1. We are used to successful players transferring, but the timing of Dewayne Russell‘s announcement that he was transferring from Northern Arizona just before the start of the season seems very strange to us. Last season, as a freshman, Russell averaged 14.4 points, 3.2 assists, and 1.5 steals per game so we would expect that he will be transferring to a power conference school. Russell’s departure is obviously a big blow to Northern Arizona with its season starting on Saturday, but given the timing we have a feeling that there is more to this story than just Russell having a change of heart.
2. The start of the season is on Friday, but we are going to go ahead and assume that Providence coach Ed Cooley just wishes this week would end. After potentially losing Kris Dunn to another shoulder injury early in the week, Cooley suspended freshmen Brandon Austin and Rodney Bullock indefinitely for “not upholding their responsibilities as student-athletes.” The loss of Austin will be particularly significant as he was a top-50 recruit coming out of high school last year and had the potential to help ease the load on Bryce Cotton while Dunn recovers. We have not heard a good explanation of why the two have been suspended, but for Providence’s sake we hope it isn’t for very long as they have a fairly challenging schedule early in the season.
3. Most of the eyes of casual fans watching college basketball this season will be fixed on Andrew Wiggins, but many of the more hardcore fans will be directing their attention to Lexington and the impressive collection of talent that Kentucky has put together yet again. Most people will point to John Calipari as the architect, but as Tim Keown notes Orlando Antigua should certainly be recognized for his contribution. Antigua’s influence and his fascinating story stretch well beyond whatever the Wildcats manage to do this season. With the way that Antigua’s teams have performed and how successfully he has recruited we would not be surprised to see Antigua putting together his own college team in the near-future.
4. After almost seven months of silence, Mike Rice finally decided to give an interview to Jonathan Mahler of The New York Times as part of a piece that serves to explain some of the reason for why Rice is the way he is, what he has learned from his public shaming, and what he still need to learn. We will give Rice credit for being willing to discuss his troubled past with a reporter particularly one who wouldn’t produce a PR fluff piece for him that many individuals who are publicly shamed want. Our guess is that Rice will eventually get back into coaching, but his best bet is as an assistant coach with his best-case scenario probably being a NBA assistant unless some small school is willing to take a chance on him (and he is willing to go to a non-power conference school).
   
5. In August, the NCAA found a case–that of former Marine Steven Rhodes–in which their ruling was so ridiculous that the public sentiment against them was so strong that they actually reversed an awful ruling. The case of Nathan Harries might not generate the same level of controversy that Rhodes’ did, but it might come close. Harris, who spent two years after high school working on a Mormon mission, received a scholarship from Colgate, but will have to sit out this season after he admitted to the NCAA that he played in three church league games. The ridiculousness of the ruling will most likely lead to enough criticism that the NCAA will take a longer look at the ruling (instead of just rubber-stamping the denial) and we suspect that Harries should be eligible in the very near-future.

1. Oregon will be without sophomores Dominic Artis and Ben Carter when they open the season against Georgetown in South Korea on Friday and likely for quite a while longer after the pair were suspended indefinitely for selling team-issued apparel. Both Artis and Carter have already admitted their “transgressions” and issued apologies. They did not go into details, but based on online reports it appears that they may have sold basketball shoes specifically designed for the team. Since we do not know how much apparel they sold (and how much it was valued at) we have no idea how long they will be out for, but the Ducks will certainly miss them as Artis averaged 8.5 points and 3.2 assists last season while Carter averaged 2.4 points and 2.3 rebounds per game, but was expected to contribute much more this year with the departure of Arsalan Kazemi and Tony Woods.
2. As we mentioned in yesterday’s Morning Five, we are at the high point of preseason award season. Outside of our own All-American selections that were released yesterday, the USBWA also released its Oscar Robertson Trophy Preseason Watch List. The most intriguing part of the Robertson Watch List is the class breakdown with seven seniors in the group compared to zero juniors, four sophomores, and four freshmen. Once you look through the names it isn’t that surprising, but given the amount of hype around this year’s freshmen class it is useful to be reminded of the potential impact of the more experienced players still in college basketball.
3. After a period of time when we only considered it news when a five-star recruit didn’t commit to play for Kentucky, the Wildcats have struggled (for them) to land many of their targeted recruits. Yesterday, their luck appears to have turned as Trey Lyles committed to Kentucky. Lyles, a 6’9” power forward out of Indiana, will join a class that already includes Karl Towns, Devin Booker, and Tyler Ulis and according to some is the top class in the nation with two top-10 recruits although it is still early in the recruiting season. Even if the Wildcats do not hold onto their #1 recruiting class ranking we figure they should be in pretty good shape next year as their two top incoming recruits are both post players and it seems likely that at least a few of their backcourt players will return next year.
4. Speaking of Kentucky, Ken Pomeroy apparently had some time to kill with the gap between releasing his preseason computer rankings and the actual start of the season so he attempted to figure out how many Kentucky players would get drafted in the first round. The math behind Pomeroy’s analysis appears to be much less complex than his algorithm to come up with his rankings as he simply went back through DraftExpress’s archives and compared where a player was predicted to be drafted against where they actually were drafted. Essentially what Pomeroy comes up with is that the most likely scenario is that either four or five Kentucky players on this year’s roster get drafted in the first round of the 2014 or 2015 NBA Draft. If that is the case (and it doesn’t sound unreasonable) instead of the sometimes outlandish predictions we have seen, we would expect to see several highly touted Kentucky players return for next season too.
5. Yesterday, ESPN released its schedule for its college basketball announcing teams. Outside of being mildly disappointed that it didn’t include Jeff Goodman on there, the most interesting part of the press release was how they left Bill Raftery’s seat with Jay Bilas and Sean McDonugh unfilled and the addition of Shannon Spake to the Saturday primetime crew. Also, as Awful Announcing pointed out the team of Beth Mowins and Kara Lawson might be the first all-female team to cover a men’s sport for a major network. Overall given the amount of change that happened with conference realignment the assignments are remarkably similar to what we have seen in the past.

1. UNLV got some good news yesterday as it was announced that Bryce Dejean-Jones, their leading returning scorer, had suffered a strained hamstring during Friday night’s exhibition loss and not something more significant. There is no timetable for Dejean-Jones’s return, but it appears that the staff is hopeful that he will be ready for the team’s opener on Friday against Portland State although we are not sure how much weight to put on their hope. With the loss of three double-digit scorers UNLV will need Dejean-Jones, a transfer from USC who averaged 10.3 points last year, to return quickly to give the team some stability and veteran leadership.
2. Similar to UNLV, Providence got some good news on the injury front as they found out that starting point guard Kris Dunn did not suffer a significant injury to his surgically repaired right shoulder during their exhibition win on Friday night. This comes after the team got back the results of a MRI on that shoulder on Monday although they are not releasing more detailed results. Officially Dunn is listed as “day-to-day” and much like USC with Dejean-Jones the Providence staff is hopefully that Dunn will be available for their opener on Friday against Boston College and like Dejean-Jones they will be counting on Dunn to lead their team.
3. UNLV also got some more good news from the NCAA yesterday. With all of the other hardship waivers being approved we have been somewhat confused as to why it took so long for the NCAA to approve Kevin Olekaibe‘s hardship waiver (likely due to timing of submission and the amount of NCAA staff available to review waivers), but yesterday the NCAA finally approved Olekaibe’s hardship waiver. Olekaibe, who 17.8 points per game two years ago at Fresno State before seeing his production decline sharply last season, applied for a hardship waiver due to his father’s illness (currently on hospice and is unable to speak or move his lower body according to reports. At this point Olekaibe and UNLV still have one more hurdle to get past before he can play for the Rebels as they need the Mountain West to approve the intra-conference transfer before Olekaibe can play. Unless Fresno State raises some objection we cannot imagine that the Mountain West will want the negative publicity that will fall upon it if it refuses Olekaibe’s waiver.
4. With only a few days until the start of the season, plenty of groups are coming out with their preseason awards (ours will be up soon). Yesterday, two of the biggest groups released their picks as the Associated Press revealed its All-American picks and the USBWA released its Wayman Tisdale Freshman of the Year Award Preseason Watch List. Neither list had any particularly shocking picks, but the AP All-Americans will probably generate the most controversy with its picks. Marcus Smart was a unanimous selection and was joined by Doug McDermott, Mitch McGary, Andrew Wiggins, and Russ Smith.  Smart and McDermott seem like obvious choices and you will have a hard time finding anybody arguing against them. Wiggins is a near-consensus  pick too although you might find some questioning him since he has not played a college game yet. Smith will probably also garner quite a bit of support too coming off a national championship, but McGary might generate some criticism particularly from Kentucky where you could make a pretty solid case for Julius Randle over McGary particularly given McGary’s uneven play last season.
5. It turns out that T. Boone Pickens is not the only person willing to buy every available ticket to produce a sell-out as Indiana Pacers star (and former Fresno State star) Paul George appears to have bought every remaining ticket for Fresno State’s home opener against Cal State Northridge on November 16 and is giving them away for free. While some reports are suggesting that George bought all 15,596 seats in the arena that seems unlikely for a couple of reasons: (1) it would imply that none of the seats had been sold, which seems unlikely given the boosters that every school has and (2) George said he “only” paid $7,000 for his allotment of tickets–even with a group discount less than 50 cents a ticket is difficult to fathom. Still it is nice gesture and we hope that Fresno State has a full house that night thanks to George’s gesture.

1. As we enter Opening Week of the 2013-14 college basketball season, we want to make everyone aware of all the cross-platform offerings we have available this year at RTC. Longtime readers are already familiar with our eight microsites focused on each of the major basketball conferences (click on the round conference buttons in the top right corner of the page). We also want to make you aware of our TumblRTC page, dedicated as the site’s “eyes and ears,” where we’ll be sharing interesting hoops-related things we find throughout the season. We’re also unveiling Rush the Court TV, our own YouTube channel devoted to capturing the best videos that the sport has to offer. Poke around over there for a while — you’ll find video streams for each major conference, this year’s Midnight Madness events, a bunch of oddball clips among other things, and of course, all the best RTCs. On the social media front, we hope that you’ll continue to follow us on Twitter and Facebook, as we plan on doing some really cool and creative things through those platforms this season, but we’ve also got a new Instagram account and hope you’ll engage with us there too (read: send us pics!). Welcome back.
2. Over the weekend there were plenty of exhibition games including several that featured highly ranked teams nearly getting beaten by unknown programs, but as we have often said the only thing notable that can happen in these games is somebody getting injured. Unfortunately for Providence it appears that happened to them with starting point guard Kris Dunn injuring his right shoulder in an exhibition win over Rhode Island College. The extent of the injury is not known at this time, but it is particularly concerning for Providence as it is the same shoulder that he tore last year that forced him to miss the first month of the season. The Friars open up at home against Boston College on Friday night, but based on what Ed Cooley is saying it seems unlikely that Dunn will play in that game.
3. Like Providence, George Washington also suffered a big loss as sophomore forward Patricio Garino fractured his finger during a practice two weeks, but the school did not release the information until late last week. Garino, a selection to the preseason Atlantic 10 All-Conference All-Defensive Team, had surgery on his finger on October 25 and is expected to be out for several weeks although there is no clear timetable on his return. As a freshman last season, Garino averaged 8.8 points, 2.1 assists, and 2.3 steals per game, but had much bigger things expected of him this season. Mike Lonergan will have to figure out a way to move players around until Garino return, but fortunately for the Colonials their schedule during November appears to be manageable.
4. North Carolina State will be without fifth-year senior center Jordan Vandenberg for 4-6 weeks after he suffered a grade 3 sprain of his left ankle. While Vandenberg’s production during his time in Raleigh has been minimal the lack of experience on this NC State team will make his absence more significant than you might expect from looking at his numbers. We won’t go so far as to say that Vandenberg would have been a major contributor, but his losing 25 pounds summer at least suggests that he was motivated to make the most of his final season in Raleigh.
5. On Friday night, less than two months after committing to play for UCLA then backing out, Trevon Bluiett to committed to play for Xavier. Blueitt’s recruitment has been particularly interesting because his initial commitment to UCLA was preceded by UCLA hiring his former high school coach, which seemed to suggest that a package deal was in place (something that is certainly not unique, but seemed unusual for a program with UCLA’s pedigree and a player of Blueitt’s caliber–a 4-star prospect). Blueitt eventually decided that Los Angeles would be too far from his home (in Indianapolis) and had narrowed down his choices to Butler, Memphis, Michigan State, and Xavier before eventually committing to Xavier.

1. With a little over a week until the start of the season, Iowa State might have just suffered the biggest injury setback after Melvin Ejim hyperextended and bruised his left knee during Wednesday’s practice. Ejim is expected to miss the next 4-6 weeks, which would also include a game against Michigan. Ejim’s injury will place an extra burden on sophomore Georges Niang and will force Fred Hoiberg to try to find a serviceable replacement to support Niang on the inside and keep the Cyclones in contention for the NCAA Tournament when Ejim returns.
2. Zay Jackson‘s time at Murray State has been nothing if not eventful. Last year, Jackson was arrested after running over two people with his car in a Wal-Mart parking lot. He was subsequently suspended by the team for the season before returning and was expected to start before hearing his ACL in early October. Yesterday, he announced that he would be transferring from the school. We have no idea where Jackson is headed, but we can guess that Steve Prohm will be much less stressed going forward.
3. We are sure that Florida will be fine by the time that March rolls around, but that probably won’t make Billy Donovan feel any better right now. On Tuesday, he found out that Michael Frazier would be out indefinitely with mononucleosis. Yesterday, the school announced that Scottie Wilbekin, Damontre Harris, and Dorian Finney-Smith had been suspended indefinitely for an unspecified violation of team rules. The Wilbekin and Harris/Finney-Smith suspensions appear to be separate incidents, but this will still be another big blow for a team that is getting weaker by the day. Based on what Andy Hutchins at Alligator Army has found out it appears that Wilbekin will be out for at least six games and Harris/Finney-Smith will be out for at least three games. Even if that includes the team’s exhibition game against Florida Southern, the three would probably also be out for the team’s trip to Wisconsin turning what was once a promising match-up into a mismatch.
4. It seems like we have updates on transfer waivers everyday. Today’s update has one approval and one denial. The approval comes out of Baylor where Denver transfer Royce O’Neale was granted a waiver that will allow him to play for Baylor this season. O’Neale, a 6’6″ guard who averaged 11.2 points and 5.5 rebounds per game last season as a sophomore at Denver, transferred to be closer to his ailing grandfather. On the other end of the spectrum, Isaac Hamilton was denied his waiver to play for UCLA this season. Hamilton was attempting to have his National Letter of Intent that he had signed with UTEP voided by the NCAA after Tim Floyd refused to release him. As a result, Hamilton will be allowed to practice with the Bruins, but will not be allowed to play for them until the 2014-15 season.
5. Yesterday, was also a big day for high school recruits with three top-25 recruits announcing their commitments. Kevon Looney, a 6’9″ power forward, led the group off by committing to UCLA. The Bruins were able to beat out Wisconsin, Duke, Florida, Michigan State, and Tennessee with the Volunteers reportedly coming in second for his services. The announcement was a bit of a surprise as many recruiting analysts had the Bruins below Duke, Florida, and Tennessee for his services, but with how frequently Steve Alford has lost recruits at UCLA we wouldn’t be shocked to see Looney back out either. Looney was followed by Devin Booker, a 6’6″ shooting guard, committed to Kentucky with the Wildcats beating out Michigan State, Michigan, and Missouri. While having a top recruit commit to Kentucky is certainly not surprising it is worth noting that Devin’s father, Melvin, was a first-team All-American at Missouri in 1994 leading them to a 14-0 Big Eight record. Finally, James Blackmon Jr., a 6’2″ shooting guard, committed to Indiana (again). Blackmon’s decision is particularly notable because he originally committed to Indiana before backing out and was said to be considering Kentucky (where his father played) before recommitting to the Hoosiers.

1. Many times interviews with players tend to be essentially fluff PR pieces so we have to commend Andy Katz for his excellent interview with controversial Ole Miss star Marshall Henderson. Henderson’s exploits both on and off the court have been well-documented, but it was interesting to see him be so open about his missteps publicly. Henderson will have to sit out three games this season (season opener then the team’s first two SEC games), but otherwise appears to have avoided any more significant punishment. Hopefully, Henderson can stay focused enough to have a long basketball career whether it is in the NBA or abroad.
2. Maryland was dealt a significant setback when it was announced that starting point guard Seth Allen had broken the fifth metatarsal in his left foot and will be out 8-10 weeks. The injury, which occurred at the end of Tuesday’s practice, will lead the Terrapins to shift Dez Wells to the point guard position and should create issues for the team during Allen’s absence particularly with their opener coming a little over a week against a Connecticut team that boasts one of the best backcourts in the country. Allen should be back in time for the majority of the team’s ACC schedule so the Terrapins still have some hope of recovering from what is a poorly-timed injury.
3. Yesterday we mentioned that Kansas would be without Naadir Tharpe for their opener due to the discovery that he had played in a summer league game. It turns out he was not the only one as the NCAA suspended Kuran Iverson for Memphis’ opener for playing in an unauthorized summer league game too. Iverson’s situation is a little different than Tharpe’s in that he had not played a season before committing the violation (playing a summer league game near his home and near his college) that he self-reported. He will be forced to sit out the team’s season opener against Austin Peay, but will be able to play in the team’s second game of the season, which will be a much stiffer test against Oklahoma State
4. The beginning of this season already promised to be a rough one for Billy Donovan with his Florida team with multiple players out with injuries, Scottie Wilbekin potentially missing games due to a suspension, and Chris Walker still in academic limbo. Unfortunately things just got tougher as sophomore guard Michael Frazier will be out indefinitely after being diagnosed with mononucleosis. The combinations of injuries/illnesses and suspensions will likely force the Gators to start freshman Kasey Hill and sophomore DeVon Walker at the guard positions for the season opener against North Florida before they go on the road to take on Wisconsin on November 12.
5. Billy Donovan did get some good news yesterday as 5-star forward Devin Robinson committed to play at Florida. The addition is particularly big for the Gators as Robinson (a Virginia native) is their first out-of-state 5-star recruit since 2011 (Bradley Beal) and only their second since 2004 (Corey Brewer). In the end (we are assuming this is the end of Robinson’s recruitment although we might be speaking too early), Florida beat out Indiana, Notre Dame and Oklahoma State for Robinson’s services. Robinson will join two other top-50 recruits (Brandone Francis and Chris Chiozza) to comprise what is shaping up to be a very impressive class of 2014 for Florida. With Florida’s high turnover coming after this season (four players are seniors including three interior players) Robinson should expect to see playing time fairly early.

1. Yesterday night was filled with exhibition games from many of the top teams in the country (Kentucky, Kansas, Michigan State, and Oklahoma State were all in action), but the most interesting news may have come from the Kansas post-game press conference where Bill Self revealed that Naadir Tharpe will not play in the team’s season opener after violating a NCAA rule by playing in a summer league game in Chicago. Tharpe played well in the team’s exhibition yesterday against Pittsburg State (yes, it is Pittsburg and it is in Kansas not Pennsylvania) putting up nine assists without committing a turnover so we know he can play well against schools that we have never heard of, but by missing their game against Louisiana-Monroe (Frank Mason will start in his place) his next game will be against Duke, a school that we have definitely heard of.
2. With the season a little over one week away most teams are in the process of fine-tuning their line-ups for the opening tip, but UCLA finds itself scrambling to rearrange its lineup after Travis Wear was hospitalized on Monday night for appendicitis. Travis, the more productive of the Wear twins (his brother David also plays for the Bruins), averaged 10.9 points and 5.2 rebounds per game and would probably be UCLA’s top inside player this season. We have no idea how long he will be out (it depends on if he has any complications), but a prolonged absence would create a big hole in the middle for a Bruin team that only has two other serviceable interior players–David Wear and Tony Parker–available at the moment. Fortunately, the Bruins have two exhibition games to adapt before they start the regular season on November 8 and have a very manageable schedule during the month of December.
3. We will have to wait two more weeks until North Carolina announces P.J. Hairston’s suspension, but at least we know how long Ole Miss has suspended Marshall Henderson for multiple behavior-related issues: three games, which will include the regular season opener (against Troy) and the team’s first two SEC games (against Auburn and Mississippi State). The suspension is the result of Henderson’s repeated taunting (or responding) to fans during the season including using his middle finger after Ole Miss lost in the NCAA Tournament as well as being pulled over by local police on May 4 and found to have marijuana and cocaine in his system. Although we find the split suspension a little odd it is good to see that it will have a bigger effect on the team as they are much more likely to be challenged in those SEC games than they would if he had sat the second and third games of the regular season (against Coastal Carolina and Mississippi Valley State). We hope that Henderson can find a way to control his behavior, but still keep that edge that made him such a dangerous player.
4. We usually do not make fun of a player, often a teenager or just beyond that stage, for their indecisiveness, but we might make an exception for Michael Chandler, who committed to Oregon yesterday. The commitment by itself (a 6’10” center from Northwest Florida State, who was forced to go to junior college after failing to academically qualify in 2011) is not particularly remarkable. What is remarkable is the fact that this is at least the fourth school that Chandler has committed to as his previous commitments were to Louisville, Xavier, and UCF before he failed to qualify academically. We hope that Chandler eventually finds his way into Division I basketball, but you will have to forgive us if we hold off in writing his committment to Oregon down in pen.
5. Tanking doesn’t relate directly to college basketball, but you will be hearing about it quite a bit throughout the year as NBA teams lose games in order to increase their chances of landing Andrew Wiggins, Julius Randle, Jabari Parker, or some other highly-coveted college player. So the admission by an anonymous NBA general manager that his team was tanking (known explicitly by everybody, but the players) is somewhat interesting. Obviously the story would be more interesting if it had not been anonymous, but then the GM would no longer be employed. Based on what was said in the story we can probably narrow down the list of potential GMs to a handful of individuals. As the NBA season progresses and a certain number of elite college players emerge we suspect that we will see the list of potential tanking teams grow.

1. Most of the major recruiting battles we follow involve coveted high school recruits, but as we have all seen sometimes the top junior college players can also have a big impact particularly when they wind up at the right program. So although yesterday’s announcement that Kadeem Allen, one of the top junior college players in the country, was committing to Arizona might not blow up the message boards it could still be a significant move. Allen is a 6’3″ guard who was a high-major recruit coming out of high school, but was unable to qualify so went to junior college in Kansas where he averaged 17.4 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game last year as a freshman on his was to junior college All-American honors. Assuming Allen honors his commitment he should have another year to learn the Arizona offense under T.J. McConnell before he will really have to compete for the job so even if Allen doesn’t work out Sean Miller should have plenty of time to find a replacement for McConnell.
2. After missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time in seven years, Purdue was hoping to bounce back this season. Much of their hopes coming into the season appear to rest on the shoulders of sophomore center A.J. Hammons, but those hopes will have to be put on hold temporarily as Hammons was suspended for an unspecified violation of team rules. Hammons, who averaged 10.6 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 blocks per game last season, will miss Purdue’s two exhibition games and its season-opener against Northern Kentucky. The actual suspension should not necessarily be a cause for concern for Boilermaker fans (Matt Painter said it was a conduct-related suspension and not one related to academics), but the fact that Hammons, who was supposed to lead the team this year (see our post on the topic published yesterday and written before the announcement), would be reckless enough to get suspended might be a reason to be worried.
3. Speaking of reckless… Yesterday, Roy Williams announced that North Carolina would finally reveal P.J. Hairston‘s punishment in two weeks for his multiple transgressions over the summer. We have no idea what Hairston’s suspension will be since it has previously been announced that he would miss some regular season games, but has been practicing with the team. At this point, we doubt any significant suspension is coming (unless the NCAA steps in), but the length of Hairston’s suspension will be significant because the Tar Heels have some stiff competition early including a match-up against Louisville in their fifth game (potentially). Michigan State in their seventh game, and Kentucky in their ninth game. Without Hairston’s offense and experience these would likely be almost certain losses for the Tar Heels and would pose an interesting dilemma for NCAA Tournament seeding when Selection Sunday rolls around.
4. Most of the season previews you will be reading over the next week will focus on the star players and occasionally some key role players, but as Mike DeCourcy notes in his piece on Evansville senior Bryce Weiler there is more to the college basketball experience than what most of us are exposed to. As DeCourcy notes, despite Weiler’s blindness (the result of congenital abnormalities when he was born four months premature) he has managed to become an integral member of an Evansville team that went from being a 9-21 team his freshman year to a 21-15 team last year (his junior year). For all of the ridiculous stories we see around college sports (ranging from the suspensions to individuals throwing away their careers) it is nice to see stories like this.
5. If you are like us you have probably been been waiting impatiently for the season to start. To keep ourselves occupied we have been reading through all sorts of preview pieces, but two of the most interesting “previews” that we have seen come from Ken Pomeroy (featured as the current rankings) and Dan Henner (ESPN Insider access only), who have somehow produced a rating system to predict how good different teams are coming into the season using an algorithm that is probably way too complex for us to understand. One of the more interesting things about the aspects is how widely they differ on how they project some teams. John Templon took on the Herculean task of comparing the two rankings systems. The wide divergence for top teams (like Arizona, which is Hanner’s #8 team, but only Pomeroy’s #23 team) will probably draw the most attention, but the bigger spread for some other teams is probably more interesting for the overall comparison. It will be interesting to see how close these two preseason rankings end up to the final rankings when the season is done.

1. Just one week after saying that Chane Behanan was no longer on the Louisville team and would suspended for a “long time”, Rick Pitino reversed course saying that Behanan should be back “in a short period of time”. The supposed impetus for Pitino’s change of heart is that Behanan “told the truth” regarding whatever he did to get himself kicked off the team a week ago. Like many we expected Behanan to return to the team eventually and most likely before they played Kentucky on December 28 and we don’t know what “a short period of time” means, but the sudden aboutface by Pitino is pretty stunning even by his standards with the first game of the season still a few weeks away.
2. Like basically everybody else we are baffled by the NCAA’s decision to grant Josh Smith a waiver to play at Georgetown immediately. Surprisingly that might not even be the most confusing transfer case that we have heard of recently as Old Dominion reportedly received a decision from the NCAA regarding a transfer waiver for Trey Freeman, who left Campbell to be closer to his mother, several weeks ago, but is not disclosing the NCAA’s decision. Now we all know that Old Dominion has its issues with the NCAA and the way that it handles eligibility decisions (see Donte Hill), but we have no idea why the school would not disclose the NCAA’s decision one way or the other. If the story that is being published about Freeman’s reasons for transferring are correct, we would be shocked if the NCAA actually turned down Freeman’s waiver given the way that they have been handing out waivers these days. The decision is of particular importance to Old Dominion as Freeman would like be the team’s best player after averaging 14.4 points and 5.8 assists per game last season.
3. Khadeem Lattin‘s announcement that he was committing to play for Oklahoma might move the needle in Norman and in recruiting circles. To be sure, the addition of a 4-star recruit is a significant one for almost any program. However, to us the bigger topic of discussion is Lattin’s background as he decided to spend his sophomore year in Spain making him the first elite recruit to spend a high school season playing in Europe outside of the professional ranks before returning to Houston to be home-schooled. As you would expect, Lattin’s decision to go overseas was controversial and he likely slipped in the recruiting rankings temporarily as a result, but we will be interested to see how his time in Europe translates to the college game.
4. Yesterday, the NCAA released the most recent recommendations for proposed rule changes during the 2013-14 season. The headline stories will be about the change in when colleges can begin actively recruiting, but since it doesn’t pertain to basketball or football it probably will not resonate (particularly not here). The one thing that does jump out at us is the proposal to allow student-athletes to be given the highest meal plan available at a school. Now that may seem like a mundane thing especially to our older readers, but with the way that many schools have meal plans that provide money for use at off-campus restaurants as part of their meal plans it seems to suggest that this could be a step towards the cost of attendance measures that many have been advocating for the past few years.
5. Earlier this week we discussed how Ken Pomeroy was tweaking his rating system to try to make it have better predictive outcomes. It turns out that he is not the only member of the advanced metrics community who has been adjusting his formulas as Dan Hanner announced yesterday morning that he had adjusted his lineup-based prediction model for the upcoming season. The details regarding the adjustments are fairly complex, but they essentially boil down to the following things: simulating a season 10,000 times to give best-case, median-case, and worst-case scenario; predicting variance based on player background; including more player evaluation data (including that of JUCO players and non-top 100 high school recruits; and a few other minor tweaks. We will be interested to see how Hanner’s projections pan out given the unpredictability of projection how many of the incoming recruits will do in their new environments.

In the past few years, there has been a movement to use games to commemorate significant historic events. One example of this occurred last season when Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis arranged a game between Mississippi State and Loyola (IL) to honor the 1963 NCAA regional semifinal where the Bulldogs traveled beyond state lines in violation of a court order that forbade them from playing a team with African-Americans. While many such games remain in the memory of sports fans, few actually become landmark events that even a casual sports fan can identify. The 1966 National Championship game between Texas Western (now the University of Texas at El-Paso) and Kentucky is one such classic game. So when current UTEP coach Tim Floyd announced yesterday that the two schools hope to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the original Brown vs. Board of Education game with a rematch, we were intrigued. The details are still in question, but it is believed that the game will take place in Maryland (the original game was played at Cole Field House in College Park) on Martin Luther King Day, in 2016.

Will The Focus Be On Texas Western Or The Rupp Narrative? (Credit: El Paso Times)

For anyone unfamiliar with the story of this game (and didn’t see the 2006 movie chronicling the event, Glory Road), Texas Western, a relative upstart led by fiery young coach Don Haskins, started five African-American players in its lineup. Its opponent in the national championship game, Kentucky, was led by legendary four-time national champion head coach Adolph Rupp, who started five Caucasian players. Texas Western won the game, 72-65, and in so doing set in motion a slow but steady revolution involving race relations in the sport. Some 31 years later, the integration of the game had come so far that Kentucky hired an African-American, Tubby Smith, as its new head coach, and never thought twice about it. Smith, who won his own national title at Kentucky in 1998, is now in the same Kentucky Athletics Hall of Fame as Rupp.

The reasons for why this game ultimately took on such significance are complex and numerous, but as anybody who has sat through a high school American history class is aware, the mid-1960s were the height of the activism and tensions of the civil rights era throughout much of the country. This was particularly so in relation to the integration of schools, for which athletics often served as public theater. Over time (and fairly or unfairly), two giants in college athletics — Kentucky’s Rupp and Alabama football head coach Bear Bryant — came to symbolize a tacit but legitimate resistance to athletic integration. Some of the criticism lobbed at both highly successful southern coaches was certainly earned, but to a large degree, it now serves as an easy literary crutch for journalists to discuss the era.

Still, should this event occur in three years, the 50th anniversary rematch between these two schools should serve as an interesting history lesson for those not familiar with the story behind it. We just hope that the lesson that they will take from what would no doubt be a nationally-televised blockbuster game will be a  positive one of inclusiveness and integration, one derived from the spirit of the Texas Western squad and the pioneers who paved the way for them rather than another negative historical narrative built around the misgivings of Rupp.