1. With top ten teams falling everyday it seems like we are the verge of finally seeing Gonzaga rise to #1 in the rankings. As we pointed out nearly a week ago Gonzaga’s likely rise to #1 will be met by skepticism in many corners as evidenced by the fact that they might not get a #1 seed even if they enter the NCAA Tournament as the #1 team in the polls. However, that shouldn’t diminish how impressive the program’s rise from the archetypal mid-major power to one that has become such a national force that even The New York Times stopped by Spokane for the annual story about the program with a piece by Greg Bishop appropriately titled “Nothing ‘Mid’ About Gonzaga”. We tend to find the “mid-major” label argument tiresome, but the growth and continued excellence of the program has been nothing short of remarkable regardless of whatever moniker you want to afix to them.
2. Gonzaga might be reaching their post-Casey Cavalry peak later today, but their West Coast Conference rival Saint Mary’s certainly is not after the NCAA handed down some substantial sanctions on Friday (full report PDF here). We have a longer breakdown of the story from Friday afternoon, but the primary charges against the school and its coach, Randy Bennett, are that they failed to monitor an assistant coach in his recruitment of three international prospects as well as Bennett conducting impermissible training and coaching sessions. The assistant coach who was not named in the report, but is believed to be Keith Moss, was hit with a two-year show-cause.  The school was hit with four years of probation, a reduction of scholarships from 13 to 11 in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons, elimination of foreign trips until the 2017-18 season, no skill instruction during the next two seasons, and they cannot participate in multi-team events for the next two seasons. Bennett will serve a five-game suspension next year (doesn’t make any sense to us why this should wait until next season) and is prohibited from recruiting off-campus next season. We are sure that St. Mary’s fans are having difficulty finding anything positive from the situation, but this should guarantee them that Bennett will not be leaving them for a higher profile job in the very near future. Of course that is operating under the assumption that administrators care about NCAA violations, which may not be the case.
3. If Moss is looking for hope after his show-cause he can look to Steve Forbes, who shook off the NCAA’s one-year show-cause (part of the Bruce Pearl investigation) in an unusual way–going to the NJCAA. Forbes’ route is an unusual one in that he did not sit out at all and went straight into another college coaching job. Given his recent coaching success and his success at recruiting at the Division I level we would not be surprised to see his name mentioned in another month when more than a few positions. Still if Forbes is able to make it back to the Division I level (especially as a head coach) he would be joining a very short list of coaches to have done so (Todd Bozeman is the only head coach to have done so, but we are not certain on assistants making the leap).
4. The decision by St. John’s to suspend D’Angelo Harrison for the rest of the season is one of the more interesting ones we have seen as the Red Storm were still on the bubble when they made the announcement on Friday and we still have not heard a good explanation for why Harrison was suspended for the rest of the season. Having said that we have to give Steve Lavin some credit for making the tough call as it would have been much easier just to put up with whatever Harrison was doing (assuming he isn’t in legal trouble) and finish out the season with a potential NCAA Tournament trip on the line. On top of that there is always the risk that this move will help push Harrison out the door at St. John’s whether that is to another school or (a dumb) decision to enter the NBA Draft.
5. The University of San Diego bribery case appears to be nearing an end (at least for those of us concerned with the basketball aspect) as the school’s all-time leading scorer, Brandon Johnson, was sentenced to six months in prison for his role in the scandal. Johnson was charged with fixing four games, but continues to deny everything except that he unsuccessfully tried to recruit another player to throw games despite the fact that the FBI has a recorded conversation where Johnson stated he wished he had thrown every game and even offered to throw a NBA Developmental League game. Johnson will begin serving the sentence on May 31 after being granted a delay in sentencing so he could finish out the rest of his season as a youth league coach in Houston. Johnson says he hopes to play professional basketball again at some point, but given the evidence against him we cannot imagine any league taking him with his background.

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

The Weekend’s Lede. March’s First Weekend. The regular season is whittling down to it climactic end. After this weekend’s bloated weekend of excitements, where many a conference race were won and lost, only one more weekend remains before conference tournaments begin. The regular season has been filled with excitement and unlikely drama, so in one sense it is devastating to face the end-of-regular-season music. The nearing of conference and NCAA Tournaments is what I like to call the ultimate silver lining to that dour sentiment. That’s right: check your calendars. The Tournament, and the mini tournaments leading up to it, are coming to a TV near you. And soon. What I’m really trying to get at here is that as grim as the prospect of a Saturday afternoon with zero college hoops on tap may be, the treat at the end of the calendar will arrive at a moment’s notice. One phase (the regular season) gives way to a better one (the postseason). That turning point isn’t here yet, so in the meantime we’ll stop by and examine some of the hardwood happenings in various leagues around the country. All systems go:

Your watercooler Moment. Ryan Kelly Helps, a Lot.

The return of Kelly was the deciding factor in Duke’s ACC bout with Miami (USA Today Sports).

Whenever someone would mention Duke’s chances of advancing into the deep rounds of the NCAA Tournament, or its seeding prospects, they talked about Duke in two forms. With Ryan Kelly, the Blue Devils are undefeated with wins over Kentucky, VCU, Louisville, Minnesota, Ohio State, Temple and Davidson. Without him they’re not the same team, both empirically and wins-wise, and a mixed run through the ACC underscored the impact of Kelly’s absence on Duke’s collective unit. The conversation loomed as Duke took road losses at NC State, Miami, Maryland, and most recently, Virginia. No one doubted whether Duke would improve with Kelly in the lineup, only whether they could improve enough to regain their nonconference form or, in the most skeptical corners of ACC message boards, whether Kelly would return at all this season. And even if he did return, how much could we reasonably expect from an unconventional 6’ll’’ stretch four with a history of nagging foot injuries? The answer to that question came Saturday. Kelly returned to the Blue Devils just in time for a titanic ACC clash with Miami, who embarrassed the Blue Devils in Coral Gables in their first matchup in January. To say Kelly returned would be like saying Willis Reed “returned” from a torn thigh muscle for game seven of the Knicks’ NBA Finals series with the Los Angeles Lakers. Kelly didn’t just return. He stole the show: 36 points on 10-of-14 shooting in a game that Miami kept close throughout, and was only sealed when Shane Larkin and Rion Brown missed game-tying threes as time expired. It’s unreasonable to bank Kelly for 30 points on any given night. I could even see him sitting out, or playing sparse minutes, in Duke’s two remaining regular season games. If his foot isn’t fully healed, he may need the extra rest to gear up for the NCAA Tournament. What matters is that Kelly is back, and Duke can start working on trending back towards the clear-cut No. 1 team that ruled the hoops landscape in November and December. 

Also Worth Chatting About. Big East Contenders Handle Business.

A midseason Big East panic is a distant memory after Louisville won at Syracuse Saturday (AP).

At the top of the Big East standings, a glut of variously capable teams has positioned itself within striking distance of the conference title at different stages this season. Syracuse and Louisville were the obvious favorites entering conference play, and teams such as Marquette, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame have looked threatening on occasion. The picture has remained muddy for a while now – as it should in a league as naturally competitive and unpredictable in the Big East. As the conference schedule wanes, time and gradual attrition has sliced the pool of realistic challengers into a formidable trio: Georgetown, Louisville and Marquette. The most surprising exclusion expedited its exit on Saturday afternoon at the Carrier Dome, where the Orange engaged in a low-scoring tussle, eventually falling on the wrong end of Louisville’s payback effort from the Orange win at the KFC Yum! Center earlier this season. You may or may not have realized, but the victory was Louisville’s fifth in a row since that devastating 5 OT loss at Notre Dame, the only one of which had any real consequence. The Cardinals are once again locking teams down with the nation’s No. 1 efficiency defense, getting just enough on the other end from Peyton Siva and Russ Smith and peaking just in time for the postseason. With Marquette holding serve against the Irish on Saturday just a week after knocking off the Orange at home, the Golden Eagles stand tied with Louisville in the Big East table, with Georgetown holding down first place after its win over Rutgers Saturday night. Syracuse’s three-game skid essentially dashes its league crown hopes, but more importantly it gives the Orange two straight defeats in their previously unassailable home gym and three straight losses overall. The Orange, strangely enough, are officially vulnerable at home, and officially on the outside of the conference title chase looking in as they round out their last hurrah in the Big East.

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When Stanford celebrates its Senior Day today, we’re not going to be saying goodbye to multiple all-conference type players. Instead the crowd at Maples Pavilion will be saluting a guy who has averaged roughly 10 minutes per outing in the 81 games he’s played for Johnny Dawkins, scoring a grand total of just 157 points over four years. But for the Cardinal’s lone senior, Gabriel Harris and his family, that isn’t going to make it any less special.

Gabriel Harris Earned A Reputation As Stanford’s Defensive Specialist (Getty Images)

When Harris first chose Stanford over schools like Alabama and Georgia Tech – schools much closer to his Birmingham, Alabama, hometown –his mom was mad at him for a month after leaving home. But with a Stanford degree in psychology already under his belt and work on a Masters degree underway, you can bet his parents will be plenty proud to stand beside him this afternoon. A defensive specialist by trade, he’s only started six games in his career, and missed the bulk of 2011-12 due to a knee injury, but he’s been a veteran leader for this team, a guy his teammates call “Old Man” in part because he’s slightly older than most of them and in part due to the effect that knee injury had on his game. But Harris has had his moments, including a buzzer-beating three-quarter court shot on a national television broadcast against Colorado State last season in a game in which he not only played a career-high 26 minutes, but also scored a career-high 12 points.

For the most part, Harris has been content to be a role player, working hard in practice, talking care of his academics and doing what his coaching staff asks of him. He might be a guy with a game that is easily forgotten as the 2012-13 fades into a distant memory in the years to come, but his time at Stanford will surely serve him well as he moves forward.

I. Renko is an RTC correspondent based in D.C. and the author of the weekly column, The Other 26. He filed this report after Saturday afternoon’s game between Saint Louis and George Washington. Follow him on Twitter @IRenkoHoops.

Three key takeaways:

• Saint Louis is Tough In More Ways Than One — The Bilikens have strong guards and wings who force their way to the basket, they body up their opponent on defense, and they generally control their defensive glass. But more than that, they’re mentally tough. That should be obvious, given the season they’ve put together after losing Rick Majerus in December. But they’ve shown it on the court in their past two road games as well, both times trailing in the second-half before mounting a rally to take control, first against Butler and today at GW. After leading by eight early in the second half, they fell behind 48-45 with 7:12 to play. But they didn’t panic, instead reeling off 10 straight points to take a seven-point lead with 4:20 left, from which point they glided to victory. The Bilikens carry themselves with a quiet confidence that will serve them well in March.
• The Bilikens Know How To Beat You From the Line — One reason that Saint Louis is so tough at the end of games is their ability to get to the free throw line. That was all the difference in this game, as they converted 21-of-24, including a perfect 8-of-8 during the crucial 10-0 run that decided the game. GW, meanwhile, managed to shoot just 8-of-15 from the charity stripe. As a result, although the Colonials shot a better field goal percentage in the second half, they were outscored by two points. The Bilikens’ tendency to pound the ball inside and draw contact gives them a particular advantage late in games when they can get into the bonus.
• Kevin Larsen Could be a Contender — If Mike Lonergan is going to take GW back to the NCAA Tournament in the coming years, Larsen is going to be a big part of it. The freshman center from Copenhagen has a big body, good offensive skills, and an understanding of how to play within the team concept. He’s often struggled to put it all together on the court, but there is no doubt that he’s getting there. After setting a career-high at Richmond in his last game (16 points), he added 14 against Saint Louis and has now scored in double-digits in 7 of his last 10 games. Larsen does a nice job of establishing position in the post, has good footwork, and often clears himself for a good look. If he can improve his ability to finish, he could be a centerpiece of GW’s offense over the next three years.

Evans Did His Part with a 22/12 Game

Star(s) of the Game: Dwayne Evans and Kwamain Mitchell.  Saint Louis has a balanced offense that doesn’t rely too heavily on any single player. But when the chips are down, these two are the most likely to come through, and they did today. With their team struggling against GW’s 1-3-1 zone in the second half, the pair took over, Mitchell driving the ball to the basket and Evans fighting his way to the hoop and free throw line underneath. They finished with 40 points combined, 29 of which came in the second half.

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I. Renko is an RTC columnist. He will kick off each weekend during the season with his analysis of the 26 other non-power conferences. Follow him on Twitter @IRenkoHoops.

As the calendar turns to March, let us declare: Let the Madness begin. The NCAA Tournament is still three weeks away, but the fight to get there begins in earnest this coming week, as 12 mid-major conferences will kick off their tournaments. The Big South and Horizon League will have the honor of kicking things off on Tuesday night, with their first round tournament games. Ten more conferences will follow suit with the first auto-bids being awarded a week from today in the Atlantic Sun and Ohio Valley.

We’ll be back next week with updates on all the action, but until then, there is still the homestretch of the regular season to attend to. So let’s move on to our updated Top 10 rankings, weekly honor roll, and (regular season) games to watch this week.

Top 10

Honor Roll

The Honor Roll is our weekly fixture highlighting the teams, players, and performances that impressed us in the past week.

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In this week’s power rankings, we give each team a grade for the month of February. This week’s voters were Deepak Jayanti, Joey Nowak and Kevin Trahan.

1. Indiana Hoosiers: For awhile there, it looked like Indiana had secured itself as the top team in the country in a year when it’s been very difficult to figure out who the top team really is. However, the Hoosiers showed that they’re human this week, falling to Minnesota in Minneapolis. Victor Oladipo and Jordan Hulls played well, but IU was dominated inside by Minnesota’s stellar front court, led by Trevor Mbakwe. The Hoosiers certainly have the potential to win the National Championship, but they need to prove themselves against teams that rebound well. Grade: Before this game, Indiana likely deserved an A- for the month, with the loss to Illinois as the blemish. However, the Minnesota loss drops the Hoosiers to a B+ for February.
   

   IU on Top For Now (USA Today)

2. Michigan State Spartans: The Spartans have dropped two straight but their performances against Indiana and Ohio State — while not impressive — are not entirely worth fretting about. They’ve been in position to win both games (one of them on the road) and if Keith Appling was playing the way he’s played all season, it’s highly likely that they would have. They’re going through the tough stretch of schedule that most every team in the conference has hit at some point. We’ll find out soon enough how they emerge. Grade: The Spartans get a B+ for February, given the way they climbed in the standings and in the polls by taking care of business all the way up to the Michigan blowout. Their performance against the Hoosiers and Buckeyes was good, but not enough so to win.
3. Wisconsin Badgers: Bo Ryan’s team continues to take care of business in the Big Ten and wait for the showdown in East Lansing against Michigan State. If the Hoosiers drop another game in the conference, don’t be surprised to see the Badgers beat the Spartans win the conference title. If that happens, this season might be Ryan’s best since he arrived over a decade ago in Madison. Grade A Except for their loss to the Gophers, Ryan’s team has done very well in February. The win over Michigan will help them in terms of seeding in the NCAA tournament but they proved that they can hang with the top teams in the country. Nobody outside of the Big Ten can take them lightly in March just because they don’t have the star power that Michigan or Indiana has. Ben Brust continues to be a great rebounding guard and he can make a serious case for the best perimeter defender in the Big Ten.
4. Ohio State Buckeyes: If Aaron Craft turns out to be the Buckeyes’ second scorer behind Deshaun Thomas, that could be a real good thing for Ohio State. To have scoring potential in your primary ballhandler and leader is a valuable thing, and Craft has been known to have great judgment on both ends of the floor. If he can perform the rest of the way like he did against Michigan State, the Buckeyes could have a reliable scorer and a floor general rolled into one. Grade: The Buckeyes were busy this month, with losses to Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin, but they got things back on track by the end with a couple necessary wins against Minnesota and Michigan State. They got a scare against Northwestern but took care of business when they had to. We’ll give them a B. Read the rest of this entry »

Today as USC hosts Arizona State in its final home game of the regular season, the Trojans will say goodbye to five seniors, all of them transfers from other Division I institutions, including Eric Wise, Aaron Fuller, James Blasczyk, Renaldo Woolridge and their senior captain Jio Fontan. As these five get ready to celebrate their Senior Day, we’ll take a look at the college career of the best of the bunch, the senior point guard from Paterson, New Jersey.

Jio Fontan’s College Career Has Been Plagued By Numerous Setbacks (AP Photo)

As a high school student, Jio Fontan got awfully used to winning. As a senior at fabled St. Anthony High School under Hall of Fame head coach Bob Hurley, Fontan and teammates like Mike Rosario, Tray Woodall and Tyshawn Taylor swept to a 32-0 record and a national #1 ranking. While his more celebrated teammates got attention from national powerhouses, Fontan’s attention was more muted and he chose a local school, Fordham, at which to matriculate. In his first season there, though, the Rams went 3-25. After flirting with a transfer immediately following the season, Fontan decided to stick it out at Fordham, aided by the school’s reluctance to grant him his release to transfer. But after five games (and four more losses), he cut bait just ahead of head coach Dereck Whittenburg and opted to head west, like so many before him, in search of greener pastures.

And like those before him, his search met with plenty of hardship. After sitting out a little more than year, Fontan gained his eligibility at USC at the end of the fall semester in 2010, joining a team that had lost four times against middling competition in its first 10 games. Right off the bat, he stepped into the starting lineup for Kevin O’Neill and led his team on the road against a pair of top-20 teams. Against Kansas in his Trojans debut, he was solid in keeping his team right in the game until the final seconds before losing by two. Then a couple days later, he provided a big spark in leading his team to a one-point win at Tennessee. Later, another win over #10 Arizona (led by Derrick Williams) in which Fontan went for 21 points likely put the Trojans over the top and squeaked them into the NCAA Tournament, where they went on to turn in a stinker against (future Final Four team) Virginia Commonwealth in the inaugural First Four. Still, the season was definite progress for the Trojans and with Fontan returning from a season in which he averaged 10 points and four assists per game, the future looked bright for O’Neill’s program.

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Over the next few weeks, we’ll break down where each Big 12 bubble team stands in terms of its current NCAA Tournament resume. This time: the Oklahoma Sooners, who are trying to get back to the Dance for the first time since Blake Griffin was around campus. 

Oklahoma has seen the kind of improvement fans probably hoped for when Lon Kruger was hired prior to last season. The Sooners were 15-16 (5-13 Big 12) and finished eighth in the conference. A year later, they are a win away from the school’s first 20-win season since 2008-09 and are in a good spot heading into Selection Sunday. The Sooners are led by senior forward Romero Osby, who leads the team with 15 PPG on an efficient 52.1%. They pass nearly every test for a team to make the Tournament, so they should be fine as long as they avoid any bad losses the next two weeks.

• Current Record: 18-9, 9-6 in the Big 12
• RPI: 27
• Record vs RPI top 50: 2-5
• Record vs RPI top 100: 7-8
• SOS: 9

Lon Kruger Has The Sooners In A Good Spot With Selection Sunday Around The Corner.

Case For An At-Large Bid: They have a top 30 RPI and and a top 10 Strength of Schedule. Their seven wins against the RPI top 100 are more than bubble teams like Iowa State, Baylor, Kentucky, Ole Miss, and North Carolina. They are 3-1 in neutral site games and have beaten both Kansas and Oklahoma State. They were also bailed out after losing to Stephen F. Austin early in the season. The Lumberjacks are #77 in the RPI, keeping Oklahoma’s record against RPI teams 100+ at 11-1 instead of 10-2, which could be a big deal with the selection committee. Bad losses could hurt a team just as much as good wins help, so a thank you card might be in order for the Lumberjacks. But with an impressive strength of schedule and barring a loss to West Virginia or TCU to end the season, the Sooners should have nothing to worry about.

Case Against An At-Large Bid: Their 2-5 record against the top 50 isn’t great, and 11 of their 18 wins came against teams outside the RPI top 100. The loss on Wednesday to Texas (RPI #125) won’t help their cause, either. And if they lose at home on Saturday to fellow bubble team Iowa State, it would drop their top 100 record to 7-9 with no chances to improve it in the regular season.

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Deepak is a writer for the Big Ten microsite of Rush The Court. Follow him on Twitter for more about B1G hoops at @dee_b1g.

If you weren’t already convinced that the Big Ten is the most competitive conference in college hoops, the games in February should have showed you enough to change your opinion. The games featured buzzer-beaters, multiple overtimes and quite a few upsets over the past 28 days, but March could take it to another level. The obvious questions for each team in March will revolve around its performance in the postseason tournaments, but there are more intriguing questions on our minds about the next month. Let’s address five specific questions that that we will track about some of the best Big Ten teams in March.

Can Trey Burke take his game to another level in March? (AP Photo/T. Ding)

1. Can Trey Burke get back into the conversation for NPOY? Burke is still considered the top guard in the nation and hasn’t fallen out of the conversation for NPOY, but it feels like he has flown under the radar a little bit during February – partly because the Wolverines have had some tough losses on the road to Wisconsin, Michigan State and (yeesh) Penn State, and it also didn’t help his case that Indiana’s Victor Oladipo has repeatedly proven that he may be the best player in the Big Ten. Burke’s scoring average hasn’t dropped but he has taken more shots than he would prefer to keep his team competitive on the road. Burke will have two big opportunities in Ann Arbor soon – against Michigan State and Indiana – to again showcase his game in the national spotlight and prove that he is ready to lead the Wolverines to a Final Four.
   
2. Who is Michigan State’s go-to guy in March? We have seen flashes of brilliance from Adreian Payne and Gary Harris over the past two weeks but can Tom Izzo rely on a forward who hasn’t consistently looked for his offense and a freshman guard during the clutch this postseason? If Payne wants to be that guy, he needs to demand the ball during the final minutes but he hasn’t been that assertive this year. Izzo would love to have Keith Appling be that guy because he already has the ball in his hands during the final moments and can create his own shot off the dribble. The junior guard had an off-night against Indiana (six points) and Ohio State (three points) but the Spartans need him to score 15 PPG in order to make it to the third weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Read the rest of this entry »