Corey Sanders came to Rutgers with a relatively solid pedigree. As a prep star at the point guard position, he was ranked #62 in ESPN.com‘s top 100 and checked in at #93 on 247sports. Not that anyone thought he was going to completely turn around Rutgers basketball in his freshman season, but the guard has had a bit of an uneven start to careeer. Some of this can be attributed to struggles in adapting to coach Eddie Jordan’s system of Princeton-like movements and cuts. An even bigger reason is that Rutgers has been decimated by injuries, as Deshawn Freeman, Shaquille Doorson and Ibrahima Diallo are all out for the season with various maladies. What that mean is that Rutgers, with only two players 6’8″ or taller, are playing small ball out of necessity. Correspondingly, that means it’s difficult to get a true read on how well Sanders is doing this season.

Corey Sanders is leading Rutgers in scoring despite an uneven first season for Eddie Jordan’s team. (Getty)

The freshman guard is averaging 13.3 PPG, 3.4 APG and 1.6 SPG while shooting 35.2 percent from behind the arc. His assist-to-turnover ratio is a solid if not spectacular 1.12. And when compared with some of the other notable Big Ten point guards’ freshman seasons, his efficiency numbers are generally comparable.

• Yogi Ferrell (105.3 O-Rating, 18.0 Usage, 45.4% eFG, 25.7% Asst Rate, 24.5 TO%, 1.6% Stls Rate, 30.3% 3pt)
• Mike Gesell (99.4 O-Rating, 20.2 Usage, 46.6% eFG, 22.5% Asst Rate, 20.5 TO%, 2.8% Stls Rate, 31.7% 3pt)
• Melo Trimble (116.5 O-Rating, 24.8 Usage, 53.4% eFG, 21.2% Asst Rate, 18.3 TO%, 2.3% Stls Rate, 41.2% 3pt)
• Derrick Walton (112.2 O-Rating, 18.2 Usage, 53.1% eFG, 19.8% Asst Rate, 19.9 TO%, 1.4% Stls Rate, 41.0% 3pt)
• Bryant McIntosh (101.4 O-Rating, 23.9 Usage, 48.4% eFG, 32.6% Asst Rate, 20.5 TO%, 0.5% Stls Rate, 36.4% 3pt)
• Corey Sanders (94.8 O-Rating, 25.0 Usage, 47.1% eFG, 23.6% Asst Rate, 21.9 TO%, 2.8% Stls Rate, 35.2% 3pt)

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Rutgers and Maryland enter the Big Ten fray after playing last season in the AAC and the ACC, respectively. While college basketball fans probably know something about Maryland from their time as an ACC heavyweight, those outside of the New York/New Jersey area that follow the B1G might not know quite as much about the Scarlet Knights. Personally, when I think Rutgers basketball, I think of this. It probably isn’t a good thing for someone as basketball-obsessed as me to think about a Saturday Night Live sketch when thinking about that program. That said, it’s a new season in a new league for the former members of the Big East and the AAC. Here’s some quick information about the program to get Big Ten fans ready for the newcomers.

Eddie Jordan is in charge of trying to get Rutgers basketball back on solid ground after the Mike Rice tenure. (USATSI)

• Last Season: The Scarlet Knights went 12-21 overall and 5-13 in the AAC. They were 6-7 in the non-conference portion of their schedule, losing to William & Mary and Farleigh Dickinson at home — for some context, Iowa beat Farleigh Dickinson 92-59. They started out 4-7 in conference play with their most impressive win coming when they beat Houston 93-70. They won a game in the AAC Tournament before bowing out to Louisville 92-31. They averaged 105.7 points per 100 possessions, which ranked 145th in the country. Only Illinois and Northwestern had worse per possession offensive numbers among Big Ten teams. They struggled even more on the defensive end, where they gave up 106.3 points per 100 possessions. That mark would have been dead last in the B1G, as only Iowa at 102.7 was in the same ballpark.

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1. Before the Cincinnati-Louisville game on Saturday, CBS analyst Greg Anthony said the winner of the game had an outside shot of making it all the way up to a #1 seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament. So does Louisville have a chance at a #1 seed? Probably not, according to Jeff Greer of the Louisville Courier-Journal. If Louisville wins out, including the AAC Tournament (it would require wins at Memphis, at SMU, and a couple more good wins in the tourney) the Cards would finish 30-4. That would be an impressive record, but there are just too many other contenders with stronger strength of schedule figures. Louisville’s non-conference strength of schedule ranks dead last (152nd) of 11 #1 seed contenders. Louisville would need several of Syracuse, Kansas, Duke and others to struggle down the stretch to have a realistic chance for a top seed.
2. While some have criticized the AAC for its poor strength of schedule, don’t tell that to Temple. The Owls will face a program-record fifth consecutive ranked opponent when it faces Louisville tomorrow night. Temple has managed to win one of those five games — at home against SMU, and the Owls took Memphis to overtime on Sunday. So while it has been a very disappointing season for the Fran Dunphy’s proud program, the team’s progress is evident. After the Cardinals, Temple will face Houston and Central Florida at home and then South Florida on the road, so there’s a decent chance that the Owls could make their way out of the #10 seed slot for the AAC Tournament. Temple last faced as many as four straight ranked foes in the 1995-96 season.
3. While things aren’t going so well for Rutgers first-year head coach Eddie Jordan, there may be help on the way next year. Rutger’s commit Ibrahima Diallo, a 6-10, 225 pound post player, will provide Jordan with a true rim protector and a solid rebounder. Diallo won the Best Defensive Player Award at the talented Five-Star North Carolina Camp and earned a slot on the Five-Star Best of Summer Team. Experts compare Diallo to Connecticut freshman Amida Brimah, only quite possibly with more offensive game. Diallo has a relationship with current Scarlet Knight freshman Junior Etou and those two could provide the foundation of a front court moving forward for Jordan into the Big Ten.
4. Louisville head coach Rick Pitino will be featured in an ESPN 30 for 30 film called “Requiem For The Big East”, set to premiere at 9:00 PM on Selection Sunday, March 16. Pitino’s Louisville squad, as you recall, won the last two “old” Big East championships in Madison Square Garden. A New York native, the longtime head coach has had roots in the Big East long before his time at Louisville. The filmmaker hopes to not only tell the story of the rise of a great basketball league, but also to detail the causes of its fall. Pitino coached under Jim Boeheim at Syracuse in 1979 just before the Big East started and then coached in the league with Providence and, of course, Louisville upon its entry nearly a decade ago. Pitino’s Cardinals won two regular season Big East titles and three tournament titles in the school’s eight seasons in the conference.
5. An interesting statistic made its way around the twittersphere this week. Three coaches will enter this year’s NCAA Tournament having won their last six games, which of course resulted in national championships. Two of the those three men will represent AAC teams this March. Of course one of those is defending national champion Louisville head coach Rick Pitino, but then there’s also SMU’s Larry Brown. The last time Brown coached in the Big Dance in 1988, he was cutting down the nets with Kansas and Danny Manning leading the way. SMU is not yet a complete lock for the NCAA Tournament, but barring an epic collapse, they should find themselves safely in the field. The third coach coming in with a six-game winning streak is none other than Kentucky’s John Calipari. After winning it all in 2012, the Wildcats failed to make the Tournament a year ago. Which coach loses his streak first?

1. It’s interesting to see columnists already campaigning for SMU‘s Larry Brown to be considered for National Coach of the Year honors because there are some, myself included, who feel like he may not even win AAC Coach of the Year honors. Let’s not get the meaning of that sentence twisted; what Brown has accomplished in under two seasons in Dallas is nothing short of remarkable, but let’s not simultaneously forget that Cincinnati was considered a bubble-quality team at the onset of the season and now Mick Cronin has the Bearcats riding high (despite a recent road loss to the Mustangs). If the season ended today, the award would be a close race but I think Cronin would deserve the honor because of what he has been able to do with a mediocre offensive team and without even the same pedigree of players of SMU. If the Bearcats come back to Earth in the second half of the AAC schedule and the Mustangs find a signature win or two away from Moody Coliseum, Brown will probably have a shot to pass Cronin. As for the national honor, unless Syracuse or Wichita State loses multiple games over the next five weeks, I think Jim Boeheim and Gregg Marshall are the clear and deserving front-runners in that race.
2. I am as big an AAC homer as the next guy so I am not going to sit here and say it doesn’t feel good to point to the Associated Press Top 25 poll and mention that the conference has five teams in the poll, more than every other league except the Big Ten (also with five). Still, crowing about the poll as if it is some grand achievement is probably a bad idea too. There are a few things to remember about the conference before we start comparing it to the likes of the Big 12 and ACC. The first is that after the five teams in this week’s poll, the dropoff to the next five is precipitous, and it’s probably fair to observe that those ranked five have been able to feast on the lesser competition to help propel them up the charts, and none of the conference’s teams are considered legitimate national title contenders either. So while I am all for beating the collective conference chest about the Top 25 poll, I wouldn’t go running to my friends to start the argument that the AAC is a better basketball conference than the Big 12 quite yet.
3. Rick Pitino and his Louisville team have dealt with plenty of injuries already this season so the news that guard Wayne Blackshear has been cleared to play in Thursday’s game against Temple should be music to his ears. Blackshear missed the game against Houston last week after sustaining a concussion, and while he hasn’t had the breakout campaign many expected from him, the Cardinals could ill afford to lose such an important player for an extended period of time. The Cardinals aren’t quite as deep and talented as they’d hoped, but regardless of how he has played, Blackshear is one of the team’s best guards and outside shooters, so his presence in the lineup is a boon for this offense.
4. While it’s hard to feel bad for former Louisville forward Chane Behanan because the damage he did to his career with the Cardinals was almost entirely self-inflicted, you do get the sense from reading about his life since his dismissal that he isn’t a bad person. He made some poor decisions, was punished for them, repeated those poor decisions, and now seems to finally realize the consequences of his actions. Of course it took an exit from one of the best basketball programs in the country for him to realize the gravity of his mistakes, but you can tell from the article that he misses playing for the Cards and would like to play for them again. That ship has sailed, of course, but Behanan has landed on his feet with his transfer to Colorado State and is spending his time now working out twice per day in Houston with the well-regarded John Lucas. Behanan has found himself as the butt of a lot of jokes and bad publicity — and frankly, he earned all of it — but that doesn’t mean that we can’t wish him well as he tries to finish his collegiate career on a positive note.
5. Don’t look now but Rutgers head coach Eddie Jordan is putting together a solid and well-rounded 2014 recruiting class that got a bit stronger yesterday when the Scarlet Knights secured the commitment of North Carolina big man Ibrahima Diallo. Diallo plays for Quality Education Academy, which is a basketball factory in the Tar Heel State, and his size, athleticism and rebounding abilities make him one of the top 10 recruits in the state. The 6’10”, 230-pound Senegal native is a good finisher around the rim with the length and leaping ability to become a great shot-blocker, but he is still quite raw and will likely take some time to adjust to high-level college basketball. Diallo is the fourth commitment for the Scarlet Knights in this class, and while there aren’t any true headliners, all four players are legitimate talents and depth is one of the weaknesses holding the Scarlet Knights back right now. Jordan may not have the coaching talent and prestige to turn around the program as quickly as Larry Brown turned around SMU, but steadily upgrading his recruiting is a good way to make sure the team is at least competitive in its new conference.