upon his arrival. Fortunately, recruiting players like Le’Bryan Nash and Marcus Smart should help Ford stick around for a while in Stillwater. Of course, there’s a burden of expectations that comes with recruiting top-notch prospects, and that’s what Ford faces in 2012-13.
5. We heard a few interesting comments from Bill Self and Bruce Weber at a reception Tuesday for the Coaches vs. Cancer Season Tip-Off. First of all, Self says he thinks Kansas will be “OK,” a year after a team he expressed serious concerns about in the preseason damn near won the national championship. In our books, “OK” for Kansas means, well, another Big 12 Championship and deep NCAA Tournament run. Weber, on the other hand, talked about acclimating to Manhattan, as well as the importance of the Kansas/Kansas State series now that Missouri has moved to the SEC. Weber, who faced Missouri annually at Illinois, said the absence of the Tigers in the Big 12 means the Sunflower Showdown will become an even grander rivalry (as if it weren’t heated enough already). We can’t wait.

1. CBS Sports named Missouri point guard Phil Pressey to its preseason All-America first team. “It’s so rare in college basketball today to have a guy like Phil who just makes everyone better,” said college basketball writer Jeff Goodman. “That’s the No. 1 quality of a point guard, someone that heightens the level of play of everyone around him. Phil is a good leader and can be a great defender, but ultimately what sets him apart is his ability to put opposing defenses on their heels and get his teammates open looks.” Pressey averaged an impressive 6.4 assists and 2.1 steals per game last season. The star point guard would also make a good candidate for the All-Blogger team as he wrote for Goodman this summer in an entertaining blog about the Tigers’ trip to Europe. I still vote @rushthecourt for All-Blogger team Player of the Year and first team honors.
2. Florida and Kentucky are arguably the two best teams in the SEC (with Missouri, of course, in the mix), but ESPN thinks the two juggernauts also have the toughest non-conference schedules in the league. The Gators face a daunting schedule of Wisconsin, at Arizona, Georgetown, Kansas State and at Florida State. Meanwhile, the Wildcats pair up with foes Duke, Baylor, at Notre Dame, and Maryland. It’s no coincidence that the most consistent teams and dominant coaches in the SEC continue to schedule in a way that challenges their young teams to grow and prepare prior to hitting conference play. Both schools continue to reap the benefits of a strong non-conference schedule when UK and Florida are among the nation’s most prepared teams come tournament time.
3. Kentucky coach John Calipari is calling on a familiar name to assess this year’s team. Number one draft pick Anthony Davis played with the current Cats this summer and offered up an observation. “Kyle is way better, way stronger, can do more things. I really like where Kyle is right now,” Davis said. “Kyle” is of course Kentucky sophomore Kyle Wiltjer. Wiltjer averaged just 4.8 points and 1.7 rebounds per game on last season’s national championship squad, but he was also relegated to the bench behind several future NBA players — Davis, Terrence Jones, Darius Miller, and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. While Wiltjer played only 11.3 minutes per game, surely being the elder statesmen on a young squad this season will have its advantages, or at least some additional time on the court. Wiltjer’s progress will go a long way in determining Kentucky’s success this season.
4. It can be difficult to keep up with Kentucky’s revolving door of freshmen talent, so a comparison can help give Wildcat fans an idea of what to expect. Though Calipari cautioned Big Blue Nation to avoid comparing Nerlens Noel to last year’s NPOY Davis, he was less hesitant to compare freshman forward Alex Poythress to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. “Lets not say Michael Gilchrist but somewhere in that category of a Michael Gilchrist,” Calipari said. “That every minute you’re on the floor you’re either diving, you’re going after a ball, you’re attacking the ball, you’re in a defensive stance. You’re bouncing, you’re sprinting, you’re doing something, you’re motor’s moving. You’re never jogging, there is no such thing as a jog. When he gets to that point it becomes a little scary.” In tomorrow’s SEC Morning Five, look for a blurb regarding Calipari’s comparisons of shooting guards Archie Goodwin and Doron Lamb.
5. Everybody is chiming in with opinions in anticipation of viewing Kentucky’s fab freshmen next week. Analyst Jimmy Dykes is curious, however, to see one of the less heralded freshmen — Willie Cauley-Stein. “I know about Goodwin, Poythress, Nerlens, Wiltjer, [Jon] Hood,” Dykes said. “Willie is a guy I have not seen and continue to hear high praise about. He probably was not rated as high as he should have been. I am anxious to see how good he looks and how he can potentially be.” If Cauley-Stein’s basketball skills are half as good as his freestyle rap skills in a McDonald’s parking lot, then look out world. You’ve been warned.

Brian Joyce is a writer for the SEC microsite and regular contributor for Rush The Court. Follow him on Twitter for more about SEC basketball at bjoyce_hoops.

1. Run The Floor: Michael Rogner got a chance to check in with Florida State alumnus Luke Loucks, who talked about some potential Seminole breakout guys. Loucks especially complimented the incoming guys, and unsurprisingly, Florida State is bringing in some strong defenders on the perimeter and erasers down low. I’m most interested to see how quickly Leonard Hamilton can work up a team with this much youth after having such an experienced squad last season.
2. Baltimore Sun: Mark Turgeon seems a lot more at ease for his second year in College Park. Some of his relaxation may be because he knows what to expect. It might also be that Terrell Stoglin moved on; as Turgeon cryptically said, “the chemistry right now is great but we haven’t played a game.” Regardless of the origin, Turgeon definitely needs his team to start showing tangible signs of both short-term and long-term commitment.
3. Greater Wilmington Business Journal (via ESPN.com): Roy Williams wants to coach six to 10 more years depending on his health at North Carolina. That’s longer than most probably would’ve guessed, but he’s only 62 so it’s not inconceivable. However, Williams’ success hinges on his recruiting, which takes a lot of time and energy. Unrelatedly, but also from the article, Williams also was very high on local rivals Duke and NC State, saying they would probably be on top of the national polls.
4. Washington Post: Alex Len addressed his two biggest criticisms over the summer by putting on some bulk and learning English. The Ukranian seven-footer will anchor a Maryland frontline that has a ton of potential this season. The Terrapins have a combination of talent, youth and experience that should make for a volatile but entertainting set of big men.
5. Draft Express: Many people know the top players in the ACC, but Draft Express put together scouting reports on the top 25 ACC players. My only major qualm is that Reggie Johnson is so low. Johnson may struggle with weight issues, but he has incredibly soft hands and uses his weight well on offense. He’ll find a spot in the NBA barring a bad physical. The ACC’s undersized combo guards will struggle more.

1. It is funny to think about given its proximity to and history with Maryland, but Georgetown was probably rooting for the Terps to land the Andrew and Aaron Harrison twins last week. For starters, the Hoyas and Terps haven’t played each other in more than 20 years thanks to feuding legends John Thompson and Lefty Driesell so it wouldn’t be as if Georgetown would regularly square off with the highly-touted duo. But also, if the Harrison twins were headed to College Park, the Hoyas would have had a much better chance of landing local product Roddy Peters who has shot up recruiting boards after turning heads on the summer circuit. Peters got the spotlight treatment from ESPN.com recently in an entertaining article that also touched on the dormant Beltway rivalry and the not-so dormant recruiting battle over Peters that is really just heating up. The article doesn’t reveal any new information about whether the storied programs will ever renew their local rivalry, but its a solid read, especially if you didn’t know the illustrious history between the two programs.
2. Two teams play one game on an aircraft carrier and now everyone wants to do it. The only problem is that while playing a game on an aircraft carrier to honor Veterans Day sounds like a great idea, the reality is that the logistics aren’t quite as rosy, as Syracuse and San Diego State found out this week. Luckily, some local sponsors stepped up and the two teams are once again set to square off on the USS Midway in San Diego Bay on November 9. Syracuse.com gives a good rundown of the behind-the-scenes work on how the game was saved, painting San Diego-based Syndicus Entertainment as rather incompetent in the process. This is great news as both the Orange and Aztecs are likely to be mainstays in the Top 25 all season, and this game will go a long way toward improving the winner’s non-conference resume.
3. At this point, every coach in the conference has been asked for their thoughts on the changing of the guard that is taking place next season, but by far the most interesting answers came from Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin who viewed the shifting landscape as a chance for the Bearcats to “plant our flag deeper” and then went on to say that his program was never going to get the respect it deserved amongst the conference elite. Now, Matt Norlander correctly points out that we have no context for these remarks, but I am not buying the Bearcats’ basketball program as an afterthought, especially considering its history in the past two decades. You can’t be an afterthought when you had players like former NPOY Kenyon Martin coming through campus. Heck, Bob Huggins is one of the most recognizable coaches in the entire sport, and he will always be associated with his excellent teams at Cincinnati.
4. If you haven’t noticed by now, we here at the Big East microsite simply cannot get enough of stories about facility upgrades and luckily the programs in the conference have thrown us a few bones by going and upgrading their facilities. Two days ago it was Georgetown, yesterday it was Connecticut, and this week comes news that DePaul has grandiose plans to move out of its outdated arena and into brand-spanking new digs, or the United Center, or the practice facility the Bulls are planning to break ground on. Who knows? Nobody! But we do now that getting a new arena is never a bad thing, especially for a program like DePaul that can basically use all the help it can get. So hey, maybe set up some hardwood at Soldier Field and have them play there. Maybe you can even get the promoters for the Syracuse and San Diego State game to find the sponsors.
5. It is always good to know that Louisville isn’t feeling the pressure of their immense preseason expectations. I don’t know how Lazer Blaze stacks up against some of the other laser tag spots around the country, but I do know that no matter what age you are, if you can’t enjoy a spirited round or two of laser tag, you just aren’t any fun.

Is It Even A Question Whether Russ Smith is the Cardinals’ best laser tag player?

1. There was a scary moment Tuesday morning in Washington, DC, at a session of The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics when former Maryland star and current ESPN college basketball analyst Len Elmore collapsed in his chair during a Q&A session. Luckily, the 6o-year old Harvard Law graduate and resident hoops intellectual was back up on his feet after paramedics arrived and he shortly walked under his own power to his hotel room thereafter. According to the Washington Post, Elmore told SMU president Gerald Turner that this incident was related to a “longstanding health issue” of his and has happened before. We’re glad to hear that Elmore appears to be doing alright, but we sure hope that his ailment is manageable and doesn’t cause him additional and dangerous related problems.
2. One thing we failed to mention from Monday’s fire hose of preseason information released by CBSSports.com was their article outlining the group’s selections for conference champions, Final Four teams/champions, and major postseason awards. Some of the more interesting choices were Gonzaga making the Final Four on two ballots (Goodman and Norlander), Arizona doing likewise (Goodman and Gottlieb), along with UNLV (Norlander and Borzello) and Michigan State (Parrish). None of the five writers chose the same national champion — Louisville, Arizona, Kentucky, Missouri, and Indiana — and they were equally disparate when it came to picking Freshman of the Year and Coach of the Year. When it comes to NPOY, though, the group was nearly uananimous — Cody Zeller showed up on four ballots, with Doug McDermott picking up the lone contrarian vote. One thing is for sure: The field is completely wide open this year and any number of schools will start practice on Friday with reasonable dreams of cutting down the nets next spring in Atlanta.
3. Yesterday the WAC announced two new additions to its basketball-only league — and make sure you’re sitting down when you read that these titans of the sport are joining the once-venerable old conference — Utah Valley and Cal State Bakersfield. After all the recent defections, these two schools will join a ragtag group that now only includes Denver, Seattle, Idaho and New Mexico State. For the next two years, the league will keep its automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament under an exemption that allows it to do so without the requisite minimum of seven schools. For a conference that at one time or another boasted such notable basketball schools as Arizona, BYU, UNLV, San Diego State, Tulsa and Utah, this is a little bit like looking at a former supermodel in her 70s — it ain’t pretty anymore.
4. The Battle of the Midway has been saved from liquidation, much to the relief of both Syracuse and San Diego State, the two schools set to face off on the retired ship come Veteran’s Day. But if you want to grab a ticket, make sure to bring your American Express platinum card — ducats for this outdoor game will start at $150 a pop and increase up to as much as $500 the closer you get to the court. Novelty plus scarcity is a certain way to increase demand for a product, but we’re not convinced that pricing a game like this in the rarefied neighborhood of courtside seats to an NBA game is the right way to handle it. Honestly, we’d have preferred that some deep-pocketed sponsor pick up the tab and let military personnel make up the entire audience, but nobody asked us.
5. It’s not very often that we’ll mention a SWAC school in this space, but it’s also unusual that a school is hit by the NCAA with the dreaded “lack of institutional control” penalty. Texas Southern received just that news on Tuesday, as the NCAA in a statement said that the school was “responsible for booster involvement in recruiting, academic improprieties, ineligible student-athlete participation and exceeding scholarship limits” over the course of a number of years. As a result, the basketball program, now led by former Indiana and UAB head coach Mike Davis, will be banned from the postseason next season and lose two scholarships for the immediate future. The most surprising punishment is that the school must vacate all of its wins in every sport from 2006-10, one of the most egregious penalties we’ve ever seen the NCAA mete out to a school. Davis was certainly informed that he would be walking into a difficult situation at TSU, but we’re guessing that he’ll spend quite a few days clicking his heels together and hoping that he magically re-appears in Bloomington again.

The best thing about October isn’t watching football or the MLB playoffs; no, it’s all about analyzing college basketball non-conference schedules. Where are the potential RPI boosts? Trap games? Guarantee ones? So many possibilities for those ’12 or ’13 tilts!

But way out west, promise has quickly turned into embarrassment in November and December for the Pac-12 in recent years. Last season, the Pac went 9-38 against teams that finished the regular season in the RPI Top-100 and 3-28 against those finishing 50^th or above, according to realtimerpi.com. Numbers like those are why Washington didn’t get an at-large bid even as the conference’s regular-season champion. So, it goes without saying that the first two months of the season are HUGE for a conference like the Pac-12 to regain respect around the college basketball world. With that in mind, we’re ready to begin circling some dates to keep an eye on in the conference calendar. Here are my choices for the five most important non-conference games for the Pac in 2012-13, in order of appearance:

USC Will Represent The Pac-12 At The Maui Invitational This Year (Alex Prosperi, EA Sports Maui Invitational)

1. USC vs. Illinois (November 19) – Talk about the ultimate RPI-boost game. Illinois is the Trojans’ first-round opponent of the Maui Invitational, which means a certain D-II team will be lurking in the consolation bracket. If the Trojans beat the Illini, they get to play Texas, another high-quality RPI opponent. If the Trojans lose… that’s right, Chaminade is up next (assuming Texas doesn’t Oklahoma 2010-11 it). In case you were wondering, the Silverswords are not a high-quality RPI opponent. Neither the Trojans nor the Illini are coming off storybook seasons (USC went 1-17 in an extremely down Pac-12, while Illinois absolutely imploded, finishing the season 2-12 after a 15-3 start), but a little early-season karma can do a body of work good. And, we’ll get a chance to see just how much difference USC’s new faces (like Ari Stewart, J.T. Terrell and Eric Wise) and newly healthy returnees (with senior point guard Jio Fontan exhibit A) can make.

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Former Tennessee Volunteers head coach Bruce Pearl has re-listed his Knoxville, Tennessee, area home for just under a cool $2.5 million. Pearl, famous for his orange jacket and eccentric personality, was reprimanded by Tennessee in September 2010 after lying about a recruiting cookout at this house where Pearl encouraged then high school junior Aaron Craft and his father to not disclose the incident to the NCAA. A separate drug incident involving Volunteers forward Brian Williams led to the eventual firing of Pearl in March 2011.

Since his firing, new head coach Cuonzo Martin led the Vols to a 19-15 season last season. Pearl has since worked as the Vice President of H.T. Hackney, a wholesale grocery corporation, and was most recently hired by ESPN as a college basketball analyst for the upcoming 2012-13 year. We’re not sure how much money Pearl will make in television, but we doubt it’ll be enough to support a mortgage on a $2.5 million house (estimated mortgage: $10,000 per month).

It’s still very early in the basketball recruiting season, yet, many Pac-12 schools have already received multiple commitments. Although these are only verbal commitments, it’s still a good sign to see multiple high quality players already commit to the Pac-12.

Arizona Wildcats

Commitments so far:

Rondae Jefferson – 5 stars, ranked 16^th nationally by Rivals and 15^th nationally by ESPN. 6’7”, 215 lbs. Jefferson is a big athletic wing who can fit the basketball through tight passing lanes and can finish with a variety of moves. He can get out in the open court and play with and without the ball. He would fit well in any team’s system with his size, length, athleticism and his ability to play defense. He needs to work on his jumper, but other than that, he’s a very sound player.

Elliot Pitts – 4 stars by ESPN, 3 stars by Rivals. Ranked 117^th nationally by Rivals and 89^th by ESPN. 6’5″, 190 lbs. Pitts is a very smooth multi-dimensional guard. He has an above average shot and can get it off whenever he wants with his dribbling skills that keep defenders off balance. He can pass when he needs to when pressed in the lane and can finish inside as well. His shot does not yet have the consistency for him to be a knockdown shooter from beyond the arc at the college level, but his mid-range game is hard to top.

Recruits they want:

Aaron Gordon – 5 stars, ranked 5^th overall nationally by Rivals, 6^th overall nationally by ESPN. 6’7”, 210 lbs. Whichever school lands Aaron Gordon immediately becomes a National Championship contender. He isn’t just an explosive dunker; he’s a beast around the rim and can take you off the dribble at times. His tenacity on the glass cannot be matched and he can go coast to coast and lead the fast break. Although his shot needs work, it’s hard to find a more athletic explosive player in the 2013 class than Gordon. Gordon visits Arizona on October 19 and is considering Oregon, Kentucky, Washington and Kansas along with Arizona.

Arizona State Sun Devils

Commitments so far:

Chance Murray – 3 stars, 6’3” 180 lbs. Arizona State is still in a rebuilding phase under Herb Sendek, but they did get a solid player in Chance Murray. He’s a physical player and he’s not going to blow you away in any aspect of the game yet, but he’s a good scorer in the mid-range and has an above average first step to help him get into the lane. He needs work on finishing after contact, but Murray has the potential to be a starter at the college level.

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