1. After spending time in Louisville, Sports Illustrated’s Seth Davis has some strong convictions about this year’s Cardinals team: “They have depth, athleticism, and they are as good defensively as any team in America. And to state the obvious, they are very, very well-coached. In other words, the sky’s the limit. It says here they’re going back to the Final Four.” After gelling so well down the stretch last season on their run to the Final Four, it’s easy to see why Louisville is such a trendy championship pick this year, and Davis does a great job of outlining it in this piece. The Cards have a great mix of veteran leadership and young talent, they play tenacious defense as Rick Pitino-coached squads are wont to do, and they have a number of unique, dynamic players who should blend well on the court.
2. Elsewhere on SI.com, Andy Glockner named the Big East as his second-ranked conference in his preseason conference power rankings, right behind the top-ranked Big 10. Glockner is also on the rapidly-filling ‘Ville bandwagon, saying the Cardinals “could be the best team in the nation.” Glockner goes on to say that Syracuse has “national title sleeper potential,” and has kind words to say about some of the conference’s second and third-tier teams like Notre Dame, Cincinnati, Marquette, Georgetown, Pittsburgh, and even Connecticut. The Big East loses points here due to their weak teams at the bottom of the conference. The Big 12, SEC, and ACC round out the top five.
3. Things haven’t been easy for Rutgers seniors Dane Miller and Austin Johnson.  The two have not seen the postseason since coming to Piscataway, and would like to see that change in their final year. Mike Rice expects the two to have a big impact in leading this year’s Rutgers team, where he expects to see improvement due to added experience, strength, and depth. Last season, Rice was criticized a bit after setting rather lofty expectations for his team, stating that he saw his team going 10-8 in conference play.  The Knights fell way short of that goal, going 5-13 in the Big East, but that hasn’t discouraged Rice, who is optimistic about this season:
   

   “I like coaching this team,” he said. “I’m more excited and energetic after practice than I am when I start the practice. That’s always a good sign. It wasn’t like that last year. It was a drain. […] The players took the energy and focus. Now they’re giving it. It’s fun to be around and that’s important. We had some growing pains, but I think we should bear the fruits of that youth and inexperience.”

4. Despite stating that he’s “walking side by side” with recently-retired coach Jim Calhoun, Kevin Ollie hasn’t been afraid to implement some changes to the normal Connecticut practice. One of these major adjustments is the implementation of live referees in practice. Shabazz Napier has already seen this move pay dividends: “You can tell it’s different. When you mess up, it’s good to have somebody on your back, but at the same time giving you that positive push. A lot of guys need that — keep pushing them.” Despite the change in coach and the fact that the Huskies will not be allowed to participate in any postseason play in 2013, the players seem to be coming together well as a team under Ollie’s brand of leadership, which will be important if he is to have the interim tag removed moving forward.
5. Notre Dame made some notable adjustments to its normal routine as well, moving one day of practice to the South Bend Kroc Center. The move allowed the Fighting Irish to engage with the local community as well as benefit from a change in scenery. Mike Brey invited local kids to take part in Notre Dame’s lay-up lines, and from all accounts, everyone involved had a great time… except, perhaps, Jack Cooley, who really wanted to go down the water slide: “I asked if I could come here whenever, but they said that you needed a membership, so I don’t know.” One day, Jack, one day. In crucial Brey mock turtleneck news, because he has eclipsed the 5,000 Facebook ‘Like’ plateau, the Notre Dame coach will be wearing a pink mock in the upcoming scrimmage against D-II Quincy University in support of breast cancer awareness month.

1. UCLA is lately starting to challenge Kentucky in terms of its news-making prowess as it seems like we’re discussing some new twist with Ben Howland’s team virtually every day in this space. The latest news out of Westwood is that still-ineligible superstar freshman Shabazz Muhammad injured his right shoulder in practice on Wednesday and underwent an MRI last evening to determine if there is any damage to the joint. He’ll be re-evaluated as a matter of course today, but at least so far, sources around the Bruins have been mum on the possible extent of his injury. This comes on the heels of an injury to David Wear’s ankle that has kept the big man out of practice for the last several days, not to mention the continuing dark cloud hovering over the program as a result of the ongoing NCAA investigations of Muhammad (the best wing in college basketball, according to CBSSports.com) and Kyle Anderson. Is there a turning point coming soon or are this year’s Bruins simply doomed from the start?
2. One school that has found clarity on the eligibility of one of its key players is Murray State. School administrators have made the difficult but correct decision to suspend guard Zay Jackson for the entire 2012-13 season as a result of his dastardly actions last month in using his car as a human battering ram in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We wrote in this very space last week that athletic director Allen Ward had no reasonable choice other than to bring the hammer down on Jackson, and it appears that in light of the shocking video showing Jackson’s rage, he certainly acceded to public pressure. Ward stated that Jackson could earn his way back on to the team next season, but it would take a showing of steps “above and beyond… [those] of an exemplary citizen” to prove to Ward, head coach Steve Prohm, and his teammates that he deserves a second chance. We’ll say this — the legal system will have its pound of flesh (Jackson will be sentenced next week for wanton endangerment) and now the school will have its penance as well. If Jackson wants to atone for his sins, he’ll have what should be a one-time opportunity to make things good in the next 50 weeks until the start of the 2013-14 season.
3. Don’t you hate when you read a piece that you wish you had already written? That’s exactly how we felt yesterday when we became aware of a fantastic article from The Atlantic‘s Stephen A. Miller that discusses an eminently reasonable solution to much of the perceived and actual inconsistencies in the NCAA‘s application of its rules. Outsource it. Miller argues that the NCAA carries so many inherent risks with its existing enforcement structure — conflicts of interest, inadequate funding, arbitrary and capricious rulings, a perception of playing favorites — that paying an outside entity to build a fair, transparent and consistent body of case law would result in growth in the one thing that the NCAA has trouble selling to the public right now: a strong perception of integrity. Miller’s piece is well worth the time for a read, but in the protect-your-own environment that we live in today, this has about as much chance of happening as Mark Emmert sprouting wings and delivering papers to Shabazz Muhammad’s dorm room.
4. A really interesting bit of news was released as part of a SiriusXM show Wednesday hosted by Mike Krzyzewski (“Basketball and Beyond“) with Louisville head coach Rick Pitino giving some insight as to how he ended up back in the Bluegrass State after an unsuccessful stint with the Boston Celtics. According to Pitino, it was his wife, Joanne, who talked him out of his commitment to become the new Michigan head coach by — are you ready for this? — challenging him for being “afraid to go back to the state of Kentucky to coach at Louisville, his old school’s arch-rival.” Now, we don’t claim to listen to or read every single comment that the loquacious Pitino has made over the last 10 years, but we’re pretty sure about one thing — the Louisville coach has gone on record dozens of times stating that he expected those same Kentucky fans to embrace him after his return to collegiate coaching. If this is in fact true — and, of course, we know it is not — what would he possibly have been afraid of? As a side note, props to Coach K for his investigative reporting in getting such a jewel of honesty out of Pitino — maybe he has a career on 60 Minutes ahead of him, as even in his 70s, he’d certainly mesh with the median age of its reporters.
5. Let’s close today with a list, as those are always fun for some debate no matter how ridiculous they turn out to be. Luckily, SI.com‘s Andy Glockner does his homework year-round, so his opinions are on the positive side of the cut line. He ranks all the Division I conferences from #1 to #33 with brief descriptions explaining why, for example, the Pac-12 ended up at #8 (ouch!) or the Big East shows at #2 in its last season as we typically think of it. Keeping in mind that people generally rate conferences based on the quality of their better teams — nobody really cares if your conference’s worst two teams would beat another league’s worst two teams — Glockner chooses the Big Ten as the top conference for the second year in a row. As we discussed on our Big Ten Preview Podblast yesterday, the top five teams in this league are legitimately good-to-great basketball teams. The four or five below that group are all good enough to threaten to make the NCAAs, although not all of them will do so; and so you’re left with just a couple of bottom-feeders whose fans are already thinking of next year. That’s an excellent and talented basketball league.

It’s time to start running down each of the power conference previews on the RTC Podblast, so we’ll be rolling one of these out every few days until we’ve got all six in the books. We hope to also knock out an Other 26 podblast along the way at some point. We begin with our good friends Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) and Big Ten microsite correspondent Deepak Jayanti breaking down the 2012-13 version of the Big Ten Conference.

We welcome any and all feedback on these podcasts including topics for future discussion or if you want to send us any questions for our “May Not Be From Actual Listeners” segment. Hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com or @rushthecourt on Twitter. For now, enjoy the listen and feel free to jump around to the areas you’re most interested in by using the below outline.

Make sure to add the RTC Podcast to your iTunes lineup so that you’ll automatically upload it on your listening device after each recording.

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 USC Trojans.

Strengths: Fresh blood. You know the old legend about Keith Richards getting a complete change of blood in order to beat a heroin addiction prior to the Rolling Stones 1973 European tour? Well, if you’ll indulge a tortured analogy for a second: If Keith Richards is the USC basketball team, and his heroin addiction is SC’s 1-17 finish in a historically bad Pac-12, that blood transfusion is USC’s almost completely remade roster. With transfers, freshmen and players returning from seasons lost to injury, head coach Kevin O’Neill will likely only run a player or two out there who was around and active at the end of 2011-12. Instead Jio Fontan, J.T. Terrell, Eric Wise, DeWayne Dedmon, Aaron Fuller, Ari Stewart, Renaldo Woolridge and others will give the Trojans a chance to start anew, and with certainly a larger collection of offensive talent than has ever been assembled in the O’Neill era in Los Angeles. To reference the apocryphal story even further, it should be noted that even if Richards did undergo such a transfusion, it wasn’t his last run-in with addiction. But, nevertheless, that ’73 Stones tour was an undeniable success. And this Trojan team is capable of going from one with no expectations a year ago to one who could get some serious satisfaction this season, so long as that relapse can be withheld until after the tour.

Jumpin’ Jio Fontan Is Back For The New Look Trojans, Who Hope A Complete Change Of Blood Will Reverse Their Fortunes

Weaknesses: While the Trojans have been strong defensively in each of O’Neill’s three years as head coach, they’ve been a plodding mess on offense, ranking no better than #93 in the nation in offensive efficiency (as always, per KenPom.com) before dipping to a putrid #326 last year. While he’s got tons of new pieces that could fit perfectly into his team’s jigsaw puzzle, KO’s got to prove that he can get it done with plenty of guys on this squad who have a history of bombing their way to unacceptably low field goal percentages (Fontan’s never even approached a 50% eFG rate, while Terrell, Stewart, Wise and Woolridge all had similar struggles at their previous stops). A newer concern for O’Neill is that, with the departure of last year’s point guard Maurice Jones, there is no margin for error at the point guard position for Fontan. If, god forbid, his surgically repaired knee causes him to miss any time again, the Trojans could be playing with fire.

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Throughout the preseason, the ACC microsite will release a preview for each of the 12 teams. Today’s victim: the Clemson Tigers.

Last season, the Clemson Tigers flirted with sneaking into the NCAA Tournament before wilting in the conference tournament. Brad Brownell‘s squad go off to a dubious start, losing home games to the likes of Coastal Carolina and the College of Charleston and continuing shaky play on the road by losing to Hawaii and Boston College. Yet something strange happened as the season went on: The Tigers notched victories against North Carolina State, Virginia, and Florida State, finishing the season on a fairly impressive 5-2 run. It would have taken an unlikely run to the ACC Tournament championship game, but Clemson was not as impossibly far from dancing as their  16-14 record (8-8 in conference) might indicate. The question remains, however, can the Tigers move forward?

Brad Brownell Has a Young Team With a Tough Early Schedule Ahead of Him

Newcomers

The Tigers are going to welcome a whole raft of freshmen this season as Brownell tries to replenish the team’s depleted ranks. The freshmen class consists of a wide range of fairly talented recruits, though no one player is heralded as a game-changing savior. Adonis Filer and Jordan Roper are capable point guards, but this year they will, barring a surprise, come off the bench, serving as a second string in the guard rotation. Similarly, Landry Nnoko and Josh Smith are gifted big men, but they will almost certainly start behind the veteran Clemson frontcourt. Finally Jaron Blossomgame might be the slowest to be integrated into the rotation on account of a broken leg that he suffered last spring. Blossomgame, however, might be able to help the Tigers the most. Though he is small for an ACC power forward at 6’7″, he may be able to offer support at the swingman position, where Clemson only fields one prototypical small forward in K.J. McDaniels.

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According to the Twitter account of GoVolsXtra’s Tennessee Volunteers men’s basketball beat writer Brendan Quinn, Tennessee head coach Cuonzo Martin says that forward Jeronne Maymon has suffered a “minor setback” and will likely not start the beginning of the year with the Volunteers. Maymon had arthroscopic knee surgery on his left knee in June and was originally expected to return to action when the Vols traveled to Italy in August. Though Maymon made the trip, he sat out the first two games for precautionary reasons, and was not a major contributor when he played.

Jeronne Maymon Suffers a Minor Setback

According to Martin, “Jeronne had a minor setback so we probably won’t have him to start the season.” He went on to state that Maymon is “obviously not lost for the year.” When reporters asked if the forward was ready to play otherwise, Martin said that he didn’t “think he’s at the level where he could play a game right now.” The head coach gave no further comment on exactly what was involved in the “setback.”

Maymon played in 33 games last season, averaging 12.7 points and 8.1 rebounds per game. In addition, he was selected as a second team preseason all-SEC member by the media. In the short term, Maymon’s absence could benefit Vols’ center Kenny Hall. The senior averaged 6.2 points and 4.5 rebounds last season, but will likely see additional playing time with a thin frontline. When asked about a timetable for Maymon’s return, Martin simply stated that “it’s a case of when he’s ready.” Maymon is clearly a major component to the high expectations accompanying Tennessee this year, and his return is crucial to the Vols’ success.

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

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

College basketball, like most sports, is cyclical. Aside from the truly elite crop of blue-blooded programs, the Kentuckys and Dukes and Kansases and UNCs of the world, most teams are just as prone to have truly transcendent seasons as they are to crash and burn. Ok, that’s overstating the truth. I define these parameters in dramatic terms not as an accurate depiction of most teams’ year-to-year trajectories – it’s rare for a program to follow up a high-win season with an epic flameout – but to emphasize the fickle nature of the sport. We media types tend to overreact to single-season sample sizes, but in truth, most programs, whether through coaching changes, administrative shake-ups or otherwise, chart a steady long-term course. Teams suffer long downturns, sure, and some last longer than others. But most find ways (coaching changes, administrative shakeups, etc.) to right the ship, if only for one memorable season, to compete at the top of their respective leagues.

With a healthy Woodall, and a potential first-round talent in Adams, Pitt will regain its usual status among the Big East elite (Photo credit: US Presswire)

Underlying these trends is the inherent potential for random variance, for teams to break out of their expected competitive range and “make the leap.” It happens each and every season. Teams bounce back from particularly disappointing seasons to bump their win totals and challenge the same teams who oversaw their downfall one year prior. Predicting which teams are ready to fulfill that narrative is never easy. There are a variety of factors involved that make pinpointing breakout teams a fundamentally risky exercise. Sometimes conventional wisdom – decades-long concepts like returning starters directly correlating to success, or promising bench players seamlessly carrying their production rates into larger minute distributions and more shot attempts; you know, the ideas that never seem to play out the way you’d expect – does not apply to specific teams. Each situation is different, no matter what conventional logic you use to define a team’s potential.

To account for natural error, and the time-tested axiom that logical thinking does not prescribe college basketball teams to specific win ranges and milestones, I’ve selected six teams ready to make the aforementioned “leap,” one from each of the six power conferences.  As a reminder, this exercise, like most any preseason preview article you’ll see on the web, is rooted mostly in opinion. No one’s actually seen these guys play real games together, at least not within the construct of this year’s team model. The knowledge base from which we make these predictions is limited – though larger and more permitting to some than others. We have observations from previous seasons, recruiting rankings, highlights and random hearsay from coaches and fans and whatnot, and that’s about it. Mistakes are likely, if not guaranteed. That said, each conference features a particularly salient breakout candidate, at least in my eyes. Let’s begin. 

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Earlier in the week, CBS Sports released a list of its top 50 point guards in the nation. Three Pac-12 players made the list with UCLA’s Kyle Anderson checking in at No. 6, Arizona’s Mark Lyons at No. 11, and Stanford’s Chasson Randle at No. 29. While this writer can’t claim to have watched all of the other 47 guys enough to discredit their merits, a case can be made for a few other Pac-12 guys, in particular Cal’s Justin Cobbs and Washington’s Abdul Gaddy, as addenda to this list.

Abdul Gaddy (# 10) has come a long way from his freshman year.

Statistics aren’t the only indicator of how good a player is, nor are they the most reliable factor to make such determinations, but arguably the most important one to look at with respect to point guards is assist-to-turnover ratio. Neither Cobbs nor Gaddy were the sole ball-handlers for the Golden Bears or Huskies last year, but they were the top two in the conference (Cobbs first, Gaddy second) in that statistic and 25^th and 26^th nationally, well within that top-50 range. And, not that this is the best way of going about things, but for one comparison, Jake Odum (No. 49 on the list) finished last year at 179^th in assist-to-turnover ratio with a lower assist average than either Cobbs or Gaddy and a scoring average that split the two (though Odum had more steals than the two combined).

Cobbs might not be the most explosive player you’ll ever see, but he is a guy who provides a collected presence, good court vision and the ability to spread out defenses with his three-point and mid-range shooting ability. As his assist-to-turnover ratio would tell you, he rarely made bad decisions with the basketball and thrived in his transfer from Minnesota to Mike Montgomery’s system. He’s not as flashy as former Pac-12 colleague Momo Jones (who checks in at No. 47); he just gets the job done. Read the rest of this entry »

With the lull between Midnight Madness and the start of the season, there’s not a whole of compelling topics that need covering. So it only makes sense to rank how each Big 12 team is faring out on the recruiting trail. While getting some help from Verbalcommits.com, here’s how my league teams shake out among players in the class of 2013 as of right now.

As of Now, Wayne Selden is the Top Prospect Entering the Big 12 Next Year

10. Texas Tech

Commitments: None

Analysis: This was an easy one. Texas Tech isn’t exactly the hottest thing going right now. Forget top-flight recruits, but how are mid-level prospects going to want to go to Lubbock when they just fired the head coach after one season and currently have an interim who may also be gone after this year? If they’re going to get anyone, they’ll probably be players who committed and de-committed to a bunch of schools or players who’ll take a Red Raider scholarship because it sounds better than say, a Florida Gulf Coast scholarship.

9. Texas

Commitments: None

Analysis: Surprised? The reason I put the Horns here is because they don’t have any verbal commitments at the moment but when all is said and done, Texas will surely rack in some recruits of notoriety. Currently, they have two scholarships available for prospects including the top power forward in the class, Julius Randle, and a trio of four-star talents: Keith Frazier, BeeJay Anya and Brandon Austin. Methinks the Longhorns will be just fine.

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

Where We Left Off: Minnesota’s 2011-12 season can best be described as streaky. The Gophers started the year 12-1, but lost their first four conference games before a three-game winning streak that included a good win at Indiana. Minnesota then traded wins and losses before ending the regular season on a 1-6 slide. However, the Gophers got hot in the Big Ten Tournament, knocking off Northwestern and nearly doing the same to Michigan. They then made a great run in the NIT, including a win against Washington before losing in the championship game to Stanford. It certainly was an up-and-down year, but it ended with plenty of promise.

Tubby’s Minnesota Teams Can Never Seem to Get Healthy and Eligible at the Same Time (AP)

Positives: This could be one of the most talented teams that Tubby Smith has had in Minnesota, and some — including yours truly — see the Gophers as a sleeper in the Big Ten title race. Sixth-year senior Trevor Mbakwe will be the face of the team, and the Gophers got a huge break when he avoided jail time after a parole violation for a summer DUI. This is a versatile team, which will allow the Gophers to play several big or small lineups. Talented young players such as Andre Hollins, Joe Coleman and Elliott Eliason will be complemented by more experienced players, such as Julian Welch, Rodney Williams, and Mbakwe.

Negatives: Can this team be consistent? Of course, a lot of last year’s on-court issues can be blamed on Mbakwe’s injury before conference play. The Gophers were forced to throw a number of talented freshmen into action, and while there were bright spots early — particularly the win against Indiana — it took awhile for things to come together. Can Minnesota take advantage of the experience gained by its younger players last year, or will inconsistency continue to be the story of a team that can’t get over the hump?

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