American sophomore Charlie Jones was wide open when he got the ball in the right corner in the first half last Tuesday night at Stony Brook, the Eagles’ final non-conference game before beginning defense of their Patriot League title on Wednesday at Bucknell. Of course, “open” can be surprisingly subjective in the college basketball world. And although Jones has started 10 of 12 games this season, made more than 50 percent of his field goal attempts, and didn’t appear to have any immediate impediment to a 15-footer, he faked and kicked the ball back out. After all, there were still 25 seconds left on the shot clock, and by the high standards Mike Brennan and American have set, Jones wasn’t nearly open enough.

Mike Brennan, in His Second Year, Already Has a PL Title

Love it or hate it – and opponents usually fall into the latter category – slow and steady won the Patriot League race last season, with the coda coming in a 56-possession masterpiece, a 55-36 Patriot Tournament final win over Boston University in which American only attempted 34 field goals (but made 19). Making the title even more remarkable, American had been picked ninth in the preseason poll with a first-year leader who had no previous head coaching experience.

Even though Patriot League Defensive Player of the Year Tony Wroblicky graduated in May, American (7-5) is not going to fool the conference this season, picked by the league coaches to repeat the feat. With another year to implement his Princeton offense, Brennan has responded in kind by playing even slower. The Eagles are dead last (351st) nationally in adjusted tempo, more than a possession better (or worse?) than Wyoming at 350th. They opened the season with a plodding 40-37 near-upset of Temple, and their last two games — a win over Mount St. Mary’s and last week’s loss to Stony Brook — were two of the five slowest games in Division I this season.

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1. In one of the worst late-game collapses you’ll see this season, Kansas State gacked up a four-point lead over the final 3.8 seconds to lose a stunner on Sunday to Texas Southern. The madness started when Wildcats guard Jevon Thomas fouled Tonnie Collier on a three-point attempt. Collier buried the first two tries, and, after a Kansas State timeout, intentionally missed the third, which was corralled and put back by Texas Southern forward Chris Thomas to tie the game at 56 with 0.9 seconds remaining. On the ensuing inbounds pass, the Wildcats threw the ball out of bounds along the sideline to give Texas Southern one last possession under its own basket. On that play, Madarious Gibbs found Jason Carter rolling to the hoop, and Carter buried a short jumper to give the Tigers the improbable win in regulation. There was some doubt as to whether the clock operator started time correctly on the final play, but with the help of review and a stopwatch, the shocking game-winner was upheld. The home loss means trouble for the Wildcats, who now have very little to show for their non-league slate. While the conference schedule will certainly afford them plenty of good opportunities, they’ll have to outperform what we’ve seen so far in order to make it to the NCAA Tournament for a sixth straight year.
2. After an impressive run of success over the season’s first five weeks, the Big 12 somewhat regressed last week. On top of Kansas State dropping a game it had no business losing, and Kansas getting pounded by Temple,Texas lost a home game to Stanford and Texas Tech lost a neutral court battle to Houston. The Longhorns and the Cardinal were close throughout their Tuesday night game, but Rick Barnes’ team was done in by a disappointing showing on the defensive glass and a spotty 31.6 percent performance beyond the arc. Home losses are always tough to stomach, but the Longhorns can take some solace in the possibility of Isaiah Taylor returning to play for Texas’ Big 12 opener on January 3.
3. After a holiday respite, Bill Self finally reviewed film from the Jayhawks’ brutal 25-point loss to Temple and came away with some insights that weren’t terribly different from what we saw as the upset played out last Monday. Kansas’ defense certainly isn’t as bad as the results in Philadelphia suggested, but it’s beyond apparent that these aren’t the usual Jayhawks who lock down the perimeter and have an NBA-level enforcer to alter every shot within five feet of the basket. Kansas has two more tune-ups before conference play gears up, and fortunately, both are at Allen Fieldhouse, where the Jayhawks have lost just one non-conference game since 2007.
4. The Waco Tribune named former Baylor star Isaiah Austin its Sportsman of the Year for his contributions and perseverance following his diagnosis of Marfan Syndrome just days before last June’s NBA Draft. Austin is currently in Waco completing his business degree, after which point he has an open job offer from the NBA. Recently, NBA Live 2K15 unveiled a feature that made Austin playable in the popular video game and has had many other honors bestowed upon him, so he’s getting plenty of love, but this is just one more well-deserved accolade for the likable seven-footer.
5. Iowa State is in the home stretch of an 11-day break between games, which is as good an opportunity as any to take stock of the Cyclones. As Travis Hines of the Ames Tribune writes, the program is riding an unprecedented wave of success, and the best may still be yet to come. Among other metrics, the Cyclones have been ranked in the AP Poll for 25 consecutive weeks, which is a team record, and the Iowa State faithful have packed both Hilton Coliseum and the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City at unforeseen clips over the past few seasons. On the recruiting trail, Fred Hoiberg is making Iowa State a destination school, which has only made the team’s success more sustainable in the long run. There will always be the looming possibility of The Mayor returning to the NBA in some capacity, but until that happens, there’s plenty for Cyclones fans to enjoy.

1. On Saturday, Indiana lost its final non-conference match-up to Georgetown in Madison Square Garden. In the second half, the game became a duel between two former teammates and Indianapolis natives, the Hoosiers’ Yogi Ferrell and the Hoyas’ D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera. Ferrell scored a team-high 27 points, including two three-pointers that helped the Hoosiers tie the game and send it to overtime. As Zach Osterman explains, there is no shame in losing to Georgetown on a neutral site — the disappointment stems from what would have been gained with a win. A win over a good Big East team would not only have given Indiana a big boost going into its conference schedule, but also earned them their first resume win and mitigated some of the stain from their bad loss to Eastern Washington. Now, the Hoosiers will have to overperform in Big Ten play in order to earn an NCAA bid.
2. This weekend we also saw the return of Dez Wells when Maryland defeated Oakland. After missing five games with a wrist injury, Wells did not get the start but played 22 minutes, chipping in 10 points and four assists. The senior’s return adds to the momentum the Terrapins have built after going 12-1 in non-conference play. In Wells’ absence, Jake Layman has stepped up his production, emerging as a legitimate scoring option for Maryland; combine that with the standout play of freshman stud Melo Trimble and a healthy Wells and Evan Smotrycz, and Mark Turgeon now has a wealth of talent with which to develop his new rotation, shaping up Maryland to be a force in its first season in the Big Ten.
3. The slate of Saturday games also included Minnesota’s convincing win against UNC-Wilmington. This was the Golden Gophers’ eighth victory in a row, and it caps off a nice finish to their non-conference schedule after starting 3-2 — they’re now 11-2 with losses only to Louisville and St. John’s (both in KenPom’s top 20). Richard Pitino’s pressure defense has once again been a big part of their success (defensive turnover rate of 28.0 percent, third in the country), but it’s their ability to share the ball that has really boosted the offense and overall play, as evidenced by the 66.2 percent of field goals made that come off of assists (fifth nationally). Minnesota will see if its collegial philosophy on offense will translate to a step up in competition when it starts Big Ten play Wednesday at Purdue.
4. Now that the non-conference schedule season has wrapped up, it’s worth reviewing what has happened in the season thus far. We will have some look-back posts coming up here on the microsite, but the MaizeNBrew blog from SB Nation has compiled a pretty comprehensive version of its non-conference awards. Wisconsin was honored as the Best Team, while Northwestern shamefully beat out Rutgers to be named the Worst Team. Additionally, the Badgers’ Frank Kaminsky was awarded midseason MVP, Ohio State’s D’Angelo Russell was Best Freshman, Maryland’s Jake Layman was Most Improved, Wisconsin/Duke was the best game of the non-conference season, Iowa over North Carolina was deemed the Best Win, and Michigan’s infamous defeat to NJIT was identified as the Worst Loss. There are many, many more awards in the article, and it serves as a good recap of the early part of the season for the Big Ten.
5. Finally, fans have been grasping at straws to make sense of the “mushy middle”of this year’s Big Ten. It seems as if there is not much daylight between teams unless your name is Wisconsin (for good reason) or Northwestern and Rutgers (for not-so-good reasons). If you’re looking for some clarity, Jeff from the BasketballPredictions blog has updated his bracketology predictions to include Saturday’s results. His predictions and seedings reflect what he expects to occur by the end of the season. In it, he has eight Big Ten teams making the Dance: Wisconsin (#1 seed), Ohio State (#4), Maryland (#7), Illinois (#7), Iowa (#8), Michigan State (#9), Michigan (#11), and Minnesota (#12). This leaves out bubble-hopefuls Penn State (and their 12-1 record), Indiana, Nebraska and Purdue. These predictions seem to highlight how much uncertainty there is with any team’s record and/or performance in the non-conference, and that we’ll likely have a slugfest in the conference all season long for those precious NCAA Tournament bids. There are two exciting months of Big Ten play coming our way that will sort all of this out. Get excited!

1. After a few bumps to begin the season, it appears that the Larry Brown experiment at Southern Methodist appears to be getting back on track. The latest addition to the Mustangs is Duke transfer Semi Ojeleye who committed to SMU over the weekend. Although Ojeleye only put up modest numbers–3 points and 2.3 rebounds per game–in limited playing time this season, he was a highly touted prospect coming out of high school and might flourish in an environment where he is not sitting behind multiple McDonald’s All-Americans. The 6’8″ sophomore will be eligible to play in December 2015 since he will have to sit out a year. When he does return, he could be part of a dynamic frontline that will probably have Markus Kennedy, Jordan Tolbert, and Ben Moore back next season.
2. If you were expecting to see Dwayne Polee II back in a San Diego State uniform any time soon, you might want to reconsider that after Steve Fisher revealed that Polee had a similar event last season during a practice. Given this new information, we certainly understand why the school is not offering a time table for Polee’s return as he will now have to go a much more extensive medical work-up. Polee, a senior forward who is averaging 8.4 points per game, will likely be out for quite a bit more time and given the data in recent years about sudden cardiac death in Division 1 men’s basketball players we cannot fault them for being extremely cautious.
3. It has been a rough few weeks for UCLA basketball. After the embarrassment of going down 24-0 and only scoring seven points in the first half against Kentucky, they lost to Alabama yesterday after only scoring 17 points in the first half and that is better than it seems because they only had scored five points with 5:15 left in the first half. Things will not be getting any easier for the Bruins who lost Wanaah Bail for the season after he was declared academically ineligible. On the surface, Bail’s paltry output of 1.5 points and 2.6 rebounds in 9 minutes per game might not seem like much (and it isn’t), but on a team with as little depth as UCLA has it only exacerbates that weakness even more.
4. We tend to stay away from the AAU scene for a variety of reasons, but have heard plenty of horror stories involving the people who bankroll some teams. So when we heard about a a banker in Houston who financed a prominent AAU team, we we intrigued. Unlike the typical AAU stories we read, the key piece in this story–Steve Trauber–does not appear to have any intention of using the players for his own financial gain (and it appears that he is already doing quite well financially anyways). In fact, one of the players on the team last year was Trauber’s son, J.T., who is currently a walk-on Rice. We doubt that we will see many similar stories of rich individuals backing youth basketball teams, but it is nice to see it happen.
5. For years we have heard arguments about which city produces the best basketball talent. We usually hear cities like New York, Chicago, Houston, and Atlanta thrown around, but it might be time that we expand our horizons. As Scott Cacciola of The New York Times notes Toronto is quickly becoming a basketball hotbed. Although they do not have the tradition of major cities in the US, the talent produced by Toronto (at least the very top tier) in recent years rivals that of any major US city. While we are not quite ready to get on board with the idea that Canada will be a legitimate threat to the US in the 2016 or 2020 Olympics, the spread of basketball outside of the US and its impact on the game and college basketball recruiting is certainly something to keep an eye on.

Kentucky, the undisputed No. 1 team in the country, faces perhaps its last truly tough test of the regular season when it enters Louisville’s Yum! Center today with both teams unbeaten and carrying designs on a second national title in the last four years (a notion that sounds crazy in December, but probably true). John Calipari has won six of seven match-ups against the Cardinals since taking over in Lexington, but Rick Pitino is on the other sideline with home court as well as the best player on the floor wearing red and white. SEC micrositer David Changas and ACC micrositer Lathan Wells got together to break down the biggest game of the college basketball weekend, and quite possibly, the entire regular season.

DC: One of Kentucky’s biggest strengths this season is its ability to grab offensive rebounds. The Cardinals, on the other hand, have struggled on the defensive glass. What can they do to neutralize this Kentucky advantage and keep the Wildcats from getting too many easy putback baskets?

Montrezl Harrell living up to his preseason accolades is imperative for the Cardinals to have a chance today. (AP Photo)

LW: This may seem perfunctory, but Louisville needs to do an incredible job of blocking out. No one in college basketball can match Kentucky’s size, so the Cards will need all of their big men to keep their assigned Wildcats on their backs. Montrezl Harrell also has to stay out of foul trouble, and Chinanu Onuaku and Mangok Mathiang have to avoid the tendency to be overaggressive in a big-time situation so that they can stay on the floor as well. Another key against Kentucky is finding some rebounding help from the backcourt, so players such as Chris Jones and Terry Rozier will need to contribute in that department as well. Kentucky’s top-rated defense is so incredibly stifling that the Wildcats have coasted to most of their wins this year, but Louisville is bound to be hyped from the opening tip in this one. How would John Calipari’s team handle an early deficit, and who do you think is the one player the Wildcats absolutely need a phenomenal performance from to ensure they stay undefeated?

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As the holiday break kicked in, some ACC teams and players were probably thrilled to review their last few weeks of action with family and friends. Others were undoubtedly just glad they had some time away from the hardwood to refresh and reset expectations. We’ve now had three weeks since we last evaluated the state of the conference’s players and coaches, so here’s the Holiday Edition of the ACC Stock Watch:

Trending Up

• Notre Dame. All the Fighting Irish have done since we last checked in is to reel off five straight wins, bringing their overall record to 12-1 (including an early ACC win over Florida State). Mike Brey’s team is one of the most dynamic offensive groups in the country, averaging 86.1 points per game and putting up 94 and 91 points, respectively, in blowout wins over Purdue and Northern Illinois. More impressive than the overall offensive output in those two games is that Jerian Grant scored a total of 21 points on just 5-of-22 shooting from the field. Once the All-American candidate returns to form, look out.
• Virginia. Don’t look now, but the Cavaliers are finally getting their due as a serious national title contender. Tony Bennett’s team may be even better defensively this year than last, holding a talented Harvard team to eight first-half points en route to an impressive 76-27 win following a 17-point victory over rival VCU in Richmond two weeks prior. Duke and Louisville have gotten the majority of the attention so far, but the Cavaliers’ 11-0 start is something more pundits on the national scene are paying attention to.

Malcolm Brogdon and Virginia’s latest win, a throttling of Harvard, proved the Cavaliers are a player in the national conversation (AP Photo)

• North Carolina. For all of the talk about this team’s uneven play and noticeable deficiencies, the Tar Heels actually have put together a nice stretch since our last stock watch. Although they fell to Kentucky in Lexington, it took the Wildcats’ best shooting day of the year to knock off the Tar Heels by a mere 14 points (plus North Carolina actually outscored the Cats in the second half). In addition to blowout wins over East Carolina and UNC-Greensboro, the Heels won an important non-conference battle with a good Ohio State team last weekend. At 8-3, there are still some reasons for pessimism in Chapel Hill, but you can’t ignore that Roy Williams’ team has earned some solid wins while playing the ACC’s toughest non-conference schedule.

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College basketball places huge emphasis on individual games — showdowns between top-ranked teams, annual rivalry clashes, single-elimination tournaments — but it’s important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture from time to time. Each month, the Media Timeout will review emerging trends in how fans and journalists watch, follow, and talk about the sport.

Conference realignment in recent years has reshaped the college basketball landscape in both obvious and subtle ways. To paint the timeline in admittedly broad brushstrokes, it started with Colorado and Nebraska abandoning the Big 12 for the greener pastures of the Pac-10 and Big Ten, respectively. In the scramble for leagues to position themselves for the eventual “superconference” paradigm, the Pac-10 would add Utah to complete the Pac-12; the Big Ten would go on to poach Maryland and Rutgers; the SEC, Missouri and Texas A&M; the Big 12 reloading with TCU and West Virginia. Most of the Big East diaspora – Syracuse, Pitt, Notre Dame basketball, and eventually Louisville – settled in the ACC, and the Big East experienced its own dramatic transformation to a basketball-centric league as a result. Those shifts trickled down through many of the mid-major conferences, including the Mountain West, Conference USA, and Atlantic 10, weaving a convoluted web of migration across the country.

The War in Prussia Had Nothing on Conference Realignment

The consequences of those migrations are still revealing themselves several years later. Nowhere have they been more tangible to fans than in the separation of traditional rivals and the formation of new rivalries, sometimes taking root in unexpected places. Rivalries have long been fluid entities, in spite of our tendency to mythologize and idealize a bygone era of college basketball – one in which meritocracy trumped TV revenue, recruiting was an even playing field, and geography and shared heritage determined which schools became rivals. In 1980, for example, Depaul-Marquette was a big deal; Syracuse-UConn wasn’t that big of a deal; and Louisville and Kentucky had played each other only 12 times, ever.

So with that in mind, let’s pay homage to several of the casualties of conference realignment, before turning our attention to budding rivalries that may take their place. We’ll also look at existing rivalries that are being preserved despite changes in conference affiliation.

Rivalries Lost

Duke-Maryland: The rivalry between Duke and Maryland had lost some of its luster by the time the Blue Devils closed out the series by claiming their 13th win in the final 16 meetings: Overall, the Blue Devils held a commanding 114-63 advantage over the Terrapins. But there’s no question that this rivalry’s demise was a significant loss for college basketball fans. This is especially true for fans in D.C., where both schools have a significant alumni presence (College Park is about nine miles from the Capitol Building; Duke places a large number of alumni in the nation’s power cities). On the hardwood, the series experienced a golden age at the turn of the 21st century, when the teams traded national championships and were fixtures at the top of the ACC standings. While the rivalry may have lost some of its competitive edge in recent years, it never lost the element that truly set it apart: vehement hostility. From JJ Redick’s phone number, to the $500,000 in property damage recorded during the 2001 College Park riots, to the imperious “Not our rival” chants serenading Maryland players in Cameron; the discontinued series left big shoes to fill in terms of sheer animosity.

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The man in the red suit is a busy guy right about now, but more than a few college basketball teams should be hoping Santa has time to swing by campus before his work is done. No milk and cookies were left fireside in Lexington, KY, or Durham, NC (reinforcements not needed), and some programs need seek only a stocking stuffer or two (hey there, Virginia and Wisconsin). But most teams have wish lists that stretch far longer. Conference play is here, and the blissful ignorance of the non-conference season? Long gone. In its place arrive true days of reckoning – grinding tests against peers that won’t allow deficiencies to go unpunished any longer. With conference season looming, we take a look at a handful of college basketball teams in desperate need of a gift this Christmas.

Which College Basketball Teams Will Receive A Visit From Santa This Year? (Photo Credit: AP)

Iowa: Last Season’s Shooting Touch

Shoddy defense destroyed the Hawkeye’s promising start a season ago, but things have changed this winter. The defense has been much improved (22nd nationally in defensive efficiency), but a sputtering offense has left Iowa just 9-4 heading into conference play. All eight of the Hawkeye returnees have seen their three-point percentage drop this year (team: 259th nationally in three-point percentage), while only Gabriel Olaseni has improved upon his 2013-14 two-point field goal percentage (team: 232nd nationally in two-point percentage). The widespread nature of the shooting epidemic would seem to indicate some sort of systemic explanation. No Roy Devyn Marble? A lack of comfort with a quicker tempo? A coaching staff that has lost its players? Any or all of these questions could be a dig at the root cause, but even if they are, expecting some reversion to the more efficient levels of 2013-14 is entirely fair. The defense has been there; can Santa bring back the Hawkeyes’ shooting strokes?

Arkansas: Road Victories

For most of Mike Anderson’s tenure at Arkansas, the New Year (and conference play) has brought two things in bunches: home wins, and road losses. The Razorbacks are well positioned to earn their first Tournament appearance under Anderson after a 9-2 start, even if old habits die hard. The Hogs are undefeated on the home hardwood (8-0) and less perfect on the road: Both of the Hogs’ losses (Iowa State and Clemson) have come in enemy arenas. A November win at SMU should not be overlooked, but Arkansas needs to prove they can win games away from Bud Walton Arena in 2015. A depleted SEC should play the role of enabler.

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Depending on when this is published it is either the celebration of the world’s most famous carpenter and his birthday or it is the day after. Either way, to you and yours, I hope you have as much fun doing whatever it is that normal people do on the morning after some guy sneaks into your house, steals your cookies, drinks your milk and are forced to feed his reindeer, as every other normal member of the human species. Alas, college basketball.

Somehow Oliver Purnell is Involved in this Classic Christmas Scene

For those of you who do not care for Christmas or truly hate spending time with your family, well, there’s some pretty solid news. Despite the Hallmark Channel and the like throwing more bad movies at your picture-box than the SyFy channel could ever dream of, there does happen to be a few college games on the slate. Four in total (that I know of at least). So, I guess, you will have something to watch as you pretend to listen to Aunt Betty’s latest victories in the kitchen. To be completely fair, though, Aunt Betty does make a mean pasta salad. Unfortunately, the four games in Hawaii aren’t all that intriguing. George Washington plays Wichita State; Ohio takes on surprisingly disappointing Nebraska; Colorado will attempt to make Hawaii a non-destination point; and DePaul will play Loyola Marymount. I’d ignore all these games even if you like your family just a little bit, but if you really need to get a college hoops fix then I suggest you watch DePaul continue to pretend to be a semi-competent basketball team. I mean, it is Oliver Purnell‘s farewell tour — I think.

It is no secret that the Blue Demons have floundered under Big Bad Oliver. Being approximately a billion games under .500 just isn’t good (statistic might not be accurate). Still, because DePaul, Purnell has been able to hang onto his job since the athletic department seems to care about winning basketball games as much as it does in learning the true identity of Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer. Like, not a lot. Not to mention that Rudolph’s backstory sure seems fishy. Where are that deer’s parents? His nose is red so that makes him qualified to lead the rest of the more experienced reindeer? You’re telling me that Santa made it all those years in bad weather without the (again, I think?) orphaned-ish reindeer, but he somehow came into power? I am pretty sure Rudolph has some unflattering pictures of Santa somewhere. Nepotism runs deep — even at the North Pole, friends.

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Not much in the way of college hoops this week, so all the more reason to spend some quality time with your friends, families and loved ones (we’re looking at you, Fido). Here’s hoping that everyone has a safe and happy holiday. Merry Christmas from your friends at Rush the Court!