Evan Jacoby is a regular contributor for RTC. You can find him @evanjacoby on Twitter. TT4 will cover four selected teams of interest – Syracuse, Indiana, Murray State, and UNLV – by tracking their ups, downs, and exciting developments throughout the course of the season.

Public perception dictates a lot in all sports — suits in Las Vegas determine which teams are favored to win games. Players are often labeled as ‘clutch’ or ‘not clutch’ based on arbitrary public sentiments that take no data into account. With much of the college basketball season already completed, players and teams have already developed reputations that become a part of the season narrative; Murray State has ‘played nobody’, Indiana is ‘soft’, Syracuse is the ‘deepest team’, and UNLV ‘can’t win on the road’. But are these sentiments really accurate? This week’s TT4 Wildcard takes the court of public opinion on trial and tries to separate what’s false from what’s reality. All four of our teams remained ranked in the polls, so they’ve been plenty exposed to public chatter:

Indiana Hoosiers

Indiana is Trying to Shake the Label that They're Soft on Defense (AP Photo/T. Ding)

Biggest Misconception – This team is soft defensively

The Hoosiers have certainly had their defensive struggles during Big Ten games, and the results were ugly for a while. They still average a 109.0 dEfficiency in conference play, which is much too high. But soft? That label needs to go, as Indiana has shown much improvement and is starting to fight back when they get hit in the mouth. In their last four games against Wisconsin, Michigan, Purdue, and Illinois, they are allowing just 64.3 points per game. They’ve improved their Big Ten rebound rate to 51.9%, which is fourth in the conference. Defense is still an issue, but give them credit for making strides after beginning the Big Ten with an extremely tough schedule.

Biggest Truth – They are extremely balanced offensively

The word ‘balanced’ gets thrown around with this team, but it’s looking more and more true. Cody Zeller is their clear best player, but they don’t exactly use the freshman as a go-to guy offensively. Consider this: in their last five games, Indiana has had four different leading scorers and seven different players have scored in double-figures at least once. Not only that, but IU ranks in the top 30 nationally in three-point percentage, free-throw percentage, true shooting percentage, and points per possession during conference results. They are an effective offense that attacks in several different ways.

The Unknown – The Hoosiers are a product of their home-court advantage

IU has certainly played much better at home than on the road, which is true of many teams. But there was a feeling that their Assembly Hall home-court was the catalyst to everything this team does, and that argument is starting to fall apart. They’re coming off a 17-point win at Purdue in their latest road game, and their offensive style has translated to opposing arenas. The jury is still out, though, whether they are a strong enough team to win multiple games in a row away from home. The Big Ten Tournament should be a good indicator, as well as their final two winnable road games at Iowa and Minnesota.

Murray State Racers

Biggest Misconception – This team is headed for the bubble

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1. McDonald’s released its selections for its 24 All-Americans yesterday. If you have followed the high school recruiting rankings, the selections are about what you would expect (Shabazz Muhammad, etc) with a few names that have been up and down in the rankings missing. The most interesting omission is Nerlens Noel, who recently reclassified to the class of 2012 and may end up being the highest rated player in this year’s graduating class, but was left off the list of All-Americans. We have not heard an explanation from the selection committee as to why he was left off and we doubt that they will, but we suspect it was that he was not on the original list of nominees.
2. North Carolina‘s Dexter Strickland, who has been sidelined since tearing his right ACL during a game on January 19, underwent surgery on his right knee yesterday. According to reports, the surgery went well although no timetable has been given on when Strickland would be able to return to the court. It will probably be at least another month before the school can realistically begin to estimate when Strickland could return. While Strickland’s numbers are modest (7.5 points, 2.1 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game), he was a very efficient player (team-leading 57% from the field) who provided solid perimeter defense (something that was missing on Tuesday night) and a capable backup for Kendall Marshall, two qualities that the Tar Heels lack now.
3. As usual Luke Winn’s weekly power rankings are full of excellent advanced stats and amusing figures, but the most interesting thing to us in this week’s rankings is his inclusion of Notre Dame. Our initial reaction was shock, but the more we think about what the Irish have done this season the ranking sort of makes sense. We do not agree with the exact spot he has them at (#11), but they should merit some consideration as at least a top 20 team. What the Irish have accomplished this season is amazing since Tim Abromaitis was lost for the season leading some idiot to write off the Irish nearly two and a half months ago.
4. This season has been a rough one for Villanova, but they got a little good news yesterday when they found out that Maalik Wayns has sprained his left MCL and did not suffer more serious damage from the injury that he suffered during the team’s game on Tuesday night over Providence. While Wayns did not participate in yesterday’s practice, he is listed as day-to-day and may not miss any game time as the Wildcats are idle until next Wednesday when they play at USF.
5. Connecticut‘s attempt to convince the NCAA to allow it to play in the 2013 NCAA Tournament has been met with quite a bit of criticism from the national media. The two most notable names to come out against the Huskies proposal are Mike DeCourcy and Dana O’Neil. In his morning column yesterday, DeCourcy called the school’s attempt to be allowed to play in next year’s NCAA Tournament “obscene” and rips the NCAA for being so lenient in its prior rulings that the school felt emboldened to offer such weak penalties. O’Neil is a little less caustic than DeCourcy (shocking, right?) and essentially says that if the NCAA were to accept Connecticut’s more lenient penalties it would send a dangerous message as it has already punished well-known members of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, who have far fewer resources to help its students than Connecticut has. While we appreciate DeCourcy’s vigor, the point that O’Neil makes would seem to indicate that the NCAA has no choice, but to allow Connecticut a pass after punishing the other schools would create a major political firestorm for a group that does not need any more bad publicity.

Evan Jacoby is a regular contributor to RTC. You can find him @evanjacoby on Twitter. 

If you want to ask your friends a great trivia question, or perhaps settle a debate, check out the Wall Street Journal’s list of college basketball programs whose players have earned the most money in the NBA since 1985. The WSJ calls it the ‘Basketball Alumni Loot Index.’ This is the kind of intense research that pays off, as this article is now a great bookmark for fans’ reference.

UNC's Rasheed Wallace Made A Lot of Noise in the NBA; He Also Made A Lot of Money (AP Photo)

A look at the data shows plenty of interesting results. North Carolina and Duke are the first and second schools on the list, to nobody’s surprise. Our beliefs are confirmed that these two programs produce the most successful NBA players. Powerhouses like Arizona, UCLA, Georgetown, Connecticut, Kansas, and Kentucky all round out the top 10, again legitimizing the findings. Incredibly, Division II school Virginia Union cracks the top 50 of the list thanks to the $100 million-plus earnings of Ben Wallace and some of Charles Oakley’s deals from the 90s. DePaul has made the NCAA Tournament just once in the past 12 years, but they rank #31 on this list, thanks to recent pros like Wilson Chandler, Quentin Richardson, Bobby Simmons, and Steven Hunter. They also had Rod Strickland in the late 80s, who signed multiple lucrative contracts in a great 17-year career.

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Welcome to Through the Lens, an RTC photo tour through the game of college basketball.

This week’s topic: Rivalry.

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Brendon Mulvihill is an RTC contributor. You can find him @themulv on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

The conference showdowns have been spectacular thus far. We have learned how dominant Kentucky is, that Kansas isn’t ready to give up the Big 12 crown yet, and that Duke-UNC is amazing theater nearly every time. Tonight, the WCC take center stage as the old guard and the upstart do battle out west.

Dellavedova looks to repeat his performance from earlier in the season against Gonzaga tonight.

#11 St. Mary’s at #24 Gonzaga – 11:00 PM EST on ESPN2 HD (****)

• St. Mary’s has won 12 games in a row and is 3-0 against their biggest conference threats, BYU and Gonzaga. A win on the road against Gonzaga will give the Gaels a three-game lead in the West Coast Conference and all but wrap-up the regular season conference crown. In their first go around with the Zags in Moraga, St. Mary’s shot 61.7% from two-point land. Hitting a high percentage of two-point shots has been the proven method to beat Gonzaga. The Gaels were led by Matthew Dellavedova in their win against the Bulldogs earlier this season. Dellavedova had 26 points on 10-16 shooting. Look for a steady does of Dellavedova from both outside and inside, along with some assistance from Brad Waldow, who dropped 17 on Gonzaga in the first game. Dellavedova will be the barometer for St. Mary’s. If he’s knocking down good looks early, Gonzaga will have a tough time beating the Gaels.
• Gonzaga needs their defense and their bigs to step-up in this game if they want a shot at another WCC crown. While Elias Harris picked-up 17 points in the previous match-up, Robert Sacre and Sam Dower were a combined 2-11 from the field. These two players cannot disappear from games if the Zags want to win. Watch their play on offense closely. Sacre has to demand the ball in the post and take advantage of his size.
• The game hinges on Gonzaga’s defense. They simply cannot allow St. Mary’s to hit such a high percentage of two-point shots. While it is important for them to continue to defend the three, too many made shots from inside the arc kill the Zags. Additionally, they must keep the Gaels off the glass on offense. With a significant size advantage in the starting line-up, this should not be an issue but is certainly worth watching. Finally, Gonzaga needs to create turnovers. If Dellavedova is not being pressured enough, he will do exactly what he did in the last game.

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That’s Debatable is back for another year of expert opinions, ridiculous assertions and general know-it-all-itude. Remember, kids, there are no stupid answers, just stupid people. We’ll try to do one of these each week during the rest of the season. Feel free to leave your takes below in the comments section.

This Week’s Topic: There are a number of teams trending up — Notre Dame, Florida, Pittsburgh, St. Mary’s, Florida State, Iowa State, etc. Among these and other non-elite teams, which one do you think has the best long-term prospects this season?

Andrew Murawa, Pac-12/MW Correspondent & Pac-12 Microsite Writer

When I’m looking for a sleeper team in the NCAA Tournament, I like to see size, depth, good guard play and an experienced head coach. When I look at Wisconsin, I can check off all of those categories with confidence. Still, while Bo Ryan’s Badgers have made the Tournament in each of his nine previous seasons and won at least a game in eight of those years, they’ve advanced beyond the Sweet Sixteen just once, in 2005 before losing a hard-fought regional final to North Carolina. The Badgers struggled early to replace several key big guys, and senior point guard Jordan Taylor’s numbers haven’t been up to last year’s lofty realm. But things are picking up now, as Taylor’s scored in double figures now in 14 straight games and frontcourt guys like Mike Bruesewitz and Jared Berggren have stepped into that typical three-point shooting big man role for Wisconsin. Given the right matchups, this team could be playing into the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, and possibly beyond.

Walker Carey, Correspondent

I am going with Notre Dame. Three weeks ago this answer would have been insane, but look what the Irish have accomplished in that time – wins at home versus Syracuse and Marquette and road victories over Seton Hall, Connecticut, and West Virginia. Mike Brey has his squad playing much better than anyone would have ever imagined. The most surprising part of Notre Dame’s resurgence has been that it has come without the services of preseason All-Big East senior forward Tim Abromaitis, who tore his ACL in late November. While at first the Irish struggled mightily without him, they are currently in a groove led by a variety of players. Sophomore guards Eric Atkins and Jerian Grant, freshman guard Pat Connaughton, junior forward Jack Cooley, and senior forward Scott Martin have all been instrumental to the season’s turnaround. If the Irish continue to show great defense, smart basketball, and timely shooting, I think it is reasonable to believe that Mike Brey’s squad will be a force to be reckoned with in March.

Kenny Ocker, Correspondent

With the exception of its second inexplicable conference loss Wednesday night, Florida State has the best prospects throughout the rest of this season, mostly because of its conference form and remaining schedule. Before the BC debacle, the Seminoles had run off seven straight wins to sit atop the ACC. In those seven straight wins are victories against the three other ACC contenders — a 33-point shellacking of North Carolina at home, a 76-73 win at Duke, and a 58-55 win over Virginia at home on Saturday. According to Ken Pomeroy, Florida State is in a dead heat with North Carolina to become the outright ACC regular-season champion, but the Seminoles hold the tiebreaker against the Tar Heels because they only play once this season. The best part of this recent run of form for Florida State is that it has been keyed by the team’s offense, which ranks second in the ACC in efficiency, but the team’s stalwart defense hasn’t gone anywhere either. Although the Seminoles seemingly peaked with their Sweet Sixteen run last season, the potential is there for this team to reach those heights again this season, or possibly go beyond.

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Past Imperfect is a series focusing on the history of the game. Every two weeks, RTC contributor Joshua Lars Weill (@AgonicaBoss|Email) highlights some piece of historical arcana that may (or may not) be relevant to today’s college basketball landscape. This week: the forgotten rise and fall of Evansville’s Parrish Casebier.

Things were never quite right with Parrish Casebier. Born in Owensboro, Kentucky to unmarried black parents, he was adopted at age two by a white family and brought across the Ohio River to live in tiny Rockport, Indiana, where he spent his youth struggling with being different. His younger sister was later adopted by the same family, and together they endured the taunts and bitter looks that came from neighbors, other kids and even some family.

Though he became a basketball standout at South Spencer High School, where he was the state’s second-leading scorer as a senior, even his own coach didn’t always like him. And at 6’3”, stocky, with short arms and little lift, Casebier was built all wrong for big-time college basketball. He was a forward with a guard’s size and a guard with a forward’s handle. In the world of Indiana high school basketball, Casebier’s muscle and will made him a star. But college coaches were mostly unimpressed.

Though Casebier could fill up the net, once scoring 49 points in a game two times in a mere two weeks, there was just something off. He talked back to coaches and got in fights almost daily. He skipped classes and all but dared the school to take away the one thing that made Casebier not just different but better. While further upstate Indiana-bound legend Damon Bailey was wrapping up his storybook prep career before heading off to play for Bob Knight at Indiana, Casebier was trying to earn a place on the state all-star roster or working out for mid-major college coaches.

Some of that lack of interest was due to Casebier’s size and lack of athleticism, but some of it, too, was an unspoken reputation for being a difficult kid, a kid with issues. But college coaches, especially at the lower levels, still take talent, even troubled talent, and Casebier clearly was one. So he picked the school that had first offered him a scholarship, the University of Evansville, over Western Kentucky and Indiana State. Schools like Evansville live off of under-recruited kids who don’t fit the profile that major colleges have for what a player is ‘supposed to be.’ And 6’3” power forwards are not supposed to be successful at the college level. The coach of the Purple Aces, Jim Crews, had been a longtime Knight assistant and he knew he was getting in Casebier a volume scorer who he would have to manage off the court. And for much of the time Casebier played in Evansville, things went fine, on the court.

Casebier was a star at South Spencer High School in Indiana.

Being different was something Casebier had adapted to, even if he hadn’t always done it willingly. Hardly an athletic marvel, Casebier instead relied on craftiness and shot fakes, often pumping three or even four times before shooting. The result was a school record for free throws attempted. There was some precedent for a game like Casebier’s. With his build, he offered a similar skill set to that of NBA star Charles Barkley, who was a capable but uncommon shooter from distance, and whose bulk belied his quickness and grit. But Casebier lacked Barkley’s otherworldly athleticism. And also his sense of self.

“He causes a lot of matchup problems,” Loyola of Chicago head coach Will Rey once said, “because he posts up. He scores on putbacks. He can shoot threes.”

As a freshman, Casebier averaged 15 points and 7.2 rebounds a game, not bad for an introduction to college ball, even in an off-the-radar conference nationally. The team was mediocre, but young, and the future looked bright indeed.

But before his sophomore campaign, the other side of Parrish Casebier also began to show itself. Before the season began, Casebier was one of several Evansville students caught in a textbook-selling scam and the soon-to-be basketball star was forced to sit out the first five games of the season. It was a trend of on-court/off-court swings that would manifest itself multiple times over the years, as was his generally dismissive response to being caught. It was, he told everyone, no big deal. They had singled him out because of his status. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Faced with the possibility of missing the NCAA Tournament in 2013 due to its abysmal APR scores Connecticut has offered the NCAA a proposal that would punish itself without having to miss the NCAA Tournament (assuming they are even invited, which is no sure thing this season). While the actual proposal is quite long (all 112 riveting pages are available here), it boils down to the school giving up its share of 2013 NCAA Tournament money, going to study hall instead of playing exhibition games, playing 23 regular season games plus one exempt tournament (max of 26 games total) instead of 27 regular season games plus one exempt tournament (max of 30 games total), and preventing Jim Calhoun from making off-campus visits during the fall recruiting period and making him take a NBA player who graduated from the school (insert your jokes here) to an inner city to talk about the importance of academics. With at least two lottery picks who have not announced whether they are returning for next season and a Hall of Fame coach who is currently on an indefinite medical leave of absence, the NCAA’s decision on this should have a significant effect on the Connecticut basketball program for years to come.
2. With Memphis officially receiving an invitation to join the Big East in July 2013, Conference USA already has plans on how to move forward and they may make the biggest move in terms of the number of schools involved that we have seen so far. The conference board of directors will look at a proposal later this week about the possibility of merging with the Mountain West Conference. With both conferences facing several defections in the near future, Conference USA would only have eight schools for all sports and Mountain West would only have seven schools since one school (Hawaii) would only be there for football. A merger would create a 15-/16-team conference in the 2013-14 season. While neither conference has a particularly impressive group of schools, it would create an interesting mix of basketball schools with one national power (UNLV) and a handful of others that have been competitive in the past few years.
3. While a small rivalry in North Carolina took most of the headlines last night, we would be remiss if we did not mention Jim Boeheim passing Dean Smith last night for third on the all-time men’s Division I wins list with his 880th win, which puts him just 22 wins behind Bob Knight for second place with Mike Krzyzewski holding a safe lead at 920 career victories and counting. While we have a hard time putting Boeheim in the conversation of top 5 coaches of all-time (the all-time victory list includes Boeheim, the three others we already mentioned, and Adolph Rupp), but as he builds up his win totals he is almost definitely in the top 10 and working his way up the list even if the top 5 is off-limits right now since we are holding an extra spot in the top 5 for some coach named Wooden.
4. Even if you are not a fan of advanced metrics particularly defensive ones that can be quite cumbersome and are often of questionable validity, we would encourage you to check out Luke Winn’s analysis of Syracuse‘s defense and the impact Fab Melo has on it. It is much more technical than you will find on any other mainstream site, but Winn does a good job of explaining it at a fairly, but not overly simplistic level. While many people have had issues with some of the work that Winn has published in his weekly power rankings post (usually ignoring his disclaimers), the longer format allows him to more thoroughly explain the statistics. And if you needed any anecdotal evidence of Melo’s impact on defense, watch a replay of  Georgetown’s last possession of regulation last night.
5. We are still struggling to understand the in-season firing of coaches in situations where the coach is not dealing with a major scandal, but it appears like the trend will not be stopping any time soon as Air Force became the fourth school this season to fire its head coach when it dismissed Jeff Reynolds yesterday afternoon. Reynolds, who was in his fifth season at the school, had a record of 63-82 including 11-10 this season. While the school did not cite a specific event that led to the dismissal they mentioned “the look in the player’s [sic] eyes” and along with other nebulous concepts as well as a break in the schedule to allow for the change. We still do not get how any of that leads to this decision, but for the rest of the season associate head coach Dave Pilipovich will fill in as the interim head coach.

Evan Jacoby is a regular contributor to RTC. You can find him @evanjacoby on Twitter. Night Line will run on weeknights during the season, highlighting a major storyline development from that day’s games.

Austin Rivers’ three-ball went down for Duke at the buzzer, and Mike Krzyzewski’s team walked away with a stunning road victory in Chapel Hill on Wednesday night. This 85-84 Blue Devils win will always be remembered for the freshman guard’s late-game heroics, but there were plenty of other factors that played into the result. By now, I assume everyone has seen the shot, which will undoubtedly go down as one of the all-time great moments in the 92-year history of the Tobacco Road rivalry. But it cannot be forgotten that this game was actually not a back-and-forth classic between the two teams. North Carolina led the entire second half, including a nine-point advantage at the under-four minute timeout, and gave the game away by failing to make any winning plays down the stretch. Meanwhile, Duke was clinical from the outside and knocked down clutch shot after clutch shot, capped off by the game-winning shot by Rivers as time expired. All that was left from there was a completely silenced Dean Smith Center, an elated Blue Devils sideline, and a moment that will be replayed hundreds of times this season.

Austin Rivers is About to Silence a Crowd of Thousands in this Game-Winning Shot for Duke (Getty Images)

If you want to know why North Carolina blew an 11-point lead at home with 4:09 to play, the answer certainly begins with the clutch play of Duke’s Rivers. But it doesn’t end there. He had a career-high 29 points on 6-10 shooting from three, but one man cannot be solely responsible for erasing a double-figure lead in four minutes. Instead, look at the home team’s attempts to close out the game and what they did wrong, which includes three missed free throws, three offensive rebounds allowed, two turnovers, and a total of one field-goal attempted in the final four-plus minutes. Leading 79-68, UNC allowed Duke to score after a missed three with a second-chance putback. Then came the barrage of mistakes, which were incurred on offense by way of clanked free throws and lost-ball turnovers. On the other end, Duke was 6-8 from the field to close out the game with three huge three-pointers and three other deep jumpers.

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Evan Jacoby is a regular contributor to RTC. You can find him @evanjacoby on Twitter.

Two of the four or five greatest rivalries in college basketball resume this evening in one of the best nights of the regular season. Georgetown-Syracuse is the longest powerhouse rivalry of the Big East, while the battle for Tobacco Road is one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports. Here’s a look at their histories:

Georgetown Hoyas vs. Syracuse Orange:

Georgetown and Syracuse Have Been Elite Rivals Since the Days of Patrick Ewing and Long Before (SI Photo/A. Hayt)

• Last 5 Years – Recently, Syracuse holds a 6-4 edge in meetings since 2007. Each team has won at least once on the other’s home floor, with the road team actually winning the past three games of the series and the home team winning the previous seven. The Hoyas made the Final Four in 2007.
• Last 10 Years – Going back further in the decade, the Orange were more dominant, holding a 12-7 total lead in the past 10 years of games. They won five in a row at one point from 2003-05, which includes their 2003 National Championship season.
• Last 30 Years – Syracuse holds a 36-31 overall advantage in all matchups since 1980, with a total average score of 71-71 in those games. Pretty crazy. They are also in a 6-6 tie during this span in Big East Tournament matchups. Each team holds one National Championship during this time, as Georgetown got theirs in 1984. The Hoyas have four Final Four appearances, the Cuse with three. This is a truly juggernaut rivalry of Big East supremacy.

Duke Blue Devils vs. North Carolina Tar Heels:

Duke vs. Carolina: Rivalry, Defined (SI Vault)

• Last 5 Years – North Carolina has a 6-5 edge in meetings since 2007, with each team having been crowned National Champions once during this recent history. Carolina made the Final Four in both 2008 and 2009, while Duke was the champion in 2010. Home court advantage is nearly a non-factor recently, as the road team is 5-6 in this period.
• Last 10 Years – Duke was the much more dominant team earlier in the past decade, going 8-3 in the rivalry from 2002-06. Each team reached the Final Four, with UNC crowned as National Champions once again in 2005. Overall, Duke leads 13-11 in the past 10 years with each team taking four road games.
• Last 30 Years – North Carolina holds a slight 38-36 edge in all matchups since 1980, with a total average score of 78-78 in the games. Again, an incredibly close matchup here. Duke has gotten the better of the Tar Heels during their ACC Tournament matchups, holding an 8-3 edge during this span. Incredibly, each team has made exactly 11 Final Four runs and won four National Titles during the past 30 years. That’s why this is the best rivalry in the game.

Tonight, Georgetown and Duke are the road teams in these games. Syracuse and Carolina are each the higher-ranked team and are expected to win, but things never go as planned in intense rivalries like these. This could be one of the final times that the Hoyas and Orange meet as Big East rivals, as Syracuse is headed to the ACC by the 2014 season and possibly before then. It will be awesome tonight, so tune in to the ESPN double-header starting at 7:00 PM ET.