Now that we are officially in the offseason, it’s time to take a look back and evaluate each team’s 2012-13 performance. Here’s a look at Utah.

What Went Right

After winning only three games in its inaugural 2011-12 Pac-12 season, Utah improved by finishing the season on a high note in beating both Oregon State and Oregon to go 5-13 in conference play. The Utes were still one of the worst teams in the Pac-12, but they upset Washington on the road and Colorado at home. They also scared Arizona twice as they lost to the Wildcats only by a combined seven points in the two contests. Utah found a player to build its team around with freshman Jordan Loveridge who averaged 12.1 points and 7.0 rebounds per game during the season. Jason Washburn had a successful senior campaign himself, averaging 11.9 points and 6.8 rebounds per game too. When the Pac-12 Tournament came around, the Utes were lucky enough to face USC without DeWayne Dedmon and defeated the Trojans in the first round before landing the surprise of Vegas by upsetting Cal in the quarterfinals 79-69.

Utah has found a potential star with Jordan Loveridge.

What Went Wrong 

Utah had some troublesome losses in non-conference play against Sacramento State and Cal State Northridge and headed into the conference season overmatched. They lost five straight games to start off the Pac-12 and were a woeful 3-13 before beating Oregon and Oregon State. The Utes’ guard play was inconsistent; Glen Dean and Aaron Dotson, who were supposed to be two of the Utes’ best players this year, disappointed tremendously. Dotson sat out some of the season with a foot injury, but could never gain traction in Larry Krystkowiak’s rotation as he averaged 2.7 points in 17.3 minutes per game. Dean only scored 5.5 points per game in over 25 minutes a game — both guards are now leaving the school.

MVP

Jordan Loveridge was the Utes’ best and most valuable player this year. The 6’6″ freshman used his 230-pound frame to out-muscle smaller players and was a major part of Utah’s offense as he used 24.7 percent of the team’s possessions during the season. He played his best basketball down the stretch by tallying games of  17, 14, 15, and 20 points against Oregon State, Oregon, USC, and Cal, respectively. He logged the highest amount of minutes per game on the team at 31.7 MPG and despite only shooting 40 percent on twos, Loveridge was successful from behind the arc by shooting 36 percent and shot 76 percent from the free throw line.

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Back in October of last year, we asked you to join us for what was expected to be a great season for the Big Ten, and the last six months certainly didn’t disappoint. We couldn’t have asked for a better year from one of the best conferences in college hoops and we at RTC are very thankful to you for checking out our work at the Big Ten Microsite.

The Big Ten Had a Phenomenal Season

The Big Ten writers – Deepak Jayanti, Joey Nowak and Kevin Trahan – would like to thank you for your time during the 2012-13 season. We will see you back here in October!

Having lost their two best players in point guard Jordan Theodore and burly forward Herb Pope, the Pirates were not expected to make a lot of noise in the Big East this season and it became quickly apparent that Kevin Willard‘s team was not only less talented but also severely undermanned against the rest of the conference. The team finished the season 15-18 and a dismal 3-15 in conference play with two of those wins coming against the teams that finished behind them in the conference standings (South Florida and DePaul). None of this was surprising to those who followed the team and knew that the Pirates would struggle mightily to replace the production of Pope and Theodore, but if they had been slightly more competitive, it would have at least given Willard something to point to as far as improvement goes. Let’s dive a bit deeper into why Seton Hall wasn’t able to right the ship this season.

Fuquan Edwin Emerged As A Big-Time Big East Player, But He Was The Only One.

The Good

When your best win as a team was either a four-point win over Wake Forest or a one-point win over Villanova, it can be hard to find positives in what quickly became a lost season. But there were some individual positives, such as the play of junior guard Fuquan Edwin, who was always one of the best defenders in the conference but actually emerged as a versatile and dangerous offensive threat for the Pirates this season. Sophomore guard Aaron Cosby became a dangerous outside shooter and important offensive cog, and before his season ended prematurely thanks to shoulder surgery, sophomore forward Brandon Mobley was putting together a solid season and should be an important piece to next year’s team. Despite falling drastically in both offensive and defensive efficiency this season, the Pirates were still relatively judicious shot-takers and they were also an above-average defensive team, at least when they played inspired basketball.

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It can be difficult to wipe away all of the good will earned from a program’s first NCAA Tournament berth in 20 years, but coach Stan Heath and his South Florida Bulls did their very best to try this season. Coming off a season in which they won two NCAA Tournament games and went 22-14 including a 12-6 mark in the Big East, Heath’s Bulls were picked to finish eighth in a preseason poll by the conference coaches. Instead they stumbled out of the gate in non-conference action and ended up losing 10 straight conference games at one point to finish a disappointing 12-19 including an abysmal 3-15 mark in conference play. Let’s dive right in to exactly how the Bulls managed to regress so badly:

After An NCAA Tournament Appearance, Stan Heath’s Club Took A Few Steps Back This Season (AP)

The Good

In a season when you only win three conference games, there just isn’t that much that can be written about the good parts of South Florida’s season. But since the space needs to be filled, it is worth mentioning that junior Victor Rudd continued to improve into a solid two-way player and senior Toarlyn Fitzpatrick capped off four years of service to the Bulls with a solid if unspectacular senior season. The valuable experience and flashes of potential from freshmen Zach LeDay and Javontae Hawkins should give Bulls’ fans at least a small modicum of hope that the near future will be better and there was that victory early in the conference slate over eventual regular season champion Georgetown even if it did come when the Hoyas were playing their worst basketball of the season. There were brief instances where the defense that got South Florida into the NCAA Tournament returned, as the Bulls defended the three-point line very well and showed flashes of excellent team defense. But eventually their lack of depth and scoring ability really hindered their ability to win the low-scoring slugfests they were able to win the year before.

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1. We will start off today by offering our best wishes to ESPN analyst Digger Phelps who revealed that he had surgery and will be treated for bladder cancer. Most of America knows Digger for his work on ESPN including his matching tie and highlighter combinations, but he was also an outstanding coach at Notre Dame from 1971 to 1991 as he was able to knock off the #1 team in the nation seven times during that stretch (a record he shares with Gary Williams) including ending UCLA’s record 88-game winning streak. We do not know much about the stage of the cancer and subsequently the prognosis, but we wish Digger the best as he continues to undergo treatment.
2. In what might end up being the biggest early-entry decision this year, Doug McDermott announced that he will be returning to Creighton for his senior year. There have been several players with more NBA-level talent than McDermott who made early-entry decisions over the past few weeks, but none of them will have as profound an impact on their school, conference, and the national landscape as McDermott will. The Bluejays will be losing some key pieces (Grant Gibbs and Greg Echenique), but McDermott’s return should make them competitive in the new Big East and a dangerous team in the NCAA Tournament. We are not sure how much McDermott will help his NBA Draft stock by returning, but as Andy Glockner points out the move to the new Big East should give McDermott the ability to showcase his skills against more high-level talent than he had in the Missouri Valley Conference.
3. The other notable early-entry announcement yesterday came from Baylor where Cory Jefferson announced that he would be returning for his senior year. Jefferson, who showed a dramatic improvement last season, is essentially the polar opposite of McDermott as a NBA prospect in that he is a ridiculous NBA-level athlete, but his offensive game is very limited. We are not sure that Scott Drew is the best person to work on that–at least based on what we have seen from him in terms of in-game adjustments–but an extra year of college basketball should give Jefferson enough time to round out his game to make him a better NBA prospect and a probable first-round pick although with how deep next year’s NBA Draft could be Jefferson needs to continue his upward trajectory to ensure himself a first-round spot.
4. One of the things that we always have a hard time understanding is the hype surrounding transfers. One example of this is Hunter Mickelson, who is transferring from Arkansas to Kansas. Mickelson was a highly recruited 6’10” Arkansas native who tried to get out of his letter of intent when the coaching change at Arkansas occurred, but was not released by the school only averaged 5.4 points and 3.5 rebounds per game last season in just 16.6 minutes per game. His 2.3 blocks in 17.1 minutes per game as a freshman was impressive, but we are not quite buying the hype on Mickelson yet even if his block per minute numbers compare favorably with what Jeff Withey was able to do (see Jesse Newell’s excellent analysis for a more detailed breakdown of what Mickelson brings to Lawrence). Like Mickelson, Jabari Hinds was a highly touted prospect coming out of high school, but struggled during his two seasons at West Virginia before eventually finding himself on the bench late last season. Now Hinds appears to be headed for Massachusetts where as Jeff Eisenberg points out he could benefit from playing against lower-level talent. Perhaps the most perplexing case of all is Tarik Black, the Memphis big man who put up unremarkable numbers–8.1 points and 4.8 rebounds–last season yet finds himself being heavily recruited by Duke among others. As Gary Parrish points out some of this is supply and demand. At this point there are not many big men who have proven they can play at a high-major level so now there are “at least 20 other high-major programs are all lined up and working like they’re the last 25 dudes in a bar with just one moderately attractive girl”. The part that Parrish leaves out is that the one “lucky” dude/program has to wake up the following morning next to the moderately attractive girl.
5. With all the movement in the coaching carousel there will inevitably be a few recruits who change their minds about where they want to go to school (see Mickelson above). Two of the bigger moves in the coaching carousel this season were at UCLA and Rutgers both of whom were involved in some recruit movement yesterday. In the case of UCLA they released Allerik Freeman from the national letter of intent he signed last November when Ben Howland was still the coach at UCLA. We are not sure if this decision was mutual or if Freeman was the sole driving force, but given how quickly this went down we would be surprised if Steve Alford was not ok with having an extra scholarship available. On the other end of the country and spectrum was Rutgers who picked up its first recruit of the Eddie Jordan era when junior college guard Craig Brown committed to the school. Rutgers obviously has a very long way to go to be a national-level program again and picking up a junior college guard will not turn many heads in New Jersey, but the speed with which Jordan picked up the commitment is impressive.

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

Most of college basketball’s truly elite programs annually grit their teeth and devise creative scholarship and recruiting stratagems to deal with an extremely unfortunate fact of roster life. The very best and most aspirational players usually aren’t in this here amateur basketball thing purely for the fun of it. They have their professional lives, their financial well-being, and that of their family’s, as overriding motivations to have the best and most NBA-translatable college career possible. They want to not only make it to the next level, but survive and enjoy the same unwavering fan support available at the college level (which, let’s just say professional fan bases are… blah) while earning the salary their talents rightfully warrant. Whereas in some cases the money and professional fame and draft stock considerations recommend a player’s departure after two or even one season, others elect to finish out their four years of eligibility in an uninterrupted cycle. These decisions – stay or go; money and bright lights or infectious fan bases and genuine campus pride; David Stern or Mark Emmert – are never easy, and if there ever were a case to illustrate the inner mental tug-of-war wrought in advance of a player’s draft decision, Louisville’s Russ Smith was an A-List prototype.

A return run to the Final Four, and possibly beyond, was made much more likely with Smith’s announcement Wednesday (AP Photo).

Having already banked a Final Four appearance and national championship in consecutive seasons, won over the affection of his previously irascible head coach (to the point of influencing his racehorse naming rights), and scored boundless national media love over an endearingly reckless two years of mercurial point guard play, Russ Smith finished his national championship season with an utterly brutal decision to make: leave or stay? His erratic shooting and often-horrifying decision-making no doubt gave NBA scouts pause, as did his miniature stature and riverboat-gambler approach on the defensive end, but was it even reasonably possible that an eternally unrestrained Smith would boost his draft stock to any measurable degree in a potential return season? What were the chances Smith just was what he was, and anything he did next season wasn’t going to affect his status in such a way as to greatly improve his fortunes at the next level? Smith put the matter to rest Wednesday, and whether you agree with his decision on principle – whether you think it was in Smith’s best interest to cash in on a season that, in Ken Pomeroy’s wonky efficiency world, ranked better than any other last season – the upside for college hoops itself is tough to deny. Smith is back, and with the possible exception of Kentucky and its relentless fan base, everyone can come together in unison: This is a good thing.

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In the wake of a pair of new hires in Los Angeles – each met with varying degrees of approval – both USC and UCLA saw their first bit of player-personnel defections under their new regimes Wednesday.  But in each of these cases, the headline – player leaves program – may sound worse than the actual impact on the teams. The biggest news came from the Trojans’ camp, as junior forward DeWayne Dedmon announced that he would skip his final year of eligibility in order to “chase” the NBA dream. But Steve Alford and company also got some bad news this week, as 2013 recruit Allerik Freeman announced that he would be asking for a release from his letter of intent and would be exploring other options for college.

Dewayne Dedmon’s Career At USC Will End With Eligibility On The Table, But Whither His NBA Future? (Ethan Miller, Getty Images North America)

Dedmon’s story got the most attention, and most of that attention was negative, as some saw the announcement as a poor decision by a kid unlikely to earn the first-round status that former SC head coach Kevin O’Neill once forecast. But there was likely much more to the decision than just simply looking for an NBA contract. Dedmon, who didn’t begin playing basketball until age 18, is a seven-footer with great athleticism and upside but extremely raw skills and little innate basketball IQ. While he has improved quite a bit in his time at USC, he’s still a guy who is a long way from being able to contribute to an NBA team. But there are other issues: He’ll be 24 by the time the next basketball season kicks off, he’s wading through the consequences of a bar brawl following the Trojans’ final regular season game, and there were indications that USC wasn’t exactly falling all over itself in an effort to encourage Dedmon to return. Sure, if Dedmon set aside his immaturity and bought into new head coach Andy Enfield’s dunktastic new system, maybe he could have improved his stock and helped the Trojans to a few more wins next year. But with a roster lacking in talent, Dedmon’s attitude issues could just as easily have been the kiss of death for a young coach and a young team. In other words, the separation at this point may make a lot of sense, and probably shouldn’t be considered much of a surprise.

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DePaul coach Oliver Purnell came to the school with the reputation as a rebuilder of programs, the only problem is that in three years at the helm in Chicago, the Blue Demons haven’t gotten any better. DePaul ended up at the bottom of the conference barrel, finishing the season 11-21 overall and just 2-16 in the Big East, which gives Purnell six conferences wins in three seasons and fans not a whole lot of hope for the immediate future. The Blue Demons showed flashes at times and proved they had legitimate talent on their roster in Cleveland Melvin and Brandon Young, but their pedestrian offense, downright atrocious defense and lack of immediate depth were more than enough to torpedo any aspirations the team had about making a leap this season. Let’s go inside what exactly happened at DePaul this season:

After Just Two Conference Wins, Oliver Purnell Finds Himself On The Hot Seat.

The Good

In a program that has been full of turmoil and disappointment over the past five years, rising senior forward Cleveland Melvin continued to be a bright light in a dark place, improving his field-goal percentage, becoming a slightly more efficient offensive player, and racking up seven double-doubles en route to another successful all-conference season. Classmate Brandon Young led the team in scoring and proved himself to be a legitimate offensive star in the conference. I guess if we really wanted to stretch the definition of “good” we could count conference victories over Providence and Rutgers as part of the good and look on the bright side — at least the school hasn’t had to spend the early part of the offseason answering questions about why their coach, who isn’t winning, is verbally and physically abusing his players in practice. That is always a good thing, especially when your team stinks.

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1. Wednesday was a big day on the NBA Draft early entry front, although perhaps in a few ways that we didn’t anticipate. First and foremost, two of the bigger stars of this season’s NCAA Tournament made their decisions, and — egads! — college basketball will definitely be the beneficiary in 2013-14 because of it. The Midwest Regional’s Most Outstanding Player, Russ Smith, has decided to return to Louisville for his senior season, stating in a press conference that it was time to get “back in the lab” over the summer to revamp his game yet again so that he’ll rise onto first round NBA Draft boards by this time next year (oh, and also graduate and potentially leave school as a Louisville legend). If this offseason’s improvement is anything like that of the last two for the mercurial Cardinal guard, then we’re excited to see what other wrinkles he’s added to his overall game. Put simply, his progression from an incredibly inefficient human cannon to that of a hybrid defensive dynamo/pure scorer has been nothing short of remarkable. It also makes the defending national champs extremely dangerous again next season, with enough talented holdovers to give Rick Pitino a legitimate shot at his third trophy.
2. The other NCAA Tournament stud who made a decision on Wednesday to return to college is Syracuse’s leading scorer and rebounder, CJ Fair. According to the junior forward, he went back and forth on his decision “at least five teams” in the course of the last week before finally deciding that his draft standing (#22 to #40) was too uncertain to risk dropping to the second round. Fair was without question the Orange’s most consistent player this season, earning all-Big East second team honors in his first full year as a starter. Whether Fair can actually improve his draft stock on what appears to be a considerably weaker Syracuse team next season is open for debate, but he’ll need to continue to show that he has range in his outside shooting (30 threes at a 46.9% clip last year) and improve his finishing ability inside the paint in order to ensure himself a 2014 first round selection. As for Syracuse, his return prevents Jim Boeheim from facing a complete rebuild next season.
3. A few other players were on the move around the nation Wednesday, with USC’s DeWayne Dedmon deciding to take his seven-foot frame and commensurate seven points and seven rebounds per game to the NBA, or whatever professional league in the world that will have him. Dedmon was already in trouble and had been suspended for his alleged role in a Spokane incident at the end of the season, so new head coach Andy Enfield may not have wanted him back anyway. Over at Indiana,  senior guard Maurice Creek will use the graduate transfer rule to attend another school next season. Creek started his Hoosier career like a house of fire, averaging 16.4 PPG over 12 games in 2009-10, but a series of injuries over the next few seasons steadily reduced his playing time to the point he was a complete afterthought on this year’s team. While on the subject of injuries, Penn State star Tim Frazier has been granted a fifth season of eligibility after rupturing his Achilles tendon four games into the season. Frazier is an all-Big Ten caliber guard who will join an already talented backcourt of DJ Newbill and Jermaine Marshall, the top two scorers returning in the league next season. Could the Nittany Lions be dangerous in 2013-14?
4. The ACC’s long-term grant of rights (GOR) deal appears to have shored up its member institutions for a while, at least until the Internet becomes the major revenue stream supporting college sports and all these deals are torn up at some point. Still, we’re a fan. For the immediate future, there should be some stability among the power conferences after several years of insanity. The University of Maryland may also be quite the fan of this deal. As the Washington Post reported Wednesday, the improved strength of the league after adding Louisville and Notre Dame and approval of the GOR suggests that the ACC has become more stable in the months after Maryland’s departure. This line of thought could provide Terp attorneys a sliver of hope in arguing at court that the school should not be required to pay the entire $52 million exit fee that the league required upon its departure. Time will tell.
5. We’ll finish up today with a neat story about a sixth grade teacher named Paul Nadeau from Garden City Elementary School in Cranston, Rhode Island. It turns out that his class had a unit on probability approaching earlier this year, so he took the opportunity to tie in the NCAA Tournament’s unpredictability by assigning his students bracket analyses based on mathematical probabilities and backed up by their persuasive writing. Not only did the students embrace the assignment and often forget that they were, you know, learning, but many of them also got excited for the idea of eventually attending college as well. Joey Brackets is probably safe for now, but he’d better watch himself in about 10 years!

Thank you. That’s all we need to say. Thank you for reading this microsite and for validating our work. From the bottom of the hearts of Danny Spewak, Kory Carpenter and Nate Kotisso, the three Big 12 Microsite writers, we appreciate the feedback you’ve given us — both positive and negative. As we move into the dark days of the college basketball offseason, let’s take a moment to look back at some of the memorable Big 12 Microsite posts over the 2012-13 season…

• November 20: Fun with conference realignment
• December 12: 75 Years of Big 12 basketball
• January 7: Sam Grooms should be playing more for Oklahoma
• January 9: Good, Bad and Ugly with the RPI
• January 13: Did Lon Kruger listen to us and play Sam Grooms more?
• January 17: Big 12 not so valuable
• February 7: 3,336 people on Facebook have an issue with our take on Kansas
• February 13: Naadir Tharpe in the spotlight
• February 27: Iowa State gets jobbed
• March 16: Why Kansas’ defense is so fierce
• March 24: The aftermath of Aaron Craft’s dagger against Iowa State
• April 1: Kansas’ collapse against Michigan
• April 15: Big 12 Season in Review

We’ll see you again come October. Have a great summer, everyone!