Zach Hayes is a editor, contributor and bracketologist at Rush the Court.  To see the entire group of 2010-11 Class Schedules, click here.

This is the year for Purdue. The Baby Boilers that burst onto the scene as freshmen with a win at the Kohl Center are now wily veterans, seniors on a mission to take that next step to the final Monday of the NCAA Tournament. The progression for the trio of Robbie Hummel, E’Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson has been steady- a second round falter in 2008, a Sweet 16 loss in 2009 and another in 2010 that could have been so much more had Hummel not torn his ACL at Minnesota in February. The glory of playing under the Final Four’s bright lights in their home state was supposed to be Purdue’s rather than Butler’s to enjoy. The sour taste of how last spring concluded for Purdue has to be incredibly motivating. The return of Johnson and Moore after a brief NBA Draft flirtation immediately validated Matt Painter’s program as one to be reckoned with in 2010-11. West Lafayette’s Big Three have one last chance to accomplish something truly special. The urgency is palpable. Their time is now.

Hummel is the backbone of the Boilermakers

Team Outlook: For the first time since Glenn Robinson was gracing the hardwood, Purdue has legitimate hopes of winning a national title. Matt Painter hit the jackpot with his recruiting class of four years ago and that group’s final chance is quickly approaching. The main questions: Can they replace the toughness, tenacity and selflessness of Chris Kramer? Will JaJuan Johnson play with a fire in his belly from November through March? Can a healthy Lewis Jackson provide steadiness and reliability at the point guard spot? Will there be enough depth if Purdue should fall victim to the injury bug yet again? You won’t find a more complete trio in the nation than Hummel, Johnson and Moore. Painter has instituted a phenomenal man-to-man defense that has resulted in top-16 finishes in defensive efficiency the last four seasons. Those are two ingredients that even the biggest Indiana diehard has to admit gives Purdue a punchers chance to emerge as the final team standing in Houston. Navigating a rough-and-tumble Big Ten with a mountain of pressure and expectations is no piece of cake, but if anyone is up to the task, it’s Painter, Hummel and the talented Boilermakers.

Non-Conference Schedule Rank (ranked 1 thru 10, 10 being the most difficult): 5. Unlike their rivals and primary Big Ten competition Michigan State, the Boilermakers opted to refrain from loading up their non-conference schedule, although there are three definite tests that lie ahead. Their stiffest challenge is the ACC/Big Ten matchup at Virginia Tech where they’ll have to handle Malcolm Delaney and a raucous Hokie faithful. A close second is a return trip to Morgantown smack dab in the middle of Big Ten play to face Kevin Jones and West Virginia. After winning down in Tuscaloosa last December, the Crimson Tide return with a visit to Purdue’s home floor, although few project Anthony Grant’s team to be NCAA-bound this March. The other intriguing matchup is part of the Chicago Invitational should Purdue beat Southern Illinois and Richmond down Wright State. Richmond features one of the toughest guards in the nation in reigning A-10 Player of the Year Kevin Anderson. The other true road game on the non-conference slate is Valparaiso, a middle-of-the-pack Horizon squad.

Cupcake City: The Boilermakers bring in their fair share of cupcakes to Mackey Arena this year. They’ll likely start with three blowouts against Howard, Alcorn State and Austin Peay, although Oakland could cause some problems in the middle with Keith Benson back for another run at the Summit title. Purdue also welcomes North Florida and IPFW  in December and the defections from Carbondale has left Southern Illinois and head coach Chris Lowery fairly depleted. Indiana State lost two of their top three scorers from a 17-15 (9-9) MVC team. There’s a solid batch of easy sledding for Matt Painter on this year’s non-conference schedule before gearing up for the brutal Big Ten.

Toughest Early Season Test: Richmond may be a borderline Top 25 team for most of the season and the Mountaineers will be anything but a pushover down in Morgantown, but this distinction isn’t even close- the trip to Blacksburg is a game that Purdue absolutely can lose. The Big Ten certainly didn’t catch any breaks with Purdue, Michigan State (at Duke) and Ohio State (at Florida State) all taking difficult road trips this December. Seth Greenberg won’t be hyperventilating this Selection Sunday if his team comes close to playing up to their potential. Almost zero production was lost from a squad that finished 10-6 in the ACC but was relegated to the NIT due to their super-soft non-conference schedule. With ACC POY candidate Malcolm Delaney joining Jeff Allen and Dorenzo Hudson for Virginia Tech‘s own version of the Big Three to match Purdue, Tech could be the main competitor to the Blue Devils in what appears to be a mediocre ACC. Blacksburg will be absolutely rocking for this one. Luckily, Painter has some tremendous seniors that have played in extreme environments many times in the past.

Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Moore is the RTC correspondent for the ACC and an occasional contributor.

Around The ACC:

• Encore, Encore: Duke won the national title by toppling Butler in a hard-fought final, but unlike recent championship squads, there’s no major mass exodus of talent from Durham (unless you’re related to Jon Scheyer or Brian Zoubek), so the Blue Devils will have a legit chance to repeat.
• New Faces, New Places: Former Cornell head coach Steve Donahue, best known for elevating the Big Red from NCAA Tournament floormat to the Sweet 16, takes the lead for Boston College. Another import is former Wright State general Brad Brownell, who will lead Clemson after the departure of Oliver Purnell. Brownell previously served at UNC-Wilmington, so it shouldn’t take long for him to reopen that pipeline. Lastly, Jeff Bzdelik comes to Winston-Salem, hoping to provide Wake Forest with long-term stability.
• No News Is Good News: Rumors came and went surrounding conference realignment, but in the end, the ACC held steady amongst the national wave of teams changing conferences.

McDonald's All-American Kyrie Irving looks to complement an already-stacked Blue Devils squad on their way to a repeat.

Power Rankings (last season’s conference and overall records in parentheses)

1. Duke (13-3, 35-5): The Blue Devils don’t rebuild, they just reload. Losing Jon Scheyer and Brian Zoubek hurts, but when Coach K gets back from Turkey, he’ll be happy to see familiar faces in Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith and Mason and Miles Plumlee. College basketball fans everywhere can also rejoice in another season of Curry, as Stephen’s brother Seth is eligible to play after transferring in 2009, and Kyrie Irving (West Orange, NJ) makes his long-awaited debut. The frontcourt will have to pick up for the loss of Zoubek, but with this much talent to being with and Josh Hairston arriving in Durham, I don’t think it’ll be a problem.
   BETTER OR WORSE?: If you can believe it, I think Duke might be even better. They can’t top last year’s national title, obviously, but I don’t see any other ACC team touching them for the regular season title.
2. Virginia Tech (10-6, 25-9): The Hokies lose no one. I repeat: NO ONE. Find me another team in the nation that doesn’t lose a key contributor. With one of the ACC’s most exciting players, Malcolm Delaney, coming back, Tech also learned its lesson from NCAA snubs in the past and scheduled at least a couple interesting nonconference games, including Kansas State (away), Purdue, Penn State, Mississippi State and possibly Oklahoma State, depending on how the 76 Classic plays out in Anaheim.
   BETTER OR WORSE?: Better, at least by enough to not be sweating it out come Selection Sunday. Whether they can make noise in March, no one really knows, but the Hokies will dance this season.
3. Boston College (6-10, 15-16): Experience, experience, experience. No one has more of it in the ACC than the Eagles. BC’s new coach, former Cornell boss Steve Donahue, has more Sweet 16 experience than most coaches in the ACC. Don’t underestimate the Eagles this season (this coming from a Boston University grad and card-carrying BC hater). With so much youth all around the ACC, BC’s experience will be invaluable, and Donahue was an absolute no-brainer to replace Al Skinner.
   BETTER OR WORSE?: Better – much better. With Corey Raji, Joe Trapani and others leading the way, BC will join NC State as the league’s most improved teams, and should get an NCAA invite. Now if only they’d man up and put my alma mater back on their schedule. Read the rest of this entry »

1. If you’re inclined to buy into the ridiculousness that “every week is a playoff” meme in the college football realm, then this post wrapping up Week 1 of the season is for you.  As the article points out, 40 of the 120 D1-A teams in the National College Football Tournament have already been eliminated.  As such, let’s never discuss them again.  And each week, when many more teams are eliminated, let’s never discuss them again either.  And if that results in a meaningless Ohio State-Michigan rivalry game or a meaningless Texas-Oklahoma game come late November, then so be it — there should be little or no attention paid to those games unless their result impacts the national title picture.  But let’s pick one or the other, ok?  Either it’s a playoff system, or it’s not.  But it simply cannot be both.
2. Oregon is bleeding players in the wake of Dana Altman’s arrival in Eugene.  The latest is Michael Dunigan, a former big-time recruit for Ernie Kent who averaged 9/5 last season while shooting 55% from the field.  Dunigan will head overseas to play professionally, and his departure represents the fifth Duck player lost since Ernie Kent’s dismissal in March.  Altman has a major rebuilding project ahead of him on the court, but hey, at least the scoreboard hanging above the court will be the best in the nation.
3. The modern-day version of Damon Bailey?  James Blackmon, Jr., a high school freshman at Ft. Wayne’s Bishop Luers HS, committed to Tom Crean’s Indiana Hoosiers before ever playing a game in high school.  Of course, this isn’t terribly unusual in this era, but don’t forget that Billy Gillispie had a few such beyond-early commitments when he was at Kentucky, and well, let’s just say that those weren’t exactly binding.  Four years is a long time in the high-pressure world of college basketball, and although Crean seems to be moving in the right direction, he doesn’t have forever either.
4. With the addition of BYU, the general consensus around the WCC seems to be that a rising tide will lift all boats there.  Is that indeed the case, though?  Only Gonzaga and St. Mary’s last year were among Pomeroy’s top 100 teams, and it seems that the addition of the Cougs would help the overall league profile.  But what really needs to happen is that the bottom half of this league (squarely in the 200s) needs to markedly improve; we’re about 50/50 on whether BYU will be somewhat dragged down by it in the short term.
5. Just a friendly reminder, but today is the deadline for UConn to respond to the NCAA regarding the eight allegations it was accused of earlier this summer.  Of course, no decisions will ultimately be made until much later into the fall, but it’ll still be interesting to see how far UConn throws itself under the bus with self-imposed sanctions in order to curry favor with the NCAA.

After a week off due to some outside issues we are back with a lot of links that should keep you satiated while waiting for college football to come to its anti-climatic finish and the nation can turn its full attention to college basketball.

• ESPN has a new #1 in the class of 2011 rankings: Austin Rivers. Rivers has not committed yet, but most of the speculation that we have heard has him leaning towards Duke although he apparently will also visit Kansas and UNC.
  

  Your new #1 recruit?

• Mike DeCourcy disagrees with the ESPN rankings as he has a new #1: Adonis Thomas. We have previously profiled Thomas and his decision to go the reality TV route for his recruiting process. We never said we doubted his ability. We just questioned his methods of making himself a household name.

More Adonis after the jump.

• Score another one for Kentucky as they landed Kyle Wiltjer, a top 5 power forward in this year’s class, to go with their already ridiculously loaded class of 2011. The question now is whether or not they can land Quincy Miller to complete yet another super class for the Wildcats and essentially end the conversation about whether or not this 3-year run by Kentucky is the greatest group of recruits ever.
• For his part, Miller visited Louisville this weekend and appeared to like it there. Jody Demling has more here about Miller and other top recruits if you are willing to scroll through his chat.
• Speaking of Kentucky, KSR provides us with a quick rundown of Kentucky‘s latest recruiting efforts. As you can guess John Calipari is only going after the big names.
• Josiah Turner, the #2 point guard in this year’s class, has narrowed his list of schools to 5 (Louisville, UCLA,Arizona, Oregon, and Kansas) and has set dates for his projected visits.
• Steve Lavin is beginning to build his “Noah’s Ark” at St. John’s with the addition of Maurice Harkless, a small forward who had initially committed to UConn before backing out recently.
• Rutgers landed its top recruit of the early Mike Rice era when top 10 power forward Kadeem Jack committed to the Scarlet Knights.

Read the rest of this entry »

A few items  to catch up on from over the weekend.  Labor Day represents the end of summer, and with football on the tube and a slight crisp in the air, hoops is really not too far away.  Have a great day off, everyone.

1. WVU head coach Bob Huggins was roasted by several of his colleagues in the profession on Friday night, and while coaches are notoriously rather unfunny people, there were quite a few chuckles on this particular night.  Andy Kennedy, John Calipari, Ron Everhart and several others took turns at the dais, and even Huggs himself got in on the action.  WV Metro News put together a highlights package of the event here.
2. Duke’s Kyle Singler had his left knee scoped late last week in a routine procedure to alleviate some mild discomfort he was experiencing after a busy summer.  The NPOY and All-American candidate is expected to be back at 100% prior to the beginning of practice in six weeks.
3. Speaking of which…  Austin Rivers, the Rivals #1 rated recruit in the Class of 2011, announced via Twitter that he’ll be attending Duke’s Midnight Madness on October 15.   Duke is considered the favorite for Rivers’ services, so this is fairly strong evidence of where his heart may lie.
4. Michigan State’s Korie Lucious pleaded guilty last Thursday to a lesser charge of misdemeanor reckless driving after he was pulled over for drunk driving earlier in the week.  Let’s hope he’s learned his lesson on this one.
5. Fanhouse is churning out some interesting stuff lately, and this post by Ray Holloman is no exception.  He puts together the 2010-11 Two-Star or Less team, consisting solely of players who were pretty much overlooked by all the recruiting gurus when they were in high school.  The starting lineup:  Jimmer Fredette (BYU), Shelvin Mack (Butler), Tim Abromaitis (Notre Dame), Kenneth Faried (Morehead State), Mike Davis (Illinois).  That’s a top five lineup.

Rush The Court is back with another edition of One on One: an Interview Series, which we hope to publish weekly on Friday mornings throughout the year.  If you have any specific interview requests or want us to interview you, shoot us an email at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Arthur Agee is one of the inimitable names in basketball circles for his excruciatingly real portrayal of a hotshot recruit with dreams of the NBA in one of the greatest documentaries of all-time, Hoop Dreams.  The movie tracked Agee and his Chicago compatriot, William Gates, as they moved through the shady underworld of high school basketball star-making and college basketball recruiting in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Agee, the player who seemed more likely to end up on the wrong path as a result of his tough home life, ended up winning the Chicago Public League championship in 1991 and attending Arkansas State on scholarship.  While he nor Gates never made it to the NBA, they both have found meaning through their experiences captured on film to pass on their lessons to youngsters in the community: Gates as a pastor, and Agee as a motivational speaker who travels around the country inspiring students to follow their “hoop dreams” in all walks of life.  Agee was kind enough to speak with us last week.

Rush The Court: Arthur, talk to us a little bit about what you’re doing these days with your foundation (Arthur Agee Foundation) and your upcoming Hoop Dreams Tour (@HoopDreams2010 on Twitter) in October.

Arthur Agee: My Arthur Agee role model foundation involves me speaking and doing motivational things for kids.  The tour coming up with Mike Brown at Hoop Connection will have us traveling around from city to city [scheduled cities: Chicago, Orlando, Dallas, Sacramento] in October to help young athletes in those places pursue their hoop dreams.  We’ll be picking one person in each of those places to tell his or her story about their struggle and try to help them achieve their hoop dream — whether it’s a scholarship to college, a job in coaching or whatever else.  Our hope is that a reality televison show will pick it up and air what happens while we’re on this tour.

Agee Reached his Athletic Pinnacle at Marshall, But Much More Was on the Way

RTC: It’s amazing that this low-budget independent movie still has so much resonance over fifteen years later.  We hear from basketball fans regularly that it’s their favorite movie of all-time.  Can you discuss how you’re trying to use the opportunities it is still providing for you now?

AA: Well, realize that my family didn’t see any money from “Hoop Dreams” the movie.  Maybe $150,000 to $200,000.  The filmmakers saw it as a stepping stone project for themselves, but often times we were forgotten about.  That said, they have authorized me to use the name Hoop Dreams to brand it.  A consultant we talked to says there might be about $4 million left in it, so we got permission from the filmmakers to start a full clothing line — sneakers, hats, and so on.  So that’s the business challenge that I’m currently facing with it — branding Hoop Dreams and making it profitable.

RTC: What about the movie itself?  What has changed from those days and what life lessons can you give to young people today as a result of your experiences?

AA: Well, the basketball landscape has changed.  From the mid-90s until a few years ago, you could jump straight to the NBA from high school.  But the statistics on actually making it to the pros is really small.  Kids should be thinking about the primary goal to get a scholarship to college, and let the rest take care of itself.  I use a phrase, “Education is a necessity… basketball is a privilege,” and it’s true.  In the movie we did a couple of years ago, “Hoop Reality,” which was a fifteen-year follow-up to “Hoop Dreams,” I helped Patrick Beverley achieve his hoop dream.  We focused on him in the movie, and he eventually went to Arkansas on a scholarship and just recently signed a $1.5 million deal with the Miami Heat.  At Arkansas State, I had to do everything on my own to get noticed, and some agents came to me because of the movie, but that was about it.

Many of the Lessons From 20 Years Ago Are the Same

RTC: How is your relationship with co-star William Gates [a minister in the Chicago area now] from the movie?

AA: Will is great, and I keep up with him quite a bit. You have to keep in mind, though, that William Gates in the movie was still a lot better player than a lot of people with two good knees.  His son, Will Jr., is sixteen now [Class of 2013] and at St. Joseph’s just like we were.  Still with Coach [Gene] Pingatore!  I’d tell him what I’d tell anybody with a hoop dream — live your hoop dreams and control your own destiny, which means to go hard after whatever you want and don’t let anybody else get in your way.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. The wait continues.  UConn was expected to release its response to eight NCAA allegations by the end of this week, but today the school released a statement that a second extension (the first was from August 20 until today) had been granted until September 7 (Tuesday next week).  Of course, everyone is interested to hear how the school plans to respond to the allegations, but it’ll have to wait until after the Labor Day weekend.  A second extension means somebody is going to be locked away in a windowless office all weekend, though — sucks to be them.
2. UNC head coach Roy Williams is hopeful that none of his players will be affected by some of the allegations swirling about academic fraud and player/agent relationships in the Tar Heel football program, but he was careful to hedge by saying you can never be 100% sure.  It is a valid concern, though, as often times the football and basketball players commiserate together (notable exception: Kansas).
3. Speaking of Roy, the ACC released all of its schedules for the 2010-11 season yesterday, and this pleases us… well.
4. No worries at Northwestern, who despite Kevin Coble’s surprising exit from college basketball still thinks it can make the NCAA Tournament.  And perhaps with three extra bids next year, they have a chance.  Rivals takes a look at how the Wildcats are planning to handle this in what is probably the toughest major conference in America next season.
5. We don’t really care about what Time Warner is doing with respect to Disney and, by proxy, ESPN.  But what we do care about is this thing they’re calling “Buzzer Beater.”  This… could be very interesting.  Very interesting indeed.

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-10 Conferences and an occasional contributor.

Hooray! Today is the official end of the Great Sports Desert – you know, that period of time between the first Monday in April and the first weekend of the college football season. Beginning tonight, there are actual meaningful sporting events that I am interested in. Let’s be clear, I love college football. Easily my second favorite sport. But, I’m a college hoops junkie first and foremost, and part of the reason I love the start of college football season is because that means that the start of college basketball is within shouting distance from here. And, while looking over the slate of college football games this weekend, I couldn’t help but imagine some of these matchups as college basketball games. So, here I have, in reverse order, the ten most intriguing matchups of the college football weekend, provided they are re-imagined as season openers in basketball season.  (ed. note: yes, he is sick, but we love him for it)

College Sports is Back on the Calendar!

First, a nod to a handful of games which, being a junkie and all, definitely appeal to me, but were just a bit off of my top-10 list:

• Pittsburgh @ Utah – on Thursday night, with only six other games on. If this was basketball season, and there were only six other games on, you could bet I’d watch some of this. Sure, Utah isn’t going to be very good, but it would be interesting to see Pitt go on the road early into a hostile environment.
• Murray State @ Kent State – a very good mid-major matchup between one of last season’s Cinderellas and one of the MAC’s always competitive teams.
• Connecticut @ Michigan – this game just sounds really good, but in reality, UConn is down and Michigan is, well, I would say Michigan is down, but its been awhile since they’ve been up.
• Richmond @ Virginia – a big intrastate matchup between the A-10 and the ACC. If Virginia was just a little bit better, this may have made the cut, because UR will be very good again, but a road trip into the John Paul Jones Arena would be a good early test for Kevin Anderson and company.
• Northwestern @ Vanderbilt – as enticing as this Wildcat/Commodore matchup would be between two talented teams with NCAA Tournament hopes, this just misses the cut.

And on to the top 10:

• #10 – Washington State @ Oklahoma State – Klay Thompson, Reggie Moore and DeAngelo Casto invade the Gallagher-Iba Arena to provide a good early season test for a young Cowboy squad minus last season’s two leading scorers. While the young Cowboy guards Ray Penn and Keiton Page keep this close throughout, too much Thompson eventually does them in.

Predicted Football Score: Oklahoma State 31 Washington State 10

Predicted Basketball Score: Washington State 72 Oklahoma State 66

• #9 – UCLA @ Kansas State – Kansas State is one of the teams on the short list of national title contenders. UCLA is, well, honestly, not very good at least judging by last season’s performance. But, they’re still UCLA. And their frontline of Reeves Nelson, Josh Smith and Tyler Honeycutt will test Curtis Kelly, Wally Judge and company, perhaps even to a draw. We’ll also get a first chance to see if the Bruins have even remotely solved their problems at the point, an area of concern that will eventually be the deciding factor in this matchup as Jacob Pullen eventually gets over on Malcolm Lee and the Wildcats pull away in the second half.

Pullen is Back With Another Strong Team

Predicted Football Score: UCLA 23 Kansas State 17

Predicted Basketball Score: Kansas State 70 UCLA 60

• #8 – Syracuse @ Akron – Jim Boeheim taking his Orange on the road early against a Midwest mid-major? Sure, that’ll happen. But, if it did, I’d be thrilled to see my first glimpse of Syracuse freshman center Fab Melo battling the Zips own young center, sophomore seven-footer Zeke Marshall. Sure, the Orange’s talent would probably win out in the end with Akron not having an answer for Kris Joseph, but I’m pretty sure that we’d get at least 30 minutes of pretty compelling basketball here.

Predicted Football Score: Syracuse 24, Akron 20

Predicted Basketball Score: Syracuse 67 Akron 55

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday we introduced our 2010 RTC Big Four State Tournament, and it was great to see some of the responses and feedback on it.  We’re convinced this is going to be a fun series.  Today we’re back for the second day of First Round games (the right side of the below bracket), including our analysis and projected winner, but we encourage you guys to make your picks for each game in the accompanying polls.

In case you missed yesterday’s post explaining what we’re talking about, here’s our selection criteria:

1. Similar to the Fanhouse post, we picked the top four programs in each of the 33 states (including DC) with at least that many D1 universities.
2. We then chose the top sixteen states based on the current status and power of those four programs within each state.
3. Next, we chose a starting lineup ”dream team” of players from those programs in each state, thinking about how to best integrate them by position (three guards & two bigs; or vice versa).
4. We also chose two subs — one guard and one big man — as well as a head coach.
5. We limited each school to two starters and one bench player for a maximum of three per team (sorry, Duke).  We also made sure to include at least one player from each of the four chosen programs (hi, Seattle).
6. Finally, we seeded the sixteen teams into our bracket and analyzed the matchups.  We encourage you to use the polls below to do likewise.

#2 North Carolina vs. #15 California

The first thought we had when analyzing this matchup is… that’s all you got, Cali?  Good grief — the nation’s most populous state by far can only muster a lineup of players that includes Jorge Gutierrez as a starter?   No offense to the ponytailed energizer bunny from Cal, but this game is a mismatch from start to finish.  Sadly, even if we had included every single one of California’s 24 D1 schools and added some studs like Stanford’s Jeremy Green, LMU’s Drew Viney and Vernon Teel, Santa Clara’s Kevin Foster, San Jose State’s Adrian Oliver and the St. Mary’s backcourt of Mickey McConnell and Matthew Dellavadova, the Tar Heel Staters still wipe the floor with this team.  Maybe California could draft Kobe Bryant, Tyreke Evans and Stephen Curry to their squad?  There’s simply too much talent on Coach K’s team from top to bottom (sound familiar?) for his team to sweat this one too terribly much.  The only area that North Carolina has a problem with California is in the post, where SDSU’s Kawhi Leonard can take advantage of the slighter frames of the NC bigs to put in some work.  But the speed, athleticism and scoring punch of the #2 seed is far too powerful here.  North Carolina rolls in a blowout.

RTC Choice: North Carolina 82, California 59.

#7 Washington vs. #10 Tennessee

The matchups at the two guard spots and the wing are tantalizing in this game. The fatal flaw with the boys from the Volunteer State is their lack of a true point guard. Adding Melvin Goins or Brad Tinsley to the roster would have meant sacrificing one of Wesley Witherspoon, Scotty Hopson, Jeffery Taylor or bench ace John Jenkins, and it’s hard to blame coach Pearl for not making that move. Luckily for him, his team is loaded with intriguing first round talent, albeit at times inconsistent and frustrating talent. It also helps that Washington’s point man, Isaiah Thomas, isn’t much of a distributor either. Although Elias Harris may be limited by the length of Taylor, it’s his Zag teammate Robert Sacre that’s primed for a monster performance being guarded by Brian Williams at 2-3 inches shorter and the inexperienced Tobias Harris. Plus, we haven’t even mentioned Klay Thompson, a popular choice for Pac-10 Player of the Year.  It’ll be a well-played back-and-forth game, but we have the Washingtonians moving on.

RTC Choice: Washington 81, Tennessee 77.

#3 Pennsylvania vs. #14 Wisconsin

Read the rest of this entry »

Arizona State coach Herb Sendek is a happy man today. Dan Haller of the Arizona Republic reports that 6’6 senior shooting guard Rihards Kuksiks is back on the ASU campus and will indeed play for the Sun Devils in the upcoming season.

A step behind the line is nothing for Rihards.

There had been some speculation regarding Kuksiks’ participation for 2010-11, but after a stay in his native Latvia during the summer that included time playing for the national team, Kuksiks has decided to return to Tempe and finish his college career. Known as a streaky long-range shooter (and what three-point bomber isn’t?), Kuksiks has range out to the hash marks when he’s on. He had nine games last season in which he hit at least four threes, including seven against San Francisco on 11/20/09 and eight against UCSB on 12/21/09. He shot 38.3% from beyond the arc last year and is just over 40% for his career. Last season, he and fellow rising senior Ty Abbott both led the Sun Devils in scoring with 12.0 PPG, and he was fifth best in the entire Pac-10 in free throw percentage at 87.5%.

His return to ASU means Sendek gets back not just a senior leader and top scorer, but one with further seasoning over the summer, having helped the Latvian national side qualify for the 2011 European Championships. It also moves ASU back into the top contenders for the crown in the Pac-10, a conference which looks to be only slightly improved from last season’s dull version.