Not much has gone right for Kansas State since capturing a share of the Big 12 regular season championship last season. The Wildcats advanced to the Big 12 Tournament championship game, was beateen by Kansas for the third time, then lost to #13 seed La Salle in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. Leading scorers Rodney McGruder and Angel Rodriguez graduated and transferred, respectively, and now, eight months later, K-State opened the season with a 60-58 loss to Northern Colorado, the same Northern Colorado team that was picked to finish fourth in the Big Sky Conference this season.

Bruce Weber Can’t Be Happy Through Six Games This Season. (USA Today Sports/Scott Sewell)

The Wildcats are 3-3 thanks to the Puerto Rico Tip-Off guaranteeing all teams three games, and that allowed them to grab another win over Long Beach State, a team which is #297 in the RPI and #230 on KenPom. The problems have been mostly on the offensive end for Kansas State. The Wildcats have yet to crack 72 points and are showing how dependent they were on McGruder and Rodriguez last season. Through six games, here are the key offensive metrics:

• 62.7 PPG (#326 nationally)
• 40.7% shooting (#293)
• 12.8 APG (#179)

Head coach Bruce Weber returned four players who averaged at least 10 MPG last season, but only junior forward Thomas Gipson has shown signs of improvement early this season. His minutes per game are about the same as last but his scoring is up from a couple of points per game and he is shooting over 55 percent from the floor, up from 51.7% last season. The other three players – Will Spradling, Nino Williams, and Shane Southwell – have either gotten worse or plateaued. On the surface, Southwell’s stat line of 7.8 PPG/5.3 RPG/3.2 APG looks just fine. But the senior guard has been an albatross offensively. He is taking over eight shots per game and shooting a paltry 33.3 percent from the field. His three-point percentage is even worse at 16.7 percent, but it hasn’t stopped him from taking three attempts a game. It became clear some time ago that senior guard Will Spradling isn’t a 30 MPG-type of player at the Big 12 level, but that’s about where he has been the last three seasons. With guards like McGruder, Rodriguez, and Jacob Pullen next to him, he can play as a serviceable third guard or sixth man in a pinch. But more offensive responsibility this season hasn’t led to better results. His 35 percent shooting is the worst of his career, as is his 24 percent from three-point range.

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1. Tom Izzo should be on top of the world with the start he’s gotten off to, and while he’s happy about a number of things with his team, he’s also not a fan of the one-and-done college basketball culture today. In an interview that came out Tuesday afternoon, Izzo talked about how he feels sorry for Kentucky’s players and how they’re viewed if they don’t go right to the NBA after one year of college. Izzo also commented on a number of things related to his own team, including the improvement of Keith Appling and the potential of Denzel Valentine. Appling has been a perfect catalyst for the Spartans’ fast-paced offense so far, and has been essential as the team works through the shooting slump of Gary Harris. Valentine is in the running for B1G Sixth Man of the Year, and shows off a versatile game much like former Spartan great Draymond Green.
2. Minnesota took a tough loss in Maui on Tuesday afternoon, falling 87-73 to Arkansas. It was a somewhat unique match-up for the Gophers because Arkansas is also a team that likes to employ pressure defense and force turnovers. The Razorbacks essentially beat the Gophers at their own game, causing 16 miscues. Minnesota also had trouble with Arkansas’ size, which is something that could be a problem down the road. What the loss showed is that the team will have to get much more out of Joey King, Oto Osenicks, and the recently reinstated Maurice Walker to really get anywhere significant in the postseason.
3. Illinois  head coach John Groce went over things with his freshmen as basic as how to dress for a flight and how to eat and sleep on the road in advance of their first road trip of the season to take on UNLV Tuesday night. While the Illini has some veterans on the squad, there are also five freshman who see the court a decent amount of the time. It’s easy in Groce’s situation to take things like going over travel etiquette for granted, but he must have done something right in this instance. Freshman Jaylon Tate led the team with five assists as they squeaked out a 61-59 win in the waning seconds. There was no word on whether said freshmen met Groce’s expectations in terms of in-flight decorum, however.
4. College Basketball Talk announced its Player of the Year power rankings, and Keith Appling came in ninth in their 10-person list. He was the only B1G player selected, with Aaron Craft making it in the “others” category. While trying to avoid doing things like blasting Rob Dauster on Twitter, asking him if he’s ever seen Tim Frazier play, this list shows that Appling is making an impact nationally and people are starting to take notice. Averaging 16.8 points and 5.7 assists per game, all the while shooting 57.1 percent from three for the top-ranked team in the country, should definitely put Appling in the running for postseason superlatives if those numbers stay consistent.
5. It’s far too early to talk about next season with the present one only being less than three weeks old, but apparently a Louisville-Minnesota tilt is being lined up for the beginning of the 2014-15 season. Furthermore, Rick Pitino said that things are being finalized to play the game on an aircraft carrier (let’s hope indoors). One takeaway was how eager he sounded to play against his son. Usually coaches don’t like playing against someone they are close to, but maybe the Pitino family is wired differently than most others in the coaching fraternity. One thing for sure is that the game would be entertaining, as both high-pressure defenses would make for a chaotic thrill ride for 40 minutes.

Friday night was a busy one for the B1G, as seven teams were in action spread out throughout the course of the day. When the final buzzer sounded at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the league had gone 5-2, with two instant classics in Michigan-Florida State, and Indiana-Connecticut. What follows are some observations from these games, and what they could mean to each Big Ten team going forward.

Nike Stauskas is quickly becoming a B1G POY candidate. .

1. Nebraska: Terran Petteway is an emerging go-to-guy. Petteway has averaged 24.5 PPG in the Charleston Classic thus far, after averaging 11.3 PPG in the Huskers’ first three wins. He’s did a tremendous job getting to the free throw line on Thursday, and on Friday he took more than 25 percent of the team’s shots from the field. Despite the losses in Charleston, Petteway is becoming the face of the Nebraska offense.
2. Michigan: This is becoming Nik Stauskas’ team. Glenn Robinson III and Mitch McGary got almost all of the preseason accolades, but Stauskas is quickly proving that he’s not just a deadly accurate spot-up shooter. He’s showing that he has far more athleticism in his ability to get into the lane, which helped Michigan turn the tables on Florida State Friday night. It’s obviously still early, but Stauskas is quickly playing his way into contention for B1G Player of the Year accolades. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Keith Appling has been off to a hot start this season for Michigan State, but make no mistake the heart of the Spartans’ offense is Gary Harris.  Tom Izzo wants him to take at least 15 shots a game.  If Harris is knocking down shots from the perimeter, it will open up more of the floor for Michigan State specifically Adreian Payne. Harris was voted the preseason Big Ten Player of the Year and will be under constant pressure to perform at a high level.
2. A big question mark heading into this season for Ohio State was whether Amir Williams could finally step up and become an offensive threat on the post.  So far, Williams has performed well.  He is averaging 9.5 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks a game. Last year, the Buckeyes never really had a true post threat as Evan Ravenel saw time and even DeShaun Thomas would play some five.  It will be crucial to the Buckeyes’ success that Williams produces down low, especially against Big Ten foes.
3. Losing 2014 point guard prospect Quentin Snider was a big blow to John Groce and his Illinois program.  Snider was deemed the point guard of the future once Tracy Abrams last.  However, Illinois may have found their future point guard internally already.  Jaylon Tate has played extremely well in backing up Abrams this season. Tate actually leads the conference in assist to turnover ratio.  The Chicago product may have gotten lost in the shuffle next year, with Oregon State transfer Ahmad Starks becoming eligible and Snider was also suppose to be on campus.  Now, Tate looks like the key guy to run Groce’s offense for future seasons.
4. It’s a given that AJ Hammons is a valuable piece to Purdue.  So its understandable why Matt Painter wants his team to feed Hammons more on the post.  Purdue has been struggling with their three-point shooting, making Hammons low-post scoring even more crucial.  Purdue heads to Anaheim to take on Oklahoma State in the Old Spice classic next week.  Hammons will need to have one of his better scoring games to keep Purdue competitive in this one.
5. Michigan handled Long Beach State easily in the first round of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off in Thursday.  But the bigger news for Michigan may have been that their main competition in Puerto Rico lost. Both Georgetown and VCU fell in their first games, opening up the bracket significantly for the Wolverines.  Michigan will take on Florida State and a win would set up a date against either Charlotte or Northeastern. This may not have been the path Michigan envisioned, but the road to a tournament championship certainly seems brighter.

The toughest team always wins.

The visiting Virginia Commonwealth Rams have the ball under their own basket with 9.8 seconds to go, moments after a free throw from Virginia’s Malcolm Brogdon tied the game at 56.

“C’mon, you guys, you can do this,” former Navy SEAL John McGuire thought as he sat directly behind VCU’s bench. “Focus.”

Rams point guard Rob Brandenburg brings the ball past halfcourt, cuts to his right and passes to shooting guard Treveon Graham above the top of the key. Graham launches a three-pointer from nearly 30 feet away, snapping the net with just three seconds remaining. The Cavaliers miss a final-second heave.

Just like McGuire taught them.

McGuire, who rode on the Rams’ bus to Charlottesville and gave the pregame speech, has worked with coach Shaka Smart’s team since just after the Final Four run in 2011. The former sniper instructor now runs SEAL Team Physical Training, a Richmond, Virginia, business that focuses on fitness and team-building exercises, including for athletic teams. Smart found out about SEAL Team PT through word of mouth and called McGuire in November 2010, asking about his philosophies on teamwork and building leaders. “I think he liked what he heard,” McGuire said.

Since beginning work with VCU, SEAL Team PT has worked with nine Division I men’s basketball programs, along with college football, lacrosse, women’s basketball and baseball teams. Last offseason, McGuire personally worked with VCU, Toledo and Illinois, teams that are a combined 10-0 in 2013-14.

“Get comfortable being uncomfortable.”

McGuire prides himself on taking people out of their comfort zones with his drills, many of them taken from his Navy SEAL training. Working on an unfamiliar task levels the playing field. It forces the people taking part to work together, lead, be confident and communicate. Players are usually divided into teams for their tasks, which can include anything from push-ups and running to carrying a sandbag or rowing a boat together. Given the limited time constraints afforded McGuire by NCAA rules – sometimes his training sessions are as short as three one-hour sessions within a week – cultivating chemistry and rapport is at the top of his task list.

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It’s been impossible to avoid noticing the difference in foul calls so far this season. The new hand-check rules and officials intent on enforcing every foul has caused free throw attempts to shoot up and games to slow down. Across all of Division I basketball, free throw attempts are up a whopping 22.8 percent (about 4.5  more attempts per game). This amounts to about 24.3 attempts per game, the highest mark since 1971-72 when it was at 25.6 FTA per contest. This has caused some complaints among B1G coaches, most notably Purdue‘s Matt Painter, who called them “excessive” following his Boilermakers’ recent win. While the foul calls and free throws may slightly drop as officials adapt and study film, almost any contact for now causes a whistle to blow. With this in mind, it seemed like a good time to look at the Big Ten team’s free throw shooting so far this season compared to last season’s totals through roughly the same amount of games. You can look at the table below to get a good gauge of exactly what has and is happening with your favorite B1G team and the conference overall.

Some notable trends:

• Overall, the B1G is shooting free throws at an even higher rate than the country with a 28.2 percent increase as it has attempted 232 more total free throws than at this point last season. This equates to more than 19 additional free throw attempts per team so far. Only Michigan State has shot fewer free throws at this same point, and Michigan and Minnesota are near where they were last year at this time. Every other team is up.
• Could more trips to the line mean more comfort while there? Most teams at this point have experienced a positive change in free throw percentage, with Penn State, Indiana, Ohio State and Nebraska the four teams showing a decrease.

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Another full weekend of college hoops is in the books, and although it didn’t hold the same level of excitement of the opening weekend, there were plenty of memorable moments. Here’s a collection of sights and sounds — buzzer-beaters, top dunks, and of course, the season’s first RTC — from the last three days. Enjoy.

Hilton Magic. The season’s first RTC took place on November 17, perhaps the earliest we’ve ever seen when Iowa State beat Michigan. Was it justified?

#4 Dunkdafied. Marshall’s Elijah Pittman got way, way up, and-one, for this lob against Morehead State on Sunday.

Buzzer-Beating. Kentucky’s Andrew Harrison hit a 75-footer right before the halftime buzzer versus Robert Morris, but unfortunately, he traveled before he released it. No bucket.

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1. Villanova is off to a strong start, and the bloggers over at Big East Coast Bias got together to discuss the Wildcats. The writers are all impressed by senior James Bell, who is off to a torrid start this season, averaging 18 points and 8.5 rebounds per game through three contests. They also delve into Villanova’s standing among the “City 6,” the team’s non-conference slate heading into the Battle 4 Atlantis later this month, and the overall Big East play so far this season (hint: Doug McDermott is good).  The roundtable is a good read for anyone just getting caught up with this early season.
2. Speaking of Doug McDermott, he flashed some early season heroics in an 83-79 win over a good Saint Joseph’s team, giving the Bluejays the lead with a late jumper and drawing a foul to secure a victory for the Bluejays in a come-from-behind victory. While McDermott will get a lot of credit for the win, and deservedly so with 20 points on 7-of-14 shooting, Ethan Wragge, Devin Brooks and Grant Gibbs all played huge roles in the victory as well. Wragge led the way for the Bluejays with 21 points, while Brooks scored 16 in just 21 minutes of play. McDermott has never really been a question for Creighton, but many wonder how the rest of the team will respond to the increased competition in the Big East; this win over Saint Joseph’s may have gone a long way towards assuaging some of those concerns.
3. In college basketball recruiting, there are a few selector schools, and the rest of the nation is usually fighting an uphill battle against them when it comes to landing the true blue-chip prospects that define the sport. As a major program in a basketball hotbed like Chicago, one would think that DePaul would be a player in the local recruiting battles, but they are all too often left standing at the altar. The most recent example is Cliff Alexander, the third-ranked player in ESPN’s Top 100, had both the Blue Demons and another in-state program, Illinois, on his final list, before ultimately choosing Kansas. Chicago Sun-Times writer Ken Morrissey was none too impressed, calling the signing event “a funeral.” “I feel bad for Illinois coach John Groce and DePaul coach Oliver Purnell. When Mike Krzyzewski or John Calipari loses a stud recruit, he shrugs and signs another McDonald’s All-American. For Groce, there is no shrugging. I’m guessing there’s something that looks a lot like dry heaving. A player of Alexander’s skills can make all the difference in the world to an Illinois. Or he can bring a program to its knees. I believe Illinois was kneeling Friday.”
4. In happier Big East recruiting news, Seton Hall‘s lauded 2014 recruiting class is all signed and ready to go. The class, which is currently ranked ninth by 247sports.com, includes top shooting guard prospect Isaiah Whitehead, four star power forward Angel Delgado, guard Khadeen Carrington, and forward Ismael Sanogo. The class is expected to be a transformative one for a Seton Hall program that hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2006 and has gone without a conference title for 20 years. The class also makes a strong mark for the Pirates in their local recruiting areas, with Whitehead and Carrington coming from Brooklyn and Sanogo making the short trip to campus from Newark.
5. Much has been written about the Seton Hall-Niagara 102 free throw game and what it means for a game that is taking a large step to eliminate the hand-checking that we’ve seen slow down the game in recent years, but that wasn’t the only game with a Big East team that was hugely affected. Marquette-Ohio State, a rematch of last season’s aircraft carrier game that wasn’t, devolved into a brutal slugfest of a game, ending in a 52-35 Buckeye win, a game so hard to watch that it put CBS Sports‘ Matt Norlander to sleep: “I have no shame — in fact, I think this feeling is pride — in telling you that I passed out on my couch for 20 minutes while attempting to get through this one, knowing full well I had to write about it once it was over.”  Many of these games and free throw shooting contests have been hard to watch, but as a fan of the game I still hold onto hope that this is a good thing in the long run. Ugly games in November are a small price to play for exciting, clean basketball come March.

Louisville’s weekend is already off to a spectacular start before the basketball game versus Cornell even tips off this evening. Homegrown Class of 2014 Ballard High School product and four-star point guard Quentin Snider elected to return to the red and black by signing with the Cardinals Friday morning. Snider, a lifelong Louisville fan, had committed to Rick Pitino’s squad during his sophomore season before rescinding his commitment earlier this year and verbaling to Illinois. Sound familiar? James Blackmon Jr. recently did the same thing with Indiana by first committing, then backing off, then coming back to sign with the Hoosiers. Blackmon Jr. never committed to another team, however, so that makes Snider’s waffling back and forth a bit different.

Quentin Snider Decided to Stay Home After All

The Louisville coaching staff quit recruiting Snider after he decommitted, while the Hoosier staff reportedly kept after Blackmon. Regardless, a practice that before was rare — a player recommitting to a team he had previously decommitted from — has now happened twice in a matter of weeks. Snider originally cited the bevy of backcourt players on the roster and  other recruited as a reason to look elsewhere. But, since then, JaQuan Lyle decommitted from the Cardinals, which opened up an opportunity for Snider to slide into his place. He made it official by signing his letter of intent earlier yesterday. He also took to Twitter to break the news. Snider stabilizies the point guard position for the Cardinals for the next few years, which brings a sigh of relief to Louisville fans since Pitino recently said junior Chris Jones would make a good offensive spark off of an NBA bench.

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The bad news started early. Quentin Snider changed his mind again, deciding to spurn Illinois and going back to his original verbal pledge to Louisville. This news snowballed on at about 3:15 PM when Cliff Alexander, a potential one-and-done type that could lead a team to the Final Four, decided to leave his home state and go to Kansas instead of the Illini. In a few short hours, Illinois went from having a top five class to one with only one ESPN top 100 recruit (Leron Black). So what I’m advising all the Illini fans out there to do is as follows: Take a deep breath, count to 10, and then hear me out when I say that everything is going to be fine. I’m not just patronizing, I really believe the Illini are a program on the rise with or without Alexander in the fold next season. Here’s why.

Even after losing out on the Cliff Alexander sweepstakes, John Groce still has Illinois on the rise.

If people watched the announcement live on ESPNU like I did, you could see someone who appeared torn up by the decision he was about to make. If Illinois was as close as it was rumored to be, then it shows that Groce is almost ready to kick in the door and end the long trend of top 30 Chicago talents playing elsewhere. He made a distinct impact on Alexander, and for the Illini to get that close when in the past he might not have even considered them, shows Groce is going to get more Chicago elite recruits to stay in state. It’s only a matter of time. He already got a commitment from 2015 wing D.J. Williams from Chicago Simeon High School, and has a chance to add two more from in Jalen Brunson and Charles Matthews. What a miss on Alexander means is that it might be a little bit more of a baby-step progression as opposed to the huge leap that would have happened with Alexander on board. Regardless of today’s results, the program is still in great shape for next year and beyond.

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