As RTC heads into its 12th season covering college hoops, it’s time to begin releasing our annual compendium of YouTube clips that we like to call Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball. These 30 snippets from last season’s action are completely guaranteed to make you wish the games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Tuesday, November 6. You can find all of this year’s released posts here.

#10 – Where Triumphant Return Happens.

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17  and 2017-18 preseasons.

As RTC heads into its 12th season covering college hoops, it’s time to begin releasing our annual compendium of YouTube clips that we like to call Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball. These 30 snippets from last season’s action are completely guaranteed to make you wish the games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Tuesday, November 6. You can find all of this year’s released posts here.

#11 – Where SEC, What? Happens.

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17  and 2017-18 preseasons.

Former UCLA guard Jordan Adams had a fantastic freshman season. You may recall that as a pup in 2012-13 he recorded a 115.0 offensive rating, efficiently posting 15 points per game. A year later, he expanded on that scoring skill set, improving his efficiency five points (120.0 ORtg) and scoring output (17.0 PPG). He also moved his game closer to the rim, taking nearly twice as many shots there as he did during his freshman campaign. Following this change in his offensive philosophy, Adams became an NBA first round draft pick. I’ve long found this fascinating as the whole of basketball seems to be moving to the edges. Particularly as we consider the college game and its general propensity to force longer-range shots (zone defenses; lesser skilled talent; individually impactful bigs). Furthermore, Adams is an intriguing starting point as college players often make their most significant leaps from their freshman to sophomore years.

Jaylen Nowell is Poised to Break Out(USA Today Images)

So who in this year’s Pac might resemble a modern-day Jordan Adams? The answer may reside with players that took the lion’s share of their attempts (not specifically as a freshman) in the mid-range. Here are the Pac’s top-10 returning mid-range shooters (by % of their total shots coming neither at the rim or beyond the arc):

Read the rest of this entry »

Charlotte’s Spectrum Center was the site of this year’s ACC Operation Basketball and we were in the Queen City earlier this week to cover the annual event. In this post we present some of the primary takeaways we observed and interesting quotes we heard over the course of the day (links to the coaches’ and players’ press conferences can be found here), and at the bottom we also present the preseason award results as voted on by participating media.

STILL LOOKING FOR SOLUTIONS TO COLLEGE BASKETBALL’S PROBLEMS

Notre Dame’s Mike Brey had a lot to say about the current state of college basketball as well as the ACC’s new scheduling changes at ACC Operation Basketball in Charlotte.
(dailypress.com)

A major topic of discussion at ACC Operation Basketball once again this year was the fallout from the ongoing FBI investigation into college basketball recruiting. At last year’s event, the FBI probe had just revealed incriminating allegations involving two ACC schools, Louisville and Miami. N.C. State was later added to the naughty list. Coincidentally, the first criminal trial of individuals involved in some of these pay-for-play schemes wrapped up on Wednesday with guilty verdicts for all three defendants. But the big fallout has yet to come, possibly in the form of NCAA sanctions against the schools (“victims”) complicit in those nefarious recruiting activities. In his morning address, ACC’s commissioner  John Swofford was very supportive of the NCAA reforms based on last spring’s Rice Commission recommendations, while acknowledging that “I don’t think it’s going to be perfect. I think we’re going to have to test some of the things that are being changed, tweak them as we go along.”

Given the timeliness of the verdicts, many ACC coaches were asked to chime in on the topic. Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski and North Carolina head coach Roy Williams had been highly criticized for comments they had previously made on the matter, so both Hall of Fame coaches spent time on Wednesday clarifying their points of view. Kryzyzewski repeated the explanation he gave following Duke’s exhibition game on Tuesday night, claiming that his use of the term “blip” to characterize the revelations was not meant to be dismissive on their importance. Likewise, Williams explained what he meant when he claimed to be “dumbfounded” by the new information: “A very intelligent person one time told me there’s a difference between being indifferent or having a lack of knowledge. And my problem is I have a lack of knowledge about those things. I’m not very indifferent about it at all.” Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey showed that he was willing to go deeper with his comments in saying, “But certainly there’s some NCAA issues here. There’s no question about that. […] We’ve got some guys that aren’t amateurs, let’s handle that.”

CHANGES COMING FOR CONFERENCE SCHEDULES

Read the rest of this entry »

As RTC heads into its 12th season covering college hoops, it’s time to begin releasing our annual compendium of YouTube clips that we like to call Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball. These 30 snippets from last season’s action are completely guaranteed to make you wish the games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Tuesday, November 6. You can find all of this year’s released posts here.

#12 – Where I Politely Dunk on You Happens.

https://twitter.com/RadfordMBB/status/937089866378203137

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17  and 2017-18 preseasons.

As RTC heads into its 12th season covering college hoops, it’s time to begin releasing our annual compendium of YouTube clips that we like to call Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball. These 30 snippets from last season’s action are completely guaranteed to make you wish the games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Tuesday, November 6. You can find all of this year’s released posts here.

#13 – Where Big East Record Happens.

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17  and 2017-18 preseasons.

You know the returning stars and you know all about the five-star freshmen who are set to make their debuts. Today we present five ACC players who we believe will be household names around the conference by March.

Can Aamir Simms continue the promising finish to last season following Donte Grantham’s injury? (Al Bello/Getty Images)

• Aamir Simms, Clemson. A back-end top-100 prospect coming out of high school, Simms was a project last year. In his first 17 games, he mostly saw action in garbage time. But when star forward Donte Grantham tore his ACL on January 20 at Notre Dame, Simms was a different player. Over his last 17 games, the bulky forward shot 48 percent from the field and made 39 percent from three-point range in becoming a key cog of the Tigers’ attack. With an experienced backcourt that excels in ball screen action returning, look for Simms to continue to emerge as one of the best pick-and-pop stretch forwards in the ACC this season.
• Jordan Nwora, Louisville. Last season at Louisville was a mess from the very beginning (you may have heard about this whole Brian Bowen situation). A group of talented veterans never really meshed under interim coach David Padgett, but because they logged such heavy minutes, the Cardinals’ underlying freshman class never really got a chance to show what it could do. The wing Nwora played just 12.0 MPG last season, but he shot almost 44 percent from long distance and logged a stellar 61.2 percent eFG in ACC play. With new head coach Chris Mack taking over, expect Nwora to become his go-to bucket-getter.

Read the rest of this entry »

With games starting in less than two weeks now, we’re tipping off our 2018-19 Big 12 coverage by going around the league team-by-team. Be sure to check in throughout the season and follow Big 12 correspondent Brian Goodman on Twitter @BSGoodman.

Texas Tech

The Red Raiders were one of college basketball’s best stories last year, riding a deep and talented rotation to a 27-10 finish (11-7 Big 12) and the first Elite Eight appearance in program history. It’s still incredibly fun to think about what might have been had senior star Keenan Evans not been saddled with a broken toe down the stretch, but even so, this team was wildly successful in coming out of the woodwork to hang with Kansas for most of the conference season and make such a deep run in March. It also served to establish second-year head coach Chris Beard as one of the hottest names in coaching.

Jarrett Culver will take the keys from Keenan Evans in Lubbock. (Getty)

Who’s Gone:

• G Keenan Evans: 17.6 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 3.2 APG, 1.5 SPG
• F Zhaire Smith: 11.3 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 1.1 SPG
• G Niem Stevenson: 7.5 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 39.2% 3FG
• F Zach Smith: 6.2 PPG, 3.8 RPG
• F Justin Gray: 5.1 PPG, 3.8 RPG
• C Tommy Hamilton IV: 5.4 PPG, 2.9 RPG

Who’s Back:

• G Jarrett Culver: 11.2 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 38.2% 3FG
• G Brandone Francis: 5.1 PPG, 1.9 RPG, 38.4% 3FG
• F Norense Odiase: 3.8 PPG, 4.5 RPG
• F Davide Moretti: 3.5 PPG

Who’s Coming In:

• G Matt Mooney (graduate transfer from South Dakota): 18.7 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 3.1 APG, 35.2% 3FG for South Dakota
• C Tariq Owens (graduate transfer from St. John’s): 8.4 PPG, 5.9 RPG, 2.8 BPG for St. John’s
• F Deshawn Corprew (JuCo transfer)
• F Khevan Moore (four-star recruit)
• G Kyler Edwards (three-star recruit)

Outlook: Beard may have lost his three of his best players from last season (Evans and Zhaire and Zach Smith), but there’s still a lot to like about this roster even if a league title is too much to ask. Jarrett Culver is a legitimate breakout candidate who is capable of scoring in a number of ways, and will be flanked by by floor-spacers in Matt Mooney, and Brandone Francis. Tariq Owens steps into the middle just one season removed from leading the Big East in blocked shots, and Deshawn Corprew’s rebounding ability on a 6’5” frame makes him an ideal small-ball four. A relative lack of depth is something the Red Raiders didn’t have to worry about in 2017-18, but it’s more likely to crop up this year. Still, expect this team to remain competitive. The Big 12 coaches somehow picked this group to finish seventh, but don’t make the same mistake.

Read the rest of this entry »

The NBA season tipped off last week, which makes it the perfect time to roll out some new Big East content to drown out the monotony of early-season professional basketball. Over the coming weeks, the Big East microsite will be previewing all the teams, players and key storylines to watch as we approach season tip-off. Be sure to follow @RTCBigEast and its contributors Justin Kundrat and Brad Cavallaro to get your fix. In the spotlight today will be (alphabetically) Marquette and Providence.

Marquette: Is there enough perimeter talent here to finally shore up the defense?

Wojo Begins His Fifth Year at Marquette With the Same Question (USA Today Images)

At this point — in year five of Steve Wojciechowski‘s tenure at the school — an exhausted narrative is to rehash Marquette’s struggles on the defensive end of the floor. But given how it continues to stymie the program’s progress as a contender in the Big East and beyond, it bears repeating. Marquette’s offense has ranked among the top 12 nationally in each of the last two seasons and figures to finish in that range again with preseason all-Big East selection Markus Howard back in Milwaukee for his junior season. But no matter how many 30-point games Howard amassed a year ago (six), a leaky defense that ranked a miserable 182nd nationally in efficiency gave it all right back. Now, things look better on paper: point guard Andrew Rowsey is being replaced by Fordham transfer Joseph Chartouny, whose steal rates are so good I had to look twice (second nationally at 5.6 percent in 2018; first in 2017; 32nd in 2016); Ed Morrow, a lanky 6’7″ transfer with a seven-foot wingspan; and the expected maturation of promising wings Greg Elliott and Jamal Cain. This group should have enough athleticism and talent to contain dribble penetration, but can Wojciechowski provide enough defensive coaching to get them there?

Providence: Is there a capable point guard on the Friars’ roster?

Providence Must Figure Out Its Point Guard Position (USA Today Images)

It’s no secret that head coach Ed Cooley loves his point guards, and as Three-Man-Weave recently pointed out, the Friars have not had a point guard finish outside the top 20 nationally in assist rate since he took over the program in 2011. The position is absolutely integral to his offense, shouldering the load as both a passing and scoring threat. So with the graduation of Kyron Cartwright from last season’s NCAA Tournament squad, who is the next man up? Junior Maliek White serviced the backup role last season but posted paltry assist numbers (11.7% Asst Rate), while rising sophomore and heralded recruit Makai Ashton-Langford was used sparingly in conference play and struggled to adjust. Another alternative for the position is incoming freshman David Duke, a highly-touted guard plucked from Providence’s backyard. The early signs point to Ashton-Langford assuming the role, but in any case, there is simply no track record of established play at this position. If Cooley can lock something down, he’ll once again have a dangerous squad.

What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Matthew Eisenberg (@matteise) is your weekly host.

Six and a half months ago, Villanova was cutting down the nets in San Antonio after defeating Michigan in the National Championship game. Now, in late October, the 2018-19 season is right around the corner. And you know it’s almost time for the season to start when “list-season” begins…

Whether that means Gary Parrish ranking his top 101 players….

The @CBSSports annual list of the Top 100 And 1 College Basketball Players has published.

1. R.J. Barrett (Duke)
2. Carsen Edwards (Purdue)
3. Luke Maye (UNC)
4. Dedric Lawson (Kansas)
5. Caleb Martin (Nevada)

The rest …https://t.co/mDX6T1zS1P

— Gary Parrish (@GaryParrishCBS) October 17, 2018

…or Matt Norlander ranking all 353 Division I teams…

There are 353 teams in college basketball. So hold on, because here we go again: my ultimate ranking for @CBSSports of every team in the sport, top to bottom, is live. Let the chaos begin. https://t.co/7KciJxx4Gq

— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) October 24, 2018

…or something as simple as the Preseason AP All-American Team…

https://twitter.com/marchmadness/status/1054791463811379201

…and perhaps most of all, when Ken Pomeroy‘s preseason ratings are released!

Read the rest of this entry »