Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

College basketball gave us plenty of memorable moments and stories in 2012. After sorting through the main headlines, we’ve come up with the 10 most consequential items and, for the sake of maintaining publishing sequence symmetry, releasing two per-day over the next five days to lead into the New Year. It was an excellent year for the sport, though I can’t promise you won’t regret reliving at least one or two of the choices. In any case, here’s to summing up a great year and to hoping that 2013 is better than the 365 days that preceded it.

Probably the most common gripe raised about college basketball’s marginally popular stature is the feeling that the season tips off without a momentous opening game or event. Fans bemoan weak non-conference competition and the long drag of conference play with the perceived insignificance of the regular season, resulting in most fans preferring to tune in around late February and into March as intensity heightens and games draw do-or-die implications. But above all else, the most frequent dig strikes at the absence of a grand season tip-off bonanza.

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Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

College basketball gave us plenty of memorable moments and stories in 2012. After sorting through the main headlines, we’ve come up with the 10 most consequential items and, for the sake of maintaining publishing sequence symmetry, releasing two per-day over the next five days to lead into the New Year. It was an excellent year for the sport, though I can’t promise you won’t regret reliving at least one or two of the choices. In any case, here’s to summing up a great year and to hoping that 2013 is better than the 365 days that preceded it.

The legend of Jabari Parker hit the mainstream before his likeness landed smack dab on the cover of Sports Illustrated, abutted with the title “The Best High School Basketball Player Since Lebron James…” and followed by his name. Parker became a household name in recruiting circles when he earned the first starting spot ever awarded to a freshman at famed Chicago basketball powerhouse Simeon Career Academy. He went on to win three Illinois state championships and was named the state’s “Mr. Basketball” as a junior, the only non-senior recipient in the award’s 32-year history. Parker is a very good basketball player, but living up to that lofty SI catchphrase is an enormous burden. And in today’s social media-infused sports scene, in which the thirst for recruiting news is abundant and relentless, Parker had his every move and statement dissected, analyzed and magnified on message boards and recruiting sites across the country.

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1. Unfortunately, the big news of the night is somewhat depressing (at least from a college basketball standpoint) as Creighton guard Josh Jones will no longer play for the team as doctors continue to work on his ongoing medical problems. We won’t get into the details of what has been released publicly about Jones’ medical condition although we easily could other than to summarize it as saying he had an infection of one of the valves of his heart while he was in high school that required open heart surgery (trust us when we say that this is rare even for something that seems as serious as an infection of the heart). After that surgery Jones apparently did relatively well until he lost consciousness before a game on December 6th. During the work-up, Jones was noted to have an abnormal heart rhythm (“an atrial flutter” as many news outlets have butchered the terminology). We are not privy to the details of what is planned next for Jones by his medical doctors other than their initial attempt at correcting the abnormal rhythm appears to have been unsuccessful and that reports say that “additional procedures will be necessary”. As we noted last night on Twitter, while we will miss seeing Jones on the court his health is much more important and we wish him the best of luck with whatever treatment he needs and hope he has a healthy productive life even if it doesn’t involve basketball. [Ed. Note: White & Blue Review has an excellent retrospective on Jones’ career.]
2. It looks like we may see the return of Louisville center Gorgui Dieng sooner than many expected as Rick Pitino told Jeff Goodman that Dieng will play against Kentucky on December 29. This does not come as much of a surprise to us as we noted this as the target date for his return all the way back when his injury was initially reported and the expected recovery time was announced. Dieng’s return will certainly add to the atmosphere of a game that was expected by many to be the biggest game of the regular season before the season started, but has lost much of its luster due to the struggles of a young Wildcat team. Louisville would have been the clear favorite whether or not Dieng played, but his return gives us a match-up of two of the top centers in the country even if Dieng is not at 100%.
3. While several prominent programs have struggled early this season, Michigan State might be the most intriguing partly because it seems like they always do this–start out slow and then surprise everybody in March. As Brian Hamilton notes the key to any late-season success that they may be the play of Branden Dawson, who is returning from an ACL tear in March. While we still contend that Gary Harris will need to be the star if the Spartans are going to be a threat in March, Dawson’s improvement may represent the biggest impact for the Spartans. In the past we would have said a year was too short a period to see a player come all the way back from an ACL tear, but then we saw Adrian Peterson.
4. It seems like we read columns all the time that criticize the NCAA for its handling of student-athlete cases and its mishandling of what people assume its priorities should be. The latest case comes from The Los Angeles Times in a piece that analyzes the NCAA’s handling of cases in southern California.While we can agree with many of the basic tenets of the article we have to point out that these issues are hardly unique to the schools in that area as fans at Miami and Texas most recently can attest to based on their experiences. Still the point stands and even if the NCAA is not in fact a bully at some point perception becomes reality and that is something that the NCAA needs to fight if it is ever to win the PR battle.
5. After never featuring a college football article in the Morning Five until yesterday we are coming back for a second helping as it relates to the challenges a recruit faces when he is being courted by various college. In this case, a three-star football recruit who had originally committed to Ole Miss before switching over to Alabama on Christmas. While this might be the end of the story in most cases normally a school would try to win back its lost recruit, but Ole Miss is forbidden from doing so because the recruit, who was doing a postgraduate year after failing to qualify academically, had signed an SEC financial aid agreement that prohibits other schools in the conference from trying to recruit that player afterwards. While this does make sense to some degree as the article states it is something that is only offered to postgraduate students (and not because they are theoretically more well-educated at the recruiting game) and is something that we had never heard of despite covering college sports (basketball) for over five and a half years so you can imagine what it is like for a teenager.

1. If you missed last night’s game between Arizona and San Diego State in what was billed as the battle of the two best teams on the West Coast you missed an excellent game with a crazy finish. After what could be can most gently describe as a slow start where both teams struggled to make even basic basketball plays, the level of play increased significantly. We are not ready to jump on the Arizona bandwagon with both feet, but after their 68-67 win we are looking for an open space to hop into pretty soon. The Wildcats are still a work in progress and we are not sure if we fully buy into a team that relies on Mark Lyons as its point guard, but they have a solid combination of youth, talent, and experience to make them an intriguing team in March. Most of the country will probably forget about the Wildcats until March as they don’t play another ranked team the rest of the season, but they would be wise to keep an eye on what is going on in Tucson.
2. We are pretty sure that we have never linked to a college football article in the Morning Five before, but the article by the NCAA (hello, propaganda) about how San Jose State turned around its APR by focusing on student academics at all levels caught our eye. While we certainly can appreciate the work that the school did to achieve this change we are sure that some will view this as nothing more than an attempt by the NCAA to get people to support its APR system that has been criticized by many as being ineffective in judging a school’s performance in educating its student-athletes. While we will leave you to ponder that, we found the last quote in the article amusing given the current economic/unemployment situation: “But if you have a degree, you are set for life.”
3. While Syracuse has had to deal with its share of bad publicity over the past week there are still some good stories happening on campus including a basketball player–Baye Moussa Keita–and a football player from Senegal and the Ivory Coast respectively who are making a substantial impact on their teams. While they have somewhat similar backgrounds (coming from Africa to the United States in their teens, there are some key differences as the article illustrates, but they still managed to form a bond at the school. We don’t know much about the football player they talk about, but we can say that Keita has certainly improved over the years and plays hard. We doubt that he ever play in the NBA, but he should have a professional career overseas.
4. As we near the start of conference play, we have seen some sensational freshmen performances even if none of them may quite match the impact that Anthony Davis had last year. In his weekly Freshmen of the Year column, Jeff Borzello takes a look at the top freshmen in the country. While the ranking should not come as much of a surprise, looking at it should serve as a reminder that even though this year’s freshmen class may not be as loaded as some in year’s past there are still several freshmen who could merit consideration for first team All-American consideration by the end of the season.
5. Depending on where you live you have heard varying amounts of Christmas caroling over the past few weeks, but we doubt that you heard many carols from a college basketball team. We know it’s a little late now (or maybe a little early if you are already looking forward to Christmas 2013), but Jeff Eisenberg collected some of the best (or worst) renditions this holiday season. Now none of these approach the brilliance of a #DMXMas, but they are worth a listen if you are sitting around doing nothing today even if only to satisfy your curiosity as to how such a production would turn out.

Happy Holidays, everyone. As we enter the last major dry spell of the season this week with Christmas break upon us, this might be the last chance that you’ll have to see so little movement in our weekly poll. Next weekend features a number of intriguing games involving our Top 25 teams, and conference play looms immediately after that. Even so, there were some notable changes in this week’s poll — Syracuse and Missouri were the biggest movers — so let’s jump to the Quick n’ Dirty analysis after the jump.

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Yeah, we know we’re recycling old images but this is a good one and the sentiment is the same. We want to wish everyone  reading Happy Holidays and a very Merry Christmas. Enjoy your families, gifts and all the trappings that go along with the season — it’s truly a special time of year.

1. After a week’s break while we “recuperated” in Rio de Janeiro (don’t worry we kept up with college basketball happenings) the Morning Five is back. Fortunately, the news in the world of college basketball has been relatively light in the past few days as when news happens during breaks it is usually negative news. We hope that all of you are enjoying the holidays with your family and if you are working (like some of us) we hope you get out of work early.
2. Although most teams played a relatively light schedule last week with many students finishing their final exams there were some very interesting results. If you were busy with other obligations and missed out on some of the action, Seth Davis’ weekly “Fast Breaks” column is a great refresher. In this week’s column he goes over the usual themes including best teams/players/games, but also takes time to talk to Winthrop head coach Pat Kelsey, who made national headlines for his impassioned speech against the violence in Newtown, Connecticut. As usual, the column is well worth your time and also points out a rather big game tonight that you might miss if you are focused on things like putting together toys or trying to figure out how to return those ugly clothes that someone gave you.
3. If you are looking for a more numbers-based approach to last week, Ken Pomeroy might be more like what you are looking for. Pomeroy employs a slightly different method than Davis does (or at least from what Davis says he does), but their results are fairly similar as you can see from Pomeroy’s top games and upsets. Assuming that Davis isn’t relying solely on Pomeroy’s work/post (and we doubt it) this is what look for in good advanced metrics–the data is in agreement with what we see with our eyes.
4. We are getting near the end of the year and of course that means everybody will be churning out end of the year columns, but Seth Davis is certainly among the first to do so with his look at the biggest moments of the year. We are not going to argue for the exclusion of any these moments (ok, we could have done without any memories of the ridiculous First Four), but we are a little surprised that he could not find a space in there for Kentucky since that team and specifically Anthony Davis will be the defining memory of 2012 for us. Not to be outdone, Mike DeCourcy takes a look at the naughty and nice of college basketball [Ed. Note: We think this is the first time we have linked to a video in the Morning Five.], which could probably double as a year-end feature given the fact that he goes back into last season to dig out some of his choices. As he notes, we could really just give the naughty “award” to the NCAA all the time for this.
5. Speaking of naughty (or at least Grinch-like), Gary Parrish was not willing to share in the holiday spirit and let Christmas week pass without his weekly Poll Attacks column. This week, Gary has a couple of targets: a writer who has been frequently called out and is taking issue with it now and another whom he thinks values North Carolina too highly. As always it is an entertaining column and we can only hope that more writers respond to Gary either directly or indirectly if for nothing more than our amusement.

Chris Johnson is an RTC columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

The Weekend’s Lede. The Holidays Are Here. The Holiday season closes the curtain on the nonconference portion of the college basketball season. At the turn of the New Year, most teams will have played their final out of league games. Some will have commenced conference play. Between now and January 1, players and coaches will enjoy breaks of various duration, but every team will set aside part of its hectic five-month schedule for some family bonding and holiday cheer. We will miss the hardwood action that made our weeknights bearable and our weekends excitable. Not to worry: the end of the winter festivities brings a new chapter of the season. Conference play is a significant turning point, a temporal marker, but most of all, it heralds a new level of competitiveness and intensity. Why am I talking about this so far in advance? Well, why not? League play is much more fun than the low-cut mix of competition observed in November and December. It’s non-stop high-stakes competition. Anyway, endure the next few hoop-less days as joyfully as possible and take your favorite teams’ scheduling gap as a cue to follow suit and spend time with those closest to you. In short, enjoy the Holiday Season! I’ll be back with more nightly recaps before you know it.

Your Watercooler Moment. An Ode To One Of College Hoops’ Great Lost Rivalries. 

Kansas vs. Ohio State Was Great, But It’s No Border War

Arguably the biggest realignment-related hoops casualty was the Border War, a decades-old feud between Missouri and Kansas played with venomous spite, healthy antagonism and competitive fire unlike any other game in the sport. Last year’s renditions were nothing short of excellent, with the Tigers taking the first meeting and the Jayhawks exacting revenge three weeks later. Losing that game is a huge blow to the sport’s traditional appeal, and make no mistake, it would have hurt at any point in the rivalry’s historical progression. That it finally came to expire this season, when both teams feature national contending outfits, is doubly painful. Saturday gave us yet another reason to lament the loss of the old Big 12 rivalry. Both Kansas and Missouri knocked off top-10 opponents (Missouri beat Illinois; Kansas beat Ohio State), each stating its claim for conference superiority. With Florida falling to Kansas State, and Kansas looking far and away like the class of the Big 12, it is no huge stretch to crown Missouri and Kansas temporary lordship of their respective leagues. Kansas’ grip on the Big 12 probably has more staying power, if only because the top of the Big 12 has yet to produce an equal competitor. The SEC, meanwhile, has two teams – Florida and Kentucky – who, provided they round into form over the course of conference play, may well test Missouri’s top-dog stature. Plus, Kansas is Kansas. Conference championships are nothing new for the Jayhawks. This is foreign territory for the Tigers; not only because it’s their first year in a new league. It’s also the first time in years where they’ve truly separated themselves amongst from other conference challengers – aside from Florida, no one’s touching the Tigers; at least not now – and certainly the first time they’ve done as much under second-year coach Frank Haith. 

Weekend Quick Hits…

• Temple Gets Quality Nonleague Result It Needed. Two weeks ago, Temple took on Duke at the IZOD center. The Blue Devils destroyed Fran Dunphy’s team. But, hey, that was Duke, the undisputed king of November and December. When the Owls lost to Temple, all bets were off. This team had major issues to sort out. Which is why Saturday’s upset of No. 3 Syracuse, previous owners of a 52-game nonconference winning streak, was so very unexpected. Temple cracked open the unrelenting puzzle that is Jim Boeheim’s trademark 2-3 zone, primarily thanks to Khalif Wyatt’s 33 points and Anthony Lee’s 21, both career-highs. Butler and VCU have proven themselves more than capable of handling the jump to a more prominent league. In fact, one can make the argument that Stevens and Smart’s squads have been the A-10’s most impressive squads to date. Temple proved Saturday it won’t cede conference bragging rights to the newcomers without putting up a real fight.
• Excellent Championship Showdown In Diamond Head Classic. The bulk of specialized exempted Tournament had come and gone during the first few months of the season. The Diamond Head Classic is An annual rite of Christmas Cheer, held in late December each and every year. After Arizona\’s Monday morning romp over Miami — whom many had crowned the ACC\’s second best team after recent wins over Michigan State, Charlotte, UCF and UMass — an excellent championship tilt between the Wildcats and San Diego State (who topped Indiana State en route to the final) has come into clear view. Want some high-quality hoop to light up your Christmas Night?  Tuesday\’s Final can\’t come soon enough. Read the rest of this entry »

Brian Goodman is an RTC editor. He filed this report from the Hy-Vee Wildcat Classic in Kansas City, where Kansas State held off Florida for an important non-conference win.

Five Key Takeaways.

• Kansas State Scores Crucial Non-Conference Win: Nabbing an important non-conference victory on Saturday was important for Kansas State, which came up short against Michigan and Gonzaga earlier this season. As time passed, Saturday’s game became even more crucial for the Wildcats’ Tournament resume as the Big 12 has revealed itself to be lacking in marquee competition beyond the top tier. Though the calendar hasn’t yet turned to 2013, Kansas State head coach Bruce Weber acknowledged the dwindling number of opportunities his team had as a significant part of his team’s preparation. Saturday’s outcome may be for naught if the Wildcats struggle in league play as the team continues to embrace Weber’s system and evolve, but credit is due to Kansas State in the moment for capitalizing on the opportunity and realizing the impact tonight’s game could have come Selection Sunday.

K-State Got a Huge Win Over Florida Tonight

• Wildcats, Led By Henriquez, Dominate On Defense: The main discussion point entering Saturday’s game was how Kansas State’s stout defense would fare against the versatile, potent Florida attack. The Wildcats’ muscle turned out to be the difference in KSU’s victory, with forward Jordan Henriquez swatting five shots and altering several others in 18 terrific minutes off the bench. Rodney McGruder and Will Spradling hassled the Gators’ three-point shooters into a season-worst 26.3% performance beyond the arc, accentuated by Mike Rosario and Kenny Boynton’s combined 1-of-9 mark from deep. The Gators clawed back from a double-digit halftime deficit, but made just two shots over an eight-minute stretch, buying time for Kansas State to climb ahead for good. Patric Young’s double-double (19 points and 10 rebounds) may look good on a stat sheet, but it would be remiss to not acknowledge that a handful of Young’s points came after the game had been decided and Kansas State focused its defensive effort on the perimeter to prevent a late comeback. Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Correspondent. He was at Madison Square Garden for Temple’s 83-79 victory over Syracuse. You can follow him @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

If Jim Boeheim’s 900th career victory was a nervous frenzy, the next game was a stroke of unfamiliarity. Over 50 times Syracuse played a non-conference game, and over 50 times Syracuse won. On Saturday, the Orange met their match in soon-to-be Big East member Temple. It was an upset insofar as Syracuse’s No. 3 ranking denotes national standing, and Temple’s unranked status confers inferiority. More shocking was the fact that Temple was itself upended by Canisius at home just three days prior.

The Owls rebounded from a humbling home loss to upset the undefeated Orange, thanks in large part to Khalif Wyatt’s 33 points. (Photo credit: Getty Images).

The odds were stacked high against Fran Dunphy’s Owls – not just in the broader historical context of Syracuse’s non-conference success (not to mention its overwhelming home court advantage in the building ‘Cuse fans deem “The Other Carrier Dome”), but also in relation to the event that directly preceded Saturday’s upset. As unsettling and eyebrow-raising as Wednesday’s home loss was, Temple needed that wake-up call to knock off the then-No. 3 Orange. “I don’t know if we would have won today if we didn’t lose Wednesday,” Dunphy said. “Wednesday catapulted us into today. We needed to learn a lesson.”

Lesson learned. Temple picked apart Boeheim’s patented 2-3 zone with precise high-post flares, efficient floor spacing, and timely shooting. It was a textbook takedown of one of the best zone defenses in college basketball. And none of it would have been possible without the steady efforts of senior Khalif Wyatt. In the Canisius loss, Wyatt finished 6-of-16 from the field for 17 points, including 0-of-6 from three. Three days later, the senior had the game of his life, literally and figuratively. The box score paints a flattering statistical portrait: 33 points, 8-of-17 from the field, 15-of-15 from the free throw line. But to fully appreciate Wyatt’s performance, one must indulge in visual description.

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