What a way to kick off the college basketball season. For the second year in a row, Michigan State will represent the Big Ten on a national stage to open the season while also paying tribute to our country’s armed forces. After playing in front of a national television audience (that included President Barack Obama onsite in attendance) against North Carolina on the U.S.S. Carl Vinson last year, the Spartans open the 2012-13 on Friday against Connecticut at Ramstein Air Base in southwest Germany (5:30 PM ET, ESPN).

Michigan State will wear these uniforms Friday night as they honor the U.S. troops for the second consecutive year in the Spartans’ season opener against UConn. (Photo courtesy @MSU_Basketball)

The No. 6 Spartans are coming off a season in which they overachieved by most standards, winning a share of the Big Ten regular season title, the Big Ten Tournament, and advancing to the Sweet Sixteen as one of the NCAA Tournament’s four No. 1 seeds. UConn’s 2011-12 season took a step in the opposite direction. While the Spartans weren’t figured by many to contend on a national scale, the Huskies were. And they disappointed in a huge way, sputtering to a 20-14 record and a first-round exit at the hands of Iowa State in the NCAA Tournament the year after they won it all. “We’re playing a team that’s not ranked but you’re going to see is awfully good,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said, according to MLive.com. “This team will compete in that league (the Big East), no problem. Don’t look for there to be great falloff here.”

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Big ups to Superstorm/Hurricane Sandy for knocking our podcasting studio offline for the better part of a week during the busy preseason, but thanks to the miracle of electricity we’re back in action and will be rolling out the rest of our power conference preseason podblasts throughout the week. Our Big Ten preview podblast is already in the books, so today we’ve invited our Big East microsite correspondent Mike Lemaire (@mike_lemaire) over to talk Big East Conference roundball for the 2012-13 season. Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114), as always, hosts as we break down the top contenders in the Big East, the overall cachet of the league as a whole, and discuss some of the top players in the conference.

We welcome any and all feedback on these podcasts including topics for future discussion or if you want to send us any questions for our “May Not Be From Actual Listeners” segment. Hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com or @rushthecourt on Twitter. For now, enjoy the listen and feel free to jump around to the areas you’re most interested in by using the below outline.

Also, make sure to add the RTC Podcast to your iTunes lineup so that you’ll automatically upload it on your listening device after each recording.

RTC Podblast: Big East Preseason Review

Seven Sweet Scoops is the newest and hottest column by Chad Lykins, the RTC recruiting analyst. Every Friday he will talk about the seven top stories from the week in the wide world of recruiting, involving offers, which prospect visited where, recent updates regarding school lists and more chatter from the recruiting scene. You can also check out more of his work at RTC with his weekly column “Who’s Got Next?”, as well as his work dedicated solely to Duke Basketball at Duke Hoop Blog. You can also follow Chad at his Twitter account @CLykinsBlog for up-to-date breaking news from the high school and college hoops scene.

Note: ESPN Recruiting used for all player rankings.

1. Duke “Welcomes Home” Jabari Parker

This past weekend the Duke Blue Devils hosted their longtime top recruiting target in the class of 2013, No. 2 ranked Jabari Parker. The 6’8″ small forward out of Simeon Career Academy (Illinois) was greeted graciously by the Duke faithful upon arriving to campus for his second official visit. Parker, who also lists BYU, Florida, Michigan State and Stanford, took in Duke’s first exhibition game of the 2012-13 season. Since the summer, it has been perceived that Duke and Michigan State share the role as the favorite for his services. However, apparent updates coming off of Parker’s visit to Durham over the weekend may have very well shifted the tide in Duke’s favor, according to Michael O’Brien of the Chicago Sun-Times. As he has already taken his first official to visit to Michigan State, the Blue Devils are in an even more comfortable position going forward. Parker will now take his third official to Florida this weekend and will round out his schedule with visits to Stanford and BYU on the following weekends. Once he completes his scheduled visits, it has been rumored that a December decision is likely with Parker making it official during the spring signing period which runs from April 17 to May 15.

Jabari Parker, the No. 2 prospect in the class of 2013, took his second official visit to Duke over the weekend

2. Austin Nichols Finishes Official Visits, Approaching Decision

For the No. 12 ranked player in the Class of 2013, the visits are all finished. Power forward Austin Nichols from Briarcrest High School (Tennessee) wrapped up his schedule of official visits this past weekend, completing his final visit to Auburn. Also listing Duke, Memphis, Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Virginia, Nichols and his family will now sit down with all of the information they have gathered from his list of schools and will begin the stages of making a final decision. Throughout the process, rumors have ran rampant about where Nichols is leaning. The one school that seems to be consistently at the forefront though, has been Tennessee. After visiting Knoxville two weeks ago, it seemed to be clear that the Volunteers had done enough to seal the deal for the home state native. Though no timetable for a decision has been set, the original plan all along has been for a November commitment during the early signing period.

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1. Mike DeCourcy at The Sporting News released his comprehensive Big East preview yesterday. DeCourcy selected Louisville as the league’s top team and Peyton Siva as MVP. Where he strayed from the preseason consensus was in ranking St. John’s last in the conference and heaping praise on South Florida point guard Anthony Collins, who made TSN’s All-Big East team and, DeCourcy argues, single-handedly saved Stan Heath’s job last season. He also contends that Mick Cronin isn’t getting enough credit, calling his Cincinnati tenure “one of the most impressive coaching achievements of the past decade.” The highlight of the guide might be this farewell to Notre Dame: “There’s almost no way to get to South Bend easily, almost nowhere to eat, almost nowhere nice to stay, almost no chance to beat the Irish at home.”
2. Yesterday’s Hartford Courant ran a great piece on Kevin Ollie’s newly promoted Assistant Head Coach, Glen Miller, and the circuitous route that led him back to coach in Storrs. Judging from quotes from Ollie’s right-hand man, the coaching transition at UConn has been pretty painless this offseason: “Kevin is not trying to reinvent the wheel. We’re all cut from the same cloth as Coach [Calhoun]. We understand how this program became successful and how it can continue to be successful.” The story offers a rare depiction of the kind of personal adversity a lot of coaches endure in order to seize a great opportunity. In the first year after Miller left Penn to rejoin Calhoun’s staff in 2010, he spent most of his free time driving the nine-hour round trip to visit his family in Pennsylvania and tend to the storm-damaged home they were desperately trying to rent out. Miller’s description of his recruiting trip to Northeastern in the early ‘80s is also worth a read if you enjoy anecdotes about Jim Calhoun’s laconic, Ron Swanson-esque personality.
3. In other Big East-related human-interest pieces, Mark Story from The Lexington Herald-Leader sheds some light onto Elisha Justice’s decision to transfer from Louisville to NAIA program Pikeville (KY). At the time, the move had been a head-scratcher to Louisville fans: while Justice may have been buried in the depth chart this year, he had repeatedly articulated an interest in coaching after college and an enthusiasm for learning under Rick Pitino. But as the Herald story reveals, Justice’s primary motivation was a yearning to be closer to his grandfather, who was recently diagnosed with colon cancer. The former Kentucky Mr. Basketball has come to terms with the fact that he may have turned his back on an opportunity to win a national title this year: “I came home for my family, to spend as much time with them as I can, while I can,” he says. “Whatever happens at Louisville [this season], I’ll never regret that.”
4. In light of potentially nightmarish post-Sandy travel conditions, St. John’s announced that its season opening exhibition game against Sonoma State has been postponed from Thursday to Saturday night. Elsewhere in Big East country, Villanova and UConn both rescheduled or cancelled practice activities today, as their campuses were shut down by the hurricane. Basketball obviously takes a backseat under these sobering circumstances, but it will be interesting to see if the storm adversely affects the play of any Big East teams in its path as they open exhibition play this week.
5. Two Big East programs remain in the running for elite power forward prospect Tyler Roberson, who yesterday announced he had trimmed his list to Syracuse, Villanova, and Kansas. The news might be most encouraging for Villanova fans because his visit to their Midnight Madness last weekend was apparently persuasive enough to lead Roberson to cancel his impending trip to Kentucky: “Although I was only at Villanova for a day I felt at home and knew after the visit that I didn’t need to take my last visit.” The 6’8 New Jersey four-star plans to commit in the next couple of weeks according to Adam Zagoria.

1. Ignorance is no longer a defense. That’s the message that the NCAA is sending to its head basketball and football coaches around the country with its latest proposed legislation that requires much more accountability with respect to rules violations. The new regulations will go in place immediately, contingent upon its expected passage by the NCAA Board of Directors next Tuesday. In a nutshell, the key clause reads as such: “A head coach is presumed responsible for major/Level I and Level II violations (e.g., academic fraud, recruiting inducements) occurring within his or her program unless the coach can show that he or she promoted an atmosphere of compliance and monitored his or her staff.” Suspensions up to and including a full season are punitive options under these new guidelines. By this standard, Jim Calhoun could have (theoretically) been suspended for the improprieties that occurred on his watch in the Nate Miles fiasco a few years ago; or, John Calipari could have (theoretically) been suspended for Marcus Camby’s association with agents. It’s a rather powerful tool that places much more of the burden on the program CEOs to keep their houses in order, and although we haven’t seen the detail yet, it sounds like a step in the right direction.
2. Recruiting is a bit of a blood sport, but if there’s one hard and fast truth that stands the test of time, it is this. Hot schools and coaches come and go like the tides, but no matter who is blowing up the recruiting trail at a given time, there are about 300 other coaches complaining about that coach’s tactics and/or unfair advantages. At yesterday’s SEC Media Day, Florida head coach Billy Donovan openly questioned whether ESPN’s All-Access show featuring rival Kentucky was acting as a “recruiting tool” and added that he didn’t think such an arrangement is “right.” By way of superb irony, it wasn’t all that long ago that coaches used to getting all the recruits were themselves wondering whether Billy the Kid’s recruiting tactics pushed beyond the norm. And you don’t have to scan the Internet very long to determine that other coaching perks that come with success — such as the ubiquitous Coach K/Amex commercials in March or his relationships with LeBron, Kobe and Durant on Team USA — are an unfair advantage. Sometimes we just wish the coaches would focus on improving their own teams and avoid the sewing circle nonsense, fun as it can be.
3. Tubby Smith has made his decision on Trevor Mbakwe and it will certainly be met with considerable skepticism regardless of how it plays out this season. At Big Ten Media Day on Thursday in Chicago, the Minnesota head coach told reporters that he felt that the legal system, by placing two additional years of probation on Mbakwe, was a sufficient punishment given that the sixth-year senior had met all of his other responsibilities up to that point (community service and AA meetings). We’ll spare you our personal outrage here other than to suggest that schools always fall over themselves to preach to us that they endeavor to hold their student-athletes to higher standards than the rest of the world at-large; yet, even a one-game slap on the wrist to show Mbakwe that there are consequences beyond what the law requires would have been better than this.
4. We’re all for creative tie-ins on preseason pieces, and yesterday’s article from SI.com‘s Andy Staples is a great one for anyone who likes to eat. Probably written as much for the media as for the fans (there’t not a lot of road-tripping in college hoops), Staples uses his vast base of travel knowledge to offer up some of the best diners, dives and greasy spoons to grab great food while you’re in town to watch some of the nation’s top college basketball teams. In just reading through some of these places, we’re about to finally put together that long-time-coming November-to-March road trip that we’ve always talked about doing… sigh.
5. The early practice injuries are unfortunately coming fast and furious now, and several top teams are being affected. UCLA wing Shabazz Muhammad suffered a strained shoulder injury in practice Wednesday and will be forced to sit out the next 2-4 weeks as a result. This could be something of a blessing in disguise if the NCAA ultimately decides to suspend Muhammad for the first several games of his Bruin career anyway. Over at Tennessee, preseason all-SEC forward Jeronne Maymon has reportedly suffered a “setback” in his recovery from separate offseason knee scopes and will not be expected to be ready for the Vols’ season opener on November 9. At Indiana, reserve forward Derek Elston has torn his meniscus and is likely to miss the next 6-8 weeks of action, meaning that the Hoosiers’ frontcourt depth will need to rely on freshmen for a while to support Cody Zeller on the inside. Next, Connecticut forward Enosch Wolf has experienced a third concussion in the last year and will be held out of practice for an indefinite period of time as a result. This is particulary disappointing news for the German native as the Huskies are heading overseas in two weeks to play the first college basketball game in Deutschland and he may have to miss it. Ugh. Let’s cross our fingers that there are fewer of these updates as we get closer to the start of the season.

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Chad Lykins, the RTC recruiting guru. 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 discussing the recruitments of the top uncommitted players in the country. We also encourage you to check out his contributions dedicated solely to Duke Basketball at Duke Hoop Blog. You can also follow Chad at his Twitter account @CLykinsBlog for up-to-date breaking news from the high school and college hoops scene. If you have any suggestions as to areas we are missing or different things you would like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Scott Drew Hauls in Wainright

After making an official visit to the Baylor campus for their “Midnight Madness” festivities nearly two weeks ago, small forward prospect Ishmail Wainright made it official last Thursday evening by verbally committing to the Bears. Wainright, the No. 26 ranked prospect in the ESPN 100, picked Baylor over Ohio State, St. John’s and Texas.

Scott Drew Continues to Pile Up the Top Recruits at Baylor

A Missouri native, the 6’6″ Wainright was formerly a Missouri commitment back in May 2011. At the conclusion of that summer, he decided to reopen his recruitment after a successful AAU campaign. As Wainright began the recruiting process all over again, over 30 of the top schools in the country reached out to the Missouri small forward. With his recent commitment to Baylor, Wainright will join power forward Jonathan Motley as the only two commitments for the Bears from the class of 2013.

When describing Wainright’s overall game, he is a tremendous athlete and one of the most physically imposing small forwards at the high school level. On the offensive end, Wainright does most of his damage scoring around the rim, either in transition or driving to the basket when creating for himself off the bounce. He is also a great passer with even better court vision. He has a knack for making the right play at the right time when creating opportunities for his teammates to make plays. A glaring weakness of his offensive game, however, has been his shooting. Prior to the summer, Wainright was not a good shooter. Most defenses took note of that fact by playing him loosely, forcing him into taking shots from the outside. As exhibited during the early recruiting period in the summer, though, Wainright showed an ever improving jump shot. To round out his game, Wainright needs to make it a point to continue working on his shooting touch before ending up on the Baylor campus. On the defensive end, Wainright is as good as they come. With great length, strength and athleticism, Wainright is arguably one of the best defenders from the class of 2013. He can guard multiple positions on the floor in part due to his great frame. He is a nightmare for the opposition and will continue to be well into his college career.

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When the Big East broke the trend of hiring experienced sports administrators and brought former CBS executive vice president Mike Aresco on board as its new commissioner, there was little doubt that Aresco’s experience in programming and negotiating large television played a large role. The conference didn’t have to wait very long to see its new hire in action as one of Aresco’s first responsibilities as commissioner was to secure a lucrative, long-term television deal with ESPN.

New Big East Commissioner Mike Aresco Has His Hands Full Trying To Land A Favorable Television Deal With ESPN (Photo credit: John P Filo/AP Photo)

But now, with little more than two weeks left before the two sides’ exclusive negotiating window closes, the deal doesn’t appear to be any closer to being done than it did when Aresco took over. The new commissioner told reporters that the deal between the two sides is ‘not anywhere near done’ and that there has been plenty of interest from rival networks as they sense an opportunity to capitalize.

Now, it should be clear to anyone with even the most minimal business sense that Aresco’s comments could be true, or they could just be a rather transparent negotiating ploy to create the aura of competition between ESPN and its rivals even if there isn’t one. It will be interesting to see whether ESPN eventually decides to get the deal done or whether they believe the price is just too steep for a conference that doesn’t have nationally-relevant football programs and is in the process of losing three of their best basketball programs.

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1. As everyone knows by now, the ACC is expanding from a 12-team basketball league to a 15-team behemoth. This move means that a semi-logical scheduling approach that included 18 conference games necessitates a substantial reconsideration. After toying with the idea of a nine-game football conference season and an even bigger basketball conference season, the league has settled on eight games in football and 18 games in basketball — so in an aggregate sense, no change. The key hoops difference is that each school will have two permanent partners that it plays home-and-home games with every season. The remaining 14 games will consist of two other rotating home-and-homes and single games against 10 other schools (five home and five away). This system ensures some degree of competitive balance in that every school will see every other league school at least once per season. New members Syracuse and Pittsburgh will play each other annually (SU will play former Big East mate Boston College every year too), while Notre Dame will be paired with its natural rival BC along with Georgia Tech (an odd duo).
2. Sticking with the ACC, the good news is that Roy Williams is recovering nicely from a surgical procedure on his right kidney a couple of weeks ago — good enough to have flown to Chicago on Tuesday to visit the home of Class of 2013 stud, Jabari Parker. The not-as-good news is that Williams on Wednesday underwent a second procedure — this time on his left kidney — to determine whether a second tumor is also a non-cancerous mass like the first. If Williams receives more good news shortly, he’ll be more than ready to begin his tenth season at the helm of his alma mater a little over a week from now. If he’s not as lucky this time around, he’ll likely need another procedure to remove the affected tissue which could produce a minor setback for the gung-ho coach as he enters the official start of practice. When he’ll be back at 100% is still in question, but whether the 62-year old coach is walking into a frustrating season filled with pointed questions about his team’s academic prowess over the last decade is something that seems to be lurking on the horizon.
3. One now-retired coach who knows a little something about receiving pointed questions and dealing with health scares is former Connecticut head man, Jim Calhoun. This news felt a lot like “no, but thanks for asking…”, but Connecticut says it has no plans to name its planned basketball training center after Calhoun, even though the program was essentially as relevant as Fairfield College before he arrived there nearly three decades ago. Athletic Director Ward Manuel put a punctuated end to some rumors that had spread this week, stating that the naming of the building had consistently been contemplated as a money-raising opportunity. One of Calhoun’s emeritus roles for the upcoming year will be to shore up additional funding for the facility, which is about $10 million short of where it needs to be to break ground on the project. Frankly, even though such a gesture would cause Geno Auriemma to lose his farkin’ mind (no, seriously, he would), Gampel Pavilion should probably eventually be re-named for the man who legitimized UConn basketball. Maybe they can compromise and call it Geno-Calhoun Pavilion.
4. The Billy Gillispie era has come and gone at Texas Tech, yet with only days left before official practice begins, the school has yet to decide on a full-time interim head coach (Chris Walker has been the daily operations interim head coach since Gillispie resigned). According to Andy Katz, the school is expected to make a decision in a matter of days, but if athletic director Kirby Hocutt knows what he’s planning to do, he’s keeping it close to the vest. Katz says that the only reasonable choice for a program that has gone through so much turmoil is to promote Walker and spend the year evaluating him on stabilizing the program and fielding a team that competes hard every night. If his performance is based on what is likely to become a scarcity of wins, well, he’s a dead man walking after this season. Is Bob Knight still taking calls?
5. Commitment days are fun no matter the players announcing, but this evening’s ESPNU special focusing on the Harrison twins (Aaron and Andrew) is filled with all kinds of drama. First, we’ve got the fact that the brothers are of course twins — a package deal of top five players the likes of which we may have never seen before (CollegeHoopedia has a comprehensive list of NCAA twins here). Next, we have a pairing of one school’s shoe company power and influence (Under Armour) versus, um, another school’s shoe company power and influence (Nike). Gary Parrish breaks down that particular dichotomy here. Then we have the issue of the Calipari effect — which, depending on the side of the fence you’re on — represents either shady backdoor dealings, or unbelievable marketing and player development. The national championship coach just doesn’t lose out on many recruits he targets anymore. Finally, we have a report of an 11th-hour lunch meeting between Mark Turgeon and the twins’ father, which could suggest that the deal was closed or that Maryland was making a last-ditch effort. The one thing we can be sure of at this writing is this — if Kentucky wins, Maryland fans will accuse Calipari of cheating to get their services (see: Davis, Anthony); if Maryland wins, Kentucky fans will cite the shady Under Armour influence to get their services (see: Muhammad, Shabazz). It’s going to be an interesting evening.

1. Monday was Media Day around the NBA, and why would anyone here give a whit about what professional basketball players have to say? One clear reason is that former Duke forward Lance Thomas is a second-year member of the New Orleans Hornets, and his recent agreement with a New York City jeweler involving a $67,800 loan while he was a senior was bound to come up. First, despite a confidentiality agreement in place, Thomas said he didn’t believe he was involved in an NCAA violation regarding the transaction; he then added, “There’s more to it, but I’m not going to comment on it right now. Everything will unfold once everything is taken care of the right way.” He went on to say that he would eventually speak to both Duke and the NCAA about the incident, but kept referring to doing things “the right way.” What is Thomas talking about here? The settlement is already in place, and we’ve been told that it includes a confidentiality agreement. What does he anticipate will change that would allow him to comment on this matter, and why would he expose himself or his beloved alma mater by talking anyway? Thomas’ comments here make very little sense, but then again, very little about this entire incident does.
2. DePaul basketball has to go back a long way to find its glory days, as the program in the last two decades has largely been an unmitigated disaster (one NCAA win since 1990). Still, with a deep and rich local prep talent pool and no real collegiate rival within the Chicago metropolitan area (Northwestern, of course, has zero NCAA wins to match its number of historical appearances), the school continues to believe that better days are ahead. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Monday what many supporters of the program have been thinking for years — one of the school’s biggest negatives is that its home court is located in suburban Rosemont, some 15 traffic-clogged miles from DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus on the north side. A new arena near campus or even regular games at the United Center near downtown might help Chicagoans start to feel like DePaul is their college basketball team. With this idea, we’re totally in favor — to really develop great fan and student support, most campus gyms should be right on campus or as near to it as possible.
3. It appears that either dad or kids have won out in the continuing saga over the biggest package deal in college basketball since the goofy Lopez twins showed up at Stanford in the fall of 2006. After months of hemming and hawing about their announcement date (most recently: late October) and various reports suggesting that the players and father were at odds of their preference of school, it appears that someone in the (Andrew and Aaron) Harrison family has made a final decision. The top-rated point guard and shooting guard will without question infuse a backcourt with talent in much the same way that UCLA’s Shabazz Muhammad and Kyle Anderson are expected to do this year. Whether their choice will be Kentucky or Maryland is still anybody’s guess, but ESPNU will televise their decision on Thursday afternoon at 5 PM on its “Recruiting Nation” show.
4. Just yesterday we mentioned that Louisville’s Mike Marra had torn his ACL for the second time in under a year, ending his senior season before it got started, and effectively, his college basketball career. That disappointing news was followed up by the report that Utah center David Foster had broken his right foot, also for the second time in under a year, ending his season before it got started, and effectively, his college basketball career. Ugh. Like Marra, Foster was of limited usefulness offensively, but the 7’3″ big man averaged 3.5 blocks per game in his three-year career, ultimately rejecting 219 total shots and leaving the program as its all-time blocked shots leader. His return from injury for Larry Krystkowiak’s 2012-13 squad was anticipated to provide some defensive help for a team that gave up a putrid 51.3% on shots within the arc last season; Foster’s loss now leaves that up to the more offensively-oriented Jason Washburn (11/6/1.4 BPG).
5. The more we read about Kevin Ollie‘s tryout season as the head coach of Connecticut with his former coach, mentor and legend Jim Calhoun poking around the program he built, the more we believe that the interim coach may not get a fair shot there. According to this AP report about Ollie and Calhoun’s adjustment period, Calhoun seems to be having a little too much fun staying involved. What happens when the inevitable losing streak happens and reporters start asking for the venerable ex-coach’s opinions? At what point do the envelopes full of sand turn into stocking full of coal? It’s just a weird position for Ollie to suffer, and this is especially true because Calhoun knows he will need considerable help.

1. Yesterday, the college basketball world received some excellent news when North Carolina announced that the biopsy from the surgical procedure on Roy Williams‘ right kidney came back as an oncocytoma, a relatively rare but benign tumor. Of course, there still is the issue of the unknown mass on his left kidney, which the surgical team now plans to biopsy next week. As many media outlets have reported (presumably regurgitating the UNC press release) there is a “good chance” that it will also be benign, but it is worth noting that the literature on the subject cites a 10% risk of the other kidney biopsy coming back as renal cell carcinoma, a type of malignant tumor. So while we were glad to hear the great news about Williams’ initial biopsy, we remain cautiously optimistic about next week’s procedure as well as concerned about the medical ailment that initiated the work-up that led to the discovery of his renal masses. Everyone around the college basketball community is assuredly crossing fingers for more good news out of the UNC camp next week.
2. Despite recent news to the contrary, it’s an Apple world and the rest of us are merely technology enablers. The company well on its way to a market capitalization of a trillion dollars has invented and led the wave of iPhones, iPads, and other forms of mobile computing over the past decade. As organizations of all shapes and sizes have jumped on the user-friendly platforms to update their business models, improve outreach, and foster efficiencies, it was only a matter of time before they made their way into sports. Following the recent lead of several NFL and college football teams, Duke has now equipped all of its players with new iPads for the purposes of scheduling, statistic tracking, scouting reports and film work. Given that these are still college students who sometimes get distracted and lose things, each iPad will be equipped with tracking software that will allow those sensitive Duke game plans and evaluations of opponent tendencies to be remotely wiped clean.
3. We don’t mean to make this an all-ACC M5 today, but it seems to be heading that way with yesterday’s news that neither the venerable old Madison Square Garden nor the spanking new Barclays Center apply to host a future ACC Tournament in the next eight years. Brett McMurphy of ESPN.com reported that bids for the 2016-21 ACC Tournaments came and went with no bids from a New York City venue, raising the much bigger question as to why not? We’ll delve deeper into this topic later today, but a conference tournament with Duke, Syracuse, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and a host of others wouldn’t make for a viable viewing experience in the Big Apple? Do the Barclays Center owners mean to tell us that the Atlantic 10 Tournament is a stronger draw than the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament? Something is very much off about these decisions, and we’re not sure what.
4. It’s been enough time now since Jim Calhoun‘s retirement at Connecticut for folks to take a step back and carefully evaluate whether the way in which the legendary coach “handed” the program to assistant Kevin Ollie just a month before practice begins was the right move. It’s impossible to predict the future now any more than it was when Dean Smith pulled a similar maneuver in 1997 by leaving his bosses no choice but to hire top assistant Bill Guthridge (for all his recruiting troubles, Gut did get two teams to the Final Four in three seasons, including a 2000 squad that had no business being there). Mike DeCourcy writes that despite what Calhoun is saying about the program’s strength — all true things — Ollie is still “deficient” in coaching experience (two years as a UConn assistant) and, in the worst of all possible scenarios, could find himself in way over his head very quickly. It will certainly be an interesting season up in Storrs.
5. It’s always preseason here in the blogosphere, and so it’s time for the myriad lists of top players, teams, coaches, and so on to begin leaking out in earnest. SBNation‘s Mike Rutherford has put together a list of the top 100 players in college basketball for the 2012-13 season, and some of his results might surprise you. Early NPOY candidate Cody Zeller is his top overall player, but a North Carolina forward who didn’t get a chance to show terribly much last year makes his top five. From a team perspective, Kentucky, Louisville, Missouri and Florida ended up with four players each on his list, with the Cards grabbing a quartet of the top 46 chosen (full disclosure: Rutherford is a Louisville guy). He writes up the top 50 and even if you don’t agree with some of his selections, just perusing through the list will no doubt get your juices flowing. Enjoy.