1. The year-plus mystery about how much longer Syracuse and Pittsburgh will play as members of the Big East was partially revealed on Monday, as the conference released terms of an agreement that will allow the Orange to join the ACC in July 2013. The school will pay an exit fee of $7.5 million in return for leaving one year early (league bylaws require over two years of notice), but according to a tweet from Andy Katz, there’s no way that Pittsburgh will remain in the Big East in 2013-14 without Syracuse. Assuming that the Panthers join Syracuse as new members of the ACC that year, they’ll likely join an ACC with a loaded Duke team sitting at the top of the league and a reloaded North Carolina squad on its way back up. In other words, welcome to always. For what it’s worth, as much as we hate losing classic Big East battles such as Syracuse-Georgetown and Pittsburgh-Villanova, to note a pair, we’re also looking forward to the new blockbusters that the expanded ACC will enable. Syracuse in Cameron Indoor… Pitt visiting the Comcast Center… Yes, please.
2. The nation’s top prospect in the Class of 2013 is shutting it down for the summer AAU circuit to let his injured right heel recover. Jabari Parker will have an MRI soon to determine if it will require surgery, but his father in an interview with the Chicago Tribune that regardless of the outcome of that test, their intent is to let him rest so that he’ll be ready to play for his high school team again this fall. The Simeon (IL) HS forward is unanimously regarded as the top player in his class, but according to the article, there are “rumblings by those who rank individual teenagers for a living” that he could lose his top spot as a result of his absence in summer action. At least his dad has the right attitude about the importance of summer prep rankings: “That stuff doesn’t mean anything.”
3. It’s mid-July so somewhat surprising to see this list right now, but The Big Lead‘s Jason McIntyre released his annual ranking of the top 50 returnees in college basketball for the 2012-13 season. These things are always incredibly subjective so we’ll leave it to his legion of commenters to make snap judgments as to the list’s accuracy, but we’ll allow ourselves one critical comment: Creighton’s Doug McDermott is far better than the seventh best player in college basketball. All in all, it’s a fairly thorough list and will no doubt engender a healthy amount of debate as we move into the early months of next season. As an interesting side note, one of the comments enlightened us to a website called Value Add Basketball where next season’s players are projected based on a number of assumptions and calculations. It’s worth a few minutes of your time to poke around over there.
4. The player who McIntyre listed as the third-best player in his top 50 for next season is an RTC favorite, Murray State’s Isaiah Canaan. Will Aubrey of The Examiner did a short interview with the returning All-American, and here was the result. Canaan spent time at several of the top camps this summer, including the Chris Paul, LeBron James, and Deron Williams versions, where he was told that his game only needs a few tweaks to be ready for the next level. Despite his size (listed at only about 6’1″), he is projected at #20 overall in NBADraft.net’s 2013 mock draft — you can’t measure heart and leadership, though.
5. We’re not going to belabor this point here but in yesterday’s M5 we mentioned that there are rumblings of a significant backlash against collegiate sports from those souls — many of whom are general sports fans — who are sick and tired of the scandals, the hypocrisies, and the rah-rah attitude that can foster situations where a known child molester is free to terrorize children for 13 years under the auspices of a moral and ethical university. The Atlantic‘s James Fallows put together a mash-up of user responses to the Penn State scandal and their tone crystallizes exactly what we were talking about. Are we reaching a tipping point where college athletics as we know it will come crumbling down and rebuilt as a quasi-professional entity with transparency about what it is; or will it continue down this beer and circus path that some have derided for years, but of which many others are finally starting to notice?

1. It seemed like just another summer Friday to most of us around the college basketball universe, but Friday the 13th to Connecticut represented the school’s last chance at a reprieve from the NCAA regarding its postseason ban for next season. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the NCAA Committee on Academic Performance wrapped up its meeting last week with no change to its policies in calculating the Academic Progress Rate (APR), effectively shutting down UConn’s final hopes for a last-minute shift in its eligibility. The good news for the Husky program is that on the same day head coach Jim Calhoun, who has two years remaining on his contract, publicly stated that he would coach in Storrs for at least two more seasons. Even without the carrot of the NCAA Tournament motivating his team, Calhoun apparently believes that his squad will be pretty good next year. But of more importance to the program is whether he can rebuild through recruiting and player development so that, if 2013-14 is indeed his final season of a glorious career, the Huskies will be well positioned to remain among the elite for the next head coach.
2. You recall last week that Class of 2013 superstar recruit Jabari Parker released his list of final 10 schools with many of the usual suspects on it. One notable wild card candidate was the appearance of local school DePaul on his list. As this article by the Chicago Tribune notes, Parker is in the unique position of potentially revitalizing a proud and historically relevant program that could springboard to a long-awaited renaissance even with only one season of the star forward on campus. Some 35 years ago, a silky smooth Chicagoan by the name of Mark Aguirre went through a similar selection process, ultimately deciding to stay home and lead the Blue Demons to the Final Four. Whether Parker follows the siren song of the national names such as Calipari, Krzyzewski and Williams or stays local remains to be seen, but the #1 player in his class projects out as a player in the mold of Paul Pierce who can make a difference immediately.
3. Seth Davis took some time this week to profile Lehigh’s CJ McCollum, possibly the top returning mid-major guard in America next season. The clear theme of the piece is the chip on McCollum’s shoulder as a result of numerous schools, coaches, players, and others slighting him over the years. His experience at the recent LeBron James Skills Academy in front of a number of high profile scouts solidified his status as a likely first rounder in the 2013 NBA Draft, but it is his drive as someone who believes that he can play with anybody in America that has pushed his game beyond that of a normal Patriot Leaguer and into the upper echelon of college basketball talent. We cannot wait to see how he performs this coming season with (finally!) all eyes on him.
4. Sports Media Watch recently listed the top 50 most-watched sports broadcasts of the first half of 2012, and college basketball managed to grab seven of those spots. The top game, of course, was the national title match-up between Kentucky and Kansas, grabbing the #15 overall position with 20.9 million viewers — two spots behind the BCS national title game between LSU and Alabama (#13, 24.2 million), with the NFL juggernaut claiming 13 of the other 14 above it. The two Final Four games between Ohio State-Kansas and Louisville-Kentucky came next, with a couple of Elite Eight games, a Sweet Sixteen game, and a Round of 32 game (UNC-Creighton) also ranked among the group. Just how much of a different ratings game is the NFL playing with the rest of American sports? The Pro Bowl, a meaningless hurrah that almost nobody on earth cares about, outdrew the Elite Eight extravaganza game between North Carolina and Kansas by 800,000 viewers. This fact would be hilarious if it weren’t so utterly ridiculous.
5. We feel we’d be remiss if we didn’t provide a comment on last week’s Freeh Report outlining the depth and treachery of the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State University. We’ve read reams of print on this subject over the weekend from sports writers and generalists alike, and aside from the fact that we continue to sense a sea change among the populace that the concept of a student-athlete is becoming increasingly impeachable and irrelevant, the best piece out there is this one by YahooSports’ Dan Wetzel. His article carefully and convincingly points out the shameless hypocrisy of former PSU president Graham Spanier for looking the other way when a molester was terrorizing children on his campus, while shooting off at the mouth about integrity when a player had the temerity to buy a new suit with an agent’s money. As he writes: “When Spanier didn’t report Jerry Sandusky, he said it was the “humane” way to go. When Ohio State coach Jim Tressel didn’t report that some of his players got free tattoos, Spanier believed a boiling point had been reached.” It’s well worth the read.

1. Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery recently signed a seven-year contract extension. McCaffery will make approximately $1.7M after next season and will be rewarded with a raise up to $2M if the Hawkeyes make the NCAA Tournament over the next few years. Iowa has not received an NCAA Tournament bid since 2006, and the university certainly believes that McCaffery is the guy to get them there with this move. Even though the Hawkeyes only finished 18-17 last season, the program certainly has a different competitive feel since McCaffery took over. During the B1G season, Iowa had the highest tempo in the league at 65.1 possessions per game and appeared to maximize the talent available. The addition of two top 100 ranked freshmen — Adam Woodbury and Mike Gesell — certainly indicates the program’s upswing.
2. Iowa is the not the only program that has increased the overall tempo of play in the Big Ten. New Illinois head coach John Groce plans to have Brandon Paul and Tracy Abrams run all over the place next season. Groce holds practice using a 24-second shot clock to increase his team’s endurance and hopes to make a difference in Champaign immediately. Illinois ranked in the middle of the B1G last season with 63.5 posessions per game but definitely has the athletes on the wings to push the pace. They featured a three-guard lineup with Abrams, Paul and D.J. Richardson but were primarily a jump-shooting offense under Weber, especially in the second half of the season. Groce is trying to change that and hopes to instill confidence into a team that stumbled down the stretch last season.
3. High school sensation and arguably the best prep player in the country Jabari Parker apparently isn’t interested in joining the Illini per the latest reports. Parker, a 6’8″ wing, listed his top 10 schools in no particular order this week and Illinois was not one of them. Michigan State is the only Big Ten school that he is considering as he enters his senior year in high school. It is very likely that he only stays in college for one year so Kentucky might be a frontrunner if he plans to follow the footsteps of Brandon Knight, John Wall, Anthony Davis and the multiple “one-and-done” players who roll through Lexington, Kentucky, on their way to the NBA lottery.
4. The 2012-13 season schedule is beginning to shape up. ESPN airs a 24-hour hoops marathon to unofficially tip-off the new season and Michigan State is one of the headliners that will participate in the event. Tom Izzo’s Spartans will face Kansas at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta on November 13. Izzo is notorious in challenging his teams with tough non-conference scheduling to prepare them for March. MSU is already scheduled to play Connecticut overseas and the matchup with Kansas will continue to shape a challenging schedule for the Spartans who are a pre-season top 10 team next season. Junior guard Keith Appling looks to step up into a leadership role after Draymond Green’s exit and a healthy return of Branden Dawson should give Sparty a defensive stopper against the premier wings in the country.
5. The Olympics are upon us and the USA Basketball team has been announced. The Big Ten will be well represented by current Brooklyn Net and former Illini great Deron Williams in London. Williams is one of the three point guards on the team in addition to Chris Paul (former Wake Forest guard) and Russell Westbrook (former UCLA guard). Williams earned a gold medal in 2008 and was joined by Michael Redd who made a career at Ohio State before taking his sweet shooting stroke to the NBA. Another former Illini, Robert Archibald, will be playing for England over the summer. Archibald was a key part of the Illinois team that lost to Arizona in the Elite Eight during the 2000-01 season.

1. Last night featured the annual ESPYs in prime time, and although the host of the event, Rob Riggle, struggled through numerous cricket-chirping moments, we still managed to sit through it. College hoops had a number of good candidates as potential winners (as we handicapped last week), but the crowdsourcing style of the event ensured that few were were validated. The Unibrow was up for several awards, including Best Breakthrough Athlete (which went to Jeremy Lin), Best Male College Athlete (Robert Griffin III, which is reasonable even if we disagree), and Best Team (even Big Blue Nation couldn’t overcome the Miami Heat). Perhaps the two awards that bothered us most were Coach K’s snub in Best Record-Breaking Performance (sorry, but a single-season NFL passing record doesn’t trump 900+ wins over a career) and Best Upset (how do the LA Kings outdo Norfolk State, a MEAC team, downing a team in the conversation for a #1 seed? Ridiculous.). The one silver lining for our game was that Christian Watford’s game-winning three to lift Indiana over #1 Kentucky back in December was chosen as Best Play of the Year.  Oh well — that’s the nature of the event — fan voting. The women’s game, as an aside, cleaned up with Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt winning the Arthur Ashe Courage Award (well deserved) and Baylor’s Brittney Griner winning both Best Female Athlete and Best Female College Athlete of the Year.
2. We know that Mike Krzyzewski may not have had a good enough year to win Best Record-Breaking Performance, but he’s more than good enough to lead Team USA into the 2012 Olympics in a matter of a few weeks from now. Interestingly enough, Team USA will scrimmage John Calipari’s Dominican Republic team tonight, but the real test for him and his charges is to come together as a team in the next few weeks so as to bring home another gold medal for USA Basketball. Dan Wolken writes that Coach K has had to take a different tack than he has at Duke in coaching the elite group of players he has on this team, and that, frankly, he’s a much more likable person in this setting than he is in Durham. It makes sense when you listen to Krzyzewski in any interview talk about his “kids” — his Blue Devils — but he also knows that the likes of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul and the rest are grown men who don’t need to be publicly protected or coddled. He’s not been so successful over these many years by not having a keen sense of that very thing — this is yet another example.
3. It’s been a week of coaching extensions, and Wednesday kept the rally going with the news that Quinnipiac’s Tom Moore recently received a one-year extension to his deal that will keep him under contract until 2016-17. In five seasons in Hamden, his teams have performed admirably well, going 93-65 with three invitations to postseason tournaments. At a NEC school, any postseason appearance is a cause for celebration, so even thought there haven’t been any NCAA bids in that period, a series of NIT/CIT/CBI isn’t too bad. Of course, if or when Jim Calhoun over in Storrs ever retires, the former Connecticut assistant Moore would already have his vehicle GPS set with the directions.
4. The nation’s top recruit in the Class of 2013 has narrowed his list down to only 10 schools. Jabari Parker used Twitter (what else?) to announce his revised list on Wednesday night, and here are the lucky suitors (he says they’re in no particular order): UK, Stanford, Michigan State, Kansas, Florida, Duke, BYU, Georgetown, DePaul, UNC. The Chicago native certainly has an interesting mix at play here, and perhaps most notably Illinois is no longer on his list. Aside from four of the top six programs of all-time (sorry, Indiana and UCLA), Michigan State, Florida and Georgetown are unsurprising choices. Stanford is clearly the academic choice, BYU is the religious one, and DePaul is throwing a bone to the homeys. If he really is the best high school prospect since LeBron (or Greg Oden), the school that gets him will have a tremendous shot at the Final Four during his only season on campus.
5. Finally, ESPN announced its 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon lineup on Wednesday, and although the Champions Classic games involving Michigan State-Kansas and Duke-Kentucky are the monsters, there are as always a number of other interesting matchups. WVU visiting Spokane to tip things off, followed by a Davidson trip to The Pit will be fun, but Harvard going to Amherst to take on UMass and a battle of blue-blooded mid-majors in Cincinnati are also well worth skipping out on work. Maybe there’s more coming in the next few months, but in past years there were multiple games broadcast in the evening hour slot, so hopefully ESPN will fill in the blanks a little more just in case one of those Champions Classic games isn’t worth the time.

1. For those of you just getting back from your annual vacation in Bora Bora, tonight is the 2012 version of the NBA Draft, also known as the reason that every single NCAA Division I men’s basketball player gets up and brushes his teeth in the morning. Alright, we’re guilty of hyperbole here. Every single high-major NCAA Division I men’s basketball player. Only 60 names will be called by David Stern and Adam Silver at the dais tonight, but the dream of each player to hear his name uttered and placed on the big board still motivates. When John Calipari infamously said at the 2010 draft that it was the greatest night in the history of Kentucky basketball, he knew that he had already set the wheels in motion from a recruiting standpoint to win a national title (remember that Anthony Davis, the cornerstone of last year’s championship team, verbaled to UK a mere seven weeks after that night). Oh, and he’s still doing it, for the record. It might be the NBA’s night, but it has a substantial impact on the college game in numerous ways. To that end, here are the latest and greatest Mock Drafts from around the web: DraftExpress, NBADraft.net, CNNSI (Sam Amick), ESPN (Chad Ford), CBSSports.com (Jeff Goodman and Matt Moore).
2. As many as nine one-and-dones could be chosen in tonight’s draft, no doubt setting off another cacophonous round of complaints about how the NBA is ruining the college game. We’re certainly not indifferent to the one-and-done issue, as we’ve written about it many times before, but until the NBA finally realizes that pushing the league minimum to the age of 20 is in its own long-term best interests, nothing is bound to change. ESPN.com’s Myron Medcalf takes a detailed look at how we got here — from the Korleone Youngs and Taj McDavids of the preps-to-pro days on through the present and future, which at least one prominent coach figures could get considerably more muddled by 2016 as the NCAA implements its progressively tougher entrance requirements. Check out part one and part two of the piece before you watch the latest crop of one-and-doners including Anthony Davis, Quincy Miller, Tony Wroten, and the others walk the stage tonight.
3. Recognizing that there’s probably a lot more of these stories than are ever publicized, we still appreciate it when we read one. Kentucky forward Terrence Jones isn’t even a draftee yet but he’s already giving back to his fans and the community that supported him for two years in Lexington. A UK fan named William Bolden who met Jones while playing pickup basketball near the student dorms was in dire need of some dental work, so Jones paid out of pocket for the repairs. And when we say dental work, we’re talking about 12 cavities filled, two teeth pulled, and three new front teeth — a rather significant expense. Players are often (and rightfully in many cases) ripped apart for blowing through their newfound riches when they go pro, but we’re glad to hear at least one story involving a player not even 21 years old yet doing something positive for someone not as fortunate as him.
4. To that end, there are always a number of stories on draft day about players who persevered through life’s crappy hands to get to that exalted point in their lives. In this year’s draft, though, nobody has had to deal with as much personal adversity as Kansas’ Thomas Robinson, which is one reason so many people in this business have rooted so hard for his success. If you don’t know the details, the LA Times revisits the tragic 25-day stretch in Robinson’s sophomore year when he lost his grandparents and his mother, leaving his 9-year old sister, Jayla, frightened and for all intents completely alone back in DC, some 1,100 miles away. Robinson’s driving force in life is to take care of that little girl, and you can count us among the many who will feel a real happiness when he becomes an instant millionaire tonight.
5. The stars of tonight are today’s high school unknowns (at least to most of us). CBSSports.com’s Jeff Borzello looks to the future and rank-orders the top 14 players in the next three years of high school basketball (2013-15) as of right now. We really don’t know enough about any of these players to make any intelligent observations, but it’s certainly interesting that the player whom Sports Illustrated just put on its cover as the best prep player since LeBron James — Jabari Parker — is #2 on this list. Borzello has 2014’s Andrew Wiggins, a small forward and native Canadian who plays at Huntington (WV) Prep, as his top overall player in high school as of right now. See how it works? The biggest and best thing ever… until the next biggest and best thing ever… followed by the next biggest and best thing ever…

1. UCLA head coach Ben Howland’s recruiting success with the 2012 class went a long way towards re-establishing the thriving program we had come to expect after his first few seasons in Westwood, but questions remained about what he could do in the future. Some of those questions were answered this past week when Howland earned a commitment from 2013 guard Zach LaVine, a four-star player out of Bothell, Washington. LaVine has the reputation of a point guard prospect, but has enough size and scoring ability that he could play either position at the next level. Aside from getting UCLA’s 2013 class off to a strong start, it also shows Howland’s ability to go into other states and steal local kids from his Pac-12 opponents, as Washington, for one, certainly considered themselves a strong candidate to land LaVine.
2. Speaking of Washington, head coach Lorenzo Romar confirmed this week that they are “pretty much done” with the 2012 recruiting class. Assuming no last minute surprises emerge, the new class for the Huskies is made up of just junior college transfer Mark McLaughlin and San Francisco transfer Perry Blackwell, who will not be eligible until 2013-14. However, Ben Knibbe of the UW Dawg Pound tells UW fans not to worry, because Romar has designs on a monster 2013 class, with his staff hot in pursuit of #1 overall recruit Jabari Parker as well as three other top-15 recruits: Aaron Gordon, Jabari Bird and Isaac Hamilton.
3. Also on the Lorenzo Romar front, he is the latest Pac-12 coach to hop aboard the Twitter express, signing up for the social media platform this week as @CoachRomar. With Arizona head coach Sean Miller buying in last week, now more than half of the league’s coaches have a Twitter feed, some of which are used more than others. However, if you California fans out there are waiting for Mike Montgomery to start tweeting, I wouldn’t hold your breath.
4. Sean Miller, meanwhile, had plenty to be happy about, as he inked a contract extension with Arizona in the last week that will keep him prowling the sidelines (and, likewise, will keep the Wildcats very relevant nationally) through at least 2016-17. In his three seasons in Tucson, he has posted a 69-35 record with a Coach of the Year award and an Elite Eight mixed in, despite missing the NCAA Tournament twice over that span. While missing NCAA Tournaments is definitely not something that Wildcats fans are used to, most understand that Miller has done an excellent job keeping this program chugging along, especially considering his top three national recruiting class this past offseason.
5. Lastly, David Piper of Addicted to Quack writes that this 2012 Oregon recruiting class will determine whether the Dana Altman era in Eugene will ultimately be considered a success or not. With 12 of the 16 most-recent Duck recruits having transferred out of the program, Altman needs to show that he can not only bring in quality recruits, but that he can keep them and use them to get Oregon back into the NCAA Tournament. Four-star point guard Dominic Artis heads the 2012 class, and he could be a key cog over the next four years, provided of course that he remains in the program.

In the 20th anniversary year of the original 1992 ‘Dream Team,’ USA Basketball is once again sending a team of elite NBA players in search of the 2012 gold medal. But could this become the final time we see such a collection of professional stars? Rumblings over the past few weeks from all corners of college, pro, and international basketball suggest that Team USA will instead send younger players to the Olympics, perhaps through the old school method of all amateurs or rather in a new combination of college and young pros. The most likely scenario includes an all Under-23 squad, resembling the way the USA selects for its Olympic soccer teams. CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander, among others, has highlighted what Team USA would look like this year if it was an Under-23 team. But any new method would not take place until the next Summer Olympics in 2016, so what would that team potentially look like? In order to qualify for the Under-23 team four years from now, only players who are 19 or younger right now could be under consideration. Today we take a look at some of the best candidates, considering both current accomplishments and potential future growth.

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist would qualify for the 2016 Olympics if Team USA goes with an Under 23 approach (AP Photo)

A quick 15-man list of the top 19-or-younger players goes as follows:

1. Anthony Davis
2. Tony Wroten
3. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
4. Bradley Beal
5. Andre Drummond
6. Quincy Miller
7. Nerlens Noel
8. Shabazz Muhammad
9. Cody Zeller
10. James Michael McAdoo
11. Kyle Anderson
12. Jabari Parker
13. Julius Randle
14. Andrew Harrison
15. Andrew Wiggins

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1. Connecticut bumped up its APR score to 978 for 2010-11 season, but as we all know it was too late for the Huskies as they along with nine other schools have been banned from the 2013 NCAA Tournament. The Huskies, who are by far the most high-profile team to be banned, were brought down by scores of 909, 844 and 826 between 2007 and 2010. None of this is news to any of us, but what is interesting is how the NCAA is claiming that its academic reforms are a success based on a rise in APR scores in men’s basketball, football, and baseball. While this shows that schools are doing a better job at achieving higher scores it does not prove that they are doing a better job at producing individuals who can contribute to society. In fact, their use of APR to measure the success of academic reform and impact on the lives of student-athletes reminds us of the classic management article “On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B”.
2. With the ridiculousness of conference realignment one of the voices we have not heard enough from is the commissioners of the conferences particularly the smaller more vulnerable conferences. Siena Saints Blog was able to secure an interview with Rich Ensor, the MAAC Commissioner, and asked him some questions about the impact of realignment, his conference’s future, and their role in the college basketball landscape. Ensor does not deliver any shocking revelations, but he does appear to answer the questions in an honest, straightforward manner, which is more than we can say for many of the other individuals involved in similar situations.
3. The new NCAA rules allowing increased contact between coaching staffs and recruits was supposed to foster an era of more openness while also decreasing the chances of infractions being committed although to some it would be like saying that speeding violations would decrease if you would just raise the speed limit. One family that has not bought into the idea of having more contact with colleges is the family of Jabari Parker, the #1 recruit in America. Parker’s family, whose protective strategies we have detailed here before, is not even giving out Parker’s number to colleges as the colleges have to go through the family before they can talk to the star recruit.
4. The 2012 NBA Draft is just one week away and while most people are looking forward to the upcoming Draft, Matt Norlander is looking back at the last decade’s worth of Drafts. Going through the 117 schools that have had players drafted during the time he notices some rather distinctive trends for certain schools and conferences. The blue bloods continue to churn out multimillionaires, but the numbers for the various conferences and some schools in particular may surprise you.
5. We have not commented on the Under 18 basketball team competing in 2012 FIBA Americas U18 Championship mostly because they have been so dominant, but after winning the final by a score of 81-56 over Brazil it is time to recognize their play. Composed of many of the top incoming college freshmen next year, but missing the consensus top two players in the class, Team USA dominated its opposition and improved its record to 43-2 all-time in the tournament. We don’t think you should make too much of this because from what we have heard the opposition was not that good (sorry, we are not experts on teenage basketball in Central and South America) and frankly this group of incoming freshmen is not supposed to be as talented as last year’s group so although this does not signal a return of the dominance of US basketball at the grassroots level it is a nice accomplishment for the group.

Jabari Parker has been in the news a lot lately, much more so than some other recent top recruits. The consensus #1 player in the 2013 high school class was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in May, in which the magazine dubbed him “the best high school basketball player since LeBron James.” Stories about the 17-year-old have been flooding in ever since, many detailing his devout Mormon faith and whether or not he’ll serve as a missionary when he turns 19 as many LDS members do. He was interviewed recently on Good Morning America and is also the featured star for USA Basketball’s U-17 team, which will compete in the World Championships later this month. But the biggest news of all broke on Sunday, when Parker said that he’ll announce his college decision this November, long before the spring signing period begins. The rising senior from Chicago wants “to do it for me because I want to get it over with before the season starts.” But perhaps he’s also doing it for his father and former NBA forward, Sonny Parker, who recently said, “I think Jabari is the first high school player who has experienced this social media stuff,” and that he’ll limit Jabari’s media availability this summer to let him live like a regular kid. Parker has 14 schools on his list and appears a bit overwhelmed by all the attention, so he’ll presumably have the hard part of recruiting out of the way before his senior season begins.

Top recruit Jabari Parker is unique as a player and a person (AP Photo)

Parker has ‘narrowed’ his college list down to the following 14 schools: BYU, Connecticut, DePaul, Duke, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisville, Michigan State, Missouri, North Carolina, Northwestern, Ohio State, and Washington. It’s anyone’s guess who the top candidates are now, though we’d expect that BYU, Illinois, Northwestern, and DePaul made the cut mainly for show to support his local and religious ties. Recruiting analysts report that he has great relationships with coaches Mike Krzyzewski at Duke and Tom Izzo at Michigan State, though Parker himself spoke about his ties to DePaul (his best friend is a walk-on there), Illinois (with its new head coach, John Groce), and Kentucky (hearing from fellow Chicagoan Derrick Rose about John Calipari). He plans on cutting the list down to eight over the summer.

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1. UCLA and Arizona have their 2012 blockbuster recruiting classes all sewn up, with up  north, Washington mostly struck out. But all eyes begin to turn to the 2013 class, and it could be Lorenzo Romar and the Huskies who are in a position to score big. Romar landed his first verbal commitment this week as 6’3” guard Nigel Williams-Goss, regarded as a four-star prospect, chose Washington over UCLA, Oregon  State, and UNLV (a school he once committed to prior to head coach Lon Kruger’s defection to Oklahoma). While one four-star guard does not a recruiting class make, Romar still has his eyes on players like Jabari Parker (the number one overall prospect), Aaron Gordon (the number two rated power forward), Jabari Bird (the fourth rated off-guard), and Isaac Hamilton (the fifth rated off-guard) among others.
2. Aside from offseason trouble, some typically minor tweaks to rosters and the shaping of the 2013 recruiting class, the other big news that can be expected throughout the summer is the trickling out of teams’ 2012-13 schedules. UCLA’s calendar dropped on Thursday, with the highly-regarded Bruins reopening Pauley Pavilion on November 9 with a visit from Indiana State. Ben Howland’s club will also host Long Beach State and Missouri (along with a handful of low-major schools), play San Diego State in the Wooden Classic in Anaheim, and participate in the Legends Classic at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn with potential matchups against Indiana, Georgetown, and Georgia. Here’s hoping the Bruins find matchups with both the Hoosiers and the Hoyas awaiting them in New York.
3. Elsewhere around the conference, schedules are starting to take shape. Late last week, it came out that Colorado after a year away, would be renewing its competition with long-time opponent Kansas. While nothing is official yet, both schools have confirmed that an agreement is in place for the Buffaloes and Jayhawks to schedule a home-and-home series in each of the next two seasons. It’s unclear yet exactly where the 2012-13 edition will be played, but while Kansas has had Colorado’s number on a regular basis in their meetings, head coach Tad Boyle certainly has the Buffs on the upswing and his squad should be able to give the Jayhawks a couple interesting games. Down south, Arizona has added games with Charleston Southern, Long Beach State and Southern Miss. While none of those three teams is a huge name, both Long Beach State and Southern Miss made the NCAA Tournament last year and should provide solid challenges for an already strong Arizona schedule. The Wildcats are still looking to add two more games, both of which are expected to be home-and-home series’.
4. Continuing our tour around the conference, Oregon State is on the verge of breaking ground on a new basketball practice facility. The structure will be a four-story structure with a couple different regulation-sized basketball courts layer in with locker rooms, support areas, offices and an entrance to the facility that will feature an Oregon State basketball hall of fame. With the upgrade in facilities, head coach Craig Robinson hopes to be able to induce a higher caliber of recruit to Corvallis.
5. Lastly, last week Pacific Takes unveiled a feature on the ten best sleeper recruits in the last decade, with Kyle Weaver of Washington State leading the way. Interesting to note that of the 14 players on the list (including a four-man honorable mention), six of the players (Weaver, Derrick Low, Brock Motum, DeAngelo Casto, Robbie Cowgill and Reggie Moore) matriculated to Washington State. This speaks well for the Cougar coaching staffs’ (beginning with Dick and Tony Bennett and continuing to current head coach Ken Bone) ability to target under the radar players and develop the talent once it arrives on campus. Given that five-star recruits are rarely going to find their way to Pullman, that is a must for the Cougs.