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

The missing element to SMU’s surprising hire of Larry Brown is the Hall of Fame coach’s less-than-healthy history of run-ins with the NCAA. The last time Brown walked off the college hardwood, he left Kansas in deep NCAA waters. The Jayhawks were suspended from the 1989 NCAA Tournament for infractions during Brown’s tenure. Eight years earlier, he brought damaging penalties to another blueblood program, this time leaving UCLA to relinquish its 1980 Final Four appearance after learning Brown had used ineligible players. Though he spent one-year at Davidson (1972) without stepping into NCAA troubles, Brown’s college track record gives cause for pause. In two extended stays at high-profile locales, he’s left behind a punitive footprint – whether by his own volition or otherwise. And that’s before the seedy undercurrents – before agents, runners, nefarious third-parties and shoe companies solidified their place in elite prospects’ inner circles – that define today’s recruiting landscape fully seeped their way into high school and grassroots hoops. That’s not to say third-parties didn’t exist 20 or even 30 years ago; they did, but not nearly to the extent they do in today’s recruiting culture. Brown can steer clear of NCAA punishment, even in today’s hazardous environment, but it will require a nuanced overview of NCAA guidelines and procedures for a man whose only interaction with the organization (albeit more than two decades ago) ended twice with harsh discipline.

The positive intrigue surrounding Brown’s hire is underwriting his questionable past in the college ranks (Photo credit: LM Otero/AP).

For most coaches, a checkered past like Brown’s would elicit no small measure of skepticism and suspicion. Hiring a coach with an extended inability to follow NCAA protocol demands scrutiny, no matter the credentials of the incoming head man. But Brown has avoided any and all sorts of public backlash or cynicism. He is embarking on his new job with a litany of past NCAA baggage, carrying a free pass from an increasingly dubious national punditry and a wave of positive sentiment highlighting his every move.

Now consider by way of a counterpoint the onrush of mistrust and doubt surrounding John Calipari and his inheritance of the Kentucky job. Calipari, to many the poster boy for all things evil in college hoops –- the one-and-done rule, the way he pilfers the nation’s top high school players, his players-before-the-program approach that drew irksome reviews from the UK faithful — has never been personally charged with a major recruiting violation. He annually persuades the best high school players in the country to join his program, annually competes on the sport’s highest stage, and regularly repeats the process with a new batch of five-star imports. His system is so refined, so proven, so successful, that fans and coaches can’t help but question his practices. Because when you install and master a winning model, when rival programs suffer the misfortune of knowing their efforts simply can’t match up, criticizing and bashing Calipari’s system is the only ammunition available. When you can’t beat him, falsely accuse him – or so the saying goes…

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Kevin Doyle is the RTC correspondent for the Patriot League. You can find him on Twitter at @KLDoyle11

Top Storylines

• C.J. And Moose: You’ve read about them all summer, and will continue to do so even more during the season. C.J. McCollum and Mike Muscala have developed into household names in the college basketball community on a national scale, not just in the charming land of mid-major basketball. McCollum has garnered more press, understandably, due to Lehigh’s victory against Duke in the NCAA Tournament. His decision to test the waters of the NBA Draft — he smartly did not hire an agent — gave him the opportunity to return to Lehigh. Muscala has earned his fair share of press as well, being named as a Top 100 player by CBS Sports and a Mid-Major All American by NBC Sports’ College Basketball Talk.
• A Two-Bid league? An ambitious thought to be sure, but a possibility, albeit a small one. Prior to delving into what has to break right for either Bucknell or Lehigh to garner an at-large berth, let’s take a look at Bucknell’s 2005-06 resume: RPI of 42, 2-3 versus the RPI top 50 with wins over Syracuse and St. Joseph’s, 23rd-ranked non-conference schedule, and the only loss that could be considered a “bad loss” was to Santa Clara, which had an RPI of 184. The Bison went on to defeat Holy Cross in the Patriot League championship, earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, but what if Bucknell had lost? With their resume, they would have almost assuredly earned an at-large bid. Fast forward seven years, and one has to wonder if a similar scenario may play out. Could Lehigh or Bucknell earn an at-large bid? It’s more likely that Bucknell would, considering the Bison’s non-conference schedule is better than Lehigh’s and there are more opportunities to pick up resume-building wins, but one thing is certain: It is possible for a Patriot League team to earn an at-large bid. The notion that it all comes down to “three games in March,” while the case most years, may not be the case in 2012-13.

C.J. McCollum (left) and Mike Muscala are two of the many reasons why the Patriot League is one to watch this season.

• Reed, Paulsen Moving Up? Doctor Brett Reed (side note: Reed received his PhD from Wayne State University in Instructional Technology) and Dave Paulsen have proven to be exceptional recruiters and developers of talent, and the results on the court speak for themselves. Complete conjecture, but it seems they both are on the inside track to move up in the coaching world, especially with their respective star players graduating in the spring of 2013. Reed, a native of Waterford, Michigan, was rumored to have been a candidate for the Central Michigan job (Keno Davis is now the head man for the Chippewas) along with other MAC jobs, while Paulsen was speculated to be a candidate for the Dayton job in 2011. Paulsen, however, was awarded with a five-year extension to his contract last year, so it looks like he will remain in Lewisburg for the foreseeable future. Paulsen has won everywhere he has coached: St. Lawrence, Le Moyne, Williams, and now Bucknell. Reed is one of the brighter young basketball minds in the coaching ranks, and in my mind the smoothest and most eloquent speaker in the game.
• Pivotal Season for Brown, Holy Cross: Although Holy Cross head coach Milan Brown has a less than stellar mark of 23-35 record in his first two years at the helm, he nearly doubled his win total from year one to two (8-21 in 2010-11, 15-14 in 2011-12). As such, it is imperative that he builds upon the success the Crusaders had during conference play last year — Holy Cross won its final six games of the regular season — and continue this upward trend. Brown has made it known he wishes to push the ball up the floor on offense whenever the opportunity presents itself, and to instill a high-pressure man-to-man defense. With two recruiting classes now under his belt, Holy Cross should be more apt in implementing Brown’s offensive and defensive systems. Despite those two recruiting classes on campus, it will be slightly more difficult to build on the success as R.J. Evans elected to use his final year of eligibility at Connecticut. (Hard to blame Evans for his decision as he hails from the Nutmeg State and watched the Huskies win two national titles growing up.)   Read the rest of this entry »

And away we go, headfirst into another season heralded by our 2012-13 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season 100% guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight. We’ve captured here what we believe were the most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back the goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head. Enjoy!

#23 – Where The Carrier Classic Happens

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, and 2011-12 seasons.

1. News like that which came out of Bowling Green, Ohio, yesterday is nothing less than extremely disappointing from a societal standpoint. Ignorance, of course, knows no bounds, and it’s clearly alive and well in northwestern Ohio. The Toledo Blade reports that a swastika along with the words “white power” were written in chalk sometime Saturday night outside the home of Bowling Green head coach Louis Orr, an African-American. A former star at Syracuse in the 1970s, Orr has been the head coach at the MAC school for the last five seasons, owning a 76-82 record. A city police representative stated that no direct threats were made against Orr and his family nor where they in danger of “immediate harm,” but that’s more or less like putting fancy lipstick on a pig. Much like the pig, these actions by a coward (or group of them) are disgusting and have no place in modern American society. 
2. How about some better news, like cancer research and treatment? UCLA and Texas yesterday announced the naming of a double-header between its men’s and women’s basketball teams that will be called (get ready for this mouthful) the MD Anderson Proton Therapy Showcase. Even thought it sounds more like a theoretical physics convention than a basketball extravaganza, the Longhorns and Bruins will meet under this moniker on December 8 of this season at Reliant Stadium in Houston, with plans to make this an annual event featuring other prominent programs from around the country. Anderson’s Proton Therapy Center touts itself as one of the leading cancer treatment centers in the world, and attaching its name to this game will no doubt increase awareness to all of the innovative and impressive radiation therapies they’re successfully utilizing there. 
3. While on the subject of UCLA this season, the LA Times‘ Bill Plaschke writes that the black cloud hanging over Ben Howland’s program while waiting on the NCAA to rule on the eligibility of Shabazz Muhammad and Kyle Anderson is pervasive around the joint. As he put it, it’s “never a good sign” when “the team’s media day [is] monitored by the school’s vice chancellor for legal affairs.” In the weeks prior to the big unveiling of a statue of John Wooden and a renovated Pauley Pavilion in anticipation of what many pundits believe will be a renaissance year in Westwood, we’re instead left with a group of fab freshmen who are off limits to reporters and a testy coaching staff habitually checking for any contact from Indianapolis. Unfortunately for every school involved with elite recruits these days, this is the world we live in.
4. A little recruiting news leaked out about Jabari Parker last night, but not the kind anyone wants. After narrowing his list to five schools a couple of weeks ago — BYU, Stanford, Duke, Michigan State, and Florida — there was some hope that the nation’s top prospect in the Class of 2013 (according to some) would be ready to make his choice during the November 14-21 signing period. Alas, no dice, according to his father. Parker is planning on taking all five of his official visits in coming weeks, with his final trip to Provo ending on November 20. With just one day to then narrow his list from five schools to one, the 6’8″ forward has decided to put off his verbal commitment until December at the earliest — meaning, of course, that no pen will touch paper until next April. Also, the recent decision by the Church of Latter-Day Saints to allow its members to begin serving their missions at the age of 18 could also play a role in Parker’s (a practicing Mormon) recruitment. Although we can’t imagine that the talented young player would preclude his manifest destiny into the NBA for an additional one or even two years, it must be considered as a factor in the analysis.
5. The Colonial Athletic Association held its Media Day in Arlington, Virginia, on Tuesday, and it is certainly strange to not see VCU represented among its now-11 members. Without the Rams to get in the way, the league’s coaches and media voted Bruiser Flint’s Drexel Dragons as the top team in the league, with Delaware, George Mason, and Old Dominion following behind. Junior point guard Frantz Massenat, an all-CAA first teamer last season when he averaged 14/3/5 APG while leading the Dragons to a 29-7 overall record (16-2 CAA), was selected as the preseason CAA Player of the Year. Delaware in the second slot in the preseason standings is surprising because the Blue Hens have been so bad for so long since joining the CAA in 2001 (only two winning conference seasons) that it’s hard to believe that they may have finally turned the corner (they probably have). Good for them.

Ethan Back is the MAC correspondent for RTC.

Top Storylines

• Will Ohio Be Able to Reach the Sweet Sixteen Again? After an extremely successful season that ended in an overtime loss in the Sweet Sixteen against ACC power North Carolina, Ohio will look to make another deep NCAA Tournament run. The Bobcats have a lot of hype to live up to, as they return all of their significant contributors from a season ago, including standouts D.J. Cooper and Walter Offutt. Not all of the personnel returns from a season ago, however, with former head coach John Groce now at Illinois, but new head coach Jim Christian will look to keep momentum going.

Ohio’s D.J. Cooper Hopes To Follow One Head-Turning Season With Another. (AP Photo/T. Dejak)

• Toledo’s Postseason Ban: Toledo has a very solid core intact from the 2011-12 season, so it’s a real shame that the Rockets won’t be able to qualify for postseason play due to its academic problems. Luckily for the Rockets, two of its best players (Rian Pearson and Julius Brown) are underclassmen, so they’ll still get a chance to win the MAC Tournament in future years, assuming they stay in school beyond the 2012-13 season.
• East vs. West: Last season, the East had five teams finish with a winning record, whereas the West had a measly one. This clear imbalance within the MAC doesn’t have serious ramifications, as the conference tournament seeds are not based on division, but for the sake of self-respect, the West will hope to have a better season than it did last year.
• No More Zeiglers: Winning games hasn’t been an easy task for Central Michigan these past two seasons, as its 12-20 conference record during that span indicates. It won’t be any easier this year after the firing of head coach Ernie Zeigler led to the transfer of his son and the Chippewas’ leading scorer Trey Zeigler to Pittsburgh. New head coach Keno Davis brings great experience to the program, but his first season on the job will likely be a rough one.

Reader’s Take I

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And away we go, headfirst into another season heralded by our 2012-13 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season 100% guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight. We’ve captured here what we believe were the most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back the goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head. Enjoy!

#24 – Where The Sweet Taste of Victory (Finally) Happens

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, and 2011-12 seasons.

Most of the prominent schools who were going to hold a Midnight Madness event already held it, with the majority coming on Friday night (highlights here) and a few others — Harvard and Louisville, for example — trickling out over the weekend. A good number of schools for one reason or another have held off on a celebration thus far, choosing instead to introduce this year’s team to the fans in the coming days and weeks.

UNC Celebrated More Than Just the Return of the Team Friday Night (credit: Jeffrey A. Camarati)

Here’s the list of Midnight Madness stragglers, for those of you still interested.

• Arizona – Sunday, October 21 – Arizona’s McDonald’s Red-Blue game at 2 PM PT will feature a scrimmage as well as a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Arizona’s 1988 Final Four team.
• BYU  – Wednesday, October 24 – Cougar Tipoff will begin at 7 PM MT and also run streaming on byutvsports.com.
• Dayton – Saturday, October 20 – Dayton’s Red and Blue Scrimmage will begin at Noon ET and feature autographs and a meet-and-greet session prior to the football team’s game against Valparaiso.
• Duke – Friday, October 19 – Countdown to Craziness is scheduled for 8 PM ET on Friday night and will be carried live on GoDuke.com. Several elite prospects in the Classes of 2014 and 2015 are expected to be there.
• Gonzaga – Saturday, October 20 – Kraziness at the Kennel tips off at 4 PM PT. The event is also being held concurrently with Fall Family Weekend on the Gonzaga campus, and one fan will get to shoot a halfcourt shot for a chance at $10,000.
• Ohio State – Monday, October 22 – The Agonis Club is again sponsoring a meet-and-greet with the players and bid through a silent auction for team gear and seats right behind the bench. This event, which costs $75 per person to attend, begins at 5:30 PM ET.
• Stanford – Friday, October 19 – The Cardinal’s Friday Frenzy event, beginning at 6 PM PT, will feature a raffle for a fan to win an all-expenses paid trip to the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas next month.
• UNLV – Thursday, October 18 – The Runnin’ Rebel Scarlet/Gray Showcase (that’s a mouthful) will begin at 7 PM PT and feature a Legends Game in addition to the standard fan-friendly dunk contest and scrimmage.
• Villanova – Thursday, October 18 – Hoops on the Hudson will take place at 6:30 PM ET at The Lighthouse on Pier 61 in Manhattan so that NYC-area fans and alumni can meet the team in a relaxed environment. The price per person: $300.
• Xavier – Saturday, October 20 – Musketeer Madness will tip off at 6 PM ET with introductions to the team and the standard fare of events.

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

When Murray State guard Zay Jackson was sentenced to 30 days of jail time after pleading guilty to two charges of wanton endangerment, there was no immediate indication Jackson had seen his final days in a Racers uniform. In fact, MSU athletic director Allen Ward confirmed Friday that Jackson would remain “part of the team this year” after serving his punishment, saying that the senior guard had learned from his mistake, recalibrated his off-court demeanor, and would be welcomed back on campus with open arms. On Monday, after WPSD Local 6 News went public with surveillance footage of Jackson’s parking lot incident, that forgiving posture reached its breaking point. A word of caution: The course of events – the most jarring of which involves Jackson using his white Monte Carlo as a vehicular wrecking ball – are extremely disturbing, and should be viewed with discretion. Details of the confrontation emerged in the wake of Jackson’s initial arraignment, more than a month before Monday’s video release. Alia Clement, one of the victims of Jackson’s wheelside rage, called it “the scariest day I’ve had in my entire life.” According to Clement, the perilous chain of action began when she called out Jackson for pushing a shopping cart into a nearby vehicle. Tensions escalated when Jackson threatened her husband, Jason, who tried to photograph Jackson’s license plate to report his malfeasance. The heated back-and-forth escalated quickly and culminated with Jackson flooring his vehicle right through the Clements.

The video of Jackson’s incident will evoke calls for Jackson’s immediate expulsion from the team (Photo credit: Andy Lyons/Getty Images).

Nothing has changed with respect to Jackson’s legal status or his length of punishment. He is still slated to finish out a month-long sentence, at which point he will be free to return to campus and, presumably, re-join the men’s basketball team. That was the impression Ward gave after Friday’s sentencing. Several days later, it’s reasonable to think his posture has changed. What once could be shielded by a veil of misinformed public perception (it wasn’t until Monday that everyone found out what really happened) has been spun into a national saga of repulsion and disbelief. Now that the lurid details of Jackson’s heinous act have gone viral, the classification – playing Grand Theft Auto in Walmart parking lots is “wanton endangerment?” Really? – and severity of punishment have been thrown into sharp public scrutiny. From a law enforcement standpoint, unless some other credible details related to Jackson’s actions emerge, his punishment cannot be altered ex post facto on the basis of video evidence. Jackson has been charged and sentenced. Case closed. But Murray State is well within its rights to ramp up Jackson’s punishment on its side of the equation. At this point, it’s almost mandatory.

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1. From the we’ll-believe-it-when-we-see-it department, ACC coaches on Monday squarely put NC State’s Mark Gottfried right into the conference crosshairs with their decision to pick his Wolfpack as the front-runner for the 2012-13 league championship. Whew. NC State received eight of the 12 first-place votes, with second-place Duke receiving three, and North Carolina receiving the other top vote. Nobody will deny that Gottfried returns the most talent in the ACC from a Sweet Sixteen team — and adds quite possibly the best freshman in the league to boot — but still, the Wolfpack were a 9-7 conference team last season and Gottfried has never been a coach who has consistently gotten it done in the regular season. His best two teams at Alabama went 12-4 in the SEC (2001-02 and 2004-05) and he wasn’t facing the likes of Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams when he was cementing those records. From our perspective, the league belongs to Duke and North Carolina until it’s taken from them (the last team to win the ACC outright other than Duke/UNC occurred a decade ago).
2. While on the subject of Duke, the Blue Devil program made quite a bit of news on Monday. While spending the day 90 miles south of Durham at Fort Bragg, going through physical training drills and holding an inspired open practice in front of a number of US Army troops — apparently Duke players applauded the soldiers as they entered the gym — the school also announced some less inspiring news. Redshirt freshman forward Marshall Plumlee has developed a stress fracture in his left foot and will miss the next 6-8 weeks of practice, putting significantly more pressure on older brother Mason and senior Ryan Kelly to man the boards and shore up the low blocks defensively. This is especially true given that the Blue Devils will face an early-season murderer’s row of Kentucky in the Champions Classic on November 13, the Battle 4 Atlantis (including a loaded field of Minnesota, VCU, Memphis, Louisville, Missouri, and Stanford) soon thereafter, and Ohio State at in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge at the end of November.
3. Coach K’s respect for the military of course comes from his time at West Point, where he played under a fiery disciplinarian named Bob Knight. The three-time national championship head coach, who has never struck us as much of a sentimentalist, is planning on auctioning his three Indiana championship rings, his Olympic gold medal (given to him by the LA Olympic Committee) as well as a sports coat and warmup jacket he received as the head coach for the 1984 US Men’s National Team (a squad that included Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing). With his regular speaking engagements plus his lucrative ESPN commentator gig, it’s unlikely that Knight is hurting for money — but, sensing that he could pay for his grandchildren’s college educations with one fell swoop through this auction — this was probably an easy decision for the 71-year old. The “Bob Knight Collection” will be auctioned off through Steiner Sports, ending on December 5 — if you have some money burning a hole in your pocket, that 1976 championship ring from the last undefeated team in college basketball would make for a great conversation starter.
4. Harvard appeared to be on the verge of an Ivy League dynasty prior to a recent academic cheating scandal that has enveloped over 100 undergraduates including two of the basketball team’s best players, Kyle Casey and Brandyn Curry. Still, there are hopes among Crimson faithful that Tommy Amaker’s team can bridge the gap this season while awaiting the return of its two stars in 2013-14 (both players withdrew from school this year, but plan on returning next season). Meanwhile, in coming off the school’s first NCAA Tournament appearance in over 65 years, the university is now backing a plan to build a brand-new basketball arena to replace its antiquated 1920s-era Lavietes Pavilion. The new arena will hold 2,700 people and be ready for the bouncing of balls some time between 2017-22. Whether Harvard will grow to become a regular NCAA Tournament participant by that date remains to be seen, but this next step in the progression of the program would not have been possible without the drive and vision for excellence that head coach Tommy Amaker had for Harvard basketball upon his arrival several years ago.
5. Don’t expect any NCAA Tournament games in the great state of New Jersey anytime soon. The Meadowlands/Izod Center in East Rutherford has held multiple East Regionals (most recently in 2007), and the Prudential Center in Newark has taken that mantle more recently (hosting in 2011), but with the Monday’s publication of regulations licensing and outlining operating rules for Atlantic City casinos and racetracks so as to offer sports gambling, the NCAA’s long-running mandate of not offering its championships in states with such laws has gone into effect. Although there are currently no planned NCAA Tournament events scheduled in the Garden State, five other championships — including the Women’s NCAA Tournament East Regional in 2013 — have been pulled effective immediately. The natural outcome from this mandate is that the most prominent New York and Philadelphia arenas, including the Wells Fargo Center, the Barclays Arena, and Madison Square Garden, potentially stand to gain considerably in future bidding for NCAA Tournament sites. But hey, at least you can bet on the games in Jersey!

Expectations run high at Minnesota under sixth-year head coach Tubby Smith. For the first time in Smith’s tenure, the Gophers have a team capable of competing at the upper reaches of Big Ten competition. Point guard Julian Welch returns to pilot a balanced offensive attack. Austin Hollins provides an energetic presence on both ends of the floor. Unrelated Andre Hollins, fresh off a breakout performance in the Big Ten Tournament, is ready for bigger and better things in 2012-13. Future NBA forward Rodney Williams offers an explosive brand of athleticism mostly unseen throughout the Big Ten. This is a very good team. Believe it. But if there’s one development that demonstrably thrusted Minnesota onto the national radar this offseason, one personnel boost that gives the Gophers just enough to get over the hump, it’s Trevor Mbakwe, whom the NCAA announced over the summer has earned a sixth year of eligibility and will play out his final season in Minneapolis this winter. For Gophers fans, what matters is how the senior forward will perform this season, and how his return will help their chances of reaching the NCAA Tournament. But Mbawke’s history is long and complex, a quarrelsome tale of transfer and injury and violations.

After another criminal misstep, Mbawke skated the outer boundaries of Smith’s disciplinary tolerance (Photo credit: Chris Chambers/Getty Images).

I raise this issue because it relates to Mbakwe’s status for the upcoming season. More importantly, his troubled past is a huge reason why, after pleading guilty in September to a DWI committed in July, Mbakwe almost saw a promising sixth season – and an even more promising one for the Gopher program more broadly – end before it began. Smith very nearly booted Mbakwe from the team after learning of his summer transgression, which was just the latest in a repeated history of brushes with the law. Following his 2009 transfer to Minnesota from Miami Dade (FL) Community College, his second such switch after leaving Marquette in 2008, Mbakwe sat out the 2009-10 season due to legal complications surrounding an assault case while simultaneously fending off an allegation that he violated a restraining order by contacting an ex-girlfriend on Facebook. Court officials settled on a no-contest plea in the assault case, but Mbakwe pled guilty to the harassment charge and was sentenced to one year of probation in February. The DWI settlement violated that probation, which means Mbakwe faces another hearing in Miami on Wednesday. Whatever the outcome of his next legal stopping point, Mbakwe’s actions have tested the limits of Smith’s tolerance for his behaviors.

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