Rush the Court is releasing its season superlatives throughout this week. Our RTC All-America teams were released on Tuesday, while our National Coach of the Year came out yesterday, and our National Player of the Year is below.

In this era of so many talented one-and-done players, it can be viewed as a bit of a career achievement award when a senior earns National Player of the Year honors. While that could be the case for our unanimous RTC National Player of the Year who put together a legendary four-year run in Omaha, Creighton senior Doug McDermott saved his best for his final season in a Bluejays uniform. The forward led the nation in scoring at 26.9 points per game, while shooting 52.6 percent from the field on an astonishing 627 field goal attempts. In an offense centered around McDermott’s creative scoring acumen, Creighton averaged 79.5 points per contest, shot 49.9 percent from the field, and led the country with a stellar 42.1 percent mark from the three-point line. Needless to say, the Bluejays were an explosive group all season with our NPOY McDermott leading that charge.

McDermott’s National Player of the Year honor is meant to memorialize his senior season accomplishments, but it would be inappropriate not to mention all the career milestones he also achieved during the campaign. On March 8 in his Senior Night game against Providence, McDermott exploded for a career-best 45 points, and in the process, he became the eighth player in college basketball history to surpass 3,000 career points. By the end of the season, McDermott had compiled a total of 3,150 career points, which is good for fifth on the all-time list. Not too shabby for a kid from Ames, Iowa, who didn’t have a bunch of great offers coming out of high school. During the postseason award circuit, “Dougie McBuckets” became the first player since Patrick Ewing and Wayman Tisdale in 1985 to be named to three straight AP All-American first teams. It’s been a tremendous career for the Bluejay.

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Rush the Court is releasing its season superlatives throughout this week. Our RTC All-America teams were released on Tuesday, while our National Coach of the Year is here today, and our National Player of the Year will be announced on Thursday.
The 2013-14 RTC National Coach of the Year Gregg Marshall has been a winner ever since his career commenced. The first stop in his journey was at Winthrop, where he quickly took an unknown program to unprecedented heights. In his nine seasons in Rock Hill, South Carolina, Marshall took the Eagles to their first seven NCAA Tournaments in program history. In 2007, Marshall’s squad finished the season in the AP Top 25 and advanced to the round of 32 with an upset victory over Notre Dame. Following that run, Marshall left Winthrop to take over at Missouri Valley Conference stalwart, Wichita State. In just his third season, the Shockers were NIT champions. One season later, they were back in the NCAA Tournament, and they haven’t looked back since. The nation finally took notice of Marshall’s magical touch during last year’s NCAA Tournament. As a #9 seed, Wichita State got past both #1 seed Gonzaga and #2 seed Ohio State on its way to an improbable Final Four berth. In the national semifinals, his Shockers put quite the scare into eventual national champion Louisville before succumbing late.

With many players from that team back in the fold this season, Wichita State did something no team had done since the 1990-91 UNLV Runnin’ Rebels. It entered the NCAA Tournament with an unbeaten 34-0 record. Like Marshall’s previous teams, these Shockers did not feature any McDonald’s All-Americans or other marquee recruits, but rather talented players such as Fred VanVleet, Ron Baker, Tekele Cotton, and Cleanthony Early who completely bought into Marshall’s system emphasizing team basketball. One of the most astonishing facts about Wichita State is that from January 11 through the MVC Tournament, the team won each of its games by at least seven points. The Missouri Valley, as a whole, did not provide Wichita State with enough competition on a nightly basis, but that should not matter. The Shockers went unbeaten and if accomplishing such a feat was so easy, why haven’t other great teams from non-power leagues routinely done it? Because it is nearly impossible.

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Compiling preseason All-America teams is a difficult task because nobody knows what is going to occur during the season. There will always be players who will fail to live up to expectations and there will always be under the radar types who will unexpectedly emerge to stardom. When our group of eight RTC pollsters selected their preseason All-America teams back in November, nobody could have guessed that only six of the 15 names on that list would live up to the hype: Creighton’s Doug McDermott, Louisville’s Russ Smith, Kansas’ Andrew Wiggins, Duke’s Jabari Parker, Connecticut’s Shabazz Napier, and Kentucky’s Julius Randle. The only two players that were projected to to be a first team All-America and finished there were McDermott and Smith (actually, we recognized at the time that a 33 percent accuracy rate was the AP’s historical norm, so we did a little better than that). The nine players we selected as preseason All-Americans who did not make our team — Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart, Michigan State’s Gary Harris, Ohio State’s Aaron Craft, Michigan’s Mitch McGary (spent much of the year injured), Arizona State’s Jahii Carson, Arizona’s Aaron Gordon, Syracuse’s C.J. Fair, Michigan State’s Adreian Payne, and Virginia’s Joe Harris — all had exceptional seasons, but they were surpassed in achievements by the names that rose to the top of our list. Here are the 2013-14 RTC All-America Teams.

Note on methodology: voters took postseason performance to date into consideration. Players earned three points for a First Team vote, two points for a Second Team vote, and one point for a Third Team vote. McDermott and Napier were the only two consensus First Team All-America selections. Coming tomorrow: The RTC Coach of the Year.

First Team All-America

• Doug McDermott, Senior, Creighton (consensus) (26.7 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 52.6% FG, 44.9% 3FG). McDermott was the most prolific  and talented offensive player in the country in a season that wrapped up his marvelous collegiate career. The senior led the country in scoring and his brilliant play was the biggest reason why Creighton finished the season with a sterling 27-8 record. The brilliance of “Dougie McBuckets” saw him reach several amazing career milestones this year. His career-high 45 points in March 8’s Senior Night victory over Providence put him over the 3,000-point barrier, and he wound up finishing with 3,150 points, good for fifth on the all-time scoring list. There have been few players like Doug McDermott in college basketball history, and there will be few like him in the future. He was an amazingly unique talent that we were all privileged to watch play ball for the last four years.
• Shabazz Napier, Senior, Connecticut (consensus) (18.1 PPG, 4.9 APG, 5.9 RPG, 1.7 SPG). You can make an argument that no player has meant more to his team this season than Napier has meant to Connecticut. The Huskies improbably took home the East Region title and are headed to the Final Four, thanks in large part to the heroics of Napier. After a sensational regular season where the guard took home the AAC Player of the Year award, he has only elevated his play in the postseason. In the Huskies’ four NCAA Tournament victories, Napier is averaging 23.3 points per contest and has displayed his flare for the dramatic by hitting several important shots when his team needed them most. Connecticut won a national title in 2011 mostly due to the brilliance of then-point guard and NPOY Kemba Walker. If the Huskies are able to replicate that feat this season, it will be mostly due to the brilliance of Napier.
• Jabari Parker, Freshman, Duke (22) (19.1 PPG, 8.7 RPG, 1.2 BPG, 47.3% FG). In a season when many freshmen around the country received a great deal of preseason hype, no other freshman lived up to the lofty expectations quite like Parker. The USBWA National Freshman of the Year became the first Duke freshman to earn consensus first-team All-America honors with selections to the AP and Wooden All-America teams. It is widely expected that Parker will enter the 2014 NBA Draft after just one season in Durham, and even though his Duke career did not include an NCAA Tournament victory, Parker’s terrific season will not soon be forgotten.
• Russ Smith, Senior, Louisville (22) (18.2 PPG, 4.6 APG, 2.0 SPG, 46.8% FG). “Russdiculous” entered the season with high expectations and he more than lived up them by leading Louisville to another terrific campaign. After an excellent junior season, Smith only improved as a senior. Known for erratic decision-making much earlier in his career, the talented guard reinvented himself during his senior season. Smith improved his field goal percentage from by five percentage points and his three-point percentage from by six points. That brilliance led a spot as Louisville’s first consensus All-American since Clifford Rozier in the 1993-94 season. 
• Sean Kilpatrick, Senior, Cincinnati (19) (20.6 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 42.3% FG, 84.5% FT). Kilpatrick finished his outstanding collegiate career with legendary Cincinnati status, as he joined NBA Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson as the only two Bearcats to top 2,000 career points. Along with joining Robertson in the Cincinnati record books, Kilpatrick also became the program’s all-time leader in games (140) and career minutes played (4,315). The elevation in Kilpatrick’s play as a senior also meant great things for an overachieving Cincinnati squad that was the co-AAC champion and was ranked #15 in the final AP poll.

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As part of our ongoing NCAA Tournament coverage, RTC is unveiling a detailed look at each of the Final Four teams throughout the week. Today: Kentucky.

Kentucky was ranked #1 in the preseason polls and that was with good reason. The Wildcats were bringing in one of the most highly-acclaimed recruiting classes in recent memory and were returning sophomores Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress, both of whom were also highly-regarded recruits before they arrived in Lexington the year before. Soon after the season began, it became clear that ultimate success was going to be quite the process for John Calipari’s young Wildcats. It would have been easy (and possibly logical) to count out Kentucky after a few confounding late regular season losses had one well-respected national pundit openly questioning the way in which Calipari was handling his squad. But things began to turn as Kentucky moved through play in the SEC Tournament. The Wildcats easily dispatched LSU and Georgia before giving Florida everything it could handle in a one-point loss in the SEC championship game. What’s happened since the Wildcats began the NCAA Tournament? This in-depth Final Four preview, the first installment of our four-part series, should give you a pretty good idea. Kentucky is to be taken seriously as legitimate threat to cut down the nets next Monday evening, and this, in long form, is the explanation why.

Kentucky’s Aaron Harrison Joined Wildcat Lore on Sunday (David E. Klutho/SI)

Pre-Tournament Capsule. Kentucky showed its youth in its non-conference slate, as the young Wildcats dropped their first three games when pitted against premier competition. In the Champions Classic in Chicago on November 12, Michigan State was able to fend off a late Kentucky run to earn a 78-74 victory. Playing at Cowboys Stadium on December 6, the Wildcats were handed a five-point loss at the hands of a talented Baylor squad. Eight days later, John Calipari’s squad dropped another game, this time in Chapel Hill against an enigmatic squad in North Carolina. Prior to the start of SEC play, Kentucky was able to grab at least one marquee victory when Louisville visited Rupp Arena on December 28 when it appeared like things were taking shape for the talented team. However, when SEC play commenced, the dominance that was expected from the team did not come to fruition. Playing second fiddle to Florida saw Kentucky finish SEC play with a 12-6 mark, and of those 12 victories, only an eight-point January victory over Tennessee was a win over an NCAA Tournament team. When the bracket was released on Selection Sunday, Kentucky was given an eight-seed, and due to its uninspiring résumé, arguments were generally dismissed about the Wildcats being underseeded.

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#2 Michigan vs. #8 Kentucky – Midwest Region Elite Eight (from Indianapolis, IN) – at 5:05 PM EST on CBS.

It seems as if this once enigmatic Kentucky squad has finally figured things out. The young Wildcats have arguably been the team of the tournament on their run to Sunday’s regional final. After wins over nine-seed Kansas State and one-seed Wichita State in the rounds of 64 and 32, respectively, John Calipari‘s squad once again showed that it meant business Friday night against Louisville. Louisville surged out to a very early 18-5 run, but instead of packing it in and getting down on themselves, the Wildcats surged back to make it a game. Trailing by the slimmest of margins with 39 seconds to play, guard Aaron Harrison drained a three-pointer from the corner to give Kentucky a lead it would not relinquish. Harrison finished the evening with 15 points and he was joined by fellow freshmen Julius Randle and Dakari Johnson in achieving that scoring mark. Randle, who has developed a well-earned reputation for being a double-double machine, collected 13 rebounds to go along with his 15 points. Johnson had only scored three points over the first two tournament games before exploding for 15 very important points in the win over the Cardinals. Friday’s win did not come without a price for Kentucky though, as key reserve Willie Cauley-Stein left the game in the first half with an ankle injury and on Saturday, John Calipari said he would be “stunned” if the sophomore big man will be able to play.

Calipari Has The Wildcats Peaking At The Right Time

Michigan arrives to its second straight Elite Eight after a 73-71 victory over 11-seed Tennessee. Against the imposing frontline of the Volunteers, the Wolverines used another marquee performance from senior forward Jordan Morgan (a team-high 15 points and seven rebounds), who has equated himself magnificently in the first three games of the tournament. John Beilein‘s squad also displayed its knack for perimeter, as it hit 11 three-pointers for the game and hit seven-of-nine from behind the arc in the first half. The sophomore trio of Nik Stauskas, Caris LeVert, and Glenn Robinson III combined for 37 points and in the process, displayed why they are one of the best offensive trios in the country. Sunday will be Michigan’s second Elite Eight appearance in as many years, so if experience is a factor, six of the team’s eight rotation players have experience in the Elite Eight setting.

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Walker Carey (@walkerRcarey) is the NCAA Tournament’s Midwest Region correspondent. He filed this report after #8 Kentucky’s 74-69 win over #4 Louisville. RTC will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight.

Three Key Takeaways.

Julius Randle has been as advertised this season (sportsillustrated.cnn.com).

1. The atmosphere was unbelievable and the game lived up to the hype. The build up for the Sweet 16 edition of the Battle for the Bluegrass rightfully garnered a ton of national attention leading up to the tip. And boy, was it worth it. Lucas Oil Stadium was overtaken by Louisville and Kentucky fans. Red and blue were all over the place and both factions were loud and involved throughout the night. The game, itself, was a nail-biter to the very end. Both sides were living and dying with every possession and that made for an amazing atmosphere. When Kentucky emerged victorious, the Kentucky section acted as if a weight had been lifted from its shoulders. On the other hand, the Louisville fans were heartbroken over the close lose to their bitter rivals.
2. Free throw shooting and rebounding did Louisville in. In a close game like Friday night, you can often pinpoint factors that played a big role in deciding the game. Those two factors in Louisville’s loss were its poor free throw shooting and inability to keep Kentucky off the offensive glass. The Cardinals were just 13-of-23 (including 6-of-15 in the first half) from the free throw line. Included in that statistic was that senior standout guard Russ Smith went just 4-of-10 from the charity stripe. Louisville also struggled keeping Kentucky’s bigs off the rebounding glass. The Wildcats out-rebounded the Cardinals 37-29 and gathered 15 offensive rebounds that led to 18 second chance points. A huge Kentucky offensive rebound came at the 2:11 mark when sophomore forward Alex Poythress grabbed a putback and converted a three-point play to turn a 66-63 deficit into a 66-66 tie – and that helped set the stage for the Wildcats to ultimately grab the lead and get the victory.

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Walker Carey (@walkerRcarey) is the NCAA Tournament’s Midwest Region correspondent. He filed this report after #2 Michigan’s 73-71 win over #11 Tennessee. RTC will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight.

Three Key Takeaways.

Stauskas Carried His Team for Another Round (Gregory Shamus, Getty)

1. Michigan’s first half explosion was the reason it was able to win. The Wolverines have been an extremely high octane offensive unit all season and that continued against Tennessee. Michigan scored 45 points in the first half. It shot 61.5% overall and 77.8% from three in the opening 20 minutes. John Beilein’s squad was moving the ball around so easily and efficiently that it was easy to see why its shooting numbers were so good, as they were getting such open looks. In a game that came down to the wire, Michigan being able to use its phenomenal offense to grab an 11-point halftime lead was a ridiculously huge factor in it ultimately being able to leave with the victory.
2. Tennessee stormed back with great tenacity. The Volunteers fell behind by 15 with 10:56 to play before storming back to trim Michigan’s lead to just one with 10.8 seconds to play. Tennessee was led on the comeback trail by senior guard Jordan McRae, who recorded 16 of his 24 points in the second half. McRae’s ability to both hit shots and get to the rim had the Michigan defense in disarray for a good portion of the final 20 minutes of the game. After pretty much allowing Michigan to do anything offensively over the first 30 minutes of the game, Tennessee made adjustments to lock down defensively and force several key turnovers late in the game. Cuonzo Martin’s squad is probably hurting now because its season is over, but those players have nothing to hang their heads about. Michigan was given everything it could handle and then some. That was a gutty and resilient second half from the Volunteers.
3. John Beilein deserves more attention for his coaching job this season. Michigan went to the National Championship game last year due in large part to the contributions from guards Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr. and the emerging force of Mitch McGary. After the season, both Burke and Hardaway Jr. wisely declared for the NBA Draft and Michigan was left with a lot of inexperience in its backcourt. The Wolverines’ winning experience took another hit in late December when McGary was lost with a back injury. Somehow, Michigan is still advancing to its second straight Elite Eight and a majority of that credit should go to coach John Beilein. Under Beilein’s guidance, Michigan has become an extremely cohesive unit that has time and time again, found a way to win this season.

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Walker Carey (@walkerRcarey) is the NCAA Tournament’s Midwest Region correspondent, which begins Friday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis with Tennessee vs. Michigan followed by Louisville vs. Kentucky. The South Regional Reset and the West Regional Reset published yesterday, and the East Regional Reset will release later today. Make sure to also follow @RTCMWRegion for news and analysis from Indy throughout the week.

New Favorite: #4 Louisville. The new favorite is the old favorite, but after the first four days of Tournament action, determining a favorite was not an easy task. Louisville was pushed to the brink by #13 seed Manhattan in its first game before needing a late flurry Saturday to race by #5 Saint Louis. The Cardinals still appear to be the best team in this region, but they are going to need to be sharper in Indianapolis than they were in Orlando if they want to advance to their third consecutive Final Four. To be sharper, Rick Pitino’s squad is going to need guard Russ Smith to elevate his play. The senior has struggled thus far, shooting just 6-of-19 from the field and committing 13 turnovers over the first two games.

The intensity in Indy Friday evening should be at an all-time high.

Horse of Darkness: #11 Tennessee. For the third time in the four years of the First Four, a team has won three games to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. Tennessee will arrive in Indianapolis after a win over Iowa in Dayton and wins over #6 Massachusetts and #14 Mercer in Raleigh. The Volunteers showed during those three wins that they are a very tenacious defensive team and possess a bruising tandem in the post with forwards Jeronne Maymon and Jarnell Stokes. The most amazing part of Tennessee’s run to the second weekend might be that Volunteers head coach Cuonzo Martin had been viewed as someone on the hot seat late in the regular season. There was even a faction of the Volunteers fan base that banded together to try to get the school to fire Martin and hire former coach Bruce Pearl. You have to wonder what those fans are thinking now, as the team is headed to the Sweet Sixteen, now with Martin at the controls.

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From 24 to the Sweet Sixteen, eight more games today to move to next weekend. Here’s our breakdowns on each.

#2 Kansas vs. #10 Stanford — South Region Third Round (at St. Louis, MO) — 12:15 PM ET on CBS

No Joel Embiid, no problem for Kansas against Eastern Kentucky in round two, but can the Jayhawks get by Stanford without their prized big man? Embiid will again be out of the lineup on Sunday when the Cardinal and Jayhawks meet, and at this point, it’s difficult to believe we will see the Cameroon native in a Kansas uniform again this season. Against EKU on Friday, Tarik Black and Jamari Traylor were tremendous in the extended minutes created by Embiid’s absence (combining for 29 points — on 13-14 FG – and 19 rebounds), but with all due respect to the undersized Colonels, the challenge to replace Embiid will grow far more serious against Stanford. 6’11” Stefan Nastic and 6’10” Dwight Powell are unlikely to dominate this game, but each are true bigs capable of scoring the basketball. As a team, the Cardinal are 22nd nationally in defensive rebounding percentage, so don’t expect Perry Eliis, Black, and Traylor to run roughshod on the offensive glass like they did against the Colonels, when they had 14 offensive rebounds.

Andrew Wiggins And Kansas Soared By Eastern Kentucky; Will Stanford Be The Jayhawk’s Next Victim On Sunday?

I suppose an apology is in order for what was a relatively scathing assessment of the Cardinal in advance of their second round game with New Mexico, so after watching their resounding defeat of the Lobos, I say sorry to Coach Dawkins and the gang. While the Greatest Games Of The 2013-14 Stanford Cardinal DVD may not be one that ever sees the light of day, Stanford deserves credit for finding ways to win games ugly. The goal is to score more points than your opponent, and on many notable occasions this season, the Cardinal have been able to do just that. If Stanford is to advance to the Sweet 16 on Sunday, you better believe that their best chance to win looks a lot like what we saw against the Lobos on Friday. It all starts with preventing easy points on the interior and in transition, getting a competitive effort on the backboards, and then you can throw in a dash of Chasson Randle brilliance to make things work on the offensive end. I won’t completely discount a Cardinal victory this time, but believing in Dawkins is still a chore, especially when Bill Self is prowling the opposite sideline. I think it takes Andrew Wiggins and company thirty minutes to find real breathing room in this game, but expect the Jayhawks to be making their way to Memphis next weekend.

The RTC Certified Pick: Kansas

#1 Wichita State vs. #8 Kentucky – Midwest Region Round of 32 (from St. Louis, MO) – at 2:45 PM EST on CBS

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