Rick Barnes just became a better coach this afternoon. His Texas program just secured the commitment of five-star center Myles Turner — the top uncommitted prospect in the Class of 2014 — which means the longtime Longhorns coach might have the best frontcourt in the Big 12 next season. Turner, a 6’11”, 225-pound senior, picked Texas over SMU, Kansas, Duke, Ohio State, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M, with most experts saying it came down to Texas, Kansas and SMU for his services. Turner is ranked ninth overall in his class at Rivals.com but his popularity soared over the last few months as he eventually became the last big-name recruit to commit to a school. A skinny big man with range from deep, it is no surprise that Myles, a native Texan, might now get a chance to replicate his idol Durant’s historic 2006-07 season in Austin. And if Turner does in fact have dreams of spending some time on the perimeter, Texas was clearly the school for him. It’s hard to imagine coaches like Bill Self or Larry Brown throwing Turner in at the three position and sacrificing his defensive prowess in the paint, but Barnes seems more than willing to experiment with that idea.

Myles Turner Makes Texas a Big 12 Title Favorite.

So what does this mean for Texas basketball next season? The Longhorns weren’t supposed to do much this year, as many wondered if Barnes was already on the hot seat before the year began. But five months later, one of the youngest teams in the country had won 24 games and playing in the third round of the NCAA Tournament. Everyone on the roster is set to return next season, including sophomore guard Isaiah Taylor, senior forward Jonathan Holmes, junior forward Cameron Ridley, and junior guard Javan Felix. Ridley could become the team’s sixth man with Turner starting at the four while occasionally showcasing his other skills on the perimeter. The trio of Turner, Ridley and Holmes would challenge Kansas for the best frontcourt in the Big 12.

Read the rest of this entry »

To close out the season for good, we’re finishing our official Big Ten grades with the four top tier teams: Michigan, Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Nebraska. Yes, take that in one last time — Nebraska ended the season in the top four of the standings in the best conference in the country. For our previously-published grades on the eight other teams in the Big Ten, here are Part I and Part II.

Michigan

Grade: A

This season (28-9,15-3): Last year, Michigan broke through to make it all the way to the National Championship game. And while that was an impressive run, the coaching job that John Beilein did this season — leading the Wolverines to their first outright B1G title since 1986, and finishing just one play from another Final Four appearance — may be even more impressive. It’s important to note where this program was two years ago to fully appreciate the leap that Beilein has guided Michigan basketball through. In 2012, the Wolverines hadn’t yet been able to escape the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament under his direction, and Beilein’s squads were thought of as good but not great. This season, he proved that his success was not just the product of a special player like 2013 NPOY, Trey Burke; it is fundamentally anchored in player development and buy-in from his kids. This season was a successful one by any standard and it looks like the head coach in Ann Arbor has gone and rebuilt himself an elite program in Ann Arbor.

John Beilein has cemented himself as a premier coach after winning the outright title. (Lon Horwedel/AnnArbor.com)

Next season: The Wolverines lose a lot of their roster: Nik Stauskas, Glenn Robinson III, Jordan Morgan, Jon Horford, and Mitch McGary. They will bring in heralded recruit Kameron Chatman with returning players like Caris Levert, Derrick Walton, Zak Irvin, and Spike Albrecht joining him. In short, Michigan loses all of its frontcourt experience and its two best backcourt players. The Wolverines seemed poised to fall back a notch, but that was also the popular thought when McGary went out for the rest of this season. The bottom line is that Beilein will find a way to get this team competitive and back to the NCAA Tournament — and he has enough returning talent to get there.

Wisconsin

Grade: A+

Read the rest of this entry »

1. USC transfer Byron Wesley has reportedly cut his list to Pittsburgh, Gonzaga, and Oklahoma State. As we mentioned last week, Wesley’s departure is a huge blow for Andy Enfield and he could become a significant addition to one of these three teams. Last season Wesley averaged 17.8 points (shooting 46.7% FG) and 6.3 rebounds per game. He will visit the three schools in the next few weeks before making his decision.
2. Donnie Tyndall might not be able to keep Cuonzo Martin’s recruits, but he is making progress in terms of scheduling.Yesterday, Tennessee and Butler announced that they had agree to home-and-home series. Butler will travel to Knoxville this December and Tennessee will travel to Hinkle Fieldhouse in 2015. Obviously this had been in the works from well before Tyndall’s hiring, but was probably contingent on the approval of Tyndall (or whoever the new coach) was.
3. Southern Mississippi is one of the few remaining coaching openings, but it appears that they might be closing in on their target as they offered Stephen F. Austin coach Brad Underwood their head coaching position. Underwood just completed his first year at Stephen F. Austin, but led the team to a 32-3 record including 18-0 in the Southland Conference and a NCAA Tournament win over VCU. With Donnie Tyndall having left for Tennessee fairly recently this would appear to be an outstanding hire for Southern Miss if Underwood accepts.
4. With no new numbers to crunch one might expect Ken Pomeroy to not have much to do in the off-season. Of course, he has time to work on his algorithm, but he also has time to look back at the past such as with his review of  2002. Using his previously collected data, Pomeroy points out some key things that many people have forgotten like how ridiculously good that Duke team was that lost in the Sweet 16. If he is going to continue with this for other years, it could be one of the more interesting things to follow this off-season.
5. On Tuesday, PJ Hairston signed with an agent. Although the articles that we have seen do not go into detail about Hairston’s agent we do not see any connection for this agent to Fats Hayden, who as you may remember was involved in the fiasco that led to Hairston losing his NCAA eligibility. Despite Hairston’s turbulent final year at North Carolina (or in and out of) he is still projected to be a mid- to late-first round pick although with his absence from the scene for nearly a year now we assume that his workouts will have a bigger effect on his draft stock than they otherwise would.

Although we are less than a month removed from Connecticut’s win over Kentucky for the 2014 National Championship, it certainly is not too soon to gander ahead to the 2014-15 season. With Sunday’s deadline for underclassmen to declare for the June NBA Draft now past, we now have a much better idea of who the top teams should be once the ball is tipped again in November. Three weeks ago we released our Way Too Early Top 25; today we’re back with a much better version that accounts for (most of) next season’s returning rosters.

There is some consensus at the top, with three teams garnering 15 of the 18 top three votes from our pollsters. #1 Kentucky owns the top spot after John Calipari’s squad experienced far fewer NBA defections than was previously thought. While stars Julius Randle and James Young both decided to take their games to the next level, underclassmen Aaron Harrison, Andrew Harrison, Dakari Johnson, Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress all decided to return to Lexington. Coupling these returnees with another star-studded recruiting class (ranked second by most analysts), it is easy to see why expectations will once again be off the charts for next season’s Wildcats. As expected, #2 Arizona lost talented guard Nick Johnson and forward Aaron Gordon to the NBA Draft, but certainly not all is lost in Tucson. Guards T.J. McConnell and Gabe York along with interior behemoths Brandon Ashley, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Kaleb Tarczewski return to form an incredibly strong nucleus for the Wildcats. #3 Wisconsin looks like it will once again be a Final Four contender, as Bo Ryan’s squad returns seven of its eight rotation players from the 2013-14 campaign. The Badgers figure to be paced by what should be one of the strongest duos in the country in versatile wing Sam Dekker and skilled big man Frank Kaminsky. Wisconsin will also have a great deal of winning experience in the backcourt, as Traevon Jackson and Josh Gasser both return to Madison. The usual Quick n’ Dirty analysis, with some other thoughts on this poll, follows after the jump….

Quick n’ Dirty.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll go through each Pac-12 team one by one and recount the season that has just completed and begin to turn the page to what we might see next season. Today, Colorado.

What Went Wrong

On the morning of Sunday, January 12, Colorado was getting ready to play Washington in its fourth Pac-12 conference game. Up to that point, the Buffaloes had gone 14-2 on the season, won all three of their previous conference games, and were rated 31st in KenPom, down a bit from their season high of 28th (following their non-conference finale against Georgia). And then, late in the first half against the Huskies, junior point guard Spencer Dinwiddie took a false step on a fast break, his left knee buckled, and everyone’s worst fears were confirmed as a torn ACL was later verified. The Buffaloes went on to lose four of their next five games, and posted a middling 9-10 record the rest of the way, stumbling ever-steadily to a KenPom low of #68 by the end of the year. Tad Boyle and company could never truly recover from the loss of their best player and team leader.

Colorado Was Never The Same After “The Mayor” Went Down With An Injury

What Went Right

Following the loss of Dinwiddie, the team did its best to rally together, with junior guard Askia Booker in particular deserving extra praise. Booker had been known as  an inveterate gunner who had never seen a shot he didn’t like with Dinwiddie alongside him. But down the stretch of the season, Booker took over the bulk of the point guard duties and played the part of good teammate, looking to get everybody involved. Sure, he wasn’t always particularly effective in that new role, but the Buffs fought the good fight the rest of the season with him in the lead.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Missouri’s long overly complicated coaching search came to an end yesterday as they announced that Kim Anderson, who played there and served as an assistant there, would be their next coach. Anderson has been the head coach at Central Missouri where he was 274-94 and won the Division II title this season. He may turn out to be an excellent hire, but the way the school handled the entire process hiring a search firm, spending more than $40,000, and being rebuffed by many more prominent names only to select a former player who was coaching only 1.5 hours away makes them seem less than competent. Anderson will have his work cut out for him as he will be inheriting a depleted team and will need to work hard to keep the recruits that Missouri had commitments from before Frank Haith “left” for Tulsa.
2. The strange saga for Chane Behanan has come to an end. Well at least the college portion of it. Behanan, who left Louisville after multiple suspensions for marijuana use, had transferred to Colorado State and was expected to play for them next season. However, Behanan recently had a change of heart (perhaps related to Mitch McGary’s decision) and declared for the NBA Draft yesterday. When the rumors first surfaced that Behanan might leave, we mentioned that he was at best a late second round pick and nothing that we have heard since then would change our mind on that. If Behanan wants to go, that is his choice. We just hope that he is aware that he will likely be headed overseas if he wants a pro basketball career.
3. Tennessee fans might want to temper their expectations for the first few seasons of the Donnie Tyndall era. Yesterday, the school announced that they had granted a release to CJ Turman meaning that all four of the players who committed to the school back in November have backed out after Cuonzo Martin left the program to take over at California. We wouldn’t feel too bad for Tennessee fans because their lack of support (combined with that of the administration) was probably the driving force behind Martin’s decision to move. Unfortunately for Tyndall he has to deal with the fallout.
4. With the early entries declared and almost all of the major recruits committed people can start putting together legitimate preseason predictions. One such entity is the Las Vegas sports book, who put out their odds to win the 2015 NCAA title, which we stress are only for educational purposes. There are not any particularly glaring odds there although somebody might find one of the teams with greater than 25/1 odds interesting particularly ones with Hall of Fame level coaches.
5. With all of the departures from the Mountain West yesterday’s news that junior college star Jordan Goodman had committed to play at New Mexico could be big. The Lobos will be without Kendall Williams, Alex Kirk, and Cameron Bairstow next season so the addition of Goodman, who averaged 18.1 points and 6.6 rebounds last season in junior college, could provide some much needed production. If Goodman’s name seems familiar it is because had been committed to Georgetown, Rutgers, and Texas Tech (yes, three different schools) in high school before going the junior college route. If Goodman sticks with his choice this time, he could pay dividends for the Lobos.

With Sunday night’s early-entry deadline come and gone, programs have now gotten past one potential source of damage to their rosters. Kids can still announce their transfers or get in trouble or get hurt, so the names on these rosters can still remain in a state of flux, but below we’ll discuss the winners and losers in the conference after the going pro pothole has passed.

Winners

Arizona – It’s not often that you can call a team that lost two players to early entry a winner, but the fact is, the Wildcats lose Aaron Gordon and Nick Johnson, but guys like Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Kaleb Tarczewski and Brandon Ashley passed on the temptation of the NBA to return for another year in the desert. Of the two who left, there was little surprise, as Gordon is a sure-fire lottery pick while Johnson played well enough this season to probably maximize his attractiveness to NBA scouts (he’s projected as a second-rounder). Meanwhile, Hollis-Jefferson in particular was a serious threat to leave early, with a likely first-round selection awaiting. However, with his return to Tucson, he’ll have a chance to not only improve his draft stock, but also keep the Wildcats near the top of the national conversation.

Rondae Hollis-Jefferson’s Decision to Return To School Keeps Arizona Among The National Favorites (Casey Sapio, USA Today)

Oregon – Joseph Young considered forgoing his final season of eligibility for a run at the NBA dream, but the 6’3” shooter likely got word back from scouts to return to school, work on his ballhandling and start playing some defense. As a result, Young will again be a part of what should be a high-flying Duck offense and have a chance to legitimately work himself into NBA Draft consideration next season.

Read the rest of this entry »

Late last week the ACC released its 18-game conference match-ups for each of the 15 men’s basketball teams in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. Here’s a link to the announcement, which includes ACC commissioner John Swofford’s comments on the changes. With Louisville replacing Maryland as a member next season, ACC leadership wisely chose to move away from a scheduling model that set games years in advance with little to no regard for attractive television match-ups. As the clearest example, the ratings success of both Duke-Syracuse games last season ensured that those programs will play twice again in 2014-15. Good move! The league will also reward a newcomer (Louisville) with a first year bonus of home games against all three tradition-rich Triangle programs. Duke, North Carolina and N.C. State each visited Syracuse and Notre Dame in their first seasons as new members, while Pittsburgh hosted Duke and N.C. State. In another smart move, the league will match Louisville and North Carolina twice in 2014-15. In 2015-16, the four highest profile programs will swap doubles partners, as Duke will face Louisville twice and North Carolina will meet Syracuse two times. For a league vying to become a dominant basketball force in coming seasons, these are all smart long-term moves.

Rick Pitino and Louisville Will Have a Tough First Year ACC Schedule (Getty Images).

Let’s now take a look at which schools may have the easiest or toughest conference schedules next season. Before we can compare them in any meaningful way, we must first rank the teams in groups based on how good we think they will be next year. Of course it’s all guesswork at this point, but without doing too much detailed analysis, here are the four different groupings of teams (“A” being the best) as we see them right now.

To compare schedules we will just look at the teams each school plays twice, as that really represents the main difference in these schedules. For each team in Group A, we will assign four toughness-points, Group B teams are worth three, and so on. We’ll do our comparisons by group to see which teams have it better or worse compared to teams of the same relative strength. Each group table lists the teams in order of easiest schedule, showing the teams they play twice and the toughness-points that total in the far right column.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Mitch McGary‘s early-entry departure from Michigan might be the most controversial ones that we can remember. McGary’s decision to leave after his sophomore season was not particularly shocking from a basketball perspective as he would have been a first-round pick had he not been injured this season and even now he is a borderline first-round pick. The reason that McGary’s decision is so controversial (and will be for quite some time) is that he was essentially forced out when he tested positive for marijuana on a random test. If McGary had stayed he would have had to sit out the upcoming season. As a result, McGary will be waiting anxiously on Draft night and John Beilein will have a much tougher task keeping Michigan competitive in the Big Ten next season.
2. The good next keeps on coming in for John Calipari. After learning that most of his frontcourt was returning, Calipari also found out that Aaron and Andrew Harrison would be returning for their sophomore seasons. This does not necessarily make Kentucky the national title favorites, but certainly puts them on the short list of contenders. The one issue for Kentucky is that for all of their depth on the inside they will have surprisingly lack of backcourt depth. The one interesting aspect of this is that Kentucky might end up being more experienced than their opponents for the first time in several years.
3. The news at Connecticut was more mixed. The Huskies already knew that they were going to take a hit with Kemba Walker leaving Storrs, but they had hoped that both DeAndre Daniels and Ryan Boatright would return for the senior seasons. Boatright decided to come back to Storrs for one more year while Daniels decided to cash in on a big NCAA Tournament run to enter the NBA Draft. While Boatright will help stabilize the Huskies next year the loss of an athletic presence like Daniels is a big blow. At this point, Daniels is projected as a borderline first-round pick although with his athleticism and skill set he is the type of player who could move up or down a Draft board fairly quickly.
4. One of the problems with many of the earliest versions of the way-too-early top 25s is that they are based on conjecture and occasionally statements about who is and is not leaving. On April 17, Jordan Adams announced that he was staying at UCLA saying that he was “really excited about the team we’re going to have next year”. On Saturday night, Adams changed his mind and announced that he would be entering the NBA Draft. His reasons for leaving are unclear as he is probably an early second round pick although maybe he assumes that he can work his way into the first round and get guaranteed money or that some team or agent told him that he had that first round guarantee. Or perhaps he figured that going pro was better than spending another year in Westwood. In any event, it puts Steve Alford and the Bruins in a hole as they attempt to replicate the success that they had in Alford’s first season.
5. We are not used to seeing Wisconsin at the top of preseason rankings as they tend to be underrated, but next year we do not think that should be an issue. The Badgers already have a loaded team and the one piece that we felt might declare for the NBA Draft–Frank Kaminsky–announced that he would be returning for his senior season in Madison. Kaminsky showed tremendous growth this season, but he was still projected to only be a borderline first round pick. His size and skill set would have made him an interesting late first-round pick. Instead he will return to Madison and should make Wisconsin one of the title favorite next season.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll go through each Pac-12 team one by one and recount the season that has just completed and begin to turn the page to what we might see next season. Today, Arizona.

What Went Right

With freshmen Aaron Gordon and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson stepping into roles as big-time contributors right away, with Nick Johnson taking his game to a higher – and more consistent – level, with sophomores Kaleb Tarczewski, Brandon Ashley and Gabe York making huge strides in their second seasons, and with T.J. McConnell tying everything together as the team’s consummate floor general, this vintage of the Wildcats came together about as well as Sean Miller could have hoped. Sure, there was plenty of talent on this team. But what made this group a great unit is their ability to function together seamlessly. Defensively, they always had one another’s backs, combining to form the year’s most fearsome defensive squad. And on the offensive end, everybody bought into their roles and found ways to complement each other. Indeed, this 2013-14 group of Wildcats exemplified the word “team” as well as any college basketball squad in the country.

The 2013-14 Wildcats Exemplified The Word Team (Christian Petersen, Getty Images)

What Went Wrong

A whole lot went right in Tucson this season, but if we wanted to pinpoint one thing that went wrong, we’d jump straight to February 1^st in Haas Pavilion, where in the opening minutes of a clash with California, Ashley landed awkwardly following a shot and wound up with a broken foot that ended his season. While Miller was able to rejigger his lineup on the fly and keep the Wildcats among the best teams in the nation, there will forever be questions about what could have been without that simple twist of fate in Berkeley.

Read the rest of this entry »