Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist for Rush the Court. Follow him on Twitter @zhayes9.

Every August, ESPN college football guru Kirk Herbstreit releases his Herbie awards, a grab bag of honors and predictions about the upcoming season covering everything from quickest running back to hardest-hitting linebacker. The Herbies are so popular they even resulted in their own half-hour show hosted by Herbstreit and Erin Andrews. With no equivalent in the hoops world, I volunteered to step up to the plate. Some of these awards are Herbie knock-offs, some are 100% original and all are intended to be fun. Whether they look ridiculous by March…well, the jury is out. Here are this year’s Pro-Zach awards, passing out happy pills since 2011:

Washington's Terrence Ross is ready to make the leap

All-Next Chapter

• Team Irreverence: Players Who Don’t Get Enough Respect – GOLD: Rodney McGruder (Kansas State), SILVER: Kent Bazemore (Old Dominion), BRONZE: Doug McDermott (Creighton)
• Shhh, Don’t Tell: Best Kept Secrets – GOLD: C.J. McCollum (Lehigh), SILVER: Alex Young (IUPUI), BRONZE: Dominique Morrison (Oral Roberts)
• Forwarding Address: Top Transfers – GOLD: Mike Rosario (Florida), SILVER: Royce White (Iowa State), BRONZE: Brandon Wood (Michigan State)
• Fresh Approach: Top True Freshmen – GOLD: Anthony Davis (Kentucky), SILVER: Austin Rivers (Duke), BRONZE: Andre Drummond (Connecticut)
• Off and Running: Ready To Take It To The Next Level – GOLD: Terrence Ross (Washington), SILVER: Keith Appling (Michigan State), BRONZE: Michael Snaer (Florida State)

Read the rest of this entry »

Brian Joyce is an SEC microsite staffer and occasional contributor.

Question: Can a Team of Freshmen Win a National Championship?

It’s an easy question, so I have a simple answer. Yes, of course, a team of mostly one-and-done players can win the national title. That’s the beauty of college basketball, and more specifically the “lose and you’re out” nature of March Madness. Any team can win it all, as VCU and Butler proved this past year by advancing to the Final Four.

The question has been answered already on a number of occasions. Several teams with a nucleus of freshmen players have taken their teams to Final Fours and even come awfully close to winning a National Championship. The infamous Fab Five of the 1991-92  Michigan Wolverines were arguably the greatest recruiting class ever assembled. Despite their youth at a time when juniors and seniors dominated the college basketball landscape, the Fab Five overpowered opponents all the way to the national title game. It was there that Michigan met one of the best college basketball teams ever in the Duke Blue Devils, and simply didn’t have the focus and ability to play their level of basketball.

The Fab Five Were Arguably the Best Freshman Class Ever (AP)

A similar scenario occurred years later as the 2006-07 Ohio State Buckeyes put together a tremendous freshmen class led by Greg Oden and Mike Conley, Jr., that took the Buckeyes all the way to the final game. Ohio State ran into a team on a mission for its second consecutive title, as the young Buckeyes couldn’t handle Joakim Noah, Al Horford and the rest of the Florida Gators.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today the RTC preseason All-America Team was announced, and it contains three sophomores on its first team who could have been viable 1-and-done prospects last spring had the NBA’s labor situation not been so tenuous. Those players are Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger, Kentucky’s Terrence Jones, and North Carolina’s Harrison Barnes. The second team has two more — Connecticut’s Jeremy Lamb and Baylor’s Perry Jones, III. The third team has two players who may declare for the NBA Draft after this, their freshman, season — Duke’s Austin Rivers and Kentucky’s Anthony Davis.

Battles Like These Between Barnes & Jones Could Become the Two-Year Norm (Getty/C.Trotman)

It’s no secret that the top talent in college basketball these days tends to skew younger, as our inclusion of seven freshmen and sophomores to our three preseason All-America teams clearly exhibits. In a different year assuming those five sophomores were already in the NBA, we might have included more freshmen such as Connecticut’s Andre Drummond or Oklahoma State’s LeBryan Nash on our list. But we didn’t have to, and the reason for this is that the pool of talent is deeper this season than it has been for the last five years, in the same way that the last half-decade was more talented than the prep-to-pros era of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Now, imagine if the following players were also back: Duke’s Kyrie Irving, Texas’ Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph, Kentucky’s Brandon Knight, Tennessee’s Tobias Harris, Kansas’ Josh Selby. You see where we’re going with this. And the NBA brass, always thinking about its own worldwide marketing of star players and its bottom line, does too. According to Chad Ford over at ESPN Insider, one of the few areas of consensus among the key folks in the ongoing NBA owner and labor negotiations is that 1-and-done is likely on its last legs. Two-and-Through appears to be the new standard. From Ford’s piece:

Read the rest of this entry »

Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist at Rush the Court. Follow him on Twitter @zhayes9.

The 2011-12 Rush the Court preseason All-American team only verifies the notion that the ongoing NBA lockout was a godsend for college basketball.

It can be argued that, if the NBA was enveloped in a state of stability with an agreed-upon revenue split and owners raking in profits everywhere from Boston to Sacramento, this All-American team would have a completely different look. If first-teamers Harrison Barnes, Jared Sullinger and Terrence Jones, along with second team selection Perry Jones, felt completely comfortable they’d be gearing up for their first professional game right about now, they may have opted for guaranteed riches instead of another campaign on campus. We’ll never know if, say, Sullinger was 100% coming back to Ohio State regardless of the Buckeyes early exit in the NCAA Tournament or a mid-season promise to Thad Matta.

One thing we do know: college basketball fans certainly aren’t complaining.

Without further ado, here’s this year’s first, second and third RTC All-American teams. Get ready to hear their names a lot over the next five months.

First Team

Taylor Was a Unanimous First Team Selection

G- Jordan Taylor, SR, Wisconsin- Given his leadership abilities and on-court performance, Taylor is everything you want in a collegiate point guard. He’s developed from a sporadically-used freshman into one of the most efficient backcourt cogs in America. Taylor led the nation with a 3.83:1 assist-to-turnover ratio last season and was named to the Big Ten all-defensive team. His scoring prowess was on full display during a monumental win over top-ranked Ohio State when Taylor scored 21 of his 27 points in the second half. He added a career-high 39 points at Indiana three weeks later.

G- Tu Holloway, SR, Xavier– The reigning Atlantic 10 POY is the engine that fuels Xavier’s potent offensive barrage. Holloway was asked to play an astounding 94.5% of available minutes last season and took full advantage, finishing second in the A-10 in both assist rate and free throw rate while compiling absurd 20/5/5 averages. Xavier legend David West was the only non-senior All-American in school history before Holloway earned third-team honors as a junior. Opposing guards also must respect Holloway from deep (35% 3pt). Expect him to become a household name by next March.

F- Harrison Barnes, SO, North Carolina– A preseason All-American last year, Barnes struggled under the weight of unfair expectations before exploding in the second half of the season, averaging nearly 16 PPG in league games, including 40 against Clemson in the ACC Tournament. Barnes only improved during the Heels’ Elite Eight push (21.0 PPG, 8.3 RPG), showing a new-found aggression and confidence sure to continue into his sophomore year. Barnes finished eighth in the ACC in scoring, posted the fifth-highest scoring average ever by a Carolina rookie and scored in double-figures 30 times last season.

F- Terrence Jones, SO, Kentucky- If the reports are true that Jones has added 10 pounds of muscle and improved his conditioning to avoid a repeat of last season’s second-half decline, the SEC better watch out. Jones averaged 16/17/4 during the loaded Maui invitational, scored 35 vs. Auburn and averaged a robust 16/9 as a freshman, but his contributions extend deeper than scoring. Jones finished near the top of the SEC in fouls drawn per 40 minutes, defensive rebounding percentage and block percentage.

F- Jared Sullinger, SO, Ohio State- The third sophomore to earn first team honors, Sullinger garnered the most votes among our panel for National Player of the Year. Sullinger was the most productive freshman on the planet last season, averaging 17/10 on 54% FG in 31.7 MPG. An unstoppable force in the paint from day one for Thad Matta, Sully drew double teams, crashed the backboard and instantly becamethe Buckeyes most reliable scorer. Sullinger has shed some unnecessary baby fat and spent the offseason developing a face-up game to compliment his advanced post repertoire.

Second Team

Read the rest of this entry »

1. On this All Hallows’ Eve, Southeastern Conference teams prepare to survive yet another season where they are removed one-by-one from NCAA and SEC title contention in horror-movie style. Typically Auburn is the first victim, going missing early in the season and then tripping up other SEC Survivors late in the season. To avoid a similar fate head coach Tony Barbee will need to find more offensive production. Returning junior guard Frankie Sullivan from injury last season is a good start. Sullivan averaged 12.7 PPG when he was healthy during the 2009-10 season. Sullivan will be paired up with sophomore guard Varez Ward, who scored 18 points in an intrasquad scrimmage on Saturday. Sullivan and Ward, a transfer from Texas who recovered from a ruptured right quadriceps tendon last season, must be two of the Tiger heroes that can last until the climax of the season to give Auburn a fighting chance.
2. Alabama also didn’t survive to the NCAA Tournament last season. The Crimson Tide spent most of the conference schedule fighting off mortal wounds inflicted upon themselves with some terrible non-conference losses in November 2010 and a weak non-conference schedule overall. (Losing to Saint Peter’s is like the horror-movie hero running from the villain only to impale himself on a pitchfork.) This season’s non-conference schedule is improved; but to truly survive Anthony Grant’s team will need production from its newest members, including freshman phenom Trevor Lacey, to provide much-needed perimeter scoring and fill other roles.
3. LSU is also piecing together the right combination of players and coaching in order to survive the SEC and return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2009. The Bayou Bengals have a more talented roster, including freshman forward and McDonald’s All-American Johnny O’Bryant to provide immediate playmaking. LSU coach Trent Johnson has apparently found some improvement for himself when reflecting on last year’s team. In SEC Basketball Media days, Johnson admitted, “last year with some injuries there were some games that got away from us. And I thought that it wasn’t them; I suppose it was me.” The coach compared this season’s team favorably to his 2008-09 NCAA Tournament squad. Perhaps with a clear heart Johnson and his Tigers can replicate the success they’ve had in previous versions of the SEC Horror Picture Show.
4. Florida coach Billy Donovan is doing the time-warp again! Donovan is the SEC’s longest-tenured coach starting his 15th season. (Check out Alligator Army’s 15-for-15 season-preview series written in honor of the Gator coach.) The coach recently reflected on his tenure for reporters, including sharing his reasoning on turning down a second round of interest from SEC East rival Kentucky in 2009.
5. Speaking of Kentucky, freshman forward Anthony Davis says “OOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!”

The 2011-12 Kentucky Wildcats are the media darlings of the SEC and perhaps the entire country. There are already countless stories about the talents of Anthony Davis and Terrence Jones. There are plenty of anecdotes about the leadership of senior Darius Miller. The media likes to talk about the pressure on Marquis Teague to follow in the footsteps of the lineage of great point guards who have played before him in John Calipari’s system. There is even a documentary on HBO focusing on the life of a Kentucky freshman, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. But you probably won’t find another story about the importance of Eloy Vargas’ impact on the Kentucky Wildcats. Until now.

Eloy Vargas could be called upon to do significantly more for the Wildcats this year

The media overlooks Vargas because it is easy to do. But Kentucky fans don’t forget him. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Throughout most of his playing career, Kentucky fans wish they could forget about Vargas.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. In last night’s annual Kentucky Blue vs. White game, Sophomore Terrence Jones went off for 52 points setting a record for most points scored in the intra-squad scrimmage. While just an exhibition game, the barrage of points has to be encouraging for Wildcat fans hoping for a new and improved Jones. Freshman Anthony Davis guarded Jones for most of the evening, but it didn’t seem to matter who was on him as he scored from just about everywhere on the court. Jones was 24-31 from the field, finishing with 16 rebounds and six assists. Scrimmage or not, 52 points is impressive. Jones displayed an ability to score in a variety of ways — knocking down threes, taking it strong to the rim and even finishing with his much-discussed right hand. Eight Kentucky players scored in double figures overall as freshman Kyle Wiltjer finished with 27 points on 5-8 shooting from beyond the arc and sophomore, Doron Lamb also scored 31 points.
2. Memphis coach Josh Pastner has a message for all SEC teams — don’t ask to play his Memphis Tigers in a non-conference game. Pastner says it won’t happen on his watch. He singled out Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Florida as teams he does not want to play in order to avoid giving a recruiting advantage for those looking to recruit in Memphis. He says the solution, however, is simple. Invite Memphis to play in the SEC. Pastner says, “That will solve everything. You don’t have to ask me; we would play twice. If you’re coming in here, if you want to play Memphis, go to your presidents and vote Memphis in the SEC. That’s the easiest way to do it. If you’re asking me for a non-conference game, it’s not going to happen.” Pastner is either making a good case for Memphis to be considered for expansion to the SEC or he is setting the Tigers up to be the most hated non-conference rival by the entire league.
3. Several SEC teams will be taking part in secret scrimmages over the next couple of weeks to prepare for opening games. Why the secrecy? Well, nobody seems to know, but you may want to delete your browser history if you click on the link. Better safe than sorry. The SEC teams taking part in the secrecy and their mysterious opponents are: Virginia @ Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech @ South Carolina, LSU @ Rice, Arkansas-Little Rock @ Ole Miss, Georgia @ Clemson, UCF @ Florida and Western Kentucky vs Alabama. Anybody with super-spy abilities, we need video and/or pictures. This message will self-destruct in five seconds.
4. Ole Miss junior Murphy Holloway has been cleared to play immediately for the Rebel Black Bears. Holloway played two seasons for the Rebs before transferring to South Carolina to care for his daughter. After sitting out a year with the Gamecocks, Holloway decided to transfer back to Mississippi. He had to apply for a waiver with the NCAA to avoid having to sit out another year. The waiver was granted and Holloway will be allowed to play this season. He provides an immediate post presence for Ole Miss as he averaged 10.1 points and 7.6 rebounds per game in his sophomore year. Andy Kennedy’s squad will get an impact player with SEC experience.
5. Tennessee‘s athletic program boasts that their men’s basketball coaching staff has more than 5,000 career college basketball points during their playing careers. In fact, they claim to have more than 1,000 more college points than any other Division I staff. Here’s to hoping that this sets up an SEC coaching staff battle between former players. Rod Strickland vs. Anthony Grant. Orlando Antigua vs. Cuonzo Martin. Billy Donovan vs. John Calipari. John Pelphrey vs. Darrin Horn. Tony Barbee vs. Tracy Webster. Rick Stansbury vs. Kevin Stallings… Okay, maybe not that last one. Having a coaching staff with this much experience can give the Tennessee players a slight boost of confidence, but shouldn’t be much of an advantage otherwise. It is fun to think about a pick-up game of epic proportions at the next SEC media days. Battle royale style.

1. The Southeastern Conference’s official preseason media poll was released yesterday. You know what that means: Time for Nerdfightin‘! It is hard to argue against Kentucky being picked as the overwhelming favorite to win the conference championship. Receiving 18 (of 23 total) first-place votes, the Wildcats topped Vanderbilt (four first-place votes), Florida (one first-place vote) and Alabama (no first-place votes). South Carolina was voted the last place team.
2. Also ripe for your nitpickin’ and message board forum fighting: the media’s All-SEC Teams. Kentucky sophomore Terrence Jones was voted SEC Player of the Year and joins Vandy’s John Jenkins and Jeffery Taylor, Alabama’s JaMychal Green and Mississippi State’s Dee Bost on the First Team All-SEC list. Three more Kentucky players — senior Darius Miller, sophomore Doron Lamb and freshman Anthony Davis — join Vanderbilt’s Festus Ezeli and Florida’s Kenny Boynton and Erving Walker as members of the six-player Second Team All-SEC. CBSSports.com’s Gary Parrish threw the first nerdfight punch when he complained that Anthony Davis (like former Kentucky player John Wall before him) should be on the preseason First Team since Davis is arguably the most-talented player in the conference. We tend to agree and wonder why if there can be a six-member Second Team why there couldn’t be a six-member First Team?
3. Hope you didn’t miss our piece on Christian Laettner‘s appearance in Rupp Arena last night. Another player with more recent Kentucky history made an appearance during the Big Blue All-Stars exhibition game: Former Wildcat Enes Kanter. The Turkish-born Kanter was ruled ineligible by the NCAA for accepting benefits above an allowable amount while part of Turkish club team Fenerbahce. At last, Enes was freed, but his first game at Rupp was slightly underwhelming. Kanter looked out-of-sorts with the pace of the game and his NBA peers. Eager to involve the big man, All-Star teammate Rajon Rondo tried working with Kanter on several pick-and-roll plays; Kanter was surprised at the speed of Rondo’s bounce passes and lobs. Eventually Kanter settled into cleaning up offensive rebounds, made some mid-range jumpers and finished with 14 points and 10 boards. But his performance was not the kind of dominating debut Kentucky fans were hoping to see of the highly-sought big man.
4. Free Missouri! The school seemingly wants to join SEC Expansion 2011: ALL YOUR TEAMS ARE BELONG TO US. Though in a meeting of Big 12 presidents and athletic directors Monday evening, Mizzou did not formally withdraw from the conference. Interim Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas told the Kansas City Star that, “a strong desire for the University of Missouri to maintain its Big 12 affiliation was expressed” at the meeting. Yet when asked after the meeting about the Big 12, Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton said, “I wish them the best and all that. So we’ll see where that goes.” Sounds like where that is going is the SEC offices in Birmingham.
5. One of Missouri’s concerns about a move to the SEC is how it would affect Kansas City. The Big 12 will likely no longer hold its annual basketball tournament in KC. When Mizzou’s Board of Curators directed Brady Deaton to explore other conference options, they gave him explicit instructions to set up a holiday tournament for Kansas City. There is some pessimism regarding the success of a team-oriented tournament; ESPN’s Andy Katz wrote, “few power-six schools play in these non-exempt two-game tournaments anymore. … Most non-elite tournaments have shut down because of the difficulty of scheduling these games.” We think the next best option is to make a semi-home conference game in Kansas City with a familiar foe: Texas A&M. The two schools could promote the game as “The Battle for the Greener Pastures“.

1. Over the past few months there has been a movement in some parts of the media to pay athletes money in addition to their scholarships with Taylor Branch and the NCPA being the two most prominent voices. Now it appears that the NCAA might actually be considering paying athletes a stipend although it may not be to the level that some are hoping for. According to reports, NCAA president Mark Emmert plans to finalize a proposal that would pay student-athletes $2,000 per year that he would send to the NCAA Division I Board of Directors for their approval. That $2,000 per year would be in addition to the scholarships that already cover tuition, fees, room, board, and books. As the NCPA study notes student-athletes currently receive funds that are $3,222 short of covering the average university’s stated full cost of tuition so even this extra sum would leave the athletes $1,222 short. Of course, even the initial payment opens up a whole other can of worms, which we delved into yesterday, but we have to say that for the pro-pay people this appears to be a step in the right direction.
2. In an unrelated move, but one that ties in to the previous story a group of more than 300 players sent a petition to the NCAA asking for a portion of TV revenues to supplement scholarships to cover the full costs of attending college and for an “educational lock box” that would help cover additional education if their eligibility is up or just be a cash payment to the players after their careers are over. While many would be willing to agree with most of the request the last part is where you start to get on the slippery slope of professionalism. We haven’t seen the actual petition yet because it was just released to the Associated Press so they could get their stories up before everyone else, but we found it interesting that this based off the signatures from players at five schools (Arizona, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Purdue, and UCLA). As we mentioned in our aforementioned interview with Taylor Branch one of the problems that college athletes will run into is creating a strong union when the lifespan of the college athlete is so transient (typically four years). Perhaps if they can organize on a smaller scale (like these five schools) they can build some momentum to push for change in a relatively short time. That said we expect the NCAA to crush this petition given the amount of money that would be involved.
3. It should not come as much of a surprise that the SEC and national media has selected Kentucky as the preseason pick to win the conference even if one site predicted that another team may end up taking home the title. What is surprising, or at least interesting to us, is that a Kentucky player was selected as the SEC Preseason Player of the Year and it was not Anthony Davis. That honor went to sophomore (yes, there are still a few left) Terrence Jones. Davis ended up as a preseason second-team All-SEC selection despite being one of only four players to receive a vote for preseason Player of the Year. The rest of the selections were about what you would expect as they were dominated by players from Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and Florida.
4. While expectations are high as usual at Kentucky they are much more muted at Kansas where Bill Self is apparently trying to temper what was already lukewarm expectations for a program of that caliber. Self decided to take some jabs at the media for pegging the Jayhawks as the co-favorites in the conference even though his Jayhawks have won at least a share of the Big 12 regular season title the past seven years and, to be brutally honest, the conference is pretty weak. Self does have a point that the Jayhawks will be much weaker this year than in previous years especially with their depleted freshman class, but the only other team in the Big 12 that we have any faith in is Baylor and they are questionable with their point guard play although they may have enough talent at the other spots to overcome that deficiency.
5. Coming into the season we expected St. Mary’s to have a difficult time replacing Mickey McConnell and now that task appears to have become even more difficult as Paul McCoy, a transfer from Southern Methodist, injured his right knee and might miss the upcoming season. McCoy, who already had his sophomore season at SMU end after he tore his ACL, will undergo arthroscopic surgery on the knee today with a second operation to repair the damage after three months of rehabilitation. For McCoy it is another significant setback in what appeared to be a promising career after he averaged 13.4 PPG as a freshman and now he is looking at a second medical redshirt. As for the Gaels, the injury will place even more pressure on Matthew Dellavedova, who has very little support around him in the backcourt with only two other scholarship guards on the team. Despite returning Dellavedova and Rob Jones the Gaels may struggle to play to the level that we have come to expect of them in recent years.

1. The LSU athletic department has a message for its basketball fans: A. B. C. Always. Be. Closing. LSU Athletics has partnered with adverCar, a marketing company that specializes in vehicle advertising. Participants can earn income from adverCar by having a decal attached to their personal vehicle containing an advertisement for the LSU basketball season. Perhaps former Tennessee Coach Bruce Pearl might be interested in getting Vols fans to apply car ad decals for his new line of recliner furniture.
2. The Tennessee squad themselves are going back to an old-fashioned method of training: hitting post players with brooms. A recent practice report highlighted assistant coach Jon Harris‘ use of a broom to help teach his post players how to score and adjust for taller defenders. If we hear of Harris conjuring comets as part of a fast-break drill, Tennessee might have a magical season ahead.
3. Another way to produce magic on the basketball court is to recruit some really talented freshmen. This season the Southeastern Conference has four representatives on the Wayman Tisdale Award preseason watch list. The award is given by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association to the nation’s top freshman at the end of the season. Florida guard Brad Beal joins a Kentucky threesome of Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Marquis Teague on the watch list. Beal will need to crack a starting Gator rotation of experienced guards to be able to claim the award away from one of the Wildcats or the eight other non-SEC freshmen included on the watch list.
4. While Beal has to wait for his shot at the Wildcats in Rupp Arena, a former Gator is getting another shot to drive Big Blue fans crazy. Former Florida wing Corey Brewer joins a host of current and former NBA players as Villans to the Big Blue All Stars tonight in Rupp. The game is the marquee match-up for the traveling group of former Wildcat players that includes Enes Kanter, the Turkish big man who was ruled ineligible for NCAA competition last season. Brewer is the only SEC member of the Villains group; apparently Brewer’s former Florida teammate Joakim Noah is too busy with his training regimen to join the party.
5. Back in Gainesville, the sun shines bright on one old Kentucky foe. Florida coach Billy Donovan is expected to sign a contract extension that will lengthen his coaching tenure with the school for another five years. The new deal includes the two guaranteed years and the optional third year on his current contract, then adds an additional couple of years. Once he signs, Donovan will be locked in until the 2015-16 season — a twenty-year tenure at UF for a two-time National Championship winner. Donovan is worth every penny if he can lead Florida to a return appearance in the NCAA Elite Eight or better this season.