Evan Jacoby is an RTC columnist and contributor. 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 slate of games.

For most of the last decade, Rutgers has been an afterthought of the Big East conference, synonymous with the bottom of the standings. The Scarlet Knights haven’t finished better than 5-13 in Big East play since 2006. But since Mike Rice was hired as head coach last season, the team has shown improvements and the losing culture of the program could be making its way out. On Thursday night, the Knights took down the ninth-ranked Florida Gators at home, providing flashes of great basketball and sending students to rush the court. With a young core of players who will all be back next season, Rutgers may finally be building a successful team that fans can look forward to watching.

Eli Carter Led Rutgers' Upset of Florida and the Ensuing RTC (AP/M. Evans)

This Rutgers team features a talented group of freshmen that already has made its mark on the program, as rookie guards Eli Carter, Myles Mack, and Jerome Seagears are three of the four leading scorers on the team. Carter scores a team-leading 12.8 PPG after going off for 31 points in the double-overtime win over Florida, while Mack (10.8 PPG) hit several clutch three-point shots as part of his 14 points in the win. Seagears leads the team with 2.4 assists and adds 8.2 points per contest. In addition to the frosh guards, the Scarlet Knights’ other leading scorers are sophomores Gilvydas Biruta (10.9 PPG) and Mike Poole (7.2 PPG), and junior Dane Miller (7.2 PPG). Strong forward Biruta is the team’s leading rebounder (6.0 RPG), while Miller contributes across the board to the tune of 5.6 boards, 2.2 assists, 1.6 steals, and 1.9 blocks per game while shooting 56% from the field. Everyone will be back next season and should improve, giving the Knights and their fans plenty to look forward to.

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Jesse Baumgartner is an RTC columnist. His Love/Hate column will publish on Mondays throughout the season. This week’s was delayed due to the lack of college basketball over the weekend. In this weekly piece he’ll review the five things he loved and hated about the previous seven days of college basketball.

Five Things I Loved This Week

I LOVED….defenders who are willing to risk being the #1 highlight on SportsCenter. Two brave Texas Longhorns bit the bullet last week against North Carolina, and they paid a hefty price. First Dexter Strickland went up and over his Texas defender for the poster slam. Then, P.J. Hairston put on a hit that would make NFL safeties smile before throwing down a one-hander.

I LOVED….the strong early showing from the Big Ten. I’m the first to admit that I don’t love the style of play from this conference, but it’s nice to see so many teams with quality wins early in the year. On the top of that list is Indiana, which finally dropped its first game on the road against Michigan State (more than excusable). If Tom Crean’s revitalized Hoosiers can put together a decent conference season and Michigan State continues its strong recovery, you could be looking at a lot of high seeds from the Big Ten come March.

Crean Has Turned Indiana Around

I LOVED….a name like Fab Melo of Syracuse. First off, you can’t go wrong when you are a seven-foot Brazilian named Fab. Combine that with an identical last name to the program’s national championship hero/NBA star, and it’s almost too much. And if Fab puts up more games like the 12-point, 10-block, and 7-rebound performance against Seton Hall, Cuse fans will be chanting his name plenty by the end of the season.

I LOVED….the Georgetown Hoyas setting me up again. After Wednesday’s big win against Louisville on the road, they’re 11-1 and rolling. So just like the last few years, I will get too excited, expect big things, think this year is different, and end up frustrated with them all season and still picking them too far in my bracket. Oh well, at least I’m prepared early this time around.

I LOVED….this feel-good moment around the holidays, with UConn’s Andre Drummond giving back his scholarship to teammate Michael Bradley, who initially sacrificed it so that UConn could have room for the star recruit.

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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 saga of New York City prep star and convicted felon Richie Parker.

There was never any middle ground when it came to Richie Parker. Either he was a criminal, a thug who represented everything wrong with the college game – that “win at all costs” mentality – or he was a kid who made a mistake he was overpaying for, a victim of a system rigged to punish and punish again a repentant man, no, a kid because of intense media pressure and political pressure and just flat out pressure.

So which was it? Was he trouble, a felon who shouldn’t be given chances that wouldn’t have been afforded a kid who couldn’t run, dunk and shoot a basketball like he could, or was he the quiet kid without a speck of bad behavior before who lost his senses for fifteen minutes on Jan. 13, 1995, in a high school stairwell when he and a friend intimidated a freshman classmate into performing oral sex?

Or could he be both? Or neither? Everyone had an opinion.

Parker's saga was a Sports Illustrated cover story in 1996.

Tabloids put the story on the cover and sports talk shows had a field day. Women penned editorials detailing their own stories of rape and abuse to show that no matter how repentant Parker was he would never have to suffer the lifelong fate of his victim. Some spoke movingly of second chances and of the mistakes they’d made. Women’s groups around the country mobilized. The victim’s family eventually publicly forgave him. Everyone had a stake, and everyone had firm convictions. And caught in the middle was Parker: 6’5”, athletic, shy, the eye of a storm all about him.

In June, Parker apologized to his victim, pleaded guilty to felony sexual abuse and was sentenced to five years probation and counseling, but that did nothing to quell the furor. Far from it. Now he was officially a felon. The school he’d accepted a scholarship promise from, Seton Hall, reneged on its offer under pressure. Wouldn’t be the right message to send, its president said. George Washington University, whose progressive and creative president offered a scholarship to both Parker and the victim, eventually also caved to intense dissatisfaction from alumni, trustees and student groups outraged by the possibility of a sex offender gaining admittance to their institution. Utah and Oral Roberts and Fresno State and Southern Cal backed off even sooner, the moment administration officials were tipped off of their coaches’ interest in Parker, usually by tabloid reporters like Barry Baum of the New York Post, who made his name breaking Parker stories that year. People lost jobs over Richie Parker.

Ultimately, there were no basketball options left for him after his plea deal. No administration was willing to have its reputation sullied in the press for admitting the radioactive Parker. And the press kept finding out who was interested and with a single phone call would end that interest immediately: ‘Did you know your coaches are recruiting a sex felon?’ Parker’s mother, Rosita, suffered chest pains from all the stress. Parker simply kept staring at his shoes, his once bright future vanishing before him because of those impulsive, those irrational, 15 minutes in the stairwell, a quiet kid now retreating further into his shell.

Rob Standifer, the coach at Mesa Community College in Arizona, took a chance on Parker. But while Parker flew out west, Mesa athletic department and  administration officials learned about him at the last minute and balked. Standifer was forced to resign. The school did allow Parker to matriculate but he couldn’t play ball. But after everything he’d been through, that was OK with Parker. Out there, far away from the turmoil of the city he’d been a basketball star in, he could work on his grades and keep in shape, all with the faint hope that someday he would get the chance to play college basketball, other than the NBA the only thing he’d ever really wanted.

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Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. 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 who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we’re missing or different things you’d like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Lead Story: Jarnell Stokes Commits To Tennessee, Will Enroll In January

Maybe This Is What Swayed Jarnell Stokes To Tennessee.

Top-25 Senior Picks Volunteers Despite Late Kentucky Push. It’s been a long road for Class of 2012 power forward Jarnell Stokes but the recruiting process for him is finally over. The 6’8″, 250-pound big man committed to Tennessee last Thursday after transferring to Oak Hill Academy (VA) over this summer, then changing his mind and transferring to Southwind Central High School (TN) where he was ruled ineligible to play his senior season of basketball. He will be joining the Vols in January and looks to help them in every phase of the game. Stokes is the type of player who can help Tennessee on both ends of the floor, especially in rebounding — an area that Cuonzo Martin’s team could really use some help in. He picked UT over Memphis and a late push by Kentucky head coach John Calipari. Opposite of what many people many think, the difficult part of the transition for Stokes won’t be the physical aspect, it will be the mental part given the fact that he’ll have to face a sharp learning curve. His impact will be limited this year but he will still be a contributor and he’ll get an early head start on making the jump from high school to college compared to everyone else in the Class of 2012. He was never going to be a four-year player anyway so the Vols are simply getting an extra semester out of the Tennessee native.

What They’re Saying

• Senior Ricardo Ledo (Providence) on recruiting junior star Nerlens Noel and others: “If I could choose any player to commit to Providence, it would be [Class of 2012 power forward] Chris Obekpa and I’m also trying to help out with [Class of 2013 center] Nerlens Noel. I’m trying to get [Class of 2012 small forward] Jakarr Sampson on board and a couple more I haven’t named. I just tell them about the Providence atmosphere and to try to start something new, don’t try to be like everybody else and go to a school just because of the school’s name. I just tell them to be your own man, set your own trend.”

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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.

As we head into 2012, early tests against conference foes are a true litmus test for teams looking to make the NCAA tournament. Let’s take a good look at Oregon State and BYU on the road to see if they have what it takes.

Brandon Davies leads BYU into its first West Coast Conference game against St. Mary's (Getty/E. Miller)

Oregon State at Washington – 9:00PM EST on Root Sports (***)

• Oregon State is one win away from equaling last season’s win total of 11. The Beavers have very good offensive numbers – 54.9% eFG, 47.7% FTR, and 54.8% two-point shooting. However, their efficiency takes a hit because of turnovers and poor offensive rebounding. Craig Robinson’s team faces a very tall Washington team that can create problems for OSU on the boards. Defensively, the Beavers do a great job at creating turnovers. They rank 5th in the nation in TO%. Keep a close eye on OSU’s Jared Cunningham and his ability to disrupt the Washington offense.  If the Beavers are able to create turnovers and hit smart two-point shots, they will equal last year’s win total in just 13 games this season.
• Washington has been very disappointing this season. If they have any hope at making the NCAA Tournament, they must roll through much of the Pac-12, starting tonight. This team falls apart on defense. They create very few turnovers and do not defend the three-point shot well. Interestingly, Washington must create turnovers to win.  They are 0-5 when the defense creates turnovers on less than 18% of the opponent’s possessions. To give you an idea what that means, Coastal Carolina ranks 304th in the nation with a defensive turnover percentage of 18%. So, the Huskies do not have to create a lot of turnovers, they just have to create some and they will win.
• Expect an up-tempo game with both teams averaging over 71 possessions per game. This game hinges on turnovers. If the Beavers can limit their turnovers and allow their offensive to produce the way it is capable of producing, they will win. If  Washington can use its length and put more pressure on the ball to create turnovers and transition baskets, they will win.

1. Yesterday the Big Ten and Pac-12 announced a “collaboration” that would enable them to have frequent inter-conference match-ups. As Gene Wojciehowski notes this agreement “could have far-reaching ramifications for both leagues.” Essentially the deal would enable the conferences to get some of the benefits of having a mega-conference and more national exposure without all the legal battles and huge exit fees. While most of the talk was centered around football and the possibility of a bowl game run by the two conferences outside of the existing bowl system, the effects on the basketball schedule could be felt as early as next season with more inter-conference match-ups. We are not sure how this would effect some of the current inter-conference match-ups like the Big Ten-ACC Challenge, but we hope that the schools cut out some of the cupcakes and guarantee games rather than some of the mid-majors that are given a shot against the “big boys”.
2. Anthony Davis is featured in ESPN Magazine’s “Next” Issue along a handful of other athletes who are on the verge of becoming household names as well as Cam Newton, who is already there. The article does not really say much that our average reader doesn’t already know about Davis (growth spurt and really long, but not anywhere near his ceiling). Still it is a nice form of recognition that might get Davis noticed by basketball fans who might not otherwise pay attention to his game like those fans who only watch NBA basketball including some foreign fans. We have not seen anybody do an analysis on how often these “Next” athletes pan out, but we suspect when they pick athletes that are as far along as Davis much less Newton they have a pretty good track record.
3. Former St. John’s commitment Ricardo Gathers (class of 2012) has “narrowed” his list to Kentucky, Duke, St. John’s, Baylor, LSU, and Florida, but has not set a date to announce yet. Meanwhile two highly sought-after class of 2013 recruits appear to be narrowing their lists more as Aaron Gordon is being pursued hard by Kentucky, but according to Josh Gershon of Scout.com they still trail Washington and Arizona while Julius Randle has not officially narrowed his list, but appears to be more focused on Duke, Kentucky, and North Carolina in a recent interview. We do not expect Gordon or Randle to commit any time soon, but the clock is ticking on Gathers.
4. As we noted earlier this week Virginia has lost quite a few transfers recently. One of those was power forward James Johnson, who has started to look at schools to transfer to and appears to be starting with San Diego State, Washington State, and New Mexico. Any of these schools would certainly welcome an ACC level recruit particularly a 6’9″, 240-pound power forward even one who put up unremarkable numbers in his short stay there (left midway through his redshirt freshman year). We have not heard any information about where Johnson is leaning, but if being close to home is a factor then San Diego State would have be the heavy favorite as it is only about an hour away from where he grew up.
5. Richard Deitsch of SI.com handed out his media awards yesterday and some college basketball media members were prominently featured. As you would expect, Jay Bilas got the most nominations thanks to his all-out media blitz as a studio analyst, working courtside, and on Twitter. However, there were a handful of other prominent media members who made various lists (mostly good, but a few of them bad). While we could do without some of the stuff in there like all the non-college basketball talk, it is an interesting read especially for some of the media politics.

Evan Jacoby is an RTC columnist and contributor. 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 slate of games.

On Wednesday night, a couple of previously undefeated teams took their first losses of the season as conference play began. For Indiana, it was a reminder of how tough conference play is on the road, and a loss was expected by the Hoosiers as an underdog at Michigan State. But for Louisville, at home in the KFC Yum! Center, its loss was a confirmation of this team’s weaknesses that may prevent the Cardinals from becoming an elite team this season. Rick Pitino’s squad ran into their first disciplined opponent that held strong for 40 minutes, and it resulted in a solid Georgetown win. Louisville, who had escaped from several near-losses earlier in the season, was finally exposed on the offensive end by a team that could take advantage of its weaknesses there. The Cards shot just 42% for the game and must improve their shooting if they want to seriously challenge for a Big East title.

Peyton Siva and Louisville Struggled Shooting the Ball Against Georgetown (AP/T. Easley)

Louisville walked away unscathed in its non-conference games, but a closer look at the team’s play through 12 games led many analysts to consider them overrated. Though 12-0 on the season heading into this week and ranked #4 in the AP poll, our RTC voters were not buying into the Cardinals as a true top-5 team, ranking them 10^th in the latest RTC Top 25. Wednesday’s home loss confirmed our pollsters’ beliefs, and the Cardinals are next headed to Rupp Arena on Saturday for a meeting with No. 3 Kentucky. By the time next week’s AP poll comes out, Rick Pitino’s team might be lucky to stay in the top 10.

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RTC Live starts its post-holiday week  in Kansas City with some early Summit League play, with the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles squaring off against the UMKC Kangaroos tonight.

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Evan Jacoby is an RTC columnist and contributor. You can find him @evanjacoby on Twitter. See the bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

Tonight’s action offers a variety of 4-star matchups, including some exciting conference openers and one of the last top-25 non-conference showdowns. Carve out some time tonight to catch these great games.

Perry Jones and Undefeated Baylor Face Their Final Non-Conference Test Tonight Against Mississippi State (AP/T. Gutierrez)

#12 Georgetown at #10 Louisville – 7:00 PM EST on ESPN2 (****)

• One of the biggest surprises in the country thus far, Georgetown is now looking to prove it can hang with the top teams in the Big East. Given how the Hoyas have played recently, they should have a great chance to add another impressive win to their resume tonight in the KFC Yum! Center. Georgetown has already won a true road game over then-top-15 Alabama, and tonight it heads west looking to rely on a veteran big three that have been consistent all year. Hollis Thompson and Jason Clark are getting it done from the perimeter, each averaging about 15 points per game and hitting exactly two three-pointers per game to lead the team from deep. Henry Sims, the most unlikely assist man in the nation, has executed his point forward role to perfection in Coach Thompson III’s Princeton-style offense. Sims leads the team with 3.7 assists and 1.6 blocks per game while continuing his low-post impact to the tune of 12.5 points and 5.5 boards per contest. If Georgetown can continue its current pace of 1.16 points per possession, which is ninth best in the country, then they will have a shot to pull off the road win tonight.
• Before taking on Kentucky later this week in a massive in-state powerhouse showdown, Louisville has this fierce test to begin Big East play. Rick Pitino’s team has been well-prepared all season leading to an undefeated record, but they have been vulnerable at home and have nearly been upset several times at the Yum! Center. The Cardinals, though, continue to collect wins thanks to a spectacular defensive effort. Louisville’s defensive efficiency of 83.0 is the fifth-best number in the nation, and they are also ranked top-10 defensively in field goal percentage, true shooting percentage, points per possession, and rebounding. Coach Pitino will run out a nine- or ten-man rotation and look to speed up the Hoyas’ efficient offense by implementing high pressure and different defensive looks throughout the night. How guards Kyle Kuric, Russ Smith, Chris Smith, and Peyton Siva shoot from behind the arc will be the key to the Cardinals’ offense.
• This should be a tremendous game, as two red-hot conference foes do battle with their conflicting styles of play. Louisville is a five-point favorite at home, and their depth across the board will give them an advantage tonight. But the Hoyas are able to counteract any opponent’s strengths when their offense is clicking. Keep an eye on who can establish their style of play early in the game.

1. One of the primary criticisms of the NCAA in Taylor Branch’s piece in The Atlantic was that student-athletes were only given one-year renewable scholarships that could be pulled due to factors not related to their academic performance such as injury, poor on-field performance, or a change in coaching regime that leads to the student-athlete’s athletic skillset to be less desirable. To counter that the NCAA proposed that individuals be eligible for multiyear scholarships, but more than 75 schools have objected to the proposal meaning that the proposal will go in front of the NCAA’s Board of Directors next month where it will be reevaluated. The primary criticisms offered by the objecting schools was that they wanted to keep athletic scholarships in the same format as most scholarships at the school (renewed annually) and that multiyear scholarships would create bidding wars between competing schools. While we can see some reasoning in those arguments when you combine it with their earlier opposition to cost of living stipends the schools appear to be unwilling to give student-athletes any concessions in the latest round of negotiations.
2. When your team starts 1-11 one of the positive things you can say is that things cannot get much worse, but for Rhode Island it appears like things will get worse after they dismissed Jamal Wilson, their leading scorer, from the team after violating undisclosed team rules. Even before Wilson’s dismissal it seemed possible that the Rams might not win more than a handful of their remaining games. Now with Wilson gone it is a distinct possibility that they might not win another game this season. Using Ken Pomeroy’s rating system, the only two games that they have greater than a 40% predicted chance of winning are against a terrible Fordham squad. Without Wilson they might still be favored in their game at home against Fordham, but will be hard pressed to win any other games.
3. Drew Cannon of Basketball Prospectus analyzed the intense discussion surrounding Luke Winn’s power rankings two weeks ago. In those power rankings, which we discussed in our Morning Five the following day (see point #2), Winn pointed out that based on points allowed per possession Kentucky actually appeared to be a slightly better defensive team with Anthony Davis on the bench than when he is on the court. As we noted that day, the decision by some people to use that statistic to question the use of all advanced statistics was myopic. Given the additional space of a whole post rather than a single Morning Five bullet, Cannon goes into additional detail about what happens in situations like these and what we would consider a reasonable way to handle these situations.
4. With schools on holiday break a number of players are reconsidering their situation within their program and opting to make a break from their current situation. The most recent of these is Illinois sophomore guard Crandall Head, the younger brother of former Illini star Luther Head, who has decided to transfer. Unlike his brother, Crandall has had minimal impact at the school and was averaging just 1 point, 0.6 rebounds, and 1 assist in 9.2 minutes per game. According to the school’s press release, he has not listed any schools that he is considering transferring to, but that he wants to go “somewhere they play my style of game and get a fresh start”. We are not sure which schools he is considering, but it may be instructive to look at the schools he was considering when he was being recruited in high school.
5. Finally, Rick Pitino announced yesterday that he would not coach after the 2016-17 season. You might expect that we would lead our post with this, but we don’t believe that Pitino will actually retire at that time and if he does it will not be because of something he mentioned at press conference more than five years earlier. It does raise a few interesting questions with the first and most obvious being who would be Pitino’s successor at Louisville. The most interesting (or at least most nepotistic) choice would be his son Richard Pitino, but there will be no shortage of successful mid-major coaches and high-level assistants looking for their big break when Pitino does decide to retire. The other more immediate question is how Pitino expects to succeed as a recruiter in a few years when every other coach in America will be whispering to his recruits that they will never get to play for Pitino because he will step down before they graduate.