Kevin Danna is a broadcaster for the Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA’s Development League.

Curious whatever happened to that dude who killed it in college but you knew wouldn’t be able to translate his success at the NBA level, at least not right away? He’s probably in the D-League, the NBA’s 18-team minor league that is home to both experimental rules and very experimental styles of play (the Reno Bighorns forced 39 turnovers in an exhibition game this season… and lost 158-135). At the moment, as far as I can tell (because rosters are always changing in this league with guys coming and going to and from Europe, the Phillippines, China and, of course, the NBA), there are 19 D-League players who have Pac-12 experience, four who have played a game on assignment from their NBA club, and one more who was in a D-League training camp before getting the call upstairs.

A Surprise NBA First Round Pick This June, Josh Huestis Is Cutting His Teeth In The D-League (AP Photo/Don Ryan)

Probably the most intriguing Pac-12 D-League case is Josh Huestis, who was a first-round draft choice of the Oklahoma City Thunder last June. Instead of signing his rookie deal with the Thunder, who had its roster spots more or less filled, Huestis agreed to spend a season in the D-League and is thought to be the first “domestic draft and stash” in NBA history. Through a couple of games in the 2014-15 D-League season, Huestis is averaging 7.5 points and 7.0 rebounds per game for the Oklahoma City Blue, the Thunder’s D-League affiliate. There’s a little more Pac-12 love in OKC, as former Golden Bear Richard Solomon is a starter for the Blue and Arizona’s Grant Jerrett has spent some time on assignment there as well.

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Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll go through each Pac-12 team one by one and recount the season that has just completed and begin to turn the page to what we might see next season. Today, Stanford.

What Went Right

It wasn’t always pretty, and you probably still can’t say that this Stanford team ever consistently played up to its potential, but Johnny Dawkins and his senior class finally got to the NCAA Tournament. And they didn’t stop there, beating two solid teams – New Mexico and Kansas – in the Big Dance in order to earn an unlikely Sweet Sixteen appearance. The team was well-balanced on both ends of the court; Chasson Randle took that long-awaited next step in his personal development; and Dwight Powell eventually slid into a new role in order to begin potentially a new era for Stanford basketball.

Chasson Randle Had A Breakout Season In Leading The Cardinal To The Sweet Sixteen (Marcio Jose Sanchez, AP Photo)

What Went Wrong

One major problem plagued the Cardinal all year: team-wide inconsistency. We saw it early in the season when the team decided to forgo any inkling of defense in a loss to BYU while giving up 112 points; or a couple weeks later when they were unable to come up with any more than a half worth of good basketball in Brooklyn in the Legends Classic; or in conference play where they backed up their non-conference accomplishments with an 0-2 start in the Pac-12. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Sweet Sixteen where, coming off of a win over Kansas, the Cardinal had a beatable Dayton team between them and a date with the Elite Eight. What happened? The Flyers scored at will against the Cardinal; Randle was at his brick-tastic worst; and Dawkins and company let a big opportunity slip away without much of a fight.

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David Changas (@dchangas) is the NCAA Tournament’s South Region correspondent. He filed this report after #1 Florida’s 62-52 win over #11 Dayton. RTC will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of the Elite Eight and Final Four. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCeastregion, @RTCMWregion, @RTCsouthregion, and @RTCwestregion. 

Many have argued that the Gators are the best in the country. Now Billy Donovan’s crew will be on the biggest stage to see if they can prove it. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

Three Key Takeaways.

1. Stingy Gator Defense. Florida came into the game with one of the nation’s best defenses, and the Gators showed why on this night. They held Dayton to 39.6% shooting. Florida made it especially difficult the Flyers to score from inside the arc, as the Flyers made only 11 of 30 two-point attempts. We expected Dayton would have a much more difficult time scoring on against Florida than it did against Stanford on Thursday, but given the Flyers’ excellent ball movement, we didn’t expect it to be this tough. With Patric Young and Will Yeguete holding things down in the middle, Dayton’s offense was simply over-matched on the interior.
2. Controlling the Glass, Again. One of the keys to Florida’s win over UCLA was its ability to limit the Bruins’ second chances. Against Dayton, Florida had an 18-15 rebounding edge at the half, as the Flyers held up well and held the Gators to only four offensive boards. The second half was a different story, as Florida out-rebounded Dayton by eight and ended the game with a 37-26 advantage on the glass. Late in the game, when Dayton cut the lead to eight with just under four minutes to play, the Flyers allowed the Gators to get three offensive rebounds and run over a minute off the clock. Though Florida didn’t score on the possession, it was able to take precious seconds off the clock, and essentially took away any chance Dayton had to get close enough to have a chance to win.
3. Dayton Held its Own. The Flyers became the Cinderella story of this Tournament by knocking off three higher seeds on the way to their first Elite Eight appearance since 1984. And while they simply didn’t have enough to take down the Tournament’s top overall seed, the Flyers acquitted themselves quite well on the big stage. At several points in this game, the Flyers could have packed it in, but they refused to. They trailed by 14 at the half, but came out in the second with two quick threes to cut the lead to 8. Though they never got any closer than that, Florida had a tough time putting them away. Dayton coach Archie Miller served notice that as long he’s at the helm of the program, bright days are ahead.

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David Changas (@dchangas) is the NCAA Tournament’s South Region correspondent. He filed this report after #11 Dayton’s 82-72 win over #10 Stanford. RTC will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCeastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCsouthregion and @RTCwestregion.

The entire Dayton program had plenty to smile about Thursday night. (John Bazemore/Getty Images)

Three Key Takeaways.

1. Taking Care of and Sharing the Ball. Many thought Dayton would struggle to handle Stanford’s size, but the Flyers were able to control the game by taking care of the ball and by moving it on the offensive end and getting excellent looks all night. Dayton ended up with only 10 turnovers and 19 assists on 28 baskets, not to mention the fact that they never trailed after the 9:32 mark of the first half. The Flyers’ performance on the offensive end was a clinic, as they held their own on the glass against the bigger Cardinal, ultimately shooting 48% for the game. Dayton also had a balanced attack, as it had three players in double figures, and 11 players scored overall. Stanford, meanwhile, got only two points from its bench. And while Stanford’s leading scorer, Chasson Randle, ended up with a game-high 21 points, he was held to 5-of-21 shooting and was forced into a number of bad shots.
2. Size Doesn’t Always Matter. After trailing by 10 at the half, Stanford came out in the second half with a concerted effort to get the ball to Stefan Nastic and Dwight Powell, its low-post stalwarts. It worked, as the Cardinal cut the lead to four early in the half, but Dayton was able to adjust. Every time the Cardinal cut into the Flyers’ lead, Dayton was able to get an easy basket and stop the run. Unlike Kansas, the Flyers did not allow Stanford to take them out of their offense, and they outworked the Cardinal big men for key offensive rebounds when they weren’t making shots. On the defensive end, Dayton held Stanford to only 37.9% shooting.
3. Dayton Shows it Belongs. Dayton is the only team left in the NCAA Tournament that is not from a BCS conference. The Flyers spent most of the season on the bubble, but have taken advantage of their bid in advancing to the school’s first Elite Eight appearance since 1984. After taking care of two traditional powers in Ohio State and Syracuse, Dayton got a favorable draw with tenth-seeded Stanford, and took advantage. The Flyers clearly were not intimidated by the big stage, and showed they belong. They will now get a chance to advance to their first ever Final Four, and though they will be prohibitive underdogs in their next game, Archie Miller’s squad should not be counted out. Read the rest of this entry »

Bennet Hayes (@hoopstraveler) is the NCAA Tournament’s South Region correspondent, which begins Thursday night at FedEx Forum in Memphis with Dayton vs. Stanford followed by UCLA vs. Florida. Look out for the West Regional Reset later today and the East and Midwest Resets tomorrow. Make sure to also follow @RTCSouthRegion for news and analysis from Memphis throughout the week.

Billy Donovan Is On The Verge Of Orchestrating Yet Another Florida Final Four Appearance. Is There A Team Remaining In This South Region That Can Disrupt The Gators’ March To Dallas? (Getty)

New Favorite: #1 Florida. Nothing has changed on this front. The Gators looked as overwhelming as ever in their third round defeat of Pittsburgh, and with only one other top-nine seed remaining in the region, the NCAA Tournament’s #1 overall seed is in fantastic shape to make its way to Dallas. The Sweet Sixteen match-up with UCLA won’t be easy, but more on that later – the Gators are still the South region’s clear favorite.

Horse of Darkness: #11 Dayton. This quadrant offered plenty of candidates for the honor, but with apologies to Stephen F. Austin (only one win) and Stanford (too familiar a brand), the Dayton Flyers advancing to their first Sweet Sixteen since 1984 makes for the South Region’s best Cinderella story. We make loyal Flyer fans pretend like the First Four is a big deal annually – and their love of basketball prevents them from failing in this pursuit – so it’s only fair that they finally get something to cheer about from their own team. On February 1, Archie Miller’s club (1-5 in the Atlantic 10 at the time) wasn’t even one of the top eight teams in their own conference, but after a late-season surge and this unexpected Tourney run, the Flyers will play on Thursday for a chance to be one of the final eight teams left standing in all of college basketball. What. A. Turnaround.

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Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCeastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCsouthregion and @RTCwestregion.

Three Key Takeaways.

Dwight Powell was huge in Stanford’s upset of Kansas.

1. Stanford pulls the upset. Who expected this? Sure, there was no Joel Embiid for Kansas, but the rest of the talented Jayhawks was there. And they laid an egg. Kansas was upset by a double-figure seed for the third time in the past five NCAA Tournaments. Stanford was better almost all game, a deserving winner. A #10 over a #2 is a big enough upset, made even bigger in what they were calling Allen Fieldhouse East. There was one section full of Stanford fans. The rest? Kansas fans or Wichita State fans rooting for the Jayhawks. March Madness, indeed.
2. Andrew Wiggins was a disaster. It was a disappointing way for the freshman phenom to go out of his only collegiate season. The potential #1 pick in June’s NBA Draft was horrible in his last game in a Kansas jersey. Wiggins scored just four points while going 1-of-6 from the floor. He turned the ball over four times, including on a crucial possession with just less than a minute to play in the game. He missed opened threes and easy layups. Wiggins was invisible almost all game long. He rarely made an effort to get to the basket or create his own shot. Bill Self could have done a better job drawing up some plays for him, but Wiggins, like Duke’s one-and-doner Jabari Parker on Friday, picked the wrong time to have his worst game of the season.
3. Stanford’s zone defense was terrific. The Cardinal might have taken some notes from Florida’s win over Kansas earlier in the season. Stanford used an mutating 1-3-1 zone to perfection, which made it extremely difficult to find driving lanes or get the ball into the post. Other than Tarik Black’s 18 points, Kansas’ other big men struggled mightily. Perry Ellis went 3-of-10 for nine points, while Jamari Traylor was 1-of-8 with three points. Dwight Powell, Josh Huestis, Stefan Nastic and John Gage were fantastic on the defensive end. Kansas just never could get in a rhythm offensively.

Star of the Game: Dwight Powell, Stanford. After a horrible first round game against New Mexico, Powell came to play against Kansas’ imposing frontcourt. Despite frequent foul trouble, Powell finished with a team-high 15 points on 5-of-10 shooting, while also going 5-of-6 from the foul line. The senior forward also pulled down seven rebounds and did a tremendous job on the defensive end limited Kansas’ drives to the basket and post play.

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Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCeastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCsouthregion and @RTCwestregion.

Three Key Takeaways.

Much like their coach, the Cardinal played with an intensity that propelled them in the Round of 32. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

1. New Mexico flops again in March. Make it two seasons in a row that the Lobos have lost to a lower-seeded team in its first game of the NCAA Tournament. Last year, #3 New Mexico looked awful in an upset loss to #14 Harvard. The seed differential wasn’t quite as large this time around, but the loss (and the performance) were again really disappointing. For a team that came in winners of 15 of 17 and boasting a MW Tournament title, this is another stunning loss. The Lobos just looked awful all game long and certainly didn’t deserve to win it. What a waste of talent and potential.
2. Stanford made its own momentum. The Cardinal raced out of the gate to a 20-4 lead just 6:22 into the game despite an early tip-off in front of a relatively small crowd. A 17-0 run did the trick. New Mexico went scoreless for 5:29 during that stretch and didn’t make a field goal for a period that lasted more than seven minutes. Stanford’s star guard Chasson Randle scored nine of his 11 first-half points during the early surge. Stanford had everything clicking for the first 15 minutes or so until New Mexico closed the half on an 8-0 run to make it a 32-27 ball game heading into the locker room. Read the rest of this entry »

Much of the college basketball dialogue has turned to things like one-and-done and transfers. Is it good for the game or is it bad for the game. Mark Cuban went so far as to say the game itself is bad for the sport (I loosely paraphrase). While Cuban’s sentiments aren’t necessarily accurate, they do share the same general tone about the longevity and fluidity of a college career. So on Saturday, when you see Dwight Powell, Josh Huestis, Stefan Nastic and John Gage take the floor for the last time in Palo Alto, note that you’re seeing something special and certainly unique. They’ll stand there short two members of their 2010 recruiting class, Aaron Bright and Anthony Brown, who will both play in 2014-15 as fifth-year seniors after sustaining injuries. They will, of note, all be there together. But think about that for a second. Approximately five years ago, Johnny Dawkins sat in six different living rooms with the promise of a Stanford education and a team. On Saturday, years after these kids committed to their coach, their school and, most importantly, each other, they’ll leave as they arrived: together.

A Team Chock Full of Seniors, The Stanford, Has Become A Rarity (Steve Solis / PRPhotos.com)

So yes, what will transpire Saturday afternoon is rare and I think, in some regards, it trumps whatever success or otherwise they’ve had. It’s yet to be determined if any of these young men will participate in the NCAA Tournament. It was indubitably a goal that may yet come to fruition. And that’s why I’ll be paying such close attention to Saturday’s contest. They just didn’t show up on Wednesday. Collectively the seniors were 12-of-36 from the field; Powell fouled out and the seniors accounted for eight of 12 turnovers. Show up they did not but stick around they have. As the conversation has whipped around and past them, they’ve embodied all that we’ve wanted and cherished about college basketball. You guys… they stuck it out. Dwight Powell nearly bolted for greener (read: $$) pastures and a chance at the NBA. When I had the opportunity to talk to him at Pac-12 media day, he told me he came back to take care of unfinished business with his guys. That 15th-ranked class has done what everyone wants to say everyone else isn’t doing. And everyone appears to be having success (Lyons, Mark; Marshall, Jermaine; All, Oregon) in doing such. So what does it say about us, or those pining for what the Cardinal have done, that we pay them little attention? Or that we’re disappointed in their lack of success? Or, perhaps worse, expecting it? Sometimes success isn’t always the result but the journey to getting there.

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Way back before the start of the season, I made the bold prediction that seven Pac-12 teams would wind up in the NCAA Tournament. Some three months later, we’re looking at six teams that can be confident in packing their bags for the Big Dance, while that lucky number seven is still a strong possibility. After a busy week in the conference, below we’ll go through the teams that still have NCAA at-large aspirations, checking in on where they stand both on the court and in terms of their NCAA hopes.

It Has Taken Some Time For Arizona To Recalibrate, But The Talent Level Here Is Still Great (Ralph Freso, Getty Images North America)

Arizona – On Wednesday night, as UCLA was putting the hammer down at California and Arizona was getting fortunate bounces in order to pull out a win at Utah, the sentiment that “UCLA is the best team in this conference” was not an insane statement to make. The Bruins’ impressive collection of talent is congealing nicely in time for the sport’s money month, but remember that Arizona is continuing to rack up wins, starting to adjust to playing without Brandon Ashley, and is still one of the best and most versatile defensive teams in recent history. That isn’t going to go away anytime soon. Sean Miller’s club will continue to make things very difficult for its opponents’ attempts to put the ball in the bucket (only four times in 27 games have they given up more than one point per possession), while their offense will readjust to life without Ashley. This team doesn’t have the offensive upside that it had with their 6’9” big man in the lineup, but things are beginning to get recalibrated, as their 88-point explosion against Colorado on Saturday evening showed. Sure, the Buffaloes are a bad defensive team right now, but that was still the best any team has performed against them all season. The Wildcats just took them apart, getting buckets in transition, getting easy looks at the rim in the halfcourt, and even knocking in eight threes (at a 47% clip) to dominate the Buffs. Oh, and you want one more statistic that sums up just how thoroughly the Wildcats broke Colorado’s spirit? There were about 20 times in the game when, following a Buffaloes’ made basket, the Wildcats took at least 10 seconds off the shot clock. The Wildcats’ eFG% in those 20 possessions? 84.4%, per the great website hoop-math.com. So, basically, Colorado scored, Arizona brought the ball upcourt, worked its offense, and regularly negated the Buffaloes’ previous score. Demoralizing.

NCAA Seeding Outlook: Arizona is still very much in the conversation for a #1 seed, and its remaining schedule is favorable (Cal/Stanford, at Oregon/Oregon State), with every remaining game winnable. Questions about depth may make Arizona something other than the favorite to win the Pac-12 Tournament, so let’s chalk them up for a loss at some point in Las Vegas. And let’s say they go 3-1 in their remaining regular season games. That puts them at something like 28 or 29 wins against four losses, but with all four coming without Ashley. One could see an argument for dropping them to a #2 because of it, but odds remain strong that these Wildcats are a #1 seed come Selection Sunday.

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Adam Butler (@pachoopsab) of Pachoops again will be joining us all year, providing us with his weekly take on our favorite conference, as we begin the March to Las Vegas.

Why do we love this sport? The short answer rests within a month; a present of madness and that anything-can-happen hope few other sports present. The immediacy of that tournament draws us in. It’s a battle of survival, gladiators set forth before us to discover the last man standing. It’s an arena where the end could come at any moment and thus the opportunity to continue on is cherished. Indeed we love that tournament but maybe that’s just because it represents the entire sport. March Madness highlights just how quickly the college experience goes. We learn of these athletes from before they commit and when they join our school they become our guys. Sometimes they stay and sometimes they go but either way we know they’ll only be here for the briefest of times. And then it’s on to the next. For us, the fans, it’s the next recruit. The next kid in a mix-tape we text about and set unrealistic expectations for. But for him, for the kid who has put in the hours and the work and the sweat and the effort, what of him? We enjoy his pursuit of the tournament but he wants that tournament. We might take a long lunch for that tournament but he worked through lunch to get his invitation, if he was ever invited at all.

If Stanford’s Seniors Are Going To Dance, They Need To Finish Strong (Kirby Lee, US Presswire)

And with that note I turn our attention to Stanford and Johnny Dawkins’ 2010 recruiting class. Dawkins invited and signed the 15th-ranked class per Scout’s rankings and every member of that class remains a rostered player for him. That’s both rare and special. But more importantly, it’s ending and that class – those that are healthy – looks to be staring down that reality. On Wednesday night in Berkeley, Stanford seniors accounted for 73 percent of the points, 59 percent of the rebounds, and 92 percent of the assists. That output, in their final trip to Haas, resulted in Stanford beating Cal, 80-69. Begging the question: In their final trip through college basketball, what will this team do?

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