David and Travis Wear will be eligible for their first season at UCLA after transferring from North Carolina after the 2009-10 season. This Ben Bolch article focuses on the Wear twins and the roles they will take on with the Bruins this year. David is expected to make the immediate impact early on at small forward because of his jump shooting ability. With David, Reeves Nelson, and Joshua Smith all down low, the Bruins will have the best frontcourt in the Pac-12, if not the nation. Travis and Anthony Stover will spell Smith at the center position. When the Bruins need points they will turn to Travis, while Stover is the defensive/shot-blocking specialist.
If there was a theme for Pac-12 frontcourts in 2011-12, it would be “big.” There are 40 players at 6’9″ or bigger on Pac-12 rosters this season, including 7’3″ Utah center David Foster and 7’2″ Arizona State center Jordan Bachynski. Percy Allen breaks down the bigs of the conference and points out who is excelling and struggling so far this season.
Exhibition basketball continued last night with two games, Humboldt State vs. Arizona and UC San Diego vs. California. We begin in Tucson, where the Wildcats bounced back from their loss against Seattle Pacific last Thursday to defeat the Lumberjacks, 60-51. Arizona still has a lot of kinks to work out, mainly on offense as they shot just 20% from behind the arc. Humboldt State didn’t do anything to help its cause, though, by putting Arizona on the line for 38 free throws. UA only made 22 of those, but that was still the difference in the game. Next up for Arizona is their regular season opener against Valparaiso on Monday night in the Coaches vs. Cancer.
Up in Berkeley, the Golden Bears blew by the UC San Diego Tritons with ease. After a slow ten minutes in which Cal could not find its touch from around the rim, Mike Montgomery’s team quickly pulled away from the overmatched opponent. The lead was only nine at halftime but a 22-4 burst by the Bears to start the second half put away any thoughts of a preseason upset. Minnesota transfer Justin Cobbs was the star of the game, leading the Bears with 17 points and four assists off the bench. This was Cal’s first and only exhibition game, and they will begin regular season play against UC Irvine on Nov. 11.
Arizona shooting guard Nick Johnson has drawn rave reviews so far and needs to be on the court more according to his head coach, Sean Miller. Miller has already tried moving senior shooting guard Kyle Fogg to small forward in order to create extra minutes for Johnson, and he is also considering playing Johnson at the point in order to get he and Fogg on the floor together. “We have to look at Nick playing another position if he continues to progress,” Miller said. “But it’s hard to play two positions as a freshman. For the most part, with freshmen, we keep them at one spot.” In last night”s game against Humboldt State, Fogg and Josiah Turner, Arizona’s other fabulous freshman, got the start at guard. However, they all played close to equal amounts of time (Fogg-24, Turner-22, Johnson-21). Johnson and Turner led the group with eight points each.
The Pac-12 Basketball Media Day took place on Friday in Los Angeles. Here is part two of our coverage, where we will take a look at the top three quotes from each of the six southern schools. Yesterday we covered the northern schools.
Coach Sean Miller on the results of the preseason media poll: “There’s no way in the world we’re the third best team in the Pac-12. You can say every coach says something like that. I didn’t say that last year. Hopefully I won’t say it next year, but I’m saying it now. There is no chance at all that’s where we are.
Miller on Kevin Parrom: “Not having him hurts us. His status, I really believe he’ll return to the court this year.We’re pointing towards late November, early December if he continues to experience the same progress that he has.”
Parrom is Key to Arizona's Post-Derrick Williams Success
Miller on freshman point guards Nick Johnson and Josiah Turner: “I’ll start with Nick Johnson. To me he’s shown early on he’s the most ready [of the team’s four freshmen]. Playing in the high school program that he played at the last two years, to me, has given him a leg up. He was one of the bright spots in last night’s game. He played in the game the way he practices. To me, continuing to develop and give Nick a bigger role was something that we have to do. Josiah, the hardest position, I think, to transfer from high school to college is point guard. With continued work, he’s going to be a much better player four weeks from now, two weeks from now, than he is right now, and I’m confident in saying that.”
Thoughts: Miller’s right when he says that the Wildcats aren’t the third best team in the conference right now. But as Turner, in particular, gets his legs underneath him, and once Parrom returns, the Wildcats will be very good.
Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences as well as a Pac-12 microsite staffer. You can find him on Twitter @AMurawa.
Reader’s Take I
With only two of the ten players named to last year’s All-Pac-10 team returning, the race for the conference player of the year is wide open.
Top Storylines
Twelve Is The New Ten: After 33 seasons, college basketball fans on the west coast are getting used to calling their conference the Pac-12. With Colorado and Utah along for the ride (and currently taking their lumps in football), gone are the days of the home-and-away round-robin schedule on the basketball side of things. But lest the traditionalists complain too much, it could have been much different, as schools from Oklahoma and Texas (obviously the very definition of “Pacific” states) flirted with changing their allegiance for the second consecutive year before heading back to the Big 12.
Fresh Blood: As mentioned above in our poll question, the conference loses eight of the ten players on last year’s all-Pac-10 team, with just Jorge Gutierrez of Cal and UCLA’s ReevesNelson returning. In other words, it is time for a new set of players to step up and take the reins of the league. The most likely candidates are a talented group of freshman guards – names like Josiah Turner and Nick Johnson at Arizona, Tony Wroten, Jr. at Washington, JabariBrown at Oregon, NormanPowell at UCLA and ChassonRandle at Stanford.
Jorge Gutierrez Is A Lightning Rod Of A Guard For Mike Montgomery's Golden Bears, And Big Things Are Expected.
The Carson Show On Hold. A seventh highly-touted freshman guard, however, is stuck in limbo. Arizona State’s JahiiCarsonhas yet to be cleared for practice while an investigation continues into an online course the 5’10” point guard took this summer at Adams State in Colorado. That school has yet to release his course transcript, and until that happens, Carson is unable to practice with the Sun Devils, making an already difficult situation (being regarded as a savior for a team coming off a 12-19 campaign) even worse.
Hard Times for Kevin Parrom: Sometimes, just when everything is going well, life conspires to deal you a set of circumstances that just suck. It’s not bad enough that Parrom took a couple of bullets on September 24 during a home invasion, while in the Bronx visiting his sick mother. But on October 16, Parrom’s mom then passed away after a long battle with cancer. While both incidents will have lasting effects on Parrom, the bullet wounds are the biggest obstacle to him getting back on the court, with bullet fragments lodged in his right leg, a boot on his right foot, nerve damage and his left hand currently wrapped up to protect lacerations sustained in the attack. Parrom is rehabilitating his injuries and as of this writing, no hard timetable is set for his return. But if anybody is due for a good break or two, Parrom’s the guy. Get well soon, Kevin.
A couple of weeks ago, though by now it seems much longer, the ACC made waves with one of the biggest coups in conference realignment: stealing Syracuse and Pittsburgh from the apparently less than watchful auspices of the Big East. While this move would seem to bring even more talent into the already loaded Atlantic Coast Conference, the conference might have trouble retaining the talent.
Now, considering there are only five players coming in and eleven players leaving, this issue might seem insignificant. It might be insignificant. This season could be an aberration, and this player movement maybe means nothing. However, outside of a few marquee transfers (notably the Wear twins leaving North Carolina to play at UCLA and Miami stealing Kenny Kadji from in-state rival Florida), the trend seems to reflect very talented players who are content to move down a level for more playing time and a chance to star. When talented role players feel like the stage is already too crowded and seek greener pastures, does this constitute a real problem? Is there such a thing as an oversaturation of talent and do ACC fans need to worry about it? The addition of Syracuse and Pittsburgh seems to speak to a prevalent mentality that the league can never have enough talent, but the movement of the players themselves suggests otherwise.
Happy Memorial Day to everyone around the country, whether you’re honoring our fallen soldiers and/or the family members who are no longer with us. It’s a day worthy of reflection and memory, and we hope that your day will be spent in equal parts pouring out an ounce of liquor and cooking up some tasty barbecue. After all, life is here to be lived, even while we’re remembering those who are gone.
As if five full days of the hoops extravaganza known affectionately as the Big East Tournament wasn’t already enough, Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said late last week that he wants to see the tournament expand to 17 teams (or further upon additional expansion) when TCU formally enters the league in 2012-13. His justifications — that teams (such as UConn last year) can win five games, and that every player in the conference deserves a chance to play in the Garden at the league’s marquee event — sound reasonable enough to us. Although the idea of a #16 vs. #17 play-in game between DePaul and TCU on Monday night seems about as enticing as talking derivative markets over at the Harvard Club. The setup Boeheim suggests, though, would be more workable if the league ultimately expands to 20 teams and could have a “First Four” of its own then.
Speaking of Big East expansion, maybe someday soon the University of Memphis will get a long-desired invitation to the league, but in the meantime we’ll have to settle for a home-and-home series between the Tigers and longtime rival and nemesis Louisville scheduled to begin next season at the KFC Yum! Center. The two schools who battled for decades in the old Metro Conference and later in Conference USA (when it was still relevant) have not played in six years since Louisville left CUSA (the infamous Darius Washington game) but, needless to say, the two are still not friendly. This will be a great series, and we hope that even if Memphis doesn’t join the Big East in the coming few years, that the two will continue this series indefinitely.
Say what you want about Dick Vitale as an announcer past his prime or a shameless homer for certain east coast schools where he’s friendly with the head coaches… but never question the man’s commitment to improving the lives of the people around him through his relentless advocacy to fight cancer in his role as a spokesman for the Jimmy V Foundation. As Andy Staples writes in this piece on Friday, Vitale has leveraged his name within the sporting community to raise over $100M at his gala in just the last six years, a ridiculous number in philanthropic contributions when you think about it. Someday, when this very site or its replacement is writing the obit for one Richard Vitale, the first sentence shouldn’t mention the word ESPN, or Duke, or even basketball — it should focus on the consuming passion that he has given into the fight against cancer and how his tireless efforts in the “fourth quarter” of his life helped make the world a better place.
The LA Times published a piece over the weekend examining the odd situation of three southern California kids all returning back home to play for UCLA after spending at least one season all the way across the country at UNC. Larry Drew II, Travis Wear and David Wear each returned to LA after finding Chapel Hill not to their liking for one reason or another, and are looking to regain some of the form that made each of them elite recruits coming out of high school. Considering that very few players leave Roy Williams’ teams to transfer elsewhere (only seven in over 20 years of head coaching), it’s a weird coincidence that four of those players came from the sunny skies and endless avenues of Los Angeles (Alex Stepheson was the other). Good news for Tar Heel fans: none of the players on the 2011-12 UNC roster is from SoCal.
It continues to amaze us that South Park is still on the air, but it is, and it continue to push the envelope with its politically incorrect jabs at just about everything anyone considers holy and sacred. It’s been a long time since anyone considered the NCAA sacrosanct, but SP’s recent episode, “Crack Baby Athletic Association” skewers the governing organization in a parody that likens modern student-athletes to slaves in a for-profit scheme run by a select few. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s alma mater, the University of Colorado, comes off as particularly complicit in this show as the school the boys visit in an attempt to ply their exploitative trade. We could go on, but don’t take our word for it — the entire unedited episode is here.
Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-10 and Mountain West conferences. We will be publishing a series of conference report cards over the next week for conferences that received multiple NCAA bids to recap the conference, grade the teams, and look at the future for the conference.
Conference Recap:
After an awful 2009-10 season in which the Pac-10 had to limp into a second NCAA Tournament bid when Washington hit the gas pedal down the stretch, the four tournament bids the conference received this year was a huge improvement. With Arizona advancing to the Elite Eight, the Pac-10 advanced a team beyond the Sweet 16 for the first time in three seasons, and the conference was a much deeper collection of teams than last year. And without a doubt, that came as a result of the enhanced talent level across the conference. Coming into the season, there were just 17 seniors on rosters across the conference, and the youngsters showed vast improvement this year, notably Derrick Williams (an All-American and national player of the year candidate), Isaiah Thomas, Tyler Honeycutt, and Klay Thompson with several other players making big strides in their games. While the Pac-10 still struggled to gain national respect, it was clear to fans that the level of play is on the rebound from its 2009-2010 nadir.
The Pac-10 was Derrick Williams' personal playground in 2011, and the Wildcats displayed perhaps the most impressive performance of the NCAA Tournament in their dismantling of Duke. (AZ Daily Star/M. Popat)
Chris Singleton (F), Florida State (10.2 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 2.2 APG)
Impact Newcomers
Harrison Barnes (F, UNC) and Kyrie Irving (G, Duke).
Here’s the catch. Barnes might be the better player statistically, and he should have an unbelievable season, but if Duke’s repeat hopes rest on Irving’s shoulders, I’m not sure how he couldn’t be an impact newcomer. Both have NBA scouts fawning over them.
Kyrie Irving (left) and Harrison Barnes have sky-high potential, but how will they do in their respective coaches' systems? (Larry Busacca/Getty Images)
What You Need To Know
People will probably say the ACC is having a down year again, but statistically, in the ACC’s “down season” last year, it finished as the highest ranked conference by Ken Pomeroy (just above the Big 12). Even though the conference has won five of the last ten NCAA championships, people will argue it’s in decline after perennial contender UNC had a devastating season and Duke caught a few breaks on the road to the National Championship. That said, the ACC will not be the country’s deepest conference this season, but that doesn’t mean it will be irrelevant beyond the Blue Devils and Tar Heels. The ACC has five recruiting classes in ESPN’s top 25, which should ease the loss of important conference players like Greivis Vasquez, Jon Scheyer, Sylven Landesberg, Trevor Booker and Al-Farouq Aminu.
Predicted Champion
Duke (NCAA #1 Seed) – Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s squad should not only be favored to win the conference, they should be favored to win the NCAA Tournament. Duke returns two Preseason All-Americans in Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith from last year’s championship team. Kyrie Irving is the highest-touted Duke recruit since Jason Williams, who led the Blue Devils to the 2001 title. Irving is also considered by scouts as the best true point guard of this class. Additionally, the Blue Devils picked up four-star power forward Joshua Hairston and Seth Curry (who averaged 20.2 PPG, 4.4 RPG and 2.3 APG in his freshman season at Liberty), both of whom should see lots of playing time. Duke loses three starters from last year’s team: Jon Scheyer (18.2 PPG, 3.6 RPG, 4.9 APG), Lance Thomas (4.8 PPG, 4.9 RPG, 0.9 APG), and Brian Zoubek (5.6 PPG, 7.7 RPG, 1.0 APG). Losing three starters would normally lower expectations for a team. But, if anything, this Duke team should be more talented than last year’s squad. According to Evan Daniels of Scout.com: three people who have watched Duke recently “are raving about their overall talent and Kyrie Irving.” If you’re looking for more praise (not likely), Dan Wetzel tweeted: “Keep hearing from NBA scouts who’ve seen Duke practice describe Devils as ‘scary’ ‘complete’ ‘even better.’” He followed that up rebutting the pro-Coach K media saying “These are NBA scouts raving about Duke, not supposedly pro-Coach K media.” And last but not least, Luke Winn ranked the Blue Devil backcourt first in the nation and the frontcourt second (after Purdue, whose loss of Robbie Hummel almost certainly drops them a couple of spots). Long story short, Duke is going to be very, very good this year, especially if MasonPlumlee has the breakout season people are expecting. Read the rest of this entry »
Every year teams come out of nowhere and burst into the top 25, while sports writers run to their keyboards to type the requisite “Where Did Team X Come From” story. I mean how many people saw Cornell coming last year? Who said last October that Butler would go on to lose the national championship game by just a couple of inches? Conversely, there are teams that look great on paper in the preseason but fail to live up to the hype once the season starts. Think North Carolina last season. Why did the Tar Heels begin the year in the top 10 again? Allow us to sort through the mess and pull out this year’s Cornells and North Carolinas for you. Missouri fans, get ready to be excited. West Virginia fans, start thinking of things to say in your hate mail.
Today we’ll take a look at four teams that will be up this season as compared to where they were in to 2009-10. Wednesday we’ll look at four teams that will be down.
Four Up
#1) North Carolina
Drew Will Have a Superstar to Get the Ball To This Year
I know, I know, you’ve seen this script before. The Tar Heels enter the season ranked in the top 10. They don’t have many players on their roster that have accomplished anything in the college ranks, but they boast a highly touted incoming freshman class. Sound familiar? That was last year’s UNC squad, and we all know how disastrous the 2009-10 season was in Chapel Hill. So why the reason for optimism for Roy Williams & Co.? Two words: Harrison Barnes.
In Barnes the Tar Heels have the top freshman in the nation, and a guy many foresee as next year’s No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. The 6’8 forward gives UNC the kind of scorer last year’s offensively challenged squad lacked. He’ll instantly become the primary option in Williams’ offense, and his inside-outside game should have the Tar Heels back in the NCAA Tournament as a dark horse Final Four candidate. In addition to Barnes, the Tar Heels have a rookie point guard in Kendall Marshall who should provide the competition in practice to make Larry Drew II a better floor general, and at the very least should give UNC two capable ball handlers. The lone reason to be concerned is North Carolina’s lack of depth along the front line. UNC lost Deon Thompson (last year’s top scorer) to graduation, Ed Davis left for the NBA and David and TravisWear transferred to UCLA during the offseason. If center TylerZeller suffers another injury this season, North Carolina might be in trouble, but the Tar Heels definitely won’t suffer another NIT season.
#2) Missouri
Kim English is Ready to Take Mizzou Deep Again
It didn’t take long for Baylor to lose its momentum from last season’s run to the Elite Eight. All it took to bring the Bears back to earth was LaceDariusDunn’s arrest for aggravated assault and indefinite suspension from the team coupled with EkpeUdoh’s decision to enter the NBA draft. And the team that gained the most from Baylor’s drama? Missouri. The Tigers are well equipped to jump into the Big12 elite and it’s all because of head coach MikeAnderson. Anderson is 88-46 in his four seasons at Missouri and reached the Elite Eight in 2009. Last year the Tigers made it to the Round of 32, and Anderson’s squad is predicted to finish fifth in the Big 12 this year.
Personally, fifth seems a little too low. The Tigers’ brand of basketball (the “fastest 40 minutes in basketball”) that Anderson learned at Arkansas under NolanRichardson is incredibly tough to prepare for and usually leaves the opposition bent over in exhaustion by halftime. And if that’s not enough, the rest of the Big 12 has to account for preseason Wooden All-America selection KimEnglish and five-star recruit PhilPressey. If Anderson’s other five-star signee, TonyMitchell, ever becomes eligible then the Tigers will have the frontcourt presence necessary to post Anderson’s best season in Columbia.
Forget all this James Cameron-to-the-rescue talk. Given the speed with which he can plug holes, BP should hire Roy Williams.
Yesterday brought news that James McAdoo, a 6-8 power forward and the third-ranked player in the ESPN-U 100 for the high school class of 2011, might decide to shorten his senior year of high school and enroll at North Carolina a year early, meaning he’d be available to play for the Tar Heels in the upcoming season, giving them the help that they need down low. McAdoo had already committed to UNC as a class of 2011 member, but needs only to finish some summer courses to meet the NCAA’s requirements for scholarship eligibility.
His name should sound familiar. His uncle, Bob McAdoo, played a year for North Carolina back in the early 70s and went on to a Hall of Fame NBA career that included three scoring titles, two world championships with the Lakers in 1982 and 1985, and an MVP award in 1975. He virtually created the concept of a big man who could shoot effectively from the perimeter.
James might hit Franklin Street a year earlier than expected.
On May 25, we learned that Alabama’s Justin Knox will transfer (sort of) to North Carolina after finishing his degree over the summer. Knox happens to be a 6-9, 240-pound forward, and, because he’ll have finished his degree before next season begins, he will not be required to sit out a season before playing a final year in Chapel Hill as long as he chooses to enroll in a graduate program that Alabama does not offer. The University of Alabama’s Graduate School offers more than 120 graduate degree programs. Call us optimistic, but we’re betting Knox miraculously finds one out of UNC’s 89 that Alabama just doesn’t have.
Just a few weeks ago, Tar Heel fans were lamenting an emerging vacuum in the post, having lost Deon Thompson to the passage of time, Ed Davis to the NBA, and then the Wear boys defected. It’s true, a lot of teams would relish a “problem” like having Tyler Zeller and John Henson as part of their front line. But while that might be a talented duo, it’s still a duo, and you can’t survive in the Patriot League, let alone the ACC, with just two post players.
The hand-wringing was probably never as bad as it was made out to be, since top high school stud Harrison Barnes had committed to UNC a long time ago, and we’re sure he’ll provide more than his share of immediate excitement in Chapel Hill. Still, in hopes of shoring up the workforce in the paint, UNC made last-minute overtures to high schooler Kadeem Jack, but those went unfulfilled when Jack decided to go to prep school for another year. Tar Heel supporters were left thinking…What now?
They can now sleep soundly, for those holes in the paint have been successfully been filled. Seriously, can somebody please make sure that Roy Williams has Tony Hayward’s number?
In a move that’s caught a lot of Tar Heel fans — not to mention teammates and coaches — by surprise, David and Travis Wear are both transferring out of North Carolina. The two 6’10 Tar Heel forwards finished their exams this week, went back home to Huntington Beach, California, and their father called UNC head coach Roy Williams on Wednesday evening to inform Williams of the transfer. Having lost Ed Davis to the lure of the NBA and Deon Thompson to graduation, the Wear brothers’ departure leaves UNC with only two returning players taller than 6’6: 7’0 Tyler Zeller and 6’10 John Henson.
There weren't many signs or omens that said they were going.
That size deficit will be mitigated somewhat by the arrival of 6’8 forward Harrison Barnes, the top-ranked high school senior from this past year who announced — or rather, Skyped — several months ago that he’d be attending UNC in the fall of 2010. The Wears have not publicly commented on their transfer, but it’s doubtful that this was a playing time issue. Both Travis and David averaged about ten minutes a game last year, and Barnes is the only post player in the Heels’ incoming freshman class. With Zeller and Henson splitting minutes at center and Barnes at one forward, there were minutes to be had at the other forward spot.
This had been circulating on some message boards for several days, but now that it’s happened, the question arises as to where these fellows will land. Their California roots suggest the Pac-10 will benefit, and UCLA, Arizona, Stanford and Washington were listed as the other finalists for their services besides UNC when they were high school seniors. The UCLA option is particularly interesting; the Bruins have 6’9, 320-pound forward Josh Smith arriving on campus for next year, and the addition of the Wear boys after their mandatory transfer sit-out season would make Ben Howland a very happy man. Of course, there’s always the chance that they’re tired of being called “The Wear Twins” and will each choose their own school in hopes of forging their own unique path. Wherever they end up, the program(s) that signs them will be getting, by all accounts, a couple of quality kids in terms of character and work ethic as much as basketball potential.
