• MVP of the weekend? Cindy Richardson. Who? Richardson is the mother of Michael Gilchrist, the #1 recruit in the nation. She earns the award for telling her son to take a break from the AAU grind and consequently ended what would have been an ESPNU-televised showdown between Gilchrist and Austin Rivers tonight.
• A lesson for life? Just being on a loaded AAU team does not mean you will live up to the hype? Quincy Miller and Deuce Bello learned this the hard way this weekend.
• Speaking of Miller, Mike DeCourcy caught up with him for an interesting piece that gives us some good insight into a recruit who wants “to be somebody that everybody hates”.
• Adam Zagoria caught up with Maurice Harkless and Quinn Cook on their potential college choices. Harkless originally committed to UConn before opening up his commitment again. Cook is basically considering everybody in Division 1 (ok, he did trim his list from 11 schools to 9 schools).
• Scott Phillips gets to the essence of AAU basketball in under 140 characters.
• The parent of every promising recruit might want to take a few minutes looking at Tony Wroten‘s Twitter account over the weekend and think hard about whether or not they want their young athlete to being posting without some kind of filter (coach, PR department, etc.). Among the gems: letting the Twitter-verse that he should be a top 5 prospect, spending time looking for college coaches in the stands while he is playing in games (will happen at the next level with NBA scouts), and expanding his college list to 10 schools or is it 15 schools (I’m pretty sure he just ran out of space there)? Multiple media personalities chimed in on this subject with the two most notable being Matt Jones of KSR (Wroten is considering Kentucky) and Seth Davis of SI/CBS.
• Adonis Thomas had a great weekend and really turned some heads.
• Cody Zeller is another player who had a strong performance this weekend.
• Speaking of bad behavior, an unidentified AAU player was arrested for stealing someone’s camera on a plane going to Las Vegas. To all the college coaches in attendance that is a “red flag”.
• That player wasn’t the only one who wasn’t on his best behavior as the nastiness carried into Vegas where two players got into it and then a parent joined in the fracas. I’m not sure where bad parenting is on the warning screen for college coaches, but I’m going between a “yellow flag” and “red flag” here.

• This is looking ahead a little, but class of 2012 prospect J.P. Tokoto apparently lit it up in Vegas this weekend. Right now he’s somewhere in the #25-35 range in his class according to most recruiting sites. Based on the clips I have seen of him (see below for one) I think he should be higher than that. I only bring this up because rtmsf disagrees with me (I should point out that he also thought that Michael Beasley should have went ahead of Derrick Rose) so now we have a few thousand people as witnesses for a year or two from now.
• In another “too early” post, Shabazz Muhammed (the #1 rated SF in the class of 2012) probably had the highest single-game output of the weekend dropping 52 points on some unnamed team.
• Although many sites have stated that PG Chasson Randle has announced that Purdue, Stanford, and Illinois are his three finalists it seems like the article that everyone is citing states that those are three of the seven schools that will be his finalists with the other four revealed this week. Sorry to burst the bubble of fans from those schools.
• By now everybody has seen Inception(does anybody doubt that Dwyane Wade told LeBron to see it?), but we’re beginning to wonder if Jeff Goodman isn’t doing something similar with his scoops reporting that his sources told him of Tristan Spurlock‘s decision to transfer from Virginia to UCF almost 3 hours before Spurlock announced it to the Twitter-verse.

Over the course of the next month until the NBA Draft on June 24, RTC will be rolling out comprehensive profiles of the 30-35 collegians we feel have the best chance to hear their names called by David Stern in the first round that night.  There won’t be any particular order to the list, but you can scroll back through all the finished profiles by clicking here.

Player Name: James Anderson

School: Oklahoma State

Height/Weight: 6’6″, 210 lbs

NBA Position: Shooting guard

Projected Draft Range: Mid-to-late first round

Overview: The casual college basketball fan may not be as familiar with Anderson as they are with many of the bigger names higher up the Draft board, but that does not mean he is any less prolific a scorer as the Cowboys junior guard averaged 22.3 PPG last season on his way to Big 12 POY Honors and a 1st team All-American selection (by The Sporting News). The questions for Anderson come for the other areas of his game beyond his ability to score from the outside and that will most likely keep him out of the lottery. Although he lacks the requisite athleticism to get one of those goofy draft labels Anderson has shown that he has the ability to get to the basket at times during the past season in Stillwater.

Will Translate to the NBA: A solid shooting guard with great range. Anderson’s game is a pretty well-known entity to most scouts with a relatively narrow floor and ceiling. Anderson already has all the tools he needs to become that sort of player right away in the right setting, but will need to work on some of his weaknesses (see below) if he wants to fulfill the promise he showed at times in Stillwater.

Needs Work: Anderson has great range and can get to the line, but the points in between could use a little work. Anderson has shown that he can cause the other team to commit turnovers (1.4 SPG), but hasn’t demonstrated the ability to be a lock-down defender. On offense, one major concern with Anderson is his ball-handling ability. In his junior year, Anderson averaged 2.4 turnovers per game (matching his assists). Although that isn’t an atrocious number it understates some of the difficulties that Anderson could have at the next level creating his own shot. Anderson will need to work on his ball-handling to help him create his own shot on occasion even if he does not need to create shots for others very often. Also with Anderson’s size he should be able to post-up smaller guards. If he develops his post-up game a bit more he could become one of the NBA’s elite scorers rather than just a spot-up shooter that some pundits expect him to be.

Comparison Player: NBADraft.net lists Nick Anderson as a comparison player and I think it works. Hopefully this Anderson is a little better at hitting free throws in a clutch situation. Even though most people remember Nick as the guy who missed 4 huge free throws at the end of Game 1 of the 1995 NBA Finals he also averaged nearly 20 PPG in consecutive seasons early in his career. James a better pure shooter, but I would give Nick the edge in ability to create his own shot. Still like Nick I think James could flourish in the right setting. If you’re looking for something a little more current, think of a poor man’s James Harden or Michael Redd–two crafty scorers who can light up a scoreboard without overwhelming athleticism.

Best Case Scenario: I would give Anderson a shot at being a 15-18 PPG guy down the road in the right setting (see below), but I wouldn’t expect him to contribute a whole lot else other than a few extra rebounds per game. Anderson has a very definite skill (long-range shooting) that plenty of NBA teams will value, which should make him an attractive commodity for the next decade. His lack of complimentary skills (especially on the defensive end) could limit his progression as he will probably never make an All-Star team, but should contribute to good teams for years to come. Anderson’s team could play a big role in his development too as he has two options: scoring a lot of points for a bad team or hitting big jumpers as a 2nd or 3rd option on a playoff contender.

2013 Projection: Anderson should be averaging around 10-12 PPG coming off the bench at this point in his career. Given the better looks he will have in the NBA since he will no longer be the focal point of opposing defenses Anderson should be able to still shoot close to 40% from beyond the arc while adding in a few rebounds, assists, and steals here and there.

Best NBA Fit: As we stated in our preview of Xavier Henry (a player that is similar to Anderson, but with a less refined game with more potential), the Chicago Bulls would be an ideal fit for a long-range shooter with Derrick Rose creating open looks and Joakim Noah kicking out offensive rebounds along with the possibility of LeBron James and/or Dwyane Wade potentially ending up in the Windy City.

*Andrew Murawa, a frequent contributor to RTC, assisted in the development of this profile.

School: Kansas

Will Xavier Henry live up to his NBA potential?

There's been no comment from Bledsoe or UK as of yet.

Mr. Ford, as Thamel and Thayer note, has denied all of the accusations.  And according to Matt May of CatsPause.com, the folks at Kentucky haven’t even received a letter of inquiry about these issues.

If something actually comes from this, the bigger question will be how much the Kentucky program — and specifically John Calipari — actually knew about what was happening.  Fans of the UK coach will note how, regarding the “troubles” at his former jobs at Massachusetts and Memphis, Calipari was never specifically dinged with any wrongdoing, and that the mistakes made by Marcus Camby and Derrick Rose were out of the realm of what Calipari could realistically police.  On the other hand, Calipari-haters are about as giddy as Keith Olbermann watching George W. Bush fall down a flight of stairs.  They’ve already tried the man and handed down a guilty verdict long ago, and have just been waiting for something on which they could pin it.  Both sides would be well-advised to keep calm for now.

Unfortunately for Kentucky fans, it’s the program, and not necssarily the player or coach under investigation, that usually takes the hit if penalties are deemed necessary.  If something comes from this — and again, we don’t know if anything will — could Kentucky be stripped of its 35 wins from last year, which would put them back behind that 2,000-win mark?  Could those UK2K shirts become collector’s items?  Or would the NCAA rule that Bledsoe simply has to pay back whatever money was borrowed?  Since Bledsoe is no longer under the thumb of the NCAA, that might be tough to enforce.  To be sure, even if there is something to be found here, the accusations will be tough to prove.   Academic fraud at a high school is not as easy to verify as you’d think, and this matter of rent payments would be even tougher.  Again, unfortunately for Kentucky supporters, the NCAA is detective, judge, jury, and executioner, and they get to determine what constitutes good, hard, believable evidence.  And even if the NCAA finds something and says that the guilt lies totally with Eric Bledsoe and not with John Calipari or anyone at the University of Kentucky, it’s likely that the UK program would still feel the NCAA’s pimp slap while Bledsoe skates.  IF that happens, you can bet that the Calipari-to-NBA talk will heat up again, and you’d have to figure that the UK recruits who didn’t sign letters of intent would suddenly start to reconsider.

We’ll see what happens.  It’s still early days, yet.  Considering the recent news out of Kansas and Connecticut…it’s been a tough week for some of college basketball’s leviathan programs.

]]> http://rushthecourt.net/2010/05/28/is-this-what-caliparis-detractors-have-been-waiting-for/feed/ 5 http://rushthecourt.net/2010/04/16/in-1-and-done-era-experience-wins-championships/ http://rushthecourt.net/2010/04/16/in-1-and-done-era-experience-wins-championships/#comments Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:52:01 +0000 rtmsf http://rushthecourt.net/?p=21316 (special h/t to Luke Winn for inspiring this analysis with his article here)

You may have heard  in recent days that Kentucky’s John Calipari has been filling up on the tasty nougat that has risen to the top of the Class of 2010 high school basketball recruiting lists.  Five-star prospect Brandon Knight followed an impressive chorus line of 1-and-done Calipari point guards (D. Rose, T. Evans, J. Wall) by committing to the Wildcats on Wednesday, and Doron Lamb,  another five-star combo guard ranked in the top 25, committed today.  Turkish stud Enes Kanter committed last week, and there are rumors that others, including versatile top 15 forwards Terrance Jones and CJ Leslie, could be next.  All this, and we haven’t even mentioned yet that Michael Gilchrist, the consensus top player in the Class of 2011, has already verballed to go to Kentucky after next season.

Knight is a Great Talent, But Will He Take UK to the Final Four?

The point here is as clear as Ben Roethlisberger’s analgesic salves – high school prospects with dreams of NBA riches a year from now view John Calipari as the pied piper of the NBA Draft.  Follow him down the primrose path, and you will end up playing in the League one year later.  John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe and Daniel Orton are the trailblazers here.  With all four projected as first rounders in June, the hype of Calipari’s flute-playing squares nicely with reality.  And Kentucky’s regal basketball program is the beneficiary.

Or is it?

We’re big believers that there are external benefits to programs who recruit and enroll 1-and-done players beyond wins, losses and NCAA Tournament success.  In fact, every year we do exactly such an evaluation that includes criteria beyond that scope.  For example, it is our view that the Texas program is still benefitting today from its one year of Kevin Durant on campus in 2007 even though UT only made the second round of the Tournament that season.  The same goes with Michael Beasley at Kansas State in 2008.  Call it the Jordan Effect.  Even if the players who are later inspired to follow Durant and Beasley to those campuses aren’t as good as those two were, there is a significant residual ‘coolness’ effect in recruiting those younger players who can help sustain the quality of the program over time.  To put it in terms of Kentucky, a 12-year old right now may spend the next few years idolizing John Wall in the NBA, and when it comes time for him to make his school choice in five years, the Wildcats and Calipari would have already have an inherent advantage over other schools.

With that said, we know what Kentucky fans hope to get from all of these 1-and-done types, and it’s not just a bunch of springtime recruiting victories.  Eventually it needs to translate to wins, most specifically those in March and April as Winn alludes to in his article.  The question then that we analyze here is whether a focus on recruiting 1-and-doners will get a team to that goal.  The available evidence we have, using admittedly a very small sample size, says that it will not.

Take a look at the table below, which lists all sixteen Final Four teams from the 1-and-done era (2007-10).

The first thing to note is that of the sixteen Final Four teams since David Stern enacted the 1-and-done rule for the high school Class of 2006, the rule change hasn’t had much of an impact on the final weekend of college basketball.  In fact, of the 32 1-and-doners ( projecting nine in 2010) in the past four seasons, there have only been five such players in the Final Four.  Three of them — Greg Oden, Mike Conley and Daequan Cook — were on the same Buckeye team in 2007.  The other two — Memphis’ Derrick Rose and UCLA’s Kevin Love — made the final weekend in 2008.  There have been none since.  It’s not that the list of one-year players isn’t strong; we’ve already mentioned Durant, Beasley, the UK players and can add OJ Mayo, Tyreke Evans, Eric Gordon and many others to the mix, but they generally haven’t been able to carry their teams through to the Four.

Oden & Company's OSU Team Was the Exception, Not the Rule

The other thing to note is that in each of the Final Fours in the 1-and-done era of college basketball, the most experienced team left standing (we’re talking juniors and seniors) has won the championship.  How is this possible?  Haven’t we been conditioned to expect that the team with the best talent will win the title, and that the ‘best talent’ is already in the NBA by their junior and senior seasons?  Shouldn’t it naturally follow that teams with great young talent should be doing better than this?  What we’re seeing here may have been a more reasonable proposition in the years leading up to 2007, when nearly all of the elite talent (in the form of Dwight Howard, Shaun Livingston, Lebron James, etc.) was bypassing college and going straight to the professional ranks.  But now?  This is admittedly a bit of a surprise.

Yet there’s no mistaking it.  Florida started four juniors and a senior.  Kansas? — two seniors,  two juniors and a sophomore.  UNC? — two seniors and three juniors.  This year’s Duke team started three seniors and two juniors.  There have been no freshman starters of any kind on a championship team since Josh Boone for UConn in 2004, and he became a three-year player.  (note: Marvin Williams was a 1-and-doner on the 2005 UNC title team, but he didn’t start for Roy Williams).  Don’t get us wrong here.  In terms of NBA Draft picks, there was plenty of talent on each of those title teams, but it was experienced talent — talent that for one reason or another had taken a little longer to get to an elite, draftable level.  Several lottery picks such as Al Horford and Brandon Rush and Ty Lawson were players for whom the NBA was always on their horizon but because of some perceived or actual deficiency hadn’t been able to put it all together just yet.

He Knows He Needs Experience Too

And this is where we bring it back to Calipari and Kentucky.  The available evidence suggests that Calipari is going to have to figure out a way to keep some of the nasty talent he’s recruiting on campus a little longer than one season so that the players can become familiar enough with each other to push on through to a Final Four and championship.  His Memphis team in 2008 was a foul shot away from winning it all, but keep in mind that even that team started a senior and three juniors alongside the wunderkind Rose.  This isn’t lost on the coach, who spent much of 2009-10 naysaying how good his team was becuase he knew that they had a tendency to take possessions off, and the only thing that could cure that inefficiency was experience.  He’s also gone on record stating that he’d love to have his 1-and-done players for at least two years, with the inference being that when great talent is mixed with a little seasoning and experience, an Elite Eight team can easily become a national champion.  It remains to be seen whether Calipari will get his wish with an NBA rule change, but UK fans should take heed of the lessons of this year and the previous three before making Final Four reservations in Houston just yet.

In its appeal, the university made two arguments as grounds for reversal of the financial penalty: (1) there was insufficient evidence to find that the university or the student-athlete knew, or had reason to know, that he would become ineligible; and (2) even if the evidence was sufficient to make such a finding, the Committee on Infractions erred by not specifically concluding that the university or the student-athlete knew, or had reason to know, that he would become ineligible.  The Infractions Appeals Committee, however, disagreed and upheld the financial penalty. In its report, the Infractions Appeals Committee stated that a letter from the testing agency to the student-athlete “not only made the student-athlete aware that his eligibility was in serious jeopardy, but that he would be declared ineligible if he did not respond to the letter.”

Rose One Week After Notification From ETS About His Test Score

Memphis AD RC Johnson responded with the comment that he is disappointed with the findings, but generally took the high road and pointed toward a bright future for Tiger athletics. 

The NCAA is essentially standing behind their ostrich argument here.  They’re holding Rose responsible for failing to respond to letters of inquiry about his test score, and they’re holding the school responsible for failure to properly investigate the situation surrounding Rose’s test scores before he played.  Even though the NCAA Clearinghouse signed off on Rose to participate in athletics in 2007-08, they obviously believe that Memphis didn’t do enough to vet the situation through their own investigation.  But since the NCAA cannot prove that fact, they’re using Rose’s willful ignorance of letters in March and April 2008 from ETS (which Memphis does not receive) to show Rose’s bad faith while folding Memphis’ culpability into it through a failure to act. 

Certainly there is plenty of circumstantial evidence of tomfoolery with respect to Rose’s test (allegations of high school grade changes; the test-taking venue change to Detroit; the handwriting analysis), but nothing so apparent that the NCAA could hang its lily-white hat on.  Our interpretation of their final ruling looks something like this:

We [the NCAA and Memphis] both know that the player cheated on this test given the increase in his test score; but you [Memphis] rubber-stamped his score based on what he told you.  Had you properly reviewed this player’s circumstances, you would have sensed something was rotten in Denmark.  Even though we can’t prove that Rose cheated on his test in Detroit, we can prove that he ignored letters questioning him about it, so short of evidence to the contrary, we have no other option than to retroactively make him ineligible.

It’s a convoluted argument and not a very well-designed one, but it appears to be where the NCAA has landed on the matter.  Memphis will have to pay back the money earned from the NCAA Tournament’s five wins in 2008 and remove all 38 wins from its record, which has no real effect other than the removal of a banner celebrating that team in the rafters of FedEx Forum. 

All of This is Great, But Will It Count?

The big elephant-in-the-room question remains, though, which is whether the vacation of these wins belies a willingness of Kentucky coach John Calipari to pull the ostrich maneuver himself when it comes to recruiting and managing his players.  Nothing has been specifically targeted at him by the NCAA or the University of Memphis, but the twin coincidences of using ineligible players due to improper benefits and/or suspect test scores (both here and at UMass) is cause for alarm.  It’s certainly one thing if you’re carrying around illicit cash payments yourself or setting up fraudulent exams for players (see: the Harricks), but it’s almost as troubling if you look the other way while such things are going on, perhaps not fully aware of the details but completely certain of the processes to secure desired outcomes.  It’s a little analagous to a mob boss who has his henchmen do the dirty work without causing the Don to get his hands soiled, or a crooked politician always looking for plausible deniability for his backroom dealings.  We’re not accusing Calipari of specific wrongdoing – far from it, in fact — but to ignore these two situations especially in light of a continued association with a power broker-turned-agent like World Wide Wes is absolutely worth watching.  As wonderful it is to watch a player like John Wall perform in this year’s NCAA Tournament, we can’t help but wonder whether his tenure as a collegian will even count two to three years from now.  It’s unfortunate to have to think that way, but it’s a very logical byproduct of the prior situations involving this coach at this time. 

Zeitlin totally owns this tie. No need to get it for him.

rtmsf, RTC founder/editor/contributor:

All I want for Christmas this year is for a titanium-based super extra force field with double-secret password protection to be built on, around, above and under the current NCAA Tournament format.  Seriously, I want this thing to be more hermetically sealed than Tiger Woods’ brand-new Swiss bank accounts or Jerry Jones’ new face.  Please, Santa, no matter what the rest of these guys ask for — the new rear spoiler for nvr1983, a clue with the ladies for Stevens, that ridiculous jumpsuit for Hayes, and whatever Penn nonsense Zeitlin wants this year — just throw away their lists.   Please.  The single most important thing you’ll find on anyone’s list this year is mine (ok, I say that every year, but I mean it this time).  The possibility that some television money-men and NCAA decisionmakers long on greed but short on perspective and common sense support the idea of expanding the single most exciting and grand spectacle in all of sports to 96 teams should appall your jolly sensibilities.  If you can make this happen, Santa, I promise to be good all year round; I’ll even send in that cash pledge this year I keep promising to do but never do, I swear.   Thanks.

–Signed, 65 is Enough.

Hands OFF.

nvr1983, RTC  editor/contributor:

1. The NCAA finally gets a sense of reality and actually go after some big name programs instead of focusing on the relatively little guys.  Sure, Memphis and Renardo Sidney were involved in some shady dealings, but was it any worse than what USC has done over the past decade?
2. Have ESPN get ESPNU on every major cable provider or at least put those games on ESPN360.com
3. Go back to 64 teams.  Forget this talk about 96 teams.  I don’t even want the 65th team.  The play-in game has been a joke for years and everybody knows it.  It cheapens the tournament by making the official start of the tournament a game that even die-hard fans don’t care about.
4. Someone needs to fix this one-and-done rule.  I love watching these guys—Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, and John Wall—play, but I know that I will never get to see them mature in the college setting. Either make them stay 4 years or let them enter the draft right out of high school.
5. Fire the guy running the clock at Hinkle.  Somebody has to get some coal this Christmas…

Here's your 1.3 seconds.

John Stevens, RTC editor/contributor:

I can’t lie, there are some things I want for the other guys.  Heck, this is the giving season, right?  I’d like nvr to remember how to sleep, since he rarely gets to.  I think it’d be nice if rtmsf’s, er, “rash” finally cleared up.  And yeah, there are some things I’d like for myself.  Michelle Beadle’s phone number.  Fran Fraschilla’s tweeting abilities.  But those are things I’d rather earn of my own efforts.  As far as gifts that revolve around college hoops, there’s just no way I can limit it to one thing.  Yes, I’m that selfish.  But I think I want things that everyone wants, so I’m willing to share.  I’d like Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery to be the implied #1 announcing crew for any weekend CBS game, even though I still love and respect Enberg, Lundquist, Elmore, Bilas, et al.  I’d like fewer TV timeouts.  I’d like the NCAA Tournament to be freaking left alone.  But most of all, what I want is for the rest of the season to be free of major injuries.  The Evan Turner fall was scary and he’s lucky it wasn’t worse than just a couple of fractured transverse processes.  After Derrick Roland broke his leg last night I went outside and sat in my car for half an hour just to avoid the television.  That’s gotta be it for the gruesome injuries.  I don’t want to watch Kansas or Kentucky or Duke or Texas or anyone come tournament time and think, “That’s not the same team, compared to when they had (x).”  It’s been too fun of a season so far to have some team’s chances ruined by a misstep or a freak accident.

"Rise and FIRE...." "ONIONS, Mr. Johnson!!" It has to happen.

Zach Hayes, RTC Bracketologist-in-Residence:

This one might cause some controversy, but I’d ask Santa for some duct tape for Dick Vitale.  Watching the Texas-UNC game on Saturday sent me over the edge.  His shameless self-promotion and constant hyperbole is incredibly irritating and the man fails to make one cogent basketball point from an analytical perspective the entire telecast.  His quirks and habits get extremely tiresome by December.  While others like Bill Raftery have their fun, they bring to the broadcast a true sense of the intricacies of basketball to further my understanding of the sport.  Jay Bilas is constantly providing enlightening analysis and former coaches like Bob Knight and Steve Lavin are tremendous.  Yet ESPN keeps giving us Dick Vitale in the biggest games so he can yell things like “I’ll tell you, Ed Davis has talent!” and “go onto dickvitale.com for my freshman of the year, coach of the year, fans of the year…”  It’s enough.  Santa, send me some duct tape so I never have to hear that old man screaming again.

We'll go ahead and cancel that interview request...

Dave Zeitlin, RTC Ivy League Correspondent and feature writer for Backdoor Cuts:

What I really want for the holidays is for Penn to beat Duke on New Year’s Eve.  But since the odds of that happening are about as slim as Isiah Thomas doing one good thing in his life, I have another wish.  I want big-conference coaches to stop whining about tournament expansion.  I mean, really?  Everyone knows college football is a joke because of the BCS, but let’s not turn college basketball into a joke on the other end of the spectrum by completely diluting the regular season.  Yes, I like the idea of more mid-major teams getting berths, which would be a side benefit to tournament expansion.  But here’s a better solution for that:  limit the number of berths for big-conference teams.  How about you have to have a .500 record in the conference and finish in the top half of your league to be eligible?  I’m tired of the sense of entitlement some of these coaches have.  You have a whole season AND a conference tournament to be one of the 65 teams to make the Big Dance — that should be enough.  Most of these guys should take a lesson from Bill Carmody, who in nine seasons at Northwestern has never guided the Wildcats to the NCAA touranament.  Still, he is against expansion, saying it would make every game a little less meaningful.  Merry Christmas, Bill.  I like you even though you coached at Princeton.

Mr. Zeitlin declines. But gives credit where it's due.

1. Will Brandon Knight become the next Derrick Rose Tyreke Evans John Wall for John Calipari at Memphis Kentucky?  One of the top players in the Class of 2010 has, according to Zagsblog, listed his final four schools:  Kansas, Kentucky, UConn and Florida.  He’ll sign in the spring, but you have to believe that with Wall leaving Lexington in April, the Wildcats would be very well situated for another one-and-done point guard prospect to enter the school.
2. Arkansas can’t seem to get anything right lately.  It’s a small violation, but the Hawgs self-reported a violation involving photo images of players in a magazine.
3. This was rumored last week, but it became official yesterday.  The Big Ten will formally explore the option of adding a twelfth team to its mix, ostensibly to have a football championship game.  We hope to have an analysis up later on this, but how will it affect basketball?  John Gasaway thinks it will come down to Pittsburgh or Missouri.
4. Do you know anything — anything at all — about the Western Carolina Catamounts and their star player Jake Robinson?  Educate yourself.
5. Roy Williams explained himself further on his radio show Monday night.  Let’s just say that he didn’t apologize for overreacting, instead choosing to contextualize his thinking of the incident to excuse his behavior.   Here’s the relevant excerpt, but we suggest you read the entire thing here.

Saturday night, all of a sudden, some guy stands up and starts yelling at Deon and it came from behind our bench. And you know how when some things happen, you instantly think of something? My first thought was, ‘Now our parents are having to listen to somebody else, and it’s in our own building.’ And so I turned around and I said, ‘Who said that?’ And about 40-50-60-70-80 people started pointing up at this guy. The guy gets up and starts gyrating with his arms and everything like, ‘Yeah, it was me,’ and that kind of thing. And it really did tick me off. I turned and said something to the ushers behind the bench and they started up through there, and I turned around and coached the game. I have no idea what happened. I never turned around to the guy again. But my feeling was immediately that our parents who sit right behind our bench have to put up with that stuff again in our own building. So that was it. And after the game, they told me that they had escorted the young man out. Supposedly what had happened was they had asked him for his ticket and he didn’t have a ticket or wasn’t supposed to be sitting in that seat. Supposedly, and I want to emphasis the word supposedly, he didn’t cooperate as much as they wanted, and they chose to take him out.

Recently Buzz Bissinger wrote an op-ed in the NYT about the 1-and-Done Rule in college basketball.  He feels that he has been duped by David Stern and the NBA for selling him on warm and fuzzies like player maturity and higher education when, in reality, the NBA just wanted the free marketing and player development that college hoops provides.  John Gasaway at Basketball Prospectus responded to his piece by saying that the NBA age-limit rule was always about the gift-wrapped marketing of college stars like Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose for the NBA, and that’s all it was ever about.  Well, duh, but it brings us to this week’s topic, as the debate rages on among the hoops cognoscenti.   

This week’s topic: What should be done, if anything, about the 1-and-Done Rule?

nvr1983 – editor/contributor, RTC.

I am torn on this issue. As much as I love seeing the 1-and-Dones in a college uniform, I do miss the continuity of college basketball from the early 1990s. It used to be fun to watch players develop from talented but inconsistent freshmen into steady seniors. Players always left early, but it was usually after their junior year and even then it was typically only great NBA prospects, not borderline NBA guys who are hoping they can dupe some NBA team into giving them a $2-3 million contract, which based on what I’ve seen from NBA players in the news lately should last them all of a year.  From a political and legal perspective I think the rule is a travesty as there is not a good reason for a player to have to spend one year in college particularly at an age that they can vote (sometimes making horrible decisions) and go to war (and potentially die). Still it is the NBA’s product so they can decide what to do, but I think they should either go all-in (4 years of college) or have a laissez-faire approach (let the NBA teams decide who they want).

john stevens – editor/contributor, RTC.

The statistics in the Bissinger piece show that the One Year Rule that keeps high school prep stars from directly entering the NBA draft has had no real positive effects for the kids themselves, but it does help the colleges (a year of service by star players) and the NBA (a year of free marketing of these possible eventual stars).  If we really want to make rules in the kids’ best interests, I think you have to either: 1) let them play straight out of high school if they want to take that risk, or 2) if they enroll in college, have them stay a minimum of three years.  Staying three years will help develop “mid-level” players that need the time in college to improve, and it will result in more college degrees for these kids, since some players do fulfill all the requirements for graduation within three years.  If unfinished, players who complete the three years would then find it easier to finish degrees after or even during their professional careers, or realize how much they love the college experience and stay for the fourth year in order to win a title, finish a degree, or both.

zach hayes – editor/contributor, RTC.

For the college game? It’s tremendous. For the kids involved? I’d be more than a little bit ticked off if I were in their shoes. But since I’m not, and a college basketball fan through and through, I love the rule where every high school player must spend a year in the college ranks. Why wouldn’t I? We never would have been able to see Kevin Durant work his magic at Texas, or Michael Beasley shatter Kansas State and Big 12 records, or Kevin Love lead UCLA to another Final Four. What fan of our game isn’t excited to see John Wall or Derrick Favors toe the hardwood this season in the intense atmosphere of college basketball? While I truly feel that high school prospects should be able to enter the NBA Draft without going to school (it’s fair, admit it), let’s just say I’m not complaining. The college game thrives when the ultra-hyped high school seniors shine on the collegiate stage, even for one year. And any rule that helps college basketball I’m all in for. The riches of the NBA can wait.

rtmsf – editor/contributor, RTC.

After KG opened the preps-to-pros floodgates in 1995, every borderline prospect with a broken jumper and a lack of sense of the incredible skill level required for the NBA were coming out.  But even beyond the HS stars, it began infecting the college game to the point where bench players on not very good teams thought they too were ready for the L.  A free market dictates that a person has a right-to-work, but the NBA has never been a truly free market (otherwise, teams could simply sign players at any time without regard to age, salary cap or the equitable distribution of talent known as the draft).  The NBA sets the rules for its employees, and David Stern has decided he’d rather have marketable stars who are further along the development curve than the raw products they were once getting.  I can buy and support that line of thinking, but it also needs to go one step further.  The rule needs to expand to two years (age 20).  The way it’s currently set up is just too disruptive for the schools involved with these players, and the development between Y1 and Y2 of college is often substantial (Blake Griffin,anyone?).

• Scare at Tennessee.   A very frightening story out of Knoxville earlier this week was that Vol sophomore forward Emmanuel Negedu collapsed while lifting weights on Monday and reportedly had to be revived by UT medical staff prior to his transport to the hospital.  He’s spent the last two nights there under watch, and doctors continue to perform tests on him to make sure that he’s not suffering from something deadly.  We all know the stories over the years, from Len Bias to Hank Gathers to Reggie Lewis, and these are always scary incidents.  RTC wishes Negedu the best of luck and wishes for a full recovery. 
• Cleaning up at Binghamton...  Two ugly incidents put an early stain on the 2009-10 season, as we discussed in separate posts when they happened last week.  Both were stories capable of sending shock waves through college basketball this week, though, as Binghamton yesterday fired an adjunct lecturer who claimed in a NYT article last February that basketball players were receiving preferential treatment in the classroom (grade changing, independent study, and the like).  The Binghamton program is now in shambles on the court, but we continue to be shocked and amazed that Kevin Broadus, the recruiter of all the problem children who ended up dismissed (and arrested), is skating on this one.  Seriously, think about this - Binghamton cans the whistleblowing prof but not the coach who orchestrated the entire mess?  How is this possible?  Isn’t the SUNY chancellor now the same woman who stood on the library steps and shouted “no more” to the Cincinnati faithful when she 86ed Bob Huggins four years ago?  And yet she’s curiously silent (along with BU’s president, Lois B. DeFleur, for the most part).  Something’s not right here, and we figure there’s more to come.  If there is, we can rest assured the NYT’s Pete Thamel will figure it out.     EDITED TO ADD: Yep, the AD is gone, can Broadus be far behind?
• …and Kansas.   Perhaps the uglier incident last week was the three fights between members of the KU basketball and football teams.  Much was written about how embarrassing this was to the university, the athletic department, the coaches and players involved, and Thursday’s public, formal apologies did little to defuse the PR hit that Bill Self’s program took last week.  The word is that players were fighting over (what else?) girls and rep, but KU football players shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that just because they’ve had a nice run in that program the last few years that Kansas will ever be anything but a basketball school.  The question now is what will Bill Self do to punish the guilty parties?  We already know that Tyshawn Taylor was involved due to his dislocated finger that’ll hold him out of workouts for around a month.  We also know that one of the Morris twins pushed a football player down the stairs, a very dangerous act of battery (this would be Markieff’s second, btw) that was mitigated by another player catching the falling player as he made his way downward.   News outlets all report that there were some other hoops players involved as well.  We think that, for the sake of his program, Bill Self has to take a very serious stand on this one.  You simply cannot have the players on a preseason #1 team running around campus fighting indiscriminately with players from the football team.  Not only can your own players get hurt, but with so many big bodies involved, run-of-the-mill students can also get hurt.  Luckily, that didn’t happen here, but Self needs to show that he’s totally in charge of his program.  Anything less than a several-game suspension for all of the players involved would reveal that early-season Ws are more important to him than discipline.  If it were us, we’d sit the Morris who threw the player down the stairs for ten games and the others for five each.  No questions asked.  If Kansas loses an early game or two versus Memphis and/or UCLA because of it, well, too bad.  The good will that Self engenders as a no-nonsense coach will provide far greater benefits over time in terms of recruiting and public reputation than it will by letting these players off easy.    
• Non-BCS Schools Receive Harsher Penalties Than BCS Schools – No Way!!  This jewel made it into our inbox last week from the Orlando Sentinel.  The Michael Buckner Law Firm performed an analysis that showed that the average years of probation meted out to non-BCS programs was longer than those handed out to BCS programs over a 4+ year period in the late 2000s.  The average amount of probation time for a non-BCS program was 2.74 years versus 2.58 years for BCS programs.  There’s no accounting for whether the difference is simple error or actual bias, but what is more damning from this study is the finding that the HBCU schools (historically black colleges and universities) were given 3.83 years of probation versus the aforementioned 2.58 for BCS schools.  That seems a little ridiculous to us.  Of course, the NCAA predictably dismissed the study on statistical grounds, and we understand their complaint.  So here’s our suggestion to the NCAA: hire an independent researcher to examine your enforcement policies and practices for consistency and bias, and get back to us.  Something tells us we’ll be waiting on that for quite some time.
• Quick Hits.  Blue Ribbon:  top 25 and all-americans.  James Isch:  good luck, sir.   Billy Clyde: offered a plea bargain in Ky.  Gary Williams: one-year extension.  Nolan Richardson: the descent continues.  MVC Nonconf Schedules: tremendous analysis.   Gonzaga:  are they reloading or rebuilding in Spokane?  Luke Winn: charting peaks and valleys of the offseason.  Avery Bradley and Jared Sullinger: get to know them.  CvC: pushing for healthcare reform on Capitol Hill.  Goodman: top 20 backcourts and top 20 frontcourts AND his Big 12 preview.  Tyler Smith: who will be the first person he follows on Twitter?  Jim Crews: fired at Army after 7 years.  Herb Sendek: busily not gloating in Tempe.  Demetrius Jemison: Bama forward out for the season with a ruptured Achilles.   Shocker: Derrick Rose says he took his own SAT.  A Decade Ago: Harold “The Show” Arceneaux.  Ray McCallum, Sr.: walking the fine line between parent and recruiter. 

Ed. Note: for all of the posts in the RTC 09-10 Class Schedule series, click here.

Just a mere five months ago, the once proud and feared Kentucky basketball program was mired in a state of chaos. The Billy Gillispie era at the university turned out about as well as the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination. Mystifying losses at storied Rupp Arena to such powers as Gardner-Webb and VMI, puzzling interviews with ESPN’s Jeannine Edwards making the blog rounds and exposing Gillispie as a clown, point guards refusing to enter games, rumors of bar scenes of an inebriated Gillispie making a mockery of his reputation and, worse of all, the Wildcats missing the NCAA Tournament in 2009 only to falter in the NIT. After Gillispie was fired, both parties sued each other and now Gillispie is releasing a book that nobody will read. It’s been a whacky offseason in Big Blue Country, and even though their new savior has some issues of his own, the Kentucky basketball program has experienced an unfathomable turnaround over the summer from the laughing stock of college basketball to a legitimate contender to win a national title.

The hiring of John Calipari and the return of forward Patrick Patterson has rejuvenated Kentucky to the point of being widely considered the favorites in an improving SEC this season. The addition of two top-five recruits- point guard John Wall and power forward DeMarcus Cousins- along with Gillispie’s recruits staying on board and a decent core returning from last season’s squad means expectations are once again sky-high in Lexington. Nobody is thinking about Billy Gillispie but rather the school’s first Final Four berth since the Jeff Sheppard era of 1998.

Here’s the official schedule for a Kentucky team that may be the most exciting to watch this season in all of college basketball:

Non-Conference Schedule Rank: 7. The non-conference schedule in John Calipari’s first season features some big names and decent tests, but no overwhelmingly challenging road games are included on the slate. The only true road game is a trip to Bloomington in early December to take on a rebuilding Indiana squad that Kentucky should run out of the building. Emotions will be high for both the North Carolina and Louisville visits during the non-conference season. North Carolina has embarrassed Kentucky handily in two previous meetings and the Wildcats will be eager to exact revenge on their rival Cardinals following last season’s Edgar Sosa miracle (not to mention the coaches aren’t exactly best friends). The schedule also includes a trip to Cancun to take on Cinderella Cleveland State and the Stanford/Virginia winner, none of those teams posing close to a threat. One team that could surprise Kentucky is their opponent in the SEC/Big East Invitational in New York: the Connecticut Huskies. UConn did lose a boatload of scoring and rebounding, but Jerome Dyson, Kemba Walker and Stanley Robinson could be enough to hang with Kentucky’s immense talent. At least for a while.

Cupcake City: While Gillispie was prone to the shocking early-season upset, we suspect Calipari will have his team 100% prepared offensively and defensively every single night throughout the campaign. Kentucky has eight games at home against mid-major or low-major competition this season and one visit to Louisville to take on UNC-Asheville. They should sprint through this slate and remain a decent bet to run the table in non-conference play.

Toughest Early Season Test: While Connecticut is on a neutral floor and North Carolina will visit Rupp, I’ll go with the Tar Heels. Remember: this Kentucky team is dealing with plenty of new parts in various roles, and since the game takes place on December 5, there may still be some confusion and sorting out to do for coach Calipari in teaching his dribble-drive motion offense. The Heels will be dealing with the same problem, but Roy Williams is a familiar face and key players like Ed Davis, Larry Drew and Deon Thompson have experience, although limited. Kentucky seems like a tremendous candidate to peak in February and March rather than December, and this young Carolina team could sneak up on the Wildcats.

Easiest Conference Stretch: A seven-game stretch from mid-January to mid-February could be where Kentucky takes off in SEC play. There are two fairly challenging road contests in that stretch with a trip to South Carolina to deal with Devan Downey and Dominique Archie and a visit to LSU with Tasmin Mitchell and Bo Spencer still involved. Four SEC schools make trips to Rupp during the stretch: Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss and Alabama. While Vanderbilt and Ole Miss are being discussed as possible NCAA Tournament teams, Kentucky should be heavily favored in all four home games along with the three roadies (a trip to Auburn sprinkled in).

Hardest Conference Stretch: After that visit from Alabama, the schedule gets plenty dicey for Calipari as steep challenges begin to appear in mid-February. While a visit from South Carolina may provide a slight reprieve, the Wildcats take on Tennessee in a home-and-home and also visit SEC challengers Mississippi State and Vanderbilt during this stretch extending till the end of the month. The two Tennessee games will be ultra-hyped with one being a primetime ESPN College Gameday visit. The Vols are the only team that can be mentioned in the same breath as Kentucky in terms of talent in this conference, and the Wildcats trip to Knoxville will be the single most challenging game on the entire schedule. Mississippi State could contend for a top-five seed with Jarvis Varnado, Barry Stewart and possibly Renardo Sidney on the roster, while Vanderbilt boasts all-SEC center A.J. Ogilvy and prized recruit John Jenkins.

Most Difficult Road Test: It has to be the visit to Tennessee in late February. Tyler Smith could pose matchup problems for Patterson and Cousins, J.P. Prince is a slashing scorer and Wayne Chism can contribute inside. Behind an orange-clad crowd screaming Rocky Top and the suffocating Pearl press, the Volunteers have a shot. The one huge advantage for Kentucky comes at the point guard position with Wall running the show against Bobby Maze.

Most Anticipated Home Date: While their coach has some scars of his own, none of them involve sex in the back of a restaurant and a rumored $3,000 abortion. When Rick Pitino makes his return to Lexington on January 2, it won’t be a very happy New Year for the Louisville headman. The hardcore Kentucky fans will be out in full force with elaborate signs and chants mocking the disgraced Pitino. Best of all, Kentucky is head and shoulders above Louisville in terms of talent level this season. Like this rivalry needed any more spice.

Upset Watch: For the reasons mentioned above, I’d keep an eye on the Mississippi State game on February 16. The matchup in Starkville could get very interesting if Sidney and John Riek are eligible, Varnado stays out of foul trouble, Stewart and Dee Bost run a steady offense and Ravern Johnson is hitting threes with some consistency. If the stars align, Rick Stansbury has a very dangerous squad lined up and seems to possess the talent to play with Kentucky, at least on one given night.

Best Individual Matchup: While Ogilvy battling in the post with Patterson, Cousins and Daniel Orton should be fun, I’m loving with potential diaper dandy battle at the point guard position between Kentucky’s John Wall and Florida’s Kenny Boynton. With Nick Calathes departed, Boynton will surely be the centerpiece of Billy Donovan’s offense this season. Boynton is a prolific scorer and elite talent while Wall is widely considered to be the favorite to go first overall in the 2010 NBA Draft and could be the next of John Calipari’s tremendous point guards after Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans. Wall and Boynton trading clutch baskets could be a show to remember.

Rush the Court Potential: Kentucky fans have long considered their program the elite of the elite in college basketball. This season, really for the first time since winning the SEC in 2004-05, Kentucky fans can back up the talk with a team that has the talent to emerge as a #1 seed and reach Indianapolis in April. The freshman class is the strongest since Lawson/Ellington for Carolina, Calipari is one of the best in the business and Rupp Arena provides a true home-court advantage. The schedule isn’t very daunting, either. Kentucky fans won’t be rushing the court this season, but any opponent that knocks off the Wildcats surely will jump at the opportunity. Kentucky is back, folks, and they should be feared.

• Comings and Goings.  There have been a few announcements of players who are out for the upcoming semester as we’re heading into fall matriculation.  The most notable are Villanova wing Reggie Redding and Florida big men Eloy Vargas and Adam Allen.  Redding was suspended by the university arising out of an incident where marijuana was allegedly found in his car at an accident, but he is expected to return for the spring semester.  Allen recently had surgery for a stress fracture and Vargas is academically ineligible for the fall semester.  Although neither were major contributors for Florida in 08-09, they were expected to provide depth in the frontcourt this season.  On the flip side, former Dookie Elliot Williams received his waiver from the NCAA and will be eligible to suit up immediately for his hometown Memphis Tigers this season. 
• 2009 NIT Bracket.  The pairings were announced a week ago, but we’re just now getting around to analyzing it.  They’ve seeded the top four teams by region (#1 Duke, #2 UConn, #3 LSU, and #4 Arizona St) in a solid, if not spectacular, field.  But did anyone else notice that they mismatched the seedings?  Take a closer look at the thumbnail below.  If the top eight seeds win their first game, then we should be left with pairings of 1/8, 2/7, 3/6 and 4/5, right?  In this NIT bracket, #1 Duke would play #8 Charlotte, so that’s ok; but, #2 UConn would play #6 Hofstra, #3 LSU would play #5 WKU, and #4 Arizona St. would play #7 TCU.  What’s the point of this?  If you’re going to take the time to seed teams by expectation, you should probably do it properly rather than trying to slot teams based on regional travel convenience.  Sigh…   For what it’s worth, Duke seems to always win this thing, but depending on how quickly replacement players develop on the other top seeds, any of the others could surprise.

• Memphis/Calipari Post-Mortem.  Memphis plans to appeal the decision that was handed down on Thursday by the NCAA to vacate all 38 of their wins in 2007-08 as a result of using an ineligible player (Derrick Rose) and ‘accidentally’ providing said player’s brother flights on the team plane.  If upheld (and it will be), Memphis will be on the hook for $530k in NCAA revenue-share funds to CUSA, but even more interestingly to those who say that the former coach is completely untouched by this mess, Coach Cal will have to return $300k in bonus money to Memphis as a result of the NCAA’s penalties.  His $32M contract with Kentucky will help ease that particular pain, but these odd coincidences involving ineligible players really need to stop following this guy around if he expects to ever be taken seriously outside of the Bluegrass State again.  One other thing…  failure to respond to mail?  Really? 
• Pitino/Sypher Post-Mortem.  We have nothing further to say on this issue other than the following.  It’s doubtful that the Sypher saga will have any significant effect on this.  Pitino was never going to be fired over this issue because he has a F4 and two recent E8s under his belt.  The moral depravity BS only comes into play when you’re not getting it done on the court or you cross the blurry line into true depravity (speaking of depraved).   Please, please just lock this woman up before she starts accusing Pitino of supporting death panels for puppies.  Now, just give us 24 Hail Marys and a few kisses of the rosary so we can get back to business of winning the Big East, Coach (a nice donation wouldn’t hurt, either).
• Quick Hits.  NCAA v. Delaware: an expedited hearing at the CoA level before Sept. 1.  Hard-Hitting Journalism: in other news, water is wet.  Enes Kanter: the reverse Brandon Jennings.  Nolan Richardson: not sure what to think of this idea.  Denis Clemente: until he throws it over a girder, we’re not impressed.  Seth Davis: laments a long, scandal-plagued summer.  Calipari’s Old House:  one of the very few areas he’ll take a loss this year.  Goodman: 64 nonconf games to watch.  Leonard Hamilton: this is what one NCAA appearance in seven seasons gets you at a football school.  Jeremy Tyler: yeah, 140k is a lot of money for a 17-yr old, but Parrish misses the cost/benefit analysis here.  Bobby Cremins: extended at CofC through 2014.  Lapchick Awards: JT2 and Kay Yow.  Great Alaska Shootout: on its last legs?  SLAM: their preseason top 25. 

Speaking of Coach Cal (and UK fans will remind us that correlation isn’t causation), he now becomes the first head coach in the history of college basketball to have had NCAA-mandated removals of Final Four appearances at different schools.  You should recall that Calipari’s only other F4 appearance in 1996 was later vacated because of Marcus Camby’s prodigious affinity for cashmoney and bling.  This latest Derrick Rose situation makes Calipari programs two-for-two, and, interestingly, the Memphis Tiger program two-for-three on removed Final Four appearances.  Keep polishing that 1973 runner-up trophy, Tigers, it’ll be a while until the next one.

Here’s the list of F4 teams whose appearance was later vacated by the NCAA that 2007-08 Memphis joins.

• Ohio St. (1999) – Jim O’Brien
• Minnesota (1997) – Clem Haskins
• UMass (1996) – John Calipari
• Michigan (1992 & 1993) – Steve Fisher
• Memphis (1985) – Dana Kirk
• UCLA (1980) – Larry Brown
• Villanova (1971) – Jack Kraft
• St. Joseph’s (1961) – Jack Ramsay

Do you guys believe in karma?  This list is populated by four national runners-up and five other semifinalists, but the NCAA has to date still managed to avoid vacating a national championship team.  And without question, the Rose/Calipari Memphis team was the closest finalist on this list to actually cutting down the nets.  Maybe there was a little more magic to the Mario Miracle dagger than we understood at the time?

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

We already know that this selection is going to cause some consternation among teams that weren’t selected as high.  It’s ok.  We get it.  The selection process ultimately comes down to a matter of taste, and Memphis blended with our palates a little better than the others.  If you disagree, let us know…

#8 – Memphis

Overview. In the period from 2000-2009, few college basketball programs “felt” bigger than Memphis.  John Calipari showed up to run the show in 2000 and everyone knew what was to come — big-time recruits, lots of one-and-done types, scads more wins, deeper advancement in the NCAA.  Also on the way, whether justified or not, was that dirty feeling that comes with knowing that your program is being led by a fellow on whom you always feel you — or maybe a private detective you’ve hired — need to keep a close eye.  In terms of the on-the-floor expectations, Calipari delivered exactly what was expected of him; after a couple of warm-up years things improved and then really took off in the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons when Memphis and their collection of ridiculous interchangable-part type athletes rode Calipari’s Dribble-Drive Offense to consecutive regular-season 30-3 records and Elite Eight apperances.  As a basketball power, Memphis was taken more seriously than it ever had been and it looked like Calipari was building a Leviathan.  The 2007-08 squad validated this by putting up such impressive numbers as achieving the school’s second-ever #1 ranking, a 38-win season (jeez), and its first Final Four since the days of Keith Lee and Dana Kirk back in 1985.  Then, in the championship game…well, in case you didn’t see it….about two minutes to go, up by nine, they….um….well, just check this out.  Even with this, even if you didn’t agree with all of their methods, the Memphis program had still reached elite status in the college hoops world.

Pinnacle. No question, things were sweetest in Tigerland when they posted that 37th win and made it to that 2008 Final Four.  That particular Memphis team, with Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose and a litany of other high-flying gazelles — you remember the likes of Joey Dorsey, Antonio Anderson, Robert Dozier, I’m sure — was so athletic that you forgot about any possibility of, er, shadiness.  For the most part, you just enjoyed the show.  A case could definitely be made for a co-pinnacle for this program mere days later when they were, as noted above, up by nine in the final with only a couple minutes left between them and the true goal inherent in any lofty expectations — a title.

Tailspin. The 63-63 tie that resulted from Mario’s Miracle.  When Mario Chalmers hit that jumper, things were never the same therafter.  You could feel it coming.  Kansas was on fire in that stretch and Memphis couldn’t hit a free throw, but it was that shot, that boot to the forehead, that has started the Tiger program on its tailspin.  The next season (2008-09) was a disappointment by comparison, ending with an upset loss to Missouri in the Sweet 16 even though Memphis was again a popular and sexy pick for the Final Four.  Then came the departure of John Calipari to Kentucky and the NCAA allegations of Derrick Rose’s test-taking naughtiness.

Outlook for 2010s:  Grade: C. While Calipari seems to be pretty much off the hook in this Rose business — and Derrick Rose as well, just because he moved on — in the near future the Memphis program could still possibly feel the NCAA’s bitch-slapping pimp hand, and that Pinnacle as described above could be erased from the history books altogether, meaning Memphis might have to pack up the Aerostar and vacate their ’08 Final Four and all 38 of those victories like they never happened.  Enter former Arizona (and single-season at Memphis) assistant Josh Pastner.  Already known among coaching insiders as a hell of a recruiter, he knows what it takes to win; he was a walk-on on Arizona’s 1997 championship team.  It’s not like he’s going to let the post-Calipari roster totally collapse, and he’ll most certainly bring in his own high-level studs.  The question is, given the recent achievements of this program, how much time will he be allowed?  It’s difficult to speculate as far as an outlook for this program until the NCAA decides what they’re going to do to them, if anything.  The buzz around the program is more positive than you might expect, and that’s because of Pastner.  If he’s allowed the time to get over any penalties the NCAA might unload on the program, it will still be quite a while before they return to the level they achieved in the late 2000s.  But, in the end, I’ll bet that this program will do a little better than, say, to go the way of their former home – the now-empty Memphis Pyramid, previously the residence of the NCAA’s Tigers, NBA’s Grizzlies, numerous concerts and conference tournaments, and more recently (but no longer) the home of the biggest and most oddly-shaped Bass Pro Shops you’ve ever seen.

PG = Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Rajon Rondo, and Derrick Rose

SG =  Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, and Brandon Roy

SF = LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, and Kevin Durant

PF/C = Dwight Howard, Blake Griffin, Al Jefferson, and Chris Bosh

Obviously that’s more people than could suit up, but they would probably lose at least one guy to age/injuries (candidates: Kobe, Wade, and Jefferson) or might drop one of the potential PGs (likely Rondo or Williams). Griffin is also the other wild-card here since we’re forecasting his success in the NBA, but Team USA’s weakness is inside and it seems like he would be perfect in the international setting with the up-tempo pace that Team USA would likely employ even if Malcolm Gladwell thinks that style of play is a recipe for an upset. In any case, this team would be enormous favorites in London and would highlight a talent–recruiting–that was once considered Coach K’s greatest asset back when he used to simply coach Duke.

Recruiting some young fans

Speaking of Duke, I can imagine that the Duke boosters [Ed. Note: Does Duke have boosters? I would  think they might have something more snooty than that. Philanthropists who happen to support basketball?] are not too thrilled about Coach K returning to Team USA although at this point he’s so untouchable that nobody would criticize him for anything. That’s where we come in. Conceding the fact that nobody can be expected to sustain the level of success that Coach K’s Duke teams had in the era leading up to his taking over Team USA, it is instructive to compare his team’s tournament success before and after taking over the reigns of Team USA.

Before taking the job:

• 2000 = 29-5. Lost in the Sweet 16 to eventual national runner-up Florida
• 2001 = 35-4. National champions.
• 2002 = 31-4. Lost in the Sweet 16 to eventual national runner-up Indiana.
• 2003 = 26-7. Lost in the Sweet 16 to eventual national runner-up Kansas.
• 2004 = 31-6. Lost in the national semifinals to eventual national champion UConn.
• 2005 = 27-6. Lost in the Sweet 16 to eventual national semifinalist Michigan State.

After taking the job:

• 2006 = 32-4. Lost in the Sweet 16 to eventual national semifinalist LSU.
• 2007 = 22-11. Lost in the 1st round to VCU, who lost in the next round.
• 2008 = 28-6. Lost in the 2nd round to West Virginia, who lost in the next round.
• 2009 = 30-7. Lost in the Sweet 16 to eventual national semifinalist Villanova.

Since taking the job in 2005, Coach K’s Duke teams are just 5-4 in the NCAA tournament and while he is still able to land a few top recruits (Josh McRoberts, Shavlik Randolph, and Kyle Singler come to mind) he isn’t able to land the guys who can put his teams over the top any more (see John Wall). The question is whether this is just a stretch of relative bad luck–nobody could expect him to pull in a Jason Williams-Carlos Boozer-Mike Dunleavy Jr. class every year–or if this is reflective of Coach K’s absence from the summer circuit. In light of the recent news of Bruce Pearl losing Josh Selby while Pearl was coaching a clinic overseas, we’re leaning towards the side that says Coach K’s absence is hurting is Duke program. If that is the case, don’t expect to see the Blue Devils back in the Final 4 any time soon.