Texas will be without point guard Isaiah Taylor for “several weeks,” according to ESPN’s Jeff Goodman, a report that was later confirmed by Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports and Adam Zagoria of ZagsBlog. Taylor injured his wrist in the Longhorns’ 71-57 win over Iowa when he was hit by Iowa forward Gabe Olaseni while driving to the basket. According to Goodman’s source, the injury is not “season-ending,” and Taylor will be re-evaluated to determine if there is a fracture in the wrist when the team returns to Austin after tonight’s game against California. Taylor, a 6’1″ sophomore, averaged 12.7 points and 4.0 assists per game during his freshman season in Austin. Through three games of 2014-15, he has been the Longhorns’ leading scorer at 15.0 points per game while shooting an outstanding 60.0 percent effective field goal rate. Taylor’s loss from the lineup won’t just hurt Texas offensively, though, as the guard is also swiping 1.3 steals per game this year.

Isaiah Taylor was injured late in Texas’ win over Iowa on Tuesday (Associated Press)

The injury obviously looms large for a surging Texas team. The sophomore has been an integral piece on both ends of the floor for the Longhorns and their schedule is not particularly forgiving in the short-term. Texas will face California in the finals of the 2KSports Classsic tonight, a team that our own Brian Goodman predicted it would handle easily. However, the Longhorns will now face the Golden Bears without Taylor, which will make it harder to defend a deep California backcourt that includes Tyrone Wallace and Jabari Bird. Over the coming weeks, Texas is scheduled for away games against defending national champion Connecticut and top-ranked Kentucky — two teams that also feature strong guard play with Ryan Boatright and the Harrison twins leading the way. Looking beyond those contests, Texas will need a healthy Taylor to compete in the Big 12 where they have the potential to challenge perennial favorite Kansas.

Taylor’s injury also has implications for the rest of the Big 12. The conference got off to a rough start on Wednesday night when Oklahoma lost on the road at Creighton. Additional non-conference losses will put the league at a disadvantage come Selection Sunday because they drag down the league’s overall RPI. After sending seven teams to the NCAA Tournament last season, the conference will be aiming to achieve that mark again this year with depth that is unmatched by few conferences around the country. For the sake of Texas and the Big 12, hopefully Taylor’s injury is manageable so that he’ll be back on the court very soon.

California rolled over Syracuse in a nightcap upset of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic in Madison Square Garden last night. After the win, ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla tweeted out the following:

Huge win tonight for @CuonzoMartin and his Cal Bears. Happy for my man, @yhufnagel. He'll be texting 800 recruits tonight! #sorethumbs

— Fran Fraschilla (@franfraschilla) November 21, 2014

Assistant coach Yanni Hufnagel is well-respected for his recruiting abilities on the west coast and was retained by head coach Cuonzo Martin when he got to the Bay Area this past spring. One of those first texts was most likely sent to senior five-star power forward Ivan Rabb (No. 5 – 2015), who is currently the biggest target for the Bears. Rabb hails from the Bay Area and plays his high school ball at Bishop O’ Dowd in Oakland (CA). Recently the senior cut his list of college suitors down to five and Cal was included along with two other Pac-12 schools in Arizona and UCLA in addition to national powerhouses Kansas and Kentucky. Upon accepting the job at Cal, Martin’s first visit was to Rabb’s high school. Now a prominent win on a big stage makes selling California a little easier for Hufnagel and Martin.

2. Antonio Blakeney Scoring at a High Clip

Five-star shooting guard Antonio Blakeney is one of the hottest names on the market right now after his de-commitment from Louisville in addition to his high scoring outputs of 65 and 42 points in recent high school games. Initially, Blakeney, a senior from Florida and the No. 22 ranked recruit made national news with his de-commitment ,which then turned into a Nike vs. Adidas battle du jour. Now, Blakeney is back to taking official visits while drawing head coaches down to his games. In past weeks, Blakeney has taken official visits to Kentucky and LSU and on Wednesday night he had Roy Williams at his game. With players in the 2015 class coming off the board left and right expect the battle for Blakeney to continue to heat up.

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Who Won the Week? is a regular column that outlines and discusses three winners and losers from the previous week of hoops. The author of this column is Kenny Ocker (@KennyOcker), a Tacoma-based sportswriter best known for his willingness to drive (or bike!) anywhere to watch a basketball game.

WINNER: Kentucky

The #1 Wildcats put in as dominant a performance against a top-five team as I can remember, eviscerating Kansas 72-40 on Tuesday. As many blocks as field goals surrendered? Holding an elite opponent under 20 percent field goal shooting on a neutral court? Sign me up. If this team plays defense together half this good on a nightly basis, it won’t be on the bottom end of a box score very often this season. The beatdown Kentucky put on Kansas completely justifies overlooking the halftime deficit to Buffalo on Sunday, which became a 71-52 win.  This is as no-doubt a winner as I’ve ever had in this column. (Welcome to year three, kids.)

John Calipari is in a good mood with this many All-Americans on his roster. (AP)

(Related winners: The nine high-school All-Americans who get to play 20 minutes each a game while playing against the best opposing players in the country in practice every day, getting to boost their abilities and NBA draft stock simultaneously. Related losers: Kansas, because yeesh. Buffalo, because blowing a halftime lead wasn’t nearly as bad as the six-plus feet of blowing snow dropped on their city later in the week – after a win at Texas-Arlington, at least.) Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Danna is a broadcaster for the Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA’s Development League.

Curious whatever happened to that dude who killed it in college but you knew wouldn’t be able to translate his success at the NBA level, at least not right away? He’s probably in the D-League, the NBA’s 18-team minor league that is home to both experimental rules and very experimental styles of play (the Reno Bighorns forced 39 turnovers in an exhibition game this season… and lost 158-135). At the moment, as far as I can tell (because rosters are always changing in this league with guys coming and going to and from Europe, the Phillippines, China and, of course, the NBA), there are 19 D-League players who have Pac-12 experience, four who have played a game on assignment from their NBA club, and one more who was in a D-League training camp before getting the call upstairs.

A Surprise NBA First Round Pick This June, Josh Huestis Is Cutting His Teeth In The D-League (AP Photo/Don Ryan)

Probably the most intriguing Pac-12 D-League case is Josh Huestis, who was a first-round draft choice of the Oklahoma City Thunder last June. Instead of signing his rookie deal with the Thunder, who had its roster spots more or less filled, Huestis agreed to spend a season in the D-League and is thought to be the first “domestic draft and stash” in NBA history. Through a couple of games in the 2014-15 D-League season, Huestis is averaging 7.5 points and 7.0 rebounds per game for the Oklahoma City Blue, the Thunder’s D-League affiliate. There’s a little more Pac-12 love in OKC, as former Golden Bear Richard Solomon is a starter for the Blue and Arizona’s Grant Jerrett has spent some time on assignment there as well.

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Midway through the second half of California’s 14–point win over Syracuse (#25 in the RTC preseason poll) at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, both Dick Vitale and John Saunders expressed surprise that the Golden Bears were picked seventh in the Pac-12 — astonished that there could be six teams in the conference better than them. And if you watched the game, you probably understood that surprise, because Cal looked great. They shot a 54.5 percent eFG against the vaunted Syracuse zone, kept the Orange’s athletes out of transition (for the most part), and really had a handle on the game from the closing moments of the first half (a late 12-0 run in that half featured four Cal threes in five possessions). Sophomore Jabari Bird had his national coming-out party with 16 points on four threes, and his more under-the-radar classmate Jordan Mathews wound up with 22 relatively quiet points. Up and down the rest of the roster, Cuonzo Martin’s players made the type of plays that they’ll be expected to make all season long. So, all that optimism that Golden Bears fans had to be feeling throughout that not-all-that-stressful second half is completely warranted and Cal should start looking into a nice brand of scissors for all that net-cutting they’re going to be doing at the end of the year, right? Well, slow your roll for just one minute.

Jabari Bird and The Cal Bears Looked Great In Handling Syracuse (Ben Margot, AP Photo)

First, note that we’re not about to discount what the Golden Bears did last night at all. They beat Syracuse on a floor that was anything but neutral, and they did it in convincing fashion. They’ve got a star or two on the wing in Bird and Mathews. Tyrone Wallace is settling in at the point and has looked good enough there. And if he needs a hand, Martin’s best bench player at this junction is sophomore point Sam Singer who, by the way, handed out eight assists in a solid night of action. There’s senior center David Kravish, who contributed 12 points, 10 boards, three blocks, five assists and even a three against that Syracuse front line which, even if you don’t recognize any of the names off the top of your head, is an intimidating opponent. They looked really good, validating the initial opinion that most people who watched any of the Golden Bears’ first couple games of the season came away with.

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Yesterday was a busy day in the always-interesting world of SEC basketball. Kentucky and Florida were both idle, but the league still managed to go 5-1 with the only blemish being Texas A&M’s loss in an ugly game against Dayton. That’s a successful day considering Dayton sits respectably at #50 in KenPom’s latest ratings and the SEC has already taken its fair share of lumps this year. Small steps, people. Here are a handful of thoughts from yesterday’s action.

Anthony Grant may have the personnel to run an effective zone this season (Bamahoops.com).

• Alabama flashes defensive potential against Southern Miss. We can finally mention Southern Miss on this microsite without discussing Donnie Tyndall. The story of this game, won by Alabama 81-67, was the potential of its defense. The Crimson Tide are flush with long, versatile guys this season who can play both on the perimeter and in the post. Anthony Grant ran a lot of 1-3-1 zone against the Golden Eagles, and while it didn’t exactly flummox them as they scored a point per possession, the strategy could turn into a nice season-long weapon for Alabama. Consider the personnel in Grant’s rotation: Levi Randolph (6’5’’), Rodney Cooper (6’6’’), Shannon Hale (6’8’’), Jimme Taylor (6’10’’), Michael Kessens (6’9’’) and Riley Norris (6’7’’). All of these guys are either natural wings or can hold their own on the perimeter. Ricky Tarrant also looked at home in picking up three steals out of the zone. It worked last night largely because the Golden Eagles went 8-of-29 from three, but it’s something for opponents to think about going forward.

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Virginia Military Institute coach Duggar Baucom was all apologies after his team’s opener last week against The Citadel. “They just made us guard,” Baucom said. “We call it a ‘red call’ when the shot clock goes under 10. It seemed like we were yelling that all night. You just have to deal with it. We were late on some deflections that probably should have been steals and that would have allowed us to run a little more. But we’ll have games like that every once in a while.” The Keydets may have pulled out a 66-65 victory on a clutch Trey Chapman three-pointer with 15 seconds left, but — while wins are important — the fact that VMI was held to 60 possessions in the game, the lowest number in Baucom’s 10-year career in Lexington, made Baucom swear to go back to the drawing board.

This might be the toughest season yet for Duggar Baucom at VMI. (Big South Athletics)

Baucom has made up-tempo basketball his identity throughout his coaching career, coming to VMI from Division II Tusculum a decade ago. He was under no illusions at how tough a job he would have to build a competitive program at the military school. He couldn’t offer many of the bells and whistles other Division I schools can, but he could show them how to play high-octane basketball. Baucom’s teams have finished in the top 10 nationally in adjusted tempo in the last eight years, and in the top two in six of those seasons, including last year when VMI won 20 games and advanced to the semifinals of the CIT. “Every day is a grind at a military school like VMI for the kids, and you have to do things a little differently as a coach,” Baucom said. “Recruiting is tough. We have great kids, though, and I wouldn’t swap them for anything. VMI has been very good to me.”

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The Big East has gotten off to a strong start this season, having lost only one game among all 10 teams and heading into next week with tests which will help determine how it stacks up against some of the nation’s best. Here are three positives and three negatives from the opening week in Big East basketball.

Three Up

Trevon Blueitt has produced from the get go for the Musketeers
(Frank Victores/USA Today Sports)

1. Xavier Freshmen – Chris Mack brought in a highly-ranked group of freshmen to restock the Musketeers, and they have produced from the get-go. In Tuesday night’s win over Long Beach State, Trevon Bluiett and JP Macura led the team in scoring, with 20 and 17 points, respectively. Both shot the ball well from three, combining to connect five times, and Bluiett especially had a phenomenal game, stuffing the stat sheet with eight rebounds and five assists to boot. With a strong group of experienced players led by Matt Stainbrook and Myles Davis, Mack does not need his freshmen to lead every night, but their demonstrated ability to score in bunches is helpful for any team over the course of a season.
2. DePaul Transfers – This DePaul team is not your typical DePaul team. That might be said nearly every preseason, but after a couple of games, it appears that this could be the team that finally breaks through. Oliver Purnell returns two sophomore studs in Billy Garrett Jr. and Tommy Hamilton IV, but he also brought in four transfers to turn the program around. Myke Henry, Aaron Simpson, and the injured Rashaun Stimage have returned home to Chicago, and Darrick Wood arrives by way of junior college in Kansas. In Tuesday’s win over Drake, Henry contributed 13 points, six rebounds and three assists, while Simpson and Wood both contributed five points each. Stimage and Henry are athletic bigs which will pair nicely with big-bodied Hamilton, while Simpson and Wood can handle the ball and provide a spark off the bench when Garrett needs a break. Purnell needs smart players who buy into the system, and all signs point to his group of newbies doing just that. Read the rest of this entry »

Each week here at the microsite we’ll take a look at which ACC teams and players are trending up, down, or remaining flat. It’s still very early in the season, but there are some trends to be gleaned from the first week of opening games. Let’s take a look below:

Trending Up

• Duke. Despite all of the preseason hype placed on Duke’s freshmen (Jahlil Okafor in particular) and speculative questions about overall team chemistry, the Blue Devils have looked the part of a title contender thus far. Their blowouts over Presbyterian and Fairfield may not have convinced anyone, but their wire-to-wire victory over Michigan State showed that Duke is already in top form.
• Miami. The Hurricanes’ early returns on their big-name transfers have been outstanding. Sheldon McClellan (from Texas) is putting up 11.0 points and 5.3 rebounds per game through two contests, and former Kansas State point guard Angel Rodriguez is not only averaging a team-high 18.3 points per contest, but he also hit the game-winning three over rival Florida that ended the Gators’ 33-game home winning streak. Pretty solid start for Jim Larranaga’s newcomers.

Angel Rodriguez has produced pleasant early returns for Miami (USA Today Sports)

• Virginia Tech. Why are the Hokies trending up when they only have wins over Maryland-Eastern Shore and Liberty? Well, go back in time one year ago and Virginia Tech had just lost its season opener to South Carolina Upstate. At a minimum, Buzz Williams has his team beating the teams it should beat, something last year’s group couldn’t boast. Freshman Justin Bibbs’ solid start to the season has been a pleasant surprise as well.

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1. Texas sputtered to start the 2K Sports Classic and found themselves down six at the break. They went into locker room and proceeded to dominate the Hawkeyes in the second half 47-27 and won the game by 14. Perhaps the biggest headline to emerge from this is the status of sophomore point guard Isaiah Taylor who injured his left wrist late in the game. UT should take this injury seriously even if it is a minor one. Any time Taylor misses would be harmful to a team that has had its offensive woes. Rick Barnes told ESPN after the game that he asked Taylor “if I would kiss it to make it feel better, and he said it would. And I kissed it but I don’t guess it worked.” This brings up another important point: Kissing boo-boo’s heal when a mother is doing the kissing. Boo-boo kissing is a fruitless endeavor for fathers and/or Division I coaches. (Division II coaches? Maybe.) I don’t have much data supporting this hypothesis but I’m pretty sure it’s foolproof.
2. West Virginia-George Mason was one of those games Thursday where I had to do a double take on its final score because the deficit was large. Yes, the Mountaineers beat the Patriots by 26 points. You could have missed the game, looked at the final stats and concluded that the Patriots made this loss greater than it should have been. The Patriots turned the ball over 24 times compared to WVU’s 12 and missed 16 of their 32 free throws. This isn’t to say that George Mason would have won the game (they wouldn’t have) but I am saying they did more things to hurt themselves than to help. Kudos to the ‘Eers for capitalizing on their mistakes and for also getting back to winning games Huggy’s way (11 more offensive rebounds than GMU). A great thing about these tournaments is that we’ll get a better frame of reference of teams’ long-term success afterwards. The deeper WVU advances, the more serious I’ll take them as an at-large bid.
3. So…are we gonna talk about Oklahoma’s massive collapse at Creighton on Wednesday night? When Ryan Spangler hit a three to bump the Sooner lead to 18 early in the second half, Creighton called timeout and I turned the game off. It was remarkable to see the Sooners start the way they did in a notoriously loud building like the Qwest Center is. But Creighton came out of the timeout and upped their defensive pressure on the Sooners. Soon, the game began to swing in the Bluejays’ favor. Oklahoma won’t see a crowd like this one until it plays Kansas and Iowa State in conference action. At least there’s time enough time between now and then to fix those problems.
4. The Lawrence Journal-World’s post-mortem of Tuesday’s Kentucky-Kansas points out one very big advantage for the Wildcats: Kentucky was bigger. It’s an obvious point Tom Keegan makes but the Wildcats are going to have the best frontcourt in the game every time it steps on a basketball floor. The closest resemblance to a Kentucky team in the Big 12 is Texas but I don’t think size poses much of a problem across the league. Most teams aren’t Texas and don’t have the size that the Longhorns possess. I wouldn’t freak out too much, Kansas fans.
5. Two future neutral-court fields were announced on Thursday. The 2015 edition of the Charleston Classic’s headliner will be the reigning ACC champion Virginia but otherwise doesn’t generate much interest. The rest of the field is made up of Oklahoma State from the Big 12, Ole Miss, Bradley, George Mason, Towson, Long Beach State and Seton Hall. Meanwhile, the 2015 Puerto Rico Tip-Off will bring in Texas Tech, Miami, Mississippi State, Butler, Missouri State, Utah, Minnesota and Temple. The possibilities for games here are more intriguing than Charleston. Utah and Miami appear to be likely NCAA Tournament teams this season, Fran Dunphy and Temple usually put good teams together and the potential for a Tubby Smith vs his old school match-up will turn a few heads. This will be a good field.