Throughout the preseason, the Pac-12 microsite will be rolling out these featured breakdowns of each of the 12 league schools. Today’s release is the Washington Huskies.

Strengths: Overall, the Huskies have a solid group of guys. They won’t be as explosive as last year, but a report from the Seattle Times has noted that this year’s team has better chemistry. That probably is due to the presence of Abdul Gaddy, who has really developed into a solid floor general and knows how to find his teammates while taking care of the basketball — his 2.43 assist-to-turnover ratio was second in the Pac-12 last year. One such teammate who will be a benefactor of Gaddy’s decision-making is C.J. Wilcox, who is one of the best pure shooters in the country. Now a junior, Wilcox shot 40 percent from downtown last season, good for ninth in the conference. He will be joined on the wing by Scott Suggs, another good shooter who is returning from a broken foot that forced him to redshirt last year. The Huskies also have one of the most physically imposing returning big men in the Pac-12, as seven-footer Aziz N’Diaye will patrol the paint for head coach Lorenzo Romar, who will transition this year’s team to a high-post offense. That’s a good move for the 2012-13 Huskies, as they are more suited to play in a more structured half-court set than the typical motion offense they ran in previous years. It also doesn’t hurt that the Huskies play in Alaska Airlines Arena, which gives the Huskies a huge home court advantage; in fact, the Huskies have won more games at Hec-Ed than any other NCAA team has won at a single facility.

Wilcox Has No Problem Knocking Down Jumpers With Defenders On Him, But It’s Even Easier When No One Is Within A Five Foot Radius (credit: Dean Rutz)

Weaknesses: Washington loses a ton of firepower in Tony Wroten and Terrence Ross, both of whom left early to become NBA first round draft picks. The loss of the duo is probably as good of a reason as any to move away from a motion look, because these were the two guys who really made the Huskies go. However, the Huskies lost more than just firepower with these guys; they also lost a lot of the patented “U-Dub swag” that has been a feature of Romar-coached teams in recent memory. This is where the loss of Darnell Gant also comes into play, as he probably played to the Hec-Ed crowd as well as anybody on the Huskies. With the power forward spot up for grabs, in addition to losing three of the four guys who averaged five rebounds a game or more from last year, defensive rebounding could turn into an issue for this team; as it was, the Huskies finished eighth in the Pac-12 last year in defensive rebounding percentage.

Read the rest of this entry »

College basketball coaches are consistently under the microscope throughout the year. Talent on paper does not always translate to wins and when it doesn’t, the fans demand an explanation. The Big Ten has five teams ranked in the preseason Top 25 but the entire league from top to bottom is considered by many as the best in the nation. The joy of looking good on paper will only last a few more days for each team because once the season tips off, the coaches in the conference will have to answer pointed questions about team chemistry, injuries and player rotations. Every coach feels pressure, but the following are five coaches from the Big Ten who need to show results and have to meet fairly high expectations this season. Any issues on or off the court will be heavily scrutinized and they will feel the pressure for different reasons throughout the season.

• Tubby Smith: Even though Smith’s contract was extended through the 2016-17 season over the summer, his job security is not guaranteed after recent issues off the court with Trevor Mbakwe and Saul Smith. Even though Smith can’t be blamed directly for Mbakwe’s legal troubles, his son’s DWI is a bad mark on his ability to control the program. Minnesota’s athletic director has to be concerned with the negative press that the program has received over the past few months. Keep in mind that this program went through a period of probation from violations committed under former head coach Clem Haskins in the late ‘90s. It took years to recover from those penalties and Smith was brought in to lead the Gopher program back to relevance. Even though he has been able to recruit quality talent to Minneapolis, he has not been able to compile much consistency during his tenure. The injury bug has bitten his teams over the years but certain players did not mesh with the program and Smith has not been able to implement the proper amount of discipline to foster good team chemistry. Both Royce White and Devoe Joseph were expected to contribute for a couple of seasons but they left the program on a bitter note. At some point, Smith needs to have a season where he wins 24 games, competes for the conference title, and make a serious run to reach for the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament. He has a talented squad this year and if his team continues to find turmoil and not make the postseason, he might be in trouble.

There’s nothing this country loves more than an upset. That’s one of the main reasons the NCAA Tournament is so popular; which #14 seed will knock off a Top 10 team? Which #12 seed advances out of the first weekend? These games are close, thrilling, and at the end of a short two hours, America has a new favorite team. Of course, picking upsets is a whole separate entity in itself. We attempt to do that exercise here, with the only requirement being that the underdog is the equivalent of a #10 seed or lower, and the favorite is a #7 seed or better. Let’s get to it.

Pac-12 Underdogs over Non-Conference Favorites

Stanford over Missouri, November 22: Coming in at a close second to teams at home in rivalry games, solid underdogs playing at neutral sites make for a great chance of an upset. And there’s not a more neutral site than Paradise Island in the Bahamas. The Cardinal matches up well with the Tigers, as Chasson Randle and Aaron Bright can certainly hold their  own with Michael Dixon, Jr., and Phil Pressey up top. The unknown will be how to play Connecticut transfer Alex Oriakhi, a four-five hybrid who can muscle his way to the hoop. Any time your first test of the year is against a lock for the NCAA Tournament there could be trouble, but expect Johnny Dawkins’ team to give Mizzou a game and have a chance to win it at the end.

Sophomore Point Guard’s Chasson Randle Play Will Be A Big Factor In Whether Or Not Stanford Can Upset Missouri (credit: Patrick McDermott)

USC over San Diego State, November 25: Just like Mountain West counterpart UNLV, SDSU could be headed for a #4 or #5 seed once March rolls around. But March is a long way off, and while Jamaal Franklin and Chase Tapley are All-Americans in the making, integrating highly touted Winston Shepard and Utah transfer JJ O’Brien into the six-man rotation poses a challenge. There is no more slow-moving, deliberate style of basketball at USC, but rather an athletic group of players (led by Jio Fontan and Aaron Fuller) who can score in bunches and keep up with a number of high-scoring teams. The Aztecs will rightly be on high alert for this in-state rivalry.

Washington State over Gonzaga, December 5: Home underdogs in rivalry games are perfect choices for these things, so let’s start off here. The Bulldogs will be just fine this season, but integrating centers Przemek Karnowski and Sam Dower into major minutes in order to replace Robert Sacre is going to take some time. Brock Motum can match up with small forward Elias Harris any day of the week, and Davonté Lacy should be able to score easily against a perimeter defense that struggled in 2011-12. The game comes before a two-game stretch in which the Bulldogs will face Illinois and Kansas State, so there’s a slight overlook possibility here as well. The Cougars will have already faced top-level competition in a previous game against Kansas, but there’s no doubt that this is the biggest game to the players on the non-conference slate.

Read the rest of this entry »

Throughout the preseason, the Big Ten microsite will be rolling out the featured breakdowns of each of the 12 league schools. Today’s release is the Indiana Hoosiers.

Where We Left Off: The Hoosiers had what many figured would be this year, last year. (That confusing enough for ya?) Meaning, Indiana overreached moderate expectations for a young squad that was expected to round into a Top-10 squad this season with a more mature Cody Zeller and a highly-touted recruiting class to be mixed in with a couple veterans. But when Zeller and Tom Crean revived Assembly Hall with thrilling home victories against then-No. 1 Kentucky and then-No. 2 Ohio State (not to mention a victory against Crean’s mentor, Tom Izzo, and No. 5 Michigan State), the basketball world realized that Indiana is finally back. And they are here to stay. The Hoosiers are the consensus No. 1 team in the country, with Zeller a near unanimous preseason All-America selection and a favorite for college basketball’s player of the year. Then, couple seniors Jordan Hulls and Christian Watford with Rivals.com’s fifth-ranked incoming freshman class, and this team is loaded from top to bottom. The Hoosiers ended last season with a Sweet Sixteen loss to eventual champion Kentucky, but Indiana has its sights set on much more this year.

Cody Zeller is the face of the Hoosiers this season. And for good reason.

Positives: When talking about the positives, you have to start with Zeller. He’s the best big man in the country heading into his sophomore campaign, after averaging 15.6 PPG and 6.6 RPG as a freshman. He has good footwork, runs the floor exceptionally well, and has a great nose for the ball. There’s no reason the Indiana offense shouldn’t move through him on every possession. And that brings us to the roles of Hulls and Watford. As seniors on team that will get a lot of its scoring from underclassmen — namely Zeller and freshman Yogi Ferrell, and though Victor Oladipo is a junior, he doesn’t exactly have three years of solid game experience — Watford and Hulls should have the know-how and the presence of mind to get the ball in and out of the post and through Zeller every trip downcourt. This depth and balance of scoring talent and Big Ten experience will do wonders for the Hoosiers this season.

Read the rest of this entry »

Throughout the preseason, the ACC microsite will release a preview for each of the 12 teams.  Today’s victim:  the North Carolina Tar Heels.

UNC certainly didn’t end the season like they expected, but the unfortunate timing of injuries to key players was mostly to blame. After Bob Cousy Award winning point guard Kendall Marshall went out with a fractured wrist against Creighton in the Sweet Sixteen, the Tar Heels struggled to recapture the offensive flow that led them to a 27-4 record and a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Elite Eight loss to Kansas goes to show that you shouldn’t judge an entire season by that team’s postseason finish, due to the unpredictable nature of a single elimination tournament.

Roy Must Reload Without the Magician Marshall Leading His Attack (News Observer/Robert Willitt)

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

Managing expectations is more difficult for some players than others. While some rise to the occasion and meet their preseason billing, others flop under the pressure. For the latter group, often times the hype was never justified in the first place. Fans and media have a way of drumming up baseless buzz and hype. Strong performances in small sample sizes, particularly in NCAA Tournament settings, are pointed to as signs of future stardom, affixed with a level of permanence that ignores the player’s mostly average career before his moment in the spotlight. Each and every year, players are expected to meet and sustain prescribed performance levels, and each and every year, they just don’t get there. It is one of the sadder aspects of college sports, because these kids often don’t deserve the immense pressure they’re dealt. However expectations surface around a certain player, there’s no questioning their existence, and my job is to predict one player from each power league who is susceptible to falling short of his predicted performance marks this season. As usual, freshmen will be excluded from this list, which is probably for the best anyway – if we gauged every top-end recruit by their scouting report descriptions, only a select few would actually arrive as advertised. With that qualifier out of the way, let’s give this a shot.

James Michael McAdoo – North Carolina

The frontcourt losses presents a huge challenge for McAdoo(photo credit: Getty Images).

At North Carolina, even lottery-bound talents like McAdoo aren’t guaranteed playing time early in their careers. Thanks largely to a frontcourt featuring three first-round picks (Tyler Zeller, John Henson, and Harrison Barnes), playing time was especially difficult to come by in the Tar Heels’ big man rotation last season. And McAdoo, the No. 2-ranked power forward and No. 6-ranked player overall in the class of 2011, according to ESPN Recruiting Nation, was shelved to a marginal reserve role. Now that the frontcourt logjam has moved on to the professional ranks, it’s up to McAdoo to control the low block. But he’s not just replacing three NBA talents; no, McAdoo’s job is tougher than that. He will need to shoulder the Tar Heels’ scoring load, and do so without master creationist Kendall Marshall running the show at point guard. Unlike the Tar Heels’ talented low-block trio of last season, who had the benefit of siphoning away defensive attention from one another, McAdoo will command opponents’ full range of resistance. And without Marshall, the McDonald’s All American will have to earn every clean look he gets. Such a massive jump in responsibility will require a huge transformation. From a talent perspective, McAdoo is ready to make that leap. But the pieces around him (or lack thereof) make his job an inherently difficult one.

Read the rest of this entry »

The season hasn’t even started yet and Minnesota forward Trevor Mbakwe is finding himself all over the news. First, he was arrested in July for drunk driving and was in danger of being removed from the team (after he was granted another year of eligibility after suffering a season-ending knee injury last year). And now Mbakwe is in the headlines again, this time for making a wager that sounds more like it’d come from an arrogant trust fund baby at the end of a long night of partying on campus. Perhaps Mbakwe thinks the Gophers have attracted doubters in the early going — though they handled Minnesota State – Mankato, 81-56, in their first exhibition game on Thursday — so he proclaimed on Twitter on Sunday that he’d pay back his scholarship for this season if Minnesota doesn’t make the NCAA Tournament.

This guy has plenty of confidence in himself, and his teammates.

“I love my teammates,” Mbakwe wrote from his Twitter handle, @TMbakwe32. “They have always been there for me. If we don’t make the tourney ill pay back this years scholarship.” He then reitereated: “That’s how much I believe in this years team” and “Some ppl say I’m cocky but that’s not the case I just know how hard my teammate have worked and I believe in them and our coach #easychoice.” In his first game since his injury last November, Mbakwe scored  four points, pulled down three rebounds and added two steals in 11 minutes of limited play in the win over Minnesota State – Mankato.

Read the rest of this entry »

Brian Otskey is a contributor for Rush the Court. Let him know what you think at @botskey on Twitter.

Can you believe it? Real, live college basketball begins this coming Friday and continues through early April. From San Diego to Miami to Ann Arbor and all places in between, here is your guide to the top 68 games of the 2012-13 college basketball season. NCAA Tournament and conference title implications ride on each and every one of these games so settle in and mark your calendars. Games later in the season, when teams are gelling and making a postseason push, are valued more than match-ups earlier in the season when teams are still trying to find their identities. We begin our countdown with games #68 to #52, listed below in order. The countdown will continue as we move through the week prior to opening night on November 9. Check back all week for the rest of the list. (h/t to Zach Hayes for his assistance in building this list).

68. November 30: Syracuse at Arkansas (8:30 PM, ESPN) – The marquee non-conference home game for Arkansas (as part of the Big East/SEC Challenge) is also a quality early season road test for Syracuse, a team that rarely leaves New York before conference play begins. The Razorbacks haven’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2008, having gone 22-42 in SEC play over the last four seasons. With Michigan being the only other top shelf team on their non-conference schedule, this game is a huge opportunity for this potential bubble team to notch a win that will make the committee take notice.

The Hoosiers and Bulldogs Will Bring Its Local Rivalry to the Crossroads Classic

67. December 15: Indiana vs. Butler (2:00 PM, CBS) – It will be interesting to see how Butler performs against their conference schedule in the Atlantic 10 versus the Horizon League but before they get a chance to do that, they’ll take on intrastate rival Indiana in Indianapolis. The Crossroads Classic, as it’s called, is a mid-December boon for a state with basketball entrenched in its culture. Now eligible, sharpshooter Rotnei Clarke (transfer from Arkansas) could keep the Bulldogs competitive against Indiana’s porous perimeter defense but Cody Zeller and company may be too much for Brad Stevens’ team to handle.

66. March 5: Arkansas at Missouri (7:00 PM, ESPN) – Razorbacks head coach and former Missouri headman Mike Anderson makes his return to Columbia for a late season tilt that should have postseason implications. Anderson’s teams love to play in the style of Nolan Richardson’s “40 minutes of hell” but you can bet Missouri will be well equipped to handle it with some holdovers from the Anderson regime still on the roster. With the combination of the return of Anderson and senior night, you can bet the crowd at Mizzou Arena will be fired up and ready to go for this one.

They also meet: February 16 in Fayetteville.

65. February 25: Syracuse at Marquette (7:00 PM, ESPN) – Despite being criminally underrated seemingly every season, Buzz Williams and Marquette will likely be in the Big East mix ahead of this late February matchup. The Golden Eagles will have a different look without Jae Crowder and Darius Johnson-Odom but an infusion of newcomers, headlined by Arizona State transfer Trent Lockett and a talented core of returning players ready to take the next step. Syracuse will start a new lineup this season after losing many key players but make no mistake, the Orange are among the favorites to take home the Big East crown in their final season in the conference.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan Peters is the RTC correspondent for Conference USA. You can find him on Twitter @pioneer_pride and read his musings online at Big Apple Buckets and Pioneer Pride.

Top Storylines

• A Conference in Considerable Flux – Before Memphis, Houston, UCF, and SMU defect to the Big East – which officially makes a geographic mockery of the Big East’s name – C-USA will have one final season together as a full-fledged “upper-level” Division I conference. With only six NCAA Tournament teams and zero NCAA tournament victories in the past three seasons, however, can C-USA muster together a respectable showing for the 2012-13 campaign that doesn’t rival most mid-major conferences? Memphis is the only virtual lock to go dancing, yet several other programs (see Marshall, UTEP, and Tulane) are on the rise and could conceivably end up on the right side of the tournament bubble come March. Still, it may be overly optimistic to think C-USA will break the two-team NCAA bid barrier that has eluded the conference since 2005.
• A Run Towards Perfection – In his fourth season as Memphis’ head coach, Josh Pastner has an opportunity to do something his predecessor, John Calipari, did with apparent ease for three straight seasons prior – have his Tigers run the table in C-USA. With the conference slightly weaker heading into this season (according to Ken Pomeroy), Memphis has a real opportunity to put up a perfect 16-0 regular season mark against their conference foes. It will still prove to be difficult, especially when facing UCF and Marshall twice as part of their unbalanced schedule, yet Memphis returns four starters and is sitting on a potential NBA lottery pick in Adonis Thomas if the 6’7” small forward can stay healthy for much of the season.

Josh Pastner leads a talented home-grown roster in Memphis’ final season in C-USA.

• Welcoming Back a Legend – Anytime you can hire a head coach with a resume such as the 71-year old Larry Brown, I guess you have to do it, given SMU’s desperation to hire a big name. After all, you’re talking about a guy with an NCAA championship and an NBA championship on his resume. The problem is – aside from his age and inability to coach through the initial contract at his last three destinations – Brown has been away from the college game for nearly 25 years, when he won the 1988 NCAA championship coaching Danny Manning (who, interestingly, is a new C-USA coach himself) and the Kansas Jayhawks. How much can the Mustangs reasonably expect from Brown under these conditions? The cupboard is bare with the graduation of leading scorer and most efficient player, Robert Nyakundi, and the removal of four players including starting point guard Jeremiah Samarrippas, so you have to wonder if Brown will have the patience to stick around long enough to fully rebuild a SMU program that hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1993. One benefit from Brown’s hiring is that he has assembled an impressive coaching staff, which includes the Mustangs possible head-coach-in-waiting in Tim Jankovich.
• New Coaching Blood – Including Brown, there are four C-USA programs that hired new coaches this offseason, which makes up a whopping one third of the entire league. The most notable new hires are Brown and the aforementioned Danny Manning, who left his assistant post at Kansas in an attempt to push Tulsa out of complacency. Donnie Tyndall (Southern Miss) and Jerod Haase (UAB) complete the list of coaches. It will be an uphill battle in season one; research has shown head coaches typically struggle in their first season at their newest destination. Perhaps these men can buck the trend and adapt quickly, although the more likely scenario has some of the league taking advantage and pushing ahead of these rebuilding programs for the time being. Well, maybe except for Rice (more on that later)…

Reader’s Take I

1. Memphis (14-2)
2. Marshall (12-4)
3. UTEP (11-5)
4. UCF (10-6)
5. UAB (9-7)
6. Southern Mississippi (8-8)
7. Tulane (7-9)
8. East Carolina (7-9)
9. Houston (6-10)
10. Tulsa (5-11)
11. SMU (5-11)
12. Rice (2-14)

And away we go, headfirst into another season heralded by our 2012-13 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season 100% guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight. We’ve captured here what we believe were the most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back the goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head. The entire series from #30 to this point can be viewed here. Enjoy!

#5 – Where Messed Around and Got a Triple Double Happens

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, and 2011-12 seasons.