1. 2013 did not end well for Oklahoma State with the loss of Michael Cobbins to a ruptured Achilles tendon. 2014 is not starting off much better as backup point guard Stevie Clark was arrested just ten hours into the New Year for possession of marijuana. This is not the first time that Clark has dealt with disciplinary issues while in Stillwater as he was suspended at the start of his freshman year for an undisclosed violation of team rules. Given the way these type of issues are dealt with we doubt that Clark will miss a substantial amount of time. And we would certainly expect him to be back by January 18 when the Cowboys welcome Kansas to Stillwater.
2. This has not been the type of season that we have come to expect of Temple and things may have taken a turn for the worse as sophomore Daniel Dingle could miss the rest of the season with a tear in his right meniscus. Dingle, 6’7″ forward, had been averaging 6.7 point and 2.3 rebounds per game this season. Without him, the Owls are down to just nine scholarship players. With their AAC schedule starting on January 9, the Owls are in a precarious position and at this point can probably forget about getting into any kind of postseason tournament.
3. Texas A&M picked up a big transfer yesterday as they landed SMU transfer Jalen Jones. You may remember that Jones announced that he would be transferring from SMU just as the season started. Jones, who led the Mustangs in scoring (14 per game) and rebounding (7 per game) last season, has two more years of eligibility remaining. Although there are reports that the Aggies will be applying for a waiver so Jones can play immediately we cannot imagine a scenario in which the NCAA would grant it although as we have said before they seem to granting waivers for everything else.
4. Looking for a more “scientific” preview of the upcoming conference races? As usual, Ken Pomeroy has you covered. In Part 1 and Part 2 of his three-part conference race preview (we assume Part 3 will be coming later today), Pomeroy ran Monte Carlo simulations of each conference race to predict the likelihood that each team will win their conference regular season. These races are ranked in order of competitiveness so do not wait for Part 3 to see where your power conference team is projected to finish. The Big 12 and Big Ten (arguably the two best conferences in the country) are ranked 17th and 14th respectively in terms of competitiveness.
5. Was one 116-12 game not enough for you? If you answered yes, then you may in luck as it appears that Southern and Champion Baptist appear to want to continue their “rivalry”. For those of you who missed the game on Monday, Southern scored the first 44 points of the game to set a NCAA record and continued to press well after the game was decided, which was probably in warm-ups. There is a possibility that next year’s match-up could be more competitive as Southern only beat Christian Baptist 90-36 last season so maybe Monday night was an aberration.

1. We will start off by wishing all of you a Happy New Year. We hope all of you had a great 2013 and that 2014 is even better. Today is a pretty light day in terms of college basketball action as the schools seem to be letting college football have its day in the spotlight. Still there are several interesting games with San Diego State at Colorado State, Boston College at Harvard, and Southern Methodist at Cincinnati being the most intriguing. If you are just killing some time before the games tonight, you should check out our “Best of 2013” column that takes a look back at some of the best games, moments, and performances of last year.
2. One team that is not having such a great start to the year is Oklahoma State as they lost Michael Cobbins for the season after he suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in the team’s win on Monday. Collins, a junior who was averaging 4.5 points and 4.3 rebounds per game this season, was also the team’s top post defender. Although Cobbins might not seem like a big piece to the Cowboys title aspirations based on his numbers, he plays at a position where the Cowboys lack depth. The job of replacing Cobbins will fall to sophomore Kamari Murphy, who has some experience in the role as he filled in last year when Cobbins injured his toe in the preseason.
3. The college basketball world lost one of its coaching giants yesterday as former Iowa State and Michigan coach Johnny Orr passed away at the age of 86. It seems ridiculous that we could say that Orr, a coach who made it to a national championship game and two more Elite Eights at Michigan, would be more strongly associated with Iowa State than Michigan, but it is true. Orr, who is the all-time wins leader at both schools, shocked many observers by leaving Michigan to take over at Iowa State, but he is credited with building “Hilton Magic” into what it is today.
4. We are not sure why there are not more quality college basketball “mailbag” columns. Perhaps it is because everybody is using Twitter as their “mailbag” forum to answer questions. In any event, Mark Titus has an amusing and surprising well-thought-out  mailbag from yesterday (part 1 and part 2). Most of the content is similar to the typical discussion, but it is somewhat interesting to see hear the responses from the perspective of a former college player (ok, who sat on the bench… a lot).
5. One of the interesting things with the Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week selections so far this year is that we don’t think any of them are legitimate threats to win the Player of the Year award. Obviously all of them, like DeAndre Kane this week, are excellent players, but we have not heard of any of the four that have received the honor this year being serious contenders for the end of the year award. Similarly, the Wayman Tisdale Freshman of the Week honor has been gone to one player (Jabari Parker) who will probably win the honor at the end of the year, but the other three winners including James Young this week do not figure to be in contention for the honor at the of the year. We guess it goes to show you the power of consistency.

With 2013 winding to a close, it’s time to take a look back at the year that was in college basketball. There were too many memorable moments to recount ‘em all, but here’s our honor roll for the last calendar year — a list laced with games, plays, and performances that will long struggle to escape our memory banks.

Best Game: Michigan vs. Kansas, NCAA Tournament, Sweet Sixteen

Trey Burke’s Last-Gasp Sweet-16 Heroics Will Surely Be One Of 2013’s Prevailing Memories

Gonzaga-Butler may have given us the best final seconds of regulation (see below), and Louisville-Notre Dame definitely donated the most riveting 25 minutes of action after regulation, but when talking games of the year, Michigan vs. Kansas was simply unmatched when it came to elevated stakes and elite talent. We won’t soon forget Trey Burke’s comeback-capping, game-tying three to force overtime, but it would be a shame if that’s all that lived on from this classic. Sweet Sixteen match-ups between national title contenders don’t come around every March; would you have bet against Kansas to get to Championship Monday if Burke’s three hadn’t found the bottom of the net on that Friday night?

Honorable Mention: Gonzaga at Butler, Louisville at Notre Dame.

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Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Sean Moran, the RTC recruiting guru. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to discussing the recruitments of the top uncommitted players in the country. We also encourage you to check out his contributions at The Intentional Foul dedicated to recruiting coverage and analysis. You can also follow Sean at his Twitter account @Seanmohoops for up-to-date news from the high school and college hoops scene. If you have any suggestions as to areas we are missing or different things you would like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Note: Scout.com used for all player rankings.

Justin Jackson is Ready for Chapel Hill

The top prospect in Roy Williams’ No. 4 rated recruiting class of 2014 is a rather unorthodox Top 10 recruit. Small forward Justin Jackson has been on the national radar since his freshman year in high school, a year that included a Sports Illustrated feature as a 15-year old. But he won’t be labeled a one-and-done prospect the minute he puts on a Carolina jersey like many of his highly-touted classmates. Standing at 6’8” and only 180 pounds, the No. 9 ranked player in the country has a slender build that belies a diverse skill set. In the summer of 2011 Jackson was primarily known as a three-point specialist on the Houston Hoops AAU team that was comprised of kids two years older than him. Now in his senior year, Jackson is anything but a long-range specialist, instead relying heavily on his strong mid-range game.

Justin Jackson is headed to North Carolina. (Bart Young/USA Basketball)

A rarity in the analytics age of close shots around the basket and corner threes, his patented shot is a floater from eight to 12 feet along with a soft one-dribble jump shot. During the spring and summer of 2013, Jackson teamed up with two other Top 10 prospects in Kelly Oubre (#6 overall – 2014) and Justise Winslow (#10 overall – 2014) to become one of the most efficient players on the AAU circuit. He averaged 17.1 points and 5.6 rebounds per game while shooting 58 percent from the field. He also shot 40 percent from the three-point line, but only attempted 37 treys in 24 games. Previously just an outside shooter, it seemed as though Jackson was not as confident in his jumper entering his senior season and discussed areas for improvement with Scout.com‘s Evan Daniels. “Definitely get stronger and just getting my three-point shot back,” Jackson said. “I’ve been working on it.” Ten games into his senior season, he is averaging 31.7 points per game and was recently named the Most Outstanding Player at the High School OT Invitational held in Raleigh, North Carolina. Read the rest of this entry »

1. It did not take very long for Louisville’s title defense to turn into a mess. On Saturday, the Cardinals lost to their in-state rival Kentucky in a game in which the Wildcats played for long stretches without Julius Randle, their best player. Yesterday, they lost something even bigger as they dismissed Chane Behanan from the team for an undisclosed violation of university policy. Unlike Behanan’s previous indefinite suspension we think this one will stick regardless of how much sleep Behanan gets. It goes without saying that it is a big blow for the Cardinals who now face an uphill battle in their quest to repeat as Behanan’s departure means an even bigger void on the inside.
2. Kevin Ware‘s potential redshirt is not as devastating to Louisville’s title defense chances as Behanan’s departure, but it serves as another setback for a team that is essentially living off last season’s reputation this year. Ware, whose injury and comeback served as a symbol for Louisville’s title run, had battled back to return to the court earlier than many expected. Unfortunately, it appears that a kick that he received to the same area as the fracture has caused enough damage that he might sit out the rest of the season.
3. This has not been the typical Gonzaga season so far and things appear to have gotten even tougher with the news that Gary Bell Jr. will be out “for a while” with a broken right hand. In addition to being much lower in the rankings than they are accustomed to, Gonzaga is also already dealing with injuries to Kevin Pangos and Sam Dower so Bell’s injury only exacerbates a growing problem. Fortunately for Gonzaga it seems like they will only have two teams–BYU and St. Mary’s–to deal with in the WCC and they play them at home first so if they are able to weather the storm in January they could be in good position if they are healthy by February.
4. On some levels Luke Fischer‘s decision to transfer from Indiana is not particularly notable, but the speed at which he did and how much of a higher level program Indiana was than the rest of his offers is interesting. We won’t pretend to know that much about Fischer or his game, but when a player has one offer from an elite program and a bunch of offers from good, but not elite programs it makes you wonder. Either the elite program is jumping on a hidden gem or maybe everybody else knows that the player might not be as competitive at that level. In any event, we suspect that Fischer will probably end up at one of the other schools that offered him a scholarship in high school.
5. Finally, with all the injuries, suspensions, and transfers that we have been talking about recently now seems like the perfect time for Seth Davis and his annual Jigsaw Man column. If you are not familiar with the concept, Davis tries to find a “relatively obscure” player who would fill a void on teams that seem to be missing one key element. The most common complaints with the column tend to be on how to define “relatively obscure” since we probably are familiar with almost every significant player in the country. After looking at this for years the best way to do it is just to accept any player who would not be considered a star on his team.

(Ed. note: this post was largely written prior to Monday afternoon’s news that forward Chane Behanan had been dismissed from the team, making a dire frontcourt situation even worse. Inconsistent as he was through the early part of the season, Behanan has proven that, when engaged, he can be an effective scorer and rebounder. The Cardinals will need to adjust to recreate his lost production.)

On Sunday, one day after Louisville fell, 73-66, to in-state rival Kentucky at Rupp Arena, Cardinals coach Rick Pitino took to his website to address some issues he feels his team needs to address as it prepares for American Athletic Conference play (which begins New Year’s Eve, when the Cardinals play at Central Florida). Chief among them was what Pitino perceives as a weak frontcourt. The analogy he uses to make this point is probably the funniest thing you’ve heard a college basketball coach say since Barry Hinson went rogue in a now-famous postgame press conference earlier this month. “Let me give you an analogy of our frontcourt knowing who they are. It’s like having Christina Aguilera to sing at a concert, she comes out, ignores her great voice and dances for two hours. That’s our front court,” Pitino writes. Later in his post, the Hall-of-Famer points out specific players… and name-checks another pop star. “In other words, Montrezl and Chane – Need to dominate the paint. Rebound like Kenneth Faried , defend like Dennis Rodman, block shots and dunk.  Score off rip moves and leave the dancing to Justin Timberlake.”

Behond Behanan’s dismissal, did Saturday’s loss to Kentucky reveal major problems in Louisville’s frontcourt? (Getty Images).

If you watched Saturday night’s game, wherein Kentucky’s forwards outplayed Louisville’s, Pitino’s assessment might sound accurate. The Cardinals looked overmatched on the low block. Most fans and media came to the same conclusion. The question is, what does Louisville’s underwhelming frontcourt play on Saturday night augur for the rest of the season? Is the Cardinals’ frontcourt so flawed, especially with the Monday loss of Chane Behanan, to the point it can’t be fixed in time for them to compete for a national championship? Is there nothing Pitino can do between now and March to make his team’s frontcourt better? Do I need to go back and listen to all of Christina Aguilera’s albums to find out?

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The last week of primarily non-conference play has wrapped up and both of its remaining premier match-ups took place on Saturday with top 10 Villanova taking its undefeated record to Syracuse and the Battle for the Bluegrass in Lexington between preseason top three teams Louisville and Kentucky. Both games saw the home team prevail, as Syracuse weathered an early Villanova run and dominated the second half to cruise to a 78-62 victory, while Kentucky’s youth movement gelled very well and treated Big Blue Nation to a 73-66 win. With conference play in many leagues set to begin this week, it will be interesting to see how quickly and substantially the impact of playing familiar foes has on future polls. The quick n’ dirty analysis of this week’s poll is after the jump.

Quick n’ dirty analysis.

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1. Michigan’s dreams of making another March run were dealt a major blow on Friday when the school announced that sophomore Mitch McGary would be out for the rest of the season after electing to have surgery on his lower back. McGary, who was one of the top recruits in the country coming out of high school even after a late slide down the rankings, started slowly as a freshman before turning around things late in the season to become perhaps Michigan’s second most effective player in the run to last season’s title game. Had he elected to enter the NBA Draft there is a good chance he might have been a lottery pick, but slowed by a back injury that had been bothering him since late August he was less effective (9.5 points and 8.3 rebounds per game) than the Wolverines would have hoped. Although we have seen college players make some strange decisions we assume that this will probably mean that McGary will return to Michigan next season to prove he is healthy unless some agent convinces him to leave with a guaranteed first round spot.
2. In a somewhat similar way, but for a completely different reason, we may have seen the last of suspended Utah State forward Jarred Shaw this season after he was charged with felony drug distribution. Shaw, the team’s leading scorer, rebounder, and shot blocker, had already been suspended after police found marijuana after responding to a call at his residence. According to police, the amount of marijuana that they found was “more than personal use.” Given the latest information, we would be surprised if we saw Shaw, a senior, back in an Aggie uniform. Our best guess is that Shaw is headed overseas for a pro career assuming he is not playing in a prison league first.
3. Seton Hall has already suffered several significant setbacks including both injuries and an Israeli military call-up, but those pale in comparison to what happened to Gene Teague on Friday night. Early in the second half of the team’s win over Lafayette, Teague went up for a lay-up and was undercut by a Lafayette player leading to an ugly fall (video here). Teague was immobilized, put on a stretcher, and taken to a local hospital when he was diagnosed as having suffered a concussion. The overall outcome is somewhat fortunate because based on the way he fell it could have been a lot worse. For now, Teague will be undergoing a series of tests as part of the standard concussion protocol to determine when he is fit to play again.
   
4. Many of our younger readers might not be familiar with King Rice, the former North Carolina point guard from 1988-91. If they are familiar with him, it would either be through replays of old games or his history of arrests that continued up through his coaching days. So it was good to read a New York Times profile on Rice that appears to indicate that he may have turned a corner. Now the head coach at Monmouth, Rice has been arrested on several occasions including once as a junior at UNC on charges of assaulting his then-girlfriend, resisting arrest, and destroying public property. Many of Rice’s issues, including that arrest, appear to have revolved around alcohol. According to Rice, he has been sober for 17 years, but as anybody who has ever interacted with an alcoholic knows that can change very quickly so we hope Rice can continue on the new track that he appears to be on.
5. This season has been a challenging one for Marquette and head coach Buzz Williams so it would not have been entirely shocking to see them try to get heralded freshman Duane Wilson healthy in order to try to salvage the season. Wilson, a top-100 recruit coming out of high school, has been sidelined with a stress fracture in his left leg since the preseason. On Friday, the school announced that Wilson would be taking a medical redshirt. Regardless of the status of Wilson’s recovery, which we have to rely on Marquette’s reports for, it seems like a redshirt is the best option for both parties as we doubt Wilson would have been unable to turn this team around and it seems reckless to throw away a year of eligibility on this Marquette season.

Rush the Court was in Lexington today for the Kentucky-Louisville game from Rupp Arena.

Three Key Takeaways.

John Calipari Moved to 78-2 at Rupp Arena With a Win Over Louisville.

1. Louisville Won’t Repeat Unless Mangok Mathiang Becomes a Trusted Defensive Finisher. The Louisville big man came into tonight’s game as a freshman starter with elite-level numbers — an offensive rating that ranks among the nation’s 100 best players, a top 25 ranking in offensive rebounding percentage, and a top 75 ranking in block percentage. So what’s the problem? The issue is that he only plays 18 minutes per game (22 tonight), which suggests that Rick Pitino doesn’t trust him as much as he does some of his veterans like Stephan Van Treese, Montrezl Harrell, Luke Hancock and Chane Behanan. Van Treese doesn’t bring much other than a big body for spot minutes to the table, but the latter three — while key contributors, all — are simply not big enough to compete with the elite big men around the country. A lineup where 6’5″ Wayne Blackshear is expected to defend seven-footer Willie Cauley-Stein in the post is simply ridiculous. Pitino needs one more reliable defensive post player whom he can trust down the stretch of close games, and Mathiang is really his only viable option there. 
   
2. Kentucky Playing Most of the Second Half Without Julius Randle Will Serve Dividends Later. For an extended period of the second half, Kentucky star forward Julius Randle was sidelined with cramps, briefly re-entering the game with about 12 minutes remaining only to beg out a few seconds later. The key stretch was from around the 14-minute mark to the six-minute mark, as the Wildcats, led by Andrew Harrison and James Young, outscored the Cardinals 15-4 to take a commanding lead in what had been a tight one. Not only is this huge for a young team’s confidence, but the black hole aspect of a post-up by Randle was removed from the offensive equation (and why wouldn’t you keep feeding a guy who had 17 points on 7-of-8 shooting in the first half?), and Kentucky’s offense actually got better as a result. Penetration-and-kick became the offense, and the Harrison twins are as good as any guards in the country at both getting shots up in the lane and finessing them into the hole. Young, with a jumper and a three of his own during this stretch, did his part, but the key takeaway here is that the other Wildcats are also incredibly talented offensive players, and tonight revealed a dimension that they can rely on in the case of foul trouble or injury to Randle down the line.
3. Kentucky’s Ceiling is Higher than Louisville’s. It’s tough to draw deep conclusions from a young team playing at home in front of a rabid crowd that willed them through. But after seeing both teams in person today, it’s obvious enough that in the battle of which team has fewer flaws and a higher potential ceiling, it is Kentucky. Even though the Wildcats are a lot younger than Louisville and exhibit it by making a lot of dumb mistakes (and missing half their free throws), they have more guys who can just go get buckets when called upon. Few teams in the country have that luxury — maybe Arizona and Kansas, perhaps Duke and Florida — but the Wildcats of November will look a lot different than the one of March, and we’re seeing that transformation happening right before our eyes.

Star of the Game. Andrew Harrison, Kentucky. He didn’t have the greatest shooting night at 6-of-16 from the field for 18 points and four assists, but as mentioned above, he was the spark that led his team to victory when Randle left the game. It was really a matter of his penetration into the paint which allowed him to call his own number for floaters a few times as well as to find kickouts for James Young’s jumpers. His brother Aaron came on strong at the end, for what was probably the best combined game for the Texas twins in a Kentucky uniform. Certainly the best meaningful game. 

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Here’s to hoping that this week brought you plenty of holiday cheer, because it surely did not supply you (or anyone else!) with much quality college basketball. Entertaining Diamond Head Classic final aside, this week was as slow as the college basketball season gets. Don’t despair, however, because Santa has delivered a Saturday chalk-full of college hoops. Two big-time rivalry games occupy the prime real estate on this weekend’s marquee, but there’s plenty of substance, albeit understated, sprinkled throughout Saturday’s docket of action. Here’s a quick primer on the big games in Syracuse and Lexington, plus a few other worthwhile narratives to monitor on this busy Saturday.

For The First Time In Over Three Decades, Syracuse And Villanova Will Meet As Non-Conference Opponents

A Couple Of Old Big East Friends

In the world of college basketball, eleven months is far from an eternity, but my, oh my; how things have changed since the last time Villanova and Syracuse locked horns! What was a Big East conference game last January will be an ACC versus (new) Big East affair today (2PM EST, CBS), and with both teams set to embark on their maiden voyages in the new leagues next week, the Carrier Dome will serve as the clinic for anyone needing one final dose of Big East nostalgia. Subplots abound in this game, but I’ll be especially interested to see how Villanova attacks the Syracuse zone. The Wildcats haven’t been a bad offensive team to this point in the season, but the Cats’ statistical breakdown on the offensive end puzzles. Villanova is 18^th best in the country in two-point field goal percentage (55.1%), also shoots the ball pretty well from the stripe (72.2%), but struggles from beyond the arc (204^th nationally in 3P% at 32.7%). With those splits, you’d expect Jay Wright’s team to focus their efforts inside the three-point line. So far, however, they’ve done the exact opposite – the Wildcats are 7^th in the country when it comes to percentage of field goal attempts from three-point range (45.7%). Will the chucking continue against an Orange zone that begs opponents to settle for deep shots (43.1% of Syracuse opponent’s field goal attempts are threes), or can the Wildcats throw aside this bit of statistical dissonance and find a way to get quality interior looks against the zone? Remains to be seen, but expect 30,000+ to get a first-hand view of the answer.

Battle For The Bluegrass 

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