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

Oklahoma Sooners

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

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

Lon Kruger Has An Impressive Track Record

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

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

1. This offseason has been unique in the sense that a newly promulgated NCAA rule has allowed coaches and their players to have considerably more in-person interaction than in previous years. While students (including new freshman) are on campus attending summer school, coaches can provide two hours per week of instruction and training. It may not sound like much on its face, but 24 hours of focused practice when compared with zero is a substantial difference. CBSSports.com’s Matt Norlander writes that without question, coaches around the country are 100% behind this new rule and are employing it to the best of their abilities. That is, except in the Ivy League. The wrinkle in the Ancient Eight is that Harvard and Princeton — academic titans though they are — do not offer summer school coursework. Without a level playing field among all eight schools, none of them can (or will) take advantage of the rule. And aside from that, summer courses cost money, a bit of a pinch for non-scholarship athletes. It’s an interesting insight into just how different the priorities are from the rest of Division I basketball, even at a successful time when the league is placing competitive teams (Cornell, Princeton and Harvard) into the NCAA Tournament.
2. While on the subject of summer basketball, one of the great things about unofficial team pick-up games is that it makes for tremendous message board fodder: “Ivan Renko dropped 45 on Anthony Davis in a half! He’s going to be a first-team All-American!” You know how it goes. Players who are career bench-warmers or otherwise unfulfilled talents seemingly become hoops messiahs under the dim lights in the sweaty gyms of July and August. That isn’t to say that there aren’t clues to be found, though, especially in cases where players have never actually been seen in uniform before. One such storyline coming out of Kansas in the past week is that redshirt freshman Ben McLemore is drawing reasonable comparisons to former Jayhawk star Brandon Rush for his jaw-dropping athletic ability and shot-making prowess. Down on Tobacco Road, UNC’s Leslie McDonald and PJ Hairston may not be getting such a lofty comparison from a former player, but they are receiving lessons in how to play the game from former Tar Heel superstar Rasheed Wallace. So there’s that.
3. While on the subject of the Heels, one of the slowly smoldering stories in the back rooms and dark alleys of the Internet this summer has related to the ongoing academic scandal involving a large number of football players at the school. Armed with the knowledge that some of UNC’s basketball players took the same tainted courses as the football team, Pat Forde in a piece Tuesday mentioned that UNC has not been as forthcoming as some would like with the release of exculpatory information. He doesn’t go as far as to make any accusations of wrongdoing other than to quote a history professor at UNC who remains skeptical, but it does bring up a question of transparency and whether UNC might be willing to throw football under the bus to save the basketball program.
4. We’ve mentioned Jabari Parker quite a bit in the last week, as the Class of 2013 prospect made news for narrowing his list of schools down to a more manageable 10 suitors and his family’s decision to let him rest for the remainder of the summer camp period. At least one school that you may have heard of on the recruiting trail — it starts with a K and ends with a Y — may, according to an unnamed head coach “who has been involved” with Parker’s recruitment, be the clubhouse leader. Duke has been mentioned as Parker’s leader numerous times by people supposedly in the know, and BYU has always been in the mix because of the LDS connection. All any prognosticator worth his salt can do at this point is await announcements as to where Parker will take his official visits and work backwards from there.
5. A number of college basketball head coaches are in North Augusta, South Carolina, this week for the Nike Peach Jam, an elite prep basketball event featuring many of the nation’s top uncommitted players. Local news station WJBF-TV interviewed a few of the attendees about the Penn State/Sandusky scandal, and at least Clemson’s Brad Brownell, Minnesota’s Tubby Smith, and Georgia Tech’s Brian Gregory appear to be “using Penn State’s mistakes as a lesson.” For the sake of the next generation of America’s overlooked children, let’s hope so.

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

Where They Stand Now

Virginia Tech surprised most people last year. The Hokies were picked in the middle of the pack by pretty much everyone. It was supposed to be a “down year” in the sense that people expected Seth Greenberg‘s perennial bubble team to not be one of the last teams out on Selection Sunday. Non-conference play went as expected: the Hokies lost all three games they played against tough competition and won the other 11. Then the ACC slate hit like a dump truck.

Virginia Tech started 1-6 in conference play with losses to league cellar dwellers Boston College and Wake Forest. Until beating Clemson by five in their final regular season match-up, the Hokies’ three wins came by a total of five points. No conference team played opponents as consistently close (Virginia Tech saw all but four of its conference games decided by single figures), but no team saw fewer conference wins either. It was the last straw for the athletic department brass, which waited until April 23 to let Greenberg go.

Erick Green Has First Team All-ACC Potential this Season.

In his stead is last year’s Assistant Head Coach, James Johnson. Johnson is a great choice for the job, though he failed his first assignments. Top recruit Montrezl Harrell de-committed from the program to go to Louisville, and rising star Dorian Finney-Smith transferred to Florida. Still, Johnson knows the Virginia Tech team well and he knows the program.

Who’s Leaving

Long story short: a lot of people. The Hokies lose Dorenzo Hudson and Victor Davila to graduation; they lose Allan Chaney and Finney-Smith to transfer; and they lost Harrell’s commitment along with their head coach Greenberg.

Hudson and Davila were the team’s second and fourth-leading scorers, respectively. They combined to average 18.4 points and 7.0 rebounds a game. While Finney-Smith was still very raw offensively, he contributed a lot on defense and by crashing the glass. He was highly rated coming out of high school (#18 by ESPN, #27 by Scout and #31 by Rivals), largely thanks to his potential.

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In last year’s NIT Championship campaign there were seven different Cardinal players who saw significant playing time under head coach Johnny Dawkins. Of those seven players, two will be lost in 2012-13 due to graduation. A third senior saw minutes when the situation or game plan called for it, and a fourth played mainly garbage minutes or was used in backup roles when an injury occurred. We fill you in on their details in the order of importance to the program below.

• Josh Owens – After playing just garbage minutes as a freshman in 2007-08, Owens saw a major increase in playing time as a sophomore the next year. Poised to build on that solid foundation, Owens was forced to sit out the 2009-10 campaign due to a private medical condition. While some speculated he would never play basketball again, Owens returned for what would be the best season of his college career, averaging 11.6 PPG and 6.5 RPG in just over 27 MPG. His scoring and rebounding stats were almost identical in his final season with the Cardinal, but 2011-12 saw a more aggressive Owens, mainly on the defensive end of the floor. Andy Brown, Stefan Nastic, and Jack Ryan will all be competing this October to try to fill Owens’ shoes, with Nastic being the current slight frontrunner. As for Owens, the forward/center did not receive an invite to either the NBA Combine or Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, and while he went undrafted, he impressed enough in team workouts to earn a spot on the Charlotte Bobcats Summer League roster. Owens didn’t see any action in the team’s first game, but scored six points and grabbed two rebounds in its second summer competition.

Out Of Stanford’s Four Graduating Seniors, Owens Will Be Missed The Most (credit: John Todd Images)

• Jarrett Mann – Mann still earned solid minutes as a senior, but due to the emergence of freshman star Chasson Randle, he saw a steep decrease in playing time compared with his sophomore and junior years. Due to Randle playing as a slash-and-score one, it appeared at times that Mann didn’t seem comfortable in his new role, which would led to indecisiveness both in passing the ball and scoring.

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Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan clearly does not care about preseason rankings. The regular season rankings don’t seem to bother him much either. Seemingly every year, his program is said to be having a tough time to keep up with the rest of the Big Ten because of departing players or numerous other reasons. But the Badgers recharge, they understand their talent, they play good defense, and they play within a system. Wisconsin fans have gotten used to this trend for years and it has resulted in consistent success in Madison. Michigan State and Ohio State can boast about their Final Four appearances, but Wisconsin’s consistency is its hallmark trait that has resulted in Big Ten championships and its own share of postseason success.

Bo Ryan will reload once again to remain competitive in the Big Ten.

Evaluating Last Year: The Badgers had their shot against top seeded Syracuse in the Sweet Sixteen when the ball was in Jordan Taylor’s hands, their best player and most experienced veteran. Wisconsin fans couldn’t have asked for more than a shot to win that would have resulted in their second Elite Eight appearance in seven years. Ryan’s crew played their hearts out, as they challenged the 2-3 zone and hit 52% (14-27) from beyond the arc before falling short in a nail-biter. The chaotic last possession should not be used to judge their regular season by any means because the Badgers finished fourth in the B1G with a 12-6 record, just one game behind the co-champions. That level of performance along with another Sweet Sixteen appearance should definitely be considered a success for a team that could not find a consistent second scoring option after Jordan Taylor last year. Junior wing Ryan Evans averaged 11 points per game but couldn’t consistently deliver during the clutch when opposing teams double-teamed Taylor. Despite those limited scoring options, Wisconsin’s 2011-12 campaign was definitely a success.

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

State of the Program

The Georgia Bulldogs earned an at large NCAA bid in 2011, making a repeat performance very difficult for Mark Fox and company last season. The Bulldogs welcomed in prize recruit Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, a McDonalds All-American guard (Georgia’s first Burger Boy since 1992) with NBA potential, but too often they struggled to put points on the board. Georgia showed potential with victories against Notre Dame, Tennessee, and Florida and even a close loss against Cincinnati, but overall the defeats piled up. Fox’s squad ended up tied for 10th in the conference with a 5-11 SEC mark, a long fall from an NCAA Tournament appearance just the year before.

It is time for the Kentavious Caldwell-Pope show this season in Athens. (photo from Georgia 247 sports)

Caldwell-Pope comes back to Athens this season, bringing with him a hope that the Bulldogs can rise out of the depths of the SEC cellar. “If you look at our team, we have finally the athleticism and size that we want,” Fox said. “We have guys that will be able to win and graduate. You know, playing at Georgia, going to school at Georgia isn’t for everybody. … This will be the first team we’ll have [where] it should be a pretty complete roster. We should have a deep team. We won’t feel like we’re having to put a band-aid on a certain position.” Fox should be able to slide Caldwell-Pope back over to the two-guard position, a more natural fit then the small forward slot he was forced into last year. Guard Vincent Williams has  presumably earned the start at point guard giving the Bulldogs the benefit of another senior leader running the show in the backcourt. However, a front line that struggled to rebound last season again enters next season as a big question mark in a pivotal year for Fox. Finding consistency down low will prove to be a big key to Georgia’s fate.

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1. ACC Sports Journal: Props to Robbie Harms over at ACC Sports Journal for putting together this exhaustive mass of links on ACC alumni playing in the NBA summer league. Who would’ve thought Miles Plumlee would be named to the Orlando All-Summer League team? A lot of former ACC stars are participating and this page is sure to catch you up on all of the latest.
2. Winston-Salem Journal: Jeff Bzdelik is adding seven freshman to his roster for this year. The group is already on campus, prepping for the upcoming season, and without question expectations will be high for this bunch. Wake Forest was a major disappointment the last two years, so everyone is expecting some level of progress this year. In news not directly related to basketball, none of the new additions have cars — so they’re getting plenty of off-court bonding time getting rides from Travis McKie — and Codi Miller-McIntyre can bench 300 pounds.
3. Run the Floor: Michael Rogner is cautiously bullish on the Hurricanes, as they return more talent than anyone else in the ACC. Assuming Reggie Johnson is back to 100% healthy, Shane Larkin makes the leap towards more consistency and Rion Brown continues to develop, the Hurricanes should be an ACC contender this year. To be fair, many writers have been fooled in the past by a good Miami roster (I submit this quote from my article from January 11 as evidence: “Every year I overrate the Hurricanes.”), but this year feels different.
4. ESPN: Andy Katz recently sat down with Brian Gregory, who’s keeping expectations for next year, his second season at Georgia Tech, realistic. Gregory talked a little about freshman impact and where his team needs to improve this season. Namely, he put the weight on the guards to become better distributors, naming Mfon Udofia, Brandon Reed and Daniel Miller as the guys who need to step up for the Yellow Jackets. Most interestingly, Katz asked Gregory about whether we can expect this year’s team to look more like his old Dayton teams. Gregory responded by saying that this team would be more like those teams, but still not totally there. All three answers from the head coach emphasize that this year as a rebuilding year.
5. USA Today: Mike Krzyzewski took a lot of flak for supporting Joe Paterno in the days and weeks after he got fired. Not surprisingly, Coach K updated his comments about Joe Pa with the release of the Freeh Report.

EXTRA: Incoming North Carolina freshman JP Tokoto can dunk.

1. The year-plus mystery about how much longer Syracuse and Pittsburgh will play as members of the Big East was partially revealed on Monday, as the conference released terms of an agreement that will allow the Orange to join the ACC in July 2013. The school will pay an exit fee of $7.5 million in return for leaving one year early (league bylaws require over two years of notice), but according to a tweet from Andy Katz, there’s no way that Pittsburgh will remain in the Big East in 2013-14 without Syracuse. Assuming that the Panthers join Syracuse as new members of the ACC that year, they’ll likely join an ACC with a loaded Duke team sitting at the top of the league and a reloaded North Carolina squad on its way back up. In other words, welcome to always. For what it’s worth, as much as we hate losing classic Big East battles such as Syracuse-Georgetown and Pittsburgh-Villanova, to note a pair, we’re also looking forward to the new blockbusters that the expanded ACC will enable. Syracuse in Cameron Indoor… Pitt visiting the Comcast Center… Yes, please.
2. The nation’s top prospect in the Class of 2013 is shutting it down for the summer AAU circuit to let his injured right heel recover. Jabari Parker will have an MRI soon to determine if it will require surgery, but his father in an interview with the Chicago Tribune that regardless of the outcome of that test, their intent is to let him rest so that he’ll be ready to play for his high school team again this fall. The Simeon (IL) HS forward is unanimously regarded as the top player in his class, but according to the article, there are “rumblings by those who rank individual teenagers for a living” that he could lose his top spot as a result of his absence in summer action. At least his dad has the right attitude about the importance of summer prep rankings: “That stuff doesn’t mean anything.”
3. It’s mid-July so somewhat surprising to see this list right now, but The Big Lead‘s Jason McIntyre released his annual ranking of the top 50 returnees in college basketball for the 2012-13 season. These things are always incredibly subjective so we’ll leave it to his legion of commenters to make snap judgments as to the list’s accuracy, but we’ll allow ourselves one critical comment: Creighton’s Doug McDermott is far better than the seventh best player in college basketball. All in all, it’s a fairly thorough list and will no doubt engender a healthy amount of debate as we move into the early months of next season. As an interesting side note, one of the comments enlightened us to a website called Value Add Basketball where next season’s players are projected based on a number of assumptions and calculations. It’s worth a few minutes of your time to poke around over there.
4. The player who McIntyre listed as the third-best player in his top 50 for next season is an RTC favorite, Murray State’s Isaiah Canaan. Will Aubrey of The Examiner did a short interview with the returning All-American, and here was the result. Canaan spent time at several of the top camps this summer, including the Chris Paul, LeBron James, and Deron Williams versions, where he was told that his game only needs a few tweaks to be ready for the next level. Despite his size (listed at only about 6’1″), he is projected at #20 overall in NBADraft.net’s 2013 mock draft — you can’t measure heart and leadership, though.
5. We’re not going to belabor this point here but in yesterday’s M5 we mentioned that there are rumblings of a significant backlash against collegiate sports from those souls — many of whom are general sports fans — who are sick and tired of the scandals, the hypocrisies, and the rah-rah attitude that can foster situations where a known child molester is free to terrorize children for 13 years under the auspices of a moral and ethical university. The Atlantic‘s James Fallows put together a mash-up of user responses to the Penn State scandal and their tone crystallizes exactly what we were talking about. Are we reaching a tipping point where college athletics as we know it will come crumbling down and rebuilt as a quasi-professional entity with transparency about what it is; or will it continue down this beer and circus path that some have derided for years, but of which many others are finally starting to notice?

Things were looking good for Stanford after the 2010-11 season came to a close. It wasn’t a great year by any means, but the Cardinal finished the regular season with a winning percentage of .500, picking up wins against #18 Washington and at Washington State along the way, all without a senior on the roster. Things took a turn for the worse, though, when leading scorer Jeremy Green announced he would be forgoing his senior season in Palo Alto to enter the NBA Draft. But instead of going somewhere like Sacramento or Dallas, Green ended up playing three games for the D-League’s Los Angeles D-Fenders before moving to glamorous Erie to finish the final 21 games of his inaugural pro season. Meanwhile, back on the Farm, the Cardinal was making some noise without him. Stanford won 15 of its first 18 games, led by sensational freshman Chasson Randle.

Randle Introduced Himself To Pac-12 Opponents Early And Often In 2011-12, Including In Stanford’s Four-Overtime Win At Oregon State (credit: Rick Bowmer)

Taking Green’s place in the starting lineup, Randle made an immediate impact for Stanford. At times early in non-conference action he struggled to score the ball consistently, which is expected for a freshman when facing opponents like Oklahoma State, Syracuse, NC State, and Butler. But he made up for his lapses on the defensive end, constantly bugging opponents with his ability to poke the ball away and get the occasional block.

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