1. Last week, Wisconsin’s Jarrod Uthoff became perhaps the most well-known non-contributor in college basketball, as the redshirt freshman’s public fracas with head coach Bo Ryan over his transfer made headlines and sparked debate throughout the college basketball world. If you were vacationing in Bali last week, the long and short of it is that Uthoff ‘s request to transfer was met with a list of 26 schools (including the entire Big Ten and ACC) to which he was restricted. Bo Ryan’s version of events, as told to Seth Davis, suggests that he was merely minimizing the chance that Uthoff would play against Wisconsin in a future game and that he was doing nothing different than any other head coach would do in a similar situation (the list was later trimmed to include just the other 11 Big Ten schools). To that last point, ESPN Radio interviewed three prominent coaches on Friday about this — John Calipari, Mark Few, and Jim Boeheim — and if you can believe their hypotheticals, the trio generally think that they would have handled Uthoff’s transfer differently.
2. As for Uthoff’s specific situation, Fox Sports Wisconsin reported over the weekend that the player disputes Bo Ryan’s contention that the head coach had offered to return early from vacation to meet with him about his transfer options. He also publicly wondered why Ryan had not reached out to him after his scheduled return from vacation on April 14, even going to so far as to offer up his phone records as proof that Ryan had never made an effort to talk to him. One thing is for sure — it’s clear that the relationship between coach and player is beyond repair at this point. Uthoff has visits to Creighton and Iowa State (one of the originally restricted schools) scheduled in the next few weeks, so let’s hope that things calm down and everyone ultimately gets what they want from this crazy situation.
3. Transitioning to a transfer candidate that fans had actually heard of prior to last week, Connecticut’s Roscoe Smith announced on Saturday that he would become the fifth Husky to leave Jim Calhoun’s suddenly-sinking program in the last month. Recall that on the heels of the announcement that UConn would not be eligible for the 2013 NCAA Tournament because of a low APR rolling average, Andre Drummond and Jeremy Lamb announced they were going to the NBA while teammates Alex Oriakhi and Michael Bradley let everyone know they were transferring. This leaves the Huskies extremely thin up front next year, with only marginal contributors Tyler Olander (4/4 in 18 MPG), Niels Giffey (3/2 in 12 MPG) and DeAndre Daniels (3/2 in 12 MPG) returning on the front line. Call him overly optimistic, but head coach Jim Calhoun believes that his program will be just fine next season regardless of all the defections. As he put it, UConn has had 25 years without a losing season and he expects it to go to 26. He also notes that Bradley may be wavering on his decision to transfer now that Smith appears to be gone.
4. Sticking to transfer-mania, Xavier’s Mark Lyons is being forced out of the program, according to a weekend report from CBS Sports’ Jeff Goodman. Lyons is a fourth-year junior who is scheduled to graduate this year, so he could transfer without penalty to another program for his senior season, or he could opt to enter his name into the NBA Draft by next Sunday evening. Combined with the losses of Tu Holloway and Kenny Frease from a group that won three Atlantic 10 regular season titles and made three Sweet Sixteens in the last four years, Chris Mack will have some substantial rebuilding to do next season. The trio including Lyons averaged 42 PPG and 13 RPG last season, but if there’s any non-power conference program that makes replacing star players look easy, it’s Xavier.
5. It’s the offseason so clearly it’s time for schools to haphazardly jump around again. And you thought this M5 would only focus on player transfers? A report by the New York Post’s Lenn Robbins on Friday afternoon claimed for the second time in a month that CAA stalwarts George Mason and VCU were preparing to move to the Atlantic 10 as soon as early May, and that Horizon League and national power Butler is also ready to join a new and improved A-10. At this point, all interested parties are publicly denying everything, but if we’ve learned anything in the past two years of conference realignment madness, such denials are virtually meaningless. Assuming that Xavier and St. Louis aren’t headed anywhere, the top of the Atlantic 10 could be poised to become one heck of a basketball league for years to come.

It’s no secret among college basketball observers that the recruiting prowess of Baylor’s Scott Drew has been largely looked upon with a skeptical eye. In just the past three recruiting cycles, Drew has signed top 10 prospects Perry Jones, III, (2010), Quincy Miller (2011), and Isaiah Austin (2012), making the Christian school in Waco, Texas, one of the premier destinations for elite high school basketball recruits in the country. To those skeptics, Baylor’s quick ascendance from Big 12 doormat to national relevance perhaps signaled that Drew’s recruiting bounty may have been achieved through extraordinary measures — some of which may have been counter to the rules and regulations of the NCAA.

Baylor's Drew Is Feeling Some NCAA Heat, But Does He Care?

The critics appear to have some basis. According to a report released today by ESPN.com’s Jason King, both Drew and Baylor women’s basketball coach, Kim Mulkey, presided over staffs who rampantly and repeatedly violated NCAA rules via text and phone communication with prospects during impermissible periods. Most of these contacts were alleged to have occurred during a 29-month span from 2007-10, but the total number of violations are staggering — 738 impermissible text messages and 528 impermissible phone calls between the two programs.

In a bit of an ironic twist, it was Baylor women’s star Brittney Griner — the Anthony Davis of the women’s game — who in 2008 as a high school star originally notified the NCAA about Baylor’s impermissible contacts. She eventually signed and matriculated at the school anyway, leading the Bears to a flawless 40-0 title season in 2011-12. Since the majority of these contact violations occurred from 2-5 years ago, and the men’s program has since reached two Elite Eights and the women’s program has made an Elite Eight, a Final Four, and won a National Championship, is it wrong to suggest that the illicit contacts performed by Baylor staff to entice elite recruits such as Jones, Griner, Miller, et al, was well worth the risk?

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Yesterday we gave you our season grades for the bottom half of the Big 12. Today we bring you the top half.

5. Kansas State (22-11, 10-8)

McGruder Led a Surprising K-State Team This Season

FINAL GRADE: B+

Despite all of the personnel question marks and the graduation of star Jacob Pullen, you had the sense Frank Martin would figure something out. He certainly did, as his team weathered a mid-season swoon to finish strong and reach another NCAA Tournament. Martin may have left for South Carolina after the season, but his final Kansas State team fought hard in 2011-12 despite a load of adversity. A December championship at the Diamond Head Classic helped the Wildcats enter the Top 25 before Big 12 play, but poor offensive execution and a lack of consistency on the defensive end doomed the Wildcats during the winter. They weren’t playing like Martin’s teams usually did. They weren’t tough, and it showed, starting 1-3 in Big 12 play and dropping four home games in Manhattan. Oklahoma swept them. Things were getting ugly, and they hit rock bottom after a home loss to Kansas on Big Monday on February 13. That’s when Martin turned this thing around and solidified an NCAA Tournament berth. The Wildcats got back to the basics: defense, rebounding and delivering a knockout punch to opponents. Rodney McGruder stepped up his play as the team’s star, helping it win four of five games to close the season, including road wins at Baylor and Missouri. The controversial suspension of Jamar Samuels left Kansas State without its best forward in an NCAA Third Round game against Syracuse, but it’s impressive that this team even reached that point. With McGruder presumably returning next year, first-year coach Bruce Weber will have a lot to work with. Angel Rodriguez should be even better as a sophomore, and Will Spradling and Jordan Henriquez should grow, too.

4. Iowa State (23-11, 12-6) 

FINAL GRADE: A

The Transfer Effect worked to Iowa State’s benefit this year. In December, we wrote a piece questioning Fred Hoiberg’s recruiting tactics, as he’d brought in four Division I transfers this season. It took a while for everybody to get acclimated, resulting in a couple of losses to Drake and Northern Iowa during an inconsistent non-conference stretch. But once league play began, this team took off. Royce White took the nation by storm with his wild hair and versatile play, showing an ability to run the Cyclones’ offense as a sort of point-forward. He emerged as one of the most fascinating and entertaining players to watch in college basketball, but the team around him helped add to the fun. These guys shot lights-out from beyond the arc, including senior Scott Christopherson, who finished with the highest three-point percentage in the Big 12 (45.5%) for players with more than four attempts per game. Hoiberg added a fresh energy to this program, leading ISU to a victory over Connecticut in the NCAA Tournament. His team even briefly competed against Kentucky before falling apart late in that matchup. There was no fairy-tale March run for The Mayor, but given time, his program may eventually reach those heights. The 2011-12 season marked a major turning point for the Cyclones.

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In news today that was only surprising to those who believe the NCAA has no spine, the organization denied Connecticut‘s final appeal over its eligibility for the 2013 NCAA Tournament based on its Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores. NCAA legislation enacted last October requires a four-year average APR of 900 or a two-year average of 930 in order to become eligible for next year’s Tournament — UConn’s APRs of 826 in 2009-10 and 978 in 2010-11 average out to a two-year score of 902 (well below the 930 cutoff), and its four-year average of 893 also comes up shy of the eligibility threshold (900). The Husky program argued that its proposed remedial measures, which included the possible forfeiture of NCAA Tournament revenue, greater academic support mechanisms and the existing loss of two scholarships, should be sufficient punishment for the school’s past academic failings. But that appeal was rejected, presumably on the grounds that the NCAA cannot afford to lose further credibility by backtracking on this mandate.

How Will the NCAA's Decision Impact Calhoun?

Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy got involved on Thursday, telling the Hartford Courant:

It’s almost as if they’ve decided to get UConn one way or the other. [The NCAA] can’t get out of their own way. I think I have the same reaction a lot of people have when they understand what’s going on. For the first time in its history, the NCAA is making a retroactive application of a new rule. They modified a rule without modifying the time in which he comes into effect. … They changed the rule and didn’t give people time to adjust to it. … They are breaking their own precedents to bring this about. UConn has cleaned up its act, and now the NCAA is punishing a bunch of kids who have absolutely nothing or very little … to do with the failures of the past.

NCAA spokesperson Eric Christiansen responded to this criticism by saying that “schools have known since 2006 that APRs below 900 could result in serious penalties including postseason restrictions.” Of course, he’s right. UConn and other schools have known about the 900 threshold for a long time — they only started to take it seriously, though, when the NCAA gave it the necessary teeth to impact postseason eligibility through last year’s added legislation. And about the argument that the players from the 2009-10 team that caused so much of the APR problem are no longer around? No disrespect intended toward those former or current Huskies, but how is this different from other rules violations where a school is placed on probation for the actions of a former coach and/or players? The list is long of such situations on the other side of the rule-breaking fence — why should academic issues be treated any differently?

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*A special thanks goes out to LG for providing RTC with lodging, travel expenses and an LG Nitro HD phone to take pictures and video with this weekend in New Orleans. 

New Orleans always has a festive atmosphere, but Championship Monday carried a buzz from start to finish. Kentucky and Kansas fans filled the streets from dawn to dusk and well afterward in the Big Easy. Here are some of the sights and sounds from the last day of the season.

UK Fans Getting into the NOLA Spirit Before Da Game

KU Fans Also Hyped and Ready to Go

The Streamers and Fireworks Go Off As UK Celebrates the Title

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On February 27, we released our first version of this year’s Circle of March, with a little over 320 Division I teams vying for a national championship. Today — 36 days later — we’re down to a single, solitary and deserving champ. Through 20 different iterations of the CoM (you can see the progression below), we’ve come all the way back around. Congratulations to the Kentucky Wildcats, the 2011-12 National Champions.

Five Key Takeaways.

1. Calipari Wins the Big One, Justifies One-and-Done Strategy. Sometimes it’s a very simple game — the team that has the best players wins. But to put it in those stark terms seems to minimize the role that coaching has on the game, especially at the collegiate level. In knockout scenarios like the NCAA Tournament, the best team (or the team having the best players) doesn’t guarantee a win, but John Calipari was able to mold a group of three star freshmen with two sophomores and a senior to put together one of the most dominant seasons in college basketball history (38-2). There’s been a lot of talk during the one-and-done era as to whether a team centered on young but spectacular talent could win it all in the crucible of March — Calipari’s 2011-12 group both justifies his recruiting strategy in targeting those players as well as elevates his own status as a great recruiter/good coach to one that has greatness on both sides of that equation.
2. Anthony Davis Controlled the Game Defensively. The NPOY had one of the weirdest stat lines you’ll ever see, shooting only 1-10 from the field and scoring six points, but grabbing 16 boards, blocking six shots, dishing five assists, and ripping three steals. He also stayed out of foul trouble to play 36 total minutes. It’s a broken record that we’ve said this so much, but not only does Davis challenge a big number of shots for which he doesn’t get an official block, but he also gets into other teams’ heads because they’re thinking about him every single time they enter the paint. His effect on the game in that way is unquestionable and unquantifiable, yet it causes teams to make plays that they normally wouldn’t make if he wasn’t patrolling around the area. Kansas shot a meager 36% from the field, with really only Tyshawn Taylor having a decent offensive game (if you can excuse his five turnovers, including a killer with just under a minute left).
3. The Quiet… Lamb Headlines Will Be Out of Control. We were wrong about how this game would go, thinking it would be much closer throughout, but we were right about one thing — that one of the lesser-known players on Kentucky would step up if they were to win the game. It turned out to be Doron Lamb, perhaps along with Darius Miller one of the most overlooked players on the Wildcats. His back-to-back threes when KU had crept back to within 10 points with just over 10 minutes remaining held the Jayhawks at bay and allowed UK sufficient buffer to make some mistakes and still keep a comfortable lead down the stretch. Lamb ended up with a huge 22-point, three-assist evening that helped make up for the vacuum created by Davis’ six-point night.
4. Kansas Couldn’t Come Back Against This Team. Bill Self’s team did it against Purdue and did it against Ohio State, but Kentucky wasn’t going to be the third act in the KU Comeback Tour. They were valiant in making the game interesting down the stretch, but they’d just built themselves too big of a hole to make the comeback against a Kentucky team that doesn’t have long scoring droughts. One of the major keys to this game was that Elijah Johnson and Travis Releford combined to shoot an awful 6-for-19, and for KU to have had any realistic chance of winning this game, they were going to need production beyond Taylor (19 points) and Robinson (18 points).
5. Jeff Withey Made Himself Some Money Tonight. Withey will probably be back in Lawrence for his senior season, but we imagine that while Anthony Davis is off next year winning NBA Rookie of the Year, analysts will repeatedly cite how Withey frustrated Davis into a 1-10 shooting night using his long arms and body to bump him froim his favorite spots in the post. Withey himself only shot 2-8 and grabbed seven boards, but his offensive game is a work in progress and he’ll have another year to fine tune it at Kansas.

Star of the Game. Doron Lamb, Kentucky. Lamb’s 22-point, three-assist night provided the necessary offensive support to both help the Wildcats run out to a comfortable 14-point lead at the half, but also to keep the Jayhawks at bay when they made a mini-run in the second half. You could give Anthony Davis the award just about every game for his defense, but we’ll go with the talented sophomore here tonight.

Quotable. “I said this a couple of years ago and everybody got crazy when we had five guys drafted in the first round. This is one of the biggest moments, if not the biggest, in Kentucky history. The reason was, I knew now other kids would look and say, You got to go there.” — John Calipari, justifying his remarks about his 2010 draft class, in that the seeds of this year’s championship were sown on that night. Can’t argue with that (although clearly nights like tonight mean a lot more to UK fans).

Sights & Sounds. Terrence Jones was kind enough to give us a great shot holding the trophy.

Terrence Jones Is Definitely Enjoying This One

What’s Next? Kentucky takes their nets home and celebrates with what we’re hearing is a burning Lexington right now. Presumably many if not all of the five underclassmen who play minutes for this team will enter the NBA Draft in June. But Calipari mentioned that he’s going recruiting later this week, and if he manages to pull a Nerlens Noel and Shabazz Muhammad out of his hat, he’ll be back in the Final Four with the Wildcats again soon enough. Kansas, on the other hand, will assuredly lose Thomas Robinson along with seniors Taylor and Connor Teahan, but Bill Self has a solid core to build around with Withey and we’re never doubting his coaching abilities again after what he did with this group.

One game remaining for the national title. We’re back with our second-to-last RTC Podcast of the season, where Evan Jacoby joins us to break down the results from the national semifinals and looks ahead to the championship game tonight. Consensus is the word that comes to mind in terms of our discussion, but as always, there is some great commentary on how the winner will get there. Have a listen, because it’s a long way to 9:11 PM tonight…

It’s already been a wild weekend in the Big Easy, but there’s more still to come with a championship game to play later tonight. Here are some of the sights and sounds we stumbled into during Friday and Saturday down on the bayou.

The Road Ends Here

Louisville Fans Pre-Partying on Bourbon Street

No Myth: Cats and Cards Can Coexist

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It’s April Fool’s Day but there’s no joke between the two teams still standing in our second-to-last Circle of March. After Kentucky and Kansas each survived last night in New Orleans, we’re down to two teams in one game Monday for all the marbles. Will Kentucky reach its destiny, or will Bill Self again spoil the Calipari Coronation?