1. Basketball Prospectus: So how good has Miami been? So far this season, the Hurricanes are an average 0.21 points per possession (PPP) better than their conference opponents (the Duke game helped a lot on this front). For those of you not mathematically inclined, that’s equivalent to a point lead in every five possessions.  That’s the third best mark for a power-conference team behind Florida’s gaudy 0.43 (which will come down) and Michigan’s 0.24 PPP. Miami has the best defense in the league by a decent margin to go with a serviceable offense. The Hurricanes’ secret? Insanely good field goal percentage numbers and good rebounding.
2. Raleigh News & Observer: It’s pretty obvious Duke is a different team without Ryan Kelly, but his injury may have some positive side effects. For one, Amile Jefferson is really starting to develop, which probably wouldn’t have happened until next season without the recent extra playing time. Also Duke is changing its offense, namely running more set plays to get people open. Both should prove very useful when Kelly returns. Duke would be able to throw very different offensive looks at opponents and won’t have to settle for Josh Hairston’s limited offensive repertoire (though don’t look for his minutes to disappear completely).
3. Fayetteville Observer: For pretty much everyone but Miami, the road has been tough on ACC teams. Take out the Hurricanes and the league is 8-30 in road games (with Duke still searching for its first win). Duke‘s biggest issue is that it played its hardest two road games first. I don’t agree that it’s an experience thing, unless Coach K means experience playing without Ryan Kelly. The Blue Devils don’t have Miami’s aggregate age across the lineup, but they do start two seniors and this mostly shows that the ACC is very competitive. There’s just not a lot separating the teams in the middle of the pack or even at the top of the league right now (discounting the Hurricanes, of course).
4. NBC Sports: Virginia Tech’s Erick Green is shining this season, but unfortunately his teammates in Blacksburg aren’t. He’s leading the country in scoring right now, but Green isn’t a new Terrell Stoglin. He’s surrounded by competent but passive players who can’t seem to find the bottom of the net. Cadarian Raines and Jarrell Eddie, especially Eddie, should make a decent scoring backcourt. But Raines has only added half a point to his average from last season in a much bigger role, and Eddie can only do so much. Add in zero depth, and there’s good reason for Green to take as many shots as he does. For Virginia Tech to win, he needs his teammates to join the offensive cause. Green knows it and wants to win more than anything, but if his supporting cast keeps up its current pace, he’ll have to settle for scoring.
5. Maryland Diamondback: It’s too bad Charles Mitchell will be leaving the ACC with the Terrapins because he’s incredible to watch. He’s a more in-shape Reggie Johnson with plenty of opportunity to condition himself next offseason. If there’s a shot missed, it’s a good bet Mitchell will come down with it. He combines a massive frame, good instincts and superb hustle to rack up boards like no one’s business. He also showed some pretty strong post moves against Duke. Assuming Mark Turgeon can convince him to stay around College Park for four years, Maryland has a real asset for the future in the post.

Bennet Hayes is a regular contributor for RTC. You can find him @HoopsTraveler on Twitter. Night Line runs on weeknights during the season, highlighting a major storyline development from that day’s games.

For NC State fans that thought the rollercoaster may have finally been headed for level ground, Tuesday’s nights’ 58-55 loss to Virginia was yet another reminder that the seat belts should never come off when riding with this Wolfpack team. Consistency has eluded Mark Gottfried’s club all season but especially of late, as the Pack have now alternated wins and losses over their past six contests. Included in the trio of wins were seismic victories over Tobacco Road rivals Duke and UNC; but like many a college student after a momentous Saturday night, the Pack watched as each high subsided into a full-blown hangover. Little seems to have been learned by either coach or team along the way, and State fans have to be wondering whether the inconsistency might ultimately derail a season that has quite frequently felt immensely promising.

Much Like His Team All Season, CJ Leslie’s Performance Tuesday Night Included Both Good And Bad: 20 Points and 14 Rebounds For The Pack Star, But Also Seven Turnovers

Nobody can deny that the talent and capability to be not just good but great are there for this team. We knew about the collection of talent all the way back in the preseason, when the paper version of the Wolfpack was impressive enough to net the team a top-five preseason national ranking and the grandiose title of ACC favorite. Unfortunately, we have seen that talent mesh and deliver on all its potential far too infrequently for the Pack to maintain those lofty preseason standards, but is there time yet to bounce back? Are we silly for believing that it isn’t too late, for thinking that Mark Gottfried can find a way to get his team to sustain that energy and emotion ALL the time, and not just when they take the floor with college hoops titans like Duke, UNC, and Michigan?

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And we’re back for another shiny edition of the RTC Podcast. This week our host, Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114), artfully leads us on a discussion of all the crazy goings-on in college basketball over the last week-plus. With so many topics to choose from, we tried to keep it relevant, discussing Louisville’s surprising fall from grace, the possible #1 seeds at this point in the season, what to think about Miami’s ascendant behavior, and a bunch of other junk throw in between. Feel free to use the outline below to jump around to the areas of interest, of course.

Check back on Friday of this week for our shorter RTC Podblast, which will run down some of the action from this week and look ahead to the weekend’s biggest games. And don’t forget to add the RTC Podcast to your iTunes lineup so that you’ll automatically upload it on your listening device after each recording. Thanks!

Is everyone still interested in Big East realignment? Good, because believe it or not, everybody’s favorite conference to leave is in the headlines again as it looks to add a 12th team to the roster, keep their name despite significant re-branding efforts, and negotiate the all-important TV package with multiple networks.

Commissioner Mike Aresco dished on a number of topics following a breakfast at a chamber of commerce, and he believes that conference realignment may soon be coming to an end, which is a relief to everyone who enjoys college basketball but doesn’t enjoy watching school administrators work the back channels to wrangle more money for their programs. When Navy joins the Big East in 2015, that will give the league just 11 teams, so adding a 12th team makes plenty of sense if they can actually find a suitable program. Boise State and San Diego State have both backed out on the conference to return to the Mountain West, and it is possible that the Big East will have to compete with the Catholic Seven – which should be gone after next season assuming they work out a favorable deal – if they are looking to add some of the better programs from the Atlantic 10.

Big East Commissioner Mike Aresco has his hands full with never-ending realignment manuevering. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Aresco says that he intends to keep the Big East name and stressed the importance of the conference “remaining geographically cohesive,” which is kind of hilarious because he followed that by saying the conference would not expand past Texas. Not sure exactly what Aresco’s definition of cohesive it is, but from our end, there is nothing cohesive about having Connecticut travel to play Houston or Southern Methodist University, but then again, we aren’t conference presidents, so what do we know?

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Six of the 10 teams in the top 10 of last week’s RTC25 tacked on a loss to their resume, or in Louisville’s and Minnesota’s cases, multiple losses. Fortunately for these two, Duke garnered much of the attention as they were absolutely thrashed by an upstart Miami team by 27 points. Duke rebounded with a win over Maryland though, unlike the preceding two teams who seem to be in a state of free fall as the Cards have lost three straight (after being ranked #1) and the Gophers four straight. Despite defeating two top 10 teams, Villanova didn’t even get a whiff of the RTC25— probably due to prior losses to Alabama, Columbia, and Providence — it has been that kind of year. Just another week in the world of college hoops where the only thing that is predictable are storylines surrounding the brand of backpack that Shabazz Muhammad carries around the UCLA campus.

The Quick n’ Dirty after the jump…

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Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

The Weekend’s Lede. Parity Rocks Conference PlayThe theme of this college basketball season isn’t going away. There are no dominant teams. From Indiana to Duke to Louisville, or whoever else inherits the top spot in the rankings this season, their stay won’t be a long one. But what we’re seeing this season is about more than big-time upsets. Not every surprising result is a top-five stunner. It’s the parity in conference play that makes pegging conference frontrunners and Final Four contenders so adventurous. The insanity continued over the weekend, and frankly, I don’t envision it stopping any time soon. This – hotly-tested games, minimal gaps between the best and worst of each league, contested conference races, no clear favorites – is college basketball at its finest. It comes at you from so many different angles, so many different time zones, so many different TV channels. It gives you unranked Villanova knocking off two top-five teams in a week, and UCLA losing to the little-brother Arizona school two days after beating big brother, and Marshall Plumlee and Alex Len engaging in mid-game dunk warfare. And then, just when you’ve seen enough, it brings you another healthy heaping throughout the week. Before we get there, the weekend brought us plenty to dissect and deliberate. Time to dive in.

Your Watercooler Moment. Villanova Strikes Again.

Two top-five upsets highlighted an excellent week for the Wildcats (Photo credit: Getty Images).

There is no rational explanation for why Villanova was able to take down not just one but both of the Big East’s best teams this week. The Wildcats are still worlds away from the perimeter-oriented teams that fared so well under Jay Wright over the past decade. But they got those wins, and now Villanova’s season is headed in an entirely different direction. A week ago, the Wildcats were licking their wounds after dropping consecutive games against Pittsburgh and at Providence. The first was predictable and totally understandable; the second one hurt. It hurt not just because you’d rather not lose to a talented but young Providence team on the road under any circumstance, but because the rigorous two-game stretch that loomed left the possibility for a sustained losing streak. That rigor, in hindsight, was ‘Nova’s upset gold. And the weirdest part: Louisville and Syracuse, both ranked in the top-six in Kenpom’s defensive efficiency rankings entering Saturday, are about as upset-proof as tom-five teams come this season. Sure, the Cardinals’ offense betrays them from time to time, and when the bad, turnover-proned, wacky Russ Smith overwhelms the All American-level star we’ve seen in large stretches this season, Rick Pitino’s team can lose. And yes, the Orange have their warts, especially without their best shooter, James Southerland. But that baseline defensive commonality buffers against bad shooting nights, against 25-point games from Darrun Hilliard and poor late-game foul management. Seeing one of these teams go down in Philadelphia would have been run of the mill stuff for this season. But two, both lorded over by hall of fame coaches with decades of upset-avoiding wisdom at their disposal? Can’t say I saw this coming.

Also Worth Chatting About.  Bruins Still Maturing.

As the season rolls on, the Bruins will continue to get better (Photo credit: AP Photo).

Swinging through a late-week road trip bookended with games at the two Arizona schools without a loss was a pipedream from the start. UCLA is an explosive offensive team, flush with talented freshmen and a handful of valuable role players, plus a much-improved defense. It is not the best team in the Pac-12; at least not yet. By season’s end, Ben Howland’s team is the odds-on favorite to own that title, but the Bruins have a few tweaks to make before they reach their peak. They won the more important of the two games, beating Arizona Saturday in relatively comfortable fashion, and that’s the biggest takeaway from this brutal two-game stretch. UCLA, like its Pac 12 challengers (Oregon, Arizona), is not experienced or balanced enough to stroll through conference play without a few hiccups along the way. Besides, Arizona State is quietly playing some excellent hoops on both ends of late; the Sun Devils entered Saturday making exactly half of their two-point shots, tops in the Pac 12. If Jordan Bachynski is going to give you 22 points and 15 rebounds, Carrick Felix adds 23 and 11, and David Wear can’t hold his side of the bargain (five points on 2-for-12 shooting), competing – much less winning – is a dubious goal.

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David Cassilo is an RTC columnist who also writes about college basketball for SLAM magazine. You can follow him at @dcassilo.

The two players I have the most trouble with every week are Russ Smith and Michael Carter-Williams. With Smith, it’s because his on-ball defense, arguably his biggest strength, doesn’t show up in box scores or highlights, so I need to watch his entire games to stay up to speed. And I have to be honest, his reputation sometimes gives him credit in games he doesn’t deserve it. Couple that with a streaky jump shot, and he falls short of the top-10. As for MCW, I have a real problem ranking him because he’s a terrible shooter and a turnover machine. People say he makes the big shots, but if he made them in the first half or didn’t keep giving the ball away, there wouldn’t be big shots to make. So like it or not, that’s why those two guys aren’t on the list at this juncture.

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

10. Otto Porter Jr. – Georgetown (Last week – NR)
2012-13 stats: 14.6 PPG, 7.7 RPG

Since the Hoyas’ second-leading scorer, Greg Whittington, was ruled ineligible, Porter has raised his game to another level. Over his last four games, he’s averaging 19.8 PPG and 9.3 RPG and played a full 40 minutes in Georgetown’s upset win at Notre Dame. This week: January 26 vs. Louisville, January 30 vs. Seton Hall

9. Cody Zeller – Indiana (Last Week – 5)
2012-13 stats: 16.4 PPG, 8.2 RPG

Cody Zeller has a lot of work to do to get back up the rankings. (AP Photo/D. Cummings)

Zeller did not register a single field goal on Wednesday against Penn State, but prior to that, he had back-to-back games of at least 20/10. While people have made the case that Victor Oladipo is more valuable to the Hoosiers, I still think Zeller will dictate the big games. This week: January 27 vs. Michigan State, January 30 at Purdue

8. Anthony Bennett – UNLV (Last week – 6)
2012-13 stats: 18.4 PPG, 8.6 RPG

Against Wyoming on Thursday, Bennett’s scoring finally returned, as he finished with 17 points. But the rebounding has disappeared. Bennett has just 13 boards over his last three games. Once a double-double machine, it will be interesting to see if he gets it back.  This week: January 29 vs. Nevada

7. Kelly Olynyk – Gonzaga (Last week – 10)
2012-13 stats: 18.5 PPG, 6.9 RPG

For those who didn’t see it late Thursday night, Olynyk had a night to remember against BYU. He went 9-of-9 from the field and 8-of-8 from the free throw line en route to 26 points, nine rebounds and five assists. Make sure to catch him next time he’s on TV because he’s fun to watch. This week: January 26 vs. San Francisco, January 31 at Loyola Marymount

6. Ben McLemore – Kansas (Last week – 8)
2012-13 stats: 16.1 PPG, 5.4 RPG

Since breaking out against Iowa State to start Big 12 play, McLemore has been a steady contributor for the Jayhawks. Although teams are devoting more defensive attention to him, he finds a way to get his points. This week: January 26 vs. Oklahoma, January 28 at West Virginia Read the rest of this entry »

1. Since it left the Big East there has been quite a bit of speculation about who the so-called Catholic 7 would select to join them in their basketball-centric conference. Several names have been mentioned as potential additions and yesterday Marquette’s athletic director Larry Williams came out and endorsed the addition of Butler to the conference. Williams notes that these are just his thoughts and not extending an invitation to the school. One interesting aspect is that one of the presumed potential hurdles in the addition of any schools to the new conference is that the seven current members are Catholic affiliated, but as Williams notes that would not be an impediment if the schools share similar values (we aren’t quite sure what that means specifically, but probably just that they fit in with the image that the conference wants to project to advertisers).
2. The separation of the Catholic 7 from the remnants of the Big East has left grasping for what essentially amounted to TV leftovers making some question the continued existence of the conference. Although the Big East may never exist in the way that we knew it for years it appears to have received a boost in the form of a TV deal that is near completion. While the details of the deal–both dollars and years–have not been disclosed this is a good sign for the Big East going forward assuming this is not some ridiculously low offer such as one might have expected following reports of prior offers from TV networks.
3. In the wake of Wednesday night’s debacle in Coral Gables there were plenty of questions about how Duke would react. Yesterday on his show Dan Patrick reported that the Blue Devils held a late night/early morning three-hour practice after landing in Durham, which set Twitter on fire and would have been a NCAA violation if it was true except it wasn’t true. It appears that the producers on the show felt it would be amusing to run with a fake story, but we still are not sure why everybody was so eager to run with it (even Kobe went to the gym before leaving Miami during his infamous late-night practice session at American Airlines Arena). For as much press as this imaginary practice got we would have been much more interested to hear what happened in the actual practice the Blue Devils had to go through yesterday.
4. Notorious number hater Seth Davis is back with his annual Jigsaw Man column where he pairs unheralded players with teams that are a piece away from being complete. So you won’t find Ben McLemore on any of these pairings as Seth tries to find players that are not in the national spotlight. Perhaps it is because we get to see more of these players (even ones in small conferences) on a regular basis or at least hear about their exploits nightly on Twitter by those who are plugged into those teams, but it seems like many of these guys are more well-known than we would come to expect from the Jigsaw Man. Someone like Travis Releford would seem to fit the bill being the third most important player on the Jayhawks while someone like Mike Muscala probably should be left off since he should merit consideration as an All-American.
5. In our eyes the national player of the year has essentially come down to a two player race even if Mike Rothstein’s latest straw poll still says it is a three player race. We can buy into both Trey Burke and Doug McDermott as legitimate contenders, but Mason Plumlee is definitely a tier below those two even if the current voting might suggest otherwise. The player who will probably walk away with the majority of the postseason hardware is the one who is on the team that closes the best. We are leaning towards Burke here with the quality of opponents he will be playing and the fact that he will be on national TV more than most. There is a chance that we could see an even split if both players close the season strong.

Joe Lunardi’s most recent Bracketology was released on January 22. While it might be a bit too early to start evaluating his selections with full confidence, there are definitely some interesting predictions he has made about the current state of things in the ACC. For one thing, he has five teams projected to make the NCAA Tournament from the conference in this mock bracket:  Duke (overall #1 seed), NC State (#3 seed), Miami (#5 seed), North Carolina (#9 seed), and Maryland (#11 seed).

There might only be 3 ACC locks for the NCAA Tournament after the regular season.

• Duke (16-2, 3-2):  If the season ended today, it would be tough to dispute Duke’s credentials as a #1 seed, considering that they are ranked #1 in the overall polls and #1 in the RPI, but without Ryan Kelly (for a still undetermined length of time), the Blue Devils are not the same team that defeated Louisville, Ohio State, and Minnesota. Regardless, barring a major collapse in the ACC (losing more than four games overall), it would be hard to see Duke losing its spot on at least one of the four top lines, though it would obviously prefer not to drop too many more so that it would be placed in the East Region (Washington, DC) instead of being shipped out to Los Angeles.
• NC State (15-4, 4-2):  NC State has probably fallen off the #3-seed line with its shocking loss to Wake Forest earlier this week. While NC State is currently ranked #16 in the RPI, they are likely to drop more in the near future (RPIForecast has the Wolfpack projected to finish #25 in the RPI). NC State’s porous defense and generally mediocre play in the ACC (aside from the Duke game), including a loss to Maryland and barely scraping by non-Tournament contenders Clemson and Boston College, finally came back to bite them in losing to a Wake Forest team that was just 9-8 prior to that game. While NC State is certainly a lock to make the NCAAs at this point, unless they can beat Duke in Cameron and/or beat Miami and have success against UNC, it is highly unlikely they will stay quite so high. If they finish 11-7 in the ACC, as projected by both Pomeroy and Sagarin, a #5 or #6 seed seems more likely, considering that NC State’s best non-conference wins are against UConn and Stanford.

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It may be tempting to add caveats, but make no mistake: The Miami Hurricanes really are the best team in the ACC. Sure, they haven’t played North Carolina State yet and, yes, Ryan Kelly makes Duke a significantly better team. There is a strong chance that both of these teams could beat the Hurricanes when they face them on their home courts later this season. On the other hand, Miami took the number one team in the country and administered the third biggest thrashing that the highest-ranked team in the country has suffered in the history of college basketball. Kelly and home court are important factors, but does anyone think that those two things are honestly worth 27 points?  If so, I’d like to present you with this honorary plaque commemorating your dedication to the Ryan Kelly Fan Club.

Miami Fans RTC’d the Blue Devils After Last Night’s Destruction (credit: WaPo)

The caveats don’t stand up against scrutiny. Miami sits at the top of the standings without a single conference loss because of the Hurricanes’ incredible commitment to defense under Jim Larranaga. Outside of Rasheed Sulaimon, the entire complement of Duke’s normally excellent guard corps combined to shoot 1-of-29 from the field. This wasn’t just luck on Miami’s part (though it helped).  Before last night, Miami had the eighth best defensive efficiency mark in the country, achieved by consistently excellent interior defense, limiting three-point attempts, contesting the ones that were put up, and a deliberate and marked effort to avoid putting their opponents at the line. With this team, Larranaga has opted for a cautious and conservative style of play: Miami mostly eschews the offensive glass in order to set its defense and limit transition buckets. They don’t try to force turnovers by risking fouling. The defense gets set, chases shooters off the three-point line, and funnels the offense to shot blockers who force opponents to attempt contested mid-range buckets (the worst shot in basketball). The defensive concept is simple: Make your opponent take difficult shots and then focus (as a team) on securing the defensive rebound. It’s how the San Antonio Spurs won four NBA championships and Larranaga has demonstrated that these concepts work well in college basketball as well. The Miami Hurricanes simply play phenomenal team defense and that goes a long way towards winning games.

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