No surprise here: Tim Frazier leads all Big Ten scorers through Wednesday’s games. (Photo credit: theschoolphilly.com)

• Illinois (2-0) — It may not be much — wins against St. Francis (NY) and Colgate — but the John Groce era got off on the right foot. The interesting thing (and it could be a good sign) is that the Illini have found ways to win without shooting the ball particularly well. They’ve shot 44 percent from the field and 56 percent from the free throw line in their first two games, but have shot well from three, defended well, and kept their turnovers down in a way that they were unable to during most of exhibition play. 
• No. 1 Indiana (2-0) — So far, so good for the top-ranked Hoosiers. It’s disappointing that Tom Crean doesn’t have a better non-conference slate scheduled for us to get a real good grasp on the talent level of his group. Georgia on November 19 may be the first relatively tough game for the Hoosiers before a November 27 meeting with No. 14 North Carolina. Other than that, a December 15 meeting against a rebuilding Butler group might be the only other litmus test. Don’t expect the Hoosiers to really have their backs up against the wall until well after the New Year.

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Chad Lykins, the RTC recruiting guru. 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 discussing the recruitments of the top uncommitted players in the country. We also encourage you to check out his contributions dedicated solely to Duke Basketball at Duke Hoop Blog. You can also follow Chad at his Twitter account @CLykinsBlog for up-to-date breaking news from the high school and college hoops scene. If you have any suggestions as to areas we are missing or different things you would like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Note: ESPN Recruiting used for all player rankings

Indiana Adds Noah Vonleh To Loaded Class

As Saturday night concluded, the Indiana Hoosiers landed a significant piece to its 2013 recruiting class that quickly vaulted them up the class rankings to join the likes of Kentucky and Memphis. Five-star forward Noah Vonleh, who reclassified back into his original class of 2013 in September, ended his college recruitment quicker than expected by giving the Hoosiers a verbal pledge after his official visit during Indiana’s season opener. Vonleh, the No. 8 ranked prospect in the class of 2013, was also considering Connecticut, Georgetown, North Carolina, Ohio State and Syracuse.

While visiting, 2013 No. 8 prospect Noah Vonleh chose the Indiana Hoosiers on Saturday night

“From Day One, Indiana has been recruiting me the hardest,” Vonleh told Adam Finkelstein of ESPN.com. “They were just letting me know how they could develop me into the player I want to be at the next level. Their academics are good, they’re the No. 1 team in the country and they’ve got another great class coming in next year.” With the addition of Vonleh, head coach Tom Crean has landed his highest-ranked prospect since taking the Indiana job in 2008. At 6’9″ and 220 lbs., the Massachusetts native is best described as a freak athlete. He uses his great length especially well rebounding the basketball on both ends of the floor, as he is arguably one of the best rebounders in the class, and altering shots with his shot-blocking. For a combo forward, he also has excellent ball-handling ability with an ever-improving jump shot. As his body continues to mature, with added strength to his 6’9″ frame he will be more efficient from the low post with his endless potential.

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Tonight’s Lede. The 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon Returns. If the college hoops calendar consists of a series of holidays, ESPN’s annual Tip-Off marathon measures up with the sport’s best celebratory events. It doesn’t quite provide the suspense of March Madness, or the do-or-die desperation of conference championship week, but the 24 hour-long dose of nonstop hoops action that tipped off at Midnight ET with West Virginia visiting Gonzaga captures the essence of fandom in a way no other sporting event can. This is when the true diehards put their mental fortitude – and their ability to resist somnolent desires – to the test. Even if you can’t make it through the night without sneaking in a few Zs between games, don’t worry. For most, the marathon goes down sweeter in pieces; fortunately this year’s slate offers no shortage of highlights. So if you’ve already hit your saturation point on college hoops viewing, or are still gearing up for tonight’s headliners, enjoy the round-the-clock drama. It is the apex of college basketball’s scheduling ingenuity.

Your Watercooler Moment. Gonzaga Destroys West Virginia Again.

Beard Or No Beard on Kilicli, This is Becoming a Trend ( AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

In a rematch of last year’s Second Round NCAA Tournament game between the Zags and Mountaineers, tonight’s result was surprisingly similar to the game played last March — the only major difference was the setting. Last season, after traveling cross-country to face WVU in their backyard (Pittsburgh), the Zags ran out to a quick 27-10 lead and never looked back in a dominating 77-54 win. Tonight, after West Virginia repaid the favor in traveling cross-country to Spokane, the Zags ran out to a 34-12 lead en route to a dominating 84-50 win. It’s actually quite eerie to view the two box scores side by side, given how similarly both games played out. Over the past two games, Gonzaga has outscored the Mountaineers by a ridiculous 57 points, and the vaunted WVU defense has given up better than 50% shooting from both the field and beyond the arc in these two games. After last season’s loss, Bob Huggins said that he’d “never gotten beat like that” — clearly Mark Few’s team has provided the road map for the Big 12 in beating the Mountaineers, because it just happened again.

Tonight’s Quick Hits…

• Hoosiers Keep On Rolling. Gleaning meaningful analysis from early season cupcake draws is never easy, so it’s hard to make too much of Indiana’s blistering 2-0 start, which includes a combined 69-point victory margin over Bryant and North Dakota State. But the Hoosiers have done little to shake their preseason perception, which is another way of saying Indiana looks like a #1 team. Cody Zeller finished with 22 points and nine rebounds and sophomore guard Remy Abell added 14 of his own against the Bison, who are expected to challenge the Nate Wolters-led South Dakota Jackrabbits for the Summit League crown.
• Hawkeyes Freshman Continues to Impress. The name most every big Ten fan mentions in Iowa-related hoops discussions is freshman center Adam Woodbury, and for good reason: the Iowa native spurned offers from North Carolina, Ohio State and Wisconsin before deciding to stay in his home state. Woodbury will come around eventually — he’s a legitimate seven-feet, armed with above-average athleticism and a refined offensive game. After two games, though, fellow freshman Mike Gessell looks the more well-rounded product. Gessell notched five points and five assists in the Hawkeyes’ 73-61 victory over Central Michigan Monday night. With a few more performances like that, Gessell, not Woodbury, can assert himself as the Hawkeyes’ best freshman asset.
• Balance Key For Memphis in Season-Opening Win. The notion that Memphis coach Josh Pastner is a better recruiter than coach is a popular one, and at this point in his tenure, probably a fair one. His early recruiting successes could finally pay dividends this season, just in time for the Tigers’ move to the Big East in 2012-13. The Tigers removed the curtain on their immensely-talented roster Monday night with a comfortable 81-66 defeat of North Florida. Forward Tarik Black led all scorers with 18 points, while point guard Joe Jackson added 14 points, six rebounds and five assists. Memphis gets one more tuneup Saturday with Samford before the Battle 4 Atlantis, far and away the best compilation of top-to-bottom talent of any non-conference tournament on this year’s slate.
• No Rust For New-Look Michigan. There were few teams who polarized the college hoops punditry this preseason as much as Michigan. Various rankings pegged the Wolverines anywhere from outside the Top 25 to a Final Four contender. There’s good reason for this wide difference of opinion. Michigan is replacing a host of capable shooters (Zack Novak, Stu Douglass) with a frontcourt-heavy freshmen class. That kind of personnel turnover and roster dynamic is not, on its face, amenable to John Beilein’s guard-oriented attack. Early season results – the latest a 91-54 rout over IUPUI Monday night – indicate otherwise. Much-hyped freshman Glenn Robinson III submitted 21 points on 8-of-9 shooting, including 3-of-3 from beyond the arc. As Michigan prepares for its ACC-Big Ten Challenge matchup with NC State (November 27), the new pieces are firing on all cylinders.
• Florida State is Going To Be Ok, After All. The most disappointing result of opening weekend was Florida State’s 76-71 home loss to South Alabama. Esteemed guard Michael Snaer finished 2-of-11 from the field, the stingy defense we’ve come to know from Leonard Hamilton’s teams of recent vintage was inexplicably AWOL, and you couldn’t help but walk away thinking the Seminoles didn’t enter the season in a sound mental state. Florida State rebounded from that harsh reality check against Buffalo, with Snaer contributing 19 points and forward Okaro White adding 13. More importantly, the Seminoles brought the defensive intensity that made them such a dangerous team last season. Buffalo turned it over 25 times and hit just six of 17 three-point shots. A note: Lead guard Javon McCrea, the reigning MAC freshman of the year, scored a team-high 17 points on 8-of-12 shooting.

And Misses…

• Youngstown State Not Rewarded For Upsetting Georgia. Thanks to predetermined rules that set in stone the semifinal teams of the Legends Classic, Youngstown State cannot advance to the Brooklyn-based semifinal despite knocking off Georgia 68-56 in a game that saw the Bulldogs score just 14 points by halftime and shoot just over 32 percent from the field. The only reason Georgia kept the deficit within a respectable margin was Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who finished 10-of-18 from the field for 27 points and six rebounds. The Penguins are steadily improving under head coach Jerry Slocum and are more than capable of competing at the top half of the Horizon League in 2012-13. That said, even for a team as flawed and preponderantly-reliant on one player as Georgia is Caldwell-Pope, this counts as a bad loss, and a major stain on the early non-conference ledger. The Bulldogs clearly have some work to do before they get into SEC play.
• Early Struggles Continue for LIU. Last month brought a very promising development for LIU’s hopes at winning a third consecutive Northeast Conference title. That’s when the Blackbirds learned the fates of four of their best players (including reigning NEC player of the year Julian Boyd and All-NEC forward Jamal Olaswere), all of whom were awaiting word on their status following an on-campus altercation that led to arrests and third-degree assault charges. The players would have to miss two NEC conference games, they learned, and take anger management courses and file community service work… and that’s about it. Their availability apparently has not helped LIU’s early season fortunes. The Blackbirds fell to 0-2 Monday night, the latest loss coming against projected middle-of-the-pack Patriot League member Lafayette. In two games, LIU has scored a combined 168 points, which leads one to believe defense ranks highly on the Blackbirds’ early season checklist. For the most part, An 0-1 start is forgivable. Lose your first two against inferior competition, and there are serious questions to be had about LIU’s mindset and focus level following a tumultuous offseason.
• What’s Wrong with North Texas? People were legitimately peeved about the lack of television arrangements for Friday night’s Creighton-North Texas game. This was two of the nation’s best mid-major teams, or so we thought, featuring two of the nation’s best players in Doug McDermott and Tony Mitchell. What transpired was a disappointment; the Mean Green were outclassed in Omaha as McDermott legitimated his NPOY hype with a sterling 21-point, 11-rebound effort. That wasn’t a huge surprise. Monday night’s Preseason NIT defeat to Division II Alabama-Huntsville in Manhattan, Kansas, merits an entirely different analytical tone. The win by Alabama-Huntsville represents not only the first appearance by a D-II team in the PNIT, but now also the first victory.

Monday’s All-Americans.

• Jackie Carmichael, Illinois State. The Redbirds’ star blew up for 27/10/3 assts in only 24 minutes of action as his team destroyed UC Santa Barbara in its season opener.
• Anthony Bennett, UNLV (NPOY). Quite a debut Monday night for the precocious Bennett, who dropped 22/7/2 blks in a mere 20 minutes of action as UNLV routed Northern Arizona.
• Garrick Sherman, Notre Dame. The reserve big man for the Irish went for 22/9 including six offensive boards in Notre Dame’s crushing win over Monmouth.
• Glenn Robinson III, Michigan. So far, so good for the Big Puppy, as Robinson has only missed three shots in two games this season after his 21/6 night on 8-9 shooting in a win over IUPUI.
• Kadeem Batts, Providence. A 27-point, nine-rebound night for the junior big man looking to break out in a big way this season for Ed Cooley’s Friars.

Dunkdafied. This was from late last week, but it’s worth showing here. Detroit’s Doug Anderson looked a little like Scottie Pippen on this swoop to the hoop…

1. Friday was supposed to be about the games, but perhaps the biggest news all last week came out of NCAA headquarters where it declared UCLA freshman Shabazz Muhammad ineligible to play “due to violations of NCAA amateurism rules,” citing his travel and lodging on unofficial visits to two schools — reportedly Duke and UNC — in addition to the already discussed relationship between his family and financial advisors. Perhaps given the timing of the announcement, for which the NCAA probably figured it would receive criticism, they also mentioned how long it took the Muhammad family to produce the necessary documents (a full three months) meaning that the NCAA took a little over one week to come to a decision and within a few hours of completing the necessary interviews. It should be pointed out that this ruling does not mean that Muhammad is done for the season, as the NCAA did not specify the duration of his ineligibility and UCLA plans to appeal the ruling. As we said before we are not that surprised by this decision, but expect this to play out over the next few weeks. Hopefully Muhammad stays at UCLA long enough for a final decision to be made.
2. As for the actual games, there were quite a few interesting storylines over the weekend, but the one that stood out was the cancellation of the two naval ship games on Friday night due to issues with condensation. The only outdoor game that was actually completed was the Sunday afternoon match-up between Syracuse and San Diego State and even that one had to be moved from Friday due to inclement weather. As we have said on this site before, the naval ship idea is nice as a morale boost for the troops and brings some good publicity to the sport when it is pulled off correctly, but as this weekend demonstrated there are too many confounding variables to make it a viable repeatable event. As much as we hate to say it just one year after the Carrier Classic was one of the highlights of last season, but the outdoor ship games need to go. If you want to do something to honor the troops on Veterans Day weekend, do something like what Michigan State and Connecticut did in Germany and play in front of them indoors — an airplane hangar works out just fine.
3. On Friday we ran a column featuring the winners and losers of the week. If we were doing another one today, Tom Crean would have to be at the top of the winners list as he not only added Noah Vonleh, the #8 recruit in the class of 2013, but he also signed a contract extension that runs through 2020 and pays him $3.16 million per year in base salary. As big as the Vonleh signing is (he might end up being Cody Zeller’s replacement if Zeller opts to enter the NBA Draft after this season), the contract extension should be a huge recruiting tool for Crean particularly as he recruits against more established coaches at the other top schools around the country. Kentucky fans might still mock the Hoosiers and their Sweet Sixteen rings, but the way things are looking we could have a very competitive interstate rivalry over the next decade even if the schools can’t come to an agreement to play each other.
4. Butler announced that it was starting a public fundraising campaign to get to the $16 million it needs to renovate Hinkle Fieldhouse. The school has already raised $11 million on its own, but needs to raise an additional $5 million to meet its goal. As much as we love Hinkle we understand the need to raise money to renovate it and help Butler stay competitive with the other high-level programs it competes against, but we are having a hard time with the naming opportunity section. For a place that seems essentially a temple/church of basketball, naming every nut and bolt in the place seems a little strange. Having said that if one of our generous benefactors wants to name something after us we would be willing to lend our name so long as it isn’t something particularly offensive, like a urinal.
5. Over the years we have commented on more than one occasion about the Taylor King saga as the former McDonald’s All-American bounced around from school to school, but we never knew much about his background. Jeff Goodman was able to get access to Taylor and his family to produce an excellent piece about the issues that King was dealing with including an overbearing father and a marijuana problem. King is currently in Taiwan trying to make a comeback while getting his his life together. It seems like we often hear about players failing to live up to their potential and writers and fans inevitably make fun of them (hello, Reeves Nelson), but as this case illustrates there is usually a lot more going on in the background that we never know about at the time.

Who Won the Week? is a regular column that will outline and discuss three winners and losers from the previous week. The author of this column is Kenny Ocker (@KennyOcker), an Oregon-based sportswriter best known for his willingness to drive anywhere to watch a basketball game.

WINNER: College basketball where you’d least expect it

Hangar 5 on Ramstein Air Base Is Today’s Game Site

One year after playing North Carolina on the USS Carl Vinson, Michigan State has found an even crazier place to play: Ramstein Air Force Base in Kaiserslautern, Germany. The Spartans will face a UConn team without Jim Calhoun as (full-time) head coach for the first time since Dom Perno led the Huskies in 1985-86. Two other games are copying Michigan State’s lead, as Marquette and Ohio State will play on the deck of the USS Yorktown in Charleston, South Carolina, and Georgetown heads to Jacksonville to take on Florida on the USS Bataan amphibious assault ship. Sunday, Syracuse takes on San Diego State on the USS Midway, in the Orange’s first regular-season game in the Pacific Time Zone in more than a decade. As long as there’s a few ingenious ideas about new locations — and some enterprising tournament hosts looking to make some cash — this could become the next scheduling trend to rush through college basketball, much as exempt tournaments have over the last half-decade.

(Related losers: Fans whose home openers get put off a little while longer.)

LOSER: Scotty Wilbekin

The junior at Florida was set to seize a starting role with the departures of Bradley Beal and Erving Walker, but instead managed to land himself in coach Billy Donovan’s doghouse for an undisclosed team rules violation on the eve of the season. In his stead, shooting guard Kenny Boynton will slide over to ballhandling duties — where his shot selection has been spotty in the past — and once-heralded Rutgers transfer Mike Rosario will likely start at off guard. Off the bench, Wilbekin led the Gators with a 2.8 assist-to-turnover ratio last season on a team that led the Southeastern Conference in the statistic. With significant scoring talent elsewhere on the court, Wilbekin’s distribution skills will be necessary throughout the year, and the Gators are a worse team without him.

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This is the first installment of our weekly Big Ten Power Rankings, which will go out each Friday. This week’s voters were Deepak Jayanti, Joey Nowak and Kevin Trahan of the Big Ten microsite.

1. Indiana Hoosiers: The top-ranked team in the country gets the top spot in our power rankings. The Hoosiers are stacked, returning a majority of last year’s starters, including national player-of-the-year candidate Cody Zeller. Christian Watford, Victor Oladipo, Will Sheehey and Jordan Hulls also return, making this one of the deepest, most talented team in the country. Zeller will get most of the hype, but the guards will be just as important to the Hoosiers’ success. The pieces are finally in place for Tom Crean’s squad to make a National Championship run.

The Hoosiers and Wolverines Populate the Top of Our Power Rankings (AP Photo/T. Ding)

2. Michigan Wolverines: The Wolverines have talent across the board and will come at your from every single position on the floor. Trey Burke is one of the top point guards in the country and will lead a talented group of freshmen that is being hyped by some as the next “Fab Five.” That group is overshadowing star guard Tim Hardaway Jr., who should have another solid year. If Burke can assert himself as a leader and facilitator in the halfcourt sets, expect Michigan to produce a 30-win season.

3. Ohio State Buckeyes: The Buckeyes return one of the Big Ten’s best defenders and floor generals in Aaron Craft, and a lethal post presence in Deshaun Thomas. Outside of Craft, Thomas and Lenzelle Smith Jr., there isn’t a lot of experience, but this is one of the most talented teams in the Big Ten. The Buckeyes are counting on Sam Thompson and Amir Williams to step up in their first year of significant playing time, with Thompson taking on the role of scorer. Williams should be helpful on defense. With great athletes and a deeper-than-normal bench, Thad Matta has plenty of weapons.

4. Michigan State Spartans: The Spartans didn’t impress in exhibition play, but Branden Dawson looks fantastic in his return from ACL surgery and Tom Izzo’s group has the athleticism to run on both ends of the floor. Michigan State doesn’t have a true leader at this point like it had last year with Draymond Green. However, Keith Appling, Derrick Nix and Dawson all are in position to take on that role. Add in talented freshman Gary Harris, and MSU, while flying under the radar, could climb back to the top of the Big Ten. However, scoring may be an issue.

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Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

The interminable offseason breeds countless hours of boredom and frustration. With seven months separating the net-cutting ceremony that signals the end of every college hoops campaign and the opening tip that begins it, perusing the internet and conjuring up ideas to write about on a daily basis becomes an exercise in creative determination. This is not the NBA, where free agency bridges the gap between the Finals and training camp. The college basketball season has a definitive start and end. Though that line is beginning to blur with amplified recruiting coverage and limited summer practices, when the field of 68 is finally whittled down to one, and the soft tunes of One Shining Moment set off an emotional carousel unlike any other in American sports – from utter despair and devastation for the losing fan base to extreme delight and exultation for the national champion – the hardwood action that has so thoroughly captivated fans across the nation over the previous five months with nonstop intrigue and resume-building/crashing drama grinds to a screeching halt. It’s why the National Championship game always feels like a foreboding culmination, like the end of an enchanting joyride that closes with equal parts satisfaction and disappointment. The warped sense of reality defined by conference races, argumentative bubble talk and AP Poll hand-wringing is swept away without but a single warning to prepare for the lull. Amidst all the joy of a championship celebration and the highly-anticipated lead up to the Final Four, there stands the harsh reality of a painfully long college hoops drought. We college hoops scribes have grown to accept this dichotomy as one negative in an overwhelmingly enjoyable state of affairs. Because no matter how much we dread the dry offseason, the gloomy days spent panging for loaded campus gyms, and buzzer beaters, and visible fan passion, the torture is justified by the sweet end.

Three shipside games will christen a new college hoops season (Photo credit: Getty Images).

The journey to that end begins tonight, and not a moment too soon. We here at RTC have a date with college hoops, one that’s seven months overdue. She cannot evade us, nor the rest of the hoops viewing public, any longer, because tonight the lovefest commences. If you are a first-time viewer of the sport, consider this a warning: What you are about to see may distort your expectations. Over the next three days, teams will eschew traditional playing grounds to meet on aircraft carriers and foreign military bases. It is a patriotic inauguration of the sport we love, but it is not – however delighted you may be by the gorgeous vistas and military backdrops adorning the proceedings – the norm. It won’t be long before geeked-up student sections and campus hysteria inhabits your nightly viewing experience. And for that, we are thankful. Ecstatic. Tantalized. However you wish to describe it or appreciate it, the message is the same: the wait is over.

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Brian Otskey is a contributor for Rush the Court. Let him know what you think at @botskey on Twitter.

The final part of our countdown is the best of the best. Here are your top 17 games of the 2012-13 college basketball season. Check out the previous editions of 68 Must-See Games here: #68-52, #51-35, and #34-18. (h/t to Zach Hayes for his assistance in building this list.)

17. November 27: North Carolina at Indiana (9:30 PM, ESPN) – An ACC/Big Ten Challenge tilt is the nightcap to game #18 on our list from Part Three of the countdown. Indiana’s non-conference schedule is incredibly weak for the top-ranked team in the nation but this game gives us an opportunity to see the Hoosiers against quality competition. James Michael McAdoo is the player mentioned by many observers to be the man at UNC this year. Going up against Christian Watford and Cody Zeller will give him a big time test early in the season.

Cody Zeller Gets a Shot at His Brother’s Old Team (Photo Credit: Reuters).

16. February 24: Michigan State at Ohio State (TBA) – There’s a lot of Big Ten flavor to our list and the reason is simple: It should be the best conference in college basketball this year. These two teams meet twice this season but this game in late February is in the middle of a brutal closing stretch for Michigan State. The Spartans have games against Michigan (twice), Indiana and Wisconsin sandwiched around this meeting in Columbus. It’s no picnic for Ohio State around that time either so a win here would be massive for either team.

They also meet: January 19 in East Lansing.

15. December 15: Louisville at Memphis (2:30 PM, FSN) – This former Conference USA rivalry will be transitioning back to a conference battle in the Big East next season (as long as Louisville sticks around, never a given in today’s climate) but they will still meet in Memphis this season. Little has been said about Memphis but the Tigers will be very good. Joe Jackson can match Peyton Siva while Memphis’ frontcourt of Adonis Thomas and Tarik Black is talented and good enough to play with Louisville’s loaded front line. This game could be higher on the list because of all the great individual match-ups involved.

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And so it begins. The time of year where we hear familiar voices on the television, faces on the floor, and our teams finally playing games that count in the standings. It is a beautiful time, indeed. With the games commencing in mere hours, we officially unveil RTC’s Preseason Top 25. In the future, you can expect our poll to come out every Monday morning. Along with the rankings will be the usual quick ‘n dirty analysis that takes a deeper dive into how the teams shake out #1-#25. To see how we did last year, check out our 2011-12 preseason poll—some right on the money (North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio State), and others not so much (Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Texas A&M). The QnD after the jump…

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Patrick Marshall of White & Blue Review is the RTC correspondent for the Missouri Valley Conference. You can find him on Twitter at @wildjays.

Top Storylines

• MVC Untouched — The Missouri Valley Conference has so far survived the first few rounds of changes among the top 15 conferences in Division I basketball (the Ivy being the other one). While every major conference, and some others even further down have been expanding or shifting, the MVC has walked away unscathed and still completely intact. That doesn’t mean there have not been rumors about teams leaving the conference at some point. The latest such mention was late this summer whenthere was a report that Evansville was on the verge of heading to the Horizon League. While some of that was theory based on some relatively weak facts, there are still cards likely to be played on that matter at some point. The question is when it will happen and who will be the first to start the falling dominoes within the league. It may turn out to be a school like Evansville that is looking to get out of the shadow of the other bigger players in the Valley.
• Can Doug McDermott have an even better season? — Creighton fans are salivating to see what McDermott can do to follow up last season, when he earned first-team All-America honors, averaged almost 23 points a game, and shot an amazing percentage behind the arc while frustrating opponents down low.  The encore may not be so much about increasing his scoring like he did from his freshman to sophomore year, but about how far he can lead the Bluejays come March. McDermott spent the summer at the Amare Stoudamire and LeBron James skills camps, but he also took some time off after almost playing two years without a break including a stint with the Team USA U-19 squad.  With so many expectations on his shoulders, it will be interesting to see if he continues to take everything in stride or listen to the whispers of the NBA and focuses on those areas of his game most likely to take him to the next level.  For the MVC as a whole, the fans probably hope for both. 

Doug McDermott Gives The MVC Something It Hasn’t Had In Many Years: A Bona Fide National POY Candidate.

• Big Men Instead of Guards—For many years, the Valley has been known as a guard’s league with not as many big-bodied frontcourt players leading the way.  Things have changed at least for the teams at the top. Along with McDermott, the Bluejays boast big man Gregory Echenique, who while topping over 300 pounds when he came to Creighton over three seasons ago, is now down to 260 and very agile. Jackie Carmichael from Illinois State impressed many at the camps he attended this summer after coming up big at the end of the season for the Redbirds. Colt Ryan, though he could be considered a guard, is more of a forward, but he can score in bunches for Evansville. Drake returns center Seth Van Deest from a shoulder injury that kept him out all season. Carl Hall will likely try to hold things down with Wichita State bringing in a bunch of new players.  Then you have Seth Tuttle from Northern Iowa who was the MVC Freshman of the Year last season. When you look at the make-up of the MVC going into this season, it is easily dominated by talented frontcourt players. 
• Deja vu Times Two—Three years ago, Greg McDermott returned to the conference that originally made him a hot commodity and has experienced success by taking Creighton back to the NCAA Tournament.  This time Southern Illinois hopes Barry Hinson has the same success coming back to the conference that he had marginal success with while at Missouri State.  It is rare that a coach returns to the same conference to coach another school, but the MVC must be a special place where two former coaches do so to coach different teams in a short period of time. Unlike McDermott who came to Creighton with a cupboard somewhat full, Hinson has a little more work to do after the struggles SIU has had for the past four seasons.

Reader’s Take I

Predicted Order of Finish

1. Creighton (27-4, 15-3)
2. Northern Iowa (24-7, 14-4)
3. Illinois State (24-7, 13-5)
4. Wichita State (23-8, 12-6)
5. Drake (15-15, 9-9)
6. Missouri State (15-16, 7-11)
7. Indiana State (15-15, 6-12)
8. Evansville (15-16, 6-12)
9. Bradley (13-18, 5-13)
10. Southern Illinois (11-20, 3-15)

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