ESPN released their college basketball predictions for the 2012-13 season yesterday, and according to the experts at the Worldwide Leader, the SEC should boast some of the nation’s top teams. While no SEC team was chosen as national champion, Kentucky, Florida, and Missouri made appearances in in 13 of the 17 analysts’ projected Final Four.

John Calipari’s Wildcats are SEC favorites, but the road to a conference title won’t be as clear in 2012-13.

From a standpoint of individual talent however, the SEC lags behind. Indiana’s Cody Zeller is the overwhelming favorite to take home National Player of the Year honors, a category in which the SEC earned no recognition. No player appears in the consensus All-America teams either, and accounted for less than 10% of all individual selections (Missouri point guard Phil Pressey led the way with six nominations).

In his “Bold Prediction”, ESPN NBA draft guru Chad Ford opined “this is one of the least impressive groups of college talent to come along in a while.” The SEC, after losing a stellar class of players to the professional ranks, is one of the key culprits in this trend. Kentucky’s recruiting class doesn’t have the pedigree of their 2011 counterparts, and it will be a shock if the Wildcats replicate last season’s dominance. The lack of top-end talent will drastically alter the landscape of the league, resulting in a much higher level of parity and, hopefully, a more exciting race for the conference crown. Perennial contender Florida and newcomer Missouri are the primary challengers according to the analysts. Tennessee garnered no conference title projections, although they did receive sleeper recognition from Andy Katz and former coach Bruce Pearl. If they can count on a healthy Jeronne Maymon in conference play, the Volunteers have the frontcourt talent to finish ahead of their highly touted counterparts.

Nerlens Noel’s appearance on three All-America ballots is surprising. The freshman rim protector draws comparisons to Anthony Davis, but his game isn’t as advanced. His ability to block shots will change games, but he doesn’t have the same level of offensive polish that Davis displayed. Kentucky isn’t lacking for offensive contributors, so Noel may not have the required offensive opportunities to put together a strong All-America case. Some of that love from the analysts should have gone toward Jarnell Stokes. The Tennessee forward is the league’s most skilled returning frontcourt player and should see a lot of scoring opportunities in coach Cuonzo Martin’s offense.

Who Won the Week? is a regular column that will outline and discuss three winners and losers from the previous week. The author of this column is Kenny Ocker (@KennyOcker), an Oregon-based sportswriter best known for his willingness to drive anywhere to watch a basketball game.

WINNER: College basketball where you’d least expect it

Hangar 5 on Ramstein Air Base Is Today’s Game Site

One year after playing North Carolina on the USS Carl Vinson, Michigan State has found an even crazier place to play: Ramstein Air Force Base in Kaiserslautern, Germany. The Spartans will face a UConn team without Jim Calhoun as (full-time) head coach for the first time since Dom Perno led the Huskies in 1985-86. Two other games are copying Michigan State’s lead, as Marquette and Ohio State will play on the deck of the USS Yorktown in Charleston, South Carolina, and Georgetown heads to Jacksonville to take on Florida on the USS Bataan amphibious assault ship. Sunday, Syracuse takes on San Diego State on the USS Midway, in the Orange’s first regular-season game in the Pacific Time Zone in more than a decade. As long as there’s a few ingenious ideas about new locations — and some enterprising tournament hosts looking to make some cash — this could become the next scheduling trend to rush through college basketball, much as exempt tournaments have over the last half-decade.

(Related losers: Fans whose home openers get put off a little while longer.)

LOSER: Scotty Wilbekin

The junior at Florida was set to seize a starting role with the departures of Bradley Beal and Erving Walker, but instead managed to land himself in coach Billy Donovan’s doghouse for an undisclosed team rules violation on the eve of the season. In his stead, shooting guard Kenny Boynton will slide over to ballhandling duties — where his shot selection has been spotty in the past — and once-heralded Rutgers transfer Mike Rosario will likely start at off guard. Off the bench, Wilbekin led the Gators with a 2.8 assist-to-turnover ratio last season on a team that led the Southeastern Conference in the statistic. With significant scoring talent elsewhere on the court, Wilbekin’s distribution skills will be necessary throughout the year, and the Gators are a worse team without him.

Read the rest of this entry »

From the moment it was first rumored, the relocation of the conference tournament to Las Vegas has created quite a buzz among Pac-12 basketball fans. Adam Butler (@pachoopsAB) of PacHoops will be here every week as he offers his unique perspective along our March to Vegas.

We’ve read previews, prognostications, and pontifications on the forthcoming basketball season; the one that begins today. The series of games that will captivate us until there’s but a single game remaining on a Monday night in April played inside a football stadium. And I don’t know who’s going to be playing in that game and neither do you. But like I said, we’ve probably read a whole lot about it. Allow me to get to the point: To date, we’ve heard nothing but expectations. A drone of maybes, could be’s, should be’s, has to’s, going to’s, for-this-to-happens… you catch my drift. But today, all of that changes. The roundball will go into baskets counting for points and someone will walk away the victor, today onward. We’ll begin to talk about tangible things like wins and losses instead of the offseason world of hypotheticals.

Just Like Tad Boyle’s Team Proved Last Year, Starting Today, You Can Throw Out All The Preseason Prognostications

And so I want to talk about the Colorado Buffaloes. Tied with Utah for Newest Members of the Pac, last season they went ahead and won the conference tournament. No big deal, right? The tournament, in its fifteen iterations, had been won but twice by anyone not named Arizona (4), UCLA (3), Washington (3), or Oregon (2). So for the new kids on the block to waltz into Staples and take the crown says something. I think it speaks volumes about the kind of coach Tad Boyle is and the program he’s building. Here was a team picked to finish eleventh – more on that later – that was in the regular season title hunt into the final weekends. Tad can coach. Colorado isn’t going anywhere. But back to that prediction, the media pick that said they’d finish eleventh in their inaugural Pac campaign. First of all, it was wrong. Secondly, it was founded on fact. They returned a rebounding wing/post hybrid with suspect scoring and two returning seniors-to-be who combined to put up 9/6/2. Their recruiting class was unheralded and their most optimistic piece was a transfer from the team picked to finish last (Utah).

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This is the first installment of our weekly Big Ten Power Rankings, which will go out each Friday. This week’s voters were Deepak Jayanti, Joey Nowak and Kevin Trahan of the Big Ten microsite.

1. Indiana Hoosiers: The top-ranked team in the country gets the top spot in our power rankings. The Hoosiers are stacked, returning a majority of last year’s starters, including national player-of-the-year candidate Cody Zeller. Christian Watford, Victor Oladipo, Will Sheehey and Jordan Hulls also return, making this one of the deepest, most talented team in the country. Zeller will get most of the hype, but the guards will be just as important to the Hoosiers’ success. The pieces are finally in place for Tom Crean’s squad to make a National Championship run.

The Hoosiers and Wolverines Populate the Top of Our Power Rankings (AP Photo/T. Ding)

2. Michigan Wolverines: The Wolverines have talent across the board and will come at your from every single position on the floor. Trey Burke is one of the top point guards in the country and will lead a talented group of freshmen that is being hyped by some as the next “Fab Five.” That group is overshadowing star guard Tim Hardaway Jr., who should have another solid year. If Burke can assert himself as a leader and facilitator in the halfcourt sets, expect Michigan to produce a 30-win season.

3. Ohio State Buckeyes: The Buckeyes return one of the Big Ten’s best defenders and floor generals in Aaron Craft, and a lethal post presence in Deshaun Thomas. Outside of Craft, Thomas and Lenzelle Smith Jr., there isn’t a lot of experience, but this is one of the most talented teams in the Big Ten. The Buckeyes are counting on Sam Thompson and Amir Williams to step up in their first year of significant playing time, with Thompson taking on the role of scorer. Williams should be helpful on defense. With great athletes and a deeper-than-normal bench, Thad Matta has plenty of weapons.

4. Michigan State Spartans: The Spartans didn’t impress in exhibition play, but Branden Dawson looks fantastic in his return from ACL surgery and Tom Izzo’s group has the athleticism to run on both ends of the floor. Michigan State doesn’t have a true leader at this point like it had last year with Draymond Green. However, Keith Appling, Derrick Nix and Dawson all are in position to take on that role. Add in talented freshman Gary Harris, and MSU, while flying under the radar, could climb back to the top of the Big Ten. However, scoring may be an issue.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last two weeks, we have brought you the obligatory team preview here at the Big 12 microsite. We finish up our segment with Kansas at the #1 position on our list.

The Skinny

• 2011-12 record: 32-7, 16-2 Big 12
• Key contributors lost: G Tyshawn Taylor, F Thomas Robinson
• Head coach: Bill Self, 10th season
• Projected finish: 1st

Bill Self is Looking for His Ninth Consecutive Big 12 Championship (AP)

Players change, expectations don’t. That’s what Bill Self has been telling people about coaching and playing at Kansas for at least the past few seasons. It’s not meant in a negative light, even though if it was, Self would have no one to blame but himself. What else do you expect when you give one of the most rabid fanbases in the country, at perhaps the most tradition rich school in the country, winning season after winning season? In the last six years, Kansas has more victories (197) than any school over a six-year stretch in history. That stat was largely unknown until C.J. Moore of CBSSports reported it during last season’s NCAA Tournament run. In the era of 1-and-done players and a good amount of parity, Self’s run has been remarkable.

Three things have helped him remain great in that time:

1. Allen Fieldhouse. Losses to Texas A&M in 2006-07 and Texas last year are the only home losses for Kansas the last six seasons.
2. Great players. From Mario Chalmers and Brandon Rush to Sherron Collins, Tyshawn Taylor, and Thomas Robinson. Self has great players coming to Lawrence nearly every season, and West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins has noticed. “He’s a great coach. Of course, having all those players don’t hurt either,” Bob Huggins joked at Big 12 Media Day. “Just in case you were wondering, that doesn’t hurt.”
3. Managing roster turnover. Building a team from a recruiting class into a championship contender is hard enough, no matter how many stars the players received in high school. But doing it multiple times without missing a beat is a whole different challenge.

Self calls it “bridging the gap.” Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

The interminable offseason breeds countless hours of boredom and frustration. With seven months separating the net-cutting ceremony that signals the end of every college hoops campaign and the opening tip that begins it, perusing the internet and conjuring up ideas to write about on a daily basis becomes an exercise in creative determination. This is not the NBA, where free agency bridges the gap between the Finals and training camp. The college basketball season has a definitive start and end. Though that line is beginning to blur with amplified recruiting coverage and limited summer practices, when the field of 68 is finally whittled down to one, and the soft tunes of One Shining Moment set off an emotional carousel unlike any other in American sports – from utter despair and devastation for the losing fan base to extreme delight and exultation for the national champion – the hardwood action that has so thoroughly captivated fans across the nation over the previous five months with nonstop intrigue and resume-building/crashing drama grinds to a screeching halt. It’s why the National Championship game always feels like a foreboding culmination, like the end of an enchanting joyride that closes with equal parts satisfaction and disappointment. The warped sense of reality defined by conference races, argumentative bubble talk and AP Poll hand-wringing is swept away without but a single warning to prepare for the lull. Amidst all the joy of a championship celebration and the highly-anticipated lead up to the Final Four, there stands the harsh reality of a painfully long college hoops drought. We college hoops scribes have grown to accept this dichotomy as one negative in an overwhelmingly enjoyable state of affairs. Because no matter how much we dread the dry offseason, the gloomy days spent panging for loaded campus gyms, and buzzer beaters, and visible fan passion, the torture is justified by the sweet end.

Three shipside games will christen a new college hoops season (Photo credit: Getty Images).

The journey to that end begins tonight, and not a moment too soon. We here at RTC have a date with college hoops, one that’s seven months overdue. She cannot evade us, nor the rest of the hoops viewing public, any longer, because tonight the lovefest commences. If you are a first-time viewer of the sport, consider this a warning: What you are about to see may distort your expectations. Over the next three days, teams will eschew traditional playing grounds to meet on aircraft carriers and foreign military bases. It is a patriotic inauguration of the sport we love, but it is not – however delighted you may be by the gorgeous vistas and military backdrops adorning the proceedings – the norm. It won’t be long before geeked-up student sections and campus hysteria inhabits your nightly viewing experience. And for that, we are thankful. Ecstatic. Tantalized. However you wish to describe it or appreciate it, the message is the same: the wait is over.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the next two weeks, we’ll bring you the obligatory team preview here at the Big 12 microsite. Baylor at the #2 position is next on our list. 

The Skinny

• 2011-12 record: 30-8, 12-6
• Key contributors lost: Quincy Acy, Perry Jones III, Quincy Miller
• Head coach: Scott Drew
• Projected finish: 2nd

Scott Drew doesn’t care what you think. He’s perfectly fine reloading with NBA prospects after his stars leave early for the pros, and he’s perfectly fine dealing with the stigma of underachievement and playing an “impure” style of basketball, whatever that really means. In the end, Scott Drew doesn’t care what you think. That’s because he wins. For all the criticism, Drew has reached the Elite Eight twice in three seasons and once again welcomes a collection of stud freshmen to replace the departed Perry Jones III, Quincy Miller and Quincy Acy. Call this team undisciplined all you want. Drew has the league’s best player in Pierre Jackson, another ferocious frontcourt and as much depth as anybody in the league. Drew just has one more step in quieting his doubters: He must find a way to finally win a Big 12 title.

Drew Is Suspended For The First Two Big 12 Games, But His Team Should Be Just Fine

The Personnel

Pierre Jackson is fun. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the next two weeks, we’ll bring you the obligatory team preview here at the Big 12 microsite. Texas at the #3 position is next on our list. 

The Skinny

• 2011-12 record: 20-14, 9-9
• Key contributors lost: J’Covan Brown
• Head coach: Rick Barnes
• Projected finish: 3rd

And now we play the waiting game. Coach Rick Barnes still has no idea whether star point guard Myck Kabongo will play this season after the NCAA began investigating his eligibility. The situation, which pertains to Kabongo’s relationship with an agent, could not have possibly come at a more crippling time for Texas. Already recovering from the early departure of do-it-all guard J’Covan Brown, the Longhorns cannot afford to lose Kabongo for any amount of time. They’ll need to remake themselves after relying so heavily on Brown a year ago, and their new style of offense — as well as any potential for a Big 12 title run — hinges on Kabongo’s presence. To make matters worse, this is a roster consisting almost exclusively of freshmen and sophomores, so there’s not a lot of room for error.

It’d Be a Problem if Kabongo Can’t Play

The Personnel

Along with Pierre Jackson, Kabongo is one of this league’s most dynamic playmakers at the point guard position. His world-class speed and explosion, coupled with his innate ability to dish out the basketball and makes his teammates better, is the reason his eligibility concerns are so widely publicized right now. If he plays, he’ll change the entire course of Texas’ season. As a freshman, Kabongo arrived on campus with out-of-this-world expectations, and he struggled to acclimate himself at first. His rookie season wasn’t necessarily “rocky,” but it took him all the way until March for his coach to notice a change in maturity and poise at point guard. After the Longhorns’ critical Big 12 quarterfinal victory over Iowa State all but secured an NCAA Tournament berth, Barnes singled out Kabongo as a major factor in the victory from a leadership standpoint. Apparently, it was Kabongo’s idea to put Jaylen Bond in the final minutes of the game, just so UT could switch on ball screens. “Of all the things he’s done this year,” Barnes said after the game, “I’m telling you. He’s heading in the right direction.”

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Brendon Mulvihill is the head curator for @SportsGawker and an RTC contributor. You can find him @themulv on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

The college basketball season is finally here! This season Set Your DVR (ed. note: sadly, nobody has TiVos anymore) will be a twice-weekly column outlining the must-see games for the upcoming week and weekend.  This column will lay out the key factors in each game to focus on and how those factors could affect the outcome. It’s a military-themed weekend of hoops with three games taking place on aircraft carriers and one game taking place at a military base located across the Atlantic Ocean.  Let’s get to the breakdowns.

Game of the Weekend

#16 San Diego State vs. #5 Syracuse – 4:00 PM EST, 11/11/12 on FSN HD (*****)

Jim Boeheim takes the Orange to the USS Midway to take on San Diego State

• The USS Midway provides the backdrop for an exciting opener between Syracuse and San Diego State. SDSU returns four starters including Mountain West Conference Player of the Year Jamaal Franklin as well as Chase Tapley, James Rahon, and Xavier Thomas. Keep a close eye on the match-up between the Aztec guards and Syracuse point guard Brandon Triche. Triche is taking over for Scoop Jardine and faces a tough test against this crew. Steve Fisher’s squad will have to improve in two areas if they are going to start beating top-tier programs like Syracuse – shooting and offensive rebounding. The Aztecs grabbed only 30.8% of their offensive rebound opportunities last season, so if they are only going to hit 33% of their three-point attempts and 49.8% of their two-point attempts like they did in 2011-12, it’s going to be difficult to beat the best teams in the country. Watch to see if transfers Dwayne Polee II and J.J. O’Brien can help the Aztecs grab more of those missed shots.
• After losing four starters to graduation and the NBA Draft, Syracuse is in a much different place than SDSU. Jim Boeheim’s ability to fill the talent void will be a key factor in determining if this Orange team can beat an experienced Aztec team. The ‘Cuse returns two significant contributors from last year’s team – C.J. Fair and Triche. Both players need to improve their sub-50% eFG in order to prevent the team from taking a step backwards.  The key to the Orange’s success in this game and in the future, however, may be 6’8” senior forward James Southerland. In a somewhat limited role last year, Southerland put up some impressive shooting numbers from inside the arc. Keep a close eye on Southerland’s ability to take advantage of his size inside the three-point line. Syracuse will also be able to throw additional size at the Aztecs with 6’9” sophomore Rakeem Christmas, 6’10” junior Baye Keita, and 6’7” 275 lb. wide-body freshman, DaJuan Coleman. Read the rest of this entry »