Andrew Murawa is an RTC columnist.

Two summers ago, Lebron James held the attention of basketball fans as he pondered the big “decision” about where he would continue his career. After playing his first seven seasons in his hometown of Cleveland, James was a free agent and being pursued by numerous NBA teams who had spent years freeing up space under the salary cap in order to be able to make a pitch for his services. As we all now know, after much deliberation, James opted to turn his back on the Cavaliers and other suitors in favor of taking his “talents to South Beach” to play alongside superstar Dwyane Wade as well as all-star forward Chris Bosh.

On Wednesday, college hoops fans get “The Decision” times two, as the nation’s two biggest recruits – Nerlens Noel and Shabazz Muhammad – will both announce which college campus they will be taking their talents to next season. Noel is considering Syracuse, Georgetown and Kentucky, while Muhammad garners the attention of fans across the country as he considers UCLA as well as Kentucky and Duke, already having eliminated schools like UNLV, Arizona, Kansas and others from consideration. At this point, depending on whom you ask, either the Bruins or the defending champion Wildcats are the favorite, with the Blue Devils seemingly a distant dark horse, but until his name adorns a National Letter of Intent to one of those schools, it is all guesswork.

Shabazz Muhammad's Decision On Wednesday Night Will Have A Big Impact on the 2012-13 Season (Jonathan Daniels, Getty Images)

To avoid rehashing the guesses of those with partial information, we’ll compare the choices in Muhammad’s hand to the teams that “King James” considered when he made his fateful decision in July 2010.

Lebron : Cleveland Cavaliers :: Shabazz : UNLV

Why this analogy works: When James signed with Miami, he crushed the hopes of Cleveland fans who had hoped that the hometown kid would stick around to continue trying to build the Cavaliers into a long term winner. James grew up in Akron, just 45 minutes south of Cleveland, while Muhammad will graduate from Las Vegas’ Bishop Gorman High School this spring. But, just like James and Cleveland, Muhammad will forsake his hometown to ply his trade elsewhere at a bigger and historically more successful program. And, in both cases, if either player had landed with either one of these teams, those teams (the Cavs and the Rebels) would have been very good teams but not quite the favorite to take down the championship.

Why this analogy is flawed: The Cavs were apparently a significant possibility in James’ decision until very late in the process, while the Rebels faded from consideration some time ago.

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Evan Jacoby is a regular contributor for RTC. You can find him @evanjacoby on Twitter.

In a rule that makes absolutely no sense, today (April 10) marks the new official date that college players had to withdraw their names from the NBA Draft pool if they wanted to return back to school with eligibility and had previously declared for draft entry. It’s the NCAA’s deadline. That means that all of the guys who declared since the end of the season (Kendall Marshall, Jared Sullinger, and Meyers Leonard to name a few) had to decide by today whether to forgo their NCAA eligibilities. But the NBA’s own deadline isn’t until April 29, meaning that players can still declare for the draft, but just can’t withdraw anymore and retain college eligibility. Essentially, it just means that “testing the waters” is now done, so if a player enters the draft from here then he is gone for good. Yes, it’s confusing and makes zero sense, but that’s an issue for another day. Today, we wrap up all of the players who are officially sticking in the NBA Draft, those who decided to return to school, and those that are still undecided until April 29. Here’s the status of all the top non-senior players of college basketball:

After Some Debate, Jared Sullinger Declared for the NBA Draft (AP Photo)

DECLARED – These players have entered their names into the NBA Draft and no longer have college eligibility.

• Harrison Barnes, North Carolina (Sophomore) – The super-hyped prospect had a strong two seasons but perhaps underachieved in the eyes of many UNC fans. He is a surefire lottery pick and could go in the top five so it’s a smart decision to leave.
• Jared Sullinger, Ohio State (Sophomore) – Dominant as a Buckeye from day one as a freshman, Sullinger’s NBA stock has slowly dropped over the course of two seasons. It’s his time to go now, but he may be slipping out of the top 10. Everyone seems torn on him, but Sully is too talented of a player to fall out of the lottery.
• Thomas Robinson, Kansas (Junior) – No-brainer. Robinson was a NPOY candidate, accomplished great things in three years at Kansas and will be a top-five draft pick.
• Kendall Marshall, North Carolina (Sophomore) – Despite being a stacked draft, this year’s pool severely lacks point guards. Marshall lacks athleticism at the position but is a solid height (6’4”) and has elite passing skills and floor awareness that will translate at the NBA level. Could be a surprise top ten pick, and will probably go in the lottery.
• Austin Rivers, Duke (Freshman) – Another player that scouts are torn on, many believe that Rivers could have used another year of seasoning at Duke. But his scoring prowess is undeniable and someone will grab his talents likely between picks 10 and 20. Read the rest of this entry »

Individual offensive statistics are easy to find by perusing a post game box score or site such as this one, but locating advanced statistics on a players’ defensive game is much more difficult to access. David Hess and Luke Winn of Sports Illustrated conducted a defensive charting project to improve upon the absence of defensive efficiency numbers. The challenge is these statistics are only accumulated through reviewing game film to assign credit and blame to each defender based on their individual defensive performance, and so this information is less readily available because of the time and effort it takes to collect.

We are talking about defense, right? (AP Photo)

Hess and Winn provided the groundwork for defensive charting research, and using their original work, I tracked Kentucky’s defensive performance during its national championship victory over Kansas. Here are the definitions of the chart below using information directly from Hess’ blog, The Audacity of Hoops, which he adapted from Dean Oliver’s book Basketball on Paper, followed by my chart of Kentucky’s individual defensive statistics.

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Over the course of the next two weeks, the Pac-12 Microsite will break down each team’s season: what went well, what didn’t, and a look ahead at the future. Today’s subject: Colorado.

What Went Right

In its first season in the Pac-12, Colorado came into the season missing its top four scorers from 2010-11 and was picked to finish right near the bottom of the conference. Instead, the Buffs rode a strong homecourt advantage to an upper-division finish in the regular season then they ripped through the conference tournament to earn an NCAA Tournament bid. Not content to stop there, they actually won a game, upsetting UNLV in the round of 64, quite a season for a team for whom there were no real expectations in November. Head coach Tad Boyle gets a lot of credit for shuffling these pieces together in such a way as to make the most of the team’s talent, but even with three serious contributors to this year’s success on the way out due to graduation, the Buffaloes developed plenty of young talent this season that should prepare them for some successful seasons in the near future.

Tad Boyle Led A Team Picked To Finish Near The Bottom Of The Standings To A Conference Championship (Stephen Dunn, Getty Images)

What Went Wrong

If there was one real problem for Colorado this season it was its relative inability to produce wins in a true road environment against quality competition. Despite a 4-7 record on the road, a closer look shows those wins coming against Air Force (7th place in the Mountain West), USC, Arizona State, and Utah (three teams that finished between #10 and #12 in the Pac-12). While the Buffs lost just two home games this season and just one home game in conference play, they’ll need to find a way to score quality road wins in order to compete for a regular season Pac-12 title.

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1. It was not much of a surprise, but yesterday Thomas Robinson officially put his name into the 2012 NBA Draft. A year after coming off the bench due to the Morris twins starting in front of him Robinson became the second best player in college basketball and should be a top five pick in this year’s draft. Kansas fans might have been hoping to have Robinson return for his senior year, but it would be unrealistic to have him return to school when he could help support his sister with his NBA contract (his family story is well-chronicled so we will not go through it here). Of course, this will inevitably raise another offseason of question as to whether Bill Self can win another Big 12 title without a superstar.
2. Robinson will be joined in the NBA Draft by another Big 12 big man as Baylor‘s Perry Jones III also declared for the NBA Draft. Unlike Robinson, who to be fair was a highly rated recruit, Jones has failed to live up to the exceedingly high expectations placed on him coming into college. Averaging 13.5 points and 7.6 rebounds per game is pretty solid, but not when you were projected as a top five pick coming into the season. Looking at it from Jones’ perspective, leaving now appears to be the right decision as each year he has stayed in college has hurt his stock to the point that he is almost out of the lottery after being a probable top two pick coming out of high school and a consensus top five pick even after last year’s decent, but uninspired season. Fortunately for NBA GMs he has fallen far enough down the mock drafts that selecting Jones probably won’t cost the GM his job unless that GM does something idiotic like take Jones in the top ten.
3. Jones’ Baylor teammates may not be in such good shape as the basketball programs (both men and women) are being investigated for impermissible phone calls and text messages that are so far out of bounds that Kelvin Sampson would blush. Some analysts might have been able to foresee some suspicious activity at Baylor given their sudden rise to prominence. In an attempt to save itself from severe NCAA punishment the coaches named have acknowledged their role and have taken self-imposed penalties and the school has done the same with scholarship and recruiting restrictions.  Given the degree of punishment other schools have received in the past we would not be surprised to see the NCAA issue even more stiff sanctions.
4. Two other slightly smaller, but still significant names also put their names in the NBA Draft. Vanderbilt‘s John Jenkins announced yesterday that he would be entering into the NBA Draft and forgoing his senior year. Jenkins is projected to be a borderline first round pick could be an intriguing target for a NBA team as he is probably the best shooter in this year’s Draft and there are plenty of teams that will be picking at the end of the first round who could use a marksman. Jenkins is not the only junior guard who declared for the NBA Draft yesterday as Oregon State‘s Jared Cunningham did the same. Unlike Jenkins, Cunningham likely will not even get close to the first round and its guaranteed contract as he is projected to be a late second round pick or even undrafted. Still his athleticism and defense should be enough to get a look from several NBA teams and some training camp invitations.
5. With all of the players declaring for the NBA Draft it is good to hear that at least a few players will be staying in school for at least a few more years (or at least that is what we think). The most prominent and interesting is Trey Burke, who is returning to Michigan after initial reports indicated that he was leaving. Burke’s decision means that the Wolverines could be a top ten team next season. Lehigh‘s C.J. McCollum, who gained notoriety with his performance in the team’s upset win over Duke, will also return to school. Learning from our criticism of how word spread that he might be leaving school early, McCollum, a journalism major, took matters into his own hands and wrote his own column for The Sporting News. Tony Mitchell, the one from North Texas not the one who is leaving Alabama, will also return to school after playing a shortened freshman season while his eligibility was sorted out. Out of the three, Mitchell might be the most intriguing NBA prospect and could wind up being a lottery pick if he has a strong sophomore season.

It’s no secret among college basketball observers that the recruiting prowess of Baylor’s Scott Drew has been largely looked upon with a skeptical eye. In just the past three recruiting cycles, Drew has signed top 10 prospects Perry Jones, III, (2010), Quincy Miller (2011), and Isaiah Austin (2012), making the Christian school in Waco, Texas, one of the premier destinations for elite high school basketball recruits in the country. To those skeptics, Baylor’s quick ascendance from Big 12 doormat to national relevance perhaps signaled that Drew’s recruiting bounty may have been achieved through extraordinary measures — some of which may have been counter to the rules and regulations of the NCAA.

Baylor's Drew Is Feeling Some NCAA Heat, But Does He Care?

The critics appear to have some basis. According to a report released today by ESPN.com’s Jason King, both Drew and Baylor women’s basketball coach, Kim Mulkey, presided over staffs who rampantly and repeatedly violated NCAA rules via text and phone communication with prospects during impermissible periods. Most of these contacts were alleged to have occurred during a 29-month span from 2007-10, but the total number of violations are staggering — 738 impermissible text messages and 528 impermissible phone calls between the two programs.

In a bit of an ironic twist, it was Baylor women’s star Brittney Griner — the Anthony Davis of the women’s game — who in 2008 as a high school star originally notified the NCAA about Baylor’s impermissible contacts. She eventually signed and matriculated at the school anyway, leading the Bears to a flawless 40-0 title season in 2011-12. Since the majority of these contact violations occurred from 2-5 years ago, and the men’s program has since reached two Elite Eights and the women’s program has made an Elite Eight, a Final Four, and won a National Championship, is it wrong to suggest that the illicit contacts performed by Baylor staff to entice elite recruits such as Jones, Griner, Miller, et al, was well worth the risk?

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the course of the next two weeks, the Pac-12 Microsite will break down each team’s season: what went well, what didn’t, and a look ahead at the future. Today’s subject: Washington.

What Went Wrong

Going into the year, a major question facing Washington was how quickly it would gel after losing its top three players from the 2010-11 season. That proved to be a big challenge as the Huskies started the season 5-5, their worst start since the 2003-04 campaign. While four of those defeats were to NCAA Tournament teams, there was no doubt about it; the Dawgs were playing bad basketball. However, once December came to an end and January arrived, there was really nothing to complain about in Seattle. Washington went on to win 16 of its next 19 after the poor start, with two of the three losses coming to NCAA Tournament teams. That stretch took them into the final game of the regular season, a road game against UCLA, meaning that the Huskies had at least two games to play before Selection Sunday. They needed to win just one to cement their spot in the Dance. Instead they fell to the Bruins and returned to Los Angeles five days later only to lose in the Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinals against Oregon State. Those two losses ended their hopes of an NCAA berth, and the Dawgs were then relegated to the NIT.

A lot went right Lorenzo Romar's Huskies this season, but a bad start and a poor finish would eventually doom Washington's NCAA dreams. (credit: Geoffrey McAllister)

What Went Right

A main goal for coach Lorenzo Romar was to identify a new leader after the departure of guard Isaiah Thomas. They ended up finding two in Tony Wroten and Terrence Ross. Both would be named first team all-Pac-12, with Wroten averaging 16.7 PPG and Ross finishing with 15.3 PPG. Read the rest of this entry »

1. ACC Sports Journal: We know he’s coming back, but Jim Young took a look at the pros and cons of James Michael McAdoo‘s decision whether or not to return to Chapel Hill for his sophomore campaign. The strongest argument, in my opinion, is building his confidence through collegiate success. It’s a way for a guy like McAdoo, who looked like a late lottery pick based on most draft projections, to sneak into the top five (where he’d get a much nicer contract), and also make it more likely for him to succeed. That said, I think it’s a little risky (see: Harrison Barnes).
2. Tar Heel Blog: With the roster pretty much set, Brian Barbour went to work trying to guess North Carolina‘s lineup for next year. I would only add a couple of things: (1) I think Dexter Stickland will be hugely important to next year’s team; (2) I think North Carolina may play small a good amount of the time, possibly putting Reggie Bullock at the four and McAdoo at the five to create mismatches.
3. Testudo Times: Speaking about potential ACC transfers, Maryland is getting serious about Evan Smotrycz, inviting the Michigan transfer on a visit this week. I agree that while Smotrycz isn’t the perfect player, he brings a valuable skill set to the Terrapins. This is especially true for a team that currently really struggles scoring, so having a stretch four could make a very big difference.
4. Duke Basketball Report: I feel like I’ve mentioned this several times (albeit looking at Duke big men from a little further back), but this article goes straight at the oft-repeated knock against Duke coming from high-profile recruits that the Blue Devils can’t coach bigs (namely, Mitch McGary and Tony Parker). One piece of ammunition — ironically for both sides of the argument — is Lance Thomas. I think the real question comes from the article’s final “proviso that what anyone does in high school is irrelevant to the college game.” Obviously, to some extent that’s true (especially of big men), but that’s the gap current recruits see between Mason Plumlee‘s high school dominance and freshman and sophomore year incompetence.
5. Staunton News-Leader: I agree with this article in all but one respect. I think Duke fans (and logical North Carolina fans) will be pulling for NC State next year. This isn’t to say they’ll put the Wolfpack ahead of their own teams, but it’s good for the ACC when the whole conference is up, and that means having another national contender outside of the usual suspects. Assuming Florida State can keep playing at a high level and that Maryland improves significantly, the ACC could be almost wide open depending on Duke’s last-ditch recruiting.

EXTRA: The UConn Blog – There’s a little unrest in Storrs, as Alex Oriakhi‘s dad publicly called for reprimands towards Jim Calhoun by saying, “I have no qualm in calling on the [AD] to relieve Calhoun of this position.” Wow. Not exactly going out with a whimper. Mr. Oriakhi may want to wait for his son to pick a school before ripping into the Huskies’ legend, as Connecticut could ultimately make his son’s transfer much more difficult.

Well, it doesn’t get much more Wisconsin than that. In pretty typical Bo Ryan fashion, the Badgers were underestimated at the beginning of the season, handled their business in the nonconference, emerged as a player in the Big Ten race, and gave people some trouble in the NCAA Tournament before making any real, substantial noise. It’s become Wisconsin’s M.O. over the years and 2011-12 was really no different. Depending on who you ask, it’s a success or a failure. Let’s take a look back:

Here we are again: Close, but no cigar for Jordan Taylor and Wisconsin. (Getty Images/J. Rogash)

• In a nutshell: Without a really dreadful stretch at the beginning of Big Ten play that left some wondering if Wisconsin would even make the NCAA Tournament — really? — the Badgers would have been right in the thick of the race for a Big Ten championship. Even with that three-game losing streak (and two of losses coming at home), the Badgers still managed to finish just a game back of the three-way tie for first place. That’s pretty darn good, all things considered. Jordan Taylor put this club on his shoulders and carried them within one point of a possible Elite Eight berth and an upset of top-seeded Syracuse in the NCAA Tournament.
• Overachievement: Is it unfair to narrow this down to a single game? Senior Rob Wilson, who had only two career starts under his belt by the time the Badgers met up with Indiana in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals, made seven 3-pointers and dropped a career-high 30 points to lead Wisconsin past the Hoosiers in Indianapolis. Not even his mother could have seen that one coming. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Sometimes the coaching carousel is a strange creature. Later today, Trent Johnson will be announced as the next head coach at TCU. This would not be that notable except that Johnson is leaving LSU to take the job. Johnson has compiled a respectable 226-184 record in stops at Nevada, Stanford, and LSU, but that number is slightly inflated by three exceptional seasons at each stop where his team went 25-9, 28-8, and 27-8. Outside of those three seasons his record is 146-159. Now it may not be fair to exclude those three seasons because we could just as easily exclude his 9-20, 11-20, and 11-20 seasons, but it does point out some degree of inconsistency within his programs. Although Johnson still had a job at LSU perhaps he feared for his long-term security or had some issues with the administration there. In any event it does make an interesting situation when a coach left LSU to take over at TCU for a coach who went to Ohio, which is just about the exact opposite of what you would expect for most sports.
2. After coaching at Florida International for three seasons Isiah Thomas was fired by the school on Friday. Thomas, who was a NBA legend as a player, but much less successful in his career afterwards, went 26-65. The initial thought that was perhaps with his name recognition and ties to Chicago he could bring in the type of players that would turn the school’s basketball program around. Unfortunately that was not the case and the team stumbled to a 8-21 record this season. Thomas appeared to be disappointed with the school’s decision and stated that he had been told he would get five years to turn the program around instead of the three years that he was given.  Thomas like most coaches who are fired claims that he was on the verge of turning the program around with several key incoming recruits. It will be interesting to see if the incoming coach will be able to keep those recruits and how Thomas will be viewed if those recruits can live up to his claims.
3. After being led by Charlie Coles for sixteen seasons before he stepped down one month ago, Miami (Ohio) is set to introduce John Cooper as its next head coach. After being turned down by Arizona assistant coach James Whitford, the Red Hawks elected to pursue the Tennessee State coach, who led his team to the OVC championship game just three years after taking over a team that went 14-16 his first season. Perhaps, the most memorable moment of Cooper’s brief tenure at Tennessee State was their win over Murray State earlier this year giving the Racers their only loss of the regular season. Cooper will have a difficult task of following Coles, who was an icon within the program and the MAC. Fortunately for Cooper and the Red Hawks, we do not expect them to play Michigan any time soon.
4. Later today, Eastern Illinois will introduce Jay Spoonhour as its next coach. Jay is the son of the well-known and well-liked late Charlie Spoonhour, who died of complications related to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis earlier this year. Spoonhour’s coaching experience has been limited to time as an assistant at several programs and some time as a head coach at the junior college level including a national championship in 2001. His only head coaching experience came in 2004 when he acted as an interim coach for his father while at UNLV and went 6-3 during his brief run.
5. Outside of the transfer of Trey Zeigler to Pittsburgh there was some significant player movement as a few players announced that their plans for the NBA Draft. In one of the more surprising decisions we have seen, Khris Middleton has decided to leave Texas A&M forgoing his final year of eligibility. Based on what we have seen on mock drafts/draft boards Middleton is probably a late first/early second round pick. Given his injury issues this season, we figure it would have been better for Middleton to spend another year in college showcasing his skills while he is healthy, but perhaps Middleton thought it would be better to get a contract before another injury occurs. The people of Columbus have reason to celebrate as sophomore Deshaun Thomas has decided to return to Ohio State. Thomas, who had a huge NCAA Tournament, was projected as a borderline first round pick. Now with Jared Sullinger out of the picture perhaps Thomas can showcase his skills on a more regular basis. With Thomas returning expect to see the Buckeyes in the top 10 next season as they return most of their offense outside of Sullinger and have the potential to replace some of his productivity with one of their two primary recruiting targets–Amile Jefferson or Tony Parker. The last piece of news comes from Alabama where Tony Mitchell and Charles Hankerson Jr were granted releases by the school. While we expect Hankerson to transfer we are uncertain on Mitchell, who could consider entering the NBA Draft although we would advise against it. The more likely scenario is that Mitchell, who had discipline issues at Alabama, could be headed to another school.