1. Xavier has taken another one on the chin; or more precisely, in the eye. Senior forward Jamel McLean (8.5 PPG, 7.5 RPG, 52.1% FG in 2009-10) suffered an orbital fracture in an exhibition against Northern Kentucky University on Tuesday and will miss 3-6 weeks. That leaves XU with nine scholarship players as the season looms, but the combined efforts of Sean Miller and Chris Mack have seen Xavier to three straight Sweet 16s, and only the truly naive would count them out this soon.
2. One could understand if the mood were a bit gray in Tennessee’s practices these days, what with the NCAA investigating Bruce Pearl’s recruiting methods and the prospect of further sanctions on the program, but everyone is doing their best to forget all that business during practices and team activities, at least. There’s no other way to be if you’re a UT coach or player, but it can’t be easy ignoring that dark cloud gathering overhead.
3. The game lineup for ESPN3.com was released on Thursday, and it’s mid-major heaven. Out of the 53 games, we count 63 teams from the smaller-profile conferences as participants. Interestingly, an ESPN3.com exec is quoted in the short article as saying that regular season “total hours of college basketball consumption went up by 266% last season” when compared with 2008-09. Nice stat, but…”consumption?” Even if that is what we’re all doing, nobody likes to be reminded that, in the eyes of many of the suits, we’re not watching college basketball. We’re consuming units of product. Hmm. Our copy of Wish You Were Here has to be around here somewhere…
4. The dark days of Kutchergate at Iowa are thankfully behind us, now, and in the wake of the landmark decision from the NCAA on the matter, the students at one relatively new OVC school are thinking of ways by which they can capitalize. Beware, St. Louis-area programs!
5. The West Coast Conference will be some fun viewing this year, and even with most prognosticators installing Gonzaga as the morning line favorite, one could reasonably call it a four-horse race — and it’s an eight-team league. It’s been a long rebuilding process for Pepperdine, but are they being underestimated this time? They have 14 players returning, including four seniors and seven juniors. They have 100% of last year’s scoring and 99% of their rebounding and assists coming back. Seth Rubinroit of the Malibu Times makes the case for the Waves.

1. We’re a few days out from this, but we wouldn’t feel like we had done our best for you if we didn’t pass along word of the most recent blog post by the high lama of hoops statistics, Ken Pomeroy. In it, he examines the question of whether the preseason AP poll is actually the most accurate poll of the season, as far as predicting the success of the top teams is concerned. He then reveals how this really is the case, because in the preseason poll the voters aren’t hampered by bias, unhelpful instructions from the AP, or incorrect voting tendencies. Interesting stuff as always.
2. FoxSports.com’s Jeff Goodman stepped up with his Big 12 preview, and his accompanying tweet indicates that he’s ready for any heat he might take because of his second place (and therefore third place) pick. He posted his ACC preview on Tuesday, and we don’t want to give away who he has projected for last place, so we’ll just say that it rhymes with Shpake Blorest.
3. More conference previews? Got you covered. Gary Parrish predicts the Big East will end up so that Louisville, Connecticut, and Cincinnati will be back in the dorms watching St. John’s and Notre Dame go dancing. Compelling points for all. My, how times have changed in that league. Our Big East preview shall appear within the next few days…
4. Mike DeCourcy probably lost a few Twitter followers (or gained a hundred) in Chicago and Milwaukee yesterday when he wrote that the Big East is finding it tough to defend its decision to let DePaul and Marquette in during the league’s expansion five years ago. Before Blue Demon and Golden Eagle backers unsheath your Twitter and e-mail swords in his direction, we say read the article again. He’s not saying those programs are to blame for anything. He’s saying that the Big East might regret it now simply because of the realities inherent in college sports today, and should have forseen it.
5. The Kansas City Star says forget that weirdly-shaped ball, KC is a hoops town, and it isn’t going to change anytime soon. Yes, the Chiefs are doing well. OK, fine, there are some schools around there that play football. But the gravitational pull of the college basketball programs fans follow in that part of the world means that KC (and the whole Big 12) belongs to the roundball. When Colorado and Nebraska leave the conference next year, it’ll only tip the scale more toward the basketball side.

1. The prospect of a local/regional tournament has popped up again, this time in an intriguing locale. Several coaches from programs in Chicago came out yesterday in favor of a Chicagoland get-together similar to what Philadelphia has had for a long time (The Big 5) and what Indiana’s going to start this year. DePaul head coach Oliver Purnell even nominated “The Chicago 5” as a possible name for their version, an apparent nod to the annual Philadelphia institution. We’re totally on board with these things (the state of Illinois was a 9-seed in our so-called State Tournament), and we wouldn’t be surprised if more of them sprang up. It looks like this one will soon happen. Could Chicago become a college hoops town again?
2. We will not attempt to describe it, because it’s something you need to experience for yourself, but web developer/journalist/author/soothsayer (we could keep going with truthteller/interstate philosopher/truck stop expert/cartoonist) Kyle Whelliston launched the seventh season of The Mid-Majority into space on Monday. The link takes you to the front page, but set aside some time to click on as many links as you can while you’re there. You will probably not be the same by the time you’re done.
3. Doesn’t seem like it’s been that long, but ten years ago four schools agreed to become part of the Colonial Athletic Association, thereby saving it from oblivion. Hofstra, Drexel, Delaware, and Towson joined the league when Richmond, American, and East Carolina decided to make tracks, and to commemorate the 10th anniversary of those four schools joining up, CAAHoops.com is listing the accomplishments of each program since becoming part of the CAA.
4. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a great piece on Maurice Lucas, the former NBA and Marquette star who died Monday, aged 58, of bladder cancer. Bittersweet to read now, there are some great stories in there about the methods used by Al McGuire to motivate Lucas during his time as a Warrior, and some nice insights on the man through stories relayed by his former teammates.
5. “I really don’t see a problem with it…it was going to happen at some point. And I can talk about it so it doesn’t bother me.” Looking for courage? There’s where you’ll find it. That’s Seton Hall’s Herb Pope from an article posted by Adam Zagoria late last night at Zagsblog. Pope collapsed in April during a workout because of what was eventually found to be an “anomalous right coronary artery” (the RCA helps supply blood to the part of the heart that creates the rhythm — not exactly a part of the ticker that you want angry). CPR. Defibrillator. Three hours of cardiac surgery. Recovery. He will play basketball this year, which is astounding, considering he shouldn’t be…breathing. Got a couple of hours on a weeknight?  Take a CPR class (they’ll teach you how to use a defibrillator, too) and learn what to do for the 3-5 minutes in a situation like this before medics arrive. It’s not hard. And you never know when you’ll need it. The life you save will not be your own.

1. The NCAA ruled on Monday that there would be no penalty forthcoming as a result of Kutchergate at the University of Iowa. We use that portmanteau in jest, of course, since there was never really any chance of the NCAA seeing anything sinister about what they agreed was an “unintentional and incidental” encounter. Still, we think that if Iowa’s going to have celebrities from their state visible at Hawkeye athletic events, they might want to take steps to keep it on the level of, say, Tom Arnold, or even Cloris Leachman. That way, there’s less chance that visiting high schoolers will end up talking about it in the papers or show up in a tweeted photo.
2. Tom Izzo has suspended Korie Lucious for Michigan State’s exhibition against Saginaw Valley State tonight and the November 12 season-opener versus Eastern Michigan as a disciplinary action for Lucious’ DUI arrest back in August. Lucious eventually pleaded guilty in September to misdemeanor reckless driving. It’s obvious that he’d rather be playing, but at least he’ll have that much longer to rest that surgically repaired left knee.
3. We were at Rupp Arena last night for Kentucky’s exhibition game against in-state NAIA opponent Pikeville College, and even though it was an exhibition it still got our juices flowing to commense our travels this season. Less excited about the whole affair was UK head coach John Calipari, who, despite a 97-66 victory and a 22-point performance from new floor general Brandon Knight, lamented his team’s lack of toughness and energy, noting in the post-game presser that right now his players “don’t get it yet; we need to get more physical…the guys are going to have to accept it.” While praising Pikeville’s effort and confirming that the NAIA squad “outworked” his team, Calipari (who coached this one sans necktie, oddly) drove home his frustration with his players seeming lack of interest by adding, “this isn’t about cool, this isn’t about style points,” and insinuated that Tuesday’s practice might divide the men from the boys.
4. As of yesterday, a pair of schools “be gettin’ over in the Big Sky Coun-try…” OK, if you can’t tell by the lyric, the Big Sky Conference just got bigger. It announced yesterday that it will add Southern Utah and North Dakota to its roster starting with the 2012-13 season. While the decision was motivated largely by something called “football,” it shouldn’t be ignored that the revenue sharing bonus nets each athletic team at the schools an extra $135,000. And you thought conference realignment was all through.
5. Is it possible that West Virginia’s Kevin Jones rebounded 12% of all shots missed by the Mountaineers last season? And that WVU rebounded 41.8% of their misses as a team?!? Both of those are staggering figures, and just part of the reason you should check out this article from SI.com’s Luke Winn as he crystal balls the Big East. Six days until the first games, people…

Demi and Ashton Kutcher are at the center of a (very) little controversy involving the University of Iowa basketball program.

According to the Des Moines Register, two high school prospects on a recruiting trip to the school met the two celebrities at a football game in September. Because Kutcher, who is from Iowa, briefly attended the school and is a very visible Hawkeye supporter, he and Demi could be considered as people who “represent the university’s athletic interests,” so having recruits meet them constitutes a violation.

Recruiting Violation...Or the Greatest Punk'd Prank of All Time?

The incident wasn’t fabricated by anyone associated with the university, so it can be considered an “unintentional” violation, and the school voluntarily reported it as such a few days after the encounter. After the recruits were quoted as having met the two celebrities in a suite at Kinnick Stadium during the Iowa vs Iowa State football game, the NCAA sent an inquiry letter to UI about the incident. The school self-reported four days later.

The two prospects in question are said to be Josh Oglesby, rated as a three-star recruit at ESPNU for the class of 2011, and Marcus Paige, rated 28th overall and the third-best point guard in the class of 2012. Oglesby committed to the Hawkeyes after this official visit.

Another aspect of the reported violation is that the high schoolers also met former Iowa players Reggie Evans and Dean Oliver after a pick-up game at Carver-Hawkeye arena, the site of UI’s home games, both of whom would be considered boosters.

Iowa now awaits the final verdict on this from the NCAA, but Iowa athletic director Mark Abbott told the Register that he did not think the incident would affect Oglesby’s verbal committment, or the continued recruitment of Paige. Even if nothing comes of this, you have to admit that the guy behind Punk’d and star of a slew of romantic comedies was the last person you’d ever have fingered in an NCAA recruiting violation.

Halloween, as most of us know, is and always will be one of the Four Pillars of Absolute Kid Happiness, right up there with Christmas (where celebrated), birthdays, and the moment of the announcement of a snow day. It seems like only a blink of an eye ago that we were those kids, but alas, each of us at RTC has long since put away our ghostly sheets and our Star Wars masks (we eBayed those) and — some more gradually than others — over time, evolved, kicking and screaming, into what we suppose you’d call…a grown-up. Just because the body has matured, though, doesn’t mean the mind has, because we still get jazzed for All Hallow’s. Not only is it a metaphorical “Next Exit” sign for an upcoming holiday season (which we still dig, and always will), but October 31 is a city limits line, as well. It signals that the last non-college basketball month has passed. It means that it’s been a long summer, but now we’re all back in town for another golden autumn in Hoop City.

It's Time To Hand Out Treats To Things We Like, and Tricks (Or Rocks) To Those We Don't.

What better time to reward with treats some of the recent developments or teams/players/coaches in our game we’re diggin’ on these days, and require tricks of things that we’re not. It’s time for Rush The Court’s Tricks and Treats for 2010.

Treats (no particular order):

Harrison Barnes and Jared Sullinger. We haven’t been this high on big men since Andre’ the Giant’s turn in The Princess Bride. We’re just as hyped to see these guys take the court as we were for Messrs. Wall, Favors, Henry, and Cousins before last season. When each of us here at RTC was 18, our worries included things like summer fast food jobs and blowing money on these things called CDs (discoid objects that played music). These guys have to worry about things like, oh, making sure Ohio State basketball doesn’t drop at all after losing the Player of the Year, and bringing North Carolina basketball — home to not exactly the most patient of fan bases — back to prominence. Plus, as they’re instant program-changers, we want to finally see these dudes play against college competition. We’ve waited long enough. And heck, let’s throw Baylor’s Perry Jones in there, too.

We're Ready For Some Sullinger. Is the Big Ten?

Read the rest of this entry »

Having had sand kicked in its face for long enough, the Sun Belt Conference has taken a long, cold look at itself in the mirror, and decided that it’s time to hit the gym.

On Monday, the conference announced that it planned to implement rules designed to increase the conference’s RPI rating. Specifically, the Sun Belt will mandate that its member basketball schools must only schedule non-conference opponents that, as ESPN.com’s Andy Katz reported, have a “three-year combined power rating within the top 150,” and/or teams that ended the previous season with an RPI within the top 150. The scheduling of games against non-Division I teams will be forbidden, and programs must constantly endeavor to average an attendance that surpasses the national average of 5,038 fans per game (as Katz reports, the Sun Belt brass are planning to help with this). The theory is that this scheduling upgrade en masse will raise the Sun Belt’s conference RPI and, in doing so, might lead to more than the single auto-qualifier each year in the NCAA Tournament, or at least a higher NCAA seed for the conference tournament winner. This would seemingly lead to other positive effects that all conferences love, like rising attendance at games, an increased television profile, and — to put it frankly — more respect. The rules outlined above will take effect starting in the 2011-12 season.

Troy's New Trojan Arena Will Seat Just Over 5,200 Hoops Fans

The Sun Belt is certainly ripe for a drastic self-determined change, meaning one that’s not being executed just to keep the conference alive. The great Sun Belt schism happened in the off-season of 1991, when most of the conference’s members bolted for other leagues and the remaining schools had to merge with the American South Conference to keep the Sun Belt in existence.  Since that time, the Sun Belt has had more than one representative — its conference tournament winner — in the Big Dance exactly three times: 2008 (#10 South Alabama, at large; #12 Western Kentucky, auto), 1994 (#11 Western Kentucky, at large; #11 Louisiana-Lafayette, auto), and 1993 (#7 Western Kentucky, auto; #8 New Orleans, at large). Note that long drought, there — the span from 1995 to 2007 represents thirteen consecutive tournaments in which the Sun Belt was a single-bid league. And they logged only one win in that interval (#8 Western Kentucky def. #9 Michigan, 1995). In terms of actual conference RPI, the Sun Belt finished last year at its 10-year nadir of 22nd out of 32 conferences, averaging a year-end rank of 17.5 over that time period.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pittsburgh head coach Jamie Dixon pulled over on an interstate highway and helped “at least one of the two occupants” out of a car that had flipped over against a guard rail last night in Pittsburgh, according to a Pennsylvania state trooper’s statement to ESPN.com’s Andy Katz.

Dixon Played the Role Of Good Samaritan Last Night, Which Should Surprise Nobody

It’s not certain if Dixon helped one or both passengers out of the crashed vehicle, since the driver of the car reportedly took off on foot. Dixon suffered unspecified “injuries to his hands,” according to the linked ESPN.com report, in helping at least the passenger get out of the car through the windshield. After being treated at a local hospital, Dixon was sent home — and was at practice this morning.

Some might find the superhero designation a tad much, since Dixon exhibited what should be the norm for behavior in human beings. That countless cars drove by and did not pull over to help (we all know how easy it is to rationalize that everything’s under control when driving by a scene like that) reaffirms that it’s not, though, and Coach Dixon is one of the last people who would ever openly pat himself on the back for this. We hope he doesn’t mind us taking the opportunity to do it for him. Bravo, sir.

In a move that illustrates just how in touch the organization is with its fan base and the basketball-loving public in general, MSG Network (the folks responsible for broadcasts of New York Knicks games) has let the most exciting play-by-play announcer working today slip from their grasp. That’s right — they let Gus Johnson get away.

Johnson has been calling Knicks games for 16 years, primarily on radio but acting as a backup for TV broadcasts, and even chipping with some baseball, hockey, and arena football duties as well . A few outlets claimed that MSG Network brass were ticked off at Johnson’s various other projects which caused him to miss the occasional Knicks game — little things like doing college basketball and NFL football games for CBS and boxing for Showtime — and that’s why MSG played hardball, refusing to come to a deal in the end. Later in the day, though, we heard that it might not have been quite so contentious. Still, with Johnson’s popularity, MSG should have done whatever it could have to keep him.

We’re not taking pleasure in a man losing a job, but we’re selfishly hoping that, as soon as this happened, someone from CBS called and immediately gave Johnson a mountain of cash in a big juicy revised contract that increases his college basketball visibility. As many games as Johnson already does — we want more. And don’t lie — you know you’ve been to the Gus Johnson Soundboard. We defy you to go there and not click every one of those buttons before leaving (though a link to “Don’t let the smooth taste fool ya!” is needed). It’s impossible not to. What other announcer has this? Seems like the type of guy you’d want to keep in your organization, but then again, most Knicks fans these days see that orgainzation and the MSG suits as the types who probably would have told that Paraguayan model Larissa Riquelme not to run through the streets of Asuncion naked had Paraguay won the World Cup. Whatever, guys. As long as it benefits college hoops.

1. We’re still not over the Robbie Hummel/ACL news from this past Saturday morning, but in the wake of that awful (re-)injury, the gents over at Fanhouse have put together their Costliest Injuries Team — “costly” signifying the delta between what each injured player’s team became and what they would likely have achieved were it not for the injury. If a list of injuries can be called a good list, this one’s comprehensiveness qualifies it as such. The only addition we’d make (you knew we’d have to chime in with something, right?) would be Kenny Smith’s broken wrist from 1984 which sucked all the air out of North Carolina’s title hopes after they had breezed to a 17-0 start (and it’s Curtis Sumpter, not Chris). 
2. Because as a college basketball fan you can never have enough Gary Parrish in your life, here’s his list of Preseason All-America teams along with a Player of the Year selection that should get the Franklin Street crowd even more hyped for this season.
3. We were impressed by the frank honesty from the article FoxSports.com’s Jeff Goodman posted soon after the Hummel news broke. Obviously the injury changes that Boilermaker team, but is Purdue really “in shambles” as the title suggests? In addition to what can indeed be seen on stat sheets, we know Hummel would have brought so much value that has nothing to do with what’s found in the box scores. But Purdue has the other two of its top three scorers returning in E’Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson (the latter only 0.2 PPG behind Hummel from tying him as second scorer on the team last year), both of them second team All-Americans, according to Mr. Parrish above. They also have their best distributor (and best A/TO ratio by far) returning in Lewis Jackson (3.3 APG), a rising junior who’s only enhanced that skill over the summer. The loss of Hummel is terrible, but it’s not exactly a steaming pile of rubble they’re dealing with in West Lafayette.
4. We love the confidence of Northern Iowa chief Ben Jacobson when asked about the 2010-11 edition of his Panthers in the wake of last season’s NCAA Tournament upset of Kansas and serious personnel losses due to graduation: “We’re going to be good.” UNI said goodbye to Jordan Eglseder, Sports Illustrated cover boy Ali Farokhmanesh, and Missouri Valley POY Adam Koch, but that hasn’t dashed hopes in Cedar Falls. The first order of business in following up last year’s success, according to senior point guard Kwadzo Ahelegbe? “It’s just about forgetting about it…What we’ve done lately is practice three times and work on defense. We didn’t go in and watch the Kansas game.” Lead on, Kwadzo.
5. ESPN’s Dave Telep (how’s that look, Dave?) probably hasn’t finished unpacking his boxes in them new digs at the worldwide leader, but here he notes how the ever-increasing value of surehandedness at the 1-spot in today’s game hasn’t been lost on West Virginia, who landed two point guard prospects earlier this week in Ryan Boatright and Jabarie Hinds, the latter hailing from current Mountaineer forward Kevin Jones’ old high school near The Bronx. Boatright is ranked as the 6th-best PG and 36th player overall in the class of 2011; Hinds is the ranked 22nd among PGs but both are listed as “four-star” recruits.