Long removed from the glory days of Phi Slama Jama, many Houston Cougars fans would settle for a return to the consistently competitive yet mediocre days of Tom Penders. In six seasons from 2004-10, Penders never had a losing record and played in some sort of postseason tournament in five of those years. After three seasons since at the helm, James Dickey has recorded just one winning season. The good news for everyone is that season was last year and so those around the program have reason to believe things are headed back in the right direction.

Houston Hopes Year Four Shows Continued Improvement

Plus, this could be the most-talented team Houston has had in quite some time with a strong nucleus returning from a year ago, led by junior forward TaShawn Thomas, a second team preseason all-AAC selection, and sophomore guard Danuel House, C-USA Freshman of the Year last season. Another contributing returnee is sophomore guard Jherrod Stiggers. Dickey also hopes to have the services of J.J. Richardson, who missed significant action last season with a foot injury. Impact newcomers are Baylor transfer L.J. Rose and Danrad (Chicken) Knowles, a 2012 recruit who sat out last year. Knowles was a late bloomer with the frame to grow to become a legitimate star and potential NBA player. Thomas, Rose and Knowles played AAU basketball together and hope to carry that chemistry over to the collegiate level. Other returning Cougars include Leon Gibson (6.3 PPG), J.J. Thompson (6.0 PPG), Tione Womack (2.7 PPG), Brandon Morris (2.6 PPG), Mikhail McLean (2.4 PPG), LeRon Barnes (2.1 PPG) and Valentine Izundu (2 PPG).

The bad news is the competition heats up a notch with the move from Conference USA to the AAC. While the conference serves as only a stopgap for Louisville and Rutgers, it offers an upgrade for the likes of Houston and Memphis. Gone are the days when the only strong RPI and resume-building match-ups had to come in the non-conference slate or against (maybe) Memphis. This winter Houston will have home-and-home contests with Louisville, Connecticut, Memphis and Cincinnati, all teams with at minimum Top 25 and NCAA Tournament aspirations.

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Let’s get right to the point: The narrative since USC hired Andy Enfield and UCLA hired Steve Alford back in the spring is that USC made a bold, imaginative hire and that UCLA struck out. And just about everything that has happened since those hires were announced have reinforced that storyline. Alford struggled through his opening weeks, getting repeatedly hammered for his handling of a sexual assault case involving one of his players at Iowa 11 years early, before finally apologizing more than a week after his first press conference at UCLA. Meanwhile, Andy Enfield was appearing on The Tonight Show, chumming around with Jay Leno and Charlie Sheen and discussing, among other things, his supermodel wife. While Enfield was putting together a superstar group of assistant coaches, Alford put together a less buzzworthy staff. And when the two coaching staffs went head to head in the recruitment of local point guard Jordan McLaughlin, it was USC that came out on top, reinforcing the story that it was USC that was the hip and happening program while UCLA was trailing far behind. Even a seemingly innocuous mid-practice comment from Enfield earlier this month made the news cycle and reinforced the idea that UCLA was old and boring: “If you want to play slow, go to UCLA.”

The Start To The Andy Enfield Era At USC Has Gone Beautifully

So clearly, USC has all the momentum, UCLA is about to take a dive, and the next thing you know, the Galen Center will be the basketball mecca in Southern California, right? Well, not so fast. Because while this has been, without a doubt, a strong offseason for USC and a poor one for UCLA, here are the two teams’ records since those hires were made: USC: 0-0, UCLA: 0-0. And when games tip off next week, UCLA is expected to be one of the best teams in the Pac-12 and a national Top 25 team, while USC is picked to finish right around the bottom of the conference standings. Enfield and the Trojans will need to prove that they can sustain forward momentum while likely disappearing from the national conversation and playing in front of sparse crowds. Meanwhile, the Bruins will find themselves in high-profile games like their battle with Duke at Madison Square Garden or their lone 2014 regular season game against Arizona in Pauley Pavilion. Or any number of other Pac-12 games that are expected to have an impact on the conference race.

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Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Sean Moran, the RTC recruiting guru. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to discussing the recruitments of the top uncommitted players in the country. We also encourage you to check out his contributions at The Intentional Foul dedicated to recruiting coverage and analysis. You can also follow Sean at his Twitter account @Seanmohoops for up-to-date news from the high school and college hoops scene. If you have any suggestions as to areas we are missing or different things you would like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Come next season, Oklahoma State will be in dire need of scoring. The Cowboys’ coaching staff started to address their needs with the commitment of four-star small forward Joe Burton last Monday. Burton is a powerful, 6’6” wing player currently ranked as the No. 18 small forward in the country and No. 79 prospect overall. Hailing from just outside of the Houston area, Travis Ford has snatched another top prospect out of Texas. Next year, the Cowboys will lose shooting guard Markel Brown to graduation and most likely point guard Marcus Smart and small forward Le’Bryan Nash to the NBA Draft. These three players combined for 62% of the Cowboys’ points this past season.

With the addition of Burton, Oklahoma State now has the 13th-ranked recruiting class in 2014 which also features four-star shooting guard Jared Terrell, four-star center Mitch Solomon, and JuCo point guard Jeff Newberry. Burton should be able to step in immediately for the Cowboys and average double figures in his first year. As a small forward, Burton already has a multi-dimensional game and is comfortable scoring from all areas of the court. He can bury threes with the best of them from his preferred spot on the left wing, and can also put the ball on the floor for a mid-range jumper or a drive to the basket. While Burton is not an overly explosive athlete, he runs the floor well and finishes above the rim. Come next season, Burton shouldn’t have any problem filling some of the scoring void in Stillwater.

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Here we go… headfirst into another season heralded by our 2013-14 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season completely guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight. For the next three weeks, you’ll get two hits of excitement each weekday. We’ve captured what we believe were the most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head in astonishment. To see the entire released series so far, click here.

#19 – Where Loved, Hated, But Never Ignored Happens.

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, and 2012-13 preseasons.

College basketball junkies like myself stretch for almost anything hoops-related to keep us going in the offseason. The summer months can be especially cruel. So when we find out about things like the World University Games, we pay attention. We check the rosters when the tryouts are over and usually there are some surprises. Iowa’s Aaron White was one of these surprises. Outside of those that follow the B1G on a regular basis, not many casual fans know about White. But with Iowa getting its share of (justifiable) hype given how the Hawkeyes finished last season, and what they have coming back, White has a chance to become a household name with the program rejoining national relevance. He doesn’t have to be a superstar, but if he can make incremental improvements along with a couple of the other returnees, Iowa will no doubt challenge for a top quarter finish in the league, and with it, a high seed in the NCAAs.

Aaron White looks to lead Iowa back a regular spot in the Top 25 (Brian Ray, AP)

White had a nice sophomore year, but nothing to make someone think he was necessarily ready to stand alongside other World University Games players like Doug McDermott, Luke Hancock, and conference names like Yogi Ferrell and Adreian Payne. He led Iowa in rebounding at 6.2 boards per game, and was the second leading scorer with an average of 12.8 PPG. These are nice numbers, but not anything to get too excited about. Where he really shined last year, though, was in getting to the free throw line. He shot an astronomical 258 free throws last season, good for 6.8 attempts per game, and over 40 minutes per contest, he drew an average of 6.5 fouls per game.

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We continue unveiling our team-by-team breakdowns, in roughly the reverse order of where we expect these teams to finish in the conference standings.

Washington Huskies

Strengths.  Washington only has two seniors on its roster, but the pair will be the key to this team’s success. In the backcourt is C.J. Wilcox, who is arguably the top senior in the Pac-12. His pure stroke is enough alone to keep the Huskies in games this season, and he will be looking to top his 16.8 points per game average from last year. Wilcox is as versatile as ever, according to head coach Lorenzo Romar, and as he goes, so does Washington. The other senior is center Perris Blackwell, a one-year fix who spent his last three years at San Francisco. Blackwell provides a much-needed offensive presence and has enough talent to prevent opponents from overplaying the Husky guards like they did last year.

Wilcox Will Be The Key To Washington’s Success In 2013-14 (Credit: Dean Rutz)

Weaknesses. Matching six veterans and five newcomers expected to play immediately will be a challenge. Chemistry is a huge question, and if the Huskies don’t mesh quickly, opponents like Indiana, Connecticut and San Diego State will eat them alive. Wilcox needs to be a floor general and will have to bail out his teammates at times, which could be an uncomfortable spot for the senior.

Non-Conference Tests. Washington’s last three games before taking a break for Thanksgiving will give us a sense of just how improved the Huskies are. They’ll face Indiana and either Connecticut or Boston College on back-to-back nights in New York City before making the cross-country trip home to take on a Montana team that should win the Big Sky. Two of Washington’s first three games in the month of December will be played on the road against an elite mid-major (San Diego State), and one low mid-major (Tulane). Finally, following the road trip to New Orleans will be a visit from UConn, which could be the second Husky-on-Husky match-up in one month.

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As part of our preseason coverage on the ACC microsite, we will be looking at ACC teams competing in early season tournaments in a three-part series . Today we present Part II, which includes a look at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, the Hall of Fame Tip-Off, the Paradise Jam, the Progressive Legends Classic and the EA Sports Maui Invitational.  To check out Part I of our series, click here.

These early season tournaments mean different things to different teams. For the traditional powers Duke and North Carolina, these events are just another part of the non-conference schedule, and not usually the most important part. With the national profile of those schools, building a quality non-conference slate is not all that difficult. But for others in the ACC, these tournaments are often the most challenging games those teams will face outside of league play. If you’re a potential NCAA Tournament team, a good performance in one of these events can considerably lessen the pressure to need a great league record to make the field.

Virginia’s Early Loss to Delaware Last Season Badly Damaged Its RPI

The opposite is also true, as Virginia found out last year. Losing to Delaware at home in the Preseason NIT gave Virginia a bad early loss and cost the Cavaliers a trip to New York, which would have improved their non-conference RPI and was a primary reason an 11-7 ACC team was left out of the field. Beyond just notching quality wins, the additional benefit is the RPI boost received from merely playing these games against other quality opponents. As Ken Pomeroy wrote in a March 2011 article, the RPI may not be a great metric but it is the main way NCAA Selection Committees sort teams. With 75% of a team’s RPI based on opponents’ RPI, poor performances in the non-conference schedule by multiple teams can damage an entire conference’s standing dramatically.

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This is not the first time Dana Altman, Oregon’s fourth-year head coach, has used a one-year transfer to improve the Ducks’ roster. It happened in 2011-12, when guard Devoe Joseph and forward Olu Ashaolu, formerly of Minnesota and Louisiana Tech, respectively, combined to average 27 points and nine rebounds to help lead the Ducks to a 24-10 record. It happened last season, too, when former Rice big man Arsalan Kazemi gave Oregon a tough frontcourt complement to its deep backcourt while leading the nation in defensive rebounding percentage (29.0%). Using one-year transfers on a yearly basis might not seem like a viable long-term strategy, but it doesn’t have to be. At some point, Altman ostensibly hopes, Oregon will have won enough games and wooed enough elite high school basketball players with its glimmering facilities and Nike-sponsored “Tall Firs” court, that it won’t need to tap the transfer market to repopulate its roster with top-end talent. It can just recruit those players straight out of high school, because Oregon will be a destination program, because prospects will value the campus in Eugene as harboring one of the top programs in the country. Altman is pushing Oregon in that direction, but the Ducks aren’t there yet. So in the meantime, the former Creighton coach will continue to welcome one-year transfers with open arms.

The addition of Young makes Oregon one of the top contenders in the Pac 12 (AP).

The latest additions are former UNLV (and UCLA) forward and Portland native Mike Moser, former Detroit guard Jason Calliste and former Houston guard Joseph Young. All three should play a big role in helping Oregon push Arizona at the top of the Pac-12 this season, and two of them, Calliste and Moser, knew they’d be able to play for the Ducks right away this season thanks to the NCAA’s graduate transfer clause. Young was a different story; he needed the NCAA to grant a hardship waiver – based on the claim that his father, Michael Young, a member of Houston’s great Phi Slama Jama teams from the early-1980s, was reassigned from his position as director of basketball operations with the Cougars, a decision that prompted his departure from the program. Joseph argued that his father’s exit was a “hardship” sufficient to forgo the one-year holdover penalty most undergraduate transfers face – in order to play for the Ducks this season. On Friday, two days after the governing body settled one of the most baffling transfer waiver cases in recent memory, the NCAA declared Young eligible for the upcoming season. In 32 games for Houston last year, Young averaged 18.0 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game while shooting 42 percent from three, 87.5 percent from the free throw line, and posting a 124.1 offensive rating, which ranked one spot outside the top-25 such marks in the country. He joins what was – already without Young – one of the best backcourts in the country, as point guard Dominic Artis, wing Damyeon Dotson and Calliste form a deep and athletic group. Young and Calliste’s additions also address one of the Ducks’ main flaws from last season: three-point shooting. Oregon shot just 33.3 percent from deep, a number Altman’s two backcourt transfers – and possibly Moser, if he can shoot more like he did two years ago (33.1 percent) than last season (26.7) – should improve.

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Economist and college hoops writer Dan Hanner posted  his annual projections for ESPN Insider on Friday. It is a very interesting article and a recommended read for any college basketball stats junkie. He puts a unique spin on his projections by starting at the player level instead of the team level. The advantage, as he puts it, “is that not all additions have the same impact everywhere. For example, transfer Trae Golden is expected to have a huge impact on Georgia Tech because the Yellow Jackets had a big hole at PG. But if he had been added to a team like Duke, with multiple quality ball-handlers, his impact would have been much smaller. The player-level model can account for these kind of differences.” His rankings take into account player upside as well as downside and he gives a best-case and worst-case position for each team.

Grant Gibbs and Creighton need to shore up their defense to reach their full potential this season.

The Big East is well-considered by Hanner. The league’s 10-team average is 53.9, slightly behind the Big Ten at 49.2 and well ahead of the AAC at 79.9. Last year’s Big East would have scored considerably higher with Louisville in the second spot as well as Syracuse and Connecticut in the top 25. This year, the Big East does not have as many teams at the top with Marquette leading the way at #17, but there is great balance with DePaul the only team lower than #100. It does not look like any teams will be battling for #1 seeds this season, but there could be seven or eight squads fighting for spots in the NCAA Tournament come February and March.

The following are the 10 Big East teams in descending order:

• POFF – Projected offense, median prediction for points scored per 100 possessions
• PDEF – Projected defense, median prediction for points allowed per 100 possessions

1. Marquette Golden Eagles

17. POFF: 116.1 | PDEF: 92.5 Best case: 7th | Worst case: 29th

Hanner ranks the Golden Eagles in the same spot as the USA Today poll. Buzz Williams’ squad is ranked highly in both offense and defense, but neither is extraordinarily high. For Marquette to reach its best case scenario, they would need their three new starting guards to come close to last year’s production from the trio of Junior Cadougan, Vander Blue and Trent Lockett, a very difficult task. The frontcourt returns everyone, but Jamil Wilson and Davante Gardner will have to become the go-to scorers and also rebound well while Chris Otule locks down the paint defensively. With Williams’ track record, it seems unlikely that his team would drop out of the top 25 unless the guards are unable to step up and contribute at a high level.

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Have you seen it yet?  Kansas State is the latest team to get in on the video spin-off-craze that seems to be sweeping the nation, and this one’s actually pretty good. During their Midnight Madness event on Friday night, K-State athletics rolled out a spoof of the well known “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” television show featuring Shane Southwell in the role of Will Smith, and he appears to relish the opportunity for TV stardom.

As funny as the video is itself, the reaction from K-State’s players might be even better. This second video captures the debut of the spoof and it’s certainly worth a look as Thomas Gipson appears as excited as a kid on Christmas throughout the clip.

While it looks like Southwell has the acting gig nailed, fans will hope he can mimic this on the basketball court as he will be the featured option in Bruce Weber’s motion offense this season. It’s all good fun until the games start.