1. Hartford Courant: We may lose Duke-Maryland, but it sounds like Kevin Ollie and Steve Donahue are prepared to bring back the Boston College–Connecticut rivalry in earnest. The rivalry effectively died when Boston College joined the ACC and an embittered Jim Calhoun vowed never to schedule the Eagles again. It seems like Ollie doesn’t hold the same grudge (although if the athletic directors do, look for the game to never happen). All we know for sure is that Boston College and Connecticut will play in the 2KSports Classic semifinal tonight at 7:00 PM. But here’s hoping to the continuation of a fun, heated, regional home-and-home rivalry in the near future.
2. Greensboro News-Record: It’s only been four games, but people are already starting to take a closer look at Jabari Parker‘s phenomenal start, which has been better than any ACC Rookie of the Year in the last 17 seasons. Amazingly Parker isn’t even the most efficient player on his team (that honor belongs to the honorable-80.9-effective-field-goal-percentage Rodney Hood). Mark Thompson also compared his early statistics to the only two freshmen to win the Naismith Award (Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis). He’s bound to come down to earth at some point, but there’s no denying Parker is really fun to watch.
3. Raleigh News & Observer: Keeping things at Duke, it’s safe to say Mike Krzyzewski isn’t pleased with the people who plan the NIT Season Tip-Off. If you tuned into the Eastern Carolina – Duke game on Tuesday night, you probably noticed a lot of empty seats in the student section. That’s because of a ticket distribution system with far too much bureaucracy. Here’s what happened: Each school was given 200 tickets, but most returned the majority of their allotments. The problem was Duke only had a single day to try to sell the generally overpriced tickets. As an example, Greensboro News & Record‘s Ed Hardin attempted to buy tickets for the UNC Asheville – Norfolk State game while in progress and was told they would cost between $41 and $123. According to Laura Keeley, fewer than 100 people made it to that game. Here’s to hoping they change the ticketing protocols for future NIT Season Tip-Offs, as having the opening rounds at cool arenas should be a positive, not a negative.
4. Tallahassee Democrat: Aaron Thomas is getting a lot of love from his teammates because of his defense. Ian Miller said he’s “like Mike Snaer, but a little bit better.” Wait, what? Snaer was arguably the best on-ball defender in the conference. I watched him execute a one-man full-court press at Clemson that was one of the more impressive defensive performances I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure I’m ready to put Thomas in the same category with Snaer, but it’s true that he’s off to a great start. The Seminoles will get quite a challenge today as they face Virginia Commonwealth.
5. Syracuse Post Standard: Syracuse‘s free throw shooting has been subpar so far this season, which is a big part of why the Orange’s wins have been tighter than expected. So Jim Boeheim upped the ante with his end of practice free throw-sprint tradition. The team breaks off into groups and shoots free throws before coming back to take one shot each (and running team sprints when a person misses), although he made players run sprints every time they missed in the smaller groups too. At least Syracuse’s shooting at the charity stripe hasn’t cost them a win yet: Just ask NC State or North Carolina about poor free throw shooting. In more pleasant ACC free throw surprises, Clemson has broken out of its historical slump, currently hitting a mind-boggling 81.4 percent of its free throws this season. Even more amazing is that the Tigers are only third in the conference behind Boston College and Miami. Take that haters! The ACC is the best (free throw shooting) conference in the land (except maybe the vaunted Missouri Valley Conference)!

EXTRA: In honor or North Carolina Central‘s first ACC win in program history (over Mark Gottfried’s floundering team), here’s an old story from Gary Parrish on Eagle coach LeVelle Moton and his friendship with Leah Ward.

Marcus Smart sees your fab freshmen, and raises you a super sophomore. In what many anticipated would be an entertaining showdown between two top 15 teams last night in Stillwater, Smart took it upon himself to remind everyone in college basketball that this season isn’t just about Wiggins, Parker, and Randle.

Smart Was Sensational on Tuesday Night (SI.com)

We’re all aware of Marcus Smart’s story by now – the ultra-talented freshman who turned down what figured to be a guaranteed top five pick in last June’s NBA Draft for a chance to return to Oklahoma State and further cement himself among college basketball’s elite. Smart knows this much. He has acknowledged the fact that he could be making millions of dollars this season, rather than playing for free this year in Stillwater. He could be cruising around in whatever luxury vehicle he’s always dreamed of, but instead pushes his way around campus on a mountain bike. In an interview with ESPN’s Jay Bilas that aired during the game on Tuesday night, Smart pointed to his inconsistent jump shot, and the need for improvement in that area before taking his game to the next level.

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We’ve seen about two weeks of the college basketball season fly by, and between ESPN’s 24 Hours of College Basketball, the State Farm Champions Classic, and the bevy of compelling storylines, there’s been no shortage of great things to discuss. So this week’s College Basketball by the Tweets focuses on Tuesday night, with a strong slate of games to choose from and an unlimited supply of tweets to embed. The night belonged to the scorers — the men who eschewed passing and got their shots up. When it was all said and done, seven players finished with more than 30 points, led by Wisconsin forward Frank Kaminsky‘s 43, which was a school record. Jahii Carson poured in 40 as well for Arizona State. What were some of the reactions around the Twitter-verse?

Jahii Carson. 40.

— Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) November 20, 2013

Ariz St finishes off UNLV. Jahii Carson had 40 points and 7 assts. Not a bad night at the office.

— Seth Davis (@SethDavisHoops) November 20, 2013

True "@raphiellej: "@MedcalfByESPN: UNLV just can't do anything with Carson. Wow." Not many can."

— Myron Medcalf (@MedcalfByESPN) November 20, 2013

Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky scored a total of 63 points in his freshman year. He scored 43 points against North Dakota tonight. Wow.

— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) November 20, 2013

Tell me the Avatar photo isn't terrific of Frank "The Tank" Kaminsky. Take a close look. It's phenomenal.

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) November 20, 2013

Also, lost in all this is the play of North Dakota’s Troy Huff, who scored 37 points of his own in the 103-85 loss to the Badgers.

Troy Huff came off the bench to score 37 pts in 28 mins. @GMT_ronreezy also scored 19 off the bench on 7/10 FG. Crazy offensive numbers.

— Jonathan Reed (@bigskybball) November 20, 2013

We also saw those same freshman we were introduced to last week, and they backed up their first big-time performance with solid games on Tuesday night. Jabari Parker, for instance, went end-to-end for a huge dunk the Duke’s 83-74 victory over East Carolina. And Twitter went off. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re now 10 days into the regular season and fully focused on college basketball. Not previewing college basketball or anticipating college basketball or even faking college basketball. Actual college basketball. So as we approach the start of Feast Week in a few days, the RTC Podcast is back this week to start to dig into some of the early impressions of the young season. Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114), is your gracious host, and he leads the guys through a 50-minute smorgasbord of hoops discussion ranging from “The Randy Bowl” between Michigan and Iowa State, the Wiggins vs. Randle vs. Parker debate from our Rush the Takes guest, ESPN insider Jeff Goodman, and a closer look at the disappointment of North Carolina, the dominance of Louisville, and the shakiness of Syracuse. Have a listen.

Jeff Goodman Joins Us on This Week’s Rush the Takes to Talk Super Freshmen .(Photo by Joe Faraoni / ESPN Images)

The rundown is below if you’d like to skip around to the most interesting parts. Make sure to add the RTC Podcast to your iTunes lineup so that you’ll automatically upload it on your listening device after we record. And feel free to contact us through Twitter or email — we’re listening.

• 0:00-8:42 – Iowa State Wins “The Randy Bowl”
• 8:42-14:26 – Ohio State Knocks Out Marquette in Ugly Slugfest
• 14:26-25:32 – Rush the Take With Jeff Goodman
• 25:32-31:32 – Recruiting Reactions
• 31:32-37:50 – ACC, UNC Disappointing Early
• 37:50-40:02 – Louisville at #1
• 40:02-41:30 – Syracuse Looking Shaky
• 41:30-45:11 – Oklahoma State vs. Memphis Preview
• 45:11-46:42 – Other Games to Watch/Wrap

Jesse Baumgartner is an RTC columnist. His Love/Hate column will publish each week throughout the season. In this piece he’ll review the five things he loved and hated about the previous seven days of college basketball.

Five Things I Loved This Week

I LOVED…. starting this year off with what for my money was the best preseason event in recent memory. Combining the history of the Duke/Kansas/Kentucky/Michigan State programs with the incredible talent those squads have this year was a November treat for any college basketball fan who has grown tired of the NFL’s unthinkably terrible Monday/Thursday schedule this fall. Michael Wilbon said it right in his column after the game — this type of night makes college basketball relevant earlier in the year and gets people paying attention before January. I think you saw that same sentiment from those coaches, too, in their postgame interviews – this was not your ordinary non-conference event.

I LOVED…. Jabari Parker. When I look at freshmen now, I put them through what I call the Kevin Durant Eye Test. When you saw Durant during his unbelievable freshman year at Texas, you stopped doing whatever it was you were previously doing. You thought, no way is this kid this big with these type of perimeter skills and that feathery stroke. No way is he only 18, and no way would he not be making an impact on an NBA team right now. Parker passed that test, and this year is going to be fun.

Parker and Friends are Worth Stopping What You’re Doing to Watch Them

I LOVED…. that I still had to think about if the night’s star was Parker, because UK’s Julius Randle (Zach Randolph should sue for post-game style patent infringement) and KU’s Andrew Wiggins (who woke up for the second half against Duke to remind us what all the hype was about) delivered similarly eye-opening performances. I also loved that for how great Parker and Randle were, it was the more-balanced Jayhawks and Spartans that came out on top.

I LOVED…. Kevin Ware back on the floor. It’s hard to remember the last time that everyone wanted to see a kid back on his feet more than Ware, whose gruesome injury last March caused America to collectively turn their heads away from the TV set. Making his first three-pointer was pretty great, but I loved this past week even more when Ware cut into the lane and bounced off of a two-foot jump stop for a high-flying finger roll at the cup. What a great story.

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Everyone knew Duke would be a very different team this season compared to 2012-13. Last year’s team was built around three seniors — Mason Plumlee, Ryan Kelly, and Seth Curry. Plumlee was an athletic big man, but the other two relied on a high skill level to make up for a lack of elite athleticism. That team was clearly better offensively than defensively and had a very good year with a run to the Elite Eight and a loss to eventual national champion, Louisville. With the addition of some quicker and more athletic players, the expectation for this season was that Duke would get back to the effective pressure defense that Blue Devil championship teams of the past had shown. That was clearly not the case in Tuesday’s Champions Classic loss to Kansas. The offense was good, scoring 83 points in a 75-possession game, but the defense was not, allowing Kansas 1.25 points per possession and matching the worst performance Duke’s defense had in any game last year.

Duke could not stop Kansas down the stretch. (Photo: Getty images)

So what went wrong? There could be multiple reasons. but they may not all be fixable this season. The first explanation is that this is still a young and developing Duke team and it was only the second game of the year. Perhaps the ease with which the red-hot shooting Blue Devils dispatched Davidson in their opener gave the Blue Devils a false sense of where they really were as a team. That mentality seemed to be at issue down the stretch against Kansas. In his postgame interview, Mike Krzyzewski lamented the fact that his team just couldn’t get stops when they needed to, as if they were in a mindset that they could just outscore Kansas.

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For any college basketball purists awaking from a decade-long slumber, I have bad news. The senior superstar is an extremely endangered species. I know, I know – the game cannot be the same without them, surely. But the good news? There’s a new breed of players taking over the sport, and if you happened to catch wind of the goings-on in Chicago on Tuesday night, you could be convinced that the raw excitement they bring to the game is every bit as compelling as the nostalgic narratives of their predecessors. We of course are talking about the freshman stars in today’s college basketball world, and it’s a discussion that, quite frankly, has never been hotter. Tuesday night’s Champions Classic gave college basketball and its starring freshmen a rare November national stage, and the kids did not let us down. After that display, I can’t blame anyone for wanting to simply enjoy this season before dealing with the next one, but the reality of the one-and-done era is that this will be our lone ride alongside Wiggins, Parker, Randle and the rest of the gang. So peering ahead, who’s in line to fill their shoes, and where will they be doing it? Today will go a long ways towards answering the second question, as four of the consensus top five players in the class of 2014 (according to RSCI hoops) will announce their college decisions this afternoon.

Jahlil Okafor And Tyus Jones Are The Class Of 2014’s Prettiest Package; Today We Find Out Where They Will Be Playing Their College Basketball Next Season

Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones have nabbed the majority of headlines heading into this recruiting bonanza day. Okafor’s status as the top player in the class has fairly added to his surrounding buzz, but the duo has found more notoriety from their package deal pledge. Jones and Okafor said they were going to play their college ball together from day one, and there has been little wavering from that stance here in the final days, which all but assures either Duke or Kansas (according to sources) of landing two top-five talents in one fell swoop. Bill Self and the Jayhawks are also a possibility for another talented Friday decision-maker, as Chicago-bred big man Cliff Alexander will choose between Kansas, Memphis, and Illinois. The last top recruit set to announce his decision Friday is California wing Stanley Johnson. The timing of Johnson’s announcement is surprising, as he previously declared he would wait and make his choice next spring. It appears that folks in both Arizona and Kentucky are bullish on the local team’s odds to land the top wing in the class of 2014, while USC also remains a possibility.

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Coming into this season we found it strange that nearly every media outlet was ignoring Jabari Parker, who was a Sports Illustrated cover boy and the #1 player in the class of 2013 for much of his time in high school. We figured it was the explosiveness of Andrew Wiggins, the raw power of Julius Randle, or the rustiness that Parker showed recovering from a foot injury to explain his absence from much of the discourse. Perhaps it was a combination of all three. Regardless of what led the media to forget about Parker, his play tonight should remind everybody that the race for the #1 spot in the 2014 NBA Draft is still a three-player race.

Jabari Played Great In His Homecoming, But Was Overshadowed

Wiggins is an obvious choice given his unmatched athleticism. Randle makes a strong case with his ability to dominate around the basket. The case for Parker is a little more complex in that he is a more complete player right now than the other two. He does not have one skill that will take your breath away, but he does nearly everything well. Whether it is driving to the basket, finishing a dunk that reminds you of Grant Hill in the 1991 National Championship game, hitting almost every kind of jumper imaginable, or defending a potential NBA center in Joel Embiid despite being nearly half a foot shorter, Parker exhibits everything you would expect from a future NBA star. And for much of tonight it appeared that he was going to make Chicago his city as he had done for his four years at Simeon. Unfortunately for the Duke freshman and the locals who came out to support him, Bill Self and the Jayhawks had a very different narrative to write tonight.

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The power of the Internet can be a wonderful thing, providing someone with virtually unlimited information at the click of a button. But let’s be honest, it can also be quite an inconvenience at times, too (like when your Facebook picture from a party in college may have kept you from that job you really wanted). With the technology we have today, the web serves as an open book of history for anything that’s been said or written if the one speaking or writing is significant enough to have his or her voice published.

So you’re probably sitting here thinking “OK, I get it, but I came to read about college basketball, so please carry on.”

Is Andrew Wiggins Still the Best Player in His Class?

Fair enough, as I’d probably be thinking the same thing, so here’s where I’m going with this. In the last month or so, there seems to be a momentum shift in how some media in college basketball are viewing Kansas freshman Andrew Wiggins. As I’m sure you’ve heard over, and over, and over again, Wiggins was built up over the better part of the last year as a guy who could be one of the better recruits we’ve seen in the last 10-plus years in college basketball. His name was thrown out there with the likes of Michael Beasley, and Kevin Durant, and even, gulp, LeBron James. Somewhere along the line, someone called him “the best recruit since LeBron” and boy did that sound bite take off like wildfire. Whether those comparisons are accurate is something we can’t all come to an agreement on, but we can all agree that when Wiggins reclassified his graduation year last October, there was no doubt that he was considered the top prep prospect in the nation. Many cited his performance in the Peach Jam in July 2012 as evidence, where Wiggins went head-to-head with fellow top Kentucky recruit Julius Randle in what is the considered the highest profile AAU event in the country. The unanimous belief after the Peach Jam was that Wiggins was the superior talent to Randle, leading to quotes like this one from former CBS writer and current ESPN staffer, Jeff Goodman.

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It’s very early in the college basketball season. Before you continue reading the rest of the preview for tonight’s showdown between Duke and Kansas, read that sentence again. Now read it again one more time, just for good for measure. I’ll wait here.

Now that we have that important housekeeping item out of the way, it’s now acceptable for everyone to lick their chops in anticipation of the nightcap of tonight’s Champions Classic in Chicago. It’s everything we could want in an early-season match-up: Two of the nation’s best programs, coaches and freshmen on a neutral court, with their biggest recruiting target in the house to take it all in. While both teams won their season openers Friday night, Kansas needs to change a couple of things if it wants to leave the United Center with arguably its biggest non-conference win since topping the defending champion Florida Gators in 2008:

Andrew Wiggins Needs to Work to Get Open More Often

• Work To Get Andrew Wiggins Open: In Friday’s victory over Louisiana-Monroe, the Jayhawks struggled at times to get their freshman sensation open looks. Wiggins eventually finished with 16 points on nine shot attempts, and while that was hardly a bad game for someone criticized as passive, it won’t fly against better competition. Naadir Tharpe, who will make his season debut after being suspended for Friday’s opener, isn’t an elite passer – at least not yet. For Kansas to avenge a 2011 loss to the Blue Devils, Wiggins has to either meet his floor general halfway and work harder to get open, or his big-bodied teammates need to free him up — ideally, some combination of the two would occur. While Wiggins has the athleticism to create his own shot off the bounce, odds are he’ll fare better if he makes his defender (likely Rodney Hood) keep up with him from one possession to the next.

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