Tonight’s Lede. The 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon Returns. If the college hoops calendar consists of a series of holidays, ESPN’s annual Tip-Off marathon measures up with the sport’s best celebratory events. It doesn’t quite provide the suspense of March Madness, or the do-or-die desperation of conference championship week, but the 24 hour-long dose of nonstop hoops action that tipped off at Midnight ET with West Virginia visiting Gonzaga captures the essence of fandom in a way no other sporting event can. This is when the true diehards put their mental fortitude – and their ability to resist somnolent desires – to the test. Even if you can’t make it through the night without sneaking in a few Zs between games, don’t worry. For most, the marathon goes down sweeter in pieces; fortunately this year’s slate offers no shortage of highlights. So if you’ve already hit your saturation point on college hoops viewing, or are still gearing up for tonight’s headliners, enjoy the round-the-clock drama. It is the apex of college basketball’s scheduling ingenuity.

Your Watercooler Moment. Gonzaga Destroys West Virginia Again.

Beard Or No Beard on Kilicli, This is Becoming a Trend ( AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

In a rematch of last year’s Second Round NCAA Tournament game between the Zags and Mountaineers, tonight’s result was surprisingly similar to the game played last March — the only major difference was the setting. Last season, after traveling cross-country to face WVU in their backyard (Pittsburgh), the Zags ran out to a quick 27-10 lead and never looked back in a dominating 77-54 win. Tonight, after West Virginia repaid the favor in traveling cross-country to Spokane, the Zags ran out to a 34-12 lead en route to a dominating 84-50 win. It’s actually quite eerie to view the two box scores side by side, given how similarly both games played out. Over the past two games, Gonzaga has outscored the Mountaineers by a ridiculous 57 points, and the vaunted WVU defense has given up better than 50% shooting from both the field and beyond the arc in these two games. After last season’s loss, Bob Huggins said that he’d “never gotten beat like that” — clearly Mark Few’s team has provided the road map for the Big 12 in beating the Mountaineers, because it just happened again.

Tonight’s Quick Hits…

• Hoosiers Keep On Rolling. Gleaning meaningful analysis from early season cupcake draws is never easy, so it’s hard to make too much of Indiana’s blistering 2-0 start, which includes a combined 69-point victory margin over Bryant and North Dakota State. But the Hoosiers have done little to shake their preseason perception, which is another way of saying Indiana looks like a #1 team. Cody Zeller finished with 22 points and nine rebounds and sophomore guard Remy Abell added 14 of his own against the Bison, who are expected to challenge the Nate Wolters-led South Dakota Jackrabbits for the Summit League crown.
• Hawkeyes Freshman Continues to Impress. The name most every big Ten fan mentions in Iowa-related hoops discussions is freshman center Adam Woodbury, and for good reason: the Iowa native spurned offers from North Carolina, Ohio State and Wisconsin before deciding to stay in his home state. Woodbury will come around eventually — he’s a legitimate seven-feet, armed with above-average athleticism and a refined offensive game. After two games, though, fellow freshman Mike Gessell looks the more well-rounded product. Gessell notched five points and five assists in the Hawkeyes’ 73-61 victory over Central Michigan Monday night. With a few more performances like that, Gessell, not Woodbury, can assert himself as the Hawkeyes’ best freshman asset.
• Balance Key For Memphis in Season-Opening Win. The notion that Memphis coach Josh Pastner is a better recruiter than coach is a popular one, and at this point in his tenure, probably a fair one. His early recruiting successes could finally pay dividends this season, just in time for the Tigers’ move to the Big East in 2012-13. The Tigers removed the curtain on their immensely-talented roster Monday night with a comfortable 81-66 defeat of North Florida. Forward Tarik Black led all scorers with 18 points, while point guard Joe Jackson added 14 points, six rebounds and five assists. Memphis gets one more tuneup Saturday with Samford before the Battle 4 Atlantis, far and away the best compilation of top-to-bottom talent of any non-conference tournament on this year’s slate.
• No Rust For New-Look Michigan. There were few teams who polarized the college hoops punditry this preseason as much as Michigan. Various rankings pegged the Wolverines anywhere from outside the Top 25 to a Final Four contender. There’s good reason for this wide difference of opinion. Michigan is replacing a host of capable shooters (Zack Novak, Stu Douglass) with a frontcourt-heavy freshmen class. That kind of personnel turnover and roster dynamic is not, on its face, amenable to John Beilein’s guard-oriented attack. Early season results – the latest a 91-54 rout over IUPUI Monday night – indicate otherwise. Much-hyped freshman Glenn Robinson III submitted 21 points on 8-of-9 shooting, including 3-of-3 from beyond the arc. As Michigan prepares for its ACC-Big Ten Challenge matchup with NC State (November 27), the new pieces are firing on all cylinders.
• Florida State is Going To Be Ok, After All. The most disappointing result of opening weekend was Florida State’s 76-71 home loss to South Alabama. Esteemed guard Michael Snaer finished 2-of-11 from the field, the stingy defense we’ve come to know from Leonard Hamilton’s teams of recent vintage was inexplicably AWOL, and you couldn’t help but walk away thinking the Seminoles didn’t enter the season in a sound mental state. Florida State rebounded from that harsh reality check against Buffalo, with Snaer contributing 19 points and forward Okaro White adding 13. More importantly, the Seminoles brought the defensive intensity that made them such a dangerous team last season. Buffalo turned it over 25 times and hit just six of 17 three-point shots. A note: Lead guard Javon McCrea, the reigning MAC freshman of the year, scored a team-high 17 points on 8-of-12 shooting.

And Misses…

• Youngstown State Not Rewarded For Upsetting Georgia. Thanks to predetermined rules that set in stone the semifinal teams of the Legends Classic, Youngstown State cannot advance to the Brooklyn-based semifinal despite knocking off Georgia 68-56 in a game that saw the Bulldogs score just 14 points by halftime and shoot just over 32 percent from the field. The only reason Georgia kept the deficit within a respectable margin was Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who finished 10-of-18 from the field for 27 points and six rebounds. The Penguins are steadily improving under head coach Jerry Slocum and are more than capable of competing at the top half of the Horizon League in 2012-13. That said, even for a team as flawed and preponderantly-reliant on one player as Georgia is Caldwell-Pope, this counts as a bad loss, and a major stain on the early non-conference ledger. The Bulldogs clearly have some work to do before they get into SEC play.
• Early Struggles Continue for LIU. Last month brought a very promising development for LIU’s hopes at winning a third consecutive Northeast Conference title. That’s when the Blackbirds learned the fates of four of their best players (including reigning NEC player of the year Julian Boyd and All-NEC forward Jamal Olaswere), all of whom were awaiting word on their status following an on-campus altercation that led to arrests and third-degree assault charges. The players would have to miss two NEC conference games, they learned, and take anger management courses and file community service work… and that’s about it. Their availability apparently has not helped LIU’s early season fortunes. The Blackbirds fell to 0-2 Monday night, the latest loss coming against projected middle-of-the-pack Patriot League member Lafayette. In two games, LIU has scored a combined 168 points, which leads one to believe defense ranks highly on the Blackbirds’ early season checklist. For the most part, An 0-1 start is forgivable. Lose your first two against inferior competition, and there are serious questions to be had about LIU’s mindset and focus level following a tumultuous offseason.
• What’s Wrong with North Texas? People were legitimately peeved about the lack of television arrangements for Friday night’s Creighton-North Texas game. This was two of the nation’s best mid-major teams, or so we thought, featuring two of the nation’s best players in Doug McDermott and Tony Mitchell. What transpired was a disappointment; the Mean Green were outclassed in Omaha as McDermott legitimated his NPOY hype with a sterling 21-point, 11-rebound effort. That wasn’t a huge surprise. Monday night’s Preseason NIT defeat to Division II Alabama-Huntsville in Manhattan, Kansas, merits an entirely different analytical tone. The win by Alabama-Huntsville represents not only the first appearance by a D-II team in the PNIT, but now also the first victory.

Monday’s All-Americans.

• Jackie Carmichael, Illinois State. The Redbirds’ star blew up for 27/10/3 assts in only 24 minutes of action as his team destroyed UC Santa Barbara in its season opener.
• Anthony Bennett, UNLV (NPOY). Quite a debut Monday night for the precocious Bennett, who dropped 22/7/2 blks in a mere 20 minutes of action as UNLV routed Northern Arizona.
• Garrick Sherman, Notre Dame. The reserve big man for the Irish went for 22/9 including six offensive boards in Notre Dame’s crushing win over Monmouth.
• Glenn Robinson III, Michigan. So far, so good for the Big Puppy, as Robinson has only missed three shots in two games this season after his 21/6 night on 8-9 shooting in a win over IUPUI.
• Kadeem Batts, Providence. A 27-point, nine-rebound night for the junior big man looking to break out in a big way this season for Ed Cooley’s Friars.

Dunkdafied. This was from late last week, but it’s worth showing here. Detroit’s Doug Anderson looked a little like Scottie Pippen on this swoop to the hoop…

This Weekend’s Lede. It’s time to put all that preseason chatter on the backburner, and start drawing first impressions, because the 2012-13 season officially got underway Friday night. Unlike the murmuring fizz of an opening that usually christens a new college hoops campaign, we were treated to several high-profile clashes over the weekend. College basketball set out to establish a definitive starting point, and this year (more than any other in recent memory), it succeeded. There are inherent risks to overanalyzing single-game sample sizes, but even after just one weekend’s action, we were able to learn quite a bit about some of the teams headlining the opening weekend. 

Your Watercooler Moment. Stick to Dry Environments (or, Why Naval Ship Games Need to Only Take Place in San Diego).

Things Started Off Well, But Quickly Deteriorated With These Games

When inclement weather forecasts pushed the Syracuse-San Diego State game from Friday to Sunday, you knew this year’s slate of naval ship games were off to a bad start. That game, which concluded Sunday evening with Syracuse pretty much dominating the hometown Aztecs (62-49) in one of the Orange’s rare non-conference games outside the state of New York, was played under gorgeous 60-degree San Diego skies. The two other scheduled match-ups – Ohio State-Marquette in South Carolina and Georgetown-Florida in Jacksonville – did not proceed as planned, as both games were called off when officials noticed condensation developing on both playing surfaces. The Florida-Georgetown game tipped off and ran into the half with minimal fuss. Up the coastline, though, the slick playing surface aboard the USS Yorktown prompted coaches and players from Ohio State and Marquette to mop the court in the hope that some good old-fashioned clean-up work could diffuse mother nature’s influence on their much-hyped shipside season-opener. As both teams quickly learned, the condensation kept coming back, and officials then made the logical move of calling the game off. Spiritually, emotionally and patriotically, the outdoor aircraft carrier games are an excellent idea. Last season’s Carrier Classic, played before gorgeous vistas and naval troops, and featuring two of the nation’s most respected programs in North Carolina and Michigan State, was a definite win. And there have been few times when a college basketball non-conference game to begin the season has drawn so much national attention. It was a special night. Logistically, though, playing basketball games outdoors in November on the East Coast is fraught with risk, and event organizers learned as much Friday. If the aircraft carrier trend is to continue, the games must be played on the West Coast, where a more favorable late fall climate will increase the chances of staging contests without conflict.

Also Worth Chatting About. Give That Man a Contract (Or, Kevin Ollie Has His Squad Playing Hard).

Kevin Ollie Cannot Escape His Former Coach’s Shadow, But With Wins Like These, He May Not Have To (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

The long-term status of UConn’s head coaching job remains unresolved for the moment, but we gained some clarity on the issue Friday night. Its leading candidate, former assistant Kevin Ollie, made a resounding statement to open his one-season job trial by knocking off Big Ten contender Michigan State 66-62 at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The Huskies lost the core of last season’s underachieving yet talented team, including two first round draft picks (Jeremy Lamb and Andre Drummond) and two transfers (Alex Oriakhi and Roscoe Smith). Backcourt mainstays Ryan Boatwright and Shabazz Napier carried the torch Friday night against the Spartans, with Napier pouring in 25 points on 8-for-16 shooting and Boatwright adding 13. Highly-touted freshman Omar Calhoun logged 25 minutes but finished with just one point, two rebounds and two assists. The season could not have begun in a better way for Ollie, who faces the massive burden of proving athletic director Warde Manuel he’s the right man for the job, the right personality to succeed the legend that preceded him in Storrs. There were concerns as to whether UConn would lack motivation this season, given their ineligibility for the postseason, but that was hardly the case Friday night. The Huskies played inspired basketball against a top-tier Big Ten foe known for its toughness and grit. If I were to grade Ollie’s job candidacy one game into the season, nothing less than an A+ would suffice.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

The interminable offseason breeds countless hours of boredom and frustration. With seven months separating the net-cutting ceremony that signals the end of every college hoops campaign and the opening tip that begins it, perusing the internet and conjuring up ideas to write about on a daily basis becomes an exercise in creative determination. This is not the NBA, where free agency bridges the gap between the Finals and training camp. The college basketball season has a definitive start and end. Though that line is beginning to blur with amplified recruiting coverage and limited summer practices, when the field of 68 is finally whittled down to one, and the soft tunes of One Shining Moment set off an emotional carousel unlike any other in American sports – from utter despair and devastation for the losing fan base to extreme delight and exultation for the national champion – the hardwood action that has so thoroughly captivated fans across the nation over the previous five months with nonstop intrigue and resume-building/crashing drama grinds to a screeching halt. It’s why the National Championship game always feels like a foreboding culmination, like the end of an enchanting joyride that closes with equal parts satisfaction and disappointment. The warped sense of reality defined by conference races, argumentative bubble talk and AP Poll hand-wringing is swept away without but a single warning to prepare for the lull. Amidst all the joy of a championship celebration and the highly-anticipated lead up to the Final Four, there stands the harsh reality of a painfully long college hoops drought. We college hoops scribes have grown to accept this dichotomy as one negative in an overwhelmingly enjoyable state of affairs. Because no matter how much we dread the dry offseason, the gloomy days spent panging for loaded campus gyms, and buzzer beaters, and visible fan passion, the torture is justified by the sweet end.

Three shipside games will christen a new college hoops season (Photo credit: Getty Images).

The journey to that end begins tonight, and not a moment too soon. We here at RTC have a date with college hoops, one that’s seven months overdue. She cannot evade us, nor the rest of the hoops viewing public, any longer, because tonight the lovefest commences. If you are a first-time viewer of the sport, consider this a warning: What you are about to see may distort your expectations. Over the next three days, teams will eschew traditional playing grounds to meet on aircraft carriers and foreign military bases. It is a patriotic inauguration of the sport we love, but it is not – however delighted you may be by the gorgeous vistas and military backdrops adorning the proceedings – the norm. It won’t be long before geeked-up student sections and campus hysteria inhabits your nightly viewing experience. And for that, we are thankful. Ecstatic. Tantalized. However you wish to describe it or appreciate it, the message is the same: the wait is over.

Read the rest of this entry »

Christopher Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

The most recent wave of conference realignment was set off by a desperate scrambling of high-major powers to elevate their statures in a changing (re: dying) BCS landscape. Inevitably, the movement shook the college hoops world, and while most of the changes either weakened conferences, ended rivalries, or both, some leagues were made better off from the frenzied switches. The biggest victim, so it has been said, was the Big East, whose long and fruitful marriage with Pittsburgh and Syracuse will cease to exist after this season. The main beneficiary was the A-10, with newcomers Butler and VCU entering the fold this season. There were plenty of other less heralded moves – from Northern Kentucky’s jaunt to the Atlantic Sun to Texas-San Antonio’s voyage to the crumbling WAC – but I’m singling out four schools who harbor bright short-term outlooks in their new stomping grounds. New environments typically guarantee unpredictability. For these four teams, there’s nothing unpredictable about their ability to compete at the top of their new leagues upon arrival.

VCU (Leaving: CAA — Joining: Atlantic 10)

Every college hoops coaching candidate hot list starts with two names: Butler’s Brad Stevens and VCU’s Shaka Smart. They are the pipe dream of any athletic director’s wildest coaching replacement desires, and both have spurned the power conference ranks on multiple occasions. We’ll get to Stevens’ squad a little bit later (Spoiler!), but there’s no question Smart’s team, which returns basically everyone of note besides guard Bradford Burgess, is poised to make a statement in its new home. Forget the fact that the A-10 will feature its strongest competitive lineup in years. Forget that VCU is entering a league where every game will require intense focus and execution just to avoid an upset. What Smart has built during his tenure – a consistent outfit with the stability to compete at the sport’s highest level on a yearly basis – is not going away, nor will it be swayed by one of the nation’s best collections of inter-conference strength.

Better all-around competition won’t phase VCU as it makes its move to the A-10 (Photo credit: Getty Images)

VCU is not, as many speculated two seasons ago, a one-year Cinderella. The Rams are a mid-major in name only; they are as talented and as deep as most high-major ensembles in any conference. Now that I think of it, VCU is a perfect microcosm for the A-10: technically excluded from the Power Six denomination, but ripe with Tournament-bound teams and stars. Navigating that landscape will be a stark change of pace, even for a program conditioned to creating “havoc” in 40-minute samples, but VCU is no stranger to top-end competition. Last season’s Tournament run didn’t quite live up to the previous year’s Final Four appearance, but it’s worth remembering the Rams very nearly took out preseason AP No. 1 Indiana in the Third Rund. VCU is ready to join a league that offers formidable tests on a nightly basis. This season will reflect as much.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

“Most valuable” or “Most Important” has always seemed like an incredibly fuzzy concept to define. Statistical greatness doesn’t do it justice. Neither does sheer talent differential – is a player important just because the rest of his team isn’t very good? Such crude measures don’t take into account other vague elements that often go into describing these players. All in all, given the indeterminate criteria used, arguments can be made for a handful of different players any given year. Amid all the uncertainty, one thing remains clear: These players are indispensable to their respective teams. They are the underlying force that sets the course for a strong season, that fuels the competitive motor for five months and upwards of 30 games, that captivates fan bases and crushes opponents’ dreams. You may not have a grounded explanation for why these players are so very crucial. You just know. It’s one of the reasons singling these guys out is highly subjective. So bear with me as I reveal one player from each power league whose value transcends analytical or statistical strength, and whose importance can’t be boxed into any single dimension. They are their teams’ X-factors, and that’s all you need to know.

Three qualifying parameters: The mid-major ranks are littered with teams whose winning formula relies heavily on one player. In the interest of narrowing the focus of this expansive and rather ambiguous category, they will be excluded here. Selections will also be geared towards teams with credible conference and national championship aspirations. Lastly, there are no freshmen included here (here’s a fresh look at this season’s batch of impact newcomers).

North Carolina – James Michael McAdoo

So much of North Carolina’s offensive output will rely on McAdoo’s development (photo credit: Getty Images)

There are few teams that can overcome losing three first-round draft picks and still have enough in the reserve ranks to retain their competitive equity. That is the challenge UNC faces this season following the departures of Tyler Zeller, John Henson and Harrison Barnes, who each played more than 66 percent of available minutes and combined to use 73 percent of their team’s possessions. Replacing such a large heaping of production will require a huge sophomore leap from McAdoo. While his playing time was limited last season thanks to the NBA-bound forwards in front of him, McAdoo arrived with McDonald’s All American-level hype and made good on that reputation in the little court-time he saw. He even contemplated leaving for the draft after last season, and many speculated he would have been taken as a lottery pick. Now he has a chance to elevate his draft stock in a central frontcourt role. UNC’s lack of complementary scorers will make McAdoo’s scoring responsibilities a significant component of their offensive calculus. Freshman power forward Brice Johnson should provide help on the glass, and senior Reggie Bullock is more than capable of raising his scoring output, but it will be incumbent upon McAdoo’s promising but somewhat unproven offensive game to keep the Tar Heels in the hunt for the ACC crown.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

There exists in college basketball a certain romanticism that distinguishes it from every other sport. It shines through in March, when the sport’s preeminent end-of-season tournament provides a glimmer of hope for Division one teams, no matter how small, unknown or minimally-funded, to break through on a national stage. For the mid-majors, this is prime time. Unlike their high-major counterparts, the little guys’ path to the field of 68 is restricted. Most smaller leagues only receive one Tournament bid, which is normally decided through conference tournaments. It’s what makes championship weekend – when one-bid leagues fight tooth and nail for that coveted Tournament bid – such a compelling series of high-stakes contests. It’s also why predicting each smaller league’s participant(s) is inherently difficult. In a do-or-die knockout setting, anything can happen. So when I look back on my five mid-major Tournament breakout picks (the subject of the following list) five months from now, I’ll probably be kicking myself over a lack of informed judgment and insight. The hope is that at least one of my designated team breaks the field and makes some noise once there. If not, well, that’s why the NCAA Tournament is such a spectacle – because you just never know.

A word of caution: you’ll notice the list fails to include teams from the A-10, Missouri Valley, C-USA, West Coast Conference or Mountain West. I chose to exclude those leagues not because I don’t think any of their teams are capable of making NCAA Tournament runs; it’s quite the opposite actually. All three will likely send multiple teams to the Big Dance, so I’ve decided to leave them out for the sake of novelty. With that out of the way, we March on (pun totally intended).

North Texas 

A future lottery pick, Mitchell leads a strong North Texas squad (Photo credit: US Presswire).

If this is the first time you’re hearing the name Tony Mitchell, it will not be the last. Mitchell (6’ 8’’, 235 pounds) almost certainly would have been a first round pick in last summer’s NBA Draft. Instead, he’s back for his sophomore season after missing out on an NCAA bid last season when North Texas fell to Sun Belt upstart Western Kentucky in the conference tournament final. It’s a shame, too – no offense to Western Kentucky, but there is not a single person who wouldn’t have enjoyed watching Mitchell in a potential #1-#16 matchup with Anthony Davis and Kentucky. We aren’t always that lucky. Anyway, with Mitchell back in the fold, the Mean Green are more than capable of broaching the field this season, and the talented forward isn’t the only reason why. Point guard Chris Jones and swingman Jordan Williams, both double-digit scorers who were declared ineligible in January due to academic issues, are cleared to take the court again this fall. Oklahoma State transfer Roger Franklin returns for another season. Off-guard Alzee Williams, who averaged 15.8 points per game over his final 10 games, will stabilize the backcourt. The deep guard rotation will prevent teams from keying in on Mitchell, who should only improve in his second collegiate season. We will get an early taste of North Texas’s Tournament bona fides on November 9, when the Mean Green take on Creighton in Omaha. Mitchell vs Doug McDermott to kick off the 2012-13 college basketball calendar? Yes, please.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

Managing expectations is more difficult for some players than others. While some rise to the occasion and meet their preseason billing, others flop under the pressure. For the latter group, often times the hype was never justified in the first place. Fans and media have a way of drumming up baseless buzz and hype. Strong performances in small sample sizes, particularly in NCAA Tournament settings, are pointed to as signs of future stardom, affixed with a level of permanence that ignores the player’s mostly average career before his moment in the spotlight. Each and every year, players are expected to meet and sustain prescribed performance levels, and each and every year, they just don’t get there. It is one of the sadder aspects of college sports, because these kids often don’t deserve the immense pressure they’re dealt. However expectations surface around a certain player, there’s no questioning their existence, and my job is to predict one player from each power league who is susceptible to falling short of his predicted performance marks this season. As usual, freshmen will be excluded from this list, which is probably for the best anyway – if we gauged every top-end recruit by their scouting report descriptions, only a select few would actually arrive as advertised. With that qualifier out of the way, let’s give this a shot.

James Michael McAdoo – North Carolina

The frontcourt losses presents a huge challenge for McAdoo(photo credit: Getty Images).

At North Carolina, even lottery-bound talents like McAdoo aren’t guaranteed playing time early in their careers. Thanks largely to a frontcourt featuring three first-round picks (Tyler Zeller, John Henson, and Harrison Barnes), playing time was especially difficult to come by in the Tar Heels’ big man rotation last season. And McAdoo, the No. 2-ranked power forward and No. 6-ranked player overall in the class of 2011, according to ESPN Recruiting Nation, was shelved to a marginal reserve role. Now that the frontcourt logjam has moved on to the professional ranks, it’s up to McAdoo to control the low block. But he’s not just replacing three NBA talents; no, McAdoo’s job is tougher than that. He will need to shoulder the Tar Heels’ scoring load, and do so without master creationist Kendall Marshall running the show at point guard. Unlike the Tar Heels’ talented low-block trio of last season, who had the benefit of siphoning away defensive attention from one another, McAdoo will command opponents’ full range of resistance. And without Marshall, the McDonald’s All American will have to earn every clean look he gets. Such a massive jump in responsibility will require a huge transformation. From a talent perspective, McAdoo is ready to make that leap. But the pieces around him (or lack thereof) make his job an inherently difficult one.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

Every college basketball season brings a new cast of stars. There are freshman, the super-prospects hyped up to disproportionate levels who may or may not live up to their billing. Then there are the returning players, the guys who showed flashes of stardom the previous season and are ready to truly hit their stride after an offseason honing their games. Highlighting these players doesn’t require much insight or deep thought. You know a star when you see one. Discovering under-the-radar gems, the diamonds in the rough, the players who emerge from the depths of the unknown to make a splash on the national stage, is another matter entirely. It requires a comprehensive knowledge of the game – and not just the Kentuckys and the North Carolinas and the Dukes of the world. You know those guys. The focus here is the more unheralded crop of players ready to make the leap into the general college hoops consciousness. What follows is my vain attempt at singling out those very players I described above. You may not know these names now, but by the time March rolls around, my bet is that you will.

*Editor’s note: you will notice there are no freshmen on this list. That is no mistake. This list is geared towards returning players. If you’re interested in a more freshmen-centric preview analysis, check out this list of newcomers who are “ready to play big roles on their new teams.”

Rotnei Clarke – Butler

The Bulldogs three-point shooting will improve immensely with Clarke joining the fold (Photo credit: Getty Images).

Relative to recent history, Butler did not have the best 2011-12 season. Let’s not sell the Bulldogs short: They reached the semifinals of a national postseason tournament for the third straight season. Only this time, it wasn’t the NCAA Tournament. Instead, Butler got bounced in the semifinals of the CBI, a huge downturn from the two preceding Final Four trips. Butler may never again string together that level of Tournament success, but Clarke gives Brad Stevens’ team a much better chance than it had last season. Plain and simple, Clarke, who made 91 of 208 three-point attempts in 2010-11 (he sat out last season after transferring from Arkansas), can shoot the lights out from beyond the arc. And what does Butler desperately need as it enters its debut season in the A-10? Long-range shooting, where last season it finished ranked 341st in three-point field goal percentage.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope – Georgia

Basically any chance Georgia has of challenging in the SEC this season and making a push for an NCAA bid rests on Caldwell-Pope, whose freshman season was something of a disappointment considering the McDonalds All-American hype he brought to Athens. With a year of experience under his belt, and a greater chance to showcase his talents without being comparatively dwarfed by the likes of Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Caldwell-Pope should blossom. Georgia doesn’t offer much help in terms of solid complementary players, so Pope will be asked to carry the load. Kentucky and Missouri are heavy favorites to challenge for the SEC crown this season, but if Pope plays to his recruiting promise, the Bulldogs are more than capable of notching a few wins against the league front-runners. NBA scouts are already drooling over the 6’4’’ guard’s potential. He’ll make good on those claims this season.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

Expiration dates on coaching tenures vary based on a variety of different factors. Signs of positive momentum and progressive change no doubt correlate positively long coaching tenures, but there are other elements involved: Program expectations, buyout fees, revenue accumulation, recruiting success, and so on. The checklist differs at each program, which makes nailing down a hard-and-fast list of general standards practically impossible. Despite the vague criteria that define the profession, and the fundamental truth that administrators – not fans, players or boosters – make the final call on coaches’ job statuses, we enter every college basketball season with a pretty good idea of where each coach stands in his current state of employment. Perhaps the most obvious trend, the one most easily spotted across a wide sample of coaches, is the fateful decline. Win totals plummet, fan support wanes, administrators stay mum while perusing the market for a replacement – then, the rumors, the denial, the wait and, last but not least, the long-expected press release signaling the end of a coach’s time at the program. Pretty boilerplate stuff. The path to the dreaded fall is fairly predictable. What follows are six coaches (one from each of the power conferences) feeling the heat this season. All of them may or may not last the year, but there’s a decent chance at least one of these guys will get the axe by next April. To quantify this hot seat breakdown, I’ve added a meter that gauges a coaches’ “heat level” on a 1-through-5 scale. I wish these coaches well, but their inclusion here is not a positive way to begin the season.

Herb Sendek (Arizona State)
Heat Meter: 4

Unless Sendek leads a major renaissance in Tempe this season, he could find himself out of a job (photo credit: Getty Images).

In most years, finishing with a 6-12 record in the Pac-12 is not a terrible result. Winning in league play is difficult, and winning in one of the nation’s better high-major conferences is even more difficult. Notching six wins won’t get you into NCAA Tournament (or even NIT) consideration, but it’s hardly a death sentence, either. The problem with this line of thinking is that last season’s Pac-12 was not the usual Pac-12. It was awful – so bad that regular season champion Washington didn’t qualify for an at-large bid. Considering the league’s top-to-bottom futility last season, managing just six wins is proof enough to raise serious questions about the direction of Arizona State’s program. Now Sendek finds himself at a crossroads: after last year’s disappointment, two of his best assistants left the program, including one, Lamont Smith, who joined Lorenzo Romar’s Staff at Washington. When you’re losing your top assistants to league competitors, job security develops a tenuous, even artificial, feel. Sendek can save his position if the Sun Devils show noticeable signs of improvement, and with highly-touted recruit Jahii Carson eligible this season, that’s a reasonable expectation to have. Another six-win league total – and this year, six Pac-12 wins won’t be as easy to come by – is a doomsday scenario.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

At this time of year, when the visible signs of Autumn truly take form, you know two things. The first is that actual college basketball games are upon us. Not just speculation and hearsay; the game itself, the basis for all that hype and buildup, is right around the corner. Then there’s Halloween, the consummate Fall holiday, promising a bounty of tricks and treats for costumed children nationwide. Though you’ve most likely outgrown the days of door-to-door candy voyages and late night sugar binges, the last day of October still has meaning. College basketball deserves a place in the festivities, too. Like all Halloweens, you can’t mention confectionery tweets and scary costumes without trickery and mischief. After all, there is a separate holiday for that. To hit both sides of the coin, we’re bringing five tricks and five treats to our favorite teams, players, coaches, places and whatever else can be boxed into the college hoops realm. The mixed bag features a random compilation of offseason developments (both good and bad), preview-centric topics and some of the biggest storylines as we approach this season’s opening tipoff. As the bombardment of polls, rankings and All-America teams from various media outlets continues, consider this a refreshing tweak on your annual preseason college hoops diet. And I can promise you this: Much like your Halloweens of old, the pillow bags teeming with your favorite comestibles, this here holiday treat will not lack for taste. Though to maximize your Halloween satisfaction, consume this savory treat in tandem with a hearty serving of the real-life version (and make sure to stay clear of the tricks) – satisfying your palette, and your thirst for college basketball. There are few better ways to do Halloween.

The 2011 Carrier Classic will go down as one of the most memorable non-conference games in recent history (photo credit: AP)

Last season’s Carrier Classic played aboard the USS Carl Vinson was a spectacular way to christen the 2011-12 season. It featured two brand-name programs (Michigan State and North Carolina) and two coaching legends competing before a backdrop of gorgeous vistas, with a uniform-clad naval crowd and President Obama taking in the proceedings. More importantly, it captured some of the national sports attention usually reserved for football this time of the year and sparked a minor interest in the college hoops non-conference season. The shipside fun will come at you threefold this season, with Ohio State-Marquette, Syracuse-San Diego State and Florida-Georgetown all playing November 9 games on military vessels. But this year’s non-conference slate is outdoing last year’s offering: Michigan State will begin its season with a game against Connecticut at the Ramstein Air Force base in Germany. MSU AD Mark Hollis, we salute you.

2. NCAA Reform.

Since taking over as NCAA president in 2010, Mark Emmert has presided over an organization riddled with nonstop criticism. Most complaints attack the NCAA’s infractions committee, its obscure and inconsistent punishment guidelines, and the pace of its proceedings. Through it all, Emmert voiced his desire to pass NCAA reform. On Tuesday, his vision was realized. Among other streamlined legislative tweaks, the new four-tier penalty structure places a greater responsibility on coaches to police their respective teams. It also helps clarify and distinguish the parameters dictating violations and punishments, meaning we’re likely to have a better sense of the previously muddled relationship between violation classification and punitive severity. We’ve always wanted clarity, and now it’s here. This applies to all college sports, but for college basketball in particular, where recruiting violations and agent activity run rampant, the rule changes are a decided proactive move.

Read the rest of this entry »