On the eve of North Carolina‘s ESPN GameDay match-up in Tallahassee against one of the most stubborn defensive teams in the country, Roy Williams delivered some long expected news. Leslie McDonald, despite a relatively rapid recovery, would be redshirting, saving his eligibility for a full season. While McDonald’s injury during a summer game was considered a serious blow to UNC’s perimeter attack, the emergence of Reggie Bullock and P.J. Hairston, as well as Harrison Barnes‘ deadly three-point accuracy so far this season, have largely mitigated that concern.

Williams Has A Deep Bench That He Can Turn To

Despite being the team’s designated three-point sniper last season, it’s entirely possible that McDonald would have struggled for consistent minutes this year. Since Bullock and Hairston have emerged as premier offensive weapons off the bench for Tar Heels and Kendall Marshall and Dexter Strickland have waged strong campaigns for their indispensability, there simply aren’t many available minutes for another non-ball-handler in the backcourt. Indeed, their is already a bit of a logjam in the rotation, with some fans clamoring for a starting spot or at least more time for the skilled-at-both-ends Bullock.  But where do the minutes come from? Strickland and Barnes both play less than 26 MPG as it is, and honestly, it’s hard to justify taking minutes away from either. But what about minutes from Marshall?

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Some semblance of order prevailed Tuesday night as Florida State managed a close win against Virginia Tech and North Carolina lodged a quietly scary win against Miami. Bernard James, the old man of the ACC, posted an 18-point, 15-rebound game (nine offensive rebounds) and Ian Miller offered the sufficient guard scoring (15 points) that the Seminoles had lacked in the early going. Virginia Tech simply couldn’t score at a strong enough clip against the defensive-minded Seminoles, managing a field goal percentage of only 30.5%. This is how we expected Florida State would win games, and it’s fun to see a team pull off a victory like this while still turning the ball over 19 times in a relatively slow-paced game. Did I say fun? I meant weird, but oddly gratifying.

Old Man Bernard James Had A Monster Game In The Victory Over Virginia Tech

Meanwhile, North Carolina’s convincing victory against Miami was scarier than you might expect. The Tar Heels draw a lot of offensive firepower from their triumvirate of big, athletic, sharp-shooting wings. Last night, Harrison Barnes went 2-of-12, Reggie Bullock went 2-of-6, and P.J. Hairston went 1-of-6. It was a 17-point win for UNC and the Hurricanes shot 41.8%. The ability to accomplish a high margin win without shut-down defense, hot shooting, or scoring from three of your best offensive players is what makes North Carolina such a dangerous team. Totally crushing an opponent in every facet of the game will always be impressive, but soundly beating a team despite lots of things going wrong? Just as remarkable.

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Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we’re missing or different things you’d like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Lead Story: Jarnell Stokes Commits To Tennessee, Will Enroll In January

Maybe This Is What Swayed Jarnell Stokes To Tennessee.

Top-25 Senior Picks Volunteers Despite Late Kentucky Push. It’s been a long road for Class of 2012 power forward Jarnell Stokes but the recruiting process for him is finally over. The 6’8″, 250-pound big man committed to Tennessee last Thursday after transferring to Oak Hill Academy (VA) over this summer, then changing his mind and transferring to Southwind Central High School (TN) where he was ruled ineligible to play his senior season of basketball. He will be joining the Vols in January and looks to help them in every phase of the game. Stokes is the type of player who can help Tennessee on both ends of the floor, especially in rebounding — an area that Cuonzo Martin’s team could really use some help in. He picked UT over Memphis and a late push by Kentucky head coach John Calipari. Opposite of what many people many think, the difficult part of the transition for Stokes won’t be the physical aspect, it will be the mental part given the fact that he’ll have to face a sharp learning curve. His impact will be limited this year but he will still be a contributor and he’ll get an early head start on making the jump from high school to college compared to everyone else in the Class of 2012. He was never going to be a four-year player anyway so the Vols are simply getting an extra semester out of the Tennessee native.

What They’re Saying

• Senior Ricardo Ledo (Providence) on recruiting junior star Nerlens Noel and others: “If I could choose any player to commit to Providence, it would be [Class of 2012 power forward] Chris Obekpa and I’m also trying to help out with [Class of 2013 center] Nerlens Noel. I’m trying to get [Class of 2012 small forward] Jakarr Sampson on board and a couple more I haven’t named. I just tell them about the Providence atmosphere and to try to start something new, don’t try to be like everybody else and go to a school just because of the school’s name. I just tell them to be your own man, set your own trend.”

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Here are three thoughts about each team I garnered from Wednesday’s game in Chapel Hill. The observations on North Carolina probably hold a little more water, as the team is much more experienced. On the other hand, Texas will probably improve significantly between now and the end of the season.

• Reggie Bullock isn’t just getting love from bloggers for his defense; Roy Williams put the sophomore on Texas’ explosive J’Covan Brown whenever Bullock was in the game. Bullock’s length (he’s 6’7″) was definitely a factor, but he also did a very good job staying in front of Brown on most plays. After the game Williams’ one criticism was that Bullock didn’t box out well. But Bullock has earned the spot as the first substitute to enter the game (for Dexter Strickland), and his offensive skills make North Carolina a much more dangerous team when he’s in the game.

• Texas needs Myck Kabongo and Rick Barnes on the same page. Last night Barnes benched his star point guard for a lack of “discipline” and “purpose” on offense. Without Kabongo, Texas isn’t nearly as dangerous. The forwards in particular really need a facilitator to create play-making opportunities. Kabongo is also lethal in transition. The bottom line is your second-best player can’t be riding the pine in big games.

Reggie Bullock has Earned a Spot in North Carolina's Main Rotation.

• Harrison Barnes played his best game of the year offensively. Frankly, it’s not even close. Barnes scored in nearly every way possible. He scored in catch-and-shoot situations, isolation sets and on put-backs. He only had four offensive rebounds, but watching the game it felt like at least six or eight of his points came off those rebounds. This is the Harrison Barnes people were expecting when they picked him as a NPOY frontrunner.

Read the rest of this entry »

Evan Jacoby is an RTC columnist and contributor. You can find him @evanjacoby on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

After several consecutive slow weeknights, Wednesday night offers some very good games. All eyes should be tuned in, especially, to the ESPN2 early game.

Texas at #4 North Carolina – 7:00 PM EST on ESPN2 (****)

UNC Will Attack Texas With Their Forwards, Tonite on ESPN2 (Getty Images/P. Williams)

• Since their collapse against NC State on November 21, Texas has won seven straight games by double digits, including some nice wins over Temple and at UCLA. Their talented guard combo of J’Covan Brown and Myck Kabongo is starting to click, with Brown’s numbers up to 19.3 points and 4.3 assists per game and Kabongo at 10.8 points and 6.0 assists per contest. Four of the Longhorns’ five leading scorers are freshmen, including Kabongo and exciting reserve guard Sheldon McClennan. The Longhorns are ranked seventh nationally with 1.18 points per possession and eighth in overall offensive efficiency (117.5). For Texas to hang in this game, they’ll need their young guards to keep scoring at a high rate, and hope to contain UNC’s massive frontcourt from dominating the offensive boards.
• North Carolina has a massive size, experience, home court, and overall talent advantage in this game, which is why they’re 10-point favorites. Look for the Tar Heels to feature Tyler Zeller and John Henson inside to feast on Texas’s smaller front line. The bigs should be able to control this game on the boards, where UNC ranks 16^th nationally in offensive rebounds per game, and number one overall on the defensive glass. Even if Texas’s guards can score effectively, Carolina can counter with its wing scorers of Harrison Barnes, Dexter Strickland, and Reggie Bullock, lead by the nation’s top assist man in Kendall Marshall (10.2 APG).
• Texas has won four straight games against Carolina since 1995. The Longhorns are playing well and will certainly be ready for this game. But it’s hard to envision UNC losing this one at home given their huge advantage in the paint and with just as many talented guards. Expect a super exciting, high scoring affair between two of the top programs in the country, with Roy Williams’ team coming out on top.

Seton Hall at Dayton – 7:00 PM EST, no TV (***)

• This is a huge road test for 9-1 Seton Hall, whose only loss came in the finals of the Charleston Classic against Northwestern. Senior Herb Pope has been an absolute stud all year and he leads the Big East in scoring (22.1 PPG) AND rebounding (11.9 RPG). His fellow senior leader, point guard Jordan Theodore, leads the conference in assists with 7.1 per game. Sophomore guard Fuquan Edwin leads the Big East in steals per game with 3.4 per contest. He and Theodore each average about 14 points per game, as well. This dangerous trio will look to lead coach Kevin Willard’s team to a big road win and legitimize their strong start to the season.
• Dayton is a talented but very inconsistent team. They have strong wins over Alabama, Wake Forest, and Minnesota on their resume, but they also have a shocking home loss to Buffalo by 29 (!) points. They lost road games to Miami (Ohio) and Murray State, as well. First year coach Archie Miller’s team has five players that average nine or more points per game, lead by junior lead guard Kevin Dillard. A transfer from Southern Illinois, Dillard leads the team in scoring (11.9 PPG), assists (5.1 APG), and steals (2.3 SPG).
• This game is not televised nationally or on ESPN3.com, but be sure to follow along, or even watch if it’s being shown locally. Dayton is a four-point home favorite in this one, but this is anyone’s game. The Flyers have several big home wins and another awful home loss. Seton Hall will look to control the game with the dominant Pope inside, who will be a load to handle for Dayton’s short interior players. I’d take Seton Hall and their experienced leaders to come out with the road win, but this one could go either way.

Middle Tennessee State at Mississippi – 9:00 PM EST on ESPN3.com (***)

• Middle Tennessee is coming off a big home win over Belmont to push its record to 10-2. They are the class of the Sun Belt Conference, and are only two-point underdogs in this game. When you factor in the three-point cushion given to home teams in Vegas lines, that means MTSU is considered the slightly better team. This is a fair assessment, as the Raiders have an impressive trio of upperclassmen in guard Marcos Knight and forwards LaRon Dendy and J.T. Sulton who all average at least 12 points and 6 rebounds per game. These three all shoot at least 53.6% from the field, as well, which powers the nation’s best field goal shooting team (53.2% as a team for the year).
• Ole Miss also comes into this game with just two losses, the most recent of which came on Saturday at a pretty good Southern Miss team. Ole Miss features five players that average nine points or more, lead by junior Murphy Holloway’s 10.3 points and 9.5 rebounds per game. Not included in their five leading scorers is new addition Jelan Kendrick, who is now eligible for Mississippi after transferring from Memphis when he was kicked off the team at the beginning of this year. Kendrick is a very talented freshman who could start to make his mark tonight. Andy Kennedy’s team will have the athleticism advantage in this game, such as their 6.2 blocks per game which ranks 13^th in the country.
• This game might be the best of the 9:00PM EST slate, so be sure to have ESPN3 ready on your computer even if you’re tuned in to the television for another game. We expect Ole Miss to take care of business at home, but MTSU will offer a great challenge and could come out with another impressive victory.

Oklahoma State at Alabama – 9:00 PM EST on ESPN2 (***)

• Oklahoma State comes into this game at 6-4 having lost two straight games. The Cowboys have a collection of talented players but have not found the best way to utilize their pieces; nine different players have been in the starting lineup in the first 10 games. LeBryan Nash, the McDonald’s All-American freshman, is starting to play better of late, seeing his minutes increase in the past three games. He’s now up to 12.7 points and 5.2 rebounds per game for the season. Markel Brown is a talented sophomore guard (9.7 PPG) and Cezar Guerrero is a freshman with a quick trigger that can fill it up in a hurry (7.7 PPG), though takes plenty of questionable shots per game. Upperclassmen Jean-Paul Olekemi (9.7 PPG) and, especially, Keiton Page (12.7 PPG) are the leaders of the team that will look to ignite the upset in this one.
• Alabama was ranked in the top 15 to begin this month, but the Crimson Tide have suffered three disappointing losses in the past three weeks, albeit to some good teams. Anthony Grant’s team lost at home to Georgetown on a game-winning three from the Hoyas, and they followed that one with two road losses to Dayton and Kansas State. Bama has had trouble scoring in those games. They aren’t a very effective offensive team, with a 104.8 efficiency that ranks 120^th nationally. The Tide get it done on the defensive end where they allow an eFG% of 40.6 that is seventh best in the country. Jamychal Green, Tony Mitchell, and Trevor Releford are big time athletes who all average double figure scoring and can lock down defensively.
• This game is technically not a home game for Alabama, since it is being played in Birmingham as part of the 2011 Legacy Credit Union Holiday Classic. But for all intents and purposes, consider the Crimson Tide the home team as they will draw the much larger crowd in their home state. Bama has fallen victim to a few upsets this season, as they were the favored team in all three of their losses. But don’t expect a repeat in this one, as Oklahoma State is still a work in progress and the solid defense of Alabama should lead them to a victory.

***** – quit your job and divorce your wife if that’s what it takes to watch this game live
**** – best watched live, but if you must, tivo and watch it tonight as soon as you get home
*** – set your tivo but make sure you watch it later
** – set your tivo but we’ll forgive you if it stays in the queue until 201
* – don’t waste bandwidth (yours or the tivo’s) of any kind on this game

1. Oklahoma State‘s point guard spot just got even more precarious. Fred Gulley has now announced he will leave the Cowboys, leaving them with just Cezar Guerrero and Reger Dowell at that position now. Former point guard Ray Penn already transferred during the Spring, and it has been a troubled position for Travis Ford from Day One this season. The two remaining point guards really need to step up now to run this offense. With LeBryan Nash ready to break out any day now and Keiton Page starting to find his stroke, this team has offensive weapons at its disposal. Now, it just needs to put everything together and grow as a team.
2. In the aftermath of Kansas‘s disappointing 80-74 loss to Davidson at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, coach Bill Self says the main problem with his team is a lack of depth right now. That is to be expected after losing most of his starting lineup from a Big 12 championship squad, but he’s still waiting on players like Kevin Young and Naadir Tharpe to mature. As Self puts it, “Depth isn’t great because of injuries, and depth isn’t great because of foul problems. Depth is great because when guys don’t play the way you want them to, they don’t have to play.” Couldn’t have said it better ourselves, Coach Self.
3. At least Tyshawn Taylor is healthy for the Jayhawks. Self said Taylor’s health was fine after the Davidson loss, which is somewhat surprising considering Taylor had knee surgery just more than a week ago. He was supposed to miss three weeks, but he ended up missing zero games. Going along with the whole “lack of depth” theme, it is a minor miracle Taylor returned so quickly to this team. Without him, Kansas may have been even more lost offensively.
4. While most of us spend Christmas with our families in the continental United States, Kansas State will head to Hawaii this holiday season for the Diamond Head Classic. This tournament has grown in recent years, and in 2011, it will feature KSU, Southern Illinois, UTEP, Clemson, Xavier, Auburn, and Long Beach State. If you’re not tuned into the NBA, this is a tournament you need to see. It’s got to be hard for the players to compete during Christmas, but coach Frank Martin at least gave his guys five days off during the Thanksgiving holiday. That’s a heck of a lot more rest than most teams get during that time period, so expect the Wildcats to look fresh in Hawaii.
5. Iowa State is playing Lipscomb tonight. Excited? You should be: the Bison’s leading scorer is Jordan Burgason, the son of former Cyclone Steve Burgason. Jordan attended high school in Ames– the same school Harrison Barnes and Doug McDermott attended– but ISU did not recruit him. Normally in these situations, two scenarios can occur. Burgason will either struggle under the expectations of playing in his hometown for the first time, or he will rise against the school that wronged him and burn the Cyclones for 40 points. If it is the latter, we are going to have a fun storyline to follow tonight.

Matt Patton is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic Coast Conference. You can follow him on Twitter @rise_and_fire.

Reader’s Take

Top Storylines

• Wake Forest’s Dynamic Duo: The Demon Deacons may not be the prettiest team to watch, but CJ Harris and Travis McKie are lighting up the box score. We knew (even if I, in a gaffe of all gaffes, left him off my All-Freshman team last year for Ryan Harrow) Mckie was going to be one of the ACC’s top players this year, but Harris has been a very pleasant surprise. The pair are efficiently combining for nearly 57% of Wake Forest’s points through the first 10 games of the year. Harris has already made as many threes as he made all last season on 18 less attempts, and he’s significantly more effective inside the arc. It remains to be seen how Harris will adapt to the defenses of ACC play, but so far he has to be leading the “surprise of the year” category.
• Duke’s Post Presence: That’s right: after two solid years of berating the Plumlees as overrated and generally poor basketball players, it’s time to give credit where it’s due. Mason Plumlee has developed into a very good big man. No, he can’t make a free throw to save his life, but he’s much better offensively everywhere except the boards than he’s been the last few years. He developed a couple of solid post moves, stopped turning the ball over as much and learned to hold his ground on defense. If he can either learn to crash the offensive glass or hit 60% of his free throws, I’m confident in saying he’ll be one of the top three or four bigs in the ACC this season.
• That’s right, the ACC Digital Network launched this season. Check out JR Reid break down North Carolina‘s softness and the conference power rankings. So far the coverage is fairly limited, but as it expands this could become one of the better sources of information for ACC fans.

Power Rankings

1. North Carolina (8-2) stays atop the rankings with a hard-fought win over Long Beach State, which better get rewarded by the Selection Committee in March for playing such a tough non-conference schedule. The Tar Heels dominated on the inside with John Henson and Harrison Barnes leading the scoring, but it is worth noting that this is  another game where four Tar Heel starters played more than 30 minutes. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, as expected Charleston Southern seized on its one advantage and managed to force Florida State into 21 turnovers. Of course, it didn’t matter: The Seminoles locked down and held its Monday night opponent to 29.9% from the field while shooting 48.4% on its end. It was a 15-point victory, but it felt like the margin was bigger considering how quickly Florida State jumped to a big lead.

The Seminoles Had Little Problem Blasting Charleston Southern Last Night

Tonight, we have a couple of nice gut-check games and then the equivalent of an angry child getting their aggression out by punching a pillow a bunch of times.

The Main Event

• Memphis at Miami at 9:00 PM on ESPN2

Even without Reggie Johnson, Miami has been pretty good this year. A loss to Purdue and an overtime road loss to Mississippi are understandable, but they are also blown chances at really putting the Hurricanes on the national map. With a faltering Memphis team coming to Coral Gables, the team has a good chance at a nice signature win. Without a strong front court presence, Miami has struggled to rebound effectively, but Memphis has been fairly terrible at rebounding so far this season too,  giving the Hurricanes an opening. In terms of weaknesses, Miami’s mediocre perimeter defense will have to hold strong against a Tigers team that has shot 44.2% from beyond the arc. The game may come down to pace as Miami tries to slow it down against Josh Pastner’s run-happy team. In any case, this should be a pretty entertaining game this evening.

The Undercard

• Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Patton is the ACC correspondent. You can follow him on Twitter @rise_and_fire.

Reader’s Take

Top Storylines

• Kentucky and North Carolina: College basketball’s “Game of the Century” lived up to the hype coming down to the last possession (even if it ended bizarrely) and was fun from start to finish (well, almost finish for Tar Heel fans). The game was a reminder that North Carolina can be the team people thought it would be coming into this season. The Tar Heels were aggressive, knocked down perimeter shots, and controlled a little over half of the game. Harrison Barnes was outplayed by Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, but Kendall Marshall was passable on defense [Author’s Note: That wasn’t meant to be a bad pun. He actually played solid defense on Teague most of the game.] and his usual self on offense (though I was very surprised he saw as much time guarding Marquis Teague as he did, considering Teague’s turnover woes). I’m not sure any college basketball fan would mind seeing a rematch this spring.
• Terrell Stoglin Can Score: Unfortunately, his teammates are struggling to keep up their end. Only three BCS-conference teams (Penn State, Washington, and Utah) have players with higher usages, and none have players more likely to take a shot (shot percentage). Stoglin is the only player on the team averaging over 20 points a game with 22.4. His field goal percentage could be a little higher, but right now he’s the best scorer in the conference. For more on Stoglin, check out our post from yesterday on his scoring ability.
• Sportsman of the Year: Mike Krzyzewski and Pat Summitt joined the prestigious ranks of Sports Illustrated‘s “Sportsman of the Year” winners and are only the third and fourth college basketball coaches to be chosen for the honor (Dean Smith and John Wooden are the other two). Both are worthy choices, as they both signify excellence over the course of 73 combined years of coaching.

Terrell Stoglin is Maryland's Offense.

Power Rankings

1) North Carolina (6-2) lost to the #1 team in the country on the road by one point. But it was the second straight game that the Tar Heels were unable to control the tempo. Is this a problem going forward, or is the defense good enough to win ugly?
Ken Pomeroy Fun Fact: The only player in Roy Williams’ rotation that is not averaging over a point per possession? James Michael McAdoo (fellow frosh PJ Hairston leads the team with a 129.0 offensive rating).

2) Duke (7-1) hasn’t played since last week. My guess is this means a lot of quality time watching film on Ohio State.
Ken Pomeroy Fun Fact: Duke has the third worst free throw defense in the country, as opponents are shooting a whopping 80.6% from the charity stripe against the Blue Devils this year.

Read the rest of this entry »

The game was terrific. I’ll admit, I didn’t think it would be close. I was sure that one team was going to win by ten, running too quickly for the other to catch up. In fact, when it was 43-35 with a couple minutes left in the first half, I expected the Tar Heels to step on the accelerator and force a couple of freshman turnovers that led to easy transition buckets and go into the half with a ten point lead. [Author’s Note: For the record, I would have expected the exact same thing coming from Kentucky if they had been up eight in the first half.] Needless to say, that didn’t happen.

North Carolina and Kentucky Lived Up to the Hype Saturday.

A few observations that have already been brought up are worth examining more closely. First and foremost, Harrison Barnes was outplayed by Michael Kidd-Gilchrist straight up. No ifs, ands, or buts. That surprised me, especially on the defensive end, where we saw Barnes excel at times last year even when his shot wasn’t falling. Gilchrist was the player of the game, and a lot of his performance won’t show up on a stat sheet. I agree that at least some of Barnes’ struggles came from early foul trouble, but as an experienced player he should have avoided dumb fouls.

One thing that went under the radar is John Calipari‘s effect on the game. Calipari rarely gets credit for outstanding coaching because of his phenomenal recruiting, but he really changed the game with just under seven minutes to play in the first half. At that point, each team had played 26 possessions in 13 minutes. That’s on pace for an 80 possession game — which is breakneck speed. The pace was creating a lot of problems for the Wildcat defense, as North Carolina already had 34 points (good for a ludicrous offensive rating of 130.8). The game ended with only 64 possessions. And it wasn’t because North Carolina wanted to slow down. Calipari and Kentucky effectively slowed the game down, which saw their offensive productivity improve dramatically.

Read the rest of this entry »