Yesterday, over two years after Nevin Shapiro contacted the NCAA with allegations of wrongdoing throughout the athletic department, Miami finally got closure from the Committee on Infractions in a scathing 102-page report that confirmed nearly all of the substantive allegations from Charles Robinson’s initial report. More specifically, the NCAA found that Miami “lacked institutional control” in both overlooking Shapiro’s violations and actively covering them up after the fact.

Mark Emmert and the NCAA seemed bigger than life before handing down Miami’s judgement. (AP/LM Otero)

The most serious punishments were reserved for some of the coaches implicated — Frank Haith (“former head men’s basketball coach”), Jorge Fernandez (“former assistant men’s basketball coach B”), and two former assistant football coaches — each of whom received punishments ranging from  a five-game suspension for Haith (now at Missouri) to a two-year show-cause for Fernandez. The football team will lose three scholarships per year over the next three years, and the basketball team will lose one scholarship per year over the same time. All of this comes on top of the university’s self-imposed punishments, which were significant. But the penalties are a far cry from two years ago when Mark Emmert threw around the phrase “death penalty” with various major media outlets.

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1. They’ve been gearing up for New Year’s Eve in Stillwater for months, and not because they particularly care about the calendar flipping or watching the ball drop in Times Square. Instead, they’ve been gearing up for tonight’s showdown between Oklahoma State and Gonzaga. It’s not only a Top 25 battle — the local media and fans are also billing it as a Game of the Century of sorts, the kind of program-defining game Travis Ford must win to re-establish the Cowboys as a relevant Big 12 program. Good news is, Oklahoma State earned some respect already by demolishing North Carolina State and winning the Puerto Rico Tip-Off. Ford isn’t desperate for a marquee victory, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t help. The Zags, on the other hand, are no stranger to the Big 12. They’ve already knocked off four teams from this league this year alone: West Virginia, Baylor, Oklahoma and Kansas State, all by an average of 20 points.
2. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” The man who penned that quote — a Scottish author named Ian Maclaren — died in 1907. And yet the inspirational phrase applies to Ben McLemore more than a century later. As you’ve watched McLemore this season, you’ve seen him blossom as a scorer and leader for Kansas. You probably didn’t know he has an older brother in a maximum-security prison. You probably also didn’t know his older brother missed McLemore’s first college basketball game and might not ever get to see him play. The freshman wouldn’t expand on how his brother got to prison five years ago, and it’s also unclear how long he’ll be there, but the KU freshman was able to make a visit during the Christmas holiday. This has been McLemore’s life throughout most of his adolescence, and it’s something to think about the next time you see him step on the court at Allen Fieldhouse.
3. During each of Kansas State‘s televised games, announcers have repeatedly mentioned Bruce Weber‘s motion offense and how it will take time for his new team to adjust to his philosophy. Unlike most of what comes out of commentators’ mouths, they’re right on this one. Weber is famous for his fine-tuned motion offense, and it’s more strict than what Frank Martin required on the offensive end. Defensively, though, nothing has changed. This team still needs to defend to win. As Weber puts it, “We have to guard. We’re good at it. We showed last week, if we can play at the right level, we can be OK offensively enough to win.”
4. It’s been very difficult to see the downfall of Royce White after such a marvelous season with Iowa State in 2011-12. White’s issues with the Houston Rockets have been extensively publicized, and now there’s a new chapter: White has declined to play for the Rocket’s D-League team, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. Nobody’s quite sure where he’ll go from here, but White claims the organization will not do enough to accommodate his mental health issues. He issued a statement as well, explaining his stance and calling information released by the Rockets’ “misleading” and, at times, “totally inaccurate.”
5. Upon hearing that former Oklahoma (among other schools, most famously Indiana) coach Kelvin Sampson could become a candidate for the Brooklyn Nets’ head coaching job, we have to ask the question: Do the Nets have an unlimited calling plan? Cheap shot. We know. Still, it’s wild to consider Sampson may get the full-time gig in Brooklyn after impermissible phone calls landed him in hot water with the NCAA in 2008. He’s actually under a “show-cause” penalty until 2013, which means he can’t get back into the college game until next year. So why not coach the pros? He already coached on an interim basis for 13 games this season during the absence of Kevin McHale, finishing a modest 7-6.

As we head toward closing out our coverage of the Arizona basketball program in our third of a summer-long series of in-depth looks at Pac-12 schools, we’re inviting Adam Butler of Pachoops back in to give us his thoughts on the big questions facing the Wildcats in 2012-13. Adam gave us a hand yesterday with our Burning Question of the week, and we hope to have him back from time to time to add his unique perspective. Without further ado, here’s what we came up with:

RTC: Let’s dig right in here Adam, starting from the top of the program. So, in 29 seasons since Lute Olson took over the Wildcat program, the team has missed the NCAA Tournament exactly three times: Olson’s first year, and then two of the three years under current head coach Sean Miller. Yet, it seems there is a confidence around the program that not only do they have the right coach, but that big things are on the verge of happening again in Tucson. Do you hold that view as well? And why or why not?

Arizona Has Missed The NCAA Tournament In Two Of Sean Miller’s Three Seasons In The Desert, But Arizona Fans Still Have Faith In Their Head Coach (AP Photo)

AB: Oh the Lute years were sweet. Arizona was no worse than a five-seed for 16 straight tournaments. Do you realize how awful March 2010 was for me? I literally fled the country. But I’ve digressed. Yes, I think Sean Miller is on the verge of very big things. He’s a phenomenal coach and has already demonstrated such in very short order. He took a bare cupboard and turned that into an Elite Eight; and before we get too far down the road talking about how that 2009 class fell into his lap, it did fall into his lap and those kids could’ve gone anywhere. But they chose Miller for a reason. And my impression of that reason is that he’s piecing together a very special something in the desert. I like to use Indiana’s rebuilding as a barometer and if you look at where they are following Kelvin Sampson bottoming them out, Tom Crean is in year five with the top team in the country in the preseason. Last season – year four – was their first taste of big success again. Arizona has essentially followed the same trajectory (2010-11 was a glorious anomaly), and finds itself with a very sound roster here in Miller year four and project to have a filthy year five. Here, let me pass you the Kool-Aid.

RTC: While the 2012-13 version of the Wildcats will have five returnees from last season, all of whom should get some run, it is a group of four highly touted freshmen and incoming transfer Mark Lyons who give the program the most cause for optimism. Let’s start with Lyons. He’s not a true point, is more of a shoot-first guy and his most recent head coach, Chris Mack, didn’t seem all that sad to see him transfer. Can he really be the type of point guard to help meld together some talented returnees with a frontcourt-heavy freshman class?

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1. Money was a big story in the Pac-12 this week. First and foremost, USA Today unveiled an estimate of the worth of the Pac-12 television deals this week. Navigate Research, a Chicago-based firm that has done multimedia rights valuations for other schools and conferences figures that all told, between the conference’s deals with ESPN and Fox and their ready-to-launch Pac-12 Network, each school in the conference should expect upwards of $30 million a year over the life of their 12-year agreement. About $21 million per school is guaranteed by the deal with ESPN and Fox, with the remainder of the total based on the success of the new conference networks. While the Big Ten Network generated $79.2 million worth of profit in 2011, they have to split those profits with Fox, their partner in that venture, while the Pac-12 will own their network outright.
2. Based on that kind of income, it is easy to see why Larry Scott earned almost $1.9 million in salary and bonuses in his first full year as Pac-12 commissioner. That figure makes Scott the highest paid conference commissioner in the land and means that he earned more than three times the compensation of previous Pac-12 commissioner Tom Hansen in his final full year. Given the wonders that Scott has done with the Pac-12’s finances, image and future prospects, I would guess that most Pac-12 fans see this as money well spent for the conference.
3. Former UCLA forward Reeves Nelson has hired a lawyer and intends to sue Sports Illustrated and writer George Dohrmann for $10 million, claiming the article published by the magazine in March was guilty of defamation, false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit claims that many of the stories in the article about Nelson were either false or drastically overstated. The lawsuit includes statements from 18 current or former players at UCLA that refute anecdotes in the article. For instance, former Bruin player Tyler Honeycutt states that the memorable tale of Nelson urinating on his clothes and bed was completely false, while recent UCLA graduate Tyler Trapani refutes the story about Nelson stepping on his chest during a practice drill. Bruin transfer and recent New Mexico big man Drew Gordon denies the claim that Nelson gave Gordon a black eye during a fight (and even denies ever having a fight with Nelson), while Alex Schrempf claims that the story that Nelson purposely in injured him by intentionally hacking him from behind is false as well. Seems like this is about the get very, very interesting as Dorhmann and SI attempt to defend themselves against this lawsuit.
4. Washington State’s coaching staff is back at full strength again, as head coach Ken Bone hired Ray Lopes to take Jeff Hironaka’s spot on the bench. Hironaka was reassigned (read: demoted) to director of player development , and Lopes, who was most recently an assistant at Idaho, will fill his spot. Lopes is no stranger to Pullman, having coached under Kelvin Sampson on the Palouse in 1993-94, before following Sampson to Oklahoma before winding up as a head coach at Fresno State for a three-year stint. However, at both of those stops, Lopes ran afoul of the NCAA, first getting mixed up in the impermissible phone call saga with Sampson at Oklahoma, then continuing the practice in Fresno, eventually winding up with a three-year show-cause penalty for 457 impermissible phone calls while at Fresno State.
5. Finally, after plenty of speculation that this would come to pass, Colorado redshirt sophomore point guard Shannon Sharpe will be transferring out of the program in order to play closer to his home in southern California. Sharpe’s career at Colorado goes down as a disappointment, after injuring his knee in his first practice with the Buffaloes. All told, he scored 99 points in just a hair over 600 minutes in his career in Boulder. He will have a year of eligibility remaining when he plays again at a lower-tier school (Big West schools like Cal State Fullerton or UC Irvine or perhaps Loyola Marymount or Pepperdine of the WCC would look like good landing spots where he could make an impact), although there is a possibility that he could apply for a waiver on having to sit out a year since both of his parents died of heart failure while he was in high school and he is returning home to take care of the family home.

I. Renko is an RTC columnist.

Question: Is Indiana Slowly Getting Over The Hump?

Indiana has long been considered a college basketball “blueblood,” one of the top six programs in the sport’s history.  But over the past 15 years, its hold on that distinction has become increasingly tenuous.  Since 1994, the Hoosiers have advanced past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament just once, during a surprising run as a #5 seed to the 2002 national championship game.  That one shining moment aside, the last decade and a half has seen one disappointment after another :

• The faded glory of the latter Bobby Knight years, which, by the time of his controversial departure in 2000, were distinguished mostly by NCAA Tournament flameouts and an exodus of key transfers.
• The tumultuous tenure of Mike Davis, who, despite some early signs of turning things around, proved to be in over his head for a job with the pressure and expectations that Indiana brought.
• The initial promise of the Kelvin Sampson era which soon imploded in a recruiting scandal that was a humiliating blow for a program that had long prided itself on doing things the right way.

Is Tom Crean Two Years Away From Competing at a High Level?

Which brings us to the Tom Crean era.  It is difficult to overstate the depths to which the Sampson saga plunged the Indiana program.  Crean inherited zero scholarship players in his first year at the helm.  As a result, Indiana fans, though no stranger to high expectations, have given Crean a long leash as he has worked on a multi-year rebuilding project.

So far, Crean has done just about everything right off the court.  He has embraced Indiana’s traditions and fan base, making them the centerpiece of his recruiting pitches.  He has been a vocal and outgoing representative of the men’s basketball program and university.  He and his family have immersed themselves in the campus community.  He has built and rejuvenated in-state recruiting networks to take advantage of Indiana’s tremendous talent base.  He has recruited high-character kids who represent the school well.  For all these reasons, Crean remains popular with the fan base.

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1. Coming into this season we figured that Mark Turgeon was going to have a difficult time with a team that lacked a solid inside presence to the degree that there was quite a bit of speculation that he might play four guards. Yesterday he lost one of those guards for a significant part of the season when Pe’Shon Howard broke a bone in his left foot and is expected to be out for up to 3 months recovering. Howard’s injury leaves Maryland with just seven healthy scholarship players and to be honest those seven are not that good, which means that this could be a very rough start for Turgeon even if Howard comes back midway through ACC play.
2. When the NCAA announced that it would be adopting an APR minimum of 930 (two-year average) or 900 (four-year average) for inclusion in the 2013 NCAA Tournament quite a few writers immediately noticed that defending national champion Connecticut probably would not be eligible. This was based on the assumption that the school would not be able to achieve a two-year average over 930 between the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons after it scored 826 in 2009-10, which would bring the school’s average down enough that even a reported unofficial 975 in 2010-11 would only get them up to 900.5 for two years and 888.5 for four years. It turns out that the decision may be more complex. Essentially what it boils down to is that in February the NCAA will have another series of meetings to decide whether to use scores from those years or 2010-11 and 2011-12 for inclusion in the 2013 NCAA Tournament. If they were to do the latter, they would have to move up the release of APR scores from the traditional date of May. If they stick with the current measurement, then the Huskies and other programs in a similar situation would have to rely on an appeals process or hope the NCAA creates a waiver. We would say stay tuned, but there is no way that the NCAA would risk losing a school like UConn to a new rule when the Huskies could very well be playing for a three-peat at that point.
3. The NCAA announced another interesting policy change yesterday, but this was involves recruiting. The major change is that coaches can call or send text messages to recruits as much as they want. It also allows increased messaging on social networks and changes the recruiting periods. As nearly everybody on Twitter noted yesterday, it is somewhat amusing that Kelvin Sampson was essentially kicked out of college basketball for something that is legal just a few years later making him a pioneer of sorts.
4. We would  like to send along our best wishes to Billy Kennedy, who revealed that he was diagnosed with early stage Parkinson’s disease in a statement he released through Texas A&M. Kennedy had taken a leave of absence earlier this month to recover from what can best be described as fatigue and other non-specific symptoms. During that time he was seen by physicians, who diagnosed him with Parkinson’s disease. We will not get into the effect this will have on the Aggies (that can come later) other than to note that Kennedy will be taking an extended leave of absence to attend to his health, which is certainly more important than basketball. We also will not delve into the progression and treatment of Parkinson’s disease other than to note that there are several medications and treatments that are available, which should hopefully help Kennedy deal with the condition.
5. Uber-recruit Mitch McGary has narrowed his list down to Duke, Florida, and Michigan after taking Maryland and North Carolina off his list and will commit to one of those three schools next week according to his blog post on ESPN.com. Most of the speculation we have heard so far is about Duke or Michigan and we are not sure how UF fits in here, but they have obviously done something to attract McGary’s attention. At any rate, you can expect Twitter to explode next week when he makes his announcement particularly if he decides to become a Blue Devil as he may very quickly become Public Enemy #1 for the rest of the college basketball world.

1. Looks like Missouri‘s “inevitable” move to the SEC may not materialize after all. Just two days after an MU official told the New York Times the school would certainly apply for membership, chancellor Brady Deaton denied the report, saying the topic might not even be on the table during this week’s Board of Curators meetings in Kansas City. If there’s one thing we can take away from this, it’s that our brain hurts. One day, an official says MU’s gone; the next day, the top dog in charge says they’re not making a decision anytime soon. Within 48 hours, the tone has entirely changed, which begs the question: who is this anonymous official that spoke to the Times?
2. Realignment will probably be the heavy topic at Big 12 Media Days, which begins today and runs through Thursday. It’ll be interesting to hear how the coaches and players respond to all the talk, and perhaps we’ll even hear a few passionate sound bites about just how sick everybody is of the discussion. As far as basketball goes, though, expect a lot of questions fired at Kansas coach Bill Self about how to defend his Big 12 title after losing the bulk of his team. Scott Drew of Baylor could also hear the tough questions about how to avoid a collapse like last season. With four new coaches in the league, that angle should also get hit hard by the writers over the next few days.
3. A little news from a former Big 12 guy: shockingly, Bob Knight appears to have committed a recruiting violation by making illegal calls on behalf of his son Pat Knight at Lamar. This is independent of the Big 12 conference right now, of course, but the Knight family never had one ounce of accusations against them during their era at Texas Tech. Apparently, non-university officials cannot make contacts with recruits unless they’re listed as a special exemption, but Knight spoke to a few players “illegally.” If the Knight name weren’t attached to this story, it would have never hit print. But Pat and Bob Knight have star power, so they’ll have to deal with the minor but embarrassing consequences of this violation.
4. Oklahoma better have gotten its money’s worth. The Associated Press reported that an internal investigation cost $50,000, which marked the second investigation at the school during the last five years. The school was looking into the allegations about illegal payments surrounding former coach Jeff Capel‘s program, and the situation is murky because Kelvin Sampson had already put the school on probation. This investigation isn’t as pricey as Ohio State‘s once was — that one cost a bit shy of a million dollars — bit it could result in major NCAA violations. Oklahoma has offered to take away a scholarship, vacate wins and add probation, but that might not be enough for the NCAA. After all, it wants to vacate a 13-win season in 2009-10. The humanity!
5. Let’s give some well wishes to Oklahoma State freshman Cezar Guerrero. He suffered an injury in practice Monday, which landed him in the hospital. He’s out though, now, having been released Tuesday after a spinal cord scare. The Oklahoman says team officials would not disclose the injury at first, but it now looks like Guerrero suffered a pretty serious-looking injury. A helicopter was needed to transport him to the hospital, which is always a scary sign. The team expects him to make a full recovery, although nobody’s got any idea when he’ll see the basketball court again.

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. 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 who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we’re missing or different things you’d like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Lead Story: Indiana Self-Reports NCAA Rules Violation

Tom Crean Made a Mistake in the Recruitment of Gary Harris.

Indiana Commits Violation While Still On Probation. Indiana, who is still on probation until November 24 for major rules violations under former head coach Kelvin Sampson, self-reported a secondary recruiting violation recently that involved head coach Tom Crean visiting Class of 2012 shooting guard Gary Harris the day after the contact period ended. According to Indiana’s self-report, assistant coach Tim Buckley discovered the violation later that day and reported it to the Indiana compliance office. The school then contacted the NCAA that same day. Indiana docked itself two days on the recruiting trail as punishment for the violation after consulting with NCAA enforcement representative Chris Strobel. Although the potential penalty for a minor violation like this will likely have minimal impact on IU, one can’t help but wonder what was going on in Crean’s head. You know you’re on probation, you know this rule inside and out, and one of your commits has been associated with rules violations within the last six months. When you’ve been in the spotlight this much for potential rules violations, it will only hurt you. The ironic twist in all this is that Crean did this to get an upper hand in recruiting, but in all likelihood it will set him back since multiple prospects have told RTC in the past that they have completely stayed away from schools that were just thought to be committing violations, not to mention schools that were actually penalized like Indiana. By next week’s column, we should have a better idea of any possible sanctions the NCAA may impose.

What Troy Williams Is Saying

Class of 2013 standout small forward Troy Williams talked to Blue Grass Hoops about his visit and why the Wildcats are standing out right now.

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Over the past five years many fans of college sports have become well-acquainted with many of the NCAA bylaws related to communications (thanks to people like Kelvin Sampson, among others), but it seems like schools still find a way to break those rules. Or at least that is what the NCAA thinks. As Kyle Veazey at The Commerical Appeal in Memphis reported, the NCAA recently contacted Memphis as part of its investigation into suspected impermissible calls it had been making to Shabazz Muhammad based on an interview last July. Based on Muhammad’s report, the NCAA had its Basketball Focus Group investigate the matter. In addition to the phone calls, they also questioned Memphis on how Muhammad and other recruits had been able to fly to Memphis for visits.

However, the heart of their inquiry was based around the claim that Muhammad — not yet a senior — was making that Memphis had been “calling and calling and calling,” which would exceed the NCAA’s limit of one call per month from a school (assuming that those calls were not coming once a month). When Memphis looked into the rule, it found that it had, in fact, not even violated the rule. With a document signed by coach Josh Pastner and five other staff members, Memphis claimed that the calls were to Ron Holmes, Shabazz’s father and coach of his high school and AAU teams. Citing a clause that allows schools to speak with parents of recruits who also happen to be coaches about other prospects as frequently as they want, Memphis claimed innocence (corroborated by Holmes) and the NCAA appears to have bought that despite Shabazz previously claiming the calls were about him in prior interviews, stating, “They call my dad almost every day, talking about what they can do for me at their program, so that means a lot.”

Pastner & His Staff Know the NCAA Rulebook Better Than the NCAA

Where does this leave us? Either Muhammad lied (exaggerated, if you prefer) to a local newspaper, or the NCAA does not even realize all the loopholes in its own rules. While it is possible that Memphis was talking to the father of the #1 recruit in the country about every other player he coached, this seems fairly dubious. To be fair to the NCAA, this would be very hard to disprove unless they were tapping the phones of either the Memphis staff or Holmes. The real issue is that regardless of whether or not the calls were about Muhammad, the NCAA does not appear to be aware of how its own rules are written. If a simple letter from Memphis with a document signed by six members of the coaching staff is enough to get a program out of the NCAA’s cross-hairs, there is something wrong with how the rules are written or how the organization is run. It is unrealistic to expect the NCAA as an entity to change, but at the very least they could simply read the rulebook to the point that they know their own rules.

1. Yesterday, Oklahoma released a 430-page report (full report here) regarding its investigation into wrongdoing by former assistant basketball coach Oronde Taliaferro, who is accused of committing two major violations while he coached under Jeff Capel (yes, this happened after the Kelvin Sampson fiasco). The first violation was failing to report impermissible benefits to an unnamed player (Tiny Gallon), who received $3,000 from a financial adviser linked to Taliaferro to pay for his high school transcripts and enable him to enter college. The second violation was the standard lying to the NCAA about the first violation. The most important part about this report is that the school concedes that, by definition, it is a “repeat violator” and thus subject to a minimum penalty of having the sport dropped for one or two years with no scholarships provided during those seasons. Of course, the NCAA can override that minimum and impose less harsh sanctions, which is what Oklahoma is hoping for as it claims that Taliaferro acted alone with Capel and the rest of the staff had no knowledge of the wrongdoing. Oklahoma has asked the NCAA to put its basketball program on two years of probation, vacate its 2009-10 season, and take away one scholarship, two official visits, and 10 in-person recruiting days during the upcoming academic year. With the NCAA’s apparent indifference to schools breaking its rules (it’s OK for the schools run by grown men, but not for teenagers) there will be a sizable group calling for the NCAA to take a stand here, but we wouldn’t count on it.
2. The big winner out of the Oklahoma scandal? It might be Butler, who is the other reported finalist for the services of Arkansas transfer Rotnei Clarke. With just one year of eligibility remaining the Oklahoma native and all-time leading scorer in Oklahoma high school basketball history may have to think twice about transferring to a program that has asked the NCAA to put it on probation for two years. Clarke was supposed to make his decision by the end of the week and many expected him to select Oklahoma, but with the new report he may wind up at Butler or at the very least will spend some more time before deciding where to transfer.
3. Speaking of scandals and programs in trouble, UNC athletic director Dick Baddour stepped down yesterday, a day after the school fired its football coach. Although the scandal appears to be just within the football program, Baddour’s decision to leave, which was thought to be inevitable after Davis was fired, may have a significant ripple effect in the college sports community as many athletic administrators will be angling for a move up the ladder when the dominoes start falling as the first athletic director moves from his or her current position to take over at UNC. We doubt that this will have much of an effect on the well-oiled UNC basketball machine, but it may have a much larger effect on many other schools.
4. With the NBA lockout in place, many former college stars are having to find ways to keep themselves occupied. Nolan Smith is one such player who has chosen to do so by coaching a DC-based AAU team. On Wednesday night, Smith, who had never been ejected from a game as a player, was tossed out of the game with his team down by 19. Smith claims that the “refs were missing some obvious calls.” (Duke haters can make their own jokes here.) Smith’s team ended up losing the game by two (perhaps from the two technical free throws that the other team shot?) and ended up going 8-2 in the tournament. While some might criticize Smith as another arrogant Duke player, it is nice to see that he learned something from Mike Krzyzewski during his four years in Durham.
5. The top 100 players in Division 1 list by Basketball Prospectus generated a lot of debate (mainly on where individual players were ranked). It appears that there may not have even been a consensus within the Basketball Prospectus office as Drew Cannon, the person who came up with the list, and several other members of the staff engaged in a friendly debate about how to rank players. There isn’t really anything ground-breaking in it, but it is interesting to see how these basketball analysts evaluate players and make their predictions at least on a theoretical level.