In getting all the preview stuff together, we lost a little track of the news other than the endless suspensions and injuries…

• NCAA Not Backing Down on Renardo Sidney.  If the information that Gary Parrish wrote in his “Three Storylines” articles is true, then Mississippi State’s Renardo Sidney may not play this season at all.  According to the Sidney family attorney, the NCAA requested additional evidence beyond what the Sidneys gave them two weeks ago — specifically, “records that identify the sources of each [bank] deposit, cellular phone records for every family member since Jan. 1, 2006, records to indicate where every payroll check was deposited, etc.”  To an untrained ear, that sounds like the NCAA isn’t buying what the Sidneys are selling.  The evidence that the Sidneys previously provided — bank statements and the like — don’t mean a whole lot unless they can show the funds in those accounts are not a product of financial tomfoolery.  So, what now for the Sidneys?  MSU’s first game is against Rider on Friday night, so their only recourse might be to take things to court, but the NCAA could probably motion up/down/sideways until March to keep Sidney off the floor if it wanted to make a point.  Even if Sidney sought injunctive relief in the interim, MSU is unlikely to play Sidney until he’s eligible by NCAA standards.  Well, Jarvis Varnado and John Riek still makes for a nasty frontcourt, right? 
• Arkansas Suspensions.  Courney Fortson and Stefan Welsh were indefinitely suspended by John Pelphrey today for their roles in various discipinary actions over the offseason.  Additionally, reserve Marcus Britt will miss six games, freshman Glenn Bryant will miss two games, and walk-on Nick Mason will miss the fall semester.  The latter three players were at a fraternity party last month where a student alleged several players raped her.  The local prosecutor (who is related to Arkansas brass) said there wasn’t enough evidence to move forward, but the case has now been brought to a special prosecutor for further review.
• Vegas Watch Mammoth Preview.  It was finished over the weekend, so here’s the link to the entire thing in one place.  The analysis we performed here reflects VW’s vision as to how to project the 2009-10 teams in a quantifiable manner, and we think he’s done a pretty damn good job at developing a formula that properly takes into account returnees plus incoming recruits.  Keep an eye on things over there this week as he rolls out a list of the final projected ratings among the BCS conferences (and a few others) sliced and diced in various ways. 
• Preaseason Stuff.  There’s more out in the last week than we know what to do with, and besides you have our Everything You Need to Know… post to guide you there, but let’s look at some of the better things we’ve seen.  Luke Winn has his 16 most entertaining players in America, while Jeff Goodman gives his 65 storylines to watch for this season and even found time to do a little bracket work.   Mike DeCourcy encourages us all to buy blue-chip stocks this year and also lists his top storylines and questions.  Gary Parrish believes that the Big 12 is the best conference in the land this year, and he also projects a bracket for us while sprinkling around his all-americans.  Everybody’s doing this bracket thing these days, including Jerry Palm, whose done it once or twice before.  And for good measure, here’s the Fox Sports power rankings.
• Quick Hits.  Ken Bone: unplugged.  DeCourcy: why cupcakes?  Bob Knight: as expected, did not attend his IU Hall of Fame induction over the weekend.  Cal Faculty: nonbinding vote to end athletic department subsidies.  Scout: top 100 prospects of 2010.  Isiah: got his mom’s blessing to coach Monday night.  UNC Throwbacks: why would Carolina ever have red in its unis?  Jeff Capel: Big 12 is the best.  Deniz Kilicli: WVU freshman forward will sit until February!  Villanova: How Scottie Reynolds almost ended up at Oklahoma.  Dave Odom: your new Maui chairman.  ACC Tourney: headed back to the ATL in 2012 (but at Phillips Arena, not the Ga Dome).  Luke Apfeld: Vermont player tears ACL again.

Ed. Note: check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

We are now seriously in the dog days of summer.  The July recruiting period is over, coaches are on vacation, and the college basketball news feeds have dried up like Hillary Clinton in Kenya.  Even Congress has taken the month off, meaning that RTC has been left thinking up new ways to entertain ourselves while we wait for the cool autumn breezes to arrive.  One idea we’ve been sitting on since the end of the 2009 NCAA Tournament has been to evaluate the top ten programs of the 2000s, culminating in a coronation of the Team of the 2000s.  Remember, next season – 2009-10 – actually falls into the 2010s, so when Kansas or Kentucky or Michigan St. or Butler wins that title, they’ll stake an early claim on the Team of the Next Decade, not the current one.

We used a hybrid analysis in constituting our top ten programs of the 2000s.  The numbers are extremely important – how many titles, F4s, Sweet Sixteens, NCAA Appearances, did you have?  How did you perform in your conference?  What about wins and losses?  NBA Draft picks?  Consistency?  But there’s also a qualitative component that we used – which programs ‘felt’ like they performed in the 2000s?  How do you handle programs who were consistently good vs. those who had a couple of really good years?  What if that team had a losing season, or multiple losing seasons?  All of these factors and more were considered in our analysis.  Hopefully we’ve come up with a fair representation of the top programs of the last decade, but as always, we encourage you to tell us where we’re wrong.

#10 – Maryland

Overview.  Had we reviewed the first half of the 2000s separately, Gary Williams’ program would have been right there with Duke and Michigan St. as the top program, with five NCAA appearances, two F4s and a title in 2002 to its credit.  However, the Terrapin program has fallen off considerably in the second half of the decade, with the Terps failing to make the NCAAs in three of the last five seasons and only winning a total of two NCAA games in the other two appearances (cf. with 14 wins from 2000-04).  Of the twenty-three programs we considered, Maryland had the worst overall W/L record, yet it’s a testament to their early-decade postseason success that they still managed to sneak into our top ten of the 2000s.  One positive for the program throughout the decade has been its relative consistency.  Although the Terps haven’t been a mainstay in the NCAA Tournament in recent years, they’re always in the conversation.  The program hasn’t endured a losing season since 1993, and even in their ‘bad’ years, Gary Williams still manages to coax a 19-13 type of year out of his players (resulting in NIT appearances).  The Maryland program is still a program to be feared (“fear the turtle”), but there are legitimate questions as to whether this program can again achieve the success that it did at the beginning of the decade under its current leadership.

Pinnacle.  Clearly the 2002 national title team featuring Juan Dixon, Lonny Baxter and Chris Wilcox.  This team exorcised several years of obsesssive frustration on the part of Terp fans with respect to its most hated rival, Duke, and in so doing gave Maryland its long-awaited first national championship.  But it wasn’t easy: in fact, conventional wisdom at the time said that UM would never get there with that particular group.  When Maryland blew not one, not two, but THREE, games to Duke in utterly confounding collapses in 2001, there was a prevailing sentiment that the Terp program simply could not get over the mental hurdle necessary to beat the Devils and (by proxy) win a national title.  After an early-season shellacking in Cameron in 2002, though, the Terps finally put it all together and reeled off thirteen ACC wins in a row (including a convincing win over Duke in College Park) to win the regular season and secure a #1 NCAA seed.  Then, with the fortuitous news that the Devils were knocked out in the Sweet Sixteen by Indiana and Jared Jeffries, the Terps cruised through the field without worry about facing their longtime nemesis, and behind the scintillating shooting of Juan Dixon (26 ppg on 54% shooting), they cut down the nets for their first and only national championship.

Tailspin.   Other than the gut-punch moments in 2001 mentioned above, we’d have to say that Terp fans must be extremely frustrated by recent vintage Maryland teams consistently tanking down the stretch of the regular season.  In 2005, Maryland was a promising 15-7 coming off a win vs. Duke – they lost five of their next six games (incl. 0-1 in the ACC Tourney).  In 2006, the Terps were 14-4 only to finish 5-8 (1-1 ACCT) and settle for another NIT bid.  In 2008, they sat at 16-8 prior to a 2-6 finish (0-1 ACCT) that again led to the NIT.  Even last year, the Terps finished 1-3 prior to making a nice run in the ACC Tourney, and the one season they actually finished strong (7-0 down the streetch in 2007), they were one-and-done in the ACC.  These disappointing finishes have led some observers to ask questions regarding the leadership capabilities of their longtime coach – has he gotten complacent after winning his national title?

Outlook for 2010s:  Grade: B+. As long as the irascible Gary Williams is heading the ship at Maryland, there’s no reason to believe that the Terps will fall off sharply:  Maryland will remain competitive both in the ACC and nationally.  The question is whether he has the fire and drive to once again get Maryland to the top of the food chain, and we don’t think he does.  In order to prove us wrong, he’ll have to step up his recruiting in the fertile DC/Baltimore area.  Consider that in the last seven years since the 2002 championship, all-world players such as Kevin Durant, Ty Lawson and Carmelo Anthony went to schools outside of the area – two of them won titles, the other was a NPOY.  Would Maryland’s fortunes change substantially if they were once again keeping players like that close to home?  Of course they would.  The flip side of this is what might happen should Williams decide to retire in the next few years – where would the Maryland program go from there?  Williams has already had public battles with Maryland officials over recruiting and his graduation rate is abominable, and it wouldn’t shock us if he hung up the whistle (or had it hung up for him) before the end of his contract in 2012.   Some people question whether the Maryland program would flourish without Williams, remembering the dark days of the 80s under Bob Wade, but we disagree.  The recruiting bounty in the area alone is enough to attract a top-flight coach, and Maryland has historically supported its basketball program to the max.  Some new blood on the sidelines could once again move this program up from the top 20s (where it is now) to a top 10 program, but the key question to answer is how much longer will the state of flux with Williams last?

The rest of the previews are going to be much shorter than the East Regional Analysis because the other regions aren’t as loaded. Ok, you got me. That preview took way too much time given my schedule. Plus, the other regions suck. . .

Teams
#1 Kansas: Bill Self leads a loaded Jayhawk team into the tournament. They have all the tools–experience and talent in both the backcourt and frontcourt–that they need to win (although they are one of the few teams in college basketball that doesn’t take advantage of the short 3 point shot). The question is that will Kansas end its reputation for choking in the tournament. With a few exceptions (1991, 1993, 2002, and 2003 come to mind), the Jayhawks have found a way to lose to vastly inferior teams. The most notable example are 2005 and 2006 against Bucknell and Bradley respectively. We think the Jayhawks are too talented for that to happen, but the Jayhawks have proven us wrong before. Schedule/Roster.

#2 Georgetown: As we stated in our Big East finals review, we noted that the Hoyas have all the tools to win the tournament. They have experience, a very good backcourt, the nation’s best 7-footer, and a solid coach. Before the bracket came out, we were worried about Hibbert’s tendency to disappear for stretches when he should be able to dominate. However, their road to the Final 4 seems particularly favorable, which means they are a trendy pick to make it to San Antonio. Schedule/Roster.

#3 Wisconsin: While we don’t think the Badgers have much of a chance of winning the NCAA title, they definitely deserved a 2 seed over Duke. Like your typical Bo Ryan team, they play excellent defense. Led by Brian Butch and Michael Flowers, the Badgers are team capable of making the Elite 8, but will have a difficult road getting there (probably USC and Georgetown). Schedule/Roster.

#4 Vanderbilt: Vandy is an exciting team to watch and capable of beating anybody (ask Bruce Pearl). They have a solid all-around lineup with 3 seniors. However, their mediocre defense all but guarantees they will trip up somewhere along the line. Schedule/Roster.

#5 Clemson: With a win over Duke and three close games against UNC, Clemson can play with anybody in the country when they are on. The Tigers are athletic and had a nice run in the ACC tournament, but their awful FT shooting will catch up with them making them unlikely to advance past a round or two. Schedule/Roster.

#6 USC: We think that everybody knows about and has seen USC at this point. OJ Mayo has turned the Trojans into one the tournament’s most talked about “sleepers”. After reaching the Sweet 16 last year before bowing out to UNC, Tim Floyd added 2 “diaper dandies”. Ok, so maybe that isn’t 100% accurate since Mayo and Jefferson are closer to Depends than Huggies and Mayo’s recruitment was more like OJ adding the Trojans to his schedule. One of the interesting and challenging things for the Trojans has been how the freshman were integrated into a team that was already good. After struggling early, USC has come together at the right time. Mayo has reined in his tendency to dominate the ball although he still lapses into his old habits occasionally. The Trojans NCAA fortunes will like ride on which Taj Gibson shows up. Gibson, who has been college basketball’s version of Steve Slaton, will need to come up big if the Trojans want to make a deep run. Either way, we enjoy having another guy named OJ at USC. We hope that he has better “luck” with relationships. Schedule/Roster.

#7 Gonzaga: At this point, Gonzaga is way past the point of being a Cinderella. This team has a lot of talent including several guys with pro potential. They have a solid squad with 4 guys averaging double figures. Their first round matchup with Davidson will be a must-watch. Schedule/Roster.

#8 UNLV: These aren’t your old school Running Rebels. Lon Kruger returns a very different team from last year’s Sweet 16 team as most of the roster changed (including his son). Their own hometown doesn’t seem to believe in them, as Vegas has put UNLV (the higher seed) as 2 point underdogs against Kent State. Schedule/Roster.

#9 Kent State: As we noted above, Vegas has Kent State as 2 point favorites. Apparently they don’t agree with the selection committee. The Golden Flash should be a tough matchup as they feature a balanced attack with 4 scorers in double figures. Schedule/Roster.

#10 Davidson: Led by Stephen Curry and coming in with a NCAA-leading 22 game winning streak, Davidson is a very dangerous team. The committee made an interesting decision to pit them against Gonzaga. This can be interpreted in one of two ways: knock out a dangerous mid-major in the first round or ensure a dangerous mid-major in the second round Schedule/Roster.

#11 Kansas State: We would love to see Michael Beasley make a run deep in the tournament, but with his sidekick Bill Walker most well-known for peeing in a towel and going 0-for-14 against Texas it will be a short run for the #1 pick in the 2008 NBA Draft. Schedule/Roster.

#12 Villanova: Jay Wright’s team was likely the last at-large team invited to the tournament. They are a young team with some talented players (most notably Scotty Reynolds), but they appear to be a few years away from being a threat to make a run (assuming nobody does anything stupid by leaving school early). However, Clemson’s awful FT shooting may let them stay in the game and allow Villanova’s talented players to steal a game. Schedule/Roster.

#13 Siena: Before you get too excited about their win over Stanford, you should remember that Brook Lopez was suspended earlier this season making Stanford a very different team in November. With a young team and the talent to beat Stanford (even if it wasn’t at his peak), Siena will be a very dangerous mid-major in a few years. However, their matchup with Vanderbilt will be a stiff challenge even if Vandy is soft defensively. Schedule/Roster.

#14 Cal State Fullerton: A team full of transfers (literally everybody transferred from somewhere else), CSF is a team that likes a fast pace, but will find out in the first 10 minutes that Wisconsin prefers a slow pace. They will quickly learn that it is easier to slow a game down than it is to speed it up. Schedule/Roster.

#15 UMBC: The winners of America East, a horrible conference except when Germain Mopa Njila becomes a household name for 15 minutes, UMBC should enjoy their hotel and the scenery because Georgetown is too talented and has too much experience to let UMBC hang around. We think. . . Schedule/Roster.

#16 Portland State: We’ll save both you some time (and us some research time). No #16 has ever won a first round game. Schedule/Roster.

So my predictions yesterday didn’t turn out so well and I might have left out a few things. . .

Ok, if you used my picks in Vegas you are probably reading this blog at a public library because you lost your home yesterday. And yeah, I completely forgot about that small conference called the Big East. I’ll chalk it up to trying to cover one of the busiest days in the sport on my first day.

Big East
– Pittsburgh 74, #9 Georgetown 65: Pitt is rounding into a very dangerous team as they recover from early-season injuries. They basically won this game on the boards as they held a 41-29 advantage on the glass to overcome an atrocious 22-for-44 performance from the line.
– The bigger picture (other than Pitt winning the Big East tourney for only the 2nd time despite 8 finals appearances) is that Georgetown probably didn’t change its seed for the NCAA tournament with this performance. They will likely end up a 2 or 3 seed, which we don’t think will matter in the end. We like Georgetown’s inside/outside combination, but we wouldn’t count on Roy Hibbert to deliver consistently in the tournament. Despite his height, reasonable inside game, and good feel for the game that you see with his passing, we just feel something is missing with Hibbert (read: a desire to dominate). Pittsburgh will be a very interesting team to watch on the selection show. Lunardi has them as a 3 seed based on their post-season performance, but that seems really high for a team that wasn’t even ranked going into their conference tourney. In any case, they will be a dangerous team that nobody wants in their region.

ACC
– Well these games ended up a lot more competitive than we expected. The first semi was a back-and-forth affair that featured big plays from multiple players on both team (we hope you were watching, OJ) that wasn’t decided until ACC and potential national POY Tyler Hansbrough grabbed a rebound and hit a jumper along the baseline with 0.8 secs left to beat Virginia Tech, 68-66. He then proceeded to show us the most awkward celebration we have ever seen. He clearly needs to watch Laettner’s celebration again to see how it is done. In the second semi, Clemson pulled off the upset over Duke, 78-74 (tip of the hat to Vegas Watch). Clemson is a very athletic team that can play with anybody on a given night, but is often killed by its free throw shooting. Amazingly, they went 7/8 from the FT line down the stretch to put the Blue Devils away.
– UNC locked up the #1 seed in the East Regional with their win (and Tennessee’s choke job), which gives them an in-state path to the Final 4. Duke’s loss takes away any shot it had at a #1 seed, and they will likely end up with a #2 seed. Clemson was already getting in the tournament so at this point they are just climbing up the seeding charts. Viriginia Tech will be playing for the right to call itself the 66th best team in the country.
– In today’s final, we’re going with UNC (down by 1 at half). We don’t think Clemson can hit FTs two days in a row.

Back with more from the other conferences later.

I am not sure what to call this column because I don’t want to steal rtmsf’s “After the Buzzer” title and it’s too damn early to think straight. If you have any clever ideas for a title, leave a comment and I’ll consider it. I’m breaking this into multiple parts because it would take me roughly the entire day if I tried to do this for every conference tourney. I’ll try to recap the major conferences with more emphasis on the games I actually saw. Since there is just too much stuff going on for one man to cover (thanks rtmsf), some people will get the short end of the stick (apologies in advance to the Big West Conference fans). If you want to add your 2 cents on these games or the ones I skip over, feel free to leave comments on them.

Onto the games/tornadoes. . .

SEC
– Obviously, the big story of the night as the Worldwide Leader told me this morning was the tornadoes/storms that delayed the SEC Tournament (and probably destroyed a few homes and various other buildings). I didn’t get to see much of the game because of other commitments (read: much better games were on), but the finish of Mississippi State-Alabama game was ridiculous. I caught the end of regulation as Alabama’s Mykal Riley hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer that hit every part of the rim and bounced off the backboard before falling through. With the game going into OT, the really weird stuff as the roof tore and the building began to shake. After a hour-plus delay, play resumed and MSU won 69-67 as Riley couldn’t work his magic again at the buzzer at the end of OT. We would say more, but we were already on FSN watching the battle of LA. If anybody who was in the Georgia Dome when this all went down, we would be interested in hearing about it. In other SEC news, Tennessee survived a scare and maintained its bid for a #1 seed as Chris Lofton hit a 3 with 11.4 secs left to give UT an 89-87 victory over South Carolina in Dave Odom’s final game as coach of the Gamecocks.  In the other game of the day, Arkansas beat Vandy 81-75. I didn’t see any of this game (not even the highlights), but I will just point to the HUGE edge for the Razorbacks on the boards (43-20 or 45-24 depending on whether you believe the box score or AP article).
– Play resumes today as the delayed UGA/UK game will be played at noon ET at Georgia Tech. After that, UT and Arkansas will play in thee first at 6 PM. MSU and the winner of UGA/UK will tip at approximately 8:30 PM. This obviously puts the winner of UGA/UK at a huge disadvantage as they will have to pull an Ernie Banks, but in the end I don’t think it will matter. UK is pretty much guaranteed a spot in the tournament and UGA won’t be making the tournament now that players can’t take a Harrick Jr. basketball class. The picks here are UK, UT, and MSU. Yeah, I’m going chalk and I briefly considered taking the Razorbacks, but I’ll go with UT waking up and taking care of business.

ACC
– Normally, I would give more coverage to the most hyped conference in the sport, but this year the conference is UNC/Duke and a bunch of nobodies. So here’s a quick recap of the games: UNC wasn’t firing on all cylinders, but beat FSU, 82-70 (Psycho T chipped in 22 and 6); Duke survived a weak stretch with the lead falling to 52-50, which they are prone to have given the way they play, but won 82-70 (not a typo); Virginia Tech and Clemson both won handily. I don’t even have to look at the match-ups to tell you my predictions: Duke and UNC.

“Other”
– Big 12: I’ll give them more billing on my recap tomorrow, but there was not much that was noteworthy yesterday. Recap: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas A&M won. Beasley’s 25 and 9 wasn’t enough to lift KSU over TAMU, but KSU still should be in the NCAA Tournament comfortably given the way other bubble teams have performed. Another conference with 2 really strong teams followed by mediocre teams so the picks are Texas and Kansas
– CUSA: Memphis won to reach the finals where they will play Tulsa. Obviously, Memphis is the pick here.
– Atlantic 10: This was actually pretty big news for bubble teams as #10 Xavier lost to St. Joe’s in the semis. St. Joe’s will play Temple for an auto bid. This is particularly important because it means that St. Joe’s can give the conference its 3rd team in the tourney if they can beat Temple. Xavier is guaranteed with Temple and St. Joe’s a good shot regardless of whether or not they win the tournament. I’m going with Temple to win tonight.

I’ll be back later with a recap of the Big Ten and Pac Ten.

A lot of piled-up news to get to today…

• The biggest story: Brandon Rush tore his ACL, withdrew from the NBA Draft, will have surgery this week, and will likely be ready to play at KU next season. The 07–08 Jayhawks just got a lot better.
• Florida A&M’s coach Mike Gillespie was placed on paid leave after his recent arrest on misdemeanor stalking charges. Wait, the FAMU coach is white??
• Apparently Glen “Big Baby” Davis has slimmed his way to 280 lbs for the NBA Draft workouts… begging the question, why wasn’t he using this regimen throughout his career at LSU?
• Greg Oden and Kevin Durant were asked to join Team USA – size up your bronzes now, boys.
• Dane Bradshaw wrote a book (“Vertical Leap“) about his senior season at Tennessee, which of course presupposes that Vol fans can actually read the thing.
• In an espn.com piece by Pat Forde, we learned that Arkansas is actually paying three head basketball coaches at the same time. Does George Steinbrenner run the Hawgs now? Nah, just the very recently retired Frank Broyles, another senile 80-year old.
• After years of vile homerism, John Feinstein commits treason in Monday’s Washington Post – Coach K’s dark angels are already moving into the DC area on a seek-and-destroy mission. A must-read for all Duke haters.
• Oh, and Maryland fans hate Duke also. We particularly enjoyed the Jon Scheyer portion.
• Some industrious UCLA fans paid homage to uber-scrub Michael Roll in an epic video.
• Finally, we reserve a moment of silence for the Charlotte Coliseum, the site of many outstanding ACC Tournament battles as well as the 1994 Final Four. It will be destroyed on Sunday.

With the news Wednesday that Duke whiffed on PF Patrick Patterson (who opted for Kentucky over Duke and Florida), combined with yesterday’s news that Roy Williams has extended his contract with UNC through the 2014-15 season, we started to wonder if we’re seeing an unusual blip in Durham, or if last season and the presumed immediate future signal a larger problem there.

Be-Deviled?

The last time Duke had such a blip was in the mid-90s. In 1995, with Coach K’s back hurting and Pete Gaudet at the helm for two-thirds of the season, Duke went 13-18 (2-14) and did not make the NCAA Tournament. There has been considerable harping over the years about whose record (K’s or Gaudet’s) all those losses should fall on, but at the time, it wasn’t a leap to see that even when Duke was 9-3 in early January 1995, a team led by the likes of Cherokee Parks and Jeff Capel (as opposed to Grant Hill, Bobby Hurley or Christian Laettner) was flawed. This was especially true in light of a stacked ACC that season (Each of Duncan, Wallace, Stackhouse, Childress and Joe Smith were all-americans in 1995).

The next season, when K was back on the bench, shows just how far the talent level at Duke had fallen. The 1995-96 team only performed five games better than its predecessor, going 18-13 (8-8) and losing both its first round ACC Tourney game and its first round NCAA game (by 15 pts) to… Eastern Michigan? The following year, 1996-97, Duke only got marginally back on track. The Devils finished with a 24-9 (12-4) record and won the ACC regular season, but they flamed out early again in the postseason, inexplicably losing to #8 seed NC State in the quarters of the ACC Tourney and barely scraping by Murray St. in the first round before losing to #10 seed Providence (by 11 pts) in the second round of the NCAAs. Does this sound familiar at all? It should, as Duke just finished its 2006-07 campaign with a 22-11 (8-8) record, culminating in a first round ACC Tourney loss and a first round NCAA loss to… VCU.

Is there cause for concern among Devil faithful, or is last year’s mediocre regular season and short-lived postseason just an anomaly?

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