1. The SEC media’s preseason predictions were revealed Monday, and it’s clear that members of the press see a gap between the top four and the rest of the conference. Kentucky, Florida, Missouri, and Tennessee all received at least one first-place vote in addition to two representatives on the all-SEC teams. If you’re looking for a team to try to break into the upper tier, look no further than Arkansas, the only other school with two all-SEC representatives. Sophomore BJ Young had a stellar freshman campaign, but he was overshadowed by the young stars at Kentucky. Consider him the favorite for the league scoring title. Add in Marshawn Powell and a deep recruiting class, and Mike Anderson’s team should be in position to challenge if one of the top four slips up.
2. Monday was a big day for newly minted preseason SEC player of the year Phil Pressey. The conference media wasn’t the only source praising him as CBS Sports released its preseason list of the top 50 point guards, ranking the Tigers floor general second only behind Murray State’s Isaiah Canaan. Pressey and Canaan are hardly the only two candidates who can make a claim for that top spot, but striking differences in their respective styles of play make comparisons tough. Pressey barely averaged double-figure points last season, and because of the talent around him, there are no guarantees he’ll improve those totals. Canaan, however, is a point guard in name only. The senior averaged fewer than four assists per game last season, and with his three highest scoring teammates departing, he’ll have even less of a reason to pass. The casual fan may take a quick glance at Canaan’s numbers and see the superior player, but Pressey’s multi-faceted game shouldn’t be ignored.
3. Power forward recruit Torren Jones committed to Missouri on Monday, adding to an already impressive 2013 class. Frank Haith has shown a deft recruiting touch in his short time in Columbia. This past spring, he utilized the transfer market for short-term fixes that will keep his team competitive despite losing stars such as Kim English, Marcus Denmon, and Ricardo Ratliffe to graduation. However, his efforts in the 2013 high school recruiting class are much more important to the long-term health of the program. Missouri enters the SEC as a title contender in their first season, and if Haith maintains his momentum, the Tigers will be a mainstay in the top tier of the conference for years to come.
4. Vanderbilt isn’t short on question marks entering the new season, but finding a replacement for center Festus Ezeli may be the most pressing. 6’11” sophomore Josh Henderson was expected to fill the role, but after experiencing problems in his recovery from foot surgery, the Virginia native won’t be ready for the start of the season. According to the Tennessean, Shelby Moats is next in line. The 6’8” sophomore isn’t criminally undersized, but as a perimeter-oriented big man, he could have trouble adjusting to a new role focusing on the paint. Henderson should return in time for conference play, but we’ll see if head coach Kevin Stallings can keep his team afloat through the first few weeks with a severely limited frontcourt rotation.
5. With the football team mired in its worst season in over a half century, will Auburn fans turn their attention to basketball? Unlikely, but Tony Barbee and his team are doing all they can to drum up some excitement. The Tigers basketball squad will host a pep rally this Friday, and are even providing free food to early-arriving fans, with an intrasquad scrimmage will be open to the public on Saturday. Auburn boasts a talented freshman class and could surprise a few teams, but complimentary refreshments may be necessary to fill Auburn Arena after the Tigers inevitably once again fall out of contention.

Go back to March 2011: Missouri, after just sneaking into the field of 68, had just been trounced by Cincinnati, capping off an unremarkable season in unremarkable fashion. The Tiger faithful may have had more ambitious goals entering the year, but they could hardly complain. Their team had recovered admirably from the calamitous Quin Snyder reign and were establishing themselves as a secondary Big 12 power. Head coach Mike Anderson demanded relentless defensive intensity and valued athleticism, ensuring a brand of exciting basketball that didn’t always accompany wins. If that wasn’t enough, after Arkansas came calling, Anderson soundly denied rumors that he would jump ship, claiming instead that he intended to retire in Columbia. Armed with a committed coach and a roster bursting at the seams with returning talent, Missouri was in position to challenge longtime rival Kansas and rising Baylor for conference supremacy.

Frank Haith had great success in his first season, but he can’t afford a letdown in Year Two

What followed made for one of the most compelling storylines of last college basketball season. Anderson took the job in Fayetteville and Missouri was left scrambling for a replacement. After being rejected by their first few choices, the administration hired Miami’s Frank Haith, a decision which was met with a resounding “Huh?” Haith’s record with the Hurricanes (a .384 ACC winning percentage and one NCAA tournament appearance in seven seasons) would have made you think he was more likely to get the can than an offer to move to a superior program. Shortly thereafter, the college basketball gods rubbed a little salt in Missouri’s wound, as Haith was implicated in the Nevin Shapiro scandal, leading some fans and members of the media to call for a suspension. Add in a season-ending injury to forward Laurence Bowers, and the relatively high expectations for Tiger basketball plummeted. Unless you’re a newcomer to college basketball (in which case, welcome), you know how the story ends. Missouri rode a 14-0 start to a Big 12 Tournament title and a #2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The guard-heavy offense flourished in Haith’s system, finishing as the most efficient in the nation. Its first-round shocker against Norfolk State notwithstanding, Missouri can reflect fondly on the 2011-12 season.

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1. After the 2009-10 season, high-scoring Rutgers guard Mike Rosario was one of the top prizes of the transfer market. He committed to play for Billy Donovan at Florida, but largely disappointed in his debut campaign with the Gators. How can he ensure a bounce-back year? Consistency. Says Donovan, “His biggest issue – and No. 1 issue – is inconsistency. And not only on the court; everywhere he’s inconsistent”. With the departures of Bradley Beal and Erving Walker leaving the backcourt thin, Florida can’t afford another season of Rosario providing few minutes and low shooting percentages. Motivating a player through public comments isn’t ideal, but if Rosario takes the message to heart, he has the potential to be a dangerous scoring threat off the Florida bench.
2. Donovan isn’t the only coach counting on a senior guard to come up big. Skylar McBee was a pleasant surprise in coach Cuonzo Martin’s first season, nearly doubling his minutes and scoring totals, and the Tennessee coach expects his role to expand even more. The Volunteers enter the season with high expectations based primarily on a potentially dominant frontcourt, but Jarnell Stokes and Jeronne Maymon will need quality shooting from deep to carve out the kind of space they need. Several candidates will be competing for playing time in the backcourt beside point guard Trae Golden, and McBee’s stroke should earn him a plenty of minutes.
3. After leading Missouri to a 30-5 record and scooping up multiple national coach of the year awards, you might think Frank Haith would be a little cocky heading into the new season. Think again. In front of a crowd of alumni and boosters last week, Haith did his best to temper expectations, pointing out that the Tigers only return two key contributors from last year’s team. Missouri could struggle early as Haith works to assemble all his new parts, but with All-America candidate Phil Pressey manning the point, don’t be surprised if the adjustment period is brief.
4. Texas A&M kicked off its season Friday with the annual Maroon & White scrimmage. The Aggie faithful saw freshman point guard J’Mychal Reese put up 15 points in the game, while Elston Turner and Ray Turner chipped in with 14 apiece. Coach Billy Kennedy’s team enters the SEC without a lot of hype, but A&M should be significantly improved from last year. The Turners (no relation) should serve as the two main offensive threats, and if the talented Reese can provide some scoring punch from the point, a finish in the top half of the league is an attainable goal.
5. Willie Cauley-Stein was the least-hyped member of coach John Calipari’s uber-recruiting class, but after posterizing Nerlens Noel at Midnight Madness, the 7-footer has developed quite a buzz. According to reports, that momentum is carrying over into practice. The former high school wide receiver is showing soft hands and an ability to run the floor. Noel, a more polished defender, will see more playing time, but Cauley-Stein should get his fair share, forming an especially imposing frontline when they’re on the court together.

1. Midnight Madness is a fun and exciting way to kick off the college basketball season, but the madness is over. It’s time to begin focusing on some real basketball. Following the ceremonial bash, the defending national champion Kentucky Wildcats jumped right in with two-a-day practices. And so far, coach John Calipari likes what he sees from his young team. He especially liked the effort of one of his new guys because he was willing to offer up a prediction on the season — freshman forward Alex Poythress will be a major benefactor from any missed shots. “Alex is going to be the best offensive rebounder in the country,” Calipari said. “They’re going to end up having to put two guys on him.” That’s a scary thought considering how effective the Wildcats were cleaning up the offensive glass last season.
2. It is not unreasonable to think Calipari could go with a twin towers approach to find additional playing time for his two freshmen centers, Nerlens Noel and Willie Cauley-Stein, but would he really consider adding a third big man such as Kyle Wiltjer or Poythress in that same lineup? If it means additional wins, of course he would. In his first three seasons at the helm in Lexington, Calipari hasn’t been afraid to alter his team’s play based on strength. “Literally, we don’t know how we’re going to play yet,” Calipari said. “And that’s the disadvantage. You have all these teams that know how they’re going to play. They have the same team back. They’re just going to touch up. They added a couple of guys to see if they can get better, and then they build that base. Well, we have no base.” We suppose that is a disadvantage, but so is not playing with a team full of NBA players like most of Kentucky’s opponents.
3. Missouri coach Frank Haith opens up the new season with several questions about whether or not his Tigers can repeat the success they have found in the Big 12. One advantage Haith will miss is the outside shooting of departed long distance threats Marcus Denmon and Kim English. Having a consistent three-point shooter like Denmon and English helps point guard Phil Pressey attack and find the open man. “I don’t know that we have great shooters,” Haith said. “But we have guys that are really good shooters, and I think we’ll be a team that can really attack and get to the free-throw line.” However, it remains to be seen as to what degree and how often opposing defenses will sag off their man on the perimeter to clog up the middle making driving to the lane that much more difficult for Pressey and company.
4. Florida coach Billy Donovan is pleased with his team’s effort, and he has named a starting point guard for the Gators. For now. Junior Scottie Wilbekin has Donovan’s full confidence for the starting nod. “I feel good about him,” Donovan said. “He’s a junior in college now. Even though a lot was made when he first came coming out of high school and bypassing his senior year of high school, certainly that was a huge jump for him, but I think he proved he could really handle that as a freshman. He got a chance to back up Erving Walker. So I think Scottie has shown a lot of improvement, he’s gotten better. I’ve got a lot of confidence in him because of the things that he can do.” Donovan also pointed out that Wilbekin is the Gators’ second most effective three-point shooter behind forward Erik Murphy. For all this praise, Wilbekin averaged just 2.6 points and 1.6 assists per game last season.
5. Despite a surprising run in conference play to finish at 10-6, Tennessee point guard Trae Golden is not satisfied with what his team has accomplished. The Vols are ready to move past a second round NIT defeat to Middle Tennessee State, and Golden will be a big reason for their success. “I see a lot of confidence in him now,” said Tennessee assistant coach Tracy Webster. “He understands what he needs to do and what we’re looking for him to do. He knows that he can play, but now he understands that it’s his job to make everyone else around him better.” A telling stat was recounted in the story — in Tennessee’s 18 victories, Golden accounted for 99 assists with just 52 turnovers. However, in the 14 losses, Golden distributed just 55 assists to 46 turnovers. Golden, along with Mizzou’s Pressey, lead a pack of talented point guards in the conference. It is sure to be a big season for both the 6’1″ guard and his team of Volunteers.

Brian Joyce is a writer for the SEC microsite and regular contributor for Rush The Court. Follow him on Twitter for more about SEC basketball at bjoyce_hoops.

1. After making numerous people mad over the weekend with its ‘top perceived cheater’ query of a sample of the nation’s college basketball coaches, CBSSports.com kept the hits coming on Monday with its follow-up question asking those same coaches whether everyone’s favorite Team USA head honcho, Mike Krzyzewski, has “earned a recruiting advantage” by virtue of his association with the star-studded Olympic squad. Note for the record that the group of writers did not ask if Coach K has a perceived recruiting advantage here — nope, they wanted to know if this is an actual, real-deal, verified by Visa advantage. Accordingly, 71 percent of the respondents affirmed that there is a definite recruiting advantage as a result of Coach K’s association with the Olympic team. On its face, in terms of name recognition and marketing/branding of the Coach K/Duke product with the best basketball players on the planet, the answer should have been 100% — this part is without question. But in terms of actual production on the recruiting trail, Coach K’s last top-rated class (as calculated by RSCI) was in 2002 (Shelden Williams, JJ Redick); prior to that it was in 1999 (Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy, Carlos Boozer); and before that in 1997 (Shane Battier, Elton Brand, William Avery, Chris Burgess). Since 2006, the first full recruiting year after Krzyewski took over for Team USA, his recruiting classes have been good to great (#3, #3, #11, #8, #9, #2, #10), but none have matched the pinnacle that the Duke head coach was regularly signing a little over a decade ago. So, does Team USA give Krzyzewski an actual recruiting advantage? The intuitive answer is assuredly yes, but the counter-intuitive one — that it makes no difference, or egads, could be a bit of a detriment — certainly has evidence supporting it as well.
2. The Big East may be on shaky legs as a BCS league these days, but its announcement of its engagement with Bevilacqua Helfant Ventures, a sports media business that most recently negotiated a $3 billion multi-platform deal for the Pac-12, shows that the league doesn’t see it that way. Starting on September 1, the conference will retain an exclusive 60-day negotiating window with ESPN, and after that, it can field offers from other networks. Clearly the league believes that its new and unprecedented bi-coastal setup will be valuable to somebody — they’re already touting the fact that the new conference footprint resides in 13 of the 50 largest television markets holding a population base of 32 million people (reportedly twice that of any other league). Of course, there’s no mention made of penetration into those markets (does anyone in Orlando really care about UCF?), or if anyone will care to watch a San Diego State – Rutgers game, but that’s why the expensive firm was brought in — to deflect those questions. One thing is certain: The bubble of collegiate sports properties is still blowing up, so don’t be surprised if a few months from now we’re all sitting around scratching our heads wondering how the Big East is worth more than the ACC.
3. The UNC football academic scandal appears to have finally crossed over to the basketball program, at least tangentially. Former two-sport star Julius Peppers‘ academic transcript was (mistakenly?) published on the school’s website Sunday night, where some enterprising NC State fans found it and passed it around like wildfire on the Internet. The transcript is no longer on the site, but assuming it is a legitimate document, it appears that Peppers would not have been eligible to play football or basketball during much of the three academic years when he suited up at UNC. Many of the courses that made him eligible were in the now-infamous African-American Studies major which has been the focus of NCAA investigators. The question that is on everyone’s minds — and frankly it has not yet been satisfactorily answered — is whether the holy grail of Tar Heel basketball was substantially involved in these academic shenanigans (apparently dating back over a decade), and if UNC’s obstinance in thoroughly (and publicly) reviewing this problem represents willful obstruction to protect the program or something much less sinister. Whatever the case, if Peppers turns out to have been an academically ineligible player from 1999-2002, would that mean UNC’s 2000 Final Four (of which Peppers was a key contributor) would be vacated? We’re certain that NC State and Duke fans in the Triangle will stop at nothing to make that happen.
4. With more schools taking international trips during the summer to build team cohesiveness combined with the ubiquity of worldwide media access and coverage, we should expect to hear increasingly more bizarre stories like the one involving Missouri in The Netherlands over the weekend. According to a school release, during the third quarter of a physical game against the Dutch National Team on Saturday, Frank Haith was ejected for arguing with a referee on what he perceived to be a no-call elbow to the head of freshman Stefan Jankovic. Fearful “for the safety of his players,” and perhaps overreacting a bit, Haith decided to pull his team off the court and call the game over at that point. The Dutch head coach was diplomatic in his response, stating that he “understood” why Haith stopped the game because his technical foul “so suddenly came out of the blue” during game action. As a new league entrant to the SEC next season, we hope that Haith realizes that he’s unlikely to get a single favorable call from January to March 2013 — so he’d probably do well to get used to it.
5. Jumping to news that will please Missouri fans a little more, Bill Self’s Kansas team just finished its European exhibition tour and to say it went poorly might be putting it a bit too mildly. The Jayhawks finished the trip by losing its last two games to a French professional team, but the second game was interesting in that Self chose to “rest” his upperclassmen for the game’s entirety. This gave his remaining extremely young group of players, led by Perry Ellis’ 16/12, to take center stage, but we also wonder if Self wasn’t using the opportunity to send his veterans — Jeff Withey, Elijah Johnson, and Travis Releford — a clear message that he expects more from them in this, their senior, seasons. As he states in the linked interview, he was willing to live with the second short-handed loss, but he felt that the first loss was “inexcusable” and that his team is “not any good right now.” If we know anything about Self, he’s probably right; but he’s also without a doubt going to have the Jayhawks whipped into shape by January so that they’ll be right at the top of the Big 12 standings once again.

1. Florida moved to the top of the early rankings charts as the Gators scored a verbal commitment from Chris Walker (No. 6 on the Rivals 150), joining his AAU teammate, Kasey Hill (No. 7). Walker declared, “Together we will be the best duo in college and we will win a national championship. You heard it here first.” Walker is the highest rated player on the Rivals 150 list to have already given a verbal commitment. Walker picked the Gators over Louisville, Kansas, Syracuse, Ohio State and Baylor.
2. Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis came out this week in support of an effort to honor the 50-year anniversary of a historic contest between Mississippi State and Loyola (Chicago). The two played at Michigan State’s Jenison Field House in a 1963 NCAA tournament Mideast Regional semifinal game that holds civil rights significance because “Mississippi State’s all-white squad defied a court injunction, sneaking out of the state to East Lansing to face a Loyola team with four black starters.” Hollis said, “The historical significance of that game needs to be recognized. I don’t think a lot of people in Michigan are aware that game was played there and we want to make sure that story is told.”
3. ESPN’s Summer Shootaround series hit the SEC this week and Doug Gottlieb’s preseason power rankings might raise a few eyebrows. He did not place the defending national champions, Kentucky, atop his list, but rather one of the league’s newbies, Missouri, was there. Among his reasons, “[Phil] Pressey should start the season as the best point guard in the SEC, so his return is huge for Mizzou…Alex Oriakhi should be far better outside of the toxic environment of last season’s Connecticut Huskies club, and he also provides championship experience…and the rabid Missouri fan base shows up consistently, the Tigers will be close to unbeatable at home.”
4. CBSSports.com’s Gary Parrish published a story on Tuesday about how next year’s SEC schedules were changed from what was discussed in early June. In his account, he wrote, “”I got an email from the SEC office, and my four [home-and-home] opponents … were changed,” one SEC coach told CBSSports.com. “There was no discussion or phone call. I just got an email of our league schedule, and the league schedule wasn’t the league schedule they told me I’d have last month. It’s crazy.” Parrish went on to write, “To help you better understand exactly what happened, consider that Vanderbilt was supposed to have Tennessee as its constant rival and Kentucky, Alabama, Missouri and Ole Miss as its home-and-home opponents, but sources told CBSSports.com that Vanderbilt now has Kentucky, South Carolina, Arkansas and Auburn as its home-and-home opponents. Meantime, Ole Miss was supposed to have Mississippi State as its constant rival and Auburn, Florida, Vanderbilt and Arkansas as its home-and-home opponents, but sources told CBSSports.com that Ole Miss now has Auburn, Tennessee, Missouri and Texas A&M as its home-and-home opponents. Sources said Georgia’s schedule got harder. Sources said Alabama’s schedule got easier.”
5. Two SEC Tiger schools were involved in a coaching change recently as Missouri’s Ryan Miller left Frank Haith’s staff after only two months to join Tony Barbee’s staff at Auburn. Miller is the younger brother of Miami Heat forward Mike Miller and worked with Barbee as the video coordinator at Memphis while Barbee was an assistant under John Calipari. According to the CBSSports.com report, “Calipari pushed hard for Miller to join Barbee down in Auburn, where he would also receive a significant pay raise.”

It’s hot out there, and to many of us, college basketball is the last thing on our minds. But here at the SEC Microsite, we’re going to be rolling out mid-summer resets of each of the (now) 14 basketball programs in our league. We’re calling it Transition Basketball, and you can expect we’ll cover three or four teams a week until we’re done. By that time, we’ll actually start to be turning the slight corner into the fall, and from there it’s a smooth slope down to Midnight Madness in mid-October. Today’s update: Missouri.

State of the Program

The Tigers come to the SEC off a 30-5 season and a Big 12 Tournament title. Only two players who saw the court during any of the 2011-12 season return, but this team features a veteran roster  loaded with transfers from high-level Division I programs. Guards Michael Dixon, Jr., and Phil Pressey headline one of the top returning backcourts in all the land. Dixon excelled in a reserve role last season, averaging 13.5 points per game despite never starting. No player in the country, including No.4 NBA Draft selection Dion Waiters, averaged as many points per game off the bench. Pressey experienced no “sophomore slump” as he set the school’s single-season assist record and became a Bob Cousy Award finalist.

Bowers is Back Along With a Host of New Players for Missouri

Senior Laurence Bowers returns to the active roster after sitting out last season because of a torn ACL. In his prior season on the court, he averaged more than 11 points and six rebounds and close to two blocks per game. He ranks fourth on the school’s all-time blocks list and needs just 27 to move in the second spot.

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1. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: In January, when Georgia Tech ended up as the landing place for former Kentucky player Stacey Poole, it was a nice get for the beleaguered Yellow Jackets, but not a game-changer. However, taking on Stacey has paid dividends in the form of a younger brother, Solomon Poole. Stacey’s little brother is a five-star point guard for the Class of 2013 and he is headed to join his older brother in Atlanta. Solomon admits that his brother’s presence was a major factor in his decision to attend Georgia Tech, and I doubt if Brian Gregory could be much happier with this turn of events.
2. Duke Basketball Report: Though conference schedules have yet to be officially released, tidbits about the schedule have been making their ways into various reports. The good folks at DBR have taken it upon themselves to round up the reports (which are focused on Virginia, Virginia Tech, Boston College, and North Carolina). You can also see the match-ups for Florida State on the school’s athletic department website. Though it’s probably a little early to make assessments about the difficulty of a given schedule, it looks like the Tar Heels may have a rough season ahead.
3. Durham Herald-Sun: Speaking of rough seasons for North Carolina, the troubles of  2010 and 2011 are still haunting the team, albeit in a fairly minor way. North Carolina’s streak of six years of APR Public Recognition Awards for the men’s basketball team has ended and it’s all UCLA’s fault or something like that. The APR is a simple measure of the academic status of a given collegiate athletic program. Though North Carolina has typically fared pretty well by this measure, transfers count against the school’s retention rate, and the defections of David Wear, Travis Wear, and Larry Drew to UCLA, in addition to the dismissal of Will Graves means that UNC has one really ugly looking APR season on it’s record. While complete APR scores are slated for a Wednesday release,  it bears mentioning that Duke paced the ACC with the most awards, including one for the men’s basketball team.
4. Kansas City Star: Missouri will continue it’s reign as a landing spot for ACC coaches who enjoyed success and then moved on. Former Miami and current Missouri head coach Frank Haith has hired Dave Leitao as an assistant. Leitao, before a stint leading the Maine Red Claws of the NBDL, was of course the head coach at Virginia and the ACC Coach of the Year in 2007.  It’s a good hire for Missouri and a nice move for a guy who is good enough to be a college head coach just about anywhere.
5. Washington Post: The situation of recently appointed Virginia Tech coach James Jones is as interesting as it is difficult . Former head coach Seth Greenberg left behind a legacy of confusion and accusations that seemed to undermine the program at every turn, nearly undoing all the building that Greenberg had accomplished during his tenure. This profile takes some time getting to know the ACC’s newest head coach and exploring the major task he faces in rebuilding a  basketball program that took some major blows in Greenberg’s wake.

The NBA Draft is scheduled for Thursday, June 28, in New York City. As we have done for the last several years, RTC’s team of writers (including Andrew Murawa, Kevin Doyle, Evan Jacoby, Matt Patton, and Danny Spewak) will provide comprehensive breakdowns of each of the 35 collegians most likely to hear his name called by David Stern in the first round on draft night. We’ll generally work backwards, so for the next week or two we’ll present you with players who are projected near the end of the first round, and we’ll work our way up into the lottery as June progresses. As an added bonus, we’ll also bring you a scouting take from NBADraft.net’s Aran Smith at the bottom of each player evaluation.

Note: Click here for all published 2012 NBA Draft profiles.

Player Name: Royce White

School: Iowa State

Height/Weight: 6’8”, 270 pounds

NBA Position: Power Forward

Projected Draft Range: Late First Round

Royce White Turned Iowa State Into an NCAA Team (AP)

Overview: Before Royce White ever played a college basketball game, he made headlines for all the wrong reasons as a freshman at Minnesota. After signing with Tubby Smith’s program, he ran into legal trouble in a theft incident at the Mall of America, earning himself a quick suspension. He never stepped on the court with the Gophers, and he left the school by creating an Internet sensation through a bizarre YouTube video (now defunct). By the time he became eligible  after transferring to Iowa State, White’s bad boy image defined him as a player. And yet it took all of about five minutes for everybody to remember why he was a blue-chip recruit out of high school. In his first collegiate game, he torched Lehigh (yes, that Lehigh) for 25 points and a double-double. As the season progressed, he made a name for himself as a do-it-all point forward, the kind of matchup nightmare that led Missouri coach Frank Haith to compare him to Magic Johnson (to which White called “outrageous,” of course). He stormed through Big 12 play with double-double after double-double, leading the Cyclones to a surprising third-place finish and the program’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2005. White was the obvious choice for Newcomer of the Year in the league, as well as first team All-Big 12 honors.

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Yesterday we gave you our season grades for the bottom half of the Big 12. Today we bring you the top half.

5. Kansas State (22-11, 10-8)

McGruder Led a Surprising K-State Team This Season

FINAL GRADE: B+

Despite all of the personnel question marks and the graduation of star Jacob Pullen, you had the sense Frank Martin would figure something out. He certainly did, as his team weathered a mid-season swoon to finish strong and reach another NCAA Tournament. Martin may have left for South Carolina after the season, but his final Kansas State team fought hard in 2011-12 despite a load of adversity. A December championship at the Diamond Head Classic helped the Wildcats enter the Top 25 before Big 12 play, but poor offensive execution and a lack of consistency on the defensive end doomed the Wildcats during the winter. They weren’t playing like Martin’s teams usually did. They weren’t tough, and it showed, starting 1-3 in Big 12 play and dropping four home games in Manhattan. Oklahoma swept them. Things were getting ugly, and they hit rock bottom after a home loss to Kansas on Big Monday on February 13. That’s when Martin turned this thing around and solidified an NCAA Tournament berth. The Wildcats got back to the basics: defense, rebounding and delivering a knockout punch to opponents. Rodney McGruder stepped up his play as the team’s star, helping it win four of five games to close the season, including road wins at Baylor and Missouri. The controversial suspension of Jamar Samuels left Kansas State without its best forward in an NCAA Third Round game against Syracuse, but it’s impressive that this team even reached that point. With McGruder presumably returning next year, first-year coach Bruce Weber will have a lot to work with. Angel Rodriguez should be even better as a sophomore, and Will Spradling and Jordan Henriquez should grow, too.

4. Iowa State (23-11, 12-6) 

FINAL GRADE: A

The Transfer Effect worked to Iowa State’s benefit this year. In December, we wrote a piece questioning Fred Hoiberg’s recruiting tactics, as he’d brought in four Division I transfers this season. It took a while for everybody to get acclimated, resulting in a couple of losses to Drake and Northern Iowa during an inconsistent non-conference stretch. But once league play began, this team took off. Royce White took the nation by storm with his wild hair and versatile play, showing an ability to run the Cyclones’ offense as a sort of point-forward. He emerged as one of the most fascinating and entertaining players to watch in college basketball, but the team around him helped add to the fun. These guys shot lights-out from beyond the arc, including senior Scott Christopherson, who finished with the highest three-point percentage in the Big 12 (45.5%) for players with more than four attempts per game. Hoiberg added a fresh energy to this program, leading ISU to a victory over Connecticut in the NCAA Tournament. His team even briefly competed against Kentucky before falling apart late in that matchup. There was no fairy-tale March run for The Mayor, but given time, his program may eventually reach those heights. The 2011-12 season marked a major turning point for the Cyclones.

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