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 Going To College In January ‘Definitely An Option’

Jarnell Stokes Has A Lot On His Mind. (Nation of Blue)

Stokes Exploring His Options. Class of 2012 power forward Jarnell Stokes saw his chances of playing high school basketball for Southwind High School (TN) disappear last week, and this week he’s strongly considering graduating high school early and enrolling in college in January. Remember, Stokes has yet to commit and has a top six of Kentucky, Memphis, Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida and Connecticut so he’d have to commit very soon. The 6’8″, 250-pounder says he’s been preparing to attend college next semester and that he has other options available to him that he doesn’t want to reveal just yet. Four of the schools Stokes is considering — Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida and Tennessee — have athletic scholarships available for Stokes if he were to enroll in January and he could also qualify for an academic scholarship at Memphis, leaving Kentucky as the only school that he’d have to pay for. Stokes says he has no timetable right now and doesn’t know when he’s going to commit, but he’s going to have to make a decision in the next few weeks regardless of what he wants to do.

What They’re Saying

• Senior Andrew White on committing to Kansas: “I think it was a huge opportunity there to play. I have a great relationship with the staff. They’ve been good to me.”

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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 ups and downs of famed coach Jim Valvano.

Jimmy V, Looking For a Hug Back in 1983...

Few coaches in college basketball history have attained the sport’s highest levels of achievement and personal recognition. To do that, a coach must not only be dominant on the court, likely a national champion, but must also show both a sustaining level of that dominance and a personal magnetism that transcends on-court excellence. For those coaches who reach such lofty heights, there’s not much that a man can’t see within his grasp. Fortune and fame, even celebrity if so desired. A career choice originally based on a simple and single-minded goal – to be a major college head coach – can one day lead to possibilities never previously imagined: corporate pitchman, TV star, a brand unto oneself.

For James Thomas Anthony Valvano, the fame and attention he garnered for his team’s improbable victory in the 1983 NCAA title game was an elixir too potent to be sipped and appreciated. To the contrary, Valvano drank fully and became addicted: to the lifestyle, to the accolades, to the fame, to the next opportunity. For ‘Jimmy V,’ as he was known to most, there was, after years of toil in a cut-throat business, all of a sudden everything and anything possible. And Valvano, a boundless personality, a real talker, chomped at the bit to have it all.

The phrase “larger than life” gets used a lot, far too often on folks who simply aren’t. It’s as cliché as cliché comes, an almost meaningless term due to its over- and wrong-use. And yet, when applied correctly, it can be apt. Valvano certainly was someone it applied to. Despite losing his battle with cancer in 1993, Valvano is still very much alive. He lives on through the charitable foundation that bears his nickname, as well as the college basketball events that raise money for them. He lives on too in his much-revered and much-replayed speech at the 1993 ESPYs. You probably saw it recently, and you’ll see it again.

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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.

Two very interesting games on the docket tonight.  An upstart Ivy League team goes against the defending champs while a good old fashion slugfest is brewing in Wichita.  Let’s get to the action.

Huggins and the Mountaineers will be in a street fight against Kansas State tonight.

#19 Harvard at #9 Connecticut – 7 PM EST on ESPN2 HD (****)

• Harvard and Connecticut have two common opponents – Central Florida and Florida State. Tommy Amaker’s squad beat both teams while the Huskies lost to Central Florida and needed overtime to beat FSU. If you look at the statistics for all four games, the difference was Harvard’s ability to get to the line. Their free throw rate was 54.5% against the Seminoles and a mind boggling 94.6% against UCF. Harvard sports a sub-50% eFG, so free throws are very important to their offensive effectiveness. Unfortunately for Harvard, Connecticut is third in the nation at keeping teams off the line. They just don’t foul. Keep a close eye on the Crimson’s free throw attempts. They must get to the line to win this game.
• Connecticut must play this game from the inside out. Currently, Harvard is in the top ten in fewest three-point shot attempts allowed. Look for Jim Calhoun’s squad to feed 6’11” freshman center Andre Drummond early and often. Unfortunately, Drummond is hitting less than 50% of his two-point attempts. Regardless, he must take advantage of his height in this game to help give guards Jeremy Lamb and Shabazz Napier room to shoot on the outside. Pay close attention to the number of touches Drummond is getting in the first half. If he’s getting the ball on the inside and scoring, causing the Harvard defense to come off the perimeter or even double team, the Huskies will have set themselves up for a win.
• The game will hinge on Harvard’s ability to defend the paint and still put pressure on the outside shooters like they have thus far in the season. Drummond’s size will make that extremely difficult. If the Crimson expect to win, they will have to own the defensive boards and grab all of Drummond’s misses. Offensive boards by the Huskies will kill Amaker’s team. If Drummond is shooting over 50% and drawing double teams thereby creating room for the Huskies backcourt to make shots, Calhoun and crew will pick up a win against a Harvard team they missed in the Bahamas.

1. It was a busy day in the ongoing Bernie Fine investigation. The District Attorney investigating the case at Syracuse has come out and said that the allegations by Zach Tomaselli, the third alleged victim of abuse, do not match up with the evidence. While the District Attorney did not give many details about the potentially exculpatory evidence, he said it challenged Tomaselli’s claims about his whereabouts at the time of the alleged abuse and would be handing it over to Fine’s defense team. He also added that the claims by the other two alleged victims appeared to be credible while criticizing The Post-Standard for not handing over the recently released tape that many point to as the tipping point in Fine’s firing even though it would not have led to a prosecution of Fine at the time because the statue of limitations had passed.
2. One of the strangest traditions in college basketball will occur again this Friday night when Taylor University takes on Ohio-Midwestern in what is known as the “Silent Night” game. As part of the tradition, which is nearly two decades old at this point and is held on the Friday before finals week, the Taylor fans are to remain silent until the team scores its tenth point of the game at which point they will finally cheer. Then at the end of the game they will sing “Silent Night”. Fortunately, the Trojans are pretty good (#21 in the NAIA D-II poll) or the silence could go on for a long time. If you are interested in watching this, the game is available online for $4.95 (hey, we just bring you the news; we aren’t telling you to actually buy it).
3. Oregon suffered a major blow when Jabari Brown decided to transfer, but they will be getting a boost in the form of Minnesota transfer Devoe Joseph, who will finally get to play for the Ducks this Saturday against Fresno State. Joseph, who averaged 11.3 PPG and 3.5 APG in his last season at Minnesota before deciding to transfer after being suspended, should immediately be one of Oregon’s top offensive threats and could be the piece that helps them stay towards the top of the Pac-12 despite the early season defections.
4. This season has been an unmitigated disaster so far for UCLA and yesterday it got a little worse as freshman guard Norman Powell had to be taken to the hospital after suffering an allergic reaction at practice and will remain in the hospital overnight for observation. According to reports, Powell broke into hives and had trouble breathing during practice before being transferred to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center where he was stabilized. Given the severity of the reported symptoms and the fact that they are keeping him overnight for observation, we would be surprised if Powell played in the team’s next game, which is against Penn on Saturday.
5. Finally, we don’t typically find mailbags that interesting, but Seth Davis manages to make his worthwhile by finding a handful of good questions and making some interesting points. This week’s edition is no different as Seth talks about tempering expectations for freshmen including those of a fan who compares Ryan Boatright to Kemba Walker and delves into the Scott Machado debate. As usual we agree with Seth on most of the stuff he says and as we have pointed out before people tend to overreact to the performance of freshman as well as many other things. As for Machado, we agree that he is a great college point guard, but it will be tough to glean too much from his performance the rest of the regular season due to a mediocre remaining schedule so in the end most of the nation will be forced to judge him based on his NCAA Tournament performance.

Tonight’s Lede. On the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, it’s only fitting that tonight’s slate of games was filled with the element of surprise. Astonishment at the ending of regulation in Florida versus Arizona; marvel at Vandy’s big man returning to the floor several weeks early; shock at just how far Utah basketball has fallen since its run to the finals in 1998; wonder that Badger fans didn’t pack the place tonight. There’s plenty to discuss on a busy Wednesday night in college basketball, so let’s jump to it.

Your Watercooler Moment. Florida’s Decision to Foul Arizona.

Donovan Could Not Believe That Prather Was Called For a Foul In the Late-Game Situation (AP)

Clearly Florida’s plan with five seconds to go and leading Arizona by three was to quickly foul the Wildcats to send them to the line. We’ve discussed the merits (and demerits) of this strategy in this space and on Twitter many times before, but it always creates an additional element of intrigue when a coach chooses to employ it. According to HSAC, teams only chose this strategy 12% of the time in 2009-10, and there was no discernible advantage in terms of the final outcome of the game (meaning teams won and lost at a statistically equal rates regardless of strategy). In tonight’s game, Florida’s decision for Casey Prather to immediately reach in and foul Solomon Hill on the inbounds play with five seconds remaining backfired in that the nearby referee rewarded Hill for throwing his arms into a shooting motion immediately after the catch. Three foul shot makes and a missed Florida prayer later, the game was headed to overtime. Florida ended up winning in the extra period, 78-72, but Donovan’s decision to have his player foul in that situation shows exactly why it terrifies coaches to employ the strategy. Even if it were statistically sound (and that’s not yet been proven, as far as we know), no coach wants to hear all the second-guessing that comes with such a decision when it backfires, as it very nearly did for the Gators tonight. More on the Arizona-Florida game below.

Dunkdafied. When Xavier’s Dezmine Wells dunks the ball, he shoots it down the rim like it’s a nerf ball coming out of his hand. As for Illinois’ Brandon Paul, he just takes everyone within a five-foot radius with him.

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Evan Jacoby is an RTC columnist. 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. [ed. note: Jacoby was in MSG last night, so this necessarily ran a little later.]

After defeating another quality opponent on Tuesday night, undefeated Missouri improved its already-impressive offensive numbers on the season. In the win over Villanova at the Jimmy V Classic in Madison Square Garden, the Tigers assisted on 23 of their 28 field goals, a tremendous rate, and also improved their assist average to 17 per game for the season (#13 nationally). Phil Pressey was the catalyst on both ends, recording 12 assists and three steals in just 24 minutes of action. Backup point guard Michael Dixon relieved him to the tune of seven assists and two steals in 25 minutes. While Pressey and Dixon don’t get the national publicity of some of the other big-name lead guards across the country, they are extremely valuable pieces to the nation’s leading offensive attack.

Phil Pressey Led the Tigers' Efficient Offense to a Win in MSG (US Presswire)

Missouri now ranks first in the nation in offensive efficiency (124.8) and points per possession (1.25), fueled by the unselfish play of their primary ballhandlers. Not only does Mizzou rack up assists at an impressive rate, but it also turnsthe ball over as infrequently as nearly any team in the country. They turn it over just under 10 times per game, good for the sixth fewest miscues in the nation. Add up these two factors, and it’s no surprise that the Tigers lead all of Division I with a 1.79 assist-to-turnover ratio. While it’s hard to envision this team keeping up its scorching shooting for the rest of the year, what won’t change is this team’s style of play. Tremendous ball movement and valuing possessions will put the Tigers in a position to score points against anyone.

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Danny Connors is an RTC correspondent and current Syracuse student. He can be found on Twitter @drexel42.

“You hear the Bernie Fine news? [various expletives]”

That’s how I first learned about the Fine scandal – through a text I received while on my bus ride home for Thanksgiving break. Over the course of the ride, other passengers on the bus (predominantly full of Syracuse students) were made aware of the accusations, but no one thought much of it. It was too fishy. Right after the Penn State fiasco, it had to be a money grab. I had just met Fine that week and my father knew him from the coaching business. The allegations had to be false. I couldn’t imagine another university-related sex scandal being broken just days after the Penn State saga. It was probably just a fluke and would blow over within a couple days.

Little did I know. . .

While The Fine Case Has Impacted Syracuse, It Has Not Reacted Like Penn State Did

Since that long bus ride, much more has unfolded. First, there was the aggressive support that Jim Boeheim gave Fine, his longtime friend and assistant. About a week later, there was an audiotape of a phone call between Laurie Fine and Bobby Davis (the first victim) with a third victim, Zach Tomaselli, coming out soon after that. By that evening, Syracuse had fired Bernie Fine. With the new information coming out in the case, the media called for Boeheim’s head not necessarily for a lack of supervision, but more for how he had criticized the alleged victims at the time the news first broke. The most recent significant event in this case was Boeheim’s “emotional” apology (the national press deemed it that, but I was in the room and don’t think it was necessarily so) that seemed to swing public opinion back in his favor. In between that two to three week period, the student body received many e-mails from Chancellor Nancy Cantor ensuring us that Syracuse would still be a safe community. It has been utter chaos.

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1. The Big East is expected to announce today that it will add five schools to its football lineup starting in the 2013 season, and the lucky ‘winners’ are quite literally all over the country. Boise State, San Diego State, Central Florida, SMU and Rice Houston will join the league in two years, with BSU and SDSU opting to join as football-only members, while the other three come on board in all sports, including basketball. We honestly never thought we’d see a day where the mighty hoops conference that Dave Gavitt created among a number of small private Catholic schools in the northeastern corridor would ever become a safe haven for the likes of a Methodist school, Phi Slama Jama, and a Florida commuter school, but the times they-are-a-changin’. Think of it this way — at least we’ll get to see more of Matt Doherty on national television.
2. Shouldn’t we just go ahead and pre-write the story where UCLA’s Reeves Nelson is permanently booted from the team? For the second time in the young season, the moody Bruin forward was suspended indefinitely by head coach Ben Howland for “conduct unbecoming a UCLA player.” The latest incident that drew Howland’s ire had to do with Nelson’s apparent laughter/smiling on the bench as Texas stormed back to beat his team on Saturday afternoon. If you read the comments from some of Nelson’s teammates and Howland in the LA Times article, you get a strong sense that the enigmatic forward is unlikely to figure it out. It would probably make the most sense for UCLA to move on in trying to rebuild its program without Nelson acting as a regular distraction, but we’ve been surprised with how much patience the head coach has shown with him.
3. Let’s stay in the Pac-12, also known as the conference of unhappy players, apparently. Merely one day after Arizona head coach Sean Miller noted that his freshman point guard, Josiah Turner, may get the start in tonight’s key game against Florida, the young player was suspended for that game for an undisclosed violation of team policy. Recapping the league’s recent player woes, we already know about UCLA’s Nelson. Arizona’s Sidiki Johnson and Oregon’s Jabari Brown didn’t even make it to their first semester break before deciding to transfer. Utah’s Josh Watson has been suspended indefinitely, as has California’s Richard Solomon. Arizona State’s Jahii Carson still has not been cleared by the NCAA to play this season. Things have already been a disaster on the hardwood for this conference; it appears that the instability of the league carries over to its personnel as well.
4. It’s rather hard to believe that he’s been around this long, but Coastal Carolina’s Cliff Ellis picked up his 700th career victory on Tuesday night against The Citadel. Nearly 80 of those wins came as the head coach of NAIA’s Cumberland College, but his 622 as the top man at South Alabama, Clemson, Auburn and CCU puts him currently at #8 on the list of active coaches, ahead of such names as Rick Pitino and Mike Montgomery. Ellis always struck us a little bit as a guy who would be happy so long as he was coaching anywhere, but he’s turned the Chanticleer program into a powerhouse in the Big South (64 wins in the last two-plus years), and with a solid core led by Anthony Raffa and Chris Gradnigo, we don’t think he’s going to retire anytime soon.
5. President Barack Obama made headlines on Tuesday with a speech he gave in Osawatomie, Kansas, yesterday, when he referred to the steadily-shrinking American middle class as having reached “a make or break” moment in its history. Harking back to a speech given 101 years ago by Teddy Roosevelt in the same spot, Obama stated that the crisis of income inequality and opportunity in America was the “defining issue of our time.” We won’t speculate on the merits of his argument, but it’s curious that he delivered one of the more notable speeches of the third year of his presidency immediately after meeting Kansas head coach Bill Self. Perhaps the leader of the free world felt so burned by KU’s NCAA Tournament meltdowns the last two seasons that it stirred up the orator in him to make a compelling speech.

Tonight’s Lede. We Will Not Give Up. On this same night every year, we feel compelled to join Dick Vitale and the rest in our support of the V Foundation in its fight against cancer. And every year, we find that we as a society have come a little bit closer to defeating the scourge that takes so many of our friends’ and families’ loved ones away from them too soon. As a bitter contemporary reminder, one of our colleagues lost her father to the disease yesterday. Another friend’s daughter was diagnosed with leukemia last year. Yet another friend recently underwent surgery to remove a precancerous polyp. Medical research is painstakingly slow and expensive and there’s unlikely to be a one-hit wonder out there that can ‘cure’ cancer, but treatments are improving. The V Foundation has given over $100 million dollars to fund 92 cancer research grants nationwide in its nearly 20-year history, and the benefits that have resulted from those dollars are certainly immeasurable. No matter who you might feel about Vitale, or Jim Valvano, or even ESPN, this is a noble and just cause. The page to donate is located here — and remember, the V Foundation passes along 100% of its donations directly to research initiatives.

Your Watercooler Moment. Crowder Not Crowded On the Right Wing. The second half of the Jimmy V Classic was more entertaining than the first tonight, even though it appeared that only a few hundred fans were in attendance for Marquette vs. Washington. A back-and-forth game that rarely saw either team take a lead of more than three points came down to execution in the clutch. After Washington’s Terrence Ross (a future star who had 19/9/3 assts) knocked in a tough heave off glass from the lane to give his team a one-point advantage with 19 seconds left, Marquette immediately went into its offensive set, confused two UW defenders who ended up falling on each other, and found Jae Crowder standing all alone in the corner for three. His bucket from the right wing gave Marquette the win, and showed just how important coaching is in late-game situations. Marquette is now 8-0 and playing like one of the better offensive teams in America. We just love watching Buzz Williams’ guys perform in close games.

Jae Crowder Silences the Small But Boisterous Washington Contingent in MSG (AP/F. Franklin)

Dunkdafied. Washington’s Terrence Ross and Marquette’s Vander Blue one-upped each other with huge dunks in the second half of tonight’s Jimmy V Classic nightcap.

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It’s Jimmy V Week, and we’re back at Madison Square Garden again to celebrate all the positive contributions that the V Foundation has made against the scourge of cancer in the last two decades. Join us for our live coverage this evening of what should be two solid games — Missouri vs. Villanova, and Marquette vs. Washington, after the jump.

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